Underworld - Book 3 - Chapter 31

When Audrey objected with much fervency to our standing in blood, her eyes went wide when she saw me raise my hand into the air. Drain gathered the blood from the floor and the flesh from Waldemar’s body while sucking it off the boots of my friends. More than one ran from where they stood as my spell pulled the blood into the air. It ran up their legs before drawing up to join with the rest of it.

+112 Strength

+101 Dexterity

+198 Constitution

It was a really good take after already draining nearly 80 other minotaurs.

All that remained was the minotaur’s skeleton. A nice skull larger than a person hunched over would be a good prize for Mel. 

Our sudden respite turned any complaints of my spell into laughter. 

I soon left the group and found a place to sit down.

“You okay?” Aeris asked, plopping down beside me.

“Never been better,” I said with obvious relief. “I just want to rest up before we go after the last minotaur.”

“Yeah. It’s probably best to track him down before he gets too far…” Suddenly, she had a mischievous look.

“What?”

“You said we. Is this your idea of a date?”

I gaped at her, before shaking my head. 

She didn’t stop there. “We could let him make it back to Mistress Nava. Fighting ancient succubi is more romantic, don’t’ you think?”

“That may be true,” I countered. “But minotaur steak tastes much better.”

“How would I know, you kept all the steak to yourself.”

I realized it was just as she said. 

“Well… do you want to try to cook the last minotaur’s after we find him?” I asked.

“No!” She cried out before bursting out laughing. “He is a cow-person.”

“A cow-person?”

Jabbing me in the air, she rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“So, steak is off the menu… I have an idea.”

Calling over Zorik and George, I gave them a request. They both soon agreed.

We pulled Travis from Kylie as we readied to depart. Aeris and I would need his skills to track while we were off on our mission. It shouldn’t take long.

Without anything equipped except for my skeletal armor, I took a quick look at my base stats without buffs.

Level: 730

Health Points: 212,916

Mana Points: 208,299

Mana Per Minute: 7,386 (123.1 Per Second)

Attributes

Strength: 1,917

Dexterity: 1,681

Constitution: 1,859

Intelligence: 1,181

Wisdom: 3,693

After fighting so many basher type mobs, my physical stats had surpassed my Intelligence and then some. Perhaps, it was for the best. I hoped to run into some caster types soon and my physical abilities would make survival much easier. I pulled up another thing that might help as well.

Minotaur Form

Level: 1

Cost: 20,000 Mana Per Minute (4,000 with buffs)

Strength: +1 for every Character Level, +1% Strength

Dexterity: +1 for every Character Level, +1% Dexterity

Constitution: +1 for every Character Level, +1% Constitution

Special Abilities: Magic Resistance, Wild Bull

Magic Resistance: 

Level 1

5% Damage Resistance to every School of Magic 

Wild Bull: Pushes passed any mind-affecting status effects and allow you to continue your attack.

Note: This puts you in a state of auto attack if you lose consciousness. Target picked at random. If you regain consciousness the attack stops immediately.

Next Level:

Cost: 19,850 Mana Per Minute (3,970 with buffs)

+1% Strength

+1% Dexterity

+1% Constitution

It was a much more affordable Form than Fire Incubus, but it wouldn’t start out nearly as powerful. There were no real drawbacks though and it was set up to scale with you as you level. The magic resistance was a nice touch as well.

As we left, I surprisingly had no fear of facing the remaining minotaur. Even if he had been Waldemar’s champion, I had seen the intensity of his mana and it was rather pathetic. 

That did remind me that I had a new Blue Magic spell that I was interested in power leveling. Even though right now it only increased our stamina regeneration, it looked like there were numerous different types I could unlock. Might as well get started.

As I cast Battle Horn, nothing came from my mouth, but a horn blast sounded all the same. It looked like everyone in hearing radius was affected with its buff.

I had a few more notifications to look through as we started out. Light Magic had reached level 99. Fire Incubus Form as reached 97. Even Drain’s two root spells had leveled quite a bit. Intermediate Blood Drain, or Vampire’s Might, had reached level 34 and Lesser Devour was level 78. There was still a lot of power leveling with many of my spells, but if we could reach the minotaur before he reached Mistress Nava, not that I had any doubt, then our new dungeon would stay a secret for a little bit longer. She would then have to send someone else to find us or come herself. As powerful as we had become, facing her captain Waldemar had made one thing very clear. We weren’t nearly powerful enough.

Growing more powerful could wait for tomorrow. We would worry about hunting down the current threat, then returning to Sanctuary for something I had been longing for since we left the Head Mistress’s Dungeon. George was about to choose which of our maturing swine he would slaughter for our first pig roast! Zorik promised to have Cave Swine bacon ready for us when we returned.

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