10.8

“Well that was exciting.” Eve said breathlessly looking at where the massive Tier Six sentient gem had once been. If she had perhaps slightly doubted Susan before, that had been put completely to rest. Rituals were immune to Mana Manipulation allowing Witch’s Dust to auto-attack when the gem attempted to use Dungeon Binding on her soul. The accumulated Perks ate the gem, literally, without effective resistance.

Eve glanced at her Status and breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t rise past the Tier Five cap it would have been a grave tragedy to lose access to her Class Skill and Spell List before she even had a chance to buy anything! The System’s abilities to mold a person’s inherent mana structures instantly when they bought a new Skill or Spell vastly simplified things.

Taking a moment to look around at all the treasures, both organized and not, Eve’s eyes revealed instantly why precious metals were so valuable. The gold, silver, gems, and other items were filled with mana which had formed innate mana structures. In other words, gold, silver, copper, gems, and more from the Dragon’s Horde could be deconstructed. Sacrifice for Power to gain Slots was viable with such riches, or Eve could simply convert them with Witch’s Dust into more Levels!

There’s no way the Dragon’s don’t have something similar to my ability to gain power.Eve thought as she surveyed the Hoard. With the sheer amount of precious metal here, odd are it was something related to quantity. Perhaps the amount of metal correlates to a multiplier bonus? My way is different, as consuming the resources permanently allows for quicker gains in the short-term. This theoretical multiplier is something to look into for when I’m Tier Seven. Go, go, immortality long-term strategies.

Shelving the theory for later with a quick Eternal Memory memorandum Eve let a massive grin out. She was rich again. Not rich from shady drug dealing, but legal tried and true, kill a Dragon for wealth rich. She hadn’t seen everything that went down, as Felix and the Dragon moved at lightning speeds. The view she had seen however made her certain that fighting those a Tier above was practically a pipe dream without an inherent Racial advantage. Take this win for instance, they had planned it out for months and the Dragon still required sacrificial measures to beat. The brief sensation of being cooked alive by plasma flickered across Eve’s thoughts causing her to shudder in place. Almost one hundred percent damage reduction to elemental effects, and the remaining five percent still allowed didn’t stop the fourth state of matter. She was almost certain that having elemental resistance had actually prolonged the time she flash fried.

Eve spread her Witch’s Dust out before activating Looting and Storage. There was a sharp crack of displaced air and everything within the Dragon’s Hoard was gone. She breathed carefully as the immense amount of loot was held within her ritual. The dragon hoard’s pocket dimension appeared like a slice of the void given boundaries once emptied. A quick teleportation moved her back inside the Hut’s hibernation chambers. Placing a hand on Felix, she sent a quick mental request.

Mind holding and hiding all this Treasurer Felix? Eve sent to the floating sapphire crystal. Her mana was slowly but surely emptying as the Ritual drained resources to keep everything contained in Storage.

Hand over thy ill-gotten gains wench! Felix replied. It was clear he was once more reading those trashy romance novels the Hut loved.

Eve rolled her eyes and dumped everything into the Core without further comment. Storage could hold a great deal, but it was no infinite bag of holding without cost like Inventory had been. Felix on the other hand, was a Dungeon Core, and infinite storage was practically a Racial requirement. He hadn’t bothered to mention it until now, erroneously assuming everyone already knew about it. When it had come up in planning for the dragon murder, Eve was annoyed she hadn’t even thought to ask previously. Felix made a perfect treasurer as his ability with numbers made keeping track of things a cakewalk.

As it made monetary things one less issue she had to keep track of Eve was thrilled. Felix could simply send everything to Nota allowing the information to be available to all with a simple Eternal Memory page shared among her group. She felt as soft pop of air as the water was returned to the bottle shaped empty space under the swamp. Felix had pulled a number of oxygen atoms from the air to combine with the hydrogen leftover from the battle. Mixing it was child’s play for the Dungeon Core, and the result had been thrown back underneath them. It would take minimal effort to turn the leftover Rituals into defenses for a secret base. Eve rubbed her hands together as she knew a shady merchant available who would buy such a property. Having a base in the Wildlands to rest, resupply, or hunt from would without a doubt be profitable. Even better it would be underwater, concealed from land predators like the goblins or desert creatures. A perfect secret base which would only be missing sharks swimming in the water with lasers attached to their head.

Eve let her musings end as she took a seat at the table within the chamber, summoned her Talisman of Dust, and started accepting the System messages from the recent battles. The messages showed Eve that she had managed to just barely squeak in at one below two thousand levels gained pushing her to the peak of Tier Five. The rush of additional Stats from leveling up caused her body to slump in her chair as her nervous system was overloaded. Her mind and body concurrently experienced the euphoric rush of mana flooding her form as the Talisman of Dust grew thick with new runes. Eve held out just long enough to get all the runes written before the mana peaked pushing her completely over the edge of sanity. Silver eyes rolled back in their sockets while her mouth hung loosely as her body shook with bliss. It took several minutes for the pleasure to subside enough for her to regain coherent sanity. Witch’s Dust cleaned up her body as Eve looked at her new Status. The paltry amount of Free Stats were sold quickly to the System allowing her to make a few quick adjustments. Satisfied, she reveled in her new power.

Level: 6,999

Race: Traveling Dust Witch

Class: Traveling Witch of the Dust Library

Profession: Traveling Dust-Talisman Librarian

Affinities (4): Paper, Ink, Space, Dust

Mana: 900,680/900,680 (900,680 MPs regen)

Stats: Str 81,880(90,068); Dex; 81,880(90,068);

Con 81,880(90,068); Wis 81,880(90,068);

Int 81,880(90,068); Charm 81,880(90,068)

Slots: 17B, 914M

Skills:

Spells:

Items:

Talisman of Dust II

Tome of Dust (Ritual)

Witch's Ink Athame (Ritual)

Witch's Paper Candle (Ritual)

Zones:

Library of Dust II

Perks:

Ritual Paper V

Ritual Ink V

Paper Intent V

Ink Intent V

Big Tool Sack V

Paper Stack V

Ink Sheets V

Eve wrote a note teleporting it out to Susan who was currently on Jeffery’s airship nearby. Taking the warning to heart, the merchant had made sure he was out of the way for the entire battle. As a black hearted scoundrel, the drow was surprisingly steadfast in making sure his loyal servants were well out of the line of fire. Eve approved heartily, there were worse things than working for someone who made an effort to ensure his people were safe. Fortunately the fight had gone down without a major upset. She was especially thrilled with the amount of Slots gained from dusted dragon bits. The numbers were getting big enough that she only bothered to track the Billions and Millions now. If she was ever back down below that level in the future, Eve would adjust her Status again to track the lower amount of Slots.

Eve opened her Class Skill and Spell List, verified what she desired was still there, and made an immediate purchase.

(1 Billion Soul Slots)

Traveling Dust Witch’s Core of Space-Papered Ink-Dust

You extract food to regenerate the appropriate Resource from anything within your Zone.

Immune to Mana Burn.

Immune to World Energy Overload.

Immune to Chaos Contamination.

Everything is food for a Traveling Dust Witch.

She had made sure that when she told Susan the amount available to work with in Slots, a billion were already slated for this. Two creatures of Tier Six with her stacked experience multipliers had managed to push her close to the breakthrough. However, it was an alignment of so many factors that Eve knew something as serendipitous as this wouldn’t occur anytime soon. The closest Tier Six to push her over the cap would be a Hidden One at the nearest oasis. Earlier, Susan had given her the devastating news yet wonderful news. The only way to breakthrough to Tier Seven was the Deeps. Even worse, at Tier Six the System itself would stop acquisition of mana to gain Levels. Eve didn’t feel that testing if she could bypass the restriction was a wise move. It sounded horrible, but on the other hand Tier Six was a safe Tier of power. The System wouldn’t allow Tier Seven interference in the creation of new defenders for Reality. Any attempt by a Seven to kill a Six was met with instantly lethal attention.

Tier Six was the gulf dividing Ascension to a Prime World.

The System had no intention of allowing parasites to rise up. A person would either fly or fall at Tier Six, it was the highest Tier possible without entering the Deeps. Eve had also learned that while Tier Sixes could still fight, death was not an allowed outcome in civilized lands. Murder of any potential powerhouse caused the offender to enter a very short list of lucrative bounties.

These bounties were the sole exception the System made for Tier Seven.

As such, Tier Sixes that killed other Tier Sixes in civilized lands, were then hunted by Tier Sevens with the System’s blessing. To the limited knowledge of everything Eve had read, nobody made it over a week before turning into a corpse. It was a potent deterrent that ensured the vast majority of Tier Six broke through the barrier of Tier Seven within the Deeps. Following the stratagem that Eve had read, once someone reached Tier Seven they went wide. At the peak of power, it wasn’t uncommon to branch into new Professions or amass further Skills and Spells. The only downside to Tier Seven was Mana could only be gathered from the Deeps.

The System refused to fund leeches.

As such, the vast majority of forces left a single Tier Seven to guard against stupidity outside the Deeps. There were entire cities within the Deeps filled with those who desired to gain more power. Eve was delighted and dismayed in equal measure. One of the key takeaways that she was most satisfied with was that the Deeps contained Relic drops. Of the last one hundred people to escape the Prison Plane in the past ten millennium, seventy-three were able to do it through use of such an artifact of power. Relics were crafted or dropped from the bodies of Outsiders that attempted to enter Reality. The stronger an Outsider was, the more territory they controlled in the Deeps. Territories were constantly exchanged as new Outsiders attacked from one side, and Tier Sevens attacked from the other end. Like metal under pressure, the Outsiders that managed to defend from both sides were forged into powerhouses.

Eve clenched her hand as she straightened up by shifting the chair around her body. She would build her power within the Deeps and hunt ever single possible Outsider minion down for mana. Once she amassed enough power to walk unhindered through the Deeps the Prison Plane would be nothing more than a relaxing spa to vacation at. Tier Sevens were unable to attack lower Tiers, but they were not forbidden from defending themselves.

Eve glanced at the hibernation chambers in the room before her expression grew serious once more. Tier Six would allow her to open the hibernation chambers without killing those inside. The Hut would no longer be filled with only two others, and a small piece of her missing world would align. A small piece of paper appeared on the table, and she grabbed the response from Susan with glee.

Eve pulled up her Class Skill and Spell list, it was time to power game!