FB: Chapter 47 – The Arch-Mage Blight

I just won my 310th match in the regular arena. I was steadily racking up the wins, but I considered it just a way to fill my time while I dealt with guild issues. The guild building was complete, which offered a place for the Fanged Fox Guild to work out of in game rather than renting an entire inn.

Also, it was the most prestigious guild compared to the rest at the moment, which greatly increased external recruiting. I had paid another 100 platinum on loan to the guild to purchase a Guild Charter. My finances weren’t looking so good anymore, after the heavy expenditures for the Fanged Fox Guild.

While I would eventually get repaid, these were zero interest loans, I was giving to the guild to finance its rapid development so we didn’t have to move real world cash into the game and be subject to transaction fees. A lot of external members just wanted to be affiliated with the Fanged Fox Guild. I insisted we keep our tough terms with a non-compete clause and other percentages. This was the guild of elites and I wanted people committed, not just people passing through. While that turned many people away, better to have a small solid fist than a large open hand.

I had been trying to figure out what item to go after or how to get experience rapidly. While I could try my poison build in high density areas with monsters, it would be risky. There was a reason that after a decade the leading players were in the early hundreds for their level. The higher up monsters tended to be mixed together and there were almost no easy to exploit weaknesses.

With a heavy sigh I paid out 100 platinum coins for a Phoenix Feather of Resurrection. It was an incredibly powerful item, able to resurrect anyone instantly to full health, all dropped equipment, and remove all status effects. I wasn’t completely broke, but I no longer had strategic amounts of money to throw around after the purchase. The value of this item couldn’t be overstated. If a team was deep in the wilderness and lost a key member, they could bring them back with full bars and equipment. Same as if they were in the middle of a fight.

Consumables were incredibly powerful, but they were also incredibly expensive. They were what helped keep the economy stable and prevent inflation from the Human Empire paying out for monster kills. Millions of monsters were killed every second in Exponential. If there weren’t massive money sinks, then coinage would quickly become worthless. Consumables were the answer to this problem.

If people were careful, they could save up and if they needed a boost in power, they could get one. That was also the main reason why battles between guilds were a competition of how deep a person’s Bankers Union’s account was.

It was tempting to ask for help with this task, but I needed to maintain the aura of power and invulnerability for as long as possible, especially on personal objectives. Solo play in Exponential was nearly impossible, but nearly did not mean completely.

Each monster had a primary sensory technique to spot people near them. Some of them had weaker secondary and tertiary sensory techniques. After level 100 monsters tended to have a second one and after level 200 monsters tended to have a third. If one knew what kind of sensory technique was being used, it was fairly easy to bypass them. Out of all my knowledge from the future, this was probably some of the most valuable. Massive studies had been done on all types of monsters to understand what their sensory techniques were.

For the undead, movement was the main one. A person could remain still and a low level undead would shamble past them. Higher level undead tracked by heat as well. I had the Invisibility skill shards I had collected from the Twilight Depths and the Mega Oozes. I had personally increased the level of eight of them to the Rare rank, which was rank 4. Each of them would hide me for 5 seconds times my rank at a cost of 1 MP times my rank. They had a cool down of 120 seconds. Having eight of these skill shards meant I could cycle through them and have 160 seconds worth of Invisibility, longer than the cool down.

I once again arrived in Murk Town and set off through the Murk. The place did not bring back fond memories. I was going to kill the Arch-Mage Blight and it would be a massive hassle with several steps. It wasn’t enough to use the expensive Phoenix Feather of Resurrection on him. I had to cut him off from the sources of his power. People could follow up on the lore to learn all of this from NPCs, doing side quests, but I already knew this information so I got to skip all of this. I also had a guild, so if I needed information, I had dedicated people I could put to work figuring out the lore for an area.

Entering the bottom of the tower once more, I easily dispatched the Murk Oozes with some purified salt. Once they were purified, I began setting up fire lance pressure plates. When a monster or a person steps on them, a jet of powerful flames would shoot up from the plate. One time use, but only a single gold each. I covered large sections of the floor.

I then tossed an entire barrel of purified salt into the vile pool beneath the tower. The horrible smelling pool turned into foul looking water. There were moans from above. I activated my Invisibility and stood still next to the side of the stairs to the upper level in an alcove. Blight Acolytes raced down into the bottom of the tower from upstairs.

They ran over the trap flame plates, dealing them massive damage. More and more Blight Acolytes kept swarming downstairs and burning to a crisp as they charged into my fire lance pressure plates like mindless lemmings. A weakness of low level monsters and undead. I used an MP potion while keeping up my invisibility so I had the MP to remain invisible. After 30 Blight Acolytes had rushed downstairs and burned themselves up, there were no more. I tossed another barrel of purified salt into the pool and used a third barrel to surrounded the edge of the pool with purified salt. While unlikely to revert, there might be a Murk Ooze in one of the side tunnels that would come out and reactivate the pool.

I then made my way up the stairs to the first level of the tower. Arch-Mage Blight was at the top which was the fifth floor of the tower. The first three floors were emptied out of Blight Acolytes. The fourth floor had a powerful crystal that channeled the power of the Murk into the Arch-Mage along with two guardians. The guardians were two Murk Knights, level 100 sub-bosses.

Thankfully most lower level monsters had at least one thing they were weak to. The guardian knights were weak to ice magic. I set up ice lance pressure plates instead of flame ones. I then used a decoy doll to lure them into the ice plates, while I maneuvered behind them with my invisibility setting up more trap plates. They were hit over and over with a deep chill and shards of ice shooting up from the traps.

I quickly laid out more traps in the room and chugged a MP potion to keep up my MP for my Invisibility. In the future there would exploration teams that did stuff like this. The death rate was insanely high, and they rarely got anything of value. But when they did, it sold for an incredible amount, paying for their expedition and then some. Often, they would sell the information wholesale to a super guild in order to maximize their profit before their cheese method was leaked. The biggest problem was that all such expeditions used a heart-breaking number of consumables, and they still had a high chance of failure.

The Murk Knights finally broke apart from the continual trap damage of the ice plates. I then switched out my skills. A lot of things also required specialized knowledge to get around. I used Murk Barf on the crystal that was floating in the center of the room. It turned from a bright green, to a dull brown. In the lore, my magic was in tune with the Arch-Mage’s magic to get past the defenses on the crystal that he had set up but then my magic disrupted his control over it. Basically, the crystal was protected from everything except Murk Barf, forcing some unfortunate soul to use the skill.

With the two major links to the Murk Swamp severed, he could finally be resurrected and killed with poison. I did a final check on my equipped skill shards and ascended to the final level of the tower while setting up even more traps. I also replaced my skill shards for the upcoming fight. I wouldn’t be able to hide. Once I got to the final doorway, I stood there for a moment with the Phoenix Feather of Resurrection in hand centering my mind for the upcoming fight.

The moment the robe covered skeleton came into view I used the Phoenix Feather of Resurrection on him, not taking any chances. The activation of the item was instant, and it could work at range. Normally it was meant to be used on a teammate, but the great thing about Exponential was that it didn’t restrict people with arbitrary rules if it didn’t have to.

“AHHHHHHH!”

He screamed as his body began to come back to life. I pulled out a thorn spear from my inventory and used Blink. I appeared behind the Arch-Mage and stabbed out with the spear at his back. It pierced his robes and went through him. The spear did very little damage unless removed by the person who it was used on. The main use of the spear was to prevent any kind of teleportation magic from being used.

“Ah!” I let out a short yell as I was impacted in the chest and went flying into a wall. My health plummeting downwards. I quickly used an HP potion to stabilize. Lots of attacks didn’t take off a chunk of HP instantly but would take that HP off over a couple of seconds. It allowed people a chance to recover during a fight and healers to support them. That was also why critical attacks and super critical attacks were so powerful since the damage was instant.

The Arch-Mage stumbled to his feet and turned to face me. Gaunt green flesh covered his body. Glowing green vomit dripped out of his mouth. His glowing green eyes were filled with rage directed right at me. I was already popping an MP potion and scrambled behind a wooden desk. I flipped it just as he used his signature skill.

“Vomitatis!” Glowing green vomit sprayed everywhere around me. Everything it touched began to slowly melt. It had acidic damage and sticky properties as well. The front of the Arch-Mage’s face was melting away. I pulled out my last barrel of purification salt and yanked a cord connected to a bomb in the middle of the barrel while kicking the barrel away. Murk Oozes were about to start coming through the floor and walls and I couldn’t allow that to happen. The barrel exploded three seconds after I got it out of my inventory, spraying purification salt everywhere.

Arch Mage Murk stumbled back slightly in confusion from the explosion of salt. I stood up from behind the melting desk. This was going to suck.

“Murk Barf!” I felt the horrible sludge fill my mouth and throat. It was all I could do to keep the attack on target.

“Vomitatis!”

“Blink!” I teleported out of the way of his attack trying not to gag. I pulled out an antidote from my bandolier and quickly used it. The Arch-Mage spun around towards me, and he looked like something of a nightmare. The upper portion of his body was melting away from his poison and my poison attack. The front half of his face was melted off, dripping down to the floor. The rest of his flesh was drooping as well as his body tried to revert back to being an undead. The thorn spear was still stabbed right through the middle of his chest.

His health was below ten percent, but I didn’t drop my guard. “Apprentice, let me hear your name,” spittle, acid, and poison spewed out of his mouth. He was speaking more through magic than with his flesh bits as his tongue fell out of his mouth and onto the ground with a plop.

“I am Foxy Blight,” I said.

“Hahahahaha! Well met my heir in name. But you are a thousand years too young to think you can kill me without consequence, an Arch-Mage with techniques I have developed personally after years of study,” he said. I popped an MP and HP potion while he was talking. “Divinum posco.”

My heart froze as the Arch-Mage brought up both his hands where the flesh was dripping off and glowing runes began to form in the air. Any kind of magic that used runes and multiple Latin words was incredibly bad news.

“Maledicere veneno.”

After that initial moment of shock, I quickly pulled out a life saving item and activated a null barrier. Goodbye platinum coin and a null magic barrier formed between us for the next second. I didn’t hesitate to pull more out of my inventory.

“Murk!”

The Arch-Mage exploded as his body was ripped apart and a dark green beam emerged out of his body headed right for me. The thorn spear was ripped apart in the explosion as well. The beam of magic struck the null barrier. I activated a second null barrier as the first one broke, and then a third right before the second failed. I activated fourth null barrier right in front of me, but it wasn’t necessary. My breathing was panicked and heavy after that last attack. I knew about bosses having screw you attacks at the end, but I had never heard about this one.

Two items were laying where the Arch-Mage had perished. I slowly walked towards them, with crunching sounds from the salt scattered all over the floor. I smiled as I picked up the first item, which was the Tome of the Arch-Mage Blight. That would allow me to get the special legendary skill shard of Vomitatis, which was the entire point of this trip. The second item that had dropped was a dark looking pendant. I pulled out a pair of high ranked identification glasses and checked the pendant before touching it.

Lesser Pendant of the Poison God
A pendant used by the Acolytes of the Poison God to commune with their deity and receive blessings.
+Recognized as an Acolyte of the Poison God
+Pendant hidden to inspection
+10% Poison Resistance
+10% Max Poison Resistance