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Healer Book 5 -- Chapter 31

Added 2025-01-28 22:41:00 +0000 UTC

Chapter 31

It didn’t take long to reach the first group of Ogres rampaging across the land after he had changed out his gear, as Thaden had only gone a half-mile from the destroyed town before he set himself down. The group he saw moving across the gently rolling hills was almost identical in composition as the one that he’d just killed; the biggest difference was that they weren’t currently in the middle of tearing down walls and buildings, eating people as they went. This allowed him to land approximately 500 feet ahead of their projected path and change out his Cloak for his Simple Cape of the Healer, fully completing his ensemble of Growth items, before he began the process of casting his spells.

“This definitely takes a lot longer,” Sadia remarked as she did the same thing.

Thaden nodded, completely agreeing. He had noticed how accustomed he had become to being able to cast his spells so quickly thanks to his 95% casting time and cooldown decrease granted by his Lucky Vagabond set and other accessories – though he did still have some permanent effects that still helped. Despite those few permanent bonuses granted to him through his Class and Achievements, there was still a noticeable difference between the two equipment sets; as such, it took nearly 30 seconds to ensure he had everything properly set up to boost his max Health, absorb Health from damage done, leach Health from targets, protect himself from getting hurt, and enhance his healing and Defensive spells.

His spells also weren’t anywhere near as potent as before, especially when he had to forgo things like Recovery State, which would normally reserve approximately 80% of his Mana pool, but which was reduced to 60% because of permanent Mana cost reductions, as that would eat too much into his pool to be viable. Some of his most powerful spells required a lot of Mana to cast, and he wasn’t prepared to miss out on casting them just to have that spell active.

Thankfully, the two of them, along with an Incarnation of Protection, were more than ready for when the Ogres finally arrived. The staggered front line of Warriors and Berserkers saw them and charged, passing into the range of their Leach spells – and they didn’t die immediately. Instead, their Health steadily dropped over the next few seconds as Thaden and Sadia cast every kind of healing spell they could on themselves, randomly targeting the incoming monsters.

Frankly, it was a little frightening how close the ones that lasted the longest got, as one of the running berserkers actually fell dead in mid-stride and slid toward Thaden, stopping only a few feet away. It was such a change in his usual dominance of the battlefield that it was slightly worrying, but in the end, none of the Warriors or Berserkers even had the chance to hit him.

The Magi, who brought up the rear of the group along with the Chieftain, were a little more tricky. They stayed far from him as they rocketed spells in his direction, but they were no match for Thaden and Sadia’s speed. With over 10,000 in his Celerity stat even without his currently stronger equipment, the two of them were easily able to dodge the magical projectiles as they raced toward the Magi keeping their distance. The spell-slinging Ogres even attempted to retreat to keep out of range, but they didn’t have even a tenth of Thaden’s speed, so it was a simple matter of hunting them down and killing them before they could flee very far.

The Ogre Chieftain, on the other hand, was something different. Even as their Leach spells started slowly eating away at its Health, they had to dodge the remarkably fast swings of its battleaxe, which seemed to send out a blade of sharp air with each swing that could reach hundreds of feet away. In addition, after the Chieftain had taken damage equal to about 25% of its Health, it pulled up a dead Magi next to it and bit into the deceased Ogre in an act of cannibalism, giving it a Health regeneration that outpaced the damage the Leaches they had going were doing.

Thaden nearly swapped in his Denial of Healing spell, which would remove the Health regeneration it was experiencing, but then he thought of something.

The Ogre Chieftain was only Level 415. Sure, its Perceived Level was 540, but if he was correct, that only really affected how strong they were as they were perceived by the System in terms of PICK rewards and other requirements. Just like how Level Compression wasn’t affected by the Perceived Level of his enemies, but their base Levels, so too was another weapon in his arsenal not similarly influenced. Or so he hoped.

He’d just never really had a reason to use it like this, as everything other challenge he’d faced had been overcome by simply pumping more power into his spells one way or another. Either that, or they were already 60 Levels or more above his own.

“You want some regeneration? I’ll give you some Regeneration,” he murmured – and did just that.

Hundreds of times a second, Thaden cast Exceptional Regeneration on the Ogre Chieftain; at first, he began to worry that he was wrong, that his 1% chance to kill something with a single-target spell actually was influenced by Perceived Level, as nothing happened. However, after 3 seconds, while in mid-swing of its axe, the Chieftain suddenly keeled over and collapsed with a crashing thud as it hit the ground.

“Well, I guess that works, too,” Sadia said with amusement, having seen what he’d done. “Not as reliable, of course, but in a pinch…”

“Exactly. Hold on, let me check my message feed and then we have to keep moving.”

He was excited to see what would happen with his Growth items now that he had finally used them in a place where his accumulation didn’t suffer, such as with an over-Leveled Party in a weak dungeon. Expecting an almost identical influx of PICK compared to what he had felt just a short time ago in the destroyed town, Thaden felt a lot more PICK flow into him as soon as he opened his feed; thankfully, this time it was redirected to his equipment or else he might have run into a problem with being full. As it flowed into his items, they seemed to heat up uncomfortably against his skin, as he realized the PICK absorption was probably a lot more than they might normally encounter, but fortunately they didn’t seem harmed by it.

On the contrary – they improved from the sudden influx of the energy they needed to grow.

As the improving process completed and the heat generated by his items dissipated, he was about to quickly look at what changes had been made to his items, but he caught sight of something in his feed that raised his eyebrows – and gave him an idea of why there had been so much more PICK sent to his items.

“Huh. Wasn’t expecting that,” he said, before he directed Sadia’s attention to the flurry of Achievements he had inadvertently earned.

Congratulations for solo-slaying 1 monster at or above Level 300 while wearing no equipment or with equipment with a Level Restriction no greater than Level 1!

Achievement received: Was This A Dare? I

Bonus reward: 90,000 PICK