Chapter 293 - Survivor of Disaster

Reivyn slowly became aware of his surroundings. His Divine Sense seemed to be covered by fog as his awareness fought to come to the surface. One moment everything in his Sense was blurry and indistinct, and the next everything popped up in crystal clarity. He was being carried by his father, slumped over his back as their Party raced through a short tunnel.

It looks like Kefira was able to build her Portal and get us away, Reivyn thought as he opened his eyes.

His body involuntarily stiffened up as he woke up, and Refix immediately noticed. He slowed to a walk as he addressed his son.

“Back with us, eh?” He chuckled. “You good to walk on your own?”

The others noticed the change and slowed to match Refix’s pace. They all looked at Reivyn with concern written clearly on their faces.

What’s that about? Reivyn frowned. He stretched his legs out and stood up with his father’s assistance. He didn’t feel weak or anything, so he quickly shook his head at his father’s posture, ready to catch him if he stumbled or fell.

“What’s the matter?” He asked. “Are those things still chasing us? How long was I out?”

Reivyn fired off several questions. The others shared looks with each other before Kefira stepped forward to grab his hand.

“No, something else interfered and took them all away after you collapsed,” Kefira said gently. “And you’ve only been out for about an hour or so. Nothing like last time.”

“Then why the look on your faces?” Reivyn asked, looking each person in the eye in turn.

Kefira stroked the back of his hand with her thumb idly as she answered.

“Maybe you should check your Notifications,” she suggested.

“Ok~ay.”

Reivyn brought his attention to the blinking blip in the corner of his vision. A Notification window popped up in front of him.

[Warning!]
[You have overdrawn your body’s ability to handle Mana. You have permanently damaged your vessel.]
[Physical Stats reduced by 25%]
[Helpful Hint: You can restore your body through consuming Natural Treasures based around Healing and/or Mana Enhancement.]
[Helpful Hint: Your Regeneration is too low to effectively Heal the damage. You will recover approximately 1% per month at your current Regeneration Level. Raise your Skill Level for quicker recovery.]
[Helpful Hint: Your Mana Channels have been refined to handle Divine Mana, but your body has not. Complete the refining of your body to prevent overdrawing in the future.]

That’s a lot of Helpful Hints, Reivyn thought. I’ve never seen so many, and the System isn’t even being snarky right now.

I’ve lost a quarter of my Physical Stats, and it won’t fully heal for approximately 25 months. Based on the wording, it would seem that if I didn’t have the Regeneration Skill, it would be 100% permanent until I could find the appropriate Natural Treasures to Heal the damage.

Now that his attention had been brought to it, Reivyn focused his Senses on his own body and noticed the lines of scars criss-crossing his body where the Mana had begun tearing his body apart. He knew that he had completely reforged his Mana Channels, but it would appear that his partial refining of his body wasn’t enough to keep up with the vast amounts of Mana he had control over.

He had never infused so much Mana into a single Spell before. He had used that amount of Mana, of course, but never all at once. It was like a river. If normal amounts of water flowed down the river, it was fine and would transport an infinite amount of water over time, but if it was overloaded, it would flood and destroy the surroundings.

In his analogy, Reiyvn had reinforced banks, but the surroundings were still ordinary and couldn’t handle the overflow.

He dismissed his Notification and looked back up at his friends and family.

“Well, it’s not as bad as it could be,” he said. “I’ve incurred what the System calls ‘permanent damage,’ and I’m down 25% of my Physical Stats.”

“Not as bad as it could be?!” Kefira threw her hands up in the air.

“Yeah, man, that sounds pretty bad,” Teilon added.

Reivyn held his hands up to forestall them from saying anything else.

“Yeah, but it’s not truly permanent,” he tried to placate them. “Number one, it didn’t affect my Mental Stats or Mana at all. That ordeal with the Dungeon in the capital did something to my Mana Channels that made them able to handle the load. The System even implied that it could handle much worse.

“Number two, I have the Regeneration Skill, and at its current Level, it’s Healing about 1% per month. I could wait 25 months to fully Heal, raise my Regeneration Skill to increase the speed, or consume Natural Treasures based on Healing and Mana according to the System.

“See,” Reivyn shrugged, “even if I do nothing, the so-called permanent injuries will heal themselves over time, and I have ways to speed it up. We can do some research on other Natural Treasures and go find them before we head back to Wispan, and I can take over the vanguard to Level Up my Skill.”

“So basically taking hits on purpose,” Refix said with a deadpan expression.

“It beats self mutilation, plus I wouldn’t take all the hits. I just wouldn’t try to avoid them as hard. I mean, that is the only way to increase the Skill Level.”

Refix nodded his head in concession.

“Be that as it may, that’s still not an option,” Refix shut the idea down. Reivyn quirked an eyebrow at his father in confusion. “Did you forget about the monsters that just attacked us? Those things could track us through the Dimensional Veil and intrude into our instances, both things none of us knew were possible.

“No, we’re getting out of here, and we’re staying away from any Dungeons for a while. Once some time has passed and the trail has gone cold, then we’ll talk about searching for Natural Treasures.”

“That leaves only one alternative to simply waiting,” Reivyn said. He looked at everyone again. They looked back with an expectant air. “I’ll have to participate in the wars, and I’ll have to take a more active role on the front lines.

“There isn’t anything in the lower Regions’ wilds that can hurt me. If I could go into some of the tougher Dungeons, the boss monsters could give me a workout, but that’s off the table. We might be able to find a singular creature that’s surpassed the normal bounds of Tier 4 Regions, but there’s practically no chance of that, and there’s a huge amount of territory to sift through.

“We can’t expect to find ancient Tier 7 creatures hidden beneath the land in just any old lower Region, and that kind of monster is outside the range we need, anyway.

“That leaves the wars. I was going to participate in them, anyway, but this just increases the timeline for me going back.”

“We’ll discuss it further when we get home,” Ameliyn interjected. Reivyn could tell from her lack of expression that she wasn’t thrilled with the idea. “For now we’re just going to focus on getting out of here. We have the Natural Treasures necessary for everyone else to improve their Bloodlines. I know you wanted to do some more exploring, but we have to face reality.”

“I’m in agreement with your mother,” Kefira said, once more grabbing his hand. “Let’s get out of here and then we’ll discuss the future in a more appropriate time and place.”

“Alright,” Reivyn agreed.

He wasn’t disoriented or really feeling the effects of the drain on his Stats, so the Party resumed their run through the short tunnel. The conversation had only taken a few minutes. Reivyn realized that if the monsters hadn’t been interfered with, there was no way Refix would have allowed them to stop and have a conversation while still in a Dimensional space. As it was, there had been no appearances or anomalies while they had their quick discussion.

The tunnel they ran through was similar to the tunnel formed by the Portals in the capital cities. The major difference was that the walls weren’t completely opaque. If he concentrated, Reivyn could see through the walls to the outside view of the many Realms and celestial bodies floating in the void, but they were apparently much closer to the center of the Realm than the edge like the permanent Teleport Circles took them. It was like the difference between looking through a thick, cloudy window and a thin, clear pane of glass.

The other notable difference was the much shorter length. The Teleport Circles in the capital had tunnels that were hundreds of yards long. This one was only about fifty.

The Party quickly reached the far side, and with an effort of Will, Kefira manipulated the veil to open a slit for them to pass back into reality. After everyone was through, Kefira cut her hold to the Mana keeping the tunnel open, and it dispersed. The tear healed itself almost instantly, and Reivyn couldn’t even tell that anything had just transpired after only a couple of seconds.

“That was our fifth jump,” Kefira said. “I think we’ve traveled far enough that we don’t need to use that method anymore. I’d rather not take the risk of those things popping up in the veil again to find us.”

“Sounds good to me,” Refix agreed.

Everyone looked around to gauge where they had ended up. They were on the side of a hill, close to the top, that looked familiar. With his Divine Sense, Reivyn picked up the presence of some Blood Roses milling about on top of the hill. Off to the side, in the distance, he could see the tops of trees. Behind them, little more than a bump on the horizon, was a mountain range.

All of that together easily informed Reivyn they had traveled over a week’s worth in the direction back toward the Outpost.

“Well, at least we didn’t run in the wrong direction,” he said, cracking a smile.

“Of course not!” Kefira rolled her eyes. “I’ve been jumping through space for years, and after the experience of ending up on that tropical island, I can at least face us in the right general direction.”

“Good,” Refix said. “I’d say we’re about a week away from the Outpost. We’ve saved over a month’s time with our luck in finding the Burning Echinaceas and having to dash through Space to get away. As long as there isn’t a horde of goblins swarming the hills for some reason, we should make good time.”

“I am mentally exhausted,” Ameliyn said. “I vote we set up camp right here. We were going to rest and recover once outside the Dungeon for the rest of the day, anyway. Well, now we’re out.”

“I’m not opposed to it,” Refix replied, smiling at his wife. “Anyone have extra tents? We kind of left ours behind at the base camp around the Dungeon Portal.”

“Yeah, we packed a few spares,” Teilon answered. “Never know what could happen. It makes sense to keep some redundancies available.”

“Look at you being all responsible,” Reivyn clapped his friend on the shoulder.

“Hey! I can be responsible,” Teilon grumbled.

“I know, buddy,” Reivyn smiled as he drew his own spare tent out of his storage bag.

The Party walked up to the top of the hill and set up camp. The Blood Roses kept their distance, and there wasn’t any other monster or beast lying in wait to ambush them to protect a rare treasure.

Once the tents were set up and a campfire was going with Ameliyn tending to a nice, hot meal, Reivyn relaxed against his pack and pulled up the rest of his Notifications.

[Exiting Dungeon][Calculating…]
[First Floor: Complete]
[Combat Experience: Exp +6,000]
[Boss Defeated: Exp +6,000]
[First Floor Completion Bonus: Exp + 6,000]
[Calculating…]
[Second Floor: Complete]
[Combat Experience: Exp + 7,000]
[Boss Defeated: Exp + 8,000]
[Second Floor Completion Bonus: Exp +6,000]
[Calculating…]
[Third Floor: Complete]
[Boss Defeated: Exp + 10,000]
[Third Floor Completion Bonus: Exp +6,000]
[Calculating…]
[Fourth Floor Complete:]
[Combat Experience: Exp +9,000]
[Boss Defeated: Exp + 13,000]
[Floor Completion Bonus: Exp +6,000]
[Calculating…]
[Hard Mode Floor: Complete]
[Error. Outside interference detected.]
[Participation: 25%]
[Boss Defeated: Exp +7,500 (25% of 30,000)]
[Dungeon Completion Bonus: Exp +6,000]
[Total Experience: 90,500]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Experience: 3,786/30,300]

Reivyn usually dumped his extra ten Stat points per Level equally into Strength and Dexterity, but his Vitality was starting to lag behind a bit more than he wanted. He dumped all forty points into his Vitality Stat to help it catch up to the other two Physical Stats.

He continued browsing his Notifications.

[Skills Leveled Up!]

[Tier 1:]
[Athleticism: (75 ->76)]
[Dancing: (35 ->36)]
[Mining: (22 ->24)]
[Running: (62 ->63)]

[Tier 2:]
[Pain Resistance: (69 ->73)]

[Tier 3:]
[Eagle Eye: (14 ->16)]
[Mental Fortitude: (59 ->60)]
[Sense Threat: (24 ->30)]

[Tier 4:]
[Iron Will: (34 ->36)]
[Spatial Awareness: (73 ->74)]

[Tier 5:]
[Heroic Bearing: (40 ->41)]
[Magic Prodigy: (88 ->91)]

[Tier 6:]
[Weapons Master: (103 ->104)]
[Regeneration: (20 ->24)]

[Tier 6.5]
[Divine Sense: (22 ->24)]

[Achievement!]
[Tier 5 Dungeon: Slime Mine, Hard Mode Complete]
[+100 to Physical and Mental Stats]
[Helpful Hint: The rules are being stretched to accommodate this Achievement, but you technically cleared it.]

There’s the snark, Reivyn snorted.

[Achievement!]
[Cause Damage to an entity Four Tiers above you]
[+30 Luck]

[Achievement!]
[Cause Damage to an entity Five Tiers above you]
[+50 Luck]
[Helpful Hint: The entity you destroyed was a small part of a larger whole, like a fingernail, and it definitely was not killed.]

Reivyn paled a bit upon reading that last bit. He looked up from his position slouching against his pack. His wide-eyes met Kefira’s similarly widened eyes.

“Did you get that Achievement?” He asked.

“I got one for damaging an entity Four Tiers above my own,” Kefira acknowledged, “which means…”

“That thing was Tier 8,” Reivyn finished. “My Notification also mentions it was only a small piece of the whole, equivalent to a fingernail. That would explain how we survived. If it had been four or five of those things instead of just one-and-a-half combined, it would have overwhelmed the Dragon and killed us.”

“All the more reason to get out of here and lie low for a while.”

“Yeah.”

Reivyn returned to focusing on his Notifications.

[New Affinity Unlocked!]
[Tier 4:]
[Heavenly: (0 ->1)]

Interesting, Reivyn stroked his chin in thought. It couldn’t have been the actual Affinities I used just happening to be the correct combination for the new Affinity. The System must have interpreted his conceptualization and combined what he was doing with his intention on its own.

That’s good to know for future Affinities I may want to unlock, like Celestial. That begs the question: What’s the difference between Heavenly and Celestial? The surface differences are obvious, but I’ll have to do some experiments to get into the weeds once I finally unlock Celestial with mother’s help.

It seemed that was the end of his Notifications, so he brought up his Status Page.

[                                   Status                                      ]
[Name: Reivyn   Class:  Hero  Lvl 21             Age:    16 (21)]
[                                 Grand Arcanist                            ]
[                                 Fighter                                       ]
[Health:  15,930/15,530 (+310)  Stamina:  31,070/31,070 (+410)  Mana:  16,985/16,985 (+50)]
[Health:  11,940/11,940              Stamina:  23,040/23,040                                                          ]
[Qi: 1,000 (T4/Li)]
[Physical Stats   Mental Stats]
[STR:  1,614 (+10)     INT:     1,649 (+4)]
[STR:  1,210                                          ]
[VIT:   1,593 (+31)     MAG:   1,948 (+6)]
[VIT:    1,194                                           ]
[DEX:  1,613 (+10)     CLA:    1,486 (+1)]
[DEX:  1,209                                           ]
[CHA:  438 (+1)        PER:     1,380 (+1)]
[LUK:  434 (+1)]
[Bloodline: Lvl 1 Unknown 236,443/10,000,000,000]
[Experience: 3,786/30,300]

Reivyn was pleased with his growth, but he would be lying if he was completely unconcerned about his 25% reduction in Physical Stats. His Health and Stamina took huge hits considering how large of a pool it was coming from.

He noticed that the Health and Stamina calculations were done directly from the change in Stats and not 25% of his Total. He would have had slightly more in each because of how the Stats rounded down. It made sense to him. The warning said it was a drop in Physical Stats, and Health and Stamina were derivatives. He was happy his Mental Stats and Mana hadn’t taken similar penalties.

His Luck received a tremendous boost from the two Achievements. It was almost equal to his Charisma. As far as he knew, almost nobody else at Level 21 Tier 3 had even unlocked the two Stats. For those that had, it was probably no more than anywhere from 10 to 50, at maximum. He was at almost ten times that amount.

He next pulled up his Skills. He hadn’t been doing too much serious training recently, so his only gains were what had accumulated and been Leveled Up just now after exiting the Dungeon. It was still nice to look at the whole thing and keep acquainted with his progress.

[Skills:]

[Tier 1:]
[Aim (49), Athleticism (76), Balance (61), Dancing (36), Drawing (23), Drill (24), Drive (7), Haman (20 MAX), Hiding (35), Horsemanship (24), Map Making (30), Map Reading (26), Mathematics (18), Marching (41), Memorization {Social} (22), Mining (24), Observation (64), Penmanship (37), Piano (16), Ride (25), Running (63), Rhythm (32), Shading (7), Swimming (30), Tracing (7), Tutor (27), Woodworking (17)]

[Tier 2:]
[Acrobatics (33), Alcohol Tolerance (11), Ambidexterity (27), Color Correction (1), Forced March (25), Gab (24), Linguistics (11), Meditation (53), Numbers Concepts (10), Pain Resistance (73), Strategy (40), Tactics (49), Teach (26)]

[Tier 3:]
[Battlefield Awareness (52), Blind Fighting (40), Breath Control (25), Command (58), Commanding Shout (43), Decipher (1), Eagle Eye (16), Identify {All} (25), Inspire (65), Mental Fortitude (60), Night Vision (50), Sense Threat (30), Silver Tongue (16)]

[Tier 4:]
[Charm (4), Dreams of the Past (24), Iron Will (36), Psionic (16) Runes (1), Spatial Awareness (74)]

[Tier 5:]
[Aura {Bloodlust, Heroism} (21), Clandestine Prodigy (38), Heroic Bearing (41), Magic Prodigy (91), Protection Prodigy (68)]

[Tier 6:]
[Akashic Record (1), Weapons Master (104), Regeneration (24)]

[Tier 6.5]
[Divine Sense (24), Perfect Domain (14)]

After reviewing his Status, Reivyn stretched and stood up. He walked over to join Kefira and the others as they assisted Ameliyn in passing out the finished dinner. Even though the meat was technically from rodents on the plains, they weren’t dirty rodents like rats, and they had been infused with Tier 5 Mana from the Region.

It smelled delicious.

The Party enjoyed a delicious meal with high spirits. There was a certain feeling of being the survivor of a disaster that filled everyone with energy; however, their physical and mental exhaustion overwhelmed the giddy feeling, and everyone was quickly asleep, Magical wards placed to alert them of any encroaching monsters or beasts.

They would resume the end of their journey back to the Outpost in the morning.