Chapter 35. The mysterious slate (1)
Pant! Pant!
In the boss room of the hidden dungeon, Lizardman colony, someone was lying on the damp floor as his chest heaved up and down.
Sweat was dripping from every part of his body. His hair was messy, and there were some blood marks on his handsome face.
But there was a content smile on his face which looked heroic. It was a smile that would only appear after completing a tough task.
A smile filled with accomplishment and satisfaction!
"Ian, are you okay?"
"There are no excessive injuries on your body, right?"
"We were so scared when you were about to die, but what was that light? Was it a special skill?"
His party members ran towards him after the battle. Their faces filled with worry, thinking about Ian's condition.
But when they reached close to him, they noticed that there were not many injuries on his body.
He was lying down on the ground, but there was a smile on his face.
"I, I am fine. Just a little tired."
Ian opened his mouth slowly as he looked at his party members in through his black hair, which was falling on his face.
He may look fine, but only Ian knows how difficult the fight against Leverill truly was.
The Dragon Lizard, Leverill, was not an opponent his party could fight or even think about defeating, but they had managed to defeat it.
It was all because of Ian.
'I thought I would die.'
One wrong move and he would have died. Those types of battles were like that. Just a single step could decide the winner and the loser.
Ian was happy that he escaped death.
'No, I should have died already. That light saved me.'
When he was just half a step away from death when a light had started coming out from his body. It healed him and increased his strength tremendously.
Ian was able to defeat Leverill because of that.
'Wasn't it Karios blessing?'
Ian jerked off his head as he raised his upper body. His party members were in front of him, but he ignored them and started looking at his messages.
There were some level up messages at first, but Ian casually skipped them and scrolled upwards.
'Here is it.'
'Karios blessing!!'
Ian quickly opened the info about that skill without wasting any time.
* * *
-Active skill
-Proficiency: None
-Activation cost: 10,000 mana
-Cooldown: 1 month
-The blessing bestowed on the player Ian by Karios himself.
-Upon using the skill, all injuries will be healed, and attack power will be increased by 200% for the next 2 minutes.
*One will lose random stat points after using the skill as a penalty.
* * *
Broken!
That was the thought inside Ian's mind after reading the skill description. He even wondered if the skill was a bug or something.
Using the skill was the same as revival. All injuries would be healed, and attack power would be increased by 200% for the next 2 minutes.
It was a skill that could change the tide of a losing battle!!
'Did I receive the penalty too?'
Ian wondered after reading the full description. He opened up his character info, but his stats were perfectly normal.
There was nothing like stat reduction.
To be sure, Ian checked his status two times, but his stats were normal. At that moment, he suddenly heard a voice in his head.
"Wh-what??"
Ian was startled when he heard that voice in his head. He looked around the boss room, but there was nothing there.
The only people were his party members who were looking strangely at him.
"Ian, are you okay?"
Ria asked with a tinge of worry in her eyes.
"I'm fine. It's just that…"
As Ian was finishing his words, he again heard the same voice in his head.
This time, Ian didn't get startled and calmly asked a question in his mind.
'Who are you?'
< I'm the healer who conquered death and a devote believer of the Goddess of Light, Karios.>
'You are Karios!! The person who gave me the blessing?'
Ian asked with a raised voice in his head.
At the same time, he thought about his title. The healer who conquered death!!
'What reason?'
As Karios was going to tell Ian his location, his voice was cut off in the middle of speaking. There was complete silence after that.
'Karios??'
Ian shouted in his mind, but there was no answer to his shout. The most likely conclusion was that the connection between them had been disrupted.
As Ian was contemplating on what he could do, a quest window emerged in front of him.
* * *
The healer who conquered death, Karios, wants you to find him. For years, he had been locked up in a place, and he can't get out.
Find his location and hear his story from him.
-Difficulty: Unknown
-Time limit: None
-Conditions: Getting acknowledged by Karios
-Rewards: Unknown
*You can't refuse this quest.
* * *
'It's a chain quest!!'
Ian was sure that the quest in front of him was undoubtedly a chain quest, and it was even an unknown difficulty chain quest.
Chain quests just like their name were quest which were connected with each other.
Usually, a chain quest would compromise of 3-4 quests, and the final reward, in the end, would be huge.
The difficulty of a chain quest would also go higher after doing each quest in the series. Although the rewards were huge, the difficulty was also undoubtedly immense.
Honestly, they were a two-edged sword.
But completing a chain quest successfully would give a player great fame and rewards. That's why no player would say no to a chain quest.
'The difficulty must be enormous.'
If a player receives a chain quest, he would accept it without thinking, but Ian was not like that.
Analyzing the situation was the first thing he would do in every case. That's why Ian contemplated over the quest for a while.
But in the end, he accepted it.
First of all, it was because of Karios's blessing that Ian was able to kill the Dragon Lizard, Leverill. If not for it, he would have already died.
Ian would always pay back those who would help him. That's why there was no way he would have refused this quest.
'Even if I wanted to refuse, I can't refuse it.'
Finding Karios was not a quest that he could refuse in the first place. Some quests are like this in Ark, and players have no way but to accept them.
With that, Ian accepted the quest, and after Harun's sole wish, it was the second unknown level quest for Ian.
'I don't have much clue in this quest.'
After accepting the quest, Ian reread the quest description. He recalled his talk with Karios, he then found out that he didn't have a clue about the location of Karios.
There were still some clues to finish Harun's sole wish, but there was nothing like that in this quest.
The only clue he had was Karios title 'The healer who conquered death.'
'I have to find information about it after logging out.'
Finding information was a must to do this quest, and Ian's intuition was telling him that it would be hard to find information about Karios.
"Ian, are you okay?"
Ian was staring at the quest window, but to other people, it would look as if he was staring at empty air. His party members were also thinking like that.
That's why they couldn't help but be worried about his condition.
Wayn was even thinking that Ian was acting weird because he had gotten a trauma after the battle with the Dragon Lizard.
"No, I'm fine. I was just looking at my status."
Ian shook his head and quickly got up from the damp ground. His clothes were still soaked in sweat, but he was not panting like before.
"My mana has replenished a bit. If you want, I can use a heal one time."
"No, it's fine. My injuries are fully healed."
Ian refused with an apologetic face when he heard Ria's kind request.
Ria's face was a little down when Ian refused her offer, but there was more curiosity in her eyes.
Ian was severely injured during the fight, and he was even on the verge of death. She had personally seen Leverill plunging his mace in his chest.
There should be a hole in his chest, at least, but when Ria glanced at Ian's chest, there was nothing like that.
"Ian, can you tell us about that light? Of course, you don't have to tell us if you don't want to."
Wayn asked the question that was on everyone's mind.
They were not idiots, and anyone can connect the light coming out from his body to his injuries getting healed. There was also the matter of Ian's explosive attack power in the end.
They can't help but be curious about it.
"Actually, I have a skill called Karios blessing, which can heal my injuries and increase my attack power for a short period of time, but there's a big penalty every time I use my skill."
There was no need to hide it from his party members.
Ian deemed Clara, Ria, and Wayn to be trustworthy, and he was just starting the game.
So, having some connections were a good thing.
Moreover, there are only a few people Ian deemed as friends, and after going through the dungeon, he had started treating the three of them as his friends.
There was no need to affect their friendship over a quest!
Although Ian told them about the skill, he didn't tell them about his quest or how he talked to Karios in his mind, just a while ago.
He was sure that he would be treated as a person suffering from a mental breakdown if he talked about him talking with Karios in his mind.
Moreover, Ian knows well that excessive trust can backfire.
"So, that is the case. I am not even surprised that you have this kind of broken skill."
Wayn said as he scratched his head.
He has already gotten numb to Ian's strange antics.
During the fight, Wayn was sure that they would lose to the Dragon Lizard, Leverill, but Ian had managed to defeat him.
Wayn was really curious about the Ians identity. Still, earlier, both Clara and Ria had told him that Ian was a pro gamer from another game.
He had come to accept Ian's identity as a pro gamer.
'He must be the top with those skills.'
Wayn thought that with Ian's skills, he must be the top player, but he also felt pity that Ian has started Ark this late, or he would have already become a ranker.
"Why don't we stop this idle chat and look at the item drops?"
After defeating the boss, the most important thing was to look at the item drops.
"Yes, we should look at them."
His party members were also excited to know what sort of items Leverill would have dropped.
As they were the first to drop to kill Leverill, the rewards would be top-notch, and he was even the boss of a hidden dungeon.
They couldn't help but be excited about the item drops!
As they had expected, the item drops were of the top quality. Not only Leverill had dropped his mace, but it had also dropped some other items.
Ian examined those items, and a bright smile slowly formed on his face. He looked around, and his party members also have beaming smiles on their faces.
'It would sell for a huge amount.'
Ian had already started thinking of the amount he could get for these items, but suddenly, he felt something brush past his foot.
He took a step back and looked at the ground to see what it was.
'A golden slate.'
It was a rectangular shaped golden slate with some enigmatic engraving on it. As Ian looked closer, he noticed that those engravings were some unknown characters.
He picked up the slate, and the information about it appeared in front of him, and Ian couldn't help but feel shocked reading the information about the slate.
'Why is such an item here?'
Ian couldn't help but think like that reading the information about the slate.