If you could call an exoskeleton that. Most of all, the queen had some sort of intelligence behind her eyes, intelligence that burned with the rage of a mother who's children had just been slaughtered.
She swiped at me, claws the size of a person just barely missing, she filled the whole chamber that must've been over fifty feet high. I retaliated by unleashing the lord flame on her arm.
She screamed in pain as the flames melted her arm and spread further up, then she brought her claws down on her own arm. The melting limb fell to the ground in front of me. I looked up at the queen with a new sense of respect for the beast.
She the brought her other claw down, slamming it into the ground where I was standing an instant before. I emerged from the shadow behind her head, spear in hand.
I yelled as I brought the spear down through the queen's skull, yellow blood and gunk spewing from the wound as the queen screeched in pain. it shook and writhed but didn't fall, so I made a sword in my hand, a simple long-sword, and started carving. Slabs of thick carapace came off as I sliced through the armour on her head. I occasionally dodged her swipes, allowing her to inflict more damage to herself. Eventually there was a hole large enough to fit a person in, so I stuck my hand in there and unleashed the lord flame again. Immediately the sludge in the skull turned to steam from the intense heat as blood red flames poured out from the hole.
A final screech came from the queen as she collapsed to the ground, shacking the hive itself with her impact.
YOU HAVE SLAIN - THE QUEEN KRINE
LEVEL UP!
LEVEL UP!
DUNGEON QUEST COMPLETE
LEVEL UP!
LEVEL UP!
LEVEL UP!
+250 ABILITY POINTS
+40 SKILL POINTS
+50 TO ALL STATS
DUNGEON SPECIFIC ARTIFACT
DUNGEON SPECIFIC ARTIFACT
LOOT BOX
DO YOU ACCEPT THE REWARDS?
Y/N
I landed down on the ground, cloak caked in yellow gunk, steaming from the heat. I tapped the Y.
I looked at the floor, at the two items I got and the loot box, I placed the loot box in storage and picked up the first item. It was a single edged sword that looked like the wing of a giant ant, with a see through blade made from some sort of wing material.
BLADE OF THE KRINE
+150 AGI
+100 STR
MANA STORED - 0/250,000
It was nice, I placed it into storage and picked up the other item. A cloak of a similar material as the blade of that weapon.
WINGS OF THE KRINE
GAIN THE ABILITY TO FLY VIA TRANSFORMING THE WINGS INTO GIANT BUG WINGS.
+200 AGI
+100 STR
MANA STORED - 0/250,000
Decent as well, unfortunately I preferred my current cloak. I placed the item into storage. I then turned my attention towards the stat screen, I placed seven skill points into my job, enough to bring me to level 200.
MILESTONE LEVEL REACHED
JOB SKILL UNLOCKED - ARCANE SOURCE
+50 TO ALL STATS
"Nice, not what I was looking for but nice."
I checked the new skill and almost collapsed.
ARCANE SOURCE - LVL MAX
THE SOURCE OF ALL ARCANE POWER IS OPEN TO YOU. IT IS YOUR DOMAIN, YOU CAN PULL YOURSELF AND OTHERS INTO IT AND CAN MANIPULATE ITS APPEARANCE TO YOUR WILL. THE SOURCE DOESN'T FLOW WITH TIME, IT IS NON-LINEAR. YOUR LIFESPAN IS DOUBLED.
MANA COST - 10,000
It didn't say in the skill but one of the extra effects was obvious to me.
NAME - YOLEN ARCANUM
RACE - FALLEN
LVL - 200
HP - 6,244,000
HP/s - +62,000
MP - ∞
MP/s - +∞
JOB - THE ARCANE LORD
INDIVIDUAL SKILL - GENESIS/DESOLATION
STR - 799
AGI - 1309
CON - 1115
INT - 1253
FTH - 227
ABILITY POINTS (320)
SKILL POINTS (33)
I now had infinite mana, I quickly activated the skill, feeling somewhat.. connected to something. I pulled on that, and the cave around me changed, becoming a flat plane made of a glowing blue crystal, the sky around me was a vast nebula of blues, purples and blacks. I felt the mana in the air and realized that what I was breathing was mana, this area was pure mana, somehow within me I understood that the mana the world knew was just a leak coming from this place. My place.
I moved my hands and the landscape bent to my will, large shards of what I now realized was crystallized mana formed and bent. I made a landscape of paths that lead up to a large, modern looking mansion, all sharp edges and geometric shapes. I grinned to myself.
I realized then that my body was just that, my body in this space, I had no clothes on. I changed that by solidifying mana into a jacket and some fairly mediocre clothes that shone blue at the seems and were purple in hue. I materialised a mirror and checked my new 'threads' out. They were form fitting and reminded me of a more arcane and less goth looking outsider from the Dishonored series of games. I dismissed the mirror and looked upon my domain.
"This was, unexpected." I said to myself. Then decide to head back to the world, I plucked myself from the source, a bright flash of blue transforming my surroundings into the cave with the corpse of the queen once more. My clothes returned to my mismatched set of items. I opened my stat screen and went to work, setting my skill points up again.
I maxed out my arcane form skill. It seemed to give me some sort of astral projection skill almost with it, I decided to try it out.
My body turned into concentrated mana and I did as described in the skill, I expanded my form. Instantly I became a mass of mana, spread thin over a great distance, hundreds of miles, I could see the capital, I could see the village that I fell into, I could see Fulcrum, drinking in the adventurers building. I then concentrated my being in the town I fell into, my awareness funneled to a specific point as the mana gathered there, creating a body again.
"What the hell.." A villager muttered as they saw my arcane form materialize, floating above the stone street. I waved, spreading my form back out again. The villager saw my humanoid, glowing purple and black form suddenly just puff out of existence, in reality, it spread out so fast and thin that ordinary people can't see the mana it is made from.
I coalesced outside the dungeon I had just been in. Turning back into my material body from my arcane one.
"Wow, just wow." I muttered to myself, this would be useful, another type of teleportation. I took out my map again. Looking at the different dungeons, I figured that this time I'd go for the rank up from silver. Gold rank dungeon. There was one on the map, it was called 'Hoard of the Ashardalon'. Centered on a mountain, I was fairly convinced that I knew what this dungeon was about, just in case, I activated arcane form and spread myself thin.
Almost immediately I caught view of the mountain and shifted my consciousness there, it wasn't a mountain but instead an active volcano with lava steadily flowing out of it. I explored the inside of the dungeon, checking out the quest.
DUNGEON QUEST - HOARD OF ASHARDALON
OBJECTIVES:
DEFEAT 20 DRAKES - 0/20
SLAY ASHARDALON - 0/1
REWARDS:
+300 ABILITY POINTS
+50 SKILL POINTS
+60 TO ALL STATS
DUNGEON SPECIFIC ARTIFACT
DUNGEON SPECIFIC ARTIFACT
LOOT BOX
DRACONIC LOOT BOX
Sure enough, I saw the drakes, dog like creatures, the size of a polar bear and reptilian, with red scales. Moving further in I saw a massive treasure hoard, mountains of gold and silver. No Ashardalon, wait. I could see where the mana flowed to, the middle of the gold pile. I used psychokinesis to move some of the coins, leveling up the skill and also revealing some large red scales underneath the pile. The boss was a dragon, a large one at that.
I coalesced my body at the entrance to the dungeon, a small cave opening, and strode in, deactivating my arcane form and sinking into shadow.
I quickly flowed along the ground, sweeping underneath the pack of drakes, greater than twenty in number, guarding the entrance to the treasure. I came up the other side of them, crouching low.
I didn't account for their sense of smell, the ones at the rear turned, snarling and opened their maws, unleashing plumes of flame at me. I grinned, launching myself at them.