"Who is…" Stone wanted to warn about the incoming enemies.
However, the extremely fast-moving hunter interrupted him as he stunned Dafur with a mace into his face, making him see sparkling stars. The hunter bound him with a rope made from a 3rd-tier Monster's tendons and waited for the rest of his company.
"Ya thought ya coulda run, little boya?" Jarka asked with a sadistic smile after she leisurely emerged from the shaft. "Ya're in the world of hurt now. Shaman is fuckin' mad at ya! What did ya think? Stealin' from him?" She derisively shook her head. "Let's go, boys!"
"Luci, shoulda we do somethin'?"
"Lose that accent. It dinna suit ya. And hush! We're weak as chicks. They coulda crush us like chicks."
"But…"
"Again? No buts! If ya wanna save the dwarf, level up!"
"You're talking with a dwarven accent too!" Stone pouted.
"Tche! Cheeky boy. Let them be. He will survive…" Lucifer made a notable pause as he glanced at the leaving druegars with Dafur swaying on the Jarka's shoulder, "I think."
Dafur was screaming, "Let mea go!" and "Stone! Help mea!".
"Luci, what now?"
"If you want to save Dafur, you need to evolve. Now, we need to train and level up. And at least to a 3rd tier. Don't forget that the shaman is the 4th rank at minimum, but I would guess he is 5th. He has refined mana too and has a much larger mana pool too."
"How much?"
"If 4th tier, something about 200 points of refined mana and 1000 or 1500 of the normal one. If fifth… it can vary, but I would guess around 400 RM and 2000 to 3000 normal mana. But the most important is the output. He will definitely have many skills. It would be best if both of us could learn some spells. These basic ones are, well, basic. They are for newbies and kids."
Stone mused over it for a few moments and acknowledged that Lucifer was right.
"Well, summon those souls. Where was that path to Arn-Dul?" Lucifer finally created his own perception sphere. It was bigger than Stone's sphere, 23 metres in diameter, equalling Lucifer's intelligence.
Meanwhile, Stone conjured two ants' souls next to him. "Ants! Pick me up!". He could send the order through the link, voiced commands felt right.
"That way!" Stone pointed. Lucifer shrugged as he could not remember the right rune and thought Stone's guess was as right as his.
Lucifer finally had some time to train. It was slow, at least when compared to Stone insane progress. It would take him another few days, maybe a week, to actually increase the levels of the skills and spells to be useful. Right now, he would be happy if he could hurt an average rat.
[Your spell Ants' Souls gained a level 2 times]
After eight hours of moving through the shaft, they met a pack of new Monsters inside a small cavern filled with mushrooms.
They were around 1.5 metres tall. They had olive-green skin, long, pointy ears, a long nose, and a big mouth filled with sharp teeth. Their oversized hands with four fingers with four joints held simple short spears with iron tips. They were wearing small bags made from the same-coloured leather as their skin on their backs full of tight muscles. They spread out, hunting for food.
"Stone, stop here." After Stone stopped, he explained, "these are goblins, an inferior sub-race of orcs. They are considered Monsters, but few of them have reached enough sapience and decided to acquire [Class]. These seem like normal Monsters, barely sapient and on the 1st tier."
"So... Free to kill?" Stone's interest piqued. It had been some time since he last levelled up and missed the great feeling.
"Yeah, go for it. But first, turn off your messages. Allow only the 'kill' confirmation through."
Stone commanded the ants' souls to move him closer to his first victim.
The unsuspecting goblinette was gathering the mushrooms, putting them in her bag while licking her lips with her long, scarlet tongue.
Stone conjured a 10-RM arrow near himself and aimed at the goblin's chest per Lucifer's advice.
'Swish'
The arrow pierced the air. The arrow dissipated as the goblin silently slumped to the ground, instantly killed.
[You have killed a 1st-tier goblinette]
[17,30% experience is split according to talents Subordinate and Parasite]
[Lucifer gained 1.73% experience]
[Stone gained 15.57% experience]
"Good! Seems like the talent works," Lucifer commented as he saw his own journal light up. It was only now he read through his journal. Stone mostly ignored… Until he did not level up, he couldn't care less if there was experience flowing into him...
"Wait, what?" Stone did not like it a bit. His hard-earned experience went away. That will slow down his levelling up. That means the good feeling would come later.
"Don't be like that! I earned it! And anyway, when I am strong enough, my earned experience will go to you," Lucifer was quite happy. Not always you could gain free experience.
"Oh… okay," that actually persuaded Stone.
"Heh," Lucifer snickered, "next one."
"But they are close together," Stone pointed out.
"It's time for you to learn how to fight," Lucifer sternly stated. "Move two meters behind their back. Create a dagger from refined mana and push it through the spine of one of them. Cleanly and quickly. The second one will notice, but he won't expect you, a piece of sapient stone who can use mana. So it will be easy and either destroy his brain, pierce his heart or spine. Your choice," he gave Stone the battle plan and went quiet. "Haaah, that reminds me of the past. Hehe, Rikto was funny. Too bad he died in that Monster's belly. I told him not to go there… Well, maybe I should have warned him before he was being swallowed… Hopefully, it will be different with Stone. It must be; otherwise, I am dead too…" He reminisced about his past and hoped.