Since I was a high level, it was easier to move through the city by jumping. More so, since my strength was far higher than it should be for my level. I leapt as soon as I got out the Keep gate, and landed on the wall of the Keep. I launched myself at the nearest spire, which was a residential building. As soon as my feet touched, I launched myself in a zigzag across to the next spire. It took some getting used to, but I loved jumping through Zezhria. It wasn't the main reason I chose Dark Elf every time, but it was up there. I activated stealth and moved even faster. Most towns were set up so you could run across the rooftops, but Zezhria had too much distance between the teeth of her maw for anyone to move slowly across the tips of her spiked buildings. That stopped players from just using the roofs as more space to clog.
I was outside the gates in under and hour. It was a much faster method of moving around than running. I deactivated stealth so Hell and Lethe would be able to find me on the map, then I turned to the nearest panther. It still looked like a lazy cat. I checked to make sure it was one of the weaker species before I settled on taking this cat as a pet. I equipped my crown gear. I wouldn't end up dead. Not this time. I slammed the staff to the ground and started activating spells.
Arcane circles appeared between the staff and my target layering on top of each other and slowly closing the distance. Since I just wanted to kill the one panther, I only used simple fireball spells. Hundreds of plain circles layered on top of each other in a line toward the cat. Normally, my mp would be draining like a sieve, trying to hold so many spells in check at once, but the staff blocked that effect completely. Since I was a fairly high level, I could add fireball spells faster than my mp could drain. Theoretically, I could build a wall of fireballs with millions of them, if I felt like it. But that would take forever. I stopped at four thousand. It had taken hours, but I had a spell much more powerful than anyone my level should be able to make. Hell and Lethe were both watching me, neither looking particularly amused. Hell had already warned me several times about the dangers of provoking the panthers. I'd told him to wait over the wall if he didn't want to risk dying. Lethe joined him.
I grinned in anticipation as I released the massive spell. The result was a cascade of fireballs streaking toward the panther. The explosions of each fireball wasn't impressive, but seeing the entire tree wreathed in tiny explosions for ten minutes was amazing. The cat dropped from the branch, spines protruding from either side of its head, shoulders, and hips. The tail was just four long twisting lines of barbs, each one with tiny lightning bolts arching across it. I'd miscalculated. The panther was still alive. It was down to five percent hp, though. The front legs were almost destroyed.
The only thing that saved my armor from being attacked was the fact that panthers liked to play with their prey. It gave me time to shift from simple fireballs to a massive flame-blast spell that could be overcast, allowing me to put all of my mp into it at once. I didn't need my staff to cast it, but I was hoping for some amplification bonus to be on the staff. Since it had released a fireball upon contact with the ground, I was hoping fire would do the trick. Definitely should have looked through the stats at least once.
The spell materialized in a bar of white-hot fire that carved through the panther like a knife through butter. Two of the legs were completely gone. It had almost managed to dodge. But it was stuck. No panther could fight with both limbs on one side removed. Now was my chance. It was incapacitated. "Will you join me?" it growled wordlessly. Luckily, Ryne had reminded me that the Cultist had a few spells that specialized in giving pain without fatal damage being dealt. Ryne wasn't the only one who could make something wish for death. They were designed to defeat npcs without murdering anyone, good for people who wanted to live without bounties but liked killing npcs. It took a sick person to torture someone to the point where they wouldn't press charges, but it was a useful skill to have when it was necessary.
It would work for the panther. I compounded five red-lightning spells with a writhing agony curse. The result was a blast of lightning from the orb at the top of my staff that looked more like an electric tornado than bolts of lightning. The panther yowled as the bolts struck. It was down to one life point. Too bad, those spells would never kill it. I slowly added another red-lightning spell to the staff. A red circle with a pentacle at the center burned into the air between the head of the staff and my helpless panther. I noticed that the color was slightly different from the red of the fire spells. Fire was almost orange. This was closer to the color of blood. "Join me and I'll heal you." The panther just growled.
I added another red-lightning spell. The panther's eyes couldn't leave the two burning circles that didn't quite touch. I slowly added another ten of them. It was twitching, I could almost smell the fear. That was new. Compliance via damage was normal, but most designers didn't program monsters with the ability to feel fear. Using the Red Lightning still worked, you would just have to actually cast it for it to work. I'd been counting on Ryne's sadism, and I wasn't disappointed. I added two of the writhing agony spells. Those were purple pentacles. I used my remaining mp to add secondary circles to each spell, generating a second circle around the original one filled with arcane letters that I couldn't read.
I panted as I waited for my mp to return. "Join me, and you'll never feel this." The panther was convulsing on the ground, terror drifting up from it like a red cloud of steam. I drained my mp to add another set of circles. The combined spell would probably drop a full panther now. It would still have plenty of health, but pain was a minor stun.
The panther lowered its eyes. I felt it entering my service, just as I had with the boars. The Black Hole Knights sigil appeared as a cursor for it and my name appeared under that. I silently dubbed it Paws and that name appeared between the sigil and my name. Handy.
I turned my over-powered spell into the tree, pointing at another panther. It became my pet as well. I couldn't believe my luck. I'd barely managed to subjugate one, but as I turned that spell on the other panthers they each bowed to me. Fuck boars, I'd get a hundred panthers! Each new pet added to the strain, but I was getting better and better at pushing through that. The chance was too good to pass up, pain be damned. They'd gathered from quite a distance, curious as to why one of their kind would yowl in pain. By the time I couldn't find any more, I had one hundred twenty five of them as pets. Excruciating, but euphoric at the same time. Luckily, I hadn't drawn any of the truly demonic species. Those would still kill me. I wasn't powerful enough to touch them. Yet.
Maybe the weird font was fixed? It was, and I had a buff. As I read the description, I realized that doing this had been an awful risk. If I hadn't completed my hundred, the level ninety monsters would have ripped me to shreds as soon as I let go of my torture spell. Now they couldn't rebel. Now I knew what would have happened if Tusks eventually outleveled me. I started laughing like I'd gone insane. I'd accidentally become nearly unstoppable. Again. "All of you go to the boar pastures, eat boars and grass while avoiding anything stronger than you, players, or npcs until your strength and constitution are maxed out for your level, then do the same for this forest." It was awesome that the monster populations could never become extinct. I didn't have to worry about how many my pets killed. "Don't even let any npcs or players see you." I didn't need players noticing that Void had panthers obeying him. They could use stealth as effectively as a Shadow, so I knew that no player would see them. I wasn't expecting them all to vanish at that instant, though.
"Why'd you come out here, Void?" Hell asked as he landed next to me. "There was a crazy explosion. Was that all just you?" Lethe appeared at my side, her wide eyes showing me that she knew what I'd been doing. Apparently even my panthers couldn't detect a stealthed player. Or they didn't feel the need to remark upon a Dark Elf in the Darkwood.
"I've just gotten some of the panthers as pets. They're crazy powerful, so I can't give them to you until you already have a hundred pets, otherwise they'll turn on you the second I trade them. Once you get a hundred pets, I'll give you each a panther." Lethe didn't look happy. Not at all. She should be ecstatic at the chance to have a panther as a pet. How could she think they were ugly? It wasn't possible. Maybe their battle form wasn't pretty, personally I loved it, but they were gorgeous when they were lazing around. "What's up?"
"I don't want disgusting boars as pets." She grumbled. She obviously wanted a panther, otherwise she wouldn't care. What kind of girl player didn't want a panther, though? An imaginary one. "And none of my classes can make pets out of monsters."
That was it? I could think of several ways around that problem just off the top of my head. "Not true. Necromancers can make undead enemies into pets. Granted, we haven't actually found any undead yet, but we're bound to eventually." She still didn't look happy. Maybe she'd consider boars if it meant she could have a panther. "I could enslave a few hundred and give a hundred of them to you, if you want. You wouldn't even need to see them again, just own them. Tell them to eat boars or sit around and do nothing. Or just command them to never come within sight of you again. They will obey. Since they can sense you, they will know to avoid you long before any of your senses could pick them up." Apart from the feeling of owning it. I could never lose track of one of my pets, for instance. I knew where each and every single one of them were. If she couldn't even take that, though…patience was the only real option.
"What about me? Will you give me a hundred pet boars? I want to ride you to success too." Hell grinned as he asked, doubting that I'd agree. I nodded and his eyes bugged out. "Serious? Dude! That's fucking…awesome! A hundred boars and a panther? Boss!" he actually saluted. I sputtered for a second at the ridiculous visage of a "knight" in rags saluting, but his sincerity was always appreciated.
"Ryne agreed to give me access to a port pad before she killed me, so let's see where it goes." I started climbing up the wall. Lethe vanished and Hell started climbing next to me. This should be fun. It would be just like Ryne to give me a port pad that led straight to the lair of some unthinkably powerful monster.
Speaking of unthinkable power, I switched my gear to the useless starter equipment. Except the staff. Let people wonder about that. It was my ultimate weapon. For a mythic, though, it wasn't all that much to look at. It was just a black metal pole with ridges spaced up its length so you didn't mistake it for a spear or bow-stave. It ended in a wicked spearhead on one end and a six clawed hand gripping a black-light orb on the other.
"I thought you didn't like staves." Hell grumbled as he watched me slip the amazing weapon onto my back. Jealousy is unbecoming, my loyal buddy. "They're useless in battle, right?"
"Mostly, yes. Lots of mages run around with swords that look cool, or something like that. We just use magic to fight, so using a weapon becomes beyond useless after a while. Wands are a little useful in that they're a ranged weapon that draws power from your wisdom, but they're still a last resort when all your mp is gone. Staves, though, have a weird ability. Mages can make multiple spells at once, but the cost of maintaining a spell form without casting it is ridiculous. Most mages don't do it more than once, because they notice that the drain on your mp goes up for every spell you're trying to hold on to without fully casting it. Staves help get in the way of that drain, though. This staff, being fucking awesome, blocks it altogether. So I can make the spell appear, the glowing circle thing you see, draining the mp cost of making the spell work. Then my mp starts regenerating again. Now I can add another spell, draining the minimum amount of mp for the spell to work. And another spell. If I wanted to spend the time, I could add millions of spells on top of each other, without casting any." I made sure to look at him, taking in the open mouth and dilated eyes. Yes, he could see the power. I wasn't sure if Lethe was listening, though, so I figured I'd spell it out. "That's one of the reasons you don't want an army attacking an entrenched enemy. The npc spellcasters work in shifts with their best staves making massive area of effect spells that will completely destroy an attacking army. With staves like this, though, the effect could be so much worse. Because the drain is completely gone, I could add spells indefinitely. If I was, say, entrenched for a week…I could have built up a powerful enough spell to level a city. Imagine if someone attacked Zezhria. I could stand on the top of the keep, and have a nice view of the whole surrounding area. My spell power would be multiplied by a thousand, and I could keep on adding spells as long as I wanted. Give me a week, and I could destroy a level four hundred uber-monster without being above level fifty." Hell's mouth was closed, but a bit of drool had leaked at the corner of his mouth.
It was a humbling realization. The power of magic in this game was beyond ridiculous. Especially when you got to a level powerful enough to use cataclysmic level magic. From the scaling in the beta, a level two fifty necromancer should be able to make a death cloud cover an area larger than the whole boar pasture without draining his mp to zero. It would be comparatively weak, but an npc army wouldn't stand a chance with a constant drain on their life the whole way to the city. And that wasn't even taking into account the power of my staff. Once I got to level two fifty I could probably access meteor shower spells from the Destroyer line or something. Stacking those could have world-ending capabilities. In the old world, at least. Maybe this one was more resilient.