"What's up with Sol's magic? Before I died, I saw him casting multiple elements at the intermediate level. Does he have some kind of legendary talent?"
Lapis asked as she walked alongside Duncan and Rex, who were trailing far behind Lazuli, Aron, and Nataly in the dungeon. The two groups didn't have a direct line of sight, but if anything happened, they were nearby and could hear it whenever the others entered battle.
Rex, who was currently blindfolded for the purpose of training his detection skill, shrugged.
"Who knows."
"And none of you were curious enough to ask him?" She would have asked herself if not for the whole dying thing she had going on at the time.
Duncan nodded. "Of course we are. He's an expert swordsman who can manipulate the earth easily, and on top of that, he can cast water, fire, and light magic. There's also the fact that when he stayed behind to hold off that orc, he was only gone for a few seconds, yet the orc took much longer to arrive afterward. I doubt simple magic held that orc back for so long."
They weren't idiots; it was clear to them that their Captain was hiding more than met the eye.
Rex agreed and added his own perspective, "Back at the fort when we took down the bandits, I was searching in the main building for those still hiding and stumbled onto the basement, where there were two bandits that died in odd ways. One had a hole burnt through its chest, while the other was punctured all over the place. Neither matches up with his normal style of combat, fire magic could maybe explain the first one but the second one doesn't make sense. Maybe it was wind magic."
The two bandits Rex mentioned were the B-Rankers who had separated from the group to threaten them with the lives of the captured. But Sol, who had been secretly watching them, knew of their ploy and sent two magic hands after them, easily dealing with them. One was dealt with the red chroma while the other the yellow chroma.
"The reason none of us have asked is because it's up to the Captain whether he wants to tell us or not. If he hasn't told us yet, it's because he doesn't want to," Duncan said. There was no point in bringing it up and causing tension between them.
But unlike them, who wanted to remain tactful, Lapis couldn't care less.
"You think he'll get angry at you for asking?"
"No, it's just that… he's our superior. It's not our business to know."
"But he can know all our details without any question? Fine. I'll ask him myself when my sister's test is done."
Lapis found the notion hypocritical and used it to justify knowing Sol's secret. She wanted to know exactly how much he was hiding from them to understand the real difference in power between them. After all, she had proudly declared during the knight tournament that she would win next time they fought, but if he was still holding back during their rematch, her victory would be hollow. If she was to fight him again, she didn't want him to hold back.
"It's because he's our Captain. I'd advise against it," Duncan, who respected the chain of command, didn't think it was a good idea.
Rex, still blindfolded, paused. "Oh, they're fighting a group of four monsters. Let's wait while they finish."
The other two stopped as well, hearing the visceral roars of the undead and the sound of battle ahead.
…
"Taste my fist!"
An Awakened Gladiator was mid swing when it was punched by Aron, sending the undead flying backward into two Skeleton Hunters. The two skeletons were about to release their arrows, but were both knocked down by the large undead's body slamming into them.
The Awakened Shieldbearer next to Aron roared, unable to protect its fellow undead, and went to slam him with its shield. Before it could do so, roots rose from the ground and tangled the undead, not allowing it to move.
"Lazuli, now!" Nataly yelled.
Lazuli nodded as she held her rod firmly and finished casting her spell.
"[Vitriolic Orb]!"
A green orb formed at the end of her rod. It wobbled as she tried to maintain its form without losing control. Before it imploded on itself, she launched it at the shield wielding undead.
Unable to move because of the vines, it could only helplessly be hit by the spell and was completely drenched in the green liquid. At first, the undead didn't react to being drenched and continued trying to break free from the vines but realized it was becoming harder and harder to do so. A sizzling sound was heard as the acidic liquid began to burn through its skin beneath the armor, but because it had no sense of pain, it didn't notice until in one of its attempts to yank itself free, one of its arms flew off.
Aron, who was next to the undead, recovered and sent a full [Mach Punch] at the Awakened Shieldbearer. With its flesh partially dissolved, its defense was much weaker, and Aron's punch blasted the undead's head off its shoulders.
[You have slain a Lv 62 Awakened Shieldbearer! Gained 96,000 Exp (360%)]
Seeing the notification, Aron left the still falling corpse of the undead and used [Eagle Slide] to rapidly approach the other three undead that were recovering from the previous collision.
With the undead's numbers equal to theirs, it was not very hard to defeat the remaining enemies. Aron continued to fight at the forefront with the two girls supporting him from the back.
[You have slain a Lv 62 Awakened Gladiator! Gained 96,000 Exp (360%)]
[You have slain a Lv 62 Skeleton Hunter! Gained 96,000 Exp (360%)]
[You have slain a Lv 62 Skeleton Hunter! Gained 96,000 Exp (360%)]
Once all the enemies were dead, Aron wiped the sweat off his brow.
"What a workout! Plus, I'm not far from leveling up. I wonder what my last talent skill will be."
Nataly chuckled. "Knowing you, probably something related to punching. By the way, are you sure you don't want me to conjure a Tree Sentinel to help?"
Aron shook his head with a grin. "Nah, it would be too easy if you did, and that wouldn't be fun, now would it?"
"We're in a dungeon… it's not meant to be fun…" Nataly sighed and turned to Lazuli. "How about you? Getting the hang of the new spell?"
Lazuli nodded. "It wasn't easy changing [Noxious Orb] into something acidic, but it works for now. I just wish I had more time to prepare; it's not fast enough in dissolving them."
With only two days to come up with a plan, creating a new spell from scratch was out of the question. Instead, she opted for modifying a spell she was already familiar with. [Noxious Orb] was already slightly acidic so the poison could penetrate the skin and disorient the target. She changed it greatly by completely removing the previous disorienting aspect and empowered the acidic component to the maximum. It succeeded, but like any other half-baked spell, it had drawbacks. In this case, its mana cost doubled, and the acid took a few seconds to have noticeable effects.
"What about the other spell you're working on? I know we use different elements, but I might be able to help with that one," Nataly offered. She considered for a moment if it was cheating to help her, but they were currently party members, so she believed it would be fine.
Lazuli smiled. "I would really appreciate it… I don't want to accidentally kill Aron when I cast it."
"Aron would also like to not be accidentally killed," he said in the third person. "But that spell sounds interesting, so I'm willing to give it a go. ONCE you've worked out all the kinks."
While the acid spell worked for now and even technically passed the requirements for the test, Lazuli had a stroke of inspiration for a new spell. But it wasn't something she could cast just because she thought of it. She had to spend time practicing and finding the right spell words and movement of mana to create the reaction she wanted. She hoped to make progress in between dungeon floors and to complete it before their fight against the Gravedigger.