Zekes beer belly and muscles contradicted his power. He was a very strong warrior who also had great battle iq. Seeing the dead dog, the knight and staffed woman looked at eachother and made a retreat through the door. "They're fleeing. Kara, Preston, Lauren stay here. Everyone else come!" Percy shouted as he leapt through the broken door after them. Kara had been smashed aside the head by the staff and was too disoriented to help.
Lauren had her whole right arm torn up by the dog right before it had been slain rendering her archery useless. And Preston was to remain because of his healing. Right now they were weighing them down. The rest of them, Jaycee, Lady, Farrah, Zeke, and Jim followed Percy down the hall after the fleeing enemies. Fortunately the knight was particularly slow and heavy so his progress wasn't nearly quick enough to get out of their sights that fast. Jaycee shot a funnel of flame after the fleeing enemies.
The staffed woman turned and spun her staff creating an air spell that nullified his attack. She stood as the knight continued thundering down the corridors. As if making her last stand she lunged at the group, her magic flaring higher than Jaycee had seen it. Although he was going to work on his air magic back in the camp, he found he could do it now.
The constant fights with his new staff and his exposure to this air mage fighter was expanding his knowledge way faster than a session of experimenting by himself at camp. He smiled as his arms moved in the ways that directed air magic best. A spear of air shot through the woman's air magic. It stopped halfway through and exploded with air.
The air magic was released in the woman's magic concoction that was about to blast the group down the hallway, ending with her spell becoming scrambled by Jaycees air mana. He had thought of how sensitive the air spells were. Of course they were hard to pierce, in a way, but a disturbance in the flow of the spell could disrupt it.
So Jaycee thought, what does air allow through it best? More air. He created a construct of air that could get through the outer layer that would've rejected a fire attack. The air spell would just over power and suck the life out of the fire. But this air spear had a hard enough mana cover that they could survive the torrents in the spell and not get overwhelmed with the flow in the wind.
And then by having a single instant of very different flows it disrupts the spell at least a little bit. And when the spell was disrupted, a long spear of fire, specially crafted by Jaycee, slammed into her stomach blasting her against the hallway wall. "I want her." Jaycee said. He pointed at the knight. "Go after him." He said.
The woman was on the ground throwing up after the strike and her eyes were shaking. The rest of the group ran around the woman as she recovered from the attack. Jaycee stood there watching the woman recover. "That was a new spell. I call it Spear Ultima!…that doesn't sound good." He said while she stood. He scratched his head before spinning and sending a small blast of air at her. She used her own air magic to swipe it aside and spun her staff to shoot out a blast of air. Jaycee raised his staff and a shield of air stopped most of the attack. T
he remnants only moved his hair. They exchanged a series of air based attacks where she clearly won every exchange. Her air magic was simply better and she was a much higher level. As Jaycee was blasted backward he stabilized himself and examined his opponent. She protected her stomach at all costs and Jaycee could see a ring of sensitive flesh. Jaycee changed his mana to flames and suddenly his attacks increased greatly in power.
She split a tunnel of flame in half with her staff as she raced to close the distance. She had been okay with entertaining his air mana tactics as she decidedly won them. But now that he's back with his unnaturally powerful fire magic she should close the distance. She'd been damaged decently throughout the whole fight. The mana spike and spear ultima being the most damaging. She deflected an array of powerful spears as a larger dangerous looking spear was being built over Jaycees shoulder.
His mana wasn't looking great as of right now and he needed to make some sort of big finisher move. Firestorm was an option, but it seemed clear that her fleeing and defending capabilities to an attack like that were notable. She clearly responded to single impact attacks poorly. His earlier spear and mana spike being prime examples.
She found however each of the spears were exploding just inches from her staff. So instead of deflecting a solid weapon she was essentially swinging her staff through explosions. The explosions then resulted in the staff getting slowly torn out of her grip as she dispersed the force the best she could.
She watched as the finished ultra spear shot forward from Jaycees shoulder. The staff was beginning to be pulled out of her hands when the spear made contact with her rib cage. Unable to reach the spear with her staff she watched as the spear burned the clothes right off her body as it made contact. A less large explosion blasted the woman down the hall, her staff flying out of her hand. She ragdolled for a few meters before landing on the ground.
Jaycee paused and let out a breath full of steam. He had pushed out way more mana and heat out of his body at once than he could handle. He stumbled slightly as his actions caught up with him. He had lost a fair amount of health in overloading his body. He breathed heavily as the woman stirred.
Jaycee watched as she stood and her hair fell over her face. And like that, a switch in the air was flipped. Her hands were clenched in fists and her little remaining mana exploded as the air almost became violent. Jaycee looked around his eyes full of curiosity at the magic, before she shot forward. As she ran her staff returned to her hand. When she reached Jaycee he threw up a rushed shield that ended up breaking under her staff.
It broke through and slammed into his mana skin breaking that too. He spat out blood as the staff retreated for another attack. But as he was pushed back from where he was standing he chuckled. On the ground were 5 fire charges he had set when she was on the ground. They were clearly visible but in her enraged state, she had given up everything but instinct to squeeze the last bits of power out of herself.
As Jaycee snapped and the charges went off, the woman shrieked loudly. Each explosion impacted her and with 5 powerful charges, all of them being the last of his mana, she was obliterated. Jaycee had shredded through the light warriors armor earlier and the were was nothing between her and the explosives. She screamed shrilly as flashes of fire filled the hall. Grimly Jaycees stepped back as he set them off one after another. As her mutilated and charred remains fell to the ground, Jaycee received a notification of her death.
He grinned and fell back on his ass. That was a hard fight. And normally not one he would've taken for just ego or whatever. But he could tell that that woman was quite good with air magic. And as he understands it more he can increase his own magical powers. And why not, she and him seemed to have a little rivalry. He smiled as he walked to her corpse In the middle of the heavily scorched hallway. Jaycee bent over and picked up her staff which was the only thing to survive. He inspected it.
Staff of the Young Nomad: A strong staff of a long forgotten martial artist. Is imbued with martial prowess. Requirements to wield: level 15
So the staff didn't generate its own air magic, it was just the woman using her martial arts and magic in combination. He strapped it to his back and trudged down the hall just for a large screen to pop up in front of him. He smiled as he read through the screen. It turns out the objective was to just kill the intruders. But there were also bonus objectives they had completed.
'Bonus Objective Completed: Protect priestess.'
'Bonus Objective Completed: Protect 4 / 5 priests.'
'Bonus Objective Completed: Defeat the knight after he powers up.'
'The system will now calculate your reward based on your performance and bonus objectives completed.'
Jaycee smiled at all the rewards and took a good look at his level ups from everything. His total levels now were class level 26, profession level 3, race level 14. Jaycee had been performing so incredibly by beings much, much higher levels than himself.
His bright smile shone as he scanned the rest of the notifications. He had another class evolution ready for him as well as his rewards. Just getting this many levels over the course of the dungeon was impressive.
'Rewards strengthened by first completion. Final reward finalizing…'
Jaycee raised his hand as he was teleported to a different dimension similar to when he was first introduced to the tutorial. Before him three large pillars of light appeared and shone in different colors. One was tinged red, the other orange, and the last one was a yellow pillar of light.
Jaycee shielded his eyes as the lights faded revealing three different sized chests. The smallest was the one in the red light and the yellow one was the largest. Jaycee looked at more notifications that appeared.