Chapter 107: Elemental Altar
2014-12-08
Author: Floating Tower (诸生浮屠)
Did I trigger an advanced profession?
I never expected to trigger the advanced class of Shadow.
Soren glanced at the others, a hint of joy on his face, and slowly said, “I broke through. I feel like I’ve gained insight into my skills!”
The halfling looked at his expression as if he were looking at a monster.
Gloria’s expression was also quite strange; in just a few short minutes, Soren’s combat skills had dramatically improved, which was very surprising for the knowledgeable witch. Only Vivian didn’t care about much, clapping her pale hands and sparklingly saying, “Brother is amazing! It was just like playing with monsters!”
Two specialties that enhance evasion abilities.
Though they couldn’t compare to the Legendary Evasion, Legendary Reflex Evasion, and Legendary Intuitive Evasion he once possessed, Soren had regained that sense of comfort he had in battle, even in perilous situations he could find that feeling of dancing on the edge of a blade. Specialties are gradually improved; as long as one comprehends the most basic specialty and possesses the attribute conditions to master it, advancing afterward is just a matter of time. With more battles fought, basic specialties will gradually evolve into advanced specialties.
Ordinary evasion is a comprehensive ability, derived from agile professions like Wanderers.
Reflex Evasion adjusts based on agility; the higher the agility, the faster the reflexes, and the stronger the evasion ability under sudden circumstances. Lastly, Intuitive Evasion is the most difficult and effective evasion technique, requiring powerful perception to anticipate any dangerous attack beforehand. Monks are experts in intuitive evasion. If ordinary evasion reflects an improvement in basic techniques, then reflex evasion is an instinctual reaction under sudden conditions, and intuitive evasion signifies that before an enemy launches an attack, one already has an intuitive sense of the impending danger.
Intuitive Evasion is one of the most difficult specialties to train. Apart from monks and their advanced professions, other professionals require a considerable amount of time to train it!
Additionally, there are relatively high perception requirements, and one must later accumulate their attributes to extraordinary perception.
Monks have many evasion techniques and can even extend to the specialty of “Deflecting Flying Arrows.”
………
The halfling stared at Soren in amazement, muttering, “Do we need to deal with another one?”
Soren gently shook his head, slowly saying, “No more. I’m about at my limit; to improve further would likely require more combat experience. Recently, I’ve felt some insights, but it was only just now that I found the opportunity to break through.”
To gain insight into two specialties at once is already quite an abundant yield.
Soren wouldn’t be naive enough to think he could quickly gain another improvement; the subsequent evasion techniques have strict requirements. Just now, he happened to reach the critical point for a breakthrough, enhanced by the spell. This kind of instinctual physical response accumulates gradually. The more battles one fights, the stronger the instinctual response becomes, eventually leading to subconscious evasion abilities.
“Then let’s speed up,” Gloria said, giving Soren a deep look before softly adding, “There are only a few minutes left for the spell.”
Soren nodded and picked up his curved blade, entering the canyon. The halfling looked at him enviously and then grabbed his short sword to follow. Such spur-of-the-moment breakthroughs truly require talent; among a hundred Wanderers, there might not be one who can break through temporarily. They would need a long time to accumulate.
Inside the canyon, they could see a large altar, surrounded by towering stone pillars about ten meters high, with nine staircases leading to a stone platform in the center that resembled a compass.
The earth elementals outside were somewhat manageable, but the inner earth elementals were clearly different.
They were larger, had more rocky structures all over, and even looked more humanoid.
“Be careful,” Soren said firmly while gripping his curved blade. “These earth elementals might be advanced elites, and some of them might have comprehended the skill of Earth Throw. If you see them grabbing a stone, immediately retreat!”
Earth Throw.
A quasi-spell ability, the earth elemental can condense energy to hurl a giant rock. It can deal about 100 points of damage.
Being hit would result in instant d*ath.
Most elemental lives lack intelligence. They might even have lower intelligence than the undead, and the elemental lives with intelligence are usually legendary creatures, such as air giants, water giants, earth giants, etc. Such elemental lives belong to divine beings. Many are naturally half-divine with divinity and can occasionally summon strong divine power. A famous summoning spell is the legendary-level Wish spell. Elemental giants will fulfill your certain wishes based on the principle of equivalent exchange, including even resurrecting the dead!
These beings are the oldest life forms, with most sleeping in the elemental plane. The elemental lives appearing in the material plane typically have low intelligence and move instinctively in certain areas, sometimes responding to a spellcaster’s summons to serve them. The earth elementals before them have existed here for a long time and generally do not leave the canyon’s vicinity.
………
Soren gestured to the halfling beside him.
The two of them worked together to attract the attention of the earth elementals, with the halfling responsible for holding back the enemies while Soren seized the opportunity to deal damage. Gloria looked distantly at the altar, her delicate brows slightly furrowed, as if there was a hint of unease. She looked up at the sky, seeming to see a hawk circling around; due to the canyon’s poor visibility, she couldn’t tell if it was a wild hawk flying by. Most wizards are very cautious; Gloria cast another protective spell and then moved closer to the front.
Pure casters would never use up all their spells and always keep a few for emergencies.
One, two, three.
When Soren dealt with the ninth earth elemental, the situation in the battle suddenly changed.
He saw that a notably larger earth elemental waved its hand, and a massive rock weighing around half a ton inexplicably flew into its hand, which it fiercely hurled towards a small mouse that had been pestering it. The giant rock whistled through the air, resembling a shadow falling from the sky, instantly creating a deep dent in the ground.
“Aladdin!?” Soren shouted, and his attack speed slowed for a moment.
A voice filled with lingering fear came from behind the rock as the halfling’s tiny figure emerged. He patted his chest, saying, “You scared me to d*ath! It was almost a pancake for me!”
With the agility of a Wanderer, if prepared in advance, dodging wasn’t difficult; it would be much more troublesome for a warrior.
Earth elementals could use Earth Throw only once or twice a day, and Soren didn’t dare to be careless. He simultaneously activated the ability of Shadow Assassination, inflicting an additional six points of shadow damage while attacking the advanced earth elemental. The shadow energy can directly attack the elemental’s energy core, and as long as contact is made, it can erode the elemental energy it comprises. The halfling seemed to be stirred with slight anger as he also activated a shadow energy attack while dealing damage.
This was the most common quasi-spell attack among non-legendary Wanderers!
The advanced earth elemental quickly fell to the ground, and Soren extracted the elemental core before dashing toward the altar; the nearby earth elementals had been mostly eliminated.
Their spell enhancements were about to expire.
Scattered earth elementals continued to wander nearby; they had a vigilance range and wouldn’t notice them if they didn’t come close.
“Where’s the treasure?” The halfling excitedly approached the altar. “It’s empty; there’s nothing here?”
Soren cautiously observed the surroundings, slowly saying, “There should be a hidden compartment on top.”
“Don’t rush up; let me check for traps nearby.”
After saying so, he circled the altar slightly, and there were still scattered earth elementals nearby. However, without the spell enhancement, dealing with them would be quite troublesome. Soren regretted missing out on the killing experience, but it was better not to wipe them all out. This place, connected to a portal, is special; elemental plane entities might come through, and exterminating them could easily attract something like the Spirit of Earth. He had suffered a loss regarding this before; after killing the small ones, an elder had suddenly popped out.
He quietly gestured to the back, and Gloria immediately prepared to cast a spell, with Vivian nervously standing beside her.
As he passed a stone pillar, Soren gently pressed on it, and then the altar emitted a rumbling sound, revealing a hidden compartment in front of everyone. Portals require energy to maintain, and the offerings to elemental lives are mostly gemstones. These things won’t be exposed. Generally, they are located in some positions within the altar. He gestured to the halfling; the latter excitedly approached and carefully extracted several gemstones from it, quickly stuffing them into his pockets.
Soren walked slowly along the altar. His figure paused slightly; he dug out a dull yellow stone from the left corner of the altar. Then, in a blink, he put it into his pocket. It was an unremarkable stone, with no apparent magical aura. If not for careful observation, one might even think it was an ordinary rock. The stone was about the size of a pebble, appeared quite smooth, and felt heavy, weighing nearly three pounds.
Got the goods!
Soren immediately glanced at the halfling, saying in a deep voice, “Grab the things and leave quickly; the portal here might fail and attract creatures from the elemental plane.”
The altar emitted a rumbling sound.
It felt like the entire ground sank slightly; the halfling quickly stuffed things into his dimensional bag. Fortunately, the number of Gind was not many; most were various gemstones.
High-level elementals sometimes directly consume them, crunching them like beans.
Boom, boom, boom!
A muffled sound came from beneath the altar. Soren couldn’t be bothered with the remaining gemstones and hastily grabbed the halfling and ran out of the altar. It was likely that an elemental spirit was sleeping below; he hoped it wouldn’t be something like the Spirit of Earth.
“My!… My gemstones!…”
The halfling’s lament echoed as Gloria quickly cast a spell, and the four figures flew into the air.
—“Group Flight Spell!”
The altar’s vibrations grew increasingly rapid, and the center even began to collapse. When Soren and the others reached about three hundred meters in the air, a massive rock arm suddenly stretched up from the ground, followed by a roughly ten-meter tall rock giant emerging. It emitted a dull sound that sounded like a roar, but there was no trace of anyone nearby. The massive figure turned around in the canyon and then re-entered below the altar, which had turned into a wasteland-like rubble.
“That was close!” The halfling wiped his cold sweat, looking at the enormous elemental monster, mumbling, “We can’t handle this big guy.”
Soren’s expression remained calm, but internally he cursed, “I knew they were hiding something; legendary-level tasks couldn’t be easily revealed. It turns out there really is a guardian below.”
More adventures lead to more experience.
Soren actually found it hard to believe that a legendary-level task would merely be guarded by some earth elementals, which is why he always arranged for Gloria to stay at the back, ready to use flight spells to escape at crucial moments. The monster they encountered below was likely the Rock Giant, a branch of advanced earth elemental, whose power was merely lower than that of the elemental elders, with a biological level approximately around 18-20.
This was not something they could handle.
Soren looked at the canyon from afar, calculating what kind of strength would be needed to safely take it down.
This guy must provide enormous killing experience!
………
(To be continued ~^~)
