Fanfic (Azarinth Healer)

Chapter 5 - Harassment and Grinding

I didn't know how to find dungeons so I was going to have to ask around. I guess I'd mopped around alone on a mountain for long enough. Time to practice my barely existent social skills. I rifted down the mountain and which was surprisingly not that hard to adapt too. My mountain climber actually leveled up from it.

Heading into Calys I tried asking the guards questions but they weren't as nice as Adicus was. Kept telling me to bugger off or something. I ended up finding an adventurer's guild. The guild hall was nice enough, people milling about looking for jobs or to team up. I ignored the annoying guy who was pestering me, and when he came up to me I teleported past him to the counter.

Some people just cannot take a hint. I was talking to the receptionist, who was making me pay for the information because I wasn't a member, and the guy literally came up to me and grabbed my shoulder. I teleported him back to his table of friends without even turning to face him. The receptionist gave me a look but I hurried her along to giving me a level one hundred plus dungeon.

The guy was on his way back over but I opened a rift to a spot far outside of the city and walked through. I heard gasps on my way out. I guess having portal magic at my level is rare? Maybe having portal magic in general is rare. I've never seen another void mage or even a space mage before. It sucked that my rifts had a set range limit with the number of rifts going up instead. I rarely used more than one pair at a time so it was kind of a waste. I wanted range, to casually stroll from one side of the world to another.

I bet if I got creative enough I could do some cool shit with my rifts beyond drop kills. Too bad they can't move or I could use them to cut things in half. Then again I could shape my void magic into sword shapes, and they could cut through most objects with crazy ease. I formed a bit of void and shaped it into a pitch black claymore shape levitating it with my mind it cut through a tree like butter.

I reshaped it into a big halo behind me for quick access, and also ascetics. I was a slut for flashy cool looking magic stuff and a floating black hole ring behind me like a goth halo spoke to my soul. I also had a new benefit to regen when near ice so I added a few ice shards to my magical levitating fashion accessories. It was good practice for my manipulation skills which needed training.

'ding' 'Ice manipulation reaches - lvl 2'

Done playing with my powers, I opened another portal in the direction of my new dungeon. The Depths of Kragmir. Very fancy. Supposedly the dungeon had a bunch of poison and blood magic foes. I was iffy on both but I'd survived worse. Just in case I dumped all my spare points into vitality.

It took a few rifts but I made it to the dungeon entrance. This dungeon was more of a cavern than a structure. The air had a metallic sent too it, and breathing it in I got a message.

'ding' 'You have been poisoned by the mists of Kragmir, -8 HP/s for 5 Minutes'

I eyed my rapidly dwindling health. Could I survive this? I teleported backwards and started meditating. I also surrounded myself with ice. I didn't get too close to death but I did get below two hundred health out of my thousand max. I cannot fight while affected by this.

Lesson learned I need resistances really bad or I was gonna die by accident someday. Also work on leveling NFB, it is the only reason I didn't die months ago. On the bright side I had a reliable way to train poison resistance with this insane air poison. Maybe I shouldn't have been pushy with the adventurer's guild lady.

Null body got to 2nd tier level 11 by the time my poison resistance got to 10. that was two days of training. My ice manipulation also got up to 6 and my void sight was at 18. The poison was dealing 7 HP/s to my first half of health and 3 HP/s once it got split and reduced.

I had a decision to make, go in where I can only stay at half health or train my resistance more. I was getting bored waiting but every time I through caution to the wind I nearly die. I decided to be boring and safe and stuff. I spent another four days before my poison resistance reached lvl 16, Ice manip reached lvl 5, Null body reached 2nd lvl 13, void sight reached 2nd lvl 1, and meditation reached lvl 16

The damage was low enough now that my health hovered at 50% without meditating and with meditation it shot back up to 100%. Since I wouldn't actively die from the poison anymore I felt good enough to go in. One thing I did note that in the six days I waited here, no other adventures entered or exited the dungeon. This felt like a trap.

I took things nice and slowly, and used a trick thanks to my upgraded void sight letting me see through rifts. I'd open up a tiny rift in my sight sphere, and placed another outside its normal range to see even further in. This method is how I spotted my first enemy.

[Poison Ooze - lvl ??]

I threw ice shards and spears of void at it from the other side of a wall. It moved about but I stayed close enough to strike and far enough away it had no idea I was there. It died shortly afterwards.

Pretty nice haul. These oozes would rue the day they were found by me. Probing with my rifts I decided to scout out the dungeon safely. There were blood oozes, poison oozes, blood moon bats, and these tentacled mushrooms. I spotted a floor down a much larger man-bat.

My scouting of the first floor complete I proceeded to wall hax kill dozens of enemies, with my only breaks being to meditate. I cleared the first floor in three days, and began work on the second floor. I practiced teleporting a few enemies into smaller caverns and using my black hole on them. It was a huge mana sink for the effectiveness but it was also fun to watch.

My arrogance caught up with me again when that man-bat got the jump on me. I guess I'd been making too much noise and it probably heard me with its giant ears. I only noticed it as it entered my void sight around twenty feet away. In the same hallway. I hurled projectiles but it backed off behind a wall. It was out of sight so I couldn't teleport it back, so I opened a rift. Towards the end of the hallway, and I got hit with blood magic through my own rift that dropped me to 10%. I closed the rift and opened another throwing me outside the dungeon.

I meditated until I was back to full. The bat was a smart enemy, it could track me, flank me and use my own rifts to hit me. It also had wings so teleporting it into the sky would only cause more problems. I looked to all my level up messages, and then reviewed my stats.

Alright, I needed more vitality, wisdom, and intelligence. I'll also need to gain blood magic resistance from oozes and bats before facing the big guy again. To face them I'll have to wait for the dungeon to repopulate. In the meantime skill practice.

Days passed. My manipulation skills and meditation were growing at a steady pace. I couldn't train Black hole very well with my fighting style, and I had little idea of how to train Sorcerous Grace. I left Aura of Winter and Void sight on perpetually as mana allowed.

I let the oozes munch on me as I knew from killing that they were lower level than the bats.

That man bat was going to be sorry for trying to kill me. Between my growing resistance to poison and farming blood magic resistance I started getting aggressive in my fighting. I knew I could survive and how to back out if I got in over my head. My Sorcerous Grace actually started to improve as I had to dodge and nimbly strike my foes in the moment.

Each battlefield I left was full of holes from void magic and coated in thick icy rime. This dungeon was my turf. My Aura of frost was so cold the oozes were slowed by their bodies freezing. Blades of void sliced the wings off the small bats, and diced the poison mushroom creatures.

With my blood magic resistance high I go on the hunt for the man-bat. My portal extended sight scanning the space between this part of the cavern and the lower portion. I did not find it, but I found its lair. There were skeletons clad in their gear scattered around the room. I teleported in, it was going to come to me.

While, I waited on my new rival, I looted the bodies. Some nice swords, leather armor, and a necklace. I focused my identify on it.

[Nilim's Pendant - Rare Quality] - [Storage capacity at 6/50]

I could feel the void magic from it, similar in feel and function to my Dimensional Storage. I focused on what was in there and found coins, a book, and some food. Nothing crazy unless that's a good book.

The swords were rare, and I shoved them in the necklace's storage instead of my own. I'd probably be more impressed if I couldn't do this naturally.

I started decorating the place with ice as I waited. My aura keeping the area more than cold enough to keep it all from melting. A little pillar of ice there, a patch of frost here. Close that hallway off there. Nice easy to watch entry points, plenty of ice for regen and manipulation purposes. This was a kill box and I wasn't the one who was going to die.

If the stupid thing would show up. See this is why enemies with complex planning suck. I only knew how to defeat stupid slow things by attacking through walls. This bat could fly and thus my drop it from a mile high technique was pointless. It could hear me coming meaning I couldn't strike it from the other side of a wall, and lastly it had range and could strike me if I could strike it.

Also it knew how to avoid an obvious trap. Fucking really. I made a table and chairs out of ice. I made a chess board and sat down waiting for my obviously smarter opponent to challenge me. Smart guys like chess right?

I was unimaginably frustrated and my mind was twisting in knots over being out played by it simply hiding. I delved deeper. The oozes down here were tougher, they had coated skeletons and used them to take quadrupedal forms instead of the blobby ones closer to the entrance. That meant they were much faster and a bit smarter. I tested my resistances on these new enemies and found the blood variants to be somewhat dangerous so I had to be very careful with engaging them.

The man-bat being the shittiest rival ever caught up to me right as I backed out of training my blood magic resistance. It snuck past my aura sight, and I didn't notice it there until it hit me with more blood magic, and a claw swipe to the face.

I hit the ground and teleported to a nearby cavern, throwing up ice to block the entrances and exits. I watched through my aura that it left the spot it attacked me and went out of my aura again. I wasn't in good enough shape yet to try tracking through rifts so I screamed. It fucking beat me again with stupid hit and run bullshit.

'ding' 'Fear Resistance reaches - lvl 6'

I couldn't meditate with how angry I was, which slowed my healing further. I wanted to quit and leave. Maybe find the void temple and train there. I knew that that would both be calling it quits, and also wouldn't work since it probably had enemies further down in the three to four hundreds.

I was going to kill this man-bat if it was the last thing I do. This was personal.