Wild era 2 a litrpg prog.., p.19
Wild Era 2: A LitRPG Progression Epic, page 19
She stared at the talismans, her mouth slightly open, and then she closed it with a snap. She still looked stubborn, but her expression relaxed.
“That is...insane,” she muttered after a moment, but her words weren’t as sharp.
“It should be enough to help clear the dungeon and to protect them,” Kelin said. “I’ll keep talisman shields on them to prevent surprise attacks, and deal with the rest as it comes.”
Sandren frowned again, shaking her head, but she stopped arguing as much.
“Shadowfall was right next to one of the undead cores we cleared,” she said. “I didn’t see any signs that Sarathia tampered with it, but be careful.
“It’s a natural undead dungeon, which is why almost no one goes there. The mana density is going to be high. I don’t think it’s been cleared for a couple of months.”
“That’s what we need,” Kelin said, nodding in agreement as he stood up. “It also suits my magic. We’ll leave soon. Maybe in a few days.”
He needed that much time to finish his ability training. It would be tight, but he was confident in making it.
“Let me know when you do,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll try to get you some guards. With the attack on you, it should be fine to send a few.”
“If not, we’ll just be quick about leaving,” he agreed.
He gave Sandren a relaxed wave as he stored away all of the talismans and headed out of her office.
Hopefully, the guild would respond in force to Verasun and the assassins, but he wasn’t going to wait around to see. It would only give them more time to try something.
He glanced around the guild hall, making sure it was empty, and headed upstairs.
He still needed to check on Yao and Naomi and give them the amulets.
On the way, he debated having the kids stay here any longer.
His confidence in the local guild had been shaken by the attack, and it would only be fixed if the guild responded in force.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have any other resources at the moment.
If the guild failed to live up to his expectations, he would probably talk them into teleporting him and the kids to a different world, one where they were unknown.
It wouldn’t necessarily be any better, but it would delay the problem for a little while.
He didn’t want to do that unless he had to.
Despite its other flaws, Lareth was an excellent world to level up on. The dungeons were mostly open, the local levels were moderate, and the guild was here.
Only relatively wild and newly settled worlds had so many dungeons overflowing with mana.
For now, it was best to stick to his plan.
As he walked, he sent a couple of messages to the team and arranged a meeting to discuss their departure in person.
The time they’d agreed on was almost used up, and two more days would have to be enough.
When he reached the kids’ room, it was late in the evening, but they were wide awake and waiting for him.
“Teacher!” Yao asked as soon as he opened the door. “You were attacked?!”
“Are you alright?” Naomi asked an instant later. She looked him over head to toe and let out a sigh of relief when she saw that he was fine.
“Let’s talk inside,” Kelin said as he waved them back into the room.
Their questions came rapid fire and he answered them briefly, doing his best to reassure them that the guild would handle it.
Despite that, he warned them about Verasun and the assassins, making sure they understood the dangers and that they needed to keep training hard.
They needed to know the truth of the world. It would motivate them.
He pulled out the two amulets.
“These are for you,” he said as he handed one to each of them. “They will help you heal from small wounds and strengthen your body. But first, put a drop of blood on the gem. It will bind it to you.”
He pointed to the correct spots.
“A soulbond?” Naomi asked, looking up at him with surprise. “But that’s only for powerful artifacts.”
“Yes,” Kelin said with a slight smile. “These are not too powerful, but they still count. They will help you a great deal, especially if you wear them for a long time, so don’t take them off, even if you’re bathing. They’re a form of protection.”
A few minutes later, both amulets were bound to the kids and they were wearing them.
“Good,” he said, feeling a little relieved. “You might not be able to sense it clearly, but you have the ability to change their size slightly, as well as to make them invisible and weightless. I suggest you do that, so that no one else can see them. It’s best not to draw unnecessary attention.”
He spent a few moments guiding them through the process, and before long the amulets faded out of sight.
“Better,” he said, nodding in approval. “Leave them like that.”
He could sense the enhanced vitality already flowing through their bodies.
There was a faint touch of red to their cheeks, but that would disappear soon enough and no one would be able to tell the difference unless they looked very closely and compared their condition to the day before.
To most people, it would just look like they had healthy vital energy.
“I’ll be leaving in a couple of days for another dungeon,” he added. “So let’s work on your skills for a while. Then you can continue to practice until I get back.”
He spent the rest of the evening helping them with their mana circulation and basic theories of magic.
He also taught them some basic soul meditations that would help to reinforce their inner defenses, calm their minds, and harness their potential.
It would slowly strengthen their souls.
He wasn’t sure if it would help with their classes in the future, but the techniques were primarily visualization and didn’t require more than a trace of mana, so it was something they could practice.
Even if they didn’t become soul mages, these techniques would help if they encountered curses or other soul-damaging effects, and the calming effect would make their training more productive.
They took to the arts like fish to water, learning them without question.
While they worked, he spent some time strengthening the wards on their room, making sure that nothing under Level 110 would be able to get in easily.
As for things over that, the wards would do their best and create a gigantic racket.
It would be secure enough against most things, and while they were in classes with the guild, there were teachers and guards around.
It should be alright.
As the moons rose halfway through the night, Kelin left them to get some sleep.
He headed back to the training hall, where he activated the wards and tossed a bedroll on the floor. Then he drew a second ward around himself and hung his Soulfire Sigil in the air for extra protection.
Around him, Gaius’s presence weighed on the area, keeping a silent watch on anything that moved as he fell into a fitful sleep.
When morning rose, he washed his face and cleaned up.
His expression barely changed as he worked a subtle spell to alter his features, one that relied on Gaius’s stoneskin to reform his body structure and shift his aura signature from Soulfire to a more common Earth affinity.
Slight touches of stone made his face thicken, his chin broaden, and his shoulders and hands grow larger.
The same type of shift took place all across his body, until his lean and muscular form was changed into that of a much burlier and somewhat stocky man who looked to be in his early fifties.
Golden Earth symbols glowed across his skin for a moment. Then they faded away and the color of the stone changed to a skin tone that wouldn’t be out of place anywhere in Highmist.
With his soulbond to Gaius, it would be very difficult for anyone to tell the difference between his real skin and the stone he’d added. They were all part of the same aura signature.
When that was done, he checked over the changes in a mirror of ice and then memorized all of the shifts so that he could change between his real appearance and this one in an instant.
As he shifted back to his regular self and headed out of the guild, his steps were calm and purposeful.
Once he was on the street, he turned a corner and ducked into a shadowed alley. By the time he left the far side, his appearance was that of the burly fifty-year-old.
He glanced around the streets to get his bearings and then headed off toward the assassins’ guild.
It was time to send a message.
Chapter 15
Send It
Highmist was bustling with people going about their morning work, but it didn’t take Kelin long to work his way through the crowd.
As he turned another corner, he took out a dozen Soul Veil talismans and silently activated them one after the other.
With each one, a layer of obscurity descended around his aura and he felt the pressure of mystical attention sliding off of him. His bracelet, which was warm from blocking scrying attempts, also cooled down.
There were enough Fire sources and Fire elemental users in the city that the talismans worked at almost their maximum efficiency, making his signature just one more scattered among thousands. The only better places would have been in a Fire-aligned dungeon or something like a volcano.
It would be difficult even for a Second Evolution seer to find him. As for any at the Third or above, the talismans would help against casual efforts, but not something in depth.
He would take his chances with that.
Stacking the talismans helped to extend their duration, but only a little, since otherwise the power would weaken. He would have to keep activating more to maintain the veil.
There was no time to waste.
He walked steadily through the city as he headed for one of the merchant streets near the walls.
Before long, he found the location of the Thousand Leaves Adventuring Supply.
The information from the guild’s memory crystal was comprehensive, with a detailed list of mercenaries associated with the organization, their methods of business, and even some of their more secretive habits, including their more private meeting places.
He scanned the store with his senses, but he didn’t bother to go inside. He’d only come here to confirm that it was a front. The people he wanted weren’t there.
He ducked through an alley and came out on a separate street. Then he headed to a smaller blacksmith shop, one with a large walled yard that happened to touch the back of the supply shop on the opposite street.
Sounds of voices and the clash of weapons came from the yard.
On a good day, it might have been confused with a regular blacksmith shop, but this was one of the assassin’s training sites.
He went up to the counter inside, spent a few moments talking to the clerk, and then waited.
Two minutes later, a muscular man in a leather apron dusted off his hands as he walked into the store from the back yard.
“You’re the one who wants a job?” he asked in a low rumble as he looked Kelin up and down.
His eyes were sharper than the rest of him, and despite that he looked like a blacksmith, there was an edge of violence in his aura that said he spent his time on other pursuits.
He was one of those listed in the guild’s information, a mid-level trainer for new recruits.
His Level was around 120 with a warrior-type class and probably a real smith subclass to keep up appearances, but Kelin didn’t analyze him for the details.
“You don’t look like much,” the trainer said, shaking his head. “You’re too old and fat for this work. Suppose you could sweat it off, but you’re best to just leave now. Doubt you can do what’s needed.”
“I’ll manage,” Kelin replied easily. “Let’s find out.”
With the stone he’d added, his appearance did look like a muscular but slightly fat warrior.
“Your funeral,” the trainer said as his eyes sharpened with a cruel glint. He didn’t appreciate Kelin’s contradiction, as minor as it was.
“Follow me,” he said before he growled over his shoulder to the clerk. “Boy, watch the store. No more customers right now. Only orders. We’re out of stock today.”
His words were more than they seemed. He’d just told the boy to deny any immediate requests for assassins and only to take contract offers for the guild to consider.
“Yes, boss,” the clerk replied diffidently.
The smith led Kelin through a narrow hallway full of discarded weapons that filled it with broken blades and rusted points. They made for a harrowing passage with barely enough room to walk.
If anyone had tried to rush through this, they would have ended up impaling themselves, and Kelin could sense trap triggers in the walls and floor that would make it even worse.
The backyard opened before them, revealing a wide and well-appointed area filled with racks of training weapons, weights, and target dummies. There were also logs to carry, ropes to climb, posts standing up at different heights to jump between, and more.
It had taken up some space behind the other shops in the area and was larger than it seemed from the street, stretching about two hundred feet long and half that wide.
Silence wards were engraved into the walls every ten feet, except for one area near the blacksmith shop that was next to an outdoor forge, and there were concealment ones mixed in between, which would block the view of the yard from above, making it difficult to spy on it from a neighboring roof.
Apparently they did try to keep up appearances.
The area was large enough that thirty assassin trainees and a handful of trainers were scattered throughout, working in various areas.
Most of them were between Level 60 and 90, with the trainers at the First Evolution. Their classes were a mix of rogues and warriors.
Mage assassins were trained in a different location.
As Gaius spread through the stone all around, Kelin scanned their souls and appearances, taking them in swiftly as he compared them to his notes.
About a third of those here were known to the guild. The rest were new. The aura of ready violence hung around most of them, especially the trainers.
There was also a man tied to a post who was being whipped, probably as some form of discipline. He had a dozen bloody lines across his back and the trainer holding the whip wasn’t done yet.
“If you want to be one of us, you need to pass the first test,” the smith next to Kelin said as he bared his teeth. He pointed at the yard. “Those will be your teammates. They need to know you’re not trash. So get ready to prove it. If you do well, I’ll consider taking you on as a trainee.”
Then his eyes turned colder.
“We aren’t that weak adventurers’ guild. You came here, so there’s no more backing out. From now on, every breath you take, you have to earn. If you don’t impress me, you won’t be leaving here alive. I’ll twist your head off before you walk back through that door.”
“Let’s see then.” Kelin’s expression didn’t change.
“Combat assessment!” the smith shouted as they walked into the yard. “New meat!”
As soon as they heard the shout, the trainees dropped what they were doing and moved toward Kelin. Within a moment, all thirty of them had surrounded him at the center of the field.
The five trainers were on the outside, watching it all.
The only saving grace was that none of the trainees had brought over a weapon. It was all bare fists and the cold expressions of the trainees said they were looking forward to it.
The desire for violence radiated from them as knuckles cracked on every side.
“You know the rules,” the smith growled. “If he doesn’t fight, he dies. If he’s weak, he dies. If he survives, he’ll settle the scores with you later, if he can.”
The smith looked at Kelin, his eyes now full of cold disgust.
“For this one, make sure he can’t. He’s not worthy of being one of you. Don’t hold back. Kill!”
Abilities flared throughout the circle, hardening bodies and infusing them with mana and stamina.
There wasn’t much time for Kelin to prepare as the circle tightened, but he didn’t need to. His expression stayed calm the entire time.
The guild notes said that over half of the assassins didn’t survive their training, and this type of greeting was probably the biggest reason. Some newcomers were sacrificed to stoke the killing intent in the others, especially when the trainers didn’t like them.
If he’d been a real trainee, he would be beaten to death here.
As the first fists and kicks rained down toward him, he raised his hand and Blaze filled his meridians with power.
Soul energy poured through him.
A crushing tide of Soul Paralysis ripped through the crowd, freezing the entire group of trainees with their arms still raised. Some of their fists had just landed against Kelin’s body, but all they struck was hard stone.
The spell was like a drop of water spreading through a pool, stretching outward in silence, and it struck the trainers next.
The smith froze, his body turning stock still as he was about to shout. The rest of the trainers followed, until everything living in the yard was silent and still.
“I have to thank you for gathering together,” Kelin said quietly. “You saved me some effort.”
The Blaze-powered Soul Paralysis cost him 135 soul energy after the ten percent reduction from his staff, but it was so powerful that it had almost crushed the souls of everything in the courtyard.
Even if he left now, some of them would never recover. Their souls and abilities would be crippled.
There was no need to say anything else as he began to cast.
He dropped Blaze and began to form soul arrows. They flew outward, striking the trainers. Since they were at the First Evolution, he used three each, but they were only normal ones.
Endless Flames burned in each of them, driving the heat to rise.
He unleashed Gaius and stone formed around him, making him broader and taller, until he stood a dozen feet high and resembled a stone golem.
