Darius squatted at the edge of the dark entrance to the underground, his mind whirring. He needed to pick a route of attack, otherwise, it might be too late if he wanted to achieve his goal.
As much as it sounded fun to just jump in and start throwing fireballs around, that rarely was the wisest option.
He looked around and spotted some of the buildings nearby. With a smile, he placed his hand on one of the dilapidated buildings nearby and focused.
[Would you like to change the Dilapidated Polito Housing Unit into a Polito Housing Unit? This will cost 47 Conversion Points.]
After making the change, the building glowed for a few seconds before it looked as if someone had reverted time and returned it to its glory days. The group could then admire the architecture of the ancient Polito race, who seemed to like the cube shape a lot.
Upon entry, Darius noticed that the building was powered by a large crystal that shone with a kaleidoscopic light. Thanks to the knowledge he had gained in the Vaults he knew that this was Source Energy, but condensed into a crystallized form.
However, upon using Analyze on the crystal to find out more details, he was flabbergasted. It turned out that this was a special resource that if inscribed and carved with the right techniques, could independently connect to the Source Energy itself and draw energy.
This naturally shocked Darius, and he cursed the Politos in his mind.
How could a race that had managed to find a way to generate infinite energy allow themselves to be defeated by 'mere' Insects?
It might be Darius' own prejudice as an Earthling, after all the biggest problem plaguing society in his day and age had still been finding a source of renewable energy that was clean and infinite.
Meanwhile, here in Faust, Source Energy was infinite as it was a separate entity and was always stable no matter how much was drawn.
What separated crystals of this time were their own durability and the quality of techniques inscribed on them. A crystal could be of good quality and draw a lot of energy, but as a material, it would eventually degrade over time, especially when dealing with high powers over long periods of time.
Then, the techniques of the Polito race had been developed, but had not reached anywhere near the pinnacle. They could use those crystals to power huge ships or assembly lines, or to just power some simple machinery and their homes.
Darius naturally decided to bump up the agenda of familiarising himself with the information from the Polito Vaults after the Quest.
He touched the crystal lightly and smiled, opting to introduce this technology in Safemoon upon his return.
For now though, he had more pressing concerns. He and the two Branded Servants selected rooms in the building and began to settle in. Darius called out Miranda to begin working on a spell targeting the souls of the Insects.
Since he was most familiar with the Spirit element and even had some talent in it, it was wiser to start there. However, the difficulty of getting his parameters down stunned Darius. Even simplifying it didn't help, as the end result was always a Grandmaster and above spell.
He was still a Journeyman under the system, limited to Intermediate spells. As such, Darius could only remove some clauses and lower others drastically, like the potency, the range, etc.
He also had to drastically raise the MP cost of the spell to make it easier to cast, as quantity would make up for quality in this regard. Luckily, the control aspect of the spell was not a problem since he was using the Supreme System to cast it.
While Darius was working, he made sure to tell Gunner and Xela that they were free to do whatever they wanted in this period of time. The Elf Princess decided to leave with Gunner and hunt some of the stronger Insects to alleviate Darius' worries.
This was different from an Event where the duo would just laze about and watch anime. Quests decided their fates, so they didn't have the peace of mind to play around. Gunner jumped down the hole with Xela in tow.
At the bottom of the hole lay a four-way intersection. Wide tunnels appeared in every way, but they were only dimly lit by the residual light from the surface. However, with the physical prowess of Gunner and Xela, gaining dark vision was easy.
The same basically held true for anyone with more than 50 points in Endurance essentially. Gunner and Xela did not have Darius' Map function, but they had the Database, which also had a map of the tunnels.
While they couldn't check their location in real-time nor use the convenience of his mini-map, both of them could use a static map to see where they were going, especially to find their way back.
Xela tapped the butt of her staff on the ground and cast Divine Ward on both herself and the half-giant. It had its own damage threshold and lasted till it was broken, forming a line of defense against any devastating sneak attacks.
After a bit of deliberation, the duo decided to head down the northward tunnel, which should theoretically lead to a huge cavern where one nest was suspected to be located.
Walking would waste too much time, and neither one expected their presence to remain hidden for too long, so both just rushed along the tunnel.
Soon enough they were ambushed by a group of centipede-like bugs that screeched menacingly. They crawled out of the earth walls of the tunnel and retracted whenever an attack was made towards them.
[Creepy Crawlers - Level 29 Monster
HP: 2,340/2,340 MP: 210/210 STA: 1,044/1,044]
However, their speed was nothing to Gunner and Xela who had 50 points and 100 points in Agility respectively. Gunner simply grabbed one by the 'neck' when it tried to strike him from the back, dragging out completely out of the earth.
Even as the monster screeched and thrashed, it suddenly stopped when it saw Gunner brings its face near his and glared at it with irritation.
Suddenly, the monster felt like it should not have come here today.
