Walking along the narrow passage, it wasn't long before the 2 feeble creatures in front paused and took a defensive stance.
A silt wolf greeted them from the shadows, pouncing with gnashing teeth which clamped on the cobalt-blue skeleton's shoulder - yet this time it couldn't even cause a crack in the skeleton's bones; The skeleton responded in kind, snapping back with it's own wolf skull and causing the wolf to let out a whimper.
Jay could see the cobalt-blue teeth sinking into the wolf's hide with ease, rending it's flesh much more effectively than the bone daggers - he reasoned that after this fight, he would convert this wolf's skeleton into cobalt-blue bone daggers, besides, Muffin would need a second dagger once they left the dungeon and didn't have to carry the lamp anymore.
Jay felt quite at ease since they were in a narrow passage; he watched the fight between the two skeletons and the silt wolf as he stood there casually.
"They probably won't need my help now that one of them is upgraded with blue bones." he thought as he patiently watched the fight. The wolf activated it's stone-hide ability but it was just stalling for time as it couldn't do significant damage to the blue skeleton, while it's movements were getting slower and more easy to dodge.
The wolf died quickly - this time having deeper cuts in it than the last one due to the wolf-skull skeleton's corundum teeth.
[200 Exp]
[Level up]
Jay smiled at the notification, still relaxed in the pitch-black abyss as he raised his vitality to 30 and his energy to 40, though a little disappointed he didn't get another skill point as he looked over his stats.
<[Jay]>
<[Necromancer Level 7]>
[Race - Human]
HP: 73/82
MP: 53/67
Strength: 15
Dexterity: 25
Vitality: 30
Energy: 40/40
Exp: 108/3000
<[Skills]>
[Raise Feeble Creature level 3]
[Shell Restoration Level 1]
[Shift]
[Undead Mastery Level 2] (Passive)
[Stress Response] (Passive)
[Running level 1] (Passive)
[Dagger Proficiency level 1] (Passive)
[Poison Resist 10%] (Passive - equipment)
<[Research]>
[Chimera Research 4%]
[Immortality Research 2%]
"Not long till I hit level 10. Hopefully I get another handy skill. About 15 more silt wolves till the next level up." Jay calculated, as he took out some jerky and ate it along with some water to refresh himself.
Walking over to the corpse, Jay shifted his bone ring into orbital form, the green gas tenderly extracted the bones from the wolves pseudo-flesh, however a part was left behind.
[Silt Wolf Spine] was left on the ground covered in some soil from the wolf's hollow body, along with three more [Ferritic Plates].
"Hmm. The spine must be too long to fit into the ring maybe?" Curious, Jay was looking at his blue feeble creature, he could tell that it had incorporated the wolf spine into its form, but for whatever reason it was not wanting to enter the necrotic ring.
"Perhaps the spine has other uses, similar to the soap rat teeth." he could only ponder. "As for its use, I'll just have to find out."
The silt wolf spine was nearly 3 meters long and cobalt-green.
"If need be, I guess I could take the spine out and add it to a bone pile to raise - but I'm sure it would be better used elsewhere, in the same way the soap rat teeth are better for the unstable teeth spell." he thought to himself, holding the long spine in his hand before storing it away, then analysing the soil-like gritty residue on his fingers - there was no blood in it, yet it appeared to be coated with a slimy, clear fluid. Wiping it off his hand, Jay prepared to craft some cobalt-blue bone daggers.
Pulling out a silt wolf bone, Jay could see tiny glistening flecks in it reflecting from the lamp; the minerals made flame-like patterns going through the bone.
Jay suddenly had an idea. "Come here" he said, standing up as the minions all lined up in front of him, he took all their bone daggers and handed them some silt-wolf bones, yet unlike before they didn't try to craft new bone daggers.
"Hmm. I guess I'll need to do it myself." he thought as he dropped their daggers on the ground and took the bones back before sitting down again.
"The great part about this cave is how quiet it is. I'm guessing I'll need more concentration for this." Jay thought as he closed his eyes for a moment, grasping the bone in his hand.
Thick green gas materialized around his hand as it flowed over the cobalt-blue bone, causing it to levitate above his palm.
Since training with Viladore the manacraft trainer, Jay felt like he had a better understanding of mana. Jay moved his own mana into the bone rauther than the ambient mana to achieve greater control, it intertwined through the bones and the minerals, causing them to mix together more so than they naturally did in the wolf's body.
While they mixed, Jay felt that the minerals were harder together and the bone residue was more of a glue that held them together, realising this, he formed the bone into long strands of bone mixed with strands of the minerals, however he couldn't make the mineral strands too big or he would lose control over them.
"Seems like my power stops recognizing them as bone when the purity changes too much..." reasoned Jay as a large, shining cobalt-blue dagger morphed in front of him.
This dagger was much larger than the previous ones - it was more like a bowie knife than a dagger. "It will have much better slashing damage," Jay thought, looking at the knife "It's much heavier too."
Pleased with the knife, Jay swung it a few times as he felt the weight of it. Its size was somewhere in between a dagger and a short sword, yet broader than both; though in the hands of the feeble creatures it would suit their size perfectly. No one could craft weapons with bone except him, so everything he crafted was a unique creation, even though it resembled other weapons in both appearance and characteristics.
Before handing it to his sole blue skeleton, he analysed the blade.
[Ossein Arming Sword Level 1]
[Silt-wolf bone]
[8 damage] - Slashing, piercing.
[Lifespan - Requires essence from it's creator to maintain it's form]
[Current lifespan: 96 hours]
"96 hours, seems like I'm getting better at this" Jay smiled as he looked at his beautiful weapon "Maybe soon I'll be able to craft one that never 'dies'. Though it would be a little unfair, other weapons have durability instead of lifespan."
Jay crafted six more identical blades, seven in total. One for himself and two for each of his three minions, all of whom could dual wield now.
Holding the lamp himself, he had his minions line up holding their new weapons. Jay could only marvel at how menacing they looked. A blue wolf-skull skeleton stood as a leader between two rat-skull skeletons, each of them wielding large blue blades. The flickering glow coming from Jays lamp was the only light source, only making them look all the more menacing as they seemed to stand on the border of light and darkness.
Standing for a little too long, Jay paused as he took in their deathly appearance. "This is doom for anyone foolish enough to cross me". He whispered to himself in the depths of the dark cave. "And those extra wide blades would cause massive haemorrhaging." he smiled in delight. "Let's move."
Jay grabbed back one of the blades and handed the lamp to a skeleton. All four continued to move deeper into the cave system.
It wasn't long before they entered a large cave opening. Jay couldn't see much as the walls pulled away into darkness, yet he knew where to go.
The minions had stopped at the edge of a pool of water, while stepping stones went across it and disappeared into the darkness.
"Hmm, it's probably not linked to the large river so it probably doesn't have the same monster in it, but I will be precautious nonetheless."
Jay commanded a white-bone minion to jump onto the first rock "If I'm gunna lose one, it won't be the strong blue one" he reasoned.
Suddenly, the rock shifted as if awakening from a long sleep. The skeletal minion, usually dextrous, lost it's footing as it fell into the water. Thankfully, the water was only knee-high deep.
As the rock shifted and moved while the minion splashed in the water, something strange happened - the water began to glow a light purple colour. It wasn't long before the water in the whole cavern lit up as if a chain reaction happened.
Jay could see the whole cavern now, the purple glow from the water drowning out the lamp; it reflected off and bounced from some huge crystals on the ceiling of the cave, each of them turning the light into a more blue-ish colour. "Magical" was Jay's only thought as he was temporarily distracted from the shifting stone.
Snapping back to reality, Jay was awakened from his stupor as the stone raised up revealing that it was the shell of some type of mollusk creature. Jay had his minion retreat to the shore as they waited for it's attack; they would have a better time fighting on dry ground - though the creature didn't move, apparently it was immobile as three plant-like spikes shot out from somewhere below the waterline. One spear went towards Jay, while two shot towards the white-bone skeleton that was still clambering out of the water.
Jay's reaction time was slow since he hadn't been fighting, raising his buckler to intercept the spear, it he was too slow as the spear narrowly missed, continuing into Jay's shoulder as it pushed him to the ground.
[-8]
[Poisoned. -1.8HP per second for 5 seconds]
"FUUCK!" his teeth clenched, face grimacing from the pain.
[Stress Response Activated]
[+5% damage]
The two other spears went right through the skeleton, failing to hit any bones as they continued, creating bore holes in the soil.
Immediately, his minions responded to the threat against their master - two rushed into the water while the one with the lamp guarded Jay.
Ignoring the notification, Jay focused on pulling out the spear from his shoulder as the minions fought the creature. The spear was more like a needle or a skewer. It was about two meters long, having a shell-like texture, making it easy to pull out.
With gritted teeth, he managed to pull out the shell-spear, though he had lost control of his left arm. The poisoned effect timer kept refreshing to five seconds until he finally pulled it out. Jay held his shield in his other hand as he stood up behind his lamp-carrying skeleton. The pain went away quickly despite there being a finger-sized hole going through his shoulder "must be the effect of being an adventurer" he considered, glad that the pain was dulled. "Perhaps I feel more pain the lower my HP drops" he guessed, looking at his health which was now 47 "nearly down to half health" he murmured, gazing at the fight between the two skeletons and the shell-monster. He analysed it.
<[Rockleaf Gastropod Level 5]>
Type - Mollusca
HP - 30/30
Immobile.
<[Skills]>
[Bulwark] - 100% physical damage immunity.
The rockleaf hides in it's solid mineral shell.
[Lash] Poison, bleed - 5 damage over 11 seconds (Can stack 4 times). Timer resets if struck again.
The rockleaf flails its tentacles at nearby enemies.
[Ecdysis Lances] - 8 Pierce damage. 2 Poison damage/sec over 5 seconds. Multiattack (3).
The rockleaf flings parts of it's old shell at intruders.
[Aquatic] - 50% Resistance to cold, water, ice based attacks.
[Shade Vision] - Can still see clearly in the absence of light.
[Description]
Generally docile creatures, one can even walk right past them and be safe - but remember one golden rule: Don't step on them - otherwise they will bear an eternal grudge, attacking whenever one comes into range. No one knows how they sense or remember with 100% accuracy those who violate this golden rule, since they don't have any eyes.
"I guess I need to walk past them rauther than use them as stepping stones" realising the trick to this part of the dungeon, Jay continued to have his minions fight the aggravated level 5 rockleaf gastropod. "Better finish it off so it doesn't attack next time."
The form of the rockleaf was hard to see, all Jay could look at was it's large, stone-like shell along with the occasional black tentacle that left the water. It had very low health compared to other level 5 monsters, but as soon as it got below 15HP, it immediately dropped its shell, causing small waves and splashing the water as it hid inside once more.
The feeble creatures continued to attack its shell to no avail - neither the shell nor the new blue daggers seemed to be taking any damage. Jay furrowed his brow, realising there was no way to kill it after it retreated back to its shell. "Time to move on I suppose."
Commanding his minions to stop attacking, he began to walk through the glowing purple water, intermittently gazing at the massive crystals in the ceiling reflecting back a blue light. The cobalt-blue skeleton seemed to almost blend into the surroundings as it walked through the glowing pool.
Jay decided to take a rest once he reached the other side, his health nearly halfway down while his left arm was still limp.
Following along the line of submerged rockleaf gastropods, it took about 10 minutes to cross to the other side; the water was still slightly glowing purple on Jay's pants as he sat down, resting against the cave wall near another crevasse - the passageway to deeper parts of the abandoned quarry.
