CHAPTER 289: HEINOUS AMOUNTS OF SHIELDING

The Baobab’s upward thrust tried to skewer me from the groin up into my heart. Even with my improvements, I was at my limit, and the unexpected hit made it past my block. Fortunately, my Shielding took the hit, and my nethers didn’t suffer a single point of damage.

Your Shields skill has increased to Level 40!

The branches slowly withdrew, pulling up into gentle arcs with their tips still pointed at me. The sixteenth round appeared to be the last.

“That was fucking rude, Baobab,” I said through a wide smile, studying the tree without dropping my guard. The way its branches were held, it kind of looked like a nest of confused snakes, or maybe a hydra that didn’t know what to do with me. “All right, what’s my prize? Come on, don’t be stingy.”

The tree’s bulbous trunk deflated inward, and a thrum of power rushed through its branches. They glowed brilliantly in my mana sight, and I felt a surge of magical power building up within each one.

You have entered The Baobab’s Scourge

Mystical Shields Dungeon

Recommended skills: Mystical Magic 20, Shields 40

“Fascinating!” I heard Tavio shout from a good, safe distance. “I did not know a Dungeon could change while someone was still inside!”

Despite the sudden shift, I found my smile growing even wider.

“Baobab!” I said. “Just what I wanted! How did you know?”

This time, instead of physical attacks, the Baobab launched a throng of Mystical orbs at me. Despite coming from sixteen branches at once, the attack was a single spell. I happily seized control of it with Reverse Card and sent the attacks plowing into the dirt to either side of me. Each one exploded, obliterating the ground and completely obfuscating my vision with the resulting debris cloud.

Then the Baobab cast the spell twice at once. Reverse Card led to a swath of the Forest behind me being destroyed, sending trees crashing to the ground as their trunks were shattered. I followed that with a quick Dispel, giving me a stack of Potency to spend on a free mana shape.

The Baobab ramped up to a triple cast. I immediately used my free mana shape to apply vertex to Dispel, which allowed it to target two different spells with one cast. I wove Reverse Card in to handle the third. Then we had a quadruple cast, and I managed the first three spells in the same manner while bringing all three sections of Gracorvus back in front of me to intercept the orbs still hurtling for my chest.

Then, a well of Mystical power sprang from the ground behind me, revealing a mana-clone of the Baobab. It joined with the normal tree, firing an array of orbs at my back while four casts came from my front and sides. A Closet portal helped handle the quintuple cast by redirecting the orbs to my rear onto the shields at my front. It was a tight grouping of orbs, so I stacked one section of Gracorvus over the top of the portion braced on my arm. Dispel and Reverse Card handled the sides, leaving me with 48 orbs assaulting my front.

Even with the double-block and all my mitigation, this was too much Mystical damage at once for Gracorvus to handle. The explosions wrapped around and battered my body, trying to sink past my defenses and thrash my flesh and mana matrix. My Shielding chunked away.

But it held.

I had twenty-three Shielding left when the Baobab stopped its assault. The branches swayed curiously, as though it was evaluating me. Finally, they all bobbed at once, which I took as a nod of approval. The mana-clone disappeared into motes of light, and the Baobab coiled its branches around its trunk while it inflated back to its normal fatness, and the whole thing sank into the ground.

Your Mystical Magic skill has increased to Level 40!

“Ha!” I shouted, then turned to Tavio and did a little jig. The Littan walked out from the ragged treeline and a smile crossed his own face as he was infected by my mood. He peered around the clearing, making a show of looking for something.

“You defeated the tree, but I do not see a prize,” he said.

“Are you kidding? The prize was more training!” I stopped my dance and put my hands on my hips, puffing out my chest. “Ya boy got two new evos.”

“Shields and Mystical Magic, I assume?”

“You are correct in that assumption,” I said. “Now I don’t have to waste another Dungeon slot on hitting up the Mystical Dungeon again.”

The Littan Empire loved its bureaucracy, and teams were strictly monitored as they came and went from the Forest. Only so many were allowed out on expeditions at any given time, enabling the Littans to adequately distribute time in the more popular Dungeons while also ensuring that a sufficient defense force was present in their recently constructed outpost.

“And you did not even need a trainer for Mystical,” said Tavio.

“The magic schools come to me more intuitively.”

“Given what you’ve told me of your past life, I believe that makes sense. You were much more intellectual than athletic. However, do not discount your martial talents. Few make as much progress as you have in such a short time.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “I think that has more to do with the quality of trainers I’ve had at my disposal. Unfettered access to a Ravvenblaq has its perks, and now I’ve got one of the Littan Empire’s foremost experts on beating things senseless at my beck and call.” I gave the man a wink.

“I think I will let you face the rest of your Heavy Armor training alone.”

“I’ve got one of the Littan Empire’s rising geniuses graciously volunteering their time to help me hone my skills?”

“Oh, you will be paying for this,” he said. “I will let you know when I decide what the price will be.”

“That sounds ominous,” I replied. “I thought the real value was the friends we made along–”

Tavio held up a hand to stop me. “It is funny the first time. It is not funny the seventh time.” He crossed his arms. “I am interested in the evolution options you have been offered, if you would be willing to share.”

“Happy to go over things with my shield sensei.” I pulled up my options, beginning with Shields.

What is a shield?

This isn’t a philosophical debate. It’s something big and hard that you hold in your hand, ready to take a beating.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Wink.

Now pick an evolution, you pervert.

“Not a very creative insult,” I muttered, then read through the options.

Parry: AoE Spell Reflect

Whenever you block an AoE spell attack, you can spend stamina equal to the attacker’s governing attribute plus their modifying intrinsic skill level. If you do, the AoE is re-centered on the attacker, and you choose the targets of the spell, if applicable.

Another way to hit return to sender on a spell was always nice, but it didn’t add much to my build. Plus, the stamina cost was pretty high. If I were attacking somebody who had this ability, it’d cost them at least 95 stamina to send it back at me. Reverse Card was significantly cheaper, although it used mana, and there were some effects that prevented negation and redirection. It would diversify how I could redirect spells, but this one was pretty situational overall.

Aegis of the Master

Whenever you block an attack, you can grant Shielding to any entity you can perceive equal to your Shields skill level. Attacks you block while you possess at least 1 Shielding cannot impose detrimental statuses on you.

Yep. Did I even need to read the third option? I mean, I was still going to, but this one had all the bells and whistles I was looking for. I practically always had perception of my allies and party members via Soul Sight and my auras. Plus, I was an entity I could perceive, meaning I could grant the Shielding to myself, which would then get doubled from Body of Asclepius.

While all that was nice, the best part was that last sentence. So long as I had Shielding, I couldn’t get debuffed from an attack. There were other ways to debuff somebody, such as through conditional if/then effects, but this was broad-spectrum protection against debilitating nonsense.

Mystic Thorns

You emit an aura around you with a radius in feet equal to your Shields skill level. Whenever you or any of your allies within the aura are hit by an attack, you deal Mystical damage equal to your Shields skill level to the attacker. All thorns damage you deal bypasses resistance.

“That last one is quite strong,” said Tavio. “There is an active skill that more or less does the same, and it takes a fair amount of stamina to maintain. This is free, and ignoring resistance for all thorns damage is a very good effect.”

“Spoken like a true thorns enjoyer.”

“I do like thorns, this is true.”

“Have you ever been offered a thorns option that you didn’t take?”

“No,” Tavio answered. “This is why enemies explode when they strike me.”

“Well, I don’t have any thorns abilities.”

“It is never too late to start.”

“Yeah, Shielding is too good for me. I’m taking Aegis of the Master,” I said, ignoring the Littan’s peer pressure. “But not yet. I’ll look at Mystical Magic first, and the team is supposed to meet and go over our options before we lock things in.”

I brought up my Mystical Magic options.

Oh, you don’t like our jokes?

Guess we’ll need to go find a tophat to pull a few fucks out of. Otherwise, we have none to give.

Mystical Magic! Sectum Simp over your engorged mana pool.

Whaddya think of that joke, huh? Trust us, they can always get worse.

So much worse…

Now go and Abraca-dab on your enemies with one of the following evolutions!

Dark Iron Will

You gain additional Mystical DR equal to your Mystical Magic skill level. You gain additional spell DR against all other damage types.

Absolute Authority

Entities cannot counter, redirect, or negate your spell effects unless the skill level for the effect they are using is equal to or higher than your Mystical Magic skill level.

Wall of Force I

With 3 seconds of concentration, you can spend any amount of mana and/or stamina to gain 5x that much Shielding.

“Why does the System speak to you as though it asked you to the burrow feast and is very upset that you rejected its affections?”

I had no answer for Tavio and no comment on the System’s flair for this one. As for the evolutions, this would be a much more difficult choice than Shields.

That is, if I didn’t have Body of Asclepius.

Wall of Force I was completely overpowered. I wouldn’t get five times the Shielding, I would get ten times the Shielding. There was no duration on that Shielding, meaning I could dump 800 stamina, grab EIGHT THOUSAND Shielding, let my stamina regenerate for a few hours, and walk around with an effective health pool in the five-digit range with full resources.

“Tavio,” I said, tearing my eyes away from the evolution and looking over at the Littan. “Are there any downsides to having an egregious, absolutely disgusting amount of Shielding?”

“Very few,” he said. “There are niche skills that turn Shielding against the user, but they are rare due to how few Delve monsters have high Shielding values.”

“Can you give me an example?”

Tavio rattled off a skill description from memory faster than I could recall my own birthday. “Shatterstrike destroys all Shielding on a target and deals additional damage equal to the amount of Shielding it removes.”

“Oh,” I said, realizing how much that would fuck me up if I had more than twice my health pool in Shielding.

“It costs fifty stamina, so not many would slot the skill due to the high cost. And, as I said, few dangerous creatures stack enough Shielding for it to be worth it.”

“Right. But if I took Wall of Force and somebody wanted to be an Arlo assassin, Shatterstrike would be a good skill to have.”

“True,” he said. “The chances of that happening are low, but it is not impossible.”

“That just means I need more health than Shielding, which just means I need more health, so I can have more Shielding.”

“A simple but effective mentality.”

I stroked my luxurious beard and looked at the other two options again. More DR was always good. I’d passed on similar evolutions before, and my defenses had suffered for it. If I passed on too many, I might be short on proper mitigation once I got further into my build. Then again, Body of Asclepius didn’t double my DR, so fuck it.

As for Absolute Authority, making my spells more difficult to mess around with was cool, but Body of Asclepius didn’t double the difficulty of doing that, so… fuck it. Wall of Force was definitely the winner.

“This has been a productive week,” I said, clapping Tavio on the shoulder. “Shall we make the long trek back and grab ourselves a hot shower?”

“Yes, let us begin the grueling journey before I lose the will to travel such an incredible distance.”

I gave Tavio’s shoulder a friendly squeeze, then opened a portal to the Closet. Three steps later, we were in my newly renovated hot spring.

I took a deep breath of the air and enjoyed its meticulously balanced composition, finding a light citrus scent that was both invigorating and relaxing.

“Are we planning on going deeper with our next Dungeon run?” I asked. Most Dungeons that had been discovered in the Less-Than-Habitable Forest were capped at Level 40 for the relevant intrinsic. The last three months had allowed everyone to catch up on their magic intrinsics, which were all on the outermost edge of the Forest, and rotate inward to advance some combat skills.

“Unless you wish to work on your crafting skills, then yes,” said Tavio. Crafting Dungeons were between the magic Dungeons and the combat Dungeons; a relaxing slice in the midst of the Forest’s deadly layer cake.

“I’m still lining up the schedule with my experts on those. Ishi is extraordinarily busy trying to form diplomatic relationships with, you know, every major nation on the planet. Not much time for my nascent Woodworking skills.”

“The two of you seem to find the time for other things,” said Tavio.

“That’s personal time. Still, maybe we could squeeze in some training.”

“So long as you are not too busy squeezing other things in.”

I raised my eyebrows at the Littan. “As for Smithing,” I continued, “the version of Hep that Varrin and I work with is a kind of memory construct that can’t exist outside of its own Dungeon? Something like that, it’s a little unclear.” I shrugged. “We might be able to get Papa Junior to make the trip.”

“Your ancient Dragon is unavailable, so your fallback is the world’s most celebrated weaponsmith?” said Tavio. “Perhaps you are on to something when you say that the trainers you have access to are responsible for most of your progress.”

“I didn’t say ‘most’. There’s also grit and determination to take into account.”

“Of course,” said Tavio.

“All right,” I said with a sweeping gesture at the hot spring. “Once we’re cleaned up, all that will be left on my agenda for the day is convincing Count Starion to hand over custody of a couple thousand Littan slaves.”

“Do you have an elder Dragon or other legendary figure at hand to assist you with that as well?”

“Unfortunately, I’ll have to settle for a slightly malicious, eons-old intelligence with an inexplicable desire for world domination.”