Leveling through Lust
chapter-96

As the girls dashed away in the horizon, I faced against the second monster horde of the week, preparing to cut through even as I grabbed a disposable sword, my heartbeat quickening. I was about to delve into the belly of the beast, ready to meet the challenge.

However, it wasn’t going to be as easy, because the area-effect spells that I used to handle the previous horde were not available for me. While Iomene and the rest of the group had been dashing away, they weren’t far enough to miss a number of explosive fire spells illuminating the night sky. No, I had only one flashy option to use, and that was triggering the wards as an explosive, which would destroy the air gem unless I extract it from the mutated monster.

And even then, I was facing a time constraint, because Iomene and others would be expecting an explosion. Meaning, I had a couple of minutes at most to slip inside the monster horde, slay the mutated monster, and get away to trigger the explosion, getting rid of the rest of the horde in the process. I had to rely on my melee skill to achieve it, I realized even as I squeezed my dagger tightly, preparing to dash forward.

It wasn’t greed that motivated me to take the riskiest approach possible —well, not only greed. I wanted to test my melee skill to the limit while also developing some experience in the process. I wanted to test the true limits of my melee skill, which I had been neglecting due to my recent focus on magical abilities. It hadn’t been the worst of ideas as I had been discovering a new magical ability every single day, but with my leveling stalling —hopefully only a temporary setback— I needed to make sure I was using every single skill to their utmost limit.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that charging toward thousands of monsters, armed with only a knife —albeit a custom-designed magical one— didn’t look like a glorious suicide.

Rather than using arcana to sharpen the knife, this time, I decided to use the elemental mana, air in particular, using it to extend the cutting edge of my daggers. Running at full speed, I burst into a crowded mess of low-class monsters, only for them to turn into a neatly-sliced meat pile before they could react.

I was about to rush forward when I felt a shift in the wind, my reflexes allowing me to dodge the attack of a diving dire falcon before I could even process its presence. “Not bad,” I murmured as I analyzed my own reaction, trying to understand the reason. Yes, I had strong senses, but for some reason, it felt different.

I realized the reason after I dodged a few more assaults in the same manner. It was the airflow. To use air elemental on my daggers, I was constantly circulating the same type of mana in my body, and it seemed that it was granting me an instinctual connection with the airflow around me. It was such a nice surprise, as on the books I had never read something close to that, though, on second thought, it shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, how many elemental mages there were strong enough to connect with their surroundings in such an instinctual manner, yet had the physical capabilities and reflexes to leverage such a minuscule input.

“Come on, you bastards,” I murmured even as I dashed forward with a renewed enthusiasm, each slash taking the life of multiple creatures, leaving a deadly trail of blood behind. I received a wound here and there, but time was more important than staying untouched, and luckily, I had HP to spare.

[-196 HP]

I could feel the small nuggets of energy splitting from their presence, floating to nothingness as they failed to find purchase in my connection. What a waste, I thought before a wild thought entered my mind. I had a permanent connection with the girls, and maybe, I could use the connection as a conduit to transfer experience. It wasn’t particularly critical for Helga, as I could still use my own mana to boost her further, but Cornelia was about to hit the transfer limit.

I pulled my mana, once again guiding these nuggets of energy like I had done earlier, while hunting with Cornelia, but this time, pushing them through our connection rather than shoving them in her soul space.

“Perfect,” I murmured as I saw Cornelia’s experience counter stirring as I pushed the transfer. It wasn’t a perfect transfer. I could feel the nuggets losing a significant amount of power as they traveled through the connection, but it was significantly better than wasting all those kills —particularly so since I lacked the time to properly harvest anything.

With that done, I turned my attention toward the horde, dashing forward. However, as I moved deeper, facing against stronger monsters, I was glad that a monster horde was nothing more than a mindless crowd held together by hunger and madness, rather than a coherent strategic unit, because even with all my abilities, I wouldn’t have liked my chances if they were trying to anticipate my moves or surround me like the wild monsters usually did, their animal cunning enough to create a very dangerous threat.

I cut and sliced, driving toward the center of the horde, falling into a weird monotony as I did so in seconds, following the instincts provided by my melee skill. My body moved almost automatically at first, while I carefully observed the reactions of my own body, trying to learn from my own movements no matter how paradoxical and weird it felt.

As I moved forward, the sound of my own slices, the sprays of blood, cries of monsters all mixed together, creating a confusing blanket that prevented me from using sound as a source of alert despite my perception. Luckily, I had my new trick with elemental magic to help me cut through the mess.

I moved forward, like the calm center of the storm, displaying perfect control in a radius of two yards centered around me, killing any monster that dared to step in that distance with a calculated slash. With every blow, I could feel my movements getting noticeably smoother, something that was only possible through a combination of my agility and intelligence, creating a dangerous learning curve. In a minute filled with murder and danger, I could feel learning enough to surpass months of effort from the others.

The deeper I pushed, the faster I started to move, turning into a scythe of death despite having the form of a simple dagger. Identifying the location of the leading monster wasn’t too difficult, as the closer to the center, the more rabid the monsters become.

Even with my increasing skills, getting closer was not without its cost. I had to buy every step with gallons of blood, mostly belonging to monsters, though occasionally my own joined the crimson carpet that covered the ground. It had been barely a minute, but I was starting to feel like I had been fighting for an hour.

[-329 HP]

Then I finally found what I had been looking for in the form of a giant Elephant, one that looked remarkably like a normal one supposed to look like, though the way ground cracked under its feet with every stomp suggested otherwise —or its bloodshot eyes shimmering with power, but for reason, mini earthquakes were slightly more attention-grabbing.

I had prepared to rush toward it, only to barely realize my mistake before it was too late. The elephant rushed toward me with a surprising speed, reminding me that an air gem had been used to drive it crazy, and the constant flow of natured elemental mana had managed to transform its nature correctly.

I managed to throw myself away as it charged without touching me, but even the wind it created was enough to throw me away, not unlike a hurricane, killing a huge chunk of its own monsters in the process. Still, despite the incredible friendly fire it just caused, I had to respect the one who had selected that elephant as the target creature. Clearly, it was something around class eleven or twelve even before the transformation, and air gem not only increased that power several times, but also its elemental nature had turned the creature’s biggest weakness —its speed— into its greatest weapon.

Adding its surprise nature, I wouldn’t be surprised if it could break down the walls of the town before a proper response could have been mounted.

A dagger might be the worst weapon to actually challenge such a creature, bulky yet strong at the same time. Meaning, it was the perfect way to push my skills to the limit.

I decided to confront the monster directly, rushing toward it just as it managed to turn, swinging its trunk like a bludgeoning weapon, as quick as a storm. It wasn’t the only one that could use the power of the air, however, as I managed to dodge at the last moment, swinging my dagger to cut through the devastating wind it created, protecting me while the attack killed many monsters behind me.

“Too slow, big boy,” I said mockingly as I closed in the rest of the distance, and swung my dagger three times before it could attack again, turning its trunk into a useless, bleeding mess. It might be strong for a monster, but it was nothing against me.

The monster might have been maddened, but it maintained enough presence of mind to realize its most versatile weapon had been disabled, and tried to ram me with its tusks. It was just as quick as the previous assault, but this time, I was expecting its crazed rush. I waited until the last moment before jumping backward, using its momentum to cling into its body, and stabbing its head.

A crazed monster’s bone strength was near-unbreakable, but the former part of that statement was more relevant when its supposed untouchable was being challenged by a magical dagger with almost forty points of strength behind to support its assault. For all its thickness, neither its skin nor its bones prevented my dagger from slicing them like a hot knife through butter, allowing me to slide my hand and pull the gem.

After that, a point-blank spell delivered inside its skull destroyed its life utterly, leaving the rest of the monsters to roar in confusion.

I used that confusion to create an air elemental and beat a hasty retreat, though received a couple of wounds from confused monsters as I concentrated to create the elemental. Despite my increasing practice, creating such a complicated construct still took several seconds.

[-2142 Mana]

[-132 HP]

triggering the explosion of the wards the moment I was out of the confines. The explosion was spectacular, destroying most of the creatures in one attempt, while I strained to transfer all that experience to Cornelia, with rather spectacular results. Despite the huge loss during transfer, Cornelia still gained a level, and completing most of the transfer for the next one.

[Cornelia - Level 21/25 - 92%]

Pity I didn’t have time to get my reward. Even more annoying, I saw in my vision the familiar flickers of the light show that happened just before achievement, but it faded away before it was completed, indicating the lack of power.

“Fuck,” I murmured, annoyed by losing the benefits of another achievement. After losing all the riches such a big horde represented, losing the potential benefits of another achievement was rather annoying. I cursed loudly as I turned my attention toward the gem, trying to assess the chaotic spell that they had used to trigger the monster horde, but like before, it dispersed before I could get a decent read of the spell.

Maybe I should try to capture the next one alive, I thought, ignoring the inherent craziness of my thoughts, mad enough for other people to lock me up. But ultimately, the only difference between madness and genius was a success, and I had enough power to attain success under the worst of circumstances.

I sighed as I dismissed that particular track for the moment, and even if I could capture such a specimen live, I lacked a place to keep it.

I directed my mount toward Silver Spires at full speed, to have another strategy talk with my favorite librarian…

And maybe to spend some quality time if the opportunity allowed…

[Level: 30 Experience: 447193 / 465000

Strength: 41 Charisma: 53

Precision: 35 Perception: 37

Agility: 35 Manipulation: 40

Speed: 34 Intelligence: 44

Endurance: 34 Wisdom: 46

HP: 4912 / 5370 Mana: 4201 / 6600 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [97/100]

Master Arcana [95/100]

Expert Speech [70/75]

Advanced Craft [50/50]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 21/25]

[Helga - Level 17/21]