Chapter 151: Greed

The dark silver glow folded inward as Jaxir’s fingers closed around the third reward, revealing a narrow glass vial and a strip of dried bark tied around its neck. The bark seemed to carry symbols on it that were hiding some sort of secret.

Something thick and clear clung to the inside of the vial when he tilted it, moving slowly enough that he immediately thought back to the liquid that had sprayed from the vine creature’s whip and locked his body in place. A screen unfolded before him.

―

Name: Nerve Sap Formula

Grade: Epic

Level: 15

Type: Class Secret

Path: Hex

Description: A Hex need not begin within the body of its victim.

[Infuse natural tree sap with the user’s mana to refine a Neural Toxin.]

[Effective against targets up to 10 Levels above the user.]

[Normal Application: Considerably slows the target for 5-10 seconds. Duration varies according to the target’s Body.]

[Critical Application: If the toxin lands as a Critical Hit or while Fracture is active, the effect may persist for up to 60 seconds.]

―

Jaxir stared at the final line before a laugh escaped him. Compared to Friend of Nature teaching someone to borrow mana from the world and the Treant Seed letting someone grow a companion from scratch, making people move like they had forgotten how their limbs worked felt almost mundane. It was still a poison that could cripple someone ten Levels above him for a full minute under the right conditions, so mundane was probably the wrong word, but it was just...

"Lackluster by comparison, then."

He stored the formula and pulled up the Class Secret section again, finding all three rewards sitting beneath their respective Paths now. Friend of Nature and Treant Seed remained visible but greyed out, while Nerve Sap Formula carried the same silver-blue glow as the rest of his usable Hex abilities. Divinity apparently had no intention of letting him collect every Path’s tricks just because he happened to get his hands on them.

―

Class Secrets

Magic: 3 Discovered

Destruction: Friend of Nature [Unavailable]

Conjure: Treant Seed [Unavailable]

Hex: Nerve Sap Formula

―

Jaxir wasn’t surprised, since Path selection would become fairly meaningless if anyone could simply learn everything afterward. The fact the other two appeared on his Status at all was more interesting, though, since Divinity normally seemed happy to hide anything he had no access to. There might be some roundabout method of using them eventually, but right now he had more important things to work on.

His gaze shifted toward his Abilities, lingering over Entropy, Unravel, Drain and Haunt. His L2 Hexes had once been expensive enough that using them freely would’ve emptied him in no time, but between Attune reaching Level 50 and the Reflection Staff cutting their cost by another fifty percent, they now cost less than his L1 Hexes had when he first started learning those. Considering what his L2 abilities had already done against Level 20 region bosses, Jaxir wanted to know what their effects would be on normal players if he used them more liberally.

He needed all four at Level 30 before his L3 Hexes would open. Drain and Haunt had crept a little ahead at Levels 12 and 13, while Entropy and Unravel still sat at Level 10, which meant there was a lot of work left before he could see what the next branch looked like. If L2 was already this obnoxious to fight against, Jaxir had high expectations for whatever came afterward.

The dungeon exit had appeared near the edge of the island, a pale portal shimmering between two curtains of hanging willow leaves. Jaxir took one step toward it before stopping, then looked at the MP sitting well below his maximum and thought better of walking outside immediately.

His name had just appeared in third place on a public leaderboard after a solo Nightmare clear. Now wasn’t the time to just step out.

"Yeah, no rush."

Jaxir sat cross-legged on the moss and rested the Reflection Staff across his lap. Enough time had already passed while he sifted through the quest and rewards that another few minutes or so at two hundred MP every minute would put him close enough to full that wasting a Grand Mana Potion would be stupid. Besides, anyone waiting outside would only become more impatient the longer he stayed in here.

That thought put a grin on his face.

He closed his eyes.

...

"There’s no fucking way."

The player who had tried to recruit Jaxir earlier stood beneath the leaderboard with his neck craned upward, while the rest of his party stared at the third line in much the same way. They had watched the Level 8 mage jump into Nightmare alone after turning him away from their group, and every one of them had assumed they were watching an idiot commit suicide. Somehow, the idiot had come out with a faster clear than nearly every organized party that had ever entered.

"He didn’t even know the maze." Another member of the group pointed toward the ranking as though the screen itself had personally offended him. "He went in alone, so how the hell did he get through the split section?"

"No idea."

"And he beat the Willow?"

The first man rubbed both palms over his face and stared at Jaxir’s name again.

...

The Golden Fleece members standing farther back weren’t nearly as confused.

Ilyan watched the dungeon entrance while Bex leaned against a dead tree beside him and Orsa kept one eye on the crowd gathering around the leaderboard. Their own team operated almost entirely through the Level 10-to-15 range and currently sat seventh among Golden Fleece’s teams in that bracket, which was good enough to make them dangerous here without being important enough to have the kind of backup Ilyan wanted. The closest support force was still almost two hours away.

"He can come out whenever he wants." Bex glanced toward the black whirlpool marking the entrance. "If we wait for support, we probably lose him."

"I know."

Orsa looked around at the players packing closer together. "Then what exactly are we supposed to do, Ilyan? The reports say he wiped the tutorial branches, killed three village heads, and now he just soloed a Nightmare Dungeon we couldn’t even crack the top ten on."

Ilyan’s mouth curved into a grin.

"We don’t fight him."

Bex pushed away from the tree and followed Ilyan’s gaze across the clearing. There were dozens of players here now, most staring at Jaxir’s name, whispering about the Level 8 lunatic who had just taken third place, and more were arriving by the minute.

Ilyan spread his hands.

"We’re surrounded by greedy idiots."

Orsa’s expression changed first.

"Tell them what he’s carrying," Ilyan continued, his grin widening as he looked back toward the portal. "Not everything, obviously, just enough to make them hungry."

Bex started laughing.

If they could get the crowd to force Jaxir’s hand, Golden Fleece wouldn’t need to beat him themselves. They only needed enough bodies to drain his HP, MP and consumables before stepping in at the right moment. Even splitting the loot afterward would leave them with more money than most players at their Levels had ever touched.

Ilyan stared at the dark surface of the dungeon entrance.

"Just how much money are you wearing, Jaxir Chance?"