Chapter 126: After The Duel

POV Eliza

I moved away from the heroes and recapped the previous duel. I knew that I was much stronger than the heroes simply because of the level difference due to my second class. Moreover, a difference of 6 levels alone meant that I had more than 50% more EXP. Nevertheless, the duel was very disappointing. I had hoped that my desire to fight would be satisfied a little, but Ansgar was ridiculously weak. I knew beforehand that I had a clear advantage against a slow fighter who only went for Strength, but this? And I hadn't even used magic apart from against Cornelius.

Before the fight, I was able to use appraisal on them for the first time and was shocked. They were only 40 level, why were they so weak? Hadn't they been training and just partying? They had the hero title just like me and earned twice the EXP from battles. Why was my EXP almost twice as high as theirs and in both classes? I still had the bonus from my ability Fast Lerner, but there were four of them and it should be much easier to get through the dungeons.

After some thought, I discovered possible reasons why this was the case. I had earned most of my EXP solo, while they were in a party of four. So they had to split their EXP. But still, if they had tried harder, they could have been stronger, no, they should have been. We were bitter enemies, but I still expected more. Unfortunately, it was no longer so surprising that I was much further ahead than the heroes. At their level, it was even questionable whether they were ready to improve their class. I myself had been putting it off for too long and had to tackle the issue myself.

I didn't worry about the fight itself afterwards. I was just glad that I was able to finish it so quickly. Fortunately, there was a poisoned dagger lying around at our battle site that had been left lying around during the fight against the goblins. With one small hit, I was able to poison Ansgar. Eleonore was a priestess, so she could certainly save him. Cornelius surprised me, though. My little spell to increase his emotions was extremely effective. There was a lot of pent-up anger in him. Without his emotional outburst, I might not have won so easily. At the end, I gave them a few parting words and quickly left the scene.

I left the floor through the portal to the next floor down. Hopefully the heroes wouldn't follow me here and I would have my peace again. However, the last few days had taught me that I should be strong enough to go deeper into the dungeon. This also reduced the chance of encountering the idiots again.

I also avoided all the vines as much as possible. They were also significantly stronger than their predecessors 10 floors higher. Their attacks could now also be carried out from ambush. Surprise attacks were very likely thanks to vines that suddenly emerged from the ground. But I could use Sense Life and Sense Presence to detect when tendrils were lying in wait on the ground. This allowed me to avoid them and avoid unnecessary fights. I wanted to get to the next boss as quickly as possible.

In the boss room, I encountered a goblin boss. First, I used Air Magic to deal with the slimes. Then I threw myself into close combat. As usual, I cast Haste on myself. I felt superior to the monsters here, but took a few short breaks every now and then to catch my breath and regenerate a few HP. The goblin boss was an unexpectedly tough nut to crack. It belonged to the Hobgoblins and was armed with a large sword and metal armor. Nevertheless, he was too slow. I only had to dodge long enough, but eventually I managed to cut his hamstrings. After that, he was quickly defeated. I had already fought the rest beforehand so that I could devote myself to the boss in comfort.

The reward in the chest was a ring, a scroll of identification and some small stuff. I had to upgrade both Pick Lock and Disarm Trap to Tier 10 to open the chest. Unfortunately, I couldn't upgrade them to expert despite my unique ability. This reminded me again that I urgently needed to improve my class.

I used the scroll directly to analyze the ring. I had to concentrate well and remember what my magic teacher had taught me. The scroll had to be picked up and actively activated with a kind of spell. The target then had to be aimed at. If the scroll turned to dust, the activation was successful. After the scroll had turned to dust, I knew that the ring was cursed. It had a curse on it, which constantly poisoned the wearer with the status effect poisoned medium. Very interesting, I put it on directly. Even with my Poison Resistance on advanced, I still got the medium poisoned status effect. It was therefore at the top end of the poison range. My regeneration on advanced tier 2 was also not enough to heal all damage instantly. So I wasn't allowed to wear it for too long and only outside of battles. Nevertheless, it was a perfect way to passively train my resistance.

I thought long and hard about what to choose for the stele. According to Lirella, it should be possible to increase a skill to expert with this stele. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that. I could also increase a skill to advanced instead, but that would be a waste. So I chose nothing.

I then returned to a floor that was disliked by many adventurers. The reason wasn't just the butterflies, which could now cast paralysis as well as confusion. The needles they could shoot could also cause paralysis. The caterpillars had also become much more dangerous because the acid attack could now be fired at their target from a distance. The range was about 3 meters, so I had little interest in fighting them. I ran past the caterpillars in search of the portal down. I made it through just fine and only had a few holes in my coat afterwards.

The next three floors were much more to my liking, almost all melee fighters. The wolves could now do elemental spells, which they used to charge their fur. When they attacked, they transferred these spells to their victim. At the same time, opponents naturally also suffered damage from their melee attacks. They could coat their fur with ice, stone needles, thorns or electricity. They were serious opponents, so I had to use all my prowess to defeat them. I raised both Dagger and Evade to tier 10 with the EXP I had saved up. Fortunately, I hadn't assigned many of them yet. It still took me two days plus an overnight stay to defeat a large number of them.

Then came the next orcs. Like the goblins, they now had classes. They were also an evolution, called High Orcs. They were around 3 meters tall and very sturdily built. They were now also melee fighters, scouts or archers. Fighting them was very satisfying, as they were fortunately grateful opponents for my fighting style. They mostly relied on their strength and very rarely used traps or poisons. They didn't use magic at all. Hitting the melee fighters was painful and dodging arrows was difficult, but not impossible. It also took me two days to complete this floor.

After that, I had to return to the city. My food was running out, but I didn't want to go back now that I had come this far. I looked at the dead orcs and wondered what I could do. Then I remembered something Luna had said, that I could also feed on blood. But I only had orc blood here. The thought made my stomach turn. Looking through my skills, my eyes fell on Life Steal and Mana Steal. I remember Luna saying something about it, so I gave it a try. With Life Steal on basic and tier 0, I hardly noticed any effect in principle, as I could only absorb a minimum of HP. Unfortunately, this didn't work on dead orcs as they had no HP left. And since they had no MP either, the Mana Steal skill was of no use to me. So I really had to go back to the city if I didn't want to drink the blood of orcs that were still alive. Something I never wanted to do.

On my return, I went to the next floor. I was unpleasantly surprised by the bears for the first time in a long time. The bears were giants ranging in size from 5 to 8 meters and had very sharp claws and fangs. They were covered in very thick fur, which gave them a high level of natural armor protection. I had become careless and one of the bears hit me full on. The force threw me several meters away and I landed loudly against a tree. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs. The bear chased after me and hit me again. My HP dropped rapidly. The bear rammed its claws into my shoulder and lifted me up. I coughed up blood and was only alive thanks to my large HP reserve. The only chance I saw was a spell, as I had already lost my daggers. If the bear had kept hitting me, I would have been dead by now, but this way I still had a chance. The only spell I could think of off the top of my head that was sure to free me from the claws was Shadow Move. Luckily I had both Pain Resistance and the Clear Mind skill, so I managed to concentrate long enough. Even though it was hard, because the pain was enormous.

The bear and I were right next to a tree that was casting a shadow on us. This meant that I was directly inside a shadow. So the shadow hide, the basic spell from the shadow magic, was enough. And faster. I managed to finish the spell and disappeared into the shadows. A quick glance at my status showed me that I was down to less than 5% of my maximum HP. Fortunately, the bear hadn't caused any life-threatening injuries, because my HP was already rising again. But the increase was slow. Apparently a large part of my regeneration went into restoring my body, because I stopped bleeding after a short time.

I took a deep breath and winced at the pain. This encounter showed me that I shouldn't get overconfident and that the bears were still too heavy for me. In any case, I was currently in the shadow and didn't have a weapon, while outside an angry bear was beating the tree. I couldn't see the bear very well from the shadows, but my other senses were working. The Identify Monster skill didn't work, but what spells could I use?

I couldn't use any spells that targeted myself. The Air Cutter didn't work either. I could still test whether I could cast spells on the bear when I touched it. Unfortunately, I had to leave the shadows to do this. That meant I had to prepare myself well. I had to wait until I had regenerated enough HP to feel safe. I also had to choose a spell to escape as safely as possible.

My gaze first fell on the eponymous spell of Dark Magic, darkness. It created a dome of darkness that made it difficult to see by absorbing the surrounding light. Unfortunately, it only affected the sense of sight. All other senses such as smell and hearing remained unaffected. Presumably less helpful against bears. This also rendered the blindness spell useless, which caused a certain creature to go blind for a short time. Unfortunately, because I already knew that I could use Darkness and Shadow spells in the shadows.

Next, I tested the Shadowbind spell. I was able to hold the bear for 10 seconds before it could break free. That wasn't much time, but at least it was something I could do something with. The only question was what other spell I could combine it with to make the most of the time window. My choice fell on Poisoning and Shadowthorns. With poisoning, I had to touch the target and applied the status effect poisoned medium to it. It was originally a basic spell, but the better my knowledge of Dark Magic became, the stronger it became. On advanced, it was the second level and therefore medium.

I didn't have any other effective options. The tactic had to be as follows: I had to bind the bear first. Then I had to leave my shadow hideout so that I could touch the bear to poison it. Then I had to quickly gain distance and hide in a shadow again. Tense, but not impossible. The critical thing with this tactic was whether the bear was poison resistant. If it wasn't going to die from the poison, I had to flee. It was neither heroic nor dignified, but I survived.

I took another deep breath and set to work implementing the plan. First Shadowbind on the bear. When it cried out in rage, I left the shadow and jumped back two steps. Then I cast Poison and ran around the bear just before the end to touch it on the leg from behind. After that, I quickly ran to the next shadow, which was big enough to take me in completely. I managed to get away just in time before the bear could break away and attack me again. All I could do now was wait. Unfortunately, I couldn't wait forever, because in the time I hid in the shadows, I used up MP. I could only hope that it was enough. Fortunately, my second class was a magic one, so I had a lot more MP than before.

After what felt like an eternity, probably less than 10 minutes, the bear collapsed. The poisoning tactic seemed to be working. I briefly calculated how much mana the bear had cost me in total. I could defeat about 10 bears with my MP if everything went well.

I spent a few more hours on this floor. I wanted to gain some more experience fighting the bears. There were only a few adventurers on the floor as competitors. This was probably because there weren't many strong enough to take on the bears in the city. Still, I couldn't fight every bear. I made sure that I only had one bear as an opponent at a time. I also needed a sufficiently large shadow nearby. So it took me longer than expected.

Nevertheless, it was worth the effort. I was able to get a lot of high-quality mana cores that could be turned into good money. I had a lot of spending to do in the near future. After I improved my class, there were many skills that I could improve to expert. That cost a lot of money for instructors. Time to put this plan into action too.