Chapter 133: Being The Heroes Shadow After Class Upgrading

POV Eliza

I used my credentials to increase my Magic Theory and Clear Mind skills to advanced with one of the palace wizards. Then I used the rest of the day to learn some new air spells. One of them was a spell to create a sphere of silence around you. The disadvantage of the spell was that you couldn't hear anything yourself, but I had other senses to compensate for that. It would serve me well in the future.

Then the next night came and I finally completed my class upgrade. I meditated in the shrine of Luna. I lit scented herbs and fragrant oils. Then I wrapped myself in a warm blanket and went into meditation.

After I had calmed my mind and entered a state of trance, a selection of my skills appeared before my mind's eye for me to choose. First I had to determine the two that were particularly crucial for the new class. Depending on which one I chose, a different class appeared. I just had to think about whether I wanted to confirm them.

But before I did that, I tested different combinations. To my surprise, I couldn't find a combination that would allow me to use the spy. Did I need a different skill for that? Only when I selected Concealment as the last possible skill was the spy displayed. But since I already had Concealment on master because of an ability, I discarded this option. I wanted to choose a combination in which I could use all 8 skills to my advantage and also increase them further.

That's why I tested other combinations that were mainly combat-oriented. The first interesting combination was Swiftblade, a class based on daggers and air magic. Interesting and definitely on the shortlist. Then I switched from air magic to dark magic and the class changed to assassin. That also sounded interesting, but was out of the question. The name Assassin had a clearly negative connotation and I wanted something more positive sounding. So I switched back to Air Magic and thus Swiftblade and only chose Dark Magic as an additional skill.

I also chose the other skills that I had previously thought of: Evasion, Stealth, Body Development, Dark Magic and Magic Control. For the last skill, I wavered between Disarm Traps and Pick Locks. In the end I opted for Disarm Traps, as it could have the most potentially dangerous effects. I couldn't choose Shadow Magic, probably because I had to have improved Dark Magic first. I just had to wait until I could improve the Acolyte.

With this combination, the new class was still called Swiftblade. I didn't really care what my class was called as long as the name wasn't negative and I could increase skills that I considered important. And it didn't sound too negative. But in terms of the class bonus, I couldn't imagine Swiftblade bringing anything bad to the table. I confirmed the new Swiftblade class in my mind and felt a change in me. I noticed a new energy forming in my body and being absorbed by me. I felt new powers awaken within me.

I applied Appraisal directly to myself. The 10 development points had already been deducted. The biggest difference was my HP, SP and MP. They had noticeably increased. The new class bonus was also very useful. All my attacks with melee weapons received a bonus to speed, which was very useful.

I stood up and stretched for a while. The ritual had taken several hours and my muscles had become stiff. All the herbs had long since gone out and there was a slightly burnt smell in the air.

Afterwards, I planned my next steps. I wanted to go to the darkness dungeon next. I wanted to test out my new skills and go deeper into the dungeon than before. I bought some food and said goodbye to Master Freyna and the rest. Tamina in particular seemed very unhappy again, but I had already set my mind on my next destination. So I traveled to the dungeon without much of a wait.

Once there, I circled the camp again and approached from the south. There I observed that shortly after me the heroes entered the camp in a larger group. What were they doing here? That's right, they had run off like sore losers after our last encounter and left the town immediately. And now they wanted to take their frustration out on the undead? Better than against innocent non-humans. I wonder how far they got in the dungeon and whether they were finally showing off their strength with light magic. I followed on their heels and saw what opportunities presented themselves. They were certainly not planning to leave until the next morning.

I rested until just before dawn and entered the dungeon unseen before the heroes. I couldn't wait at the start of the dungeon as I teleported directly to floor 11. I could only hope that the heroes would also start on floor 11, otherwise I would wait in vain.

In the meantime, I didn't feel like waiting, but I couldn't fight the undead either. If the heroes showed up here and found defeated monsters, they would surely be skeptical and suspicious. So I had no choice but to wait. Fortunately, the heroes entered the dungeon only a short time after me and appeared on floor 11. I lurked in the shadows next to the portal for the heroes. When I sensed a group of people approaching, including familiar auras, I spoke Shadow Movement and waited. I reminded myself that I could still be hit by spells in the shadows, but not by physical attacks. I had to be careful, especially with Light Magic.

As the heroes walked past me, I moved into Eleonore's shadow. She was the one who moved the least of the four, and she was also the least likely to accidentally hit me with her light spells. Since I wasn't undead, all the anti-undead spells didn't work on me. There were many stories about vampires on Earth and most of them were undead.

Unnoticed, I cast a small support spell on Eleonore and was considered part of the group. This gave me a share of the EXP, which I was able to confirm immediately after the first battle. My share was just as big as that of the other four. I then asked myself whether I would also get the rewards if the heroes won a boss fight? If that was true, it had been worth being here today several times over.

I quickly realized another disadvantage of Shadow Movement. I could see reasonably well, but could hear almost nothing and feel nothing at all. So I couldn't hear what the heroes were talking about. I could only follow them in silence. It was quite a lonely and boring time. But the benefits were too good not to take advantage of them.

Thanks to my once again significantly increased MP after the class upgrade, I was able to repeat the Shadow Movement spell for a long time. I just had to make sure that I didn't cast anything else apart from a regular suppport spell in order to still be considered part of the group. In between, I used Mana Steal to drain some mana from Eleonore so that I didn't run the risk of running out of MP. I had a good use for her mana.

Things got tricky at night, as the heroes actually spent the night in the dungeon. As soon as it became clear that they were setting up camp, although camp was an exaggeration, I retreated. With their skills, they could barely heat water with fire magic and sleep on the floor. Laughable. I looked for a safe place out of their sensory range and rested only long enough to wake up before they did. I just couldn't miss their onward journey.

I followed them in the shadows for two more days and took part in their battles. They were very effective and made good use of their opportunities. They even had soldiers with them who collected all the mana cores. I thought it would be disgusting to cut them out of the rotting zombies. Fortunately, my sense of smell was weaker as long as I was in the shadows.

When things got tight or in the boss fights, Eleonore used the Purify Undead spell. As it turned out, these fights only gave reduced EXP. That's why they usually fought regularly, because only then did they get the full EXP. With this tactic, they only needed a few days to get to floor 21. And me with them.

After each boss fight, I stayed behind in the boss room and used the stele to return to them afterwards. There were no more skills that I wanted to improve to advanced, but the development points were too important not to pick them up. I ignored the chest. Who knew if they wouldn't come back and have a look anyway. Then the open chest would be noticed.

When I left the fourth boss room, I had lost the heroes' auras. A portal had appeared next to the exit to get back to the surface. I assumed that they had gone back to their camp. As I didn't want to appear in their midst, I didn't use the portal. Too bad, then I could have opened the chest myself. Unfortunately, the entire contents of the room had disappeared behind me when I left it. Instead, I went down to floor 21.

I was itching to fight myself, especially as I was currently in my dark elf form. The last few days I had only been able to watch passively as others fought. I had to change that. I prepared myself mentally for the next few days, as from now on I would have to fight in the dark again and had to rely on my other senses.

I went to floor 21 and found much better equipped skeletons. They also seemed to have basic classes like the archers and melee fighters I was already familiar with. Skeletons as enemies were still annoying, so I spoke Shadow Movement again and simply ran through all the corridors to floor 23 unscathed.

The zombies after that were not divided by class, but by secondary effects. There were water corpses that reeked strongly, swamp corpses that emitted poisonous gases when they hit themselves and stronger zombies that carried out a paralysis attack when touched. Fortunately, thanks to my paralysis and poison resistance, I hardly suffered any disadvantages and only the stinkers were a significant hindrance. Thanks to them, I developed a new tactic in which I held my breath before an attack series and only then attacked. I made more use of the air cutter, as I used it to attack from a distance.

The difference between floor 23 and 24 zombies was that they were more robust and had stronger secondary effects. It was only on floor 24 that the paralysis attacks also had an effect on me, albeit only for a short time. The poison hardly did any harm either and I was able to sit it out. As I had trained diligently with the self-poisoning ring, my poison resistance was quite high. But after the first effective paralysis, I took special care to only encounter this type of zombie one at a time or to fight them last. As they were very slow, I was able to deal with them.

Like the skeletons, the wights now had classes. In addition to warriors and archers, I encountered scouts. There were also occasional traps hidden on this floor, which slowed my progress. On the other hand, I was able to train my senses very well here. Targeted attacks against the undead were difficult throughout the dungeon, as I was fighting without sight and had to rely on my other senses. However, it didn't take much for me to improve the first sense to expert. I had to thank Luna that I had the ability, which allowed me to improve my senses at any time without having to see an instructor.

I spent a total of three days on floors 23 and 24 until I turned my attention to the boss room. My next goal after that was to reach the ghosts on floor 26 and to do that I had to defeat the fifth boss.