Chương 54: Escape (3)

As he forced his battered body to run deeper into the tunnel, Rowan couldn't help but smile. He'd done it. He'd killed the broodmother and so many others, and now, he was escaping. He continued running until his body simply couldn't keep up for any longer. Then, he slowed down to a walk. His body cried in pain, but even the burning sensation in his side couldn't drown out his elation. At that moment, he received a notification.

[You have slain Fungal Bloodspawn - Level 6] Tilting his head in confusion, Rowan tried to figure out what was happening. [You have slain Fungal Bloodspawn - Level 6] His eyes widened. Another one? What was happening? Had the System broken? Was he just going to be getting free kills? [You have slain Fungal Bloodspawn - Level 6] He waited a while longer to see if he was really going to be getting free kills, but after no more notifications appeared, he began brainstorming once more.

It didn't take him long to figure out what had happened, though. He wasn't entirely sure how it worked, but he knew that if he helped to take down an enemy, he would get a notification for the kill. That was what happened just now. When the three bloodspawn who had attempted to stop him just earlier, he hadn't actually bothered to kill them, just beating them up before throwing them into the middle of the battle. It seemed that they'd finally met their hands at the hands of the ants.

Still, even though he had figured out what had happened, he didn't know how it worked. Would he make as much progress towards the next level as he usually would? Probably not. But what percentage would he get? Was it split evenly between all of the contributors, or was it based on how much damage he did? How would the System even calculate that? Rowan shook his head. He didn't know the answer, and no amount of speculation would reveal it to him.

But just as he began to take his mind off the subject, he stopped, an idea springing into his mind. With a thought, he looked back, searching for any notifications he may have missed. Other than a few times back when he'd first arrived in the tutorial, he hadn't used the feature much, but the System allowed him to go back and see any notifications that he hadn't seen, whether that be because he was too concentrated on a fight or, in this case, because he'd been unconscious.

Sure enough, there was a single notification waiting for him. [You have slain Fungal Bloodspawn - Level 11] When he'd been fighting the broodmother, the first bloodspawn to come to her aid—other than the three-headed hound and the guards who had already been stationed around her—had been a level 11 brute. He'd done some serious damage and then bound it with his chains, but never had a chance to kill it. Still, it seemed that just like so many of its kind, the creature had fallen to the forces of the ants.

He wished he could've finished it off, as getting full credit would've helped his progress quite nicely, but it was too late now. With a sigh, he reached down to his waist, looking to take a swig of water. But his belt was unadorned, with no waterskins in sight. It seemed that all of his rations had been washed away in the stream he'd been thrown into. Still, it didn't matter. He smiled, and with a thought, brought up his quest.

Quest: Defeat 40 Enemies (40/40, Complete) Rewards: Rations 30 System Credits It had been completed for a while, but he'd just never had an opportunity to claim it. It was frustrating how none of his many recent kills had been counted towards the quest, but if he'd claimed his rewards earlier, they would've gone to waste, most likely being destroyed in his fight with the broodmother. With a thought, he finished the quest, collecting his rations.

Reaching his hand out, he instantly grabbed one of the waterskins that appeared before him. Not wasting a second, he removed the cap and brought it to his lips, savoring the sweet feeling of water on his tongue. As he drank, he realized how ironic it was that he'd spent weeks upon weeks chasing after the underground river. And even though he found it in the end, he never ended up drinking from it. Stolen novel; please report. When he finally put the waterskin down, it was a third lighter.

Hopefully, there would be some sources of clean water on the surface. Then, finally, he looked at the quest he'd received. Quest: Defeat 50 Enemies (0/50) Rewards: Rations 35 System Credits Common Weapon He looked over the quest for a few seconds. For a moment, he thought it was just like every iteration of the quest that he'd had before this, only requiring more enemies to be defeated. Then, he reached the bottom of the notification.

'Common Weapon,' it said. What did that mean? A weapon that could be found everywhere? Or some kind of videogame-esque rarity system? Rowan wasn't quite sure which one it was, but he was leaning towards the latter, both because it fit the theme of the System thus far and also because of another quest he'd received, this one all the way back at the beginning of the Tutorial. Layer Quest: Defeat the Guardian of the Forest or Defeat the Leviathan Rewards: Rations 2 Pieces of Rare Gear 1000 Credits???

Access to the Second Layer Part of his Layer Quest's reward was 2 pieces of 'rare gear.' Of course, he could never be certain, but it did make him more confident in his theory that 'common' was just the rarity of the item. Just as he was about to continue thinking, he was drawn out of his musings by a stabbing pain in his side as his arm accidentally brushed where the bloodspawn had struck his side.

Shaking his head, Rowan forced himself to focus on the only thing that was actually important in the moment: his wounds. Still walking, he inspected the claw marks on his torso. As he saw it, he recoiled involuntarily, trying and failing to get away from the injury. After a few seconds, he took a deep breath and refocused. Even though he was prepared, he still cringed a little at the sight. He could see the white of his ribs through the wound.

It made sense, since he'd always been a relatively skinny guy, meaning that his ribs would be close to the surface. But still, it just… he tore his eyes away from it, not wanting to look at it for any longer. The injury was still festering slightly, though it seemed to have mostly died down. Hopefully, it would be done soon. He'd been worried that the rot might've reached past his ribcage and into his heart and lungs, but it seemed he'd been overreacting, if only slightly.

Still, with how bad the wound already was, he had no regrets about putting his free point into vitality. As he continued walking, he checked on his other quest. Class Quest Received: Defeat 10 Enemies Above Your Level (3/10) Rewards: Skill: Harden That was… slightly disappointing. [Harden] was still a long way off. But it had still jumped up from 1/10 to 3/10. It could've been more, but Rowan kept leveling up, making it so that many of his kills that would've counted just a day ago were now invalid.

He knew that it was a good thing that he was leveling up, but that didn't make it any less frustrating. If he'd still been level 10, he thought he might've already been halfway or more to getting the new skill. He kept walking until, eventually, he came upon the spot where he'd saved Cynthia and the others from the bloodspawn. There were dozens of bodies, although most of them were down the side tunnel where he'd drawn the creatures away from the party.

Not long before, he would've thought such a scene was impressive, but after seeing the battle between the bloodspawn and ants, this was nothing. Even if he added all of the bodies here to the site of the conflict, he doubted he would even notice the difference. There were just that many corpses already strewn about. With a breath, he continued moving through the bodies. He wasn't sure exactly how far the surface was from where he was, but it couldn't be too far.

Smiling at the mere thought of escaping the caves, Rowan continued moving, only growing more and more excited as the tunnel he was in continued to slope upward. Still, no matter how excited he was, he couldn't let the time go to waste. Within him, he was cycling compressed mana once more. Admittedly, it was barely anything compared to what he usually had, but he'd expended all of his mana already.

And while his rate of regeneration was quite high—at least, that was what he thought—it would still need some time before he had an amount he was comfortable with. He continued moving up the tunnel, but nothing was really changing. So, still watching the mana within him, he began to think about something that'd been on his mind for quite a while: the semi-stable compressed mana. Since he'd figured out how to make it, he'd been using it as something like a grenade, nothing else.

But he knew that wasn't all it could do. It had come from the presence's mana control, and while he admitted that what he'd created was a mere shadow of that, it had still captured enough aspects that being a timed explosive was certainly not the limit of what it could do. Starting simple, he thought about speeding up the rate of explosion. It would still be a grenade, but he would be able to choose when it would go off.

He could already somewhat do this by putting the unstable orbs into a stasis, keeping the countdown from continuing until he was ready, but that wasn't what he wanted. When he did that, he had to wait for it to naturally deteriorate. But what if he could do so artificially? It was all theoretical, since he didn't have enough mana to test it out, but Rowan still had many, many ideas on how he could do that.

He began to think about his other, more ambitious ideas for the mana, dreaming of all the things he might be able to create. What if he could make it fully stable? That was what the being had done. He just lacked some of the concepts, and while he didn't intend to let it take his body over again, he thought he might be able to figure it out on his own. What he would do with fully stable mana? He didn't know. Still, he was sure it would have its uses.

But his thoughts were brought to a halt as, in the distance, Rowan saw the most beautiful thing that had ever blessed his eyes: sunlight.