Chương 34: Where to Stop Next

Freed, for now, from the unrelenting need to delve ever deeper into the Oldest Complex, WARHOL spent some time in an excursion he should've done days ago, if not earlier. That excursion? Finding where next to train his son. Lance would be done with Murder Island any day now. Sooner, in all likelihood. Which meant, what would be the nest best place for Lance to flex and better himself? Options were almost endless as there was no shortage of dangerous places for upstart young bucks to tackle.

Did he want to throw his son into the deep end? Or proceed with caution and slowly advance his profile? Each approach had its pros and cons; the deep end meant he could level up super-fast, thus freeing him up to do other things, yet, the shallow end of his metaphor had its benefits, namely, in teaching his son to build a well-rounded stat profile. Warhol knew what he wanted for his son before he sat down to contemplate. In addition to a master of magics, he was also a master in wasting time.

"The middle-end," he mused to himself, drinking some lemon-hemp tea. He had outlined on a map within his mental palace a string of locations, each one an arena to test the mettle of anyone who dared enter.

'The Desert of Screams,' 'Dragon Kill Ridge,' and every hunter's favorite place, the 'Marshes of Eternal Waste.' Each area would test Lance in ways Murder Island just couldn't push them. He would need to be by his son's side, of course, as the threats in those places would prove challenging for all but the very best of Champions. Despite the challenge, he knew his son would overcome. He would surmount every challenge in his way and grow beyond his teenage limits. And he couldn't be prouder.

His [Detection: Progress: Murder Island] skill series went off, something he had implanted within both his son and the bandit king before he left the island. The skill beeped like an annoying children's toy.

"Already?!" he had a hard time believing it, but System Skills never lied — Lance had already cleared the island of all threats — incredible! With a whiff and a wave, Warhol snapped his fingers and dispelled his mental palace. He opened his eyes and [Teleported] back to Murder Island, specifically, the 'castle' fort he knew Warhol would be at upon his skill's activation.

As predicted, his son stood over the corpse of the bandit king, transformed into his abominable form; unexpectedly, a small horde of bandits and a Slime King monster surrounded his son, all cheering in drunken revelry at their victory.

"Something strange has happened," he muttered to himself but smiled.

"Lance? Care to tell your dear old dad what has happened?" he called out. His son, mead in hand, rushed over to hug him and began to tell the story of how he encountered a King Sime in the tunnel, converted it to his cause, and how it helped him dispose of the bandit king's army before the final castle assault. It was quite the story!

"I got to say, son, holy monsters are rare to even read about, let alone see... I've probably only seen a small handful of the creatures myself in all the long years I've lived on this planet." Warhol scratched his chin. He had a million more questions to ask but he relented on them for another time.

"Well! Shall we go?" This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"Not yet!" Lance said.

"I still have a couple more Accomplishments to unlock before I finish the suite!"

"Oh? An Accomplishment suite. That is good! Can you see what the Accomplishments are? I can't remember if you can see them from the get-go or if you need a passive boon. It's been so long."

"I can't see them, unfortunately..."

"Ah, no matter, then. I think I know which are locked still. If you live as long as I do, the System becomes a little predictable in how it assigns Accomplishments, especially in a suite. Tell me, have you claimed and-or purified the island's leyline, yet?" The look his son gave him told him 'No, they hadn't purified the leyline.'

"Okay. Follow me." Warhol found the leyline station easy enough with his [Locate: Leyline] incantation. That and the fact that most leyline stations were underground. That or high in the sky. One of the two. As he predicted, the Murder Island leyline station was deep in the basement's basement of the fort. Those few bandits who remained in the basement threw down their arms at seeing a blood covered Lance and the Omni-Wizard himself, which was nice for his son as it made for him several more converts.

He didn't know if converts would earn him extra credit at the academy, but he figured it would. After this week's actions, Lance should be a straight-A student, at the minimum!

"Here it is," he told Lance, in a small cave off to the side of the deepest part of the basement, which was, itself, in a larger cave system.

"I doubt someone like that 'bandit king' knew the importance of this place. Probably just thought it was a shiny rock, if he even knew of its existence. But this is a leyline station. It is a space where the planet's natural magical energies are concentrated. Ignorant though they might be of such places, those influenced by the eviler powers of the universe are drawn to such places unconsciously.

Then, when they inevitably set up shop, their presence and their wickedness, corrupts the station, preventing the station from performing as intended by the Gods. This is usually why you'll see Accomplishment Suites in places touched by corruption, because the God wishes for the place to be cleansed." Lance took in his words with the careful demeanor of a top-ranked student.

"I understand. So, how do we purify it?"

"Without a source of malign influence, the station will naturally purify itself. However, that will take a long time, so let's speed it up." Warhol held out his hands.

"Simply touching any place with corrupted energies, easily identifiable from these black streaks you see, here, and then imbuing it with mana will be enough to cleanse it of said corruption, but there are specialized skills involved in doing so which make doing so unwieldy. Those skills require purchase from the Holy Shop on top of practice. For the time being, if you should encounter another leyline station, just shoot me a message and I will come down to purify it."

Warhol channeled a burst of [Purify] after incanting [Locate: Corruption] and erased every hint of corruption inside the station in a flash of light.

"Do you feel how much lighter this place is without the corruption? There, I have left one last bit of corruption for you to cleanse. Imbue that area with mana to earn your Accomplishment." It took him only a moment to do so and earn their Accomplishment.

"It unlocked? Good!" he remarked.

"Next is probably an Accomplishment to do with territory ownership. The System likes to know who controls what, especially if that 'what' involves a leyline station. That leads us to my next question, son, have you ever thought of owning your own island?"