Chương 381: Chapter 371 - A Giant Beanstalk

Alonso moved through the maze of leaves and coiling vines wrapped around the giant beanstalk. The others followed a short distance behind, boots brushing against the broad green surfaces slick with moisture. He leapt from one curved ridge of vine to the next with ease, keeping his weight light and his senses sharp. Path of Shards wrapped around him in fine, glassy threads, bending light in subtle fractures. A faint tremor brushed his ear. A buzz. He slowed immediately, narrowing his eyes as he searched ahead.

He did not use EM waves at first. Instead he relied on raw sound, listening for displacement, for the faint shift of air against giant leaves. He found it. Something moved between two curled fronds, wings beating too fast for the eye to catch. He shifted to get a better angle, peeling back a leaf the size of a small hut. The creature revealed itself. A massive fly, at least two metres long, limbs jointed like spears and ending in razor-sharp barbs.

Its wings flickered so quickly they blurred into a translucent halo. The abdomen pulsed with a dull green glow, like watered-down sap. A prompt appeared when he focused. Vinegnats Power Index: 350 Power… Index? A new metric? The Vinegnat had not detected him yet. He sent a wave down to the group below." Got the first creature in sight. Sharing visuals." Lukas let out a low whistle." That is one big fly. Sharp legs, supersonic wing vibrations… but far too quiet for something that size. Odd.""

Do you want me to send a Warden as bait?" Pablo asked. Alonso studied the Vinegnat again. Ever since touching Will, a faint instinctive gauge had awakened in him. He could better sense pressure, threat, danger… and this one barely registered. Even weaker than the guards outside.

If he could pair that instinct with this new Power Index reading, then he could measure enemies far more accurately than before." No need," he sent back. He moved. His body blurred as he dashed upward along the vine. Microcapacitors inside his muscles fired in perfect sequence, letting him adjust mid-air with small shifts of charge and resonance. The Path of Shards shimmered faintly as it embraced his surroundings. The Vinegnat twitched, sensing something too late.

Alonso's blade passed through the creature as if it were made of fabric. A clean sever. The Vinegnat split neatly down the centre, and before either half struck the vine, both dissolved into drifting motes of energy that faded into the air. A single hazy orb remained, glowing softly where it had died. Alonso looked at it briefly, though his attention was already elsewhere. There were more above. Many more. Yet a thought nagged at him. Was the fly merely bait… or was this Dungeon genuinely that easy?"

I will speed up the climb," he sent to the others." I have a hunch this place is easier than we expected. I will leave most orbs behind on the way. Pablo, check the one I just dropped and see if your magic works."" I will go with you," Ayu said, and in the next instant she blurred upward after him.

"Alright," Pablo replied, though he still felt slightly thrown off by how casual this all seemed. He reached the orb Alonso had left on a broad leaf, its surface pulsing with a white glow. He raised a hand, channelling his mutation. The orb lifted smoothly off the ground and drifted toward him like a weightless seed. He focused on it, letting his senses sink into the pattern within. The world softened.

For a brief moment he felt two sets of awareness: his own, and the residual instinct of the creature that had produced the orb. A tight, twitching thread of perception, built for speed and sudden movement. Wings beating in a blur. Sharp legs drawn inward like hooked spears. Eyes split into a mosaic of shifting shapes. The Vinegnat's form took shape beside him, reconstructing itself from the fragments of light that clung to the orb.

The summoned version appeared slightly translucent, its wings vibrating with a faint crackling hum. Pablo blinked and shared the sensation with the others." It is weaker than the Wardens," he said, surprised." Quite a bit weaker, actually. And very easy to control." The Vinegnat hovered beside him, its sharp legs folded neatly in, wings thrumming in a muted blur." Well, at least it makes for a good scout," Lukas said." Weak EM signature, and oddly silent despite the wing speed.""

Is it safe for Alonso and Ayu to go on ahead?" Leonie asked as she looked upward. Several faintly glowing orbs drifted down like slow snowflakes." They will be fine," Lukas replied." Come on. Let us catch up before we lose sight of the orbs." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. He and Chiara moved first, rising along the vine as the Dark Stars around them magnetised and pulled their bodies upward in steady, controlled arcs.

Pablo climbed after them, stepping onto the Vinegnat. The creature lifted him easily, its wings vibrating in a tight silent blur as it carried him higher.

Imani followed by making heavy jumps, the vine shuddering each time he landed and pushed off again. Leonie stayed still for a moment, watching the orbs drifting down like pale embers. She reached out and touched the closest one. Stage 1 – 26. 632% ➤ 26. 686% She tilted her head back and sighed. When was the last time she had been left behind like this? The familiar ache rose in her chest. For a heartbeat she regretted being part of Gen-2. If only she had been chosen earlier… with them… She pushed the thought away.

She would carve her own path. One day… she would stand at the vanguard again. Resolve steadied her pulse. Sparks crackled around her skin and, in the next breath, she shot upward through the vines, collecting stray orbs as she climbed.

Alonso twisted in the air, body folding around a lunging wooden tendril that speared through the space he had occupied a blink earlier. His waves tracked the source. A humanoid wooden torso emerged from the side of the beanstalk, carved from thick layers of intertwined branches. Its head was a hollow cavity, empty and dark, with only faint sap-glow inside its chest. It clung to the beanstalk like a parasite.

Vinehost Power Index: 560 Stronger than the flies by a wide margin, but still nothing that made his instincts blink. He did not even have to react to this one. Two bone daggers whistled past him, carving the creature into three clean pieces. The segments fell away and dissolved into sap-like mist. Alonso caught the outline of the tiger behind Ayu, its spectral form leaping from branch to branch, tearing through the remains like effortless prey.

Ayu herself wore a sharp grin as she disappeared into another snarl of vines, the world seeming to bend around her as she rode the hum of her primal Will. He sent information about the new creature to those below and continued upward. Along the way he absorbed a handful of fly orbs, though they barely shifted his Stage Progress. He left the rest for the others, especially Pablo and Leonie. With their lower percentages, they would gain a bit more from them. The higher he climbed, the denser the enemies became.

Multiple Vinehosts emerged at once, clawing out from the stalk and weaving nets of tendrils that slashed and snapped across the air. He read them with ease. Their motions were patterned, predictable, following the brittle rhythm of creaking wood. He blurred through the gaps, his Path of Shards shedding faint afterimages that distorted their aim. Tendrils whipped at his echoes, missing his real body entirely.

He dispatched a couple of them with quick, precise slashes, cleaning up what Ayu left behind as she tore through another cluster above him. The climb continued. He glanced downward and judged the distance by quick calculations. They had already gained well over 4000 meters of height. Not the highest he had ever reached, but for a giant 'beanstalk' it was absurd. Surely Jack had not climbed that high, right? The thought made him chuckle.

A grin crept across his face just as a tendril snapped toward him, travelling at twice the speed of sound. He shifted his torso, letting it pass millimetres from his ribs. He followed through by rotating mid-air and stepping onto the tendril as his frame coiled, knees bent. CRACK The entire tendril shuddered under his weight before splitting apart. Sparks scattered behind him as he reappeared with magnetised swords drawn. In one clean motion he cut the Vinehost's hollow head into splintered fragments.

This time, as the body dissolved, it was not only an orb that remained. Something else dropped through the fading mist. Grade 01 - Travelers' Boots Tempering State: 0 Physical aptitude +1% Pillar aptitude +1% His eyes widened. After so many kills, he had begun to suspect only the Dungeon boss would drop gear. Clearly he was wrong. The drop rate was simply abysmal." Found some gear," he sent to Ayu." What? Really?" She blurred down toward him and appeared at his side in less than two heartbeats.

He caught the faint scent of sap and heat clinging to her skin, a mix of sweat and the beanstalk's air.

"Oh… boots," she said, disappointment flickering across her face at both the look and the meagre stats.

"I will take that as a 'I don't want it'," Alonso said with a grin.

"Well, you got them, so you keep them," she replied with a teasing blink. He held the boots a moment longer before swapping into them. The instant they tightened around his feet, he felt the subtle rise in strength and awareness.

"Well, it doesn't look that bad on you. Alright, let's see if I get anything useful," Ayu said with a grin."' That bad'? So just plain 'bad' then?" Alonso chuckled. Ayu's smile gave him the answer, and a moment later she stepped onto a broad leaf and shot upward, vanishing into the tangle of vines. Alonso watched her for a breath, then glanced at the boots again. Like the vambrace he had found earlier, they had no special traits beyond the raw aptitude boosts.

He sent the info about the loot drop to the others and followed after her, not entirely comfortable letting her move out of his range. She was more than capable of handling herself, but still… The Tower did not always play fair. They climbed another thousand metres. Along the way Ayu found a pair of gloves, but she handed them over without hesitation, muttering that she needed to feel the hilt properly and gloves made her grip feel… wrong. Alonso exhaled under his breath.

Throwing away stats for comfort felt wasteful. 1% was no joke once it started stacking! Even so, he knew Ayu's path relied on some sort of balance and raw sensation. She had always preferred fighting barefoot, and she didn't wear much really. He glanced down at himself. A mismatched collection of pieces strapped over his body, all different shapes and colours. He could not tell if he looked like a seasoned adventurer from a fantasy tale or a randomly generated RPG character.

The thought made him chuckle as he split another Vinegnat and continued his march toward the sky above. It was then he noticed the clouds drawing closer. His eyes narrowed. So this was it. The cloud barrier sat exactly 7000 metres above ground, which he really should have anticipated. Ayu waited for him just below the misted edge. They decided to hold position until the others caught up, which did not take long.

Pablo arrived riding a Vinegnat like a mount, the creature buzzing in an oddly obedient hover beneath him. Alonso could not help but smile at the sight. Two other Vinehosts moved nearby, their presence stronger and heavier than the original ones. They each lacked a prompt when he focused on them, which told him instantly they were Pablo's other summons. Alonso met Pablo's gaze.

"Mind sending one of your summons above?"

"On it," Pablo replied. One of the wooden creatures shifted its stance and climbed along the beanstalk, slipping through the cloud layer without hesitation. A full second passed. The group waited in silence. Then the Vinehost returned, unharmed.

"So… what did you see?" Leonie asked, curiosity sharpening her tone.

"It is better if you see it yourself," Pablo said. Alonso looked at Pablo, then at the cloudline above. He crouched slightly. Without a second thought he leapt, breaking through the clouds in one clean motion, Path of Shards dimming his EM signature as the mist wrapped around him. And as he emerged on the other side and took in the landscape ahead, his eyes widened.