Chương 97: Limitless Path Chapter Ninety-Seven

Their conversation at that moment was interrupted by a loud bark, Blood darting out of the woods from the same path Baelvyr had taken. She stopped before actually bowling into Beth, clearly aware that her bonded partner was rather injured.' Sister, are you well?!' Blood trumpeted through their link.

"Yes," Beth replied aloud with a wince.

"And... a little quieter, Sister."

"Why don't ya hop up and we'll head back. I can't sense any other fuckin' vermin in the area," Baelvyr said, gesturing first at Beth and then at Blood.

"She's pretty sliced up herself, let her heal for a few minutes first at least," Beth replied with a sigh.

"Kids," Jaq muttered crossly, walking over and, with a single motion that was so fluid and fast it was almost imperceptible, withdrew another vial containing a dark red liquid and slammed it home into Blood's neck. The wolf gave an almost comical, high-pitched yelp in response, giving Jaq a narrow-eyed glare and snarl after he was done.

"Don't give me that, you whelp," Jaq said crossly as he turned and started moving toward the CRA Hall through Baelvyr's destruction path.

"Unless you want to pay me the three golds that vial was worth." Blood just chuffed in response as she stepped up next to Beth, allowing the tall girl to attempt to pull herself up onto the wolf's back. Baelvyr didn't even give her a chance to struggle, easily plucking her off the ground in one of his enormous mitts and plopping her on Blood's back.

"Thanks, boss," Beth said, giving the ogre a nod.

"Don't thank me yet," he rumbled.

"I ain't holdin' back in the after-action on this one, girlie."

"I, quite frankly, don't give a shit," Beth grumbled as Blood caught up to Jaq, pacing him on her left, Baelvyr easily keeping up on their right. The huge ogre looked like he was barely ambling, his massive height meaning he barely had to move his legs to keep up with what was a rather fast walk for Blood, who was quite quick even without Swift. Jaq, meanwhile, paced the wolf easily as well, looking like he was taking an extremely casual stroll, hands now clasped behind his back.

He somehow managed to move at what would be a bit of a jog for an unenhanced human while looking like he was slow walking, and Beth couldn't detect the use of a skill.

"Your first taste of dealing with a criminal on the Path," Jaq commented as they walked.

"Welcome to being an Enforcer."

"Thanks, but I didn't really do anything," Beth replied with a deep frown.

"You guys did everything. Blood and I just let him toy with us and then you two killed him in an eyeblink."

"Ain't that bad, girlie," Baelvyr replied.

"I took a full read of 'em when I slammed into 'em, and he was actually pretty banged up. Don't know what you hit 'em with, but it looked like he had just recovered from a pretty big single impact."

"The one sword skill I have right now, Monstrous Blow," Beth replied.

"Decent," Jaq responded.

"Essentially a good, upgraded version of Powerstrike. Can work with swords and blunt weapons, not so great for spears or a number of others."

"Doesn't work with unarmed, either," Beth grumbled, running a gauntleted hand through her hair. That was when she realized her left gauntlet was totaled.

"Ah, fuck."

"What now?" Jaq sighed.

"You got anything made of mana steel, you miser?" Beth responded, waving her busted up left arm at him before wincing. She pulled the arm back in front of her and attempted to get the gauntlet off, grunting and cussing as she twisted at it. It finally popped open, free Beth's injured arm with a grating snap, luckily generated by the gauntlet and not her flesh.

"Plenty," Jaq replied in his usual cold manner.

"Fascinating," Beth shot back while scrunching her face up, both from the conversation and the amount of pain she was in.

"What's up with the eyes, girlie," Baelvyr said.

"Tell us what ya been up to while we walk. Distract ya from the ampoule doin' its work."

"There's a kobold dungeon back there," Beth replied, rolling her neck to get it to pop.

"First instanced dungeon we did. It's a labyrinth."

"Bah," snorted Baelvyr, spitting into the ground. Beth did a double take, not sure if she had actually seen the spit make a small pit from the force of the impact the first time or not. It definitely had, and she shook her head at the thought.

"Fuckin' hate that shit more than most anythin'."

"You hate anything that is larger than your walnut-sized brain," Jaq muttered.

"Can it, bot boy," Baelvyr said.

"I solve 'em by just goin' straight through 'em."

"Wait, you can fucking do that?!" Beth interrupted, her voice rising an octave in outrage.

"No," Jaq responded quickly, holding up a hand to keep the others from replying.

"Not at your level and overall power, you can't. Dungeons are tough with a lot of mana not just in them, but in the structure itself. You'd have just as much luck carving through a mana steel block with a toothpick at your current strength."

"But it is viable?" Beth interjected before Baelvyr could reply.

"In theory, yes, it is viable," Jaq said, glaring at her with a deep frown.

"In practice, however, it is almost impossible for most groups to accomplish. And yes, I said groups, let alone individuals." This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"But he does it," Beth replied with a tiny whine in her voice, pointing her thumb at Baelvyr.

"He is too stupid to know any better," Jaq replied sarcastically, riding right over Baelvyr's barked "Hey!", he continued, "You need not just raw stats, of which you would require an inordinate amount more than what you currently possess. You also need far more and denser mana."

"Well, how do I get that?" Beth grunted before clutching her left arm with a muttered "Fuck!"

"Just let the ampoule do its work, girl," Jaq admonished.

"To answer the question, there are quite a number of ways, but the one you will have easiest access to and, depending on how you do it, the most gains from, is rebirths."

"Ah shit, you mean I have to just level up a shit ton to get stronger, huh?" Beth replied a little morosely.

"I been tellin' ya," Baelvyr muttered to the side, earning himself a glare from both girls.

"Steel-for-brains aside, continue your explanation," Jaq commanded.

"Sir, yes sir," Beth returned mockingly, snapping off a very crooked and sloppy salute with her right hand. She chuckled as Jaq's whole body visibly winced in response to the gesture, his clear military background weeping at her attempt at military decorum.

"Less trampling on military tradition, more talking," Jaq bit off.

"Right, so, we went into the dungeon and found it started at level thirty-eight or thirty-nine," Beth replied, continuing her explanation.

"We used that," she said, giving Baelvyr a decided look, at which point he interrupted her.

"Ya can tell Jaq. Could also tell Tazeen if ya need to, but nobody else for now," he said with a nod.

"Tell me what?" Jaq asked, glancing between them before returning his gaze to the path of destruction they were retracing to the Hall.

"She's Liveria's heir," Baelvyr stated simply before Beth could get anything out.

"Ah, I see, that explains a couple things," Jaq replied with a nod before shrugging.

"Not like I really care much. Her Path was quite different from mine, not something I would even really want to compare notes about."

"Never refuse a chance to learn somethin'," Baelvyr admonished with a shake of his head. Jaq just tsk'ed in response.

"Anyway," Beth continued, giving them both a little glare, "we used the gate power I got from Liveria to do some power leveling."

"What's your time coefficient like right now?" Jaq interrupted, getting a grunt from Baelvyr and a glare from Beth.

"If you mean what ratios I have available, the best I can do right now is five times, and that really strains my spirit, especially with the amount we used it at the start of the dungeon," Beth replied, shaking her head as she thought of just how overall beat-up she was at this moment.

"So, we got to a point where we matched the starting rooms, took a little rest, then headed out to fight. It was pretty generic, other than the enemies using ice, just a lot of fighting in dark rooms against mediocre enemies."

"Can learn from any fight, girlie," Baelvyr grumbled, giving her a side-eye as he walked right through a maple tree.

"Right, and I felt that a little, as I was working on deflecting the enemies' attacks, including into each other," Beth replied, giving him a side-eye in return at his wanton natural destruction.

"The only really interesting thing was a variant called a Ravager that we fought. I would say it was actually a little tougher than the boss, though we did get a good series of powerful strikes on the boss at the end that stopped it before it could go too crazy. Got some good Ice Resistance levels out of the whole thing, at least."

"And what about the eyes, girl?" Jaq asked with a slight huff.

"Yeah, they're Eyes of the FrostFlame Lord," Beth replied with a shrug. Jaq stumbled almost imperceptibly when she said it, and Beth continued with a question, "I take it they're good?"

"FrostFlame is a tribe of both humans and sapient trolls," Baelvyr responded with a grunt before Jaq could get his thoughts in order.

"They use both fire and ice skills in battle and have better resistance skills for both of 'em than the average."

"The eye power you received is one of their best," Jaq added.

"They usually require someone to at least hit Empowered before they can get it."

"What's that again?" Beth asked with a bit of a sheepish frown.

"Five rebirths to nine rebirths. Tenth rebirth is Enlightened," Baelvyr responded almost by rote.

"So, it's pretty damn good?" Beth asked with a satisfied nod.

"Check the tier," Jaq said in some annoyance.

"Wait, what?" Beth asked, blinking at him with her mouth open. He simply returned her dumbfounded expression with a glare until she pulled up her stat screen.

"Oh, shit."' What is it, Sister?' Blood asked with a tinge of worry.

"Sorry," Beth replied, thumping Blood on the back of the neck.

"I was just surprised because I can see the tiers of my skills now. It's a tier three skill. Also…um…it looks like I lost Identify? What's going on?"" FrostFlame Eye is an advanced identification-type skill," Jaq replied with an exasperated sigh.

"It likely replaced your Identify while absorbing some of its experience."

"Oh, is that why it's already at Copper[4]?" Beth asked with a raised brow.

"What was your Identify?" Jaq asked in response.

"Like, Copper[8] or something," Beth said while tapping her chin, head slightly tilted.

"Seems right," Baelvyr said with another grunt.

"Yes, it would take some of the experience with the skill it merges with. Higher tiers need more experience, so even though it's half the level now, it's less than half the experience," Jaq explained calmly.

"It'll take longer to level but, as you no doubt have already experienced, it is a much better skill."

"That kinda sucks," Beth grumbled.

"Can't win 'em all, girlie," Baelvyr chuckled.

"So, I can pull the archive file on the skill, but tell us what it does," Jaq continued.

"Why don't you just look it up?" Beth asked.

"Good teachin' moment," Baelvyr grumbled.

"What a skill is s'posed to do on paper ain't always what it actually does. Beyond that, how ya use and understand it can be slightly different, even more with perception affectin' skills like eye powers."

"Oh," Beth replied.

"I see. Well…it definitely sharpened my vision by a lot. I can see way better, and I have much better low light vision, though I haven't really tested that."

"Ya oughta test each new power ya get thoroughly, but we can go over that later," Baelvyr threw in.

"Right," Beth replied before re-focusing.

"What else? Uh, I can see into the infrared. It's not quite like an infrared camera or app, it looks a little different, but I can see heat now. Beyond that, I can see the information of items, which I'm actually fucking psyched about, and I can also see the tiers of the skills I have, as Jaq mentioned."

"Any problems adjustin' to high light levels, even what we're in now at noon?" Baelvyr asked.

"Uh, no, not really. My eyes weren't ever light sensitive like some peoples can be, and I can see perfectly fine in bright light as well as dim," Beth answered.

"It's actually such a huge improvement, even if it felt like drills of molten metal were grinding into my eye sockets when I used the upgrade item."

"Yeah, ya get a lot of pain in this line of work," Baelvyr chuckled, Beth feeling her teeth rattle a little from it.

"Home sweet home," Jaq commented then, and they emerged from Baelvyr's gouge of destruction a moment later to see the CRA Hall. The group walked up to the front, Baelvyr picking Beth up like a small doll and setting her on the ground as they entered the lobby. Beth looked around to see a number of familiar faces in the lobby, which was rather worrying. It wasn't just her sisters and Sabs, but her parents and Zack as well as a couple of other adults.

"Elizabeth!" her mother exclaimed, rushing over to her and quickly embracing her.

"Ouch! Fuck!" Beth cursed, shaking herself loose.

"Beth, what's wrong?" her mother asked in alarm, looking her over, taking in the damaged state of her armor. That, and all the blood she was coated in.

"Nothing much, just quite a few fractured and broken bones," Beth grunted in reply, cradling her left arm.

"It's already healing; I just need some time to rest."

"My God, Beth," her mother gasped.

"Are you really alright? Can I help you somehow?"

"Mom. It's fine," Beth grunted, patting her mother on the shoulder with a small chuckle.

"And who is this?" her father asked as he stepped up to them, Zack and the other new people following behind. The rest of the girls hung back, other than Sabs, not wanting to get tangled up any more than necessary. Beth watched as Sabs approached her while her sisters quickly slunk back into the members-only area of the building.

"This is my instructor, Baelvyr," Beth introduced, pointing at the ten-foot wall of metal and muscle as Sabs silently slid up to her and wrapped an arm around Beth's waist.

"And this is the guy in charge of the shop, Jaq," Beth continued, waving a lazy thumb at Jaq while he glowered at her back.

"Be nice, Beth," her mother admonished, wagging a finger at the teen.

"Hey, I didn't call him a miserly weasel," Beth replied, holding up her mostly healed right hand in defense.

"More and more, I understand why he is your instructor," Jaq muttered.