Chương 28: B1 | Chapter 25

Aidan Another arrow flies at me from the elite void golem, just barely missing me when I dodge it. But then I feel another flare of pain from my back, bringing my attention to another archer elite void golem in a different balcony. Damnit, this is getting more and more difficult by the second. I create multiple Void Pits all around me as the void golems try to push in. With some of them activated in front of my voidlings that are fighting against them.

And thanks to those Void Pits, I manage to wipe out half of the remaining regular void golems, along with a single elite void golem. Then the remaining golems – the elite ones, at least – start to back away from me. Almost like they're trying to get far away from the Void Pits. But the regular void golems end up being forced into the currently existing Void Pits, finishing the rest of them off and topping up my mana again.

I glance at my wounds before just barely dodging another arrow sent to me by an elite void golem whose large great sword just miraculously transformed into a bow and arrow. Which is completely unfair. Then the other elite void golems start doing the same. Turning their weapons into bows and arrows one after another. Thus begins our game of chase as I try to have my voidlings corner the elite void golems, with my voidlings occasionally jumping up to take a void arrow for me if I can't dodge myself.

During the little game, I take hits every now and then from arrows that manage to make it between my voidlings and reach me. But none of them hit vital areas, even by the time I finally finish off the last of the elite void golems. And the first thing I do after finishing with the battle is to check my remaining voidlings. Because about two thirds of my voidlings died in that battle. What's worse is that I find it to be impossible to restore voidlings more than once after they're destroyed.

Apparently because their soul and mind shatter much faster after having been killed once before. So the dead voidlings are permanently dead this time. Dropping my number of forces down to about eighteen or so. The bright side is that none of my voidling soldiers were killed. Although they were injured. It was just the drones that were killed. Most of them at that. There aren't many drones left alive at this point.

A brief surge of sorrow fills me at that realization before I shake my head, beginning to feel myself growing used to the deaths of my voidlings. Which I'm not sure is a good thing. The System Messages in my vision manage to bring my mood back up, though. Because they finally include a new skill. [Level 28 Void Golem has been slain. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] [Level 29 Void Golem has been slain. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] [Level 31 Elite Void Golem has been slain. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] … [Level 31 Elite Void Golem has been slain. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. [User's Class, Void Devourer, has reached level 29. User's stats have risen by the following amounts: +2 Physical, +2 Magical, +2 Mind, +2 Soul, +1 Free Point.] [Level 28 Void Golem has been slain. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] … [Level 32 Elite Void Golem has been slain. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] [User's Class, Void Devourer, has reached level 30. User's stats have risen by the following amounts: +2 Physical, +2 Magical, +2 Mind, +2 Soul, +1 Free Point.] ◊*New Class Skill*◊ [Void Tear(Epic) – Grants the Void Devourer the power to tear a rift in space using void mana. The rift can be torn open at a distance away from the Void Devourer depending on the Void Devourer's Magic stat.] ◊*New Class Skill*◊ [Level 31 Elite Void Golem has been slain. Appropriate source mana has been allocated.] Nice! A combat skill! While I've been pretty happy with my skills up until now, I realized through these void golems that I don't actually have all that many directly combat skills. Especially ranged skills. All I have for ranged combat is Void Pit. Which isn't a direct attack. More of a trap of sorts. Seeing as I can't actually move the Void Pit summoned by the skill after the pit is summoned. The Void Pits also only devour mana. Not flesh or life force.

So this new ranged attack could be very useful depending on how powerful it is. I go ahead and test the skill out on the space a few meters away from me. And what happens honestly startles me a little bit. Because I hear a loud tearing sound as I see reality itself looking like it's being torn open by several jagged claws. Void mana enters the area around the rift, which spans about half a meter in length and a quarter of a meter in width, and it looks pretty intense.

I wait a little bit as I see the rift beginning to close itself at a gradual speed. Probably taking about ten to fifteen seconds to fully close again. Not half bad. I can try it out on those eye birds outside of the tower. I turn my attention to the larger mana cores belonging to the elite void golems. And without any further hesitation, I begin to use about half of the void cores as source mana fodder for myself, and I use the other half to make more voidling soldiers.

Which takes about half an hour total, since I've grown a lot more used to the process of making voidlings by now. And it never took very long to devour the source material in mana cores. Even if there's a lot of it in them. By the time I finish, I find myself with an impressive lineup of about seven more voidling soldiers made from the elite void golems' mana cores. Then I move onto the regular void golems' mana cores and do the same thing with them.

Bringing my number of voidling soldiers up to about two and a half dozen. Completely dwarfing the remaining five or so voidling drones in number. And, just like with when Void Devourer hit level thirty, I gain a skill upon Void Creator hitting level thirty. And that skill makes me grin as I look at my System Messages. Or, to be specific, the most recent leveling messages from both devouring the source mana in the void golems, and from creating new voidlings.

Since there are too many source mana allocated messages in-between the levels. [User's Profession, Void Creator, has reached level 30. User's stats have risen by the following amounts: +1 Mind, +1 Soul, +1 Free Point.] ◊*New Profession Skill*◊ [Void Creature Evolution(Epic) – Grants the voidlings created by the Void Creator the ability to evolve after eating enough source mana-enriched materials. Their evolution direction is determined by what they eat.] ◊*New Profession Skill*◊ [User's Class, Void Devourer, has reached level 31. User's stats have risen by the following amounts: +2 Physical, +2 Magical, +2 Mind, +2 Soul, +1 Free Point.] [User's Profession, Void Creator, has reached level 31. User's stats have risen by the following amounts: +1 Mind, +1 Soul, +1 Free Point.] Now that's an interesting new skill.

I have some questions I want to ask Seraphyne about this skill and the voidlings in general, but they can wait until after I clear this floor of the Tutorial. Since I want to finish first for whatever reward being the first one to clear the Tutorial gives. And these questions aren't urgent. This time around, after allocating my Free Points, I don't burn quite as much mana to make the voidlings. Both because I have more mana after leveling up, and because I fail a lot less when creating them.

So I only wait for half an hour before climbing the stairs to the third floor. Honestly hoping to find more void golems. Because these things work quite well as mana batteries. And when I make it to the third floor of the tower, I find my little wish granted at the sight of a couple dozen void golems. Except that they aren't alone and are all standing guard at the entrance of a balcony on the other end of the hall, with numerous eye bats flying around the balcony.

I guess I really do have to take a path outside around the tower to get to the fourth floor after all. It really is a good thing that I got Void Tear.