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Limitless Path Chapter Three Hundred Eight
🕑 Added 2024-10-10 17:00:04 +0000 UTCBeth took over then, leading the way down to the basement and where their room was, letting the three in. She had sent a thought to Blood as they were on the way down, making sure the wolf wasn't entirely naked in human form when they walked in. She was still sprawled out on the couch and wearing little, but at least she was decent. Andrea and Adam both were rather surprised that the room had another occupant, and Beth quickly introduced them to her companion.
"I didn't know you had a bonded companion," Andrea said.
"She doesn't like fighting in the arena; she's lazy," Beth explained.
"I see," Andrea said, though clearly, she didn't understand not wanting to take to the arena floor.
"Anyway, they want to do some exploring. Well, Andrea wants to do some exploring and dragged Adam along, which is good, because we need to pry the secrets of a Mana Physique out of him," Beth explained, Adam becoming distinctly nervous at the last part, if his shuffling from foot-to-foot was any indication.
"You want to learn about Mana Physiques from him? He's not even hit five rebirths yet," Blood commented acidly.
"Wait, you can see rebirths?" Beth asked a little lamely.
"Yep," was Blood's only response.
"Well, anyway," Beth said, a little nonplussed. "Adam here has already created his Mana Physique, despite not being at rebirth nine about to hit rebirth ten. Though, his explanations are a little…confusing, at best."
"That's pretty crazy," Blood said, sitting up for once. "You built your Mana Physique without even the basic assistance at the fifth rebirth?"
"Well…yes. It wasn't really that difficult," he replied, scratching the side of his cheek with his right index finger.
"So. What's the plan?" Beth asked.
"You've got the ship," Andrea replied with a laugh. "Find us somewhere fun, captain."
"Oh boy, here we go," Blood grumbled on seeing the grin on Beth's face.
"So, where's the ship?" Andrea asked, ready to set off immediately.
Beth tapped her necklace, to which Andrea replied, "No…really? You have a compactible?"
"Got it at auction a few days ago," Beth replied with a grin.
"What are you waiting for? I've gotta see this!" Andrea said. The compact fist-fighter practically dragged all three of the others out just herself. Beth took over after a moment, leading them out of the Hall and then out of the city. They headed out until they had made a bit of distance from the edge of the city before she stopped them in a clearing, at which point she made the folded-up ship appear in its cube form. She had them all back up then, as the ship deploying certainly took up quite a bit of space and she would prefer to end the day without crushing any of their new friends.
"Holy shit! Are you some secret heiress or something?! This thing is crazy!" Andrea exclaimed, running around the ship with her speed power activated to study the whole thing.
"Nope, just made some good money while exploring and was able to afford something nice," Beth explained, failing to mention the recent upgrade.
"This is so cool," Andrea gushed, clearly super impressed by the ship, and that was only on seeing the outside. Adam kept his own counsel, but Beth was still getting the distinct impression it was because he was shy and was oft used to being dragged around by Andrea. With his level of power, there were few below Enlightened that could likely challenge him, with the only person Beth could think of being Veren. Then again, that freak of nature already having hit Grandmaster with a weapon before forty years of age would give even Enlightened a headache, so he wasn't really a fair yardstick.
"Follow me," Beth said, walking up to the side and up the ramp when it extended. She was able to manipulate many ship functions with a thought and gave Andrea and Adam guest access as they boarded. That let them access public areas of the ship without having to request permissions, and they could access their own cabins if she assigned them one.
The ship itself had the bridge, a large mess hall with a small kitchen attached, the drive room, an armory, a small ready room that acted as a conference room and staging area, and ten separate cabins, including the captain's cabin, which was pretty outrageous. The captain's cabin was a small suite, with a central sitting room slash office, a little kitchenette, a large and well-appointed bathroom, and a huge bedroom with a massive, plush bed. They could have a complement of at least ten people on board, but if they got rather cozy, the ship could carry twenty or more and still be comfortable.
"How much did you pay for this?!" Andrea exclaimed after the whirlwind tour.
"Ah, it was a handful of Mithril," Beth replied evasively.
"Mithril? Mithril?! Just how much did you make?" Andrea exclaimed incredulously.
"Well, it was quite a bit," Beth answered uncomfortably. Andrea, thankfully, took the hint and stopped asking about the amount Beth had earned through her source, Beth having failed to mention it was the Seven Lights’ auction, and that not unintentionally.
"So, let's hit the bridge and get moving," Andrea exclaimed, leading the four up to the bridge.
Beth assumed her seat in the captain's chair while Blood took the helm, with Andrea sitting in something that Beth had to double-check to figure out was navigation, while Adam sat at what turned out to be tactical. That still left the co-pilot's chair, communications, and four guest seats empty, the bridge able to comfortably hold eight during operations, though more could fit. The ship also had some powerful inertial dampeners and, as long as they were working, people could be up and about even during a fierce air battle or intense maneuvers.
"Well, where to?" Beth asked when they were all settled.
"What about the ruin you mentioned?" Andrea asked.
"Nah, that was something that was pretty small and only had a couple minor treasures in it," Beth said shaking her head.
"Then what about your little money-making scheme that let you afford something like this ship?" she asked.
"Well, Blood and I managed to find some nice caches of gems under the mountains which let us earn enough to fund buying this ship and our latest rebirth. I mean, we could go down there, but then we wouldn't be using the ship for much. Also, it's pretty damned dangerous down there; like, really dangerous."
"Well then, let's explore!" Andrea said cheerily. "This planet isn't super well charted and, being a high mana density world, there are pretty constant changes. We could always find something interesting just flying around and keeping our eyes open."
"Sounds like as good a plan as any," Blood said, cutting in on the chatter. She started the ship up and lifted off, piloting them northward, though she kept them relatively low to be able to better observe the surroundings.
The journey gave them some time to chat, Beth finding that Andrea was quite the chatterbox, which wasn't surprising given the outgoing and excitable nature she had demonstrated so far. Adam remained quiet, only really speaking when someone else drew him into the conversation, while Blood interjected laconically from time-to-time as she flew the ship over vast, unsettled territories. Andrea talked about many things with the local area and politics, focusing on the surprising upheaval in the local governor's office. When Blood and Beth's side-eyes and muttered comments became too much, she finally finagled out of them the story of what happened, including their involvement in the whole affair.
"We've got something," Blood said eventually, having paid better attention to the sensors than the others as she piloted the ship.
"What does 'something' mean," Andrea immediately asked, turning her attention to the sensor systems.
"Looks like a previously uncharted anomaly," Beth answered. The ship had a database that they could sync with local records using the communication network so they could track known discoveries and hostile areas on a world. What they had just flown over pinged as something out of the ordinary but wasn't registered in the records they had in the database, which were up to date as of last night.
"Oh, this could be a brand-new dungeon!" Andrea said as she examined the readouts before focusing the sensors, including the high-definition camera, on the spot. Blood brought them into an orbit at a moderate altitude so they could get a good picture without becoming stationary and possibly making themselves a target.
"Readings show its somewhere around the level two hundred range," Adam chimed in. "We can't be sure till we go down and look at it from up close, but the four of us could easily handle something of that level even if it has unique modifiers or properties."
"Is there a safe area to set down?" Beth asked Blood.
"Yeah, I got it," Blood answered, flying them to an area a couple miles from the anomaly and setting them down in an open field.
The four of them disembarked and Beth folded the ship up and made it disappear into her necklace, both Andrea and Adam suitably impressed at the storage space her item had. Beth demurred, but she had a good feeling about both of them, so she hadn't tried to hide any of her capabilities. They set off right after Beth had the ship stored, heading towards where the readings had come from and Blood had noted the strange glow.
It didn't take much time for them to encounter a bit of trouble, as the area they were in, while looking idyllic at first glance, was riddled with powerful beasts. It was nothing their impromptu team couldn't tackle, however, as even with her great increase in power, Beth found that Andrea still didn't fall behind. That was to say nothing of Adam with his Mana Physique or Blood with her upgrades from her more advanced humanization. The group mainly ran into overgrown field animals, including huge moles and groundhogs that were totally wild and would try to savage them at the first opportunity.
That all changed when they drew close to the anomaly, as this was a case where a singular beast was present in droves, likely due to the influence of said strange spot. As soon as they encountered the first pack, Beth knew this was going to be one hell of an annoying day. The group of beasts consisted of seven large, heavily muscled, and very angry bears. What was even worse was they weren't a uniform type of bear or bear-like creature, as some of the bears were more like traditional grizzlies, which was bad enough, but the other two in the group were like Kodiak bears with large, thick armor plates. The hides and armoring of the beasts had Blood drooling at the crafting possibilities, but it gave the rest of them a headache.
Fortunately, their group was very well-built to handle the beasts, as Andrea and Beth were quite capable of delivering incredible force to and through heavy armor. Blood and Adam were both very quick and had incredibly powerful cutting forces, letting them tear apart the unarmored beasts with great aplomb. It helped that these were only in the one-seventies and not particularly strong, with Beth and Blood's stats more than enough to overcome the level gap. It did promise the dungeon to be at or beyond what Adam had estimated, if the outermost beasts in the area were already at level one hundred and seventy-five or more.
The groups of beasts didn't get any smaller, but it proved nothing but experience for the group, specifically Beth and Blood, as they had only leveled to one hundred after their recent rebirths. Even with two other people at higher level soaking up experience, they would be leveling a number of times from this fighting, and that didn't take into account if they wound up killing hundreds or thousands of level two hundred-plus beasts. The levels would be nice, but it was always more interesting to explore new places and find rare treasures, which was what Beth was really hoping for.
They fought through endless waves of bear and bear-like beasts making their way to the anomaly, Beth and Blood each getting a level in the process. Finally, after a couple hours, they had arrived at their destination and got a first-person, unimpeded view of the disturbance. Standing on a small rise and looking down at the anomaly, they saw it was a large series of runes inscribed on the ground. The runes were five or six feet across, and there were more than two dozen of them, though they were all interlinked or overlaid on top of each other.
"Any idea what any of that is?" Beth asked, only recognizing two of the many runes carved into the ground.
"Nope, haven't a clue," Andrea said with a shrug, still cleaning her gauntlets from the last fight.
"Something about spatial movement or teleportation or something," Adam said. "I'm not particularly great with runes, either."
As they discussed the formation, more beasts appeared around it, the ursine creatures spreading out and wandering away from the formation. They didn't go very far, but staying near the runes seemed to cause them some level of distress, if their body language and growls were any kind of indication. Based on the very patchy knowledge of runes the group had, Beth guessed the beasts were being teleported into the area by the formation, but they'd have to clear the surroundings and investigate the runes themselves to make a determination. That might also mean phoning home and getting someone who knew what they were doing to look at the formation, which was why Beth used her communicator to take some pictures and a quick recording of the formation while it was active.
"So, now what?" Andrea asked, looking to Beth as the team lead.
"Clear the area," Beth replied calmly.
That tedious operation was what they embarked on next, the only saving grace being that Beth and Blood were still absorbing a huge amount of experience from the kills. It wouldn't be particularly fast, but they would likely get at least ten levels out of the experience, assuming that it was a dungeon on the other side of the teleporter. The real problem was the formation kept spawning or teleporting the bears in at a prodigious rate, the fastest Beth had seen in all the dungeons and gates she had experienced. That meant it took them hours to get the place mostly clear, and they would have to stay in a perpetual state of battle to keep the area clear while they investigated the runes. That wasn't a problem for Beth and Blood, but it was pretty clear Andrea and Adam weren't really used to the endless hours of battle, though Adam was holding up better. Beth assumed that was from his Mana Physique causing his mana and stamina to drain at a slower rate, though she wasn't really certain.
Comments
Garrett Byers
Thank you, it's fixed.
Johnny
307 is not unlocked again. ;)
clea24
Is the arrow trap in the first ruin still operable? I know that the spatial trap powered down but it wasn't clear about the other. The only reason I ask is because they could make serious bank selling the location. A place that can train weapon skills to expert (assuming they have decent comprehension ability). Major factions would fight to get that.
