Disclaimer: excessive violence and gore, no sex.
Chapter Three Testing
After a relatively uneventful evening and night, I woke up the next morning with DBG back inside me. DBG had grown, in ways that are difficult to describe, I'm more aware of him inside me, but I understand less about him now. DBG requires less of me to function as a lot of him is still absent, still within Nil's divine realm, doing something. DBG has been reduced to reduce strain on me, in a way it's good, in another it's bad, it's good that it's unlikely to kill me but it's usefulness has also been reduced somewhat.
I shrug it off, DBG is back and now I don't have to worry about clothes or armor, which is quite useful. I walked over to Alpha and Beta's room, where they are snuggled up to a sleeping Bugger.
A quick bout of [Soul Resonance] and [Telepathy] with Beta provides me an overview of their activities during our separation and I reciprocate, sharing mine.
Alpha and Beta had spent the previous evening and night trying to further improve Bugger. Beta provided telepathic assistance so that Bugger could learn language, so that he could progress from the intelligence of a dog, to something more resembling that of an average human. Alpha just fucked him a lot... teaching him his place in our family heirarchy that of the bottom, in the figurative and literal sense.
As for me, I had spent the evening working on my enhancement mantra in preparation for DBG's eventual return. I worked for hours on casting spell after spell to improve and enhance every part of myself, mind, body and soul.
I grabbed my bag and walked over to Lidan's room to start the day of slaughter and mayhem. I left my brothers to continue training Bugger. Bugger had matured quickly physically but mentally, he still needed a lot of work, he had a lot of violent tendencies, counterbalanced somewhat by the urge to sleep and fuck.
Lidan was still sleeping naked when I arrived so I poked him awake. "When are we leaving for the dungeon?"
"Morning to you too, wanna soak in the tub together first?"
"No thanks, not today, too much to do." I said, impatient to start the slaughter.
"Shame." Lidan said as he sauntered off to clean up while I suppressed the urge to join him, his firm ass walking away tested my control. While I waited, I meditated, trying to empty myself of all distracting thoughts and emotions and impulses, trying to centre myself for the day ahead. Lidan walked out of the bathroom sometime later, smelling clean and fresh and I had to resist the urge to lick or bite his very naked body, his cock in particularly looked very tasty. Thankfully he hid his tasty treats behind a loin cloth so I could stop staring at his meaty ass and cock.
After a short but filling breakfast we ventured outside to the Dungeon, which was located in the central bailey of the outer castle contained within and connected to several specific buildings, one of which was a dedicated barracks to prevent malicious dungeon breaks and entries. There was a huge line of people waiting to enter the dungeon but Lidan ignored the nasty looks he got as he walked forward towards the front towards the guards guarding the dungeon. I followed unconcerned about the hatred of those in line and more concerned about the fact that there was so many adventurers at this time of morning, would mean long waits for future unsupervised ventures.
Lidan talked to the guards at the entrance, telling them that the King has requested me to undergo the Irregular testing in the dungeon under his supervision. Lidan is handed a token and we enter a building just outside the dungeon called the Dungeon Emporium that houses a bevvy of items that might be of use to an adventurer entering a dungeon. Items such as ropes, weapons, armor, escape scrolls, healing potions, stamina potions, recovery potions, travel rations, enchanted water containers. Basically anything that might be useful to salvage a life or to make dungeon delving safer and easier.
Afterwards we enter the dungeon and arrive within a cavernous `entrance room', with an unusual roundness, the walls bowing out to make a spheroid cave.
"If I have to save your ass, you lose points, this is a test to see what you're capable of and I'll report everything that you do here to the others and then they'll decide whether you make the cut."
"Sure, whatever." I said with zero enthusiasm.
Lidan simply raised an eyebrow "Well then you better get moving."
I chuckled. "I'm an alchemist, I don't hurry if I don't have to, haste makes waste, I'm going to take my time and devour this dungeon."
The truth is I don't give a shit about joining the Irregulars, I have no interest in trouble shooting for the world, I don't want to work for the king. I just want to be left alone to do my experiments during the day and unwind at night by having weird kinky sex with my `brothers'. That said, I can't exactly keep refusing the King, otherwise he might think I'm a threat of rebellion, hence why I gave up political power so quickly and shifted the King's focus to Dungeon Paul. While I'm here I might as well take in the sights and make the most of every opportunity presented while I can.
I spent the next half an hour making preparations much to the visible frustration of Lidan, who kept impatiently tapping his foot against the dirt floor as he watched.
The first thing I did was to sit down and [Meditate] to clear my mind and pull in mana to fill myself up before I cycled through my enhancement mantra a few times to get up to peak performance. Next I focused on my golems. Golems are very useful companions for an alchemist as humans can be so unreliable. Golems do as instructed.
DBG is the first golem to receive my attention. DBG has been drastically diminished, while his `body' is still mostly there, it's like his mind is elsewhere, so he's more of a puppet than an individual. As such, he's less demanding but also less exciting, instead of the multiple layers providing constant stimulation, defense and offensive potential of before, he's merely there in body, reduced to a single layer of defense, connected to my heart. This is less, so much less, DBG has become a puppet for me to command, his power reduced into that of a full body leather armor. Still it's not all bad, without the constant groping, it's easier to focus on the task at hand.
Then I started creating golems, made of earth, using various earth spells to shift and mould dirt and stone and programming the crystallised magic core into obeying my thoughts and will. The process is very therapeutic, it's nice to create things, even if they're just meant to kill for me. I create two blockers and two strikers. The blockers are large blocky things that shamble at the front and back, easy things to make and replace, meant to be expendable, to soak up damage, slow and unlikely to kill anything easily. 7 feet tall, 3 feet wide, bulky and perfect for blocking narrow corridors while I attack from afar with spells.
The strikers are works of art, even if I do say so myself, carefully sculpted to be slim and human like in form and function, meant to take over the roles of thieves, rogues and assassins, armed with stone daggers to strike while the blockers distract and defend. The strikers are fast, with a powerful magic core and enhanced earth to allow them to take some damage without falling apart. Their roles are to strike quickly then retreat as necessary. They can also double as scouts as needed. Strikers are more time consuming to replace, with their production taking roughly ten minutes at a go, while blockers take a few minutes at most to replace.
After ensuring that I had maximum defense and expendable minions, I used [Astral Projection] to scout the layout of the dungeon's first floor and the composition of monsters waiting. As expected the layout of the first floor of the dungeon is fairly straightforward, a grid pattern consisting of a 3 x 3 rooms, with each room having at least one slime within.
I sent out DBG out and away from me, leaving me naked (except for my spatial bag), which got me an eyebrow raise from Lidan with a little tenting of his loin cloth. I merely smiled at him as I placed a hand upon the `back' of the blockers as I used [Astral Projection] to watch DBG at work.
DBG uses [Vampiric Tether] to attack a slime but it's not very effective as slimes have a viscous form and a tough core and no blood so it merely gets halfway through the sliminess without hitting the core or doing any significant damage. DBG is unbothered by the slimes counter attack and merely continues to make adjustments to the [Vampiric Tether] to make it sharper and thicker until successful. Then DBG merely launches the newly improved [Vampiric Tether] deep into the slime, piercing through it's slime's magic core and draining it of all it's magic. All that's left is a gelatinous puddle.
Slimes make for good practice, while they're not good for life energy exactly, they do consist of concentrated magic and will... their cores are often small enough and surrounded by enough gelatinous fluid as to be tiresome to pierce.
DBG continues on, draining all 9 slimes and 3 small rats before returning back to my body and coating me again in blood armor. The blood armor takes longer to form than it used to and it's not as tough, as the blood armor has more of the consistency of leather than that of steel. It'll take time for DBG to be at full power again, it'll need more blood and magic which I can provide, but I'll have to wait before it's mind' returns from Nil's divine realm for it to be normal' again.
While DBG cleared the floor of monsters, it isn't capable of removing all hidden threats, that's where my baby golems are needed. I send out a blocker and striker, the striker racing towards the exit, while the blocker shambled it way after it. I casually stroll while thinking through the results of DBG's outing, while it could venture out and drain enemies, I don't like it being so far away from me, it leaves me more vulnerable than I prefer. That and the nudity is mildly problematic.
The striker sets off a tripwire arrow trap and the blocker falls into a slime pit, both of which could be problematic to low level adventurers but are of no real threat to golems made of stone. The arrow traps merely shot out a line of arrows at the striker which for the most part bounced off it's stone skin, leaving minor chips in the body. The slime pit was merely a false floor that collapsed under a certain amount of weight, which sent the golem down several feet into a hole filled with slimes, which were woefully incapable of dealing any damage to the golem whatsoever. The only problem being that the striker was relatively fragile so it needed a touch up of magic to restore it's body to optimum state. The blocker merely needed to have a platform of earth raised for it so that it could be vaulted upwards.
Dungeon delving is a risk, this dungeon particular is old and it is unknown how many instances of each floor there are. It's enough that adventurers never run out of low level monsters to fight and that there's always an element of uncertainty as the dungeon can make modifications or simply present a unique instance.
On the second floor I take a moment to use [Astral Projection] to check the layout of the second floor and the types of enemies, more slimes and more rats. Nothing of any significance. I venture forward flanked by golem minions and use [Blood Arrow] to kill the Slimes and rats. While I'm down here I might as well work on my less developed Classes, namely Magical Assassin, Mage and Blood Mage.
And so it goes floor after floor with me using [Blood Arrow] before switching to a stronger blood attack spell, [Blood Bolt] to kill slimes and rats while my golems prevent me from being overwhelmed by enemy numbers. [Blood Bolt] is merely an upgraded version of [Blood Arrow] whereas [Blood Arrow] forms an arrow of blood to attack enemies, [Blood Bolt] is a slimmer more streamlined concentrated use of blood and magic to attack enemies. [Blood Bolt] produces a finger length bolt of concentrated blood infused with magic power to give it armor piercing ability.
The only thing of note on the tenth floor was the slime King, which put up a little more fight, as it was up to my height in slime and had a relatively large magic core. In response I sent all four of my stone golems at it to distract it while using [Vampiric Tether] to drain it of it's magic.
After it's `death' I had to rinse off myself and my golem minions as slime got everywhere. I collected it's core to use on creating new golems as necessary. I'd have to condense it into a more useful format later.
Floor 11, I repeated the same process, using [Astral Projection] to scout out ahead for threats. This time instead of slimes and rats to defeat, there were spiders, Monstrous spiders to be specific. More of a threat than slimes as Monstrous spiders have a venom that can cause paralysis, a single bite can cause sluggishness, so a couple of bites or spiders can be hazardous if unprepared. The females can also create webs to ensnare enemies or shoot out spider silk directly onto enemies to slow them down.
There's a maze of caves and narrow tunnels where spiders lurk, this floor is more suitable for rogues, assassins and thieves, as they're used to darkness and ambush. I send off a striker to scout and serve as a decoy, drawing the attention of a couple of spiders that are awaiting in the very next cavern. The spiders pounce immediately on the striker, their fangs breaking on its' stone exterior, the striker pierces one through the thorax with a stone dagger while the second is bashed out of the way by the front blocker then crushed underfoot by the blocker.
I devoured the spider's carcass in front of me with my eyes and thoughts. I spent twenty minutes examining every inch of the spider's chitinous form front and back before proceeding to the next stage of my process.
I brought out tools of my alchemy trade, small blades, vials, daggers, swabs, and used my blades to cut a cross upon the dead creature. A living specimen would be more useful to vivisect to truly understand it's nature and aspects but a damaged carcass would do for the moment.
My knife work was slow and methodical as I separated a spider leg by cutting through the joint, as expected the weakest part of the arthropod's armor.
After cutting off one leg to confirm what was written in the dungeon guide, I pursued my own particular methods of inspections. I ripped off one leg off by placing my foot on the spider's thorax and yanking upwards with extreme force. The limb separated a little easily, causing it to fly off, I shrugged and continued, with the next leg in sequence, this time, testing it's rotational resistance to pressure. In layman's terms, I twisted the leg off from it's base, instead of pulling. One might wonder why I was engaged in such an activity, but knowledge is a powerful tool if used correctly and one can never have enough knowledge or power. The next leg was chopped off via hacking with the sharp edge of my dagger. So I proceeded with my efforts on the legs, burning one to test fire resistance, freezing another leg to see how quickly ice would accumulate on it's chitin and how it would affect the movements of the joint. The next leg was crushed slowly underfoot to test it's resistance to blunt force damage/ pressure. I experimented until I ran out of legs to test external variables on.
I moved onto the head, slicing through the chitin there to expose it's brains and find the venom gland that produced the venom, studying it with my eyes, memorising it's composition before cutting into it and extracting a sample for the vial and another for my mouth. It tasted surprisingly bland with a peppery grimy aftertaste.
Spider venom can be used in various medicinal methods, typically by helping numb a patient for particular injuries, such as impalements, or shrapnel wounds. The spider venom is a potent neurotoxin, which doesn't kill the target merely paralyses them for later consumption.
Next I moved onto the spider's thorax, looking through it's organs, trying to calculate which organs would have been vital to it's continuing function. I extracted the small venom sack and poured it into my skin, DBG taking the opportunity to absorb it, it wasn't a blood borne toxin so it wasn't able to be easily turned into a blood born weapon but I had enough knowledge and magic to twist things in my favor. I simply used [Extraction] to steal the venom, then added it to my blood then used [Replication] along with [Shapeshifting] to make myself able to turn my blood into yet another weapon in my arsenal. I'd still have to test the effects of my blood on something other than the spiders as they would likely have a high resistance to their own poison even if it was transmitted via another medium.
OF course a single specimen of Monstrous Spider wasn't enough to make extensive conclusions as to their strengths and weaknesses but it would definitely help to establish a base line. I wanted to capture a few alive and study their behaviours and also test out some theories as to which organs were the most vital to make full use of critical strike.
I sent out my earth golems to collect the spiders, as their poison would be useless against the golems and now that I knew more about the spiders, the golems should be able to incapacitate them without killing them.
During the momentary lull between my last experiment and the wait for another sample to be collected Lidan asked me a question. His voice surprised me, he'd been quiet for eleven floors, and hours of travel and killing, so while I knew he was behind me the entire time watching my every movement, I was still a little startled at him talking to me again. I had for some reason expected him to be a silent judge of my activities so as not to corrupt the results. How stupid of me.
"What was that all about?" Lidan asked.
"You'd have to be a bit more specific."
"Why were you torturing a dead spider?"
"I wasn't torturing it, I was experimenting with it." All that got me was a raised eyebrow and a motion of his hand that said to go on with my explanation. So I continued "the best way to truly understand something is to break it down and examine every part and see how each part connects and is integrated into the whole to make a weapon of war."
Lidan didn't respond and I stopped thinking about him as my golems returned with living specimens. What followed after was even messier as I continued my experiments, the two spiders that my golems collected were subjected to two entirely different experiments, one was simply gutted to see it's insides and see how long it'd take for it to die from blood loss, organ damage, while I watched how it died. The other was essentially tortured as I stabbed it periodically in various organs to test which organs elicited the largest reaction chemical or auditory and examining the rate of recovery between stabs.
Afterwards I continued on using a variant of [Blood Bolt] smearing venom laced blood onto newly formed [Blood Bolts] to create [Paralysing Blood Bolts], a [Blood Bolt] that incorporated the paralysing venom of the spider with the penetrative power of a [Blood Bolt]. Sure it took a little longer to cast and required me to spill more of my own blood but thanks to various blood perks and inherited traits but it provided useful experience gain to all four of my classes. I used [Paralysing Blood Bolts] on every spider that came close while my golems captured some and killed or blocked others from attacking.
While the spiders are individually tougher to deal with than slimes what with their venom and their ambushing tactics, they're easier for me to detect with [Telepathy] and drain of life, blood and souls. The venom isn't that useful on a lot of spiders, as they have a certain natural resistance to their own poisons but it still has a small effect nonetheless. I continue using spamming the spell on spiders and the bugs that littered floors 11 through to twenty. Lidan continues trailing a room or two behind idly juggling fireballs as he watches me tear through spiders with blood magic.
On the twentieth floor, there was a large Spider Queen, backed by large Spider Soldiers, serving as her 'royal guard' none of them lasted very long after they were attacked by the earth golems and the rain of [Blood Bolts]. After dissecting and devouring so many spiders it wasn't hard to identify and target weak points even on larger specimens. One hit kills provides small but significant experience boost to my Mage, Blood Mage and Magical Assassin classes. Pushing myself to fire off multiple [Blood Bolts] helps to relieve the tedium of casting the same spell over and over again.
In the cavern that the spider queen protected, there were a hundred or so spider eggs the size of my fist remaining, which I didn't bother with, though Lidan collected one into his void ring on the way out for some reason.
Floor 21 and there's a major change, where the previous floors were caves and caverns filled with a varying selection of monsters and traps, floor 21 was another world... of sorts anyway. Floor 21 had a vast plains, with a sun above and a blue sky, and the stench of death lingering in the air, a familiar smell of sickly sweetness of decaying flesh. Floor 21 had Ogres as the main threat, 7 foot tall humanoid monsters that fed on flesh, they're known for snacking on unlucky travellers, human or otherwise. Ogres have one particular trait of note [Monstrous Might] allowing them to exhibit extreme strength. They vary in color, from red to green and in shape, from muscular to obese.
The first Ogre was a pudgy looking green monstrosity that reminded me too much of a goblin, given too much height and weight. Killing it was a pain as I wasn't sure about it's weak point and the corresponding force necessary to maim or murder it. I continually circled around the lone Ogre, firing off [Blood Bolts] infused with my own blood and magic power until it was dead.
Ogres have only one advantage over humans, monstrous strength and considering how many other monsters are also strong, it's not a very impressive monster. While it's racial trait isn't unique or impressive, it's still a troublesome and dangerous opponent to someone unprepared. I had my golem buddies help distract it while I chipped away at it from a safe distance like a typical squishy mage.
I took a break upon the plains while Lidan lay down nearby and watched me quietly as I experimented with blood magic on the Ogre's corpse. Testing random blood spells to see it's effect on it's skin, meat and bones.
I had stayed fairly conservative with my use of blood magic so far, simply using relatively basic blood magic to attack, [Blood Bolt] required comparatively very little magic or blood, requiring a finger length of condensed blood to attack and pierce. It's major weakness was that it while it was good for taking down armored targets one at a time, it's cast time was too high against multiple foes or those with tough physiques. I had mostly been using it to improve my efficiency at blood magic by spamming the one spell with a little bit of variation.
I needed more, more ways to kill via blood magic and I had a lot of ideas but I pondered about implementing them as it could get somewhat messy.
Fuck it, I can't be assed caring about consequences, I must focus on efficiency of slaughter. I had accumulated quite a few minutes of conversation with Nil if I needed to from sacrificing the souls of slimes and spiders, though not enough to have a decent conversation. Most of my conversations with Nil proceeded on the edge of death and had a dream like quality that left me with more questions than answers most of the time. Slimes and spiders had very basic souls, so they provided less than a second of talk time each.
I slit my wrists open controlling and infusing the blood that poured out of me into from out of me to forge a couple of blood swords. A combination of myself and DBG, my blood and magic with DBG's particular innate abilities, that of blood absorption and refining. The blood swords channeled my blood magic through my own blood, it helped improve my damage, even though it'd require me to get up close and personal with some ogres, which could get very dangerous.
The pommel of my swords flowed around my fist forming a strange pommel that also doubled as a blood knuckle duster while the tip and blade of the sword were made of condensed blood sharpened to a fine point with bloody precision. My veins continued to produce continual replenishment to the blood swords, making them sharper, tougher and deadlier with every passing moment.
Either way when I found my second Ogre I was elated... or perhaps dizzy, either way I stabbed that fat bloated stupid fucker a lot and bathed in it's blood, increasing my strength by a little. I had gained [Blood Bath] from Lidan at some point, either during sex or via blood draining. It's description was kind of vague.
[Blood Bath]: when bathed in your enemies blood, gain the chance to inherit their innate strengths.
I proceeded to dissect the ogre's corpse, paying particular attention to it's musculature and thinking of new and exciting ways to kill. It's muscles were corded in a particular way that would when infused with mana give it explosive strength for a brief moment. If I could mimic and replicate the musculature of it's arms, I could make myself even stronger. Something to consider for later. I decided I wanted to embrace my darker urges and really lean into the danger, to increase my experience gain and put into practice the knowledge I had gained from Alpha and Felix. The Ogres would be treated to a demonstration of the fighting style of a Magic Swordsman as would Lidan.
The Ogre territory was quite large so I practised using [Blood Sole] constantly in order to avoid the tedium of walking and glided over the rough terrain. Any ogre I met suffered dreadfully under my twin blood swords, though I didn't always manage to escape every encounter unscathed. Fighting up close and personal got me more than a few bruises, cuts and broken bones. Generally if there were less than two or less Ogres I simply stabbed each one in the heart and absorbed their blood and soul into me, blurring the boundaries myself and the monsters in the process. If there were more than two ogres, my strategies became more elaborate.
Ogres are not to be underestimated and yet the savage might of the Ogres merely incited my blood lust. The pain simply excited me. That and I discovered something quite interesting, after the first ten Ogres I killed I gained a point to strength, a stat that had stagnated for quite a while as I focused my efforts on expanding and exploring my knowledge. I continued gaining strength, though each additional stat point took twice as many bloodied corpses than the previous. The more I killed the stronger I became and the more brutal and bloody my carnage was.
Floor 21 to 29 were relatively simple, if bloody, I used my new swords as tools to harvest Ogre lives. Throughout those floors I practised [Symphony of Blood] a combination of spellcraft and swordplay. Something that came in handy the deeper into the dungeon I went as Ogres increased in numbers. From fighting lone Ogres to small groups to large groups, I cut and slashed and bathed in their blood, becoming more and more inhuman. I barely paid attention to Lidan, lost in blood shed and blood lust.
When fighting a group of twenty or so Ogres, I would use my blood swords to slash at one Ogre, then use [Blood Letting] to worsen the injury, then use [blood sole] to move a step or two away or to the next enemy and repeat the process. This would continue until every ogre within a certain distance was bloodied and crying out in pain until it reached a crescendo of violence and blood shed and I'd finish it with [Reign of Blood].
[Reign of Blood] was fairly basic in concept, it took control of all blood in the area and drew it to me. The execution varied based on my mood and the state of the enemies, sometimes I'd simply tug on the loose thread and just let them unravel, leaving behind bloodless Ogre husks. Other times I'd get more elaborate and explosive, shifting all the blood into small frozen razor blades, spiralling around, slashing and smashing apart the Ogres until there was only pulverised flesh remaining.
Once the blood was drawn to me, I'd soak in it, trying to gain as much power as I could from it before absorbing it into myself or DBG, though the difference between us becomes somewhat blurry over time. The job of my golems was simply to prevent the Ogres from immediately ganging up on me and overwhelming me with their might and numbers.
The start doesn't use up much mana, it just requires a lot of physical awareness helped with a little disassociation via [Astral Projection], though only partially, instead of the soul/mind escaping the body, it was pulled halfway out and used as a omnidirectional scout. The soul doesn't need eyes to see, so it's useful to give a 360 field of view of enemies. It's a little disorienting at first as I essentially puppeteer my own body using my mind while using my soul to scout. It was a little hectic at the start, hence all the injuries but after a bit of practice I became much more skilled at becoming an avatar of carnage and death. The finale however, uses up a lot of mana and mental energy, limiting my control over the golems. The effort is mentally draining but in between `songs' I let the strikers and blockers do the dirty work of scouting ahead and killing loners before they group up.
Floor 30 is where things got complicated, there was an Ogre town, led by an Ogre Magi, a two headed Ogre, capable of impressive might and magic. There were hundreds of Ogres, with an Ogre Magi on their side capable of performing enhancement magic on them, they could be troublesome, [Symphony of Blood] wouldn't be enough.
I spent a couple of hours on that floor thinking of how to counter their numbers and spell caster. I couldn't outfight such a large group when they had a spellcaster backing them, it'd be far too dangerous and the golems I had weren't enough, I needed something new and unexpected to take the Ogres by surprise and take advantage of their various weaknesses.
I came up with [Blood Butterflies], creating the first one took forever, or what felt like forever, as I tried to balance multiple aspects at once. There was the size and shape of the wings and their numbers, the amount of blood and magic necessary to keep it `alive' for long enough to be useful, the shape and form of it's body, among countless smaller problems. The first successful blood butterfly probably took me half an hour to create, as it required so much thought and revision it was downright ridiculous.
The [Blood Butterfly] was made from my life blood, with crystallised mana particles flowing through it with 4 wings to give it greater speed and mobility. It was also granted a little bit of thought. Blood butterflies don't just have blood and mana, they also have liquid mana and a tiny mana core to help power them. This increases the complexity of each one but provides experience to all classes, particularly alchemy, due to complexity and purpose. Core the size of a grain of sand, impossible to target when the butterfly is moving.
I made several blood butterflies and sent them into the enemies camp, where they were promptly ignored by the Ogres on watch. Each [Blood Butterfly] had two forms of attack available to them, mouth and wings, blood sucking and slashing.
I marched forward with 4 earth golems with Lidan loitering in the background watching on with interest and 7 blood butterflies hovering above. The earth golems charged forth and were promptly smashed apart by a couple hundred enhanced Ogres. I ran away... strategically, drawing the vanguard far away enough from the Ogre Magi that they couldn't react fast enough when the butterflies attacked.
The blood butterflies weren't capable of doing a lot of damage by themselves but they didn't need to, they just needed to inflict some bleeding damage and distract the enemy. They attacked with their tiny straw like mouths, or with their razor sharp blood wings, they had been imbued with a little bit of DBG's nature and could drink blood and magic, to enhance and repair themselves. It'd be more impressive if there were more of them but they could inflict very small wounds and draw very little blood and magic into themselves but it was enough...
When they attacked the ogre magi, it caused chaos in their lines. Ogres may be strong but the general majority are as dumb as rocks, when their leader and spell caster screamed when attacked by half a dozen blood butterflies they turned around and started attacking the blood butterflies, which made things even bloodier. Ogres aren't great at targeted damage, or restraint, so when they struck out at small flying targets that dodged in between other ogres, while slicing at the enemies skin, it enraged a lot of the ogres. Ogres lashed out in pain, boosted by enhancement magic, making their attacks even stronger but less predictable so when they punched, there was a lot of `friendly fire'.
Sure the blood butterflies were eventually crushed but the Ogres had descended into a bloody free for all allowing me to easily return to inflict my finishing move [Reign of Blood]. All the spilled blood flowed into me, refined by DBG and enhanced by me and then ejected out in a purified form, infused with spider venom while using targeted debuffs namely [Festering Wounds] and [Blood Letting] to weaken them further.
The ogres were eventually defeated and with the Ogre magi spent after enhancing two hundred troops it didn't take long for me to kill it with a [Vampiric Tether] through the heart, draining it of blood, life and magic.
Floor 31, finally, a mountain region, with many a distant peak.
Trolls, what I needed to progress, to become stronger, to use more blood magic, with less strain on my body. Killing all those Ogres and using all that blood magic was exhausting, mentally and physically. I took a small break to think about Trolls and my strategy on eating them up.
The problem of course with Trolls is that they're a pain to kill as their [Rapid Regeneration] trait makes them powerful close combat attackers.
There are typically three ways to deal with a creature that regenerates quickly. 1 insta kill, a critical hit to brain or heart to destroy any chance of recovery (works less well for hydras) 2 lodge something inside it so it can't heal properly, swords, spears, whatever is sharp and pointy enough. 3 burn it with fire so that it can't regenerate as easily.
There are other methods, like freezing it or locking it in a stasis spell but they're less effective as ice thaws and stasis spells are high level.
The history of trolls is sort of tragic, Trolls descended from Titans, Titans were powerful Giants that had strong bodies and skilled with magic, primarily lightning, they tried to take down the gods and were cast down and cursed to be dumb brutes... capable of only suffering.
I find a lean Troll on its own, unarmed, the Troll equivalent of a scout, I send a striker to draw it's attention and launch a sneak attack from behind, stabbing it with both blood swords, into it's back, and it howls in pain and swings around trying to throw me off or attack me with it's long muscular arms but I ignore it's pain and focus on channeling blood magic into a maximum strength [Vampiric Tether]. Essentially turning my own heart into a fuel source for the spell and using it to pierce it's flesh and find and connect our two hearts. Which might sound like a sappy euphemism for something romantic as our hearts beat as one, but mostly I'm parasitising it for it's racial trait, while draining it of blood, magic and life.
My body goes numb as I'm latched onto the dying Troll, as I focus the entirety of my mind and magic on draining it completely. Trolls are the perfect prey for a Blood Mage, as when they're damaged, they regenerate at a ridiculous rate, pouring their entire mana pool into regenerating, lost tissue, blood or whatever else. My chest hurts as I'm tearing it open to make the blood draining faster, pouring more of me into the troll to drain it's body and heart of all of it's blood.
It collapses to the ground, dead and drained of all it's blood a moment or a minute later. Where before my body was numb from lack of blood flow, now my body is on fire from all the excess blood pumping through my veins. My cock is also engorged from all the blood flow and I look to Lidan who's looking extra tasty and his loin cloth is doing little to hide his own interest. He is a demon after all and blood shed makes him horny, which isn't much of a surprise, sadly i have things to do that take precedence.
After absorbing the troll's essence, I gained a better understanding of it's physiology and can better mimic it, improving my [Rapid Regeneration] trait, which improves my ability to do blood magic but it's not nearly enough to satisfy my blood lust, while sex is appealing to my incubi nature, my desire for blood shed, power and knowledge is greater. If I can mimic a Troll's [Rapid Regeneration] not only would physical recovery be far faster, allowing me to improve my physical stats, my ability to do blood magic, would be far less taxing on my body.
Instead of pinning Lidan to the ground and riding his hard cock until we're both sweaty, sleepy messes, I proceed to dissect the dead Troll instead. Lidan is visibly disappointed with my choice and flops onto his back and starts doodling in the air with fire magic. He uses a single finger to cast and control fire, twisting and shaping it into various forms for his own amusement.
Meanwhile I proceed with the dissection of the lone troll, it's around 7 feet tall when it's face down, when it was standing it was only about 6 foot tall due to how it hunched over as it fought with the striker. I open it up, weighing and examining various organs and bones and muscle density and distribution to better understand it from an objective point of view. Two things of note about this particular troll, it had very well developed leg muscles, meaning that it probably focused mostly on agility and stamina and that it had a large cock (11 inches) that was rigid even after death... Yes I'm a pervert but death has it's weird points too. The fight for it's life must have incidentally stimulated the Troll's cock, not that it got much action in it's final moments as it fell to the ground. It did make me wonder if it was an outlier in cock size or whether that was the base line. Might be amusing to test the hypothesis when I don't have an audience.
Trolls are more difficult to deal with than Ogres, Ogres are a one note monster, they're only strong, with a Ogre Magi being relatively rare. Trolls on the other hand have a whole variety of different subsets, based on their particular environment and personality. This troll typified the scout version, focused on speed and stamina rather than fighting, hence why it was on the outskirts of Troll territory rather than at it's heart. Trolls can develop into fearsome warriors, as they're best known for their fearsome vitality and recovery speed, they can become tankers, able to recover from any non fatal injury in seconds, which makes them annoying for many warriors to counter. Most mages will also avoid Trolls where possible as Trolls can be quick on their feet along with having all sorts of resistances and high health, that and Trolls love to eat spell casters. Trolls use all their magic on regeneration and Mages provide the highest amount of mana compared to other potential meals.
A single Troll is relatively easy to take down, given sufficient warning and preparation, several Trolls working together to attack me would make them far more dangerous as they can surround and attack me, giving me little time to cast. There are hundreds to thousands of Trolls scattered throughout the next ten floors and to kill my way through them, I'm going to need to become much more than I am.
I have an idea for a way to proceed but it is a little crazy, I will have to be both reckless and restrained. This first troll has boosted my vitality by one point, so that's encouraging and my regeneration is a little more vigorous. I shift DBG from external defense to internal stimulation and defense. I'm now essentially naked in the dungeon, with only a spatial bag on me, I strap it to my waist and center myself as I direct my attention to my blood swords. I absorb them into myself, consuming the blood and magic into myself and open up the veins in my wrists to forge new blood weapons.
Lidan watches on with a raised eyebrow and a smirk as blood flows freely from my wrists, my various regeneration perks working overtime in conjuction with [Shapeshifting] and blood magic and alchemical knowledge to create two new weapons, two blood whips. They're made up of strings of blood twisted and knotted to create the blood magic equivalent of the Blood Briar. Blood briars are a type of sentient vine with thorns that are often brown and lay upon forest floors in the hopes of capturing small prey such as rodents and rabbits. They're capable of limited movement and constrict their prey similar to certain snakes.
My goal is to bleed out the Trolls and feast on their blood. Each thorned blood whip has thousands of sharpened blood thorns to latch onto enemies and a quick jerk and some blood magic can disengage at will. Or at least that's the theory, I still have to test it out on some Trolls.
I used a combination of 'strikers' and [Astral Projection] to scout out the path ahead and draw in the attention of lone 'troll scouts', then I'd attack from afar with my blood whips and draw in the Troll blood to bathe in.
Sadly this strategy wasn't enough to deal with more than one Troll at a time so when I ran into three Trolls at a time, a Troll tanker and two warriors, things got a little more exciting, if more violent. The two warriors were a combination of agility and dexterity, one of them armed with a Bone Club made of some unfortunate Troll's bones, while the other simply used his fists, a combination of strength and agility. All three of them were annoying, the tanker kept charging at me, trying to draw my attention while the other two tried to flank me to deal fatal damage. In response I sent out four strikers to attack them while I whipped them mercilessly, once they were sufficiently wounded I drew in their spilled blood, cast [Blood Letting] absorbed some, bathed in some more and [Shapeshifted] a little to become more like them.
While four strikers ganged up on the tanker, keeping it busy I sent a flurry of whip strikes at the Troll wielding a club along with a barrage of [Paralysing Blood Bolts] at it before pouncing at it's loin clothed form and pinning it to the ground to tear out its throat with my teeth. The other Troll pummeled me with its fist as I bathed in the dying troll's blood as I tore open my own chest to pierce it's heart with a maximum strength [Vampiric Tether]. I could barely feel the blows of the other Troll as my mind was awash with pain, pleasure and numbness. The troll beneath me quickly subsided, it had focused on speed, comparatively it was the weakest of the trio, it's bone club clattered to the floor and was promptly picked up by the troll behind me who then proceeded to beat me around the skull and torso with it. I laughed in it's face, fully consumed with blood lust and a little madness and swung my whips around encircling us both face to face, I was about a foot off the ground, if it didn't have such an obscenely bulbous nose, it'd probably be fuckable, interestingly enough, 11 inches seems to be the baseline for Troll males... I might have to enthrall one of these big brutes later to make for a new pet/lover, in the dark, it could fuck me stupid and it's face wouldn't bother me.
Still slaughter to be done, so I tightened the whips, pinning us both together as another [Vampiric Tether] tore out of my heart and into his and emptied it of it's sweet tasty Troll blood. The more Troll blood I consumed, the more I wanted, fresh troll blood was a lot more energising than the diluted version found in most higher end recovery potions.
I turned my attention to the last surviving member of the trio, the tanker, he had taken out two of my strikers and while covered in dried blood, he didn't have a single visible injury, which didn't surprise me at all.
I lashed out with my blood whips, flagellating him repeatedly as my two remaining strikers slashed at his joints repeatedly. I cast [Festering Wounds] and [Blood Letting] on him repeatedly as I tested the extent of his regeneration. While racial traits are powerful, they require a power source, to allow a Troll to regenerate from wounds, it requires magic/mana, the more mana, the faster the regeneration. If the Troll runs out of mana then the regeneration becomes much slower and wounds would accumulate until the Troll dies. It's a strategy that some warriors that specialise in stamina use, but it's not one I find very compelling, usually but I'm feeling somewhat vindictive, he did kill two of my baby golems and he must suffer for it, that and it's an interesting experiment. How long exactly can a 'tanker' endure before it runs out mana and dies.
Several minutes of excessive blood shed later, I have my answer and I promptly proceed to dissect the dead tanker Troll for alchemy. It's body is better developed than the previous specimens, while the others had better development in legs or arms, it had a better overall musculature, each muscle in perfect proportion to each other, none more developed than the other. If it wasn't a greenish pink monster with a hideous face, he'd be very fuckable.
After the trio I take a break in a scraggly tree and watch the area, while Trolls are the dominant monster, there's some other animals about, iron boars on the low ground and mountain goats scattered about the mountainside.
I hunt down an iron boar and cook it up for a meal, it's a little crispier than I prefer since I used a [Fireball] to cook it but it's good enough. It's been a day, I think, inside the dungeon, though the time that passed outside is far less, time is a bit relative while inside a dungeon, each floor has a different time scale and it's hard to keep track of time in the dark.
I have my 'strikers' stand guard as I take a short nap to recover my mental energy and sleep off the iron boar, Lidan eats his own meal separate from me.
When I awake again, I discard my strikers, so that I can free my mind to focus solely on one thing, blood magic. I plan to dominate the Trolls using blood magic and only blood magic. I hand over my spatial bag to Lidan for safe keeping as I commit to my bloody rampage. I want rivers of Troll blood to drown in.
I proceed through the remainder of the floor, naked, splattered in blood, trialling different variations of blood magic on Trolls. I don't forget to pay my dues to Nil and continually sacrifice souls to him, that or eat them, depends on my mood. The Trolls hunger for mana rich food and I share their desire as I drink their blood and absorb their souls. As I progress through the floor, I'm gaining slow but steady progress to my physicality, mostly that of vitality and constitution, vitality from [Blood Bath] and constitution from [Enduring].
Where using [Symphony of Blood] was a brutal choreography, similar to that of a military campaign against the Ogres, my new strategy against the Trolls was a bloody street brawl in comparison.
Against the trolls I used two new composite techniques [Bloody Rampage] and [Troll Transformation]. [Troll Transformation] was simple in concept, difficult in execution, I simply absorbed their blood, life energy and soul and created my ideal of a perfect troll, one with my face and a muscular, ever regenerating body. [Bloody Rampage] was a little more complicated, it was part movement technique but mostly it was about slaughtering enemies as quickly as possible in the most brutal of fashion. It incorporated elements of [Blood Sole] for speed, while also making use of my own blood loss to utilise the bloody madman perk of extra damage, with blood shaping and [blood letting] playing a role too, with a bunch of different spells and perks playing minor roles as well.
Or to dumb it down, I pulled out most of my blood and created a blood tide that I could ride towards a designated location with the highest concentration of Trolls and submerged them in blood, then hammered them in various blood attacks before using [Blood Letting] to weaken them then used [Blood Control] to draw their spilled blood back to me, before using [Blood Refinement] and [Blood Bath] to empower myself with their blood, magic and souls before moving onto the next grouping. [Astral Projection] provided some assistance in finding the largest grouping of Trolls in the quickest time.
I can't keep up the slaughter forever, the constant loss and surge of blood is exhausting on my mind. I have to stop at the start of each floor. After I pass through the end portals I take a break to let my mind and blood settle. Lidan seems amused at my bloody carnage.
My efforts continue in a similar vein, till I reach the end of floor 40 where there's a troll Town. There's a thousand Trolls, led by a Troll Chieftain and a small squad of elite Trolls. Their town is kind of impressive made of stone structures that seem quite large and well built.
Over the previous ten floors and the day or so that took, my skills with using blood magic along with several level ups have made me more proficient as a Mage, and more importantly as a Blood Mage. Instead of attempting to attack the town directly, I decide to finish off the floor and the Trolls with an extra dose of crazy.
I decide on attacking the town indirectly by using [Rain of Blood], a variation on [Meteor Storm], essentially all I do is maintain my Troll form and periodically bleed myself nearly dry for a couple of hours... Each drop of my blood has concentrated spider blood within it. [Improvisation] among other perks helps to boost the effectiveness, once I spread it through the air to the neighboring mountain and it rains on the trolls.
By itself [Rain of Blood] even with spider venom does little real damage, it just makes the Trolls a little sluggish for a few moments. It doesn't matter much as all I need is blood to be readily available and that's when I really attack. I race through their streets in my modified Troll form as they're distracted by the blood pouring from above them nonsensically and reach the center of their town. Then I do what I do and use [Reign of Blood] to start the real fun. Blood flows upward and spirals upwards in a variation of [Blizzard]; instead of water, there's blood and blood while not as free flowing as water, is more vibrant, when it's commanded by that which spilled it. My mana flows through that blood and it responds to me, like a body part should, instinctively and instantaneously. Blood in the form of razor blades, butterflies and swords slice into and through the confused Trolls, as so much is happening, they don't have the time to worry about the strange looking Troll in their midst. As their blood flows and mixes with mine, the strength of the 'blood storm' only intensifies and grows, wounding more, the blood flowing through the air reduces visibility and even the strongest of the Trolls eventually succumbs to blood loss and dies. I pull all of the blood to me and soak in the sticky mess of their bloody deaths, becoming tougher and more vigorous.
I ditch the Troll form and sink into the bloodied dirt of what used to be a vibrant town of Trolls.
"Well that was different." Lidan remarks.
I give him a groggy smile and sink into a short little sleep. All that blood loss and magic use was tiring.
When I wake up I go through the portal at the end of floor 40 as myself again, while being a Troll made blood magic easier, it used up a lot of magic to maintain the form and felt uncomfortable, like an illfitting outfit.
Floor 41 I run into fire birds, birds that can use fire magic at will, flying high above me, while I could probably kill them off, it would require a lot more magic and effort than I really want to make use of while being supervised. Also I kind of want a break to think about ways of making my wings bigger and my attacks more deadly.
I give up on this floor as it's not really worth the effort.
I call it a day. "I'm done. I've had enough of the dungeon for today."
"Not bad, we'll have to work on your long range magic some more later."
I raised an eyebrow and asked "Want to show me what you got?"
Lidan smiled and showed off. He used [Fiery apocalypse] with one hand, swinging one hand, up then down, a wave of fire spreading upwards then outwards, turning the skies red and killing all the fire birds.
"Impressive, I'll have to try that sometimes but I want to go back upstairs and do some shopping, I want to pick up a void ring, though I'm a little broke at the moment." I pout and pose in an effort to elicit sympathy and desire "Think you could help me out big boy?"
Lidan LAUGHS AT ME and I'm a little hurt to be honest, I didn't think it was that bad an effort but he simply smirked at me and said "Sure, I'm rich, you can pay me back in trade." Then he smacked my bare bloody ass reminding me that I was still naked, DBG went back to covering me up, the effort a little thin, but covering what was necessary, now it looked like I was covered in red silk, a little garish but it would work out later.
I might have to submit to Lidan lust later but I can live with that, all of the blood shed had made me somewhat horny, restless and hungry anyway. I'd come back later with the others to really push the limits of sanity and blood magic.
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Author's Note: This chapter took forever to finish, I just couldn't seem to flesh it out as much as I wanted and every time I tried, I grew more and more frustrated, putting it off more and more until I couldn't put it off any more.
The stage four restrictions in my neck of the woods is not helping my productivity at all. I'm not 100% on this chapter but it's the best I can do for the moment, and better to produce something than nothing. Probably ? I don't know.
Next chapter is an interlude called Progress Reports: multiple POV's detailing the adventures of various 'clones' during their separation from Lucius.
Additional stuff that didn't quite mesh in with the narrative but provides some more background info on the world as it is. (I wrote 7 pages of notes for the chapter, most of which I ended up ignoring as pretentious emo nonsene but some might be interesting? )
Dungeon floor - main monsters/threats
On floor 1 -9 there are slimes (BM- boss monster) on floor 10 there's a slime king (man sized and can suffocate adventurers on floors 11 – 19 there are monstrous spiders on floor 20 there's a monstrous spider queen and her royal guards on floors 21 – 29 there are Ogres – trait – monstrous strength On floor 30 Two headed Ogre Magi – ettin mage – physical brawn and moderate magic power on floor 31- 39 there are Trolls on floor 40 there's a troll chieftain with a band of elite trolls on floor 41 – 49 are fire birds the lesser known, less powerful versions of pheonix On floor 50 there's a pheonix on floor 51 - 59 there are giant lizards on floor 60 there a Lightning salamander – a giant lizard with lightning magic. On floor 61 – 69 Snakes, snakes and more snakes. (floor 65 has a giant snake) on floor 70 there's a hydra on floor 71 – 79 wyverns On floor 80 there's a storm drake – capable of creating storms of lightning on floor 81 -89 lesser dragons – single magic type dragons. On floor 90 elder dragon – capable of more than one type of magic On floor 100 Ancient dragon – a giant dragon, able to cast multiple forms of magic, along with polymorphing into various shapes.
Internal time scale for dungeon
floor 1 = 2 minutes inside this dungeon floor is equivalent to one minute outside the dungeon. floor 6 = 4 minutes inside this dungeon floor is equivalent to one minute outside the dungeon. floor 11 = 8 minutes inside this dungeon floor is equivalent to one minute outside the dungeon. floor 16 = 16 minutes inside this dungeon floor is equivalent to one minute outside the dungeon. floor 21 = 32 minutes inside this dungeon floor is equivalent to one minute outside the dungeon. floor 26 = 64 minutes inside this dungeon floor is equivalent to one minute outside the dungeon. floor 31 = 128 minutes inside this dungeon floor is equivalent to one minute outside the dungeon. floor 36 = 256 minutes inside this dungeon floor is equivalent to one minute outside the dungeon. floor 41 = 512 minutes inside this dungeon floor is equivalent to one minute outside the dungeon.