Underworld - Level Up or Die: A LitRPG Series Page 3

  The rest of the group seemed to be in agreement.

  Ignoring our group entirely, he marched over and grabbed a loaf and a water bottle, then led his congregation out the way they had come.

  There was suddenly a stir among my group. The competitive gamer in each of them didn’t like the idea of a large group getting a head start on them. I was pleased that the group I had fallen into seemed motivated.

  Staying at the back of my group, I followed as I planned my course of action. I needed first to figure out how to use my Creature Observation skill and Healing spell. Once I got those down I needed to try and learn as many blue magic spells as possible, but I was afraid it would take quite some time. Not to forget, I needed to pitch in on the front lines as much as I could to make sure I was getting experience.

  It was a 100 meter walk down the hall to reach the hunting area. At the end of the hall, there was an opening to a room that seemed to have a natural light hanging in the air. Though I couldn’t see any door, I guessed there was some kind of magic barrier here keeping monsters out.

  As we entered the large room, I saw that the ceiling was at least two stories up, even if it was hard to see because of the lack of light up there. There were numerous side passages, some well-lit and others pitch black. Random light orbs were placed on the walls in seemingly no logical pattern.

  The larger group was already ahead of us preparing to fight. Three pathetic looking, vertically challenged skeletons were roaming on the other side of the room next to them.

  After overhearing the other group who had figured out how to open the party system, our smaller group all joined up together. The trick to opening up the party window or any window for that matter was to just say ‘party’ with the intention of opening the window. It seemed to work just like magic. At your will, it would open and close.

  And then we were joined by an unexpected visitor.

  “Elorion,” called a throaty, familiar voice that summoned an intense anger inside of me. A sudden urge to hit an imp in the face returned.

  My party turned to see my kidnapper flying toward us. Or, more specifically, me.

  The imp didn’t seem happy to be joining us, at least from what I could tell from his ugly turtle face.

  “Yes?” I acknowledged him.

  “The Head Mistress wanted me to teach you some blue magic that might be helpful.” He eyed me suspiciously.

  Something was off. He had mocked me in every way possible, then kidnapped me. If the Mistress had really wanted him to teach me, then why didn’t she do it herself? “What’s the catch?”

  “Only that the quickest way for you to learn blue magic is if you experience the spell yourself. The one I will teach you is a stun of sorts, so I will have to cast it upon you for you to learn it.”

  I doubted he would dare kill me after all the work that went into kidnapping us and bringing us here. My excitement overrode my concern. “Okay…”

  He seemed to hesitate when I agreed so easily. The creature smirked before uttering the word, “Pain.”

  A magic cord shot from his finger and struck my chest before I realized what he had just said.

  Suddenly every muscle in my body flexed tight at the same time as if an electric jolt had shot through me. It was a moment before the pain began. When it did it overwhelmed all of my senses. All that existed was an intense burning sensation like all of my muscles were extremely sore and someone was stabbing me in each muscle over and over again.

  Time no longer had meaning to me. There was nothing but pain.

  Eventually, as if waking from a deep sleep, all that remained was a searing memory. Opening my eyes I looked up from my back and saw my torturer and four other humans looking down at me in horror.

  The pop-up window that indicated I had comprehended the blue magic Pain was like rubbing salt in my wounds. A new spell had been born from my troubles, but the gamer in me that would have normally been thrilled was enraged. Pain hurts!

  Standing up, my adrenaline pumped through me.

  Everyone gave me a wide berth, except the imp who stood his ground.

  I ignored him initially, looking down at my hands as they trembled. It was time.

  Without so much as looking at him, except through my peripheral vision, I relaxed as much as I could manage and relaxed my arms to my side.

  Stepping forward, I twisted my torso.

  My father had taught me the key to throwing a punch was to be as loose as possible because muscle tension will slow you down. I brought my hand up, only making a fist milliseconds before contact. My left hook came in from a deceitful angle. It caught the imp square on the chin. He was caught completely unaware.

  Finally! His neck snapped to the side, knocking him woozy enough that he fell to the floor.

  There was a popping noise during the impact, but it didn’t come from the imp. Hitting the imp’s face had been like hitting nothing but solid bone. My fist had connected low on my knuckles breaking my ring and pinky fingers.

  I was an idiot. My adventures with pain had just begun.

  Cheers came from my immediate group as they saw what had just happened.

  The larger group had moved on and were facing their second set of skeletons already.

  If I hadn’t hesitated and had just started stabbing the monster before it got back up it would have been dead and I would have saved myself from what happened next.

  “You dare challenge a level 200 imp?!”

  Everyone around me, including myself, was suddenly filled with terror. I suspected some form of fear spell had been cast.

  When the imp attacked me again with Pain, they ran.

  I screamed, unable to run, frozen in place like an electrified cat.

  Before the pain overtook me, I heard the imp say, “I don’t have permission to kill you, but there is still a lot of fun we can have before you reach that point.”

  Chapter 4 – To Hit an Imp in the Face

  Over and over again the imp cast Pain. There was no rest. Death sounded like a welcome vacation from the state I was in. Slowly, something started to happen.

  One way or another, the constant pain started to lessen. Not that the imp had stopped his attack, but it seemed I was getting used to it to a point.

  Though it was a small step, I was able to open my eyes from my place on the floor. Notification window after notification window were stacked on top of each other. Each of them seemed to say the same thing.

  Your understanding of the Blue Magic: Pain has increased

  The spell was leveling as the imp was using it on me?!

  Speaking of spells, my Lesser Heal spell was at my disposal and I needed to use it. Now!

  How exactly I pulled it off I didn’t know, for saying any word out loud was difficult. Somehow what I said had been interpreted correctly because immediately relief filled me all over my body.

  A scream came from nearby from the same direction as my torturer. The imp had jumped back.

  “Light!” he spat as if it gave him pain.

  The spell literally caused a blanket of light to fall on me.

  With the relief from the spell, I was able to track my attacker hovering a few meters away and there was no doubt. Somehow my healing spell had hurt him.

  It did make sense really. It was common in games for healing magic to damage creatures of evil or dark alignments. Normally though humanoids weren’t harmed by it unless they were undead. Was this a part of my talent?

  Immediately I healed myself again. I almost dared to direct it at the imp, but now that my mind was clear, I knew if he was really level 200, then my spell might hurt him, but he would likely retaliate by attacking me with something much more dangerous.

  When I healed myself a third time, the imp spat and left me while mumbling nastily under his breath.

  I sat up and caught my breath. Pulling up my status screen I only had 40 magic points (MP) left. It seemed my healing spell cost 50 MP for each cast.

  Moments ago I was in the midd
le of the worst pain in my life. Now I suddenly felt refreshed and energized. I took back what I was thinking earlier. Healing was amazing. Then it hit me. It was especially amazing if it could nuke evil and undead monsters for massive amounts of damage.

  Wait. Did someone with healing magic really stink? The old man had said as much. It wasn’t until the guy had looked at my screen that he had noticed though. And the imp hadn’t noticed until I had cast it on myself. I would probably be safe, for now. Perhaps as I leveled up healing magic might become an issue then.

  A mischievous smile spread across my face. Danger or not, healing magic had just become my main priority.

  Then I realized I was in the labyrinth all alone. Neither of the human groups was in this room anymore, whether they had finished off all the skeletons or they had fled because of the fear spell. It seemed the imp’s aura must have done its job well. Sadly I didn’t learn that spell as well. Perhaps it wasn’t magic at all.

  I quickly cleared away my pop-up windows but stopped on one that caught my attention.

  You have advanced to an intermediate understanding of Blue Magic: Pain. The spell’s stun time has increased from 5 seconds to 10.

  Due to the direct means by which you learned this spell, you have also learned to resist it. Lesser Pain Resist.

  Did the spiteful imp realize he had just leveled up my Pain spell from novice to intermediate? He must have used it a lot. I wondered how high of a level his Pain spell was for it to level me up this much. Maybe mine was even powerful enough for me to cast it on him now. With the stun, I might be able to really hurt him.

  Looking at my status screen, my health points (HP) were now completely full. It was time for some number crunching.

  By touching different aspects on the status screen I was able to get a good description of what each attribute did and how they worked. Most importantly, I only had 40 MP left after healing myself. How long would it take to recover?

  When I clicked my blue mana bar it indicated that I recovered 18 mana per minute (MPM) while resting and 6 mana per minute while standing. In other words, if I stayed sitting I would recover 1 mana every 3 seconds and if I stood 1 mana every 10 seconds. It was pretty pathetic really, but it could be worse. In approximately 8 minutes I would be able to regain my full mana if I was relaxing.

  If what I had in mind worked, I was going to need a lot more MPM. I had a feeling that skeletons would take damage if healed just like my favorite punching bag Mr. Imp. Perhaps all undead and evil alignment monsters would. Not to mention after healing myself and seeing how powerful healing really was I was much more excited about a possible healer-tank combination.

  There was still more to consider. I had 35 attribute points to spend. I clicked Intelligence and Wisdom; they worked as I suspected they might. Intelligence generally increased spell strength and how much mana I had. Wisdom increased my mana regen rate and also affected the power of spells to a lesser extent.

  I could also spam strength, which might just make things simpler. Grabbing my spear that was lying beside me, I checked my status screen again. Just like I thought, a new category Weapon Damage was added. Approximately 27 to 227 damage with the spear. Why such a span? Setting the spear down, I unsheathed a short sword with a new damage of 11 to 74. Hmmm. My mace was 3 damage to 91.

  On the other hand, my healing spell healed 112 points of health. Did that mean it would also do damage for 112 points on the right creature? Before spending my points I needed to find out. It was essential I figured out as much as I could so I didn’t waste anything.

  It had been about 5 minutes so I had recovered 90 mana to give me 130 in total. That was enough for two castings of Heal.

  Welp. I better get busy. Standing, I grabbed my pointy walking stick and headed for the closest side door to the left of the entrance. The door hung slightly open, hardly staying on its hinges from so much use.

  With help from my spear, the door creaked open to reveal three decrepit skeletons. These were also on the shorter side like the ones I had seen earlier. Their bones were also far from white, with dark brown and sickly yellow patches.

  A notification popped up before me that was easy to ignore due to its transparency. Since the skeletons didn’t seem to be aggressive or close enough to cause me any serious threat in the immediate future, I studied it.

  You have noticed the discoloration of these summoned skeletons’ bones. You are closer to understanding their nature.

  It seemed I wouldn’t have to activate Creature Observation. Could I learn blue magic just from watching creatures from afar instead of having the spell cast on me? It needed more testing.

  Heal cost 50 mana per cast, so it was time to try it out. The closest skeleton to me had a short description above its head.

  Decrepit Skeleton

  Level 48

  Well, its level was higher than mine. If killing creatures of higher level gave the experience bonus like in most games, it was probably a good idea to camp skeletons until I was at least level 50. Since I was 38 now, that was an additional 60 attribute points.

  Whispering under my breath I cast Heal. Warm light extended quickly from my fingers and enveloped the skeleton. It crumbled to dust without so much as looking my way.

  One Level Up after another floated up from below. A window came up following it.

  You have killed your first skeleton species of the undead variety. Bonus experience!

  Just like that, I reached level 40.

  More impressive was my healing spell. I didn’t wait and cast it again on the next skeleton. Again it fell to dust. This time I didn’t level up, but my experience bar filled up about a fifth of the way. Too easy.

  Without enough mana to finish the last one, I dared to sneak up from behind it while two-handing my spear. My victories had made me bold. It was time to see how weak or strong these creatures really were.

  My weapon was a spear which didn’t seem like a great tool to use against skeletons, but I wasn’t planning on using the pointy end.

  Winding up, I swung the spear like a baseball bat, sweeping low, just below the knee. A jarring vibration found my hands and the sweeping blow was not nearly as effective as I had hoped.

  The skeleton stumbled but didn’t fall. A fracture was now visible on its shin bone.

  When I had used my healing spell the skeletons never even had time to react, but now I had a four foot animated pile of bones stumbling toward me.

  Every part of me had thought this would end just as easily as casting a spell had. Surprised, I foolishly thrust my spear at the monster's chest. The rusty iron spear point chipped a rib then slipped between the rest of them while leaving me off balance.

  An open-handed skeletal blow flew at my head. It was easy enough to raise my arm up to fend it off, but the pain that followed from bone on flesh left a deep bruise.

  Jumping back to get to a safe distance was easy enough. At the speed it was moving there was no way I should have been hit. My VR gaming skills weren’t translating over to real life very well. I was allowing the situation to get to me way too much.

  With a nerve alleviating laugh, I clumsily grabbed my mace.

  I let the skeleton close the distance and frantically swung my mace onto the top of the skeleton's skull when it got in range.

  Instead of turning to dust, the bones simply lost life and fell into a crumbling pile. No loot yet, but I was already halfway to the next level.

  My mana had replenished enough that I was able to heal my bruised arm. Only 15 damage had been done, but there was an annoying ache. Sweetness!

  All considering, it had gone fairly well. Once I got into a rhythm I could probably make it to level 50 quickly and there was always the added benefit of leveling my Lesser Healing spells.

  Seeing how beneficial healing magic really was and its dual use of healing and damaging undead, I had pretty much made up my mind. Since it was my talent would that mean it would level up faster than it would for someone else as well?

&nbs
p; Bringing up the spell I looked at its description more closely. There was a leveling and a rank system for the spell itself. Already it had leveled to level 3. With just that it healed 120 health, where before it had only been 112. It now also only cost 49 MP instead of 50.

  The gamer inside of me was doing a funky Japanese dance. Dancing didn’t go over well for me in real life, so if you can imagine a drunken turkey doing the YMCA then you might have a worthy comparison. That didn’t stop my celebration though.

  I sat against the wall to let my MP recover. Before my MP bar was full, the first skeleton I had killed respawned. To be more accurate, its pile of dust started to glow then reconstructed as a skeleton. The power the old man possessed was scary if these skeletons would just consistently respawn like this.

  Instead of attacking right away I remembered the pop-up I had gotten about the coloration of the skeletons’ bones. Once again I examined it. When it first spawned the color wasn’t as prominent.

  The second skeleton spawned soon after, but I continued to watch. They didn’t seem aggressive unless I attacked first.

  When the third one spawned only a minute had passed, but I noticed a difference in their color already. It deepened the longer they were animated.

  Blue Magic: Decay

  Through careful observation, you have understood Blue Magic: Decay. This spell stacks with itself and other corrosives.

  Against non-living objects or creatures, this weakens and even destroys the target with enough time.

  Against the living, this spell weakens and can cause harm. In time, because of a living creature’s ability to self-repair, the spell will be overcome.

  So easy! Not only that, but it only cost 20 MP to cast! Stacking debuff! Amazing!

  A debuff is a spell that weakens a creature instead of harming them.

  Time to test it. First I quickly finished two skeletons with Lesser Heal. With the third, I cast Decay. Immediately the coloring of the skeleton darkened. Additionally, it was moving visibly slower than before.