[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 111: Wood You Kindly?

Sam opened up his Status to get a look at where his HP and MP were at, now that he had leveled up twice since last looking. He hadn’t figured that just exploring and interacting with the Skyshard would be so… rewarding.

His brain automatically replaced “dangerous,” the word he was originally thinking of, with “rewarding” as if by some Pavlovian response.

It made sense in a sick sort of way.

He was literally conditioned to like the danger that came with fighting. It was the fastest, most efficient way of leveling up, and the very act of leveling up was rewarding just for the dopamine rush.

Of course, it was always pleasing to see the reflection of power in his Status.

Monkey brain like when big number get bigger, he thought to himself.

“Return to monke,” Komachi whispered with a strange fixation.

Sam eyed her suspiciously.

[Status]

Name: Samuel Hunter

Race: Human

Legend: [Voidknight (Lv.12 - Unranked)]

Job: [Swordsman (Lv.22 - Copper)]

Path: [Void (Lv.16 - Unranked)]

Profession: [N/A (Lv.0 - Unranked)]

Health(HP): [1,515/1,698]

Mana(MP): [129/503]

Attunements

[Void Mana] (F-Class Apocalypse Gate) (★★★★Legendary IV)

Affinities

[Fire Mana] (F-Class) (★ Common I)

[Metal Mana] (F-Class) (★ Common)

[Void Mana] (F-Class) (★Common)

Physical Stats

Strength(STR): 160 (+22)

Dexterity(DEX): 63 (+8)

Agility(AGI): 62 (+3)

Vigor(VIG): 134 (+18)

Awareness(AWR): 30 (+18)

Magical Stats

Arcane(ARC): 31

Control(CTL): 20

Resonance(RSN): 25

Mind(MND): 50

Insight(INS): 43 (+17)

Just one more and I’ll get another Voidknight level.

“Somehow, I hit Level 19 Ninja for kiting the Treants,” Raiko confessed, getting the mandragoras sorted. “I suppose the old way of pulling monsters to fight still works.”

“Maybe this is something Komachi can do?” his cat asked. “Small, fluffy animal is appetizing to monsters, yis?”

Neither Sam nor Raiko felt comfortable with that, but nobody had the heart to tell Komachi.

Chompers sniffed at one of the Treant corpses, if you could even call a fallen tree that. Sam wasn’t sure why he was interested. Food, maybe something else?

Raiko placed her hand on Sam’s sword arm. He glanced at her, his attention drawn by the sudden proximity. The sleeve of symbols lit up all along her arm.

The golden [Glyph: Refresh] glowed upon his limb, the symbol blazed upon his armor and buoyed his greatly diminished MP.

He breathed in deeply, feeling at peace despite the recent battle.

His mana was regenerating, not fast, but nothing seemed to regenerate quickly here. Anything was a huge improvement over resting and waiting hours for it to naturally recover.

And Sam had used a lot of mana with those few uses of [Heavy Blade]. He couldn’t help but think that maybe his earlier assessment of having a third of his HP as MP was a bit too small.

Maybe half would be better.

Too bad I already spent the last 4 bonus points.

Stepping away, Raiko made a series of hand gestures at the dullahans, and one of them stepped forward. She cast the same buff on that one as well, but no more.

“Thanks. Is there a limit as to how many Glyphs you can have up at once?” Sam asked.

“Yes, though I started with just one for refresh. At least now it’s two. It doesn’t stack either, unfortunately.” Raiko looked over the dullahan. “It seems they’ve taken a liking to you, which is… well, good. They were always meant to have more than just me.”

Some of the dullahans communicated with enthusiastic hand gestures. He didn’t know what they were saying, but Raiko understood.

“They’re impressed by your boldness and swordsmanship,” Raiko translated, a smile touching her lips. “They enjoy training with you as well. Invigorates their fighting spirit.”

A couple of the suits of armor made fist pumps. Two others gave enthusiastic thumbs up.

“That’s very wholesome,” Komachi pointed out. “Big men being friendly.”

Sam chuckled. “Well, I’m glad they think that. I actually wanted to talk to both of you. I was looking for Komachi when all this moving tree business started.”

Without warning, Chompers ate half of a Treant. A monster several times larger than the mimic.

“I wanted to—” Sam stared at the mimic’s pac-man style method of eating the Treant. He just… kept opening and closing his mouth, and more of the Treat disappeared as if by magic.

Of course, it really was magic, or something so similar as made no difference. But it was still a sight to behold.

“Oh gods,” Raiko whispered.

“Actually,” Sam started, motioning to the mimic. “I was coming to look for Komachi to see if she could get CC to eat some of the fallen trees and transport them somewhere closer to the… er… base? I don’t know what the hell we’re calling the area between our two Settlement Cores.”

“Base sounds fine,” Raiko said with a shrug. “There’s also the settlement treasure coffer we can share. The one that dropped from the Abyssdiver. Though, one that self-transports is obviously far superior.”

“Like into his Inventory?” Komachi asked.

“Exactly,” Sam said. “You said he has a lot of Inventory, maybe even limitless. Well… most of the trees I cut down are hundreds of feet tall. That’s… a lot of tree to move. Hell, if we knew how, we could probably make a house out of a single tree. Some of them are large enough you could hollow it out and live in there.”

“Limitless?” Raiko peered closely at the mimic. “Honestly, that would’ve been easier than the dome I made, but I don’t think these trees have the same enhancements.”

“I don’t know what we could use them for,” Sam said honestly. “I only wanted to test out my new [Heavy Blade] ability and… well, I got a bit carried away. Instead of just a few trees, there were dozens. We could probably cut them to size and stack them vertically for a wall… but do we need a wall? Even more to the point, do we want to call attention to ourselves with a wall?”

“Lenal could identify them, see what they might have,” Raiko suggested, but her interest was hooked on something more. “But… imagine if they could fit in the mimic’s Inventory? If we’re exploring another Skyshard, that’d come in handy. Potentially much better than a tent.”

“Even better if we could cut them down to size into something manageable that we could then erect into proper defenses,” Sam said. “The Romans used to do something like that. Every time they camped somewhere, they would build up a little earthen bulwark and a palisade before going to bed.”

“That kind of wall would be very useful, here or on an expedition,” Raiko added. “It’d be easy to blend it into the environment here as well, if we wanted to keep with the non-civilized look we have going on so far.”

Sam looked at the mimic devouring the rest of the Treant. “How precisely does building a wall allow us to blend in? It’s a wall, Raiko. Nature tends not to make those out of trees.”

“Close up, it’d probably look off. But if it was organized into tightly packed trees or covered with moss and vegetation, it might not look like somebody settled here.”

“I mean, from a distance, it’d look like a fucking wall of trees,” Sam pointed out. “How do you hide that?”

“Same way the dome is. That’s obviously easier and more effective because it’s hill-like.”

Sam opened his mouth to ask how the hell that was possible, then shut it, realizing what she meant. “You mean to keep the tree tops intact.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Won’t the branches die and snap off over time though?”

“No, not with Kai’s Nature magic. He can restore life to trees, and generally manipulate them in a way that extends beyond typical Affinity limitations.”

Sam chuckled. “This is less like building a wall like I imagined and more like transplanting trees. Do you think he could get them to grow roots? That would make them a lot sturdier if we didn’t have to dig down far to anchor them.”

“Well, we don’t have to camouflage or blend it in at all, but why not try and see what happens? I think growing the roots might work out. Kai would have better insight.”

“They wouldn’t die that way,” Sam agreed. “I still think a palisade of sharpened trees would be good as a deterrent, but if we can disguise it in some way, especially from above, that’d be best. Let’s go find Kai and talk to him.”

Chompers burped a pile of leaves from somewhere deep in his gullet and turned to follow Sam, Raiko, and all the mandragoras back to their base.

It was hardly worth the name, just two Settlement Cores near each other amid the hills, river, and bamboo groves.

As they approached, Sam realized that even as small and unpopulated as it was, it would still require a large amount of trees to make the palisade.

Luckily, most of the trees he cut down were 5 or 6 feet thick. And they were so tall that even for a 50-foot wall, he could get nearly 20 linear feet of a wall put up from a single tree.

Sam found his mind spinning out all sorts of plans and defensive strategies that he never would have thought of before. He hadn’t even remembered that the Romans did any of that until the moment it came out of his mouth.

Surely, he must’ve read about it somewhere, but it wasn’t like he remembered history class. Or much of his high school education, for that matter.

Kai was easy enough to find. He was curled up on the ground next to Lenal and a happy Matt.

“What… is going on here?” Sam asked.

“Bad… chicken,” Kai wheezed, clutching his stomach. It made a few obscene gurgling noises, and he shivered. “Don’t eat the Zuu.”

Lenal was curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth. “I don’t want it. I don’t want it.”

Matt, meanwhile, was stuffing as much [Roasted Zuu] into his mouth as he could. “This stuff is delicious!” He waved a drumstick at them. “They might need some help though. I think this is poisonous.”

Raiko eyed the cooked food. “Hmm, will we react like Matt or Kai? That’s the gamble.”

Sam was looking at the roasted meat and thinking the very same thing. Now that he could smell it, he was actually pretty hungry, and it smelled good.

It would be nice to eat something other than fast food from Earth for a change… but he didn’t want to knock himself out of commission.

Komachi took a single bite. She froze, then trembled.

“Urk!” She went belly up.

Sam went over to her and pet her gently. “You okay, Komachi?”

His cat groaned, but aside from very bad indigestion, he couldn’t tell anything more was wrong.

“We should probably have some bathrooms,” he suggested, seeing the pained, sweaty expressions of both Lenal and Kai.

“Why are you telling me?” Raiko asked him indignantly.

Sam made a motion with his hands. “You can Sculpt, can’t you? Just make a hole somewhere.”

“Nope, not that.”

“Oh, you’d rather it all over the ground? By the looks of it, Kai isn’t going to hold out much longer.”

“They can make their own damn latrine.”

Kai was eyeing the mimic with a delirious sort of sour hope.

Raiko cursed and stormed off. A dullahan followed dutifully.

Sam gently nudged the mimic to get behind him. “Raiko’s… doing something that’ll help,” he told them. “Just hold on a moment longer.”

Matt wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “This stuff gives you stats, bro! Stats! I can finally catch up to you now, since I can eat whatever I want.”

Sam eyed the direction Raiko went, then looked at Matt. A tiny spark of competitive nature flared to life in Sam.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want Matt to catch up to him, but the way he had phrased it was curiously like a challenge to Sam’s ears, and he wasn’t going to let that go.

Trusting that, if things turned south, Raiko had made… preparations, Sam grabbed a piece of [Roasted Zuu] off the spit that was there and took a bite.

The [Roasted Zuu] imparts a portion of its monstrous essence to you.

+1 Agility

Sam grinned, locked stares with Matt, and began chowing down. The other man, seeing that Sam wasn’t getting sick, began to eat faster as well.

There was plenty of [Roasted Zuu] to be had, and the entire scene looked like the last stretch of an eating contest gone horribly wrong.

“Just let me have this!” Matt wailed between mouthfuls.