Aldrich braced his feet on the stone, letting the length of the rope run out between his loose grip as he descended with the pillar.
Pillar and monster fell, at that moment it seemed that time stopped. And a moment later an extremely violent crash and a pained scream echoed.
That put a smile on his face. But not for long, he did not dare to allow himself a moment of respite, not now. The precious time he bought by gambling with his life.
Aldrich used the rope and gravity to swing towards the nearby cage pillar, his feet slid from under him. He turned it into a roll, dropped onto the cage's iron bars and jumped down.
Finally his feet touched the ground. He looked at the seal of Tindalor, but he moved too far, he would waste too much time to get there and use to seal to escape.
Furthermore he did not forget that monster's high pressure water attack, it was a ranged attack. If he was in place of that monster he would have used it again to shoot himself when he was climbing the pillar instead of climbing after him.
But, it's not like he was complaining.
That attack might have hurt the centipede monster but it certainly wouldn't kill it. Aldrich got his moment and focused.
Name: Aldrich
Age: 15.5
Strength: 4+
Agility: 4+
Endurance: 4+
Vitality: 4+
Intelligence: 4+
Spirit (black): 4+
Green essence orbs: 2
Red essence orbs: 12
Ether: 3
Abilities: eyes of insight LV.1+
Skills: Light step LV.1+
Condition: blood of ######
Aldrich didn't waste time he focused on his spirit attribute and there was a small change, from four to five.
Suddenly Aldrich could feel a magical sensation spreading throughout his body, power like he never felt before overflowed and—
At least that's what he thought was going to happen. The truth was that feeling disappeared almost immediately and he was no different than before. Still, an ordinary human.
'What? Did it fail?'
Aldrich looked at his attributes bar and indeed the spirit attribute was upgraded successfully. Abruptly, a realization dawned on him.
Upgrade the spirit attribute to level five and become a Crestmaster. This was purely, a speculation at the end of the day. It was only a guess that he came up with on his own.
He repeated these words in his mind so many times that he believed them, at some point in time he forgot that it was only a guess. An educated guess, definitely, but ultimately a guess.
Aldrich wanted to upgrade spirit once again, but the plus sign disappeared. His remaining orbs were not enough.
'No, no, this can't be happening…'
Aldrich breathed harder and harder his face paled and his lips quivered. This was the most desperate he had ever been since escaping the Wakefield massacre.
The monstrous centipede freed itself from under the pillar, the outer shell was cracked in several places and purple blood leaked out.
The humanoid upper body, which was the superior Aldrich was looking for had an angry expression and snarled at him. In a flash it charged at him and coiled around him like it was around the central pillar not long ago, and squeezed him.
His body ballooned for a second from the pressure and then… popped. All the while he did not resist nor attempt to flee or fight back.
Aldrich was resurrected again His body in the real world was on the brink of death, and he only had one last life left here.
If he died one more time he would be forcefully expelled from here to the real world but his condition would be complete physical and mental exhaustion.
And that would be the end of it, he would be the first to die among his party members. Real death not like the nightmare realm, he was on his last leg.
'I… have no choice but to win,'
That's right, the only way to get out of this situation was to win against this monster and then collect enough orbs and become a true Crestmaster.
He had allowed himself to die in vain, why? Because it was hard? So what? What has he been doing until now? Isn't it to overcome overwhelming odds and emerging victorious?
No, even if he knew that he had no chance, realistically speaking against a grade one monster, but so fucking what? If he was going to die then might as well do it while fighting.
As soon as he came upon that realization he felt his body burn.
***
Ignition.
What did it mean to ignite? Why was this word specifically used to describe the appearance of the first symbol in a crest?
An empty crest, which initiates had, was a ring of white light divided into four sections or slots by a cross in the middle. To complete the journey of a Crestmaster one must inscribe a symbol in each of the slots.
Every symbol represented a qualitative change in life. A jump to greater heights in existence establishing a greater connection with the Immatirum and thus obtaining great power.
Out of the five classes of crests: knight, weaponsmaster, cleric, pyromancer and glyphmancer. One crest will only carry only one class of symbols.
***
Aldrich felt his forehead burning and feeling of great might and power exploded out of his body, on his forehead his empty crest appeared and on the lower left side deep red and black lights gathered.
The original pure white crest was no more, it was washed away by the deep red and black that eventually intertwined.
There was a sense of regal majesty about the deep red light, as if all who saw it were forced to worship it out of admiration. The black was ferocious and wild in comparison, uncaring for anything else but slaughter and destruction.
The monstrous centipede, sensing danger for the first time quickly charged over faster than ever before.
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