26 ADAPTING THE PLANS

"Seems it has some critical mass," I said, quickly considering all the available facts. "If we collect more than a certain amount, it starts some reaction that makes it burn or oxidize. I don't know what kind of process this is."

"What should we do then?"

I wondered what the two could suggest. Were always they going to wait for me to make a decision? That made me angry. One person can't be responsible for everything.

"We'll play around with it," I answered after a pause. "You and I will continue to mine. Lena, you pile the stones. Make the piles the same size and width like the lines on the wall. They form like that for a reason. But make a couple of piles with bigger stones, just in case. Let's see if it triggers the same reaction."

Lena nodded, and we went to work. This time, however, we got to the reaction much faster. I had correctly guessed the maximum size, and it also turned out that distance played a significant role. The stones couldn't be more than six feet close to each other. As a result of our experiments, each of us got two small parcels, one of which went into our inventories, and the other onto our belts. We couldn't carry more than that, but I was sure that even this amount would delight the blacksmith. Not to mention that our chances of winning the tournament had slightly increased.

"Lunch?" Cyril suggested, maintaining a safe distance between us. Being less than six feet close to each other would be a bad idea.

Before I could say anything, a new enemy emerged in front of us. Another Naga like creature, but this one didn't have golden, but silvery scales. I "scanned" it at once, raising my intelligence to a hundred.

The Cult of the Snake's Cursed One, level 25

Health points: 2,500

Element: Abyss

Attack: 350

Defense: 150

Magical Defense: 2

Skills: Gorgon's Hair; Level Draining; Mirror Skin

Weakness: fire

Speed: 2 (cruising); 22 (dash)

The creature was slow, but it could dash and accelerate up to twenty-two miles per hour. It had strong attack power, but no mental defense. But the worst thing was that it could drain levels. Now I kind of understood why the Chaosites told us to go here. With their strength, they could quickly deal with such an enemy, but we would lose levels and waste time. Or so they thought.

Finding the stones had made me feel kind of uncomfortable, as I couldn't believe that someone would share such a place only because they wanted to annoy Petrovich. I was relieved to find out that there was more to it.

Cyril and Lena advanced forward, shoulder to shoulder. Lena blocked the Cursed One's first blow. Cyril took advantage of the fact that the enemy had been restrained with a rope and immediately struck a few blows. He then quickly retreated to restore Lena's lost health points.

Not bad! I thought. They would cope with ordinary monsters with such tactics, despite the difference in levels.

"Well done!" I praised them quite sincerely. We hadn't wandered around so much in vain after all. "It will hurt now, but don't despair. It should be like so."

As I expected, the Cursed One immediately activated one of its abilities. Dozens of little snakes slithered toward Lena and Cyril, who didn't expect such a turn of events. Both of them were lifted into the air and the little snakes fixed their arms and legs wide apart, basically crucifying them.

"It hurts!" Lena shrieked when the reptiles opened their jaws and sank their teeth into her flesh.

Cyril endured the pain in silence, but I could the seething rage in his eyes.

"Endure it. Only through pain will you know the power, this is the way of Light," I tried to encourage them.

Testament of Light

You told your followers the first maxima of the dogma of Light.

You will receive 10 Deception points per day

They believed me? I should be careful of what I say. I better write it all down. I'll be neck deep in problems if I forget or mix something up.

Meanwhile, the little snakes started contracting, and I saw the Cursed One draining something out of my guys through the silvery snakes. It's draining their experience and levels! Perfect! I had to keep them away from the swamp, the big Kappas; I had abandoned the idea of raising their stats at level five for security reasons, but this Cursed One has done me a great favor.

I waited until Lena and Cyril reached the point I needed them to be before I paralyzed the seemingly all-powerful monster. Paralyzing it was easy since it had no mental defense. The little snakes, immediately weakened, released the two. The monster's special ability had ceased to affect them. To be honest, I thought that they would need time to recover, but I was wrong. They both jumped to their feet immediately and rushed to their recent tormentor. I had to intervene and prevent them from accidentally killing the monster. They would've gotten experience had they done so, leveled-up, and all our work would've been for naught.

"Sorry," Lena sobbed. "We were too weak and we let you down."

"All of our efforts just went down the drain!" Cyril furiously kicked the wall.

I was surprised. Neither of them complained how I did nothing to help them. I didn't know whether they were really nice and tolerant people, or if me playing with the path of Light had an effect on them and was slowly turning them into real fanatics. If it was the latter, that could lead to serious consequences.

"It's all right, it's fine," I reassured them and led them to the exit, checking my map from time to time.

We moved through the cleared corridors much faster. After about twenty minutes, we reached the place where we fought the undead monsters earlier. There were more of them. Without slowing down, I burned the first one myself. Seeing two more, I couldn't help but smile. The real training could start now. Not mindless monster-killing, but future development based on our strengths. First of all, I made my wards lay out the Elenite they had kept on them at a safe distance, so they could heal each other without being blown to smithereens. After that, I started giving out instructions.

"One at a time. Your task will be to take deflect their blows, heal your partner, and not die. Killing them is forbidden. Is that clear?" Having received two affirmative nods I still decided to make sure that everything was clear. Only then did I tend to mind my own business.

Terrible wounds would open up here and there, chunks of flesh would go missing, but all was healed almost instantly. The two screamed in unbearable pain, but held on stubbornly, obeying my order. The local undead monsters were much tougher than their swamp cousins, so this show was much more spectacular than my training was. I heard surprised cries in about ten minutes; Cyril's first, then Lena's. What happened? I didn't use my Weakening.

"I got an endurance point!" They finally understood what this agony was for. Faith was such a terrible thing: they had been doing it only with my word for it.

"As I've said, only through pain will you know the power. Listen carefully: you can increase your endurance by fifty points this way. I think you'll spend the remaining time of our campaign on farming the points. I'll leave you for a while, I've got things to do, too."

I instructed them to focus only on endurance. While they were busy with that, I would also lower my level and improve my stats. And although Weakening accelerated this process significantly, I had to improve my strength, dexterity, endurance and intelligence all at once; not by fifty, but by a hundred. My limit had increased after unlocking Advanced Deception.

I found a new Cursed One in less than thirty minutes, and started my own training. I had no trouble maintaining a safe distance since the monster was slow. It's third, previously unused skill, Mirror Skin, worked out in my advantage. It increased magic resistance, which helped me in raising my intelligence. I burned, dealt blows, and even received attacks myself. Despite the pain that was unbearable at first, I was happy. Knowing that I would get stronger was enough to keep me going. My body was shouting, demanding rest, but my willpower forced me to repeat these tortuous exercises again and again. Had I not known that sooner or later I would reach the limit and be able to stop, I would've given up. But likes this, my body obeyed, over and over again. One, two, three hours. I wished it would end already. I wanted to level up and not lose my levels again, and finally see what the levelled-up spells would give me.

At one point, while I was under the effect of Gorgon's Hair, and appeared to be hanging in the air, I heard a satisfied chuckle from behind me.

"Our hero isn't as strong as we've thought. Well, Cat, what's it like to lose a bunch of levels and be a level five once again?" The three Chaosites came out of the far corridor. Having seen my predicament, Major couldn't resist from commenting.

I freed myself in three moves. I paralyzed the monster, landed smoothly and burn the monster's face off. It's hard to miss when the enemy is motionless.

"Did you want something?" My escape probably looked impressive. I also had the opportunity to convince them that my Flame Flow had a divine nature. I hoped that Petrovich, who had given me the spellbook, wouldn't be able to correlate its description with what I was able to do. "Chaos has its ways, Light has its own, and we shouldn't underestimate each other."

"Can your followers do that, too?" Yegor asked. What is it, boy? Are you starting to think you picked the wrong side? Major turned red.

"Can you do everything your teachers can?" I decided to parry the question. I didn't want to provoke a conflict.

"Listen, Cat," Innokenty suddenly intervened. "Why don't we make a deal? We'll admit defeat and give you a vote. In return-…"

I didn't find out what I would have to do in return, because Yegor, previously frowning in silence, suddenly shouted.

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"Don't, I agree!"

"Perhaps we should take our leave then," Innokenty bowed theatrically. "As it turns out, we still have a lot to do.

When the trio disappeared around the corner, I stood for some time, trying to understand what this was all about. Realizing that I'm wasting time, I ran in the opposite direction. I needed to find a new silver Cursed One and continue my training. If I continue at this pace, in twelve hours I would reach my goal and return to my wards. I hope that they haven't done anything stupid.