27 A PIECE OF ROCK

Twelve hours, that was easy to say. Actually spending half a day battling monsters was quite challenging. Not to mention those couple of hours that I had already spent in this dungeon. In my "past life," we spent all day playing video games with friends. Yes, those were the times. But even games were exhausting, and everything here, even the strange things, was real. Fortunately, I had experience of non-stop leveling-up in the swamps. And it's not like we had much of a choice; we had to prepare for the tournament. I couldn't lose face.

Having found a new sparring partner, a golden Adept, I returned to my suicidal training. Although the monster's poisonous bite made my health drop rapidly, my endurance grew much faster. This method would've been useless for anyone without healing, of course, but it gave me an upper hand. The only disadvantage was that the Adept's magic defense was too low, so I needed a Cursed One in order to improve my intelligence.

I kind of relaxed and slipped back into the perverse pleasure of pain and torture, when I heard a bloodcurdling female scream from the nearest corridor. I recognized Lena's voice. What are they doing here? Did they get in trouble? At least they were smart enough not to get involved in a reckless fight, but look for me. To my displeasure, I burned down the rest of the Adept's health. I had gotten used to these creatures.

I hurried toward the sound.

What looked like a humanoid made out of granite was walking around a small cave at the end of the corridor. It looked like a sentient low-quality park sculpture. It had no facial features, only rough lines that indicated where they ought to have been. Those stone heads from Easter Island had more personality than this guy. It stomped loudly as it walked on its thick legs. Its stone hands moved with surprising speed and ease. Lena and Cyril barely had time to dodge its blows.

Piece of Living Rock, level 22

Nobody knows from where these things come from, but whoever meets them will most likely meet a sad end.

Health points: 4,500

Element: Abyss

Attack: 400

Defense: 400

Magic defense: 0

Skills: Powerful Punch; Damage Absorption

Weakness: fire, acid

Speed: 2 (cruising); 15 (dash)

That was an interesting name for a monster. Its stats were strange, but understandable at the same time. A big health pool, high attack power, and defense were clearly the consequence of the monster's stone flesh. Damage Absorption, most likely, too. Its weaknesses against fire and acid were also quite predictable. Or so I thought, anyway. The good news was that it had no magic defense, so dealing with it won't be too difficult.

"Cat, help!" Lena cried, both guiltily and happily at the same time.

Such an opponent was truly too tough for them. With its 400 attack, even I would have troubles healing myself if it was attacking me. I understood why they ran away, but how did they find me? They must've ran only through the empty corridors and found me. I made a mental note that leaving a clear path would be an interesting way to cover up our tracks and mislead our enemy.

While I was lost in thought, Cyril was avoiding the Rock's powerful attacks, jumping from side to side, not even trying to attack the golem with his daggers. Taking advantage of the monster being distracted by him, I approached it from the side and activated Flame Flow, wondering how much damage I could do to it. Despite its monstrous nature, its lack of magic defense was its Achilles's heel.

Tongues of fire engulfed the granite head, and the Rock's health quickly went down. But what I didn't expect was that the heated granite would crack and shower me with debris. Stunned, I fell backward, but immediately jumped to my feet. The Rock, apparently, thought me a real threat. Picking up speed, it rushed at me. My poor little paladins took the opportunity to lean against the wall and try to catch their breath. I couldn't blame them.

The Rock was moving incredibly fast, steaming like a train, and almost hit me a couple of times with all its might.

"Hey, you!" I shouted at my wards. "Rested? Fight!"

I felt a little ashamed, guessing that I had gotten carried away playing a strict, but fair mentor. Maintain the image was important, but I had to do it with dignity. Let's just say that I was overreacting. Although, on the other hand…

I knew that they would be quite useless in the fight, combat wise, at least. Having them play bait and divert the golem's attention would help me gain the few extra seconds I needed to cast Flame Flow. Not to mention that they would benefit from a fight with a higher-level enemy. If they don't die, this dance macabre should give them more than a dozen other stats.

Thanks to their coordinated actions, we dealt with the monster rather quickly. If I could maintain a continuous flow of fire, it would've taken me a couple of minutes. However, given that I also had to run and jump to avoid the golem's crushing blows, I still thought that our five minutes were a very good result. We were dead tired, and the idea of continuing our training was met with mixed feelings. The good news was that I looted an amplifier from the corpse.

Piece of Black Rock

Alchemical ingredient

Enhances properties of other substances. Do not overuse; moderation is the key.

That's what I consider a worthy reward. The description is rather disheartening, but who said that this should be easy? I'm probably going to spend days figuring this out, just like I did with my potions.

"What's that?" Lena asked, looking at the weird stone that resembled dried tar.

"Another alchemical ingredient," I explained.

"Thank God we came then, right?" Cyril said with relief in his voice. They must've been through a lot before they found me.

What pleasantly surprised me was that they didn't give up, but continued fighting. That was worthy of respect.

"Yeah," I nodded. "How did you even find this thing?"

"Yegor gave us a hint," said Lena under her breath.

"What?!" I thought that I had misheard her at first, but then I realized what she said and got angry. "What were you doing? Why the hell did you even listen to him? Huh?"

Despite their age, they looked like naughty schoolchildren being scolded by their teacher. They didn't even try to justify themselves, knowing that I had every right to be angry. What a piece of shit that Yegor was! I didn't give a damn about our deal anymore; he fooled my followers! I wondered what he told them to make them ignore basic common sense. Never mind that, now wasn't the time for such questions.

"Never listen to anyone but me," I enunciated my every word. "Especially the representatives of hostile factions. Do you know what they're capable of?"

Lena and Cyril shrugged uncertainly. It was unlikely that they envied the Chaosites, but I'd better promote my ideas in a positive than negative light.

"They're only capable of meanness and treachery," I went on, noticeably calmer. "You're followers of Light. You have great things ahead of you, and believe me when I say that many would like to lead you astray. But you mustn't give in. You must stay on your path! And unlike everyone else, you can choose — all paths are visible in the Light, while Darkness, Abyss and Chaos have only one. They have no choice. And that's why they'll always envy and oppose us."

Even I was surprised by how well I put that. My mouth had dried out from all that preaching. My wards straightened slightly and looked less badgered. Apparently, the system had a small reward for me.

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Testament of Light

You told your wards the second maxima of the dogma of Light.

You will receive 10 Deception points per day.

How many Deception points would I end up having and what part of my monologue led to this result was unclear. But I liked it. It seemed that Testament of Light was my most effective source of Deception points.

"And now," I continued after a small and, in my opinion, effective pause, "back to training. And no playing about!"

Looking around, they went down the corridor toward the exit, where the usual undead were waiting for them. I decided to satisfy my curiosity and raise their spirits at the same time. "Hey, what did Yegor tell you that made you want to try and can cope with that golem? Half of our guys would run away just from the sight of it. That takes guts."

Flattery worked; their shoulders straightened, their faces beamed.

"They passed us by," Cyril said and fell silent. Frowning, I nodded to Cyril, gesturing him to continue. "We overheard Yegor suggest Innokenty and Mikhail to come back and finish it off. He whined that if they could get a skillbook out of it, he could do it, too."

Strange, after talking with me they went in the opposite direction. This couldn't have been a coincidence.

"If he told us that personally, we never would've believed him, like, we're not that crazy," said Lena excitedly. "But we thought that we could find something really valuable. So we took a chance and almost lost."

"Yeah, well done. It's good that you decided to find me." Two smiles lit up the gloom of the cave. I felt disgusted with myself, manipulating others as I did. But I had no choice, it was kill or be killed. "Now go, endurance won't improve itself. By the way, how much do you have?"

"Twenty-two," Cyril proudly raised his head, and then he and Lena disappeared into the darkness. I hoped they would stay out of trouble.

While raising my intelligence in a fight with another Cursed One, I thought about how things were not that bad after all. My guys obviously cared and listened to me carefully, and were willing to learn. I was willing to bet that this whole incident with Yegor was Innokenty's idea. It showed a serious weaknesses in their perception of the world. But this situation also revealed Lena and Cyril's unexpected strengths, so every cloud did have a silver lining.

Also, I might've rushed things, telling my guys to stay here for two days. Firstly, it was physically hard; secondly, there was nowhere safe enough to spend the night, and thirdly... I couldn't wait to bring our loot to the blacksmith and try to enhance some of my stuff. Besides, by tomorrow morning he was to prepare some samples that we could use to test the new alchemical ingredients on. Truth be told, raising of attributes in this cave was very exhausting. It was as if there was something in it that sucked energy out of you. I didn't remember training in the swamp at night being this exhausting.

Having made my decision, I fought another Cursed One for the next two hours, and then went to find my guys. I had to admit, they didn't look well when I found them; they were haggard and pale, with dark circles under the eyes. Even their hands were trembling. However, they tried to put on a brave face. They were probably afraid of me judging them. Or worse. I was proud and a little sympathetic at the same time. This had only affirmed my decision.

"The day is nearing its end," I started. "I suggest we return to the settlement."

Watching Cyril and Lena getting punched in the face by a couple of undead while trying to talk to me was kind of funny. They were fighting nasty monsters, blood and flesh flying everywhere, while their teacher, leaned against the wall, observed from a distance, and was leisurely conversing with them.

"Why?" Cyril asked, surprised. "Ouch! You told us to bring enough food for two days."

"I did, yes," I replied calmly. "No harm in having extra reserves. Note how much you needed today, and take as much as you need tomorrow."

Despite the lacerations and heavy bleeding, their faces lit up. Paralyzing both of the undead so that Cyril and Lena could leave, I silently turned around and with a slight nod gestured them to follow me. We were attacked again just before the exit, but I nailed the monster to the floor with Stone Spikes. To any potential onlookers it would look like the monster had stumbled and got stuck, and my spell went unnoticed. No one would suspect me of anything. It was childish, but it worked. What, who said that zombies can't stumble?

When we finally got to the surface, it was already night. It was a night of the full moon, and there was a myriad of stars in the sky.

"We probably won't make it before dinner," I stated. "Your food reserves will come in handy, you'll eat it before going to bed."

Somewhere in the distance, three human figures were moving on the path to the base, talking loudly about something. Judging by the voices, these were our dear Chaosites. Apparently, they had also decided that around-the-clock training wasn't going to work today.

I sent Cyril and Lena to bed, appointed an early rise for tomorrow, and went to the blacksmith, who was, fortunately, still awake. He had almost finished the armor for my paladins and was taking a short tea break.