Zero Potential: Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Immediately upon entering the second floor, Terra felt the presence of lurking danger, fortunately it was only a matter of instinct for the floor, and it denizens that Terra now only knew where the danger was, but where it was coming from.

See the second floor’s main enemies were spiders. Worse, these were magical spiders.

The spiders on the second floor were all natural Illusionists, as they had the ability to hide in plain sight. Not only could they conceal themselves, but they could also conceal their traps from any would be adventurer. This ability to conceal themselves from their prey made them particularly dangerous. Yet, they always had patterns. While it might not be out of the realm of probability to find a hidden spider trap in the middle of the floor, such tricks were generally beyond the denizens of the first few floors. Instead, their tactics would be more accurate to be called ambush predators, relying on natural chokepoints to set up their webs and traps.

This was both bad and a good thing, as it meant that Terra could almost immediately expect to encounter spiders right as she exited the stairwell between floors. This also meant that a much more powerful spider likely made its home at the exit of this floor, with the chance of a roamer being able to have set up in the far floor. The roamer of the floor as the name might imply could move about freely on the floor, even going to the edge of the lower floor. Yet it was considered impossible for the monster to actually leave the floor they were assigned to. Scientists postulated that it was a matter of the energy needed to sustain such a creature was not consistent with the lower floor.

The science behind the discovery of what truly powers dungeons was something that had never truly been discovered in her past. All that Terra knew was two things, first if the dungeon was left to rot for a month without any floors being cleared, then the monsters of the dungeon would eventually overflow. Second, she knew that the second floor was perfect for unlocking at least one new ability.

Focusing her mind, she stood at the end of the last step. Her eyes closed, with her right foot firmly planted in the dungeon letting the natural laws of the dungeon know she had actually accepted the challenges of the second floor. This was a sort of spiritual agreement between adventurer and dungeon, that everyone entering the dungeon should know. The fact that this lesson was likely being taught to the students still on the first floor was not lost on her. The knowledge that the school was likely keeping such valuable life saving lessons from her did not make it past her.

In her mind Terra was making a mental tally of events that have all changed. Mentally she tried to call up all the reasons why this kingdom was worth fighting for, they had been so helpful for so long that she almost took their smiles and warm words as genuine, yet now something had clearly changed.

There was no being of supreme evil, but did it mean that without a supremely powerful overwhelming force driving the kingdom together, that this kingdom would fall to its own corruption and ambitions?

At this thought, her mind turned to the last words of the supreme being of evil. “Give righteous power nothing to oppose and it will inevitably oppose goodness.”

At first, she had thought the message was a warning against herself, that she would eventually become the evil that she so desperately fought against. Yet now that she had the time to see the world for how it is, or rather how it would be without the being of ultimate evil uniting the lands, she wondered. Was the statement more of a statement that noted the world she wished to protect didn’t exist?

Shaking her head, she fought off the words. They were just the words of the supreme being of evil, meant to cause confusion and distrust. Unfortunately, just because she knew they were made by the supreme being of evil didn’t mean she didn’t see the true warning in them.

Silence.

There was a moment of silence, that stillness in the air. That moment that the world that had been moving by her suddenly slowed to a complete crawl, this was her moment. In a fraction of a second, she was back and realizing it was time to act.

Left. No, right.

Quickly unsheathing her stolen sword and slicing expertly to the right, she felt it, the moment her blade pierced through and sliced open a spider that was the size of a toy ball.

Splat.

The spider that had been descending from above her and from one of her blind spots flew open in a display of violence and viscera.

Green guts sprayed out, splashing onto Terra’s face and burning her eyes. That is, if she actually had her eyes open when she sliced. Instead, she was focusing her full attention on unlocking one of the easiest skills possible. Well this was the easiest floor for her to unlock the desired skill.

Pausing.

Terra waited.

And waited.

Time seemed to stretch on into eternity, just as Terra was able to slow down her breathing, she felt it. The slight surge of pressure, an impending power that tried to lull her senses. This too was part of why she waited and practiced.

Now left.

With that the tingling sensation that came from her top left flared to life and not wasting a moment, she turned her blade and quickly swung up to the left. Once again, she felt the familiar feel of slicing through a lurker spider, a spider able to camouflage itself to hide within the shadows.

Squish-splat.

This time the second spider that she sliced was slightly larger than the first, thus why she identified it first, over the one that was moving aggressively towards her.

Pausing.

She stood there, waiting for a second, but was unable to feel anything.

Then just as she resigned herself to open her eyes and move forward to find yet another place to practice gaining her skills she needed, she got the message she had been awaiting.

Combat Awareness: Tier I: You have managed to open your mind and senses to be aware of dangers around you. With this skill, your ability to detect incoming dangers is 10% easier, while attempts to sneak up on you and cause you harm is 10% harder to accomplish.

Swordsmanship: Tier I. Your ability to use the sword as a deadly weapon has been recorded. Your ability to wield a sword for attack or defense is improved by 10%.

Blind Swordsmanship: Tier I. Your use of the sword while blind has improved. Your ability to fight and wield a sword as a weapon while blind has improved by 10%.

Seeing the messages, Terra almost opened her eyes, but then upon trying to open her eyes, she felt the remains of spider ichor splashed against her face. Realizing that if she got the ichor in her eyes, she instead opted to move forward, while wiping her eyes. Only there was a slight problem, as she had not cleared out the still cloaked spider traps that were nearby. Fortunately, her heightened senses told her that she was about to contact one and instantly stopped her forward momentum, and pivoted on her left foot, before walking around the vertical trap that was likely a strand of webbing designed to catch her if she had tried to run forward from the ambushing spiders.

After five paces, Terra was in an opening and a place she knew to be relatively clean of traps. In fact, in all her past lives, she had never experienced a trap in this section, which was why she felt safe stopping here for a moment, while she tended to the cleaning of her eyes, from the poisonous ichor.

Relaxing for a moment, she finally managed to clean the burning ichor from her eyes and was able to see the area. Yet, before she fully opened her eyes, she was met with another system prompt.

Precognition: Tier I: You have unlocked the hidden ability to predict the future. You can react 10% faster to conditions and events within your environment.

This one was new, she had of course heard of such skills and abilities, in fact she was almost certain that the being of supreme evil clearly had this as it was impossible to sneak up and attack the monster from behind.

Realizing the new skill was making it so determining the relative danger around her was somewhat easier, she decided to keep her eyes shut, at least for the remainder of the floor. While there were a few monsters that she might have to worry about, particularly the main boss for the floor, she felt that with her current abilities as they were she would be more than capable of not only increasing this skill, but possibly unlocking other hidden gems as well.

Smiling to herself, Terra realized that for the first time in a long time, she truly felt a challenge. Every step she took was both mapped out in her mind, while also new and dangerous. This reminded her of when she was young and trying to feel her way around in the dark. First, she would do so to make her way around her family castle. Then after her family was convicted of heresy, she used the same ability to move her way around the deep dark dungeons that she was held in.

The new sensation of challenge that came up unbidden in her mind, despite the countless centuries she felt. Well, she didn’t quite know how she felt, to be honest. On the one hand, she had been well and truly frightened of the dark in her childhood, which was why she never truly felt comfortable doing these types of training and would always cheat the first chance she got.

Now that she had this odd, delayed start, she no longer felt the pressure of following an established routine to power. Right now, she was on her own, able to go and explore the world for ways to improve that might not normally be needed. In her past, she was always the vanguard, and if there were assassination attempts where Precognition would have saved her life, she either died due to the disparity of the power of the assassin and was then forced to restart. The other option was that she was eventually so overpowered that despite having been caught from behind, she would always be able to make up the ground in any attack.

However, this time, she had stumbled upon a likely hidden skill that even the masters like master Chan and the Dean were unaware of. Not that their current states were anything like she was used to, though looking back part of their apparent lack of power would have to be related to the missing second dungeon.

At the thought of the second dungeon, Terra momentarily paused her impromptu training. While she had originally intended to clear this floor of all threats for her fellow F Class student, the Diviner, who had managed to use the benefits provided by her Command Aura to reach A Class, there was still something off about her.

Only after a second of internal debate, on why Terra would feel obligated to clear this floor so the Diviner could survive her hour down here. The reason she felt obligated was because the only reason she and the Diviner both made it here was her Command Aura. An aura that both increased her own attack abilities, while also decreasing the abilities of her foes.

Realizing that she was in an ideal setting to increase many of her new powers, Terra strode forward. Rather than using her Obfuscation Aura, as she had originally intended. She instead decided to focus on using her Command Aura. An aura she would use, while keeping her eyes closed to help improve her Precognition skill.

Moving forward, she confidently strode, and then realized that the Aura seemed to reinforce her newly acquired skills, as she first felt energy from her soul get drained, as monsters entered her aura’s radius. Then as they charged forward, she used that to reinforce the tingling sensation in her mind letting her know the location of her enemies.

Slink.

A quick sword slash sliced a lurker in half. When she had encountered her fourth lurker that she had taken down with her Command Aura active, she was met with two system messages that caused a malicious smile to form on her lips.

Combat Awareness: Tier II: You have managed to open your mind and senses to be aware of dangers around you. With this skill, your ability to detect incoming dangers is 20% easier, while attempts to sneak up on you and cause you harm is 20% harder to accomplish.

Precognition: Tier II: You have unlocked the hidden ability to predict the future. You can react 20% faster to conditions and events within your environment.

Blind Swordsmanship: Tier II. Your use of the sword while blind has improved. Your ability to fight and wield a sword as a weapon while blind has improved by 20%.

Swordsmanship: Tier II. Your ability to use the sword as a deadly weapon has been recorded. Your ability to wield a sword for attack or defense is improved by 20%.

Then to add even more fuel to the fire, even her arguably cheat of a combat lure method for fighting spiders, her very own Command Aura had increased.

Commanding Aura: Rank II: You have unlocked your Commanding Aura. All actions of friendly targets are 20% easier when in your presence, while all actions of enemy targets are 20% more costly when in your presence.

Commanding Aura was such a cheat that it even caused creatures that preferred to fight from ambuscade, couldn’t help but come forward and meet death at Terra’s hands.  Even while fighting the roamer, and the floor boss were relatively easy as they left their prepared nests and instead fought Terra on what was essentially neutral ground. That along with the nearly 40% shift in efficiencies due to her aura both increasing her abilities, while lowering her enemy’s abilities made it so the trip through the second floor was her fastest time yet, despite doing it all with her eyes closed.

Skree!

The final boss let out a battle cry, one that would normally summon forth hundreds of minor spiders to the matriarch’s aid, but those had already been drawn into battle long ago by Terra. Now the cry did little more than reinforce in Terra’s mind the exact location of the main boss, and most importantly its head.

Feeling confident in her ability to predict the exact location of the monster, she held her ground and holding up her empty left hand, she raised it up, to let loose a Fireball, something that even the most talented of mages would avoid doing. Yet, in her mind she was certain of the exact location, movement, and direction of the beast monster, meaning that she could release her spell with complete trust in her capabilities.

SPLASH!

The giant ball of fire burst out and even with her eyes closed tightly, she could see the blazing fire that looked like the sun had risen.

“SKRAAAH!”

The spider queen cried out in pain, as its still burning body strode forward. The light from the flames that were now consuming the great beast glowed brightly, showing that the monster was still alive. Though this only helped to reinforce the mental sensations that Terra was feeling about the creature. Even with her eyes closed, she could almost feel the burning legs coming forward, as the thin threads of hair on it caught fire.

With the sound of the pitiful monster crying out, Terra smiled, then moving with speed and grace that was honed over centuries, she moved forward, slicing the great beast in half.

Splat.

The burning head of the spider monster rolled away, as Terra used her full knowledge of her body’s movements to kick out against the still burning headless corpse of the once great spider queen.

With the main boss dead, the intense pressure of danger began to fade away. Now there were only a few minor threats, which Terra knew of the secret hidden egg sacs that resided in a back treasure room. While the treasure room was nothing worth looting, especially not this early in the dungeon, it was still good practice for her and her blind magic casting.

Continuing to improve on her skills. Deciding to continue to keep her eyes closed, she followed the mental map she had in her mind of this floor, along with the minor sensations of danger and eventually half felt, half intuitioned her way into the secret treasure room. There she focused her mind on the unborn egg sacs that would be used to repopulate this floor quickly once again, if nothing was done. Taking a moment, she focused her will on the location where she knew the egg sacs remained and let loose an all-consuming Flame Burst.

With this second casting, she was met with even more hidden secrets that seemed like they would have been so handy in her past lives.

Targetless Casting: Tier I. Your ability to use Magic at a fixed position in your mind has been recorded. Your ability to cast magic at a fixed target is improved by 10%.

Sightless Casting: Tier I. Your ability to cast spells without sight has been recorded. Your ability to cast while not being able to see your intended target has improved by 10%.

Those skills alone were worth their weight in gold, as so many of her spells often required line of sight, or her to have eyes on the exact spot of her spell. With these new skills, that was no longer necessary, as it seemed she could now cast from a distance. While she had often unlocked this later on in her past lives, she had never managed to do so this early in her magical career. But what made her the most excited was the advent of a completely new aura that she was not previously aware of.

Magical Aura: Rank I: You have unlocked your Magical Aura. All actions of friendly Magic users are 10% easier when in your presence, while all actions of enemy Magic users are 10% more costly when in your presence.

Seeing her gains from doing this one level blinded, Terra smiled as she first nodded to herself then decided to continue with her training. She was still making good time, thanks to her ability to lure out the spiders from their hidden traps. Better still, there were still so many floors left that she couldn’t help but smile fiendishly, knowing that she should be able to max out all her skills that she had managed to gain thus far.

***

55 minutes later, a dark-skinned Diviner went down the step linking the first to the second floor. In her Divinations she noticed that what she had seen was in flux, as the future had seemingly changed multiple times.

Cautiously the young Diviner strode forward, mentally she thought she was prepared for anything that she might have seen. But she was wrong. The sight of death and carnage that she saw was beyond her wildest visions.

Bisected spiders littered the floor, off in the distance it looked like half of the floor had been purposely set ablaze.

As she made her way forward, she saw countless treasures lining the floor.

“It’s as if she killed with no care whatsoever of the treasures she was leaving behind.” The Diviner mused to herself, as she bent down to loot the treasure chests that stood in plain sight.

Opening the chest, she half expected a trap of some kind to pop out. Instead, she saw a completely filled treasure chest with no less than thirty odd coins. Shaking her head, she could not seem to understand the carnage from the seemingly poor girl, from poor conditions that clearly didn’t care for money or wealth in the slightest.

“Truly you are an enigma Terra Rose, just as my master foretold…” the young Diviner said, as she made her way through the completely cleared floor of the dungeon. A feat that even well-seasoned adventurers would have a hard time completing on their first time through, particularly after their awakening.

As she made her way to the exit, the Diviner was also surprised to see that her target had somehow lured out the matriarch from her well-fortified lair and fought her handedly on open ground. Then looking at the fire that was still burning, she looked for the initial accelerant, and with a simple Divination, she saw the oddest thing.

There before her, was the image of Terra Rose standing with her eyes closed, casting a fireball with her left hand, before switching her grip and slicing the beast in half with her sword. The entire time the caster had her eyes shut. Seeing this, the Diviner could only come up with two words to say about what she had just witnessed. “But how?”