ALEXiThymia: Chapter 70: Consolidating Gains

Chapter 70

Consolidating Gains

Alexa felt the surges of energy still coursing through her, as she made her way through the trap dungeon. This was a dungeon she had already run through multiple times, and her innate class ability to see magic still helped her out. Though this time there was a difference with what she was able to perceive from her run.

This time not only was she able to see the different power sources, and highlighted sections of walls that she was meant to interact with, but she could also identify different components of the dungeon itself. At first she was a little confused, then she realized that most of this might have to do with her eight recent Skill Crystals she had received.

As she entered her first mini-boss room she saw a number of weak spots that practically seemed to glow to her. The monster was a standard ogre, one that she had fought many different times in red level Tier I practice dungeons. Those dungeons were often considered to be the kiddy practice dungeons, where you slowly worked your way up to fighting against real monsters. In this case, she was just fighting the level 20 version, or equivalent thereof.

But when she saw the creature, she was amazed to see that just looking at the creature she saw more details than she ever had with any dungeon creature.

Premature Ogre (Summoned Aspect): Level 25. Weaknesses: Fire.

Cocking her head to the side, she almost wondered what it meant that this creature was a summoned aspect, but found herself in combat before she could contemplate too much on the task at hand.

A part of her wanted to slice apart the monster with her overpowered magic and be done. But something was off. The way the different parts of the monster began to glow to her senses let her wonder if there was something more to this encounter. Something deeper.

The first and brightest glowing light came from the now over extended left knee of the monster. Seeing the glowing light, and the fact that it was on the beast’s outside, Alexa moved to strike at the light the only way she could imagine. Before she had time to fully process her attack, she did a spinning roundhouse kick with her left leg planted.

Wham.

“GAH!” The giant monster bellowed as it dropped low at the sudden strike. This caused two new lights to appear, both on the beast’s large shoulders. The beast brought up its two large arms to strike, but its blood might as well be molasses the way it seemed to move to Alexa’s superior attributes. Still this was good practice for her, especially if the dungeon was trying to teach her something. Which is what she thought this whole encounter was, a teaching experience. Especially with the monster just being a summoned aspect of the real monster.

Moving forward between the two lumbering arms, Alexa reached out and struck the two glowing lights that sat right at the base of the monster’s collar bones.

Crack.

Two impacting fists collided with the ogre’s collar bones causing them to crack under the pressure of her strikes and the sheer force needed to lift its massive arms. With the two lights on the shoulders out, Alexa saw a glowing spot on the beast’s right temple. Seeing the spot, Alexa reared back and struck at the glowing spot hard.

Pop.

There was an audible popping sound that came from the monster’s skull as her fist left and indentation in the skull. The blow was not enough to incapacitate the creature, but it was enough to cause the beast to stagger for a moment.

With the beast staggering a few more lights appeared all over the chest and torso of the beast, seeing them Alexa began punching them like they were an odd combination of whack-a-mole and the electronic Simon game all rolled into one. There was clearly a pattern for her strikes to land, and one she might recognize if she had a chance to fully think. But in the moment, her fists flew before she even had time to know where they were landing. Only mid-way through her punches would the next light appear, forcing Alexa to often twist her wrist at the last second, or swing her hips into the blow.

Cracka-tak-pop.

Alexa felt hardened bone and muscles give way below her strikes. Before she even realized what was happening the giant monster began to tumble over and fall to the floor. Then with a pouce, Alexa was on the monster raining down more and more guided blows.

Her fists flew in a violent fury, blow after blow landing on the torso, chest, neck and finally the skull of the great beast. The monster was limp and unconscious, but Alexa kept seeing flashes of light appear, so she kept punching wildly. Until finally the flights of the beast ended and there was a satisfying crunch as the monster’s head caved in below her last palm strike.

Looking down, she wondered when she switched form using her knuckles to delivering palm strikes?

Panting.

She was tired, that had been a lot of effort on her part, but so worth it. As she rose to her feet, she realized the all too familiar smile that seemed to creep on her lips while she was in combat had once again appeared. Though rather than get saddened by the fact that she knew she was still just a few steps away from being a monster, she relished the release that doing this in a dungeon entailed.

Here she was free.

This was her domain, her dominion. Here she was safe to be herself, however that might end up being.

After a few seconds, her breathing evened out, but she still felt the high from striking the monster. Now that she saw the monster for what it was, a summoned aspect, she began to understand why she could feel more and more energy get drained into her by her class. Her class was automatically drawing in ambient energy that she came into contact with, which apparently included her fists.

Alexa waited over top of the monster, to see if it would produce the standard physical augmentation crystal that all mini-bosses seemed to offer. Except this time when she looked at the creature, she saw a new message.

Skill Conditioning Component Met: 1 of 3.

With that message, she saw the energy of the monster get condensed into a tight spiraling ball, before it seemed to condense into the message before her. Of course, the message seemed entirely off to her. Had these always been there? Or was this the advent of something new?

Normally she didn’t even bother with such events. Normally she would just charge in, destroy the monster as quickly as possible and then be gone. This time however, there seemed to be something different.

Rest Timer: 29 Minutes, 12 seconds…

Realizing she still had time before the room would reset, Alexa wondered what could have caused the sudden change in the way she saw dungeons.

Pulling up her recent gains from her skill crystals, she soon found what she thought might be the reason for her changed perception of the world around her.

New Skills Gained:

Arcana

Insight

Medicine

Rune Reading X2

Rune Writing

Stealth

Strategy

Those were the skills she had unlocked from the skill crystals she consumed before entering the dungeon. Quickly working through the list of what changed, she immediately marked off Stealth, Rune Writing, and Rune Reading as causes for this newfound insight. She wanted to dismiss Medicine, but then remembered the parts of the body that were highlighted and paused. While she couldn’t rule that out entirely, she felt that there was likely more to this than just a sudden deeper understanding of the human anatomy. Strategy too could also play a part, but that was more on the terms of large scale tactics and operations. Part of her wondered if that was why she had the sudden insight to keep her two psychic crystals for her Gina and her brother. Seeing the two, she realized that both would be perfect for them. Or maybe perfect was too strong of a word to use, but rather those crystals would help the two of them sure up some of their weaknesses.

That left Arcana and Insight as the two main culprits of what she thought could be the cause of her seeing the monsters glow with lights that all but screamed, attack me here.

Looking at her skills, she couldn’t help but think that most were too low to be of any real help.

Arcana: 8%

Gymnastics 15%

Insight: 8%

Medicine: 9%

Parkour 11%

Rune Reading: 18%

Rune Writing: 8%

Stealth: 12%

Strategy: 8%

Throwing 26%

Wall Walking 11%

She remembered that eve with the skill shard for Throwing, she had improved, but not so much that everything glowed with ways to improve drastically.

Alexa was at a loss, until she remembered her new Rank as well.

Baroness:+25% All Attributes, Skills, Psychic Powers, and Magic Aptitudes.

Seeing the new Rank and how it also had a bonus that also applied to Skills, Alexa felt she was onto something.

Looking back at her skills, rather than just an 8% bonus to Arcana and Insight, she could effectively think of them as  more than a 33% increase to the two skills. With that level of improvement, she could almost see how the parts of the monster all but glowed to her senses. But that begged the question, why did the monster glow?

Did the monster always glow and Alexa had just never noticed before because she didn’t have the right set of skills?

So many questions formed in her mind, but right now she realized there was only one true way to prove her hypothesis.

What was her hypothesis? Well it was still a work in progress, but it seemed to revolve around the fact that this dungeon was trying to teach her something. Maybe unarmed combat, if the glowing lights on the monster’s body were to be any indication.

With only her want to test out a hypothesis, Alexa moved forward, easily dispatching trap after trap. Gaining standard augmentation crystals in different rooms. Just looking at the standard crystals, Alexa couldn’t help but feel they were a waste. Her love for the crystals had seemed to drop significantly, over the past few days. Was this a matter of her being spoiled by the power offered by Skill, Psychic, and Magic crystals? Or was this a sign that she was now putting into words what she had been suspecting for a while? That she was increasingly outgrowing the need for augmentation crystals. Other than the minor time of being able to feel that each crystal offered, they did little to improve her overall. Especially with the fact that it required six hundred crystals just to improve her Attribute Increase title. No, she was beginning to experience what a lot of supers came to understand, that augmentation crystals were basically the training wheels offered by dungeons to help Supers get used to the world.

Still they were worth collecting, at the very least she could give them to Luke, Gina, and the rest of her pack. Gina and Luke especially needed the mental augmentation crystals, not that they were dumb, far from it. No, she saw them as needing the crystals to help improve their ability to use their current and future psychic powers.

Moving forward, Alexa made her way to the second mini-boss room. Once gain it was a summoned aspect of an ogre.

Premature Ogre (Summoned Aspect): Level 25. Weaknesses: Fire.

The details of this ogre were the exact same as the last ogre. As she entered, she once again saw the faint lights appear on the monster as it barreled forward. Again, the beast was slow. Well much faster than pre-dungeon humans could move, but slow compared to Alexa.

Alexa once again knew that she could easily slice down this monster with her magic and be done. But she felt that there was something the dungeon was trying to show her, some hidden meaning that was being offered. Something that she felt she had to at least try to understand.

With that, she once again played the interactive punching version of Simon. The only difference was, rather than touching lights in a particular order, she delivered kicks and punches to spots that would appear randomly. This time she kept her distance, at least at first. This allowed her to add in more kicks.

Red light.

Rather than the typical blue light that showed where she should strike next, she saw a red light out of the corner of her eye. A quick glance showed what she already knew, that the monster was moving to strike at her. She knew from experience that she could easily block the blow with just a raised arm, but felt that this was not what the dungeon wanted. Rather than using overwhelming strength, she began to feel that she could understand the intent of this training exercise. That the dungeon wanted to teach her, in a safe way, how to avoid strikes of an enemy. While taking the strikes was possible now, she realized that it wouldn’t always be the same. That eventually she would reach a monster that she wasn’t able to overwhelm with brute force, her encounter with the Dire werewolf from last night was a firm reminder of this, which was why she was likely more willing to listen to the dungeon. If listening was in fact the word one would use to describe what was happening.

Ducking under the blow that seemed more than telegraphed, Alexa found that her patience was rewarded with yet more glowing pain points to strike. Seeing one just under the hyperextended elbow, Alexa struck hard.

CRACK!

A satisfying crunch was felt as Alexa delivered a devastating open palm strike. Once again, Alexa missed the moment when she decided to twist her wrist away from a punch and focus on a more focused palm strike. Still the results were the same, the monster’s right arm began to glow with a pale blue. Alexa didn’t quite know what that meant, other than possibly meaning the arm was at reduced effectiveness.

Seeing that, Alexa’s smile grew wide, as she danced around on her feet moving inside and out, striking at openings. She watched for the glowing red appendages that denoted movement. Often she could tell when a strike was coming based on the way the ogre’s massive muscles pulsed, but the red highlight seemed to be an obvious telegraph to show inexperienced combatants what to expect. Still it was interesting to see the intended movements while they were happening.

Just as Alexa felt the surge and glow of battle fill her, her opponent dropped to its knees after a well placed roundhouse kick to the left knee.

Crack.

The monster fell forward, which Alexa met with an uppercut straight to the forehead.

Boom, poof.

The monster reeled back and landed on the ground unconscious from the blow. Only afterwards did Alexa realize that the glowing light had appeared a split second before she connected. That was good, as it meant she was learning the pattern that the dungeon was trying to teach her. At least that was what she figured was the case.

With the monster down, Alexa finished the monster off with a powerful elbow drop to the already damaged forehead.

Splat.

The monster’s head cracked inward as Alexa saw brains and viscera splatter about. Rising to her feet, she saw the energy once again condense, the same way as it would to create an augmentation crystal, only for the energy to once again be sucked into a message box that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Skill Conditioning Component Met: 2 of 3.

This time when the energy condensed, she saw the number change from a 1 to a 2, letting her know that she was both one step closer to her goal. Also, she only had one more monster to beat like this, to complete her conditioning, whatever that meant.

With a satisfied smile on her lips she shook her arms out, trying to dislodge some of the crud that had come from the monster’s brain. She noticed that a few cuts and bruises appeared from she she removed her elbow from the monster’s forehead, but her Regeneration seemed to already be working on fixing the worst of her damages.

With no shard to collect and no real reason to stay around, Alexa continued on to the next set of challenge rooms, which she would need to pass in order to fight the final boss monster.

This time when she saw the boss monster for this entire dungeon appear a malicious smile appeared on her lips, as she saw so many glowing spots of pain to strike at, that she felt ready for anything. This monster was a boss monster, meaning it was a third size larger than the other two mini-bosses she had faced thus far. Looking at the monster, she could easily see why this monster was larger than the others.

Ogre (Summoned Aspect): Level 30. Weaknesses: Fire (minor).

This monster was a regular ogre, and not a premature ogre like the other two had been. Also this one was a level thirty monster. Somehow she felt this monster was slightly more powerful due to her having met the hidden conditions while fighting the two mini-bosses with the light up whack-a-mole game operation.

Seeing the increased difficulty only caused a smile to appear on Alexa’s lips as she felt ready for the challenge.

“Let’s go.” Alexa said, as she charged forward.

To her surprise, the towering ogre also charged forward. Also to her surprise, this ogre seemed to be able to move at the same speed as Alexa, though its mass and size clearly spoke to it being more powerful.

Alexa was moving, before she caught the glint of red from a powerful swing. Again, her instincts she had developed over the years were already letting her know what to expect before her new skills were. If anything her skills only served as a minor reinforcement of what she already knew.

Woosh!

Alexa felt the swing fly within an inch of her, the force so powerful that she could almost feel her body being sucked into the arm by the force of displaced air. Still Alexa struck at the pain spots, she didn’t wait for the flashing lights to tell her where to strike. Instead, she used her previous knowledge of fighting the two much slower monsters to know where to move and strike. Then more importantly, where to move so she avoided follow up strikes and wild movements of the monster.

Whoom.

Wham, wham.

Another swinging miss from the monster, followed by two quick jabs of her own.

With each strike, she could see the color of the limbs she struck at slowly fade from a bright almost blinding blue, to a dull ice blue, then finally after nearly two dozen blows to the same joint, she saw the moment the monster’s first limb went limp.

Grin.

Seeing the limb go limp, and the fact that it wasn’t a feint, Alexa went in for the kill. She didn’t do anything flashy, she didn’t go in for one strike to quickly take out her weakened opponent. Instead, she slowly and methodically worked on the leg. Finally after enough strike sand kicks to the same knee joint, the monster dropped down. From there it was only a matter of moving in and and striking at a wounded monster who knew the end was near.

Then finally after a long drawn out battle, Alexa spun out of the way of the monster’s one good arm, only to turn that spin into a kick that she used to deliver the final blow to the monster’s skull.

CRUNCH!

The monster who had been half upright crumbled over instantly from the blow.

Within a second, Alexa realized she had killed the monster. Or at least the summoned aspect of the monster.

Panting.

With the fight finally over, Alexa let herself relax slightly as she began desperately drawing in deep breaths of air.

It had been a long drawn out fight, but despite how long it lasted Alexa never got in trouble. She just kept her mind focused on moving, on not getting cocky, on not getting caught out of position. Replaying the parts of the battle in her mind, she realized that this was likely what the dungeon was trying to teach her. That attributes will only take you so far, that eventually you will come across someone who is stronger and faster than you, then when that day comes, you can only expect your skill to protect you. At least, that was the message Alexa chose to take from this whole scenario.

This time, like the previous two, Alexa watched the energy of the boss monster converge and then get drawn up into a message that appeared before her.

Skill Conditioning Component Met: 3 of 3.

At that Alexa didn’t quite know what to expect, but she surely didn’t expect what happened next.

Hidden Quest Complete: The Dungeon's Purpose. You have found the true purpose for this dungeon. Rewards: ERROR...