Chapter 121 Back To Square One?
Zi Yi, Mariposa and the remaining members of Sleeping Gardenia were currently following after Izroth who led the way.
"How did you meet with my sister?" Zi Yi asked curiously.
"The location I was transported to happened to be only a few meters away from where she stood." Izroth responded.
"It was a good thing that you did. If not, I may still be fighting to keep my life against that monster from before." Zi Yi then glanced over at Mariposa who was walking beside her. There was another question on her mind, however, she was a little hesitant to ask.
Mariposa noticed Zi Yi's constant glances towards her. It was one of Zi Yi's habits to do such a thing when she wanted to ask a question but did not know how to do so. Mariposa could guess what it was that she wanted to ask her.
"You're wondering where the rest of my party members are, right?" Mariposa decided to bring up the topic. When she did, all the other members of her party facial expressions immediately turned gloomy. Just remembering what happened to their party members and those despicable members of Fatal Touch, how could they not be infuriated?
Zi Yi gave a small nod to respond. It was true, she was curious as to why they were down to so few members. After all, they entered into the Chaotic Dogma Realm with a full party of six. But, from the way everyone reacted, she assumed that whatever occurred was something unpleasant to speak of.
"It all started when..." Mariposa then went on to explain the events that led up to their confrontation with Silent Step and Fatal Touch. She explained everything all the way up until they managed to find her spatial signature. When Mariposa finished speaking, Zi Yi was absolutely livid.
"How detestable! The members of Fatal Touch sure know how to behave in a shameless manner!" Zi Yi could understand why it was a topic they seemed reluctant to talk about. Just the thought alone would be more than enough to upset them.
"Hmph, I will deal with both Silent Step and Fatal Touch once we're outside of the Chaotic Dogma Realm. They'll understand that Sleeping Gardenia is not someone they can bully so easily and expect to get away with it." Mariposa said.
"Still, I never thought that a member of Heaven's Law would interfere. From what I heard, that bunch is very selective of who they choose to associate with." Zi Yi originally believed that it would have been Izroth who was the one to step in, however, it turned out to be Aegis, a member of Heaven's Law.
But, from what she understood, it was only due to the fact that her elder sister was a magic caster that specialized in space. If not for that, then there was a good chance that Aegis would have ignored her situation altogether. However, in the end, that did not change the fact that he helped them.
The group continued their journey in order to confirm Izroth's theory. Along the way, they came across a few elite monsters which the group had no trouble taking care of, even without a healer present. This was mostly due to the Sleeping Gardenia party having a skilled tank and the added damage of Izroth, Zi Yi and Mariposa.
The tank of Sleeping Gardenia was frustrated at the moment. She already had enough trouble holding aggro with the amount of damage Mariposa dished out and now she had to deal with two more freaks. She wanted to cry at the struggle of maintaining aggro against such high damage numbers.
During that time, Izroth managed to level up and reach level 25. Thanks to that, he gained an additional skill point and three stat points. Izroth currently had 9 stat points and 5 skill points that were unused.
He felt that it would be a waste to use it on the First Sword Form: Converging Paths skill since he could level it up just by executing it properly multiple times. However, the only other skills he had available at the moment that was not maxed out and accepted skill points were all C-ranked skills.
Therefore, Izroth decided to max out two of them for now and had 1 skill point left over. The two skills he chose to level up were Myriad Elusive Palms and Fissuring Point. He believed that he would gain the most use out of those two skills and he was quite pleased with their newfound power.
Skill Name: Fissuring Point
Skill Creator: Izroth
Skill Level: MAXED
Skill Rank: C
Energy Cost: 20
Active: Deals 200% of the user's attack as damage. The damage from this skill ignores all shields and 100% of the target's defense. If this skill deals damage to someone with a shield active, the cooldown of this skill is increased to 30 seconds. This skill cannot be 'Blocked'.
Description: A skill created by Izroth that can penetrate through almost any defenses with ease. Trying to block this skill is futile.
Cooldown: 5 seconds
Skill Name: Myriad Elusive Palms
Skill Creator: Izroth
Skill Level: MAXED
Skill Rank: C
Energy Cost: 25
Active: Deals 150% of the user's attack as damage to all enemies within 6 meters. This skill has an increased hit rate and is difficult to evade. The cooldown of this skill is reduced by 4 seconds for each target successfully hit.
Description: A skill created by Izroth, capable of striking multiple targets with hard to follow movements. One true strike hidden within a myriad of palms.
Cooldown: 20 seconds
The overall strength of both skills increased by a great deal. The biggest two changes were that Fissuring Point now ignored 100% of all defenses and the Myriad Elusive Palms cooldown would be reduced by 4 seconds for each target struck. That meant as long as he struck five targets, the cooldown of the Myriad Elusive Palms would be reduced back to zero!
However, Izroth only possessed 100 energy and the cost of Myriad Elusive Palms was 25 energy. Therefore, if he had max energy then he could use it up to four times! But, he would be out of energy and would have to wait before he could use any other skills that required energy.
'I wonder if there's a way to increase my maximum amount of energy.'
As for the nine stat points, Izroth chose to save for them now. There was something he needed to do before he invested any further stat points.
The group continued to walk for around twenty minutes until Izroth came to an abrupt stop. When everyone saw that Izroth stopped moving, they also halted their steps.
"It should be somewhere around here." Izroth said as he looked towards Mariposa.
Mariposa nodded as she began to search the surroundings for any spatial signatures. However, after she searched for around five minutes, she shook her head helplessly.
"There are no specific spatial signatures in this area." Mariposa said as she furrowed her brows as if she were in deep thought. It appeared that something else was on her mind after she examined the nearby space.
'Could I have been wrong?'
Izroth was positive that it would be around this area. However, if Mariposa said that there were no spatial signatures then there was a chance that he had been mistaken in his original assumption.
But, when Izroth noticed the expression on Mariposa's face that looked as though something bothered her, he asked, "Is there something else?"
Mariposa was unsure and so she decided against saying anything until she had more conclusive evidence. Though there was a good possibility that there was no way to obtain said evidence.
"It may be nothing but, the black specks in this area are minimal. The black specks are forming a large dome that's at least one hundred meters in height and width. It's as if something pushed them outward. Therefore, if there was a spatial signature here it would have been swept away by the same force that caused the black specks to form a dome." Mariposa explained.
She then continued, "Then again, this could just be a natural occurrence within the Chaotic Dogma Realm. It is something that I cannot verify the authenticity of. I believe that it is natural because the other two options are highly improbable."
If there was even a small chance that he may be correct, Izroth would pursue it. Or at the very least, he wanted to hear the other possibilities.
"What might those be?" Izroth asked.
"Well, the first is that an incredibly skilled spatial magic caster formed the dome. However, even at my current level, I would be unable to do something on this scale. You can call it boasting, but when it comes to spatial magic within RML there are very few who can accomplish what I'm capable of. But, there are none that are this far above me." Mariposa said with a hint of confidence in her voice.
Izroth nodded. It was unlikely that this was the work of a player or monster from the Chaotic Dogma Realm. After all, if they really were as powerful as Mariposa suggested at this point, then others wouldn't stand a chance.
"The second option is a magic item with a tremendous amount of power behind it. So much that it can influence the surrounding space on a large scale. However, I believe that even A-ranked magic items would not be capable of something like this. It would have to be at least S-ranked! But, how difficult is it to find and obtain an S-ranked magic item?" Mariposa said.
If Mariposa knew that Izroth was in possession of two S-ranked magic items, even though they were for non-combat purposes, and had even already used one personally within the Shadahi Realm, she would be dumbfounded. Finding one was hard enough and yet Izroth had already come across so many!
'A magic item?'
Izroth was reminded of the Source of Despair magic item that he ran into earlier. It was possible that a magic item really was behind this phenomenon. If that were the case, then he may not be wrong after all.
"Is there any way to determine which direction the spatial signature was dragged in?" Izroth asked.
Mariposa shook her head, "Impossible. The only way would be that we search little by little. Even then it's not guaranteed that we'll find any traces. There's also a chance that we're looking for something that doesn't exist. Forgive me for being blunt, but I would not like to waste my time searching for a needle in the haystack when the needle may or may not be there."
Izroth agreed with Mariposa. She had already helped them quite a bit, to ask her to embark on an arduous task for no purpose other than to confirm his theory would be unreasonable.
But if this was a dead end, then they were back to square one.
'A dome...'
Izroth suddenly had an idea. "You said that black specks are forming a dome, correct?" He asked.
"Yes, that's right." Mariposa answered.
"Then, is it possible for you to guide us to the center of the dome?" Izroth asked. His idea was simple, if they were in a dome and a magic item was the cause of it forming, then would not the magic item be located at the center of the dome?
After all, it was natural for an object that released a force in all directions to be at the very center of things. Even if the object was no longer there or it was something else entirely, it would still provide clues as to what took place here. Right now, this was their only option.
"That should be possible. Though, I'm not sure what you hope to find there." Mariposa said.
"Answers." Izroth responded with one word.
Mariposa then led the way, headed towards the center of the dome.
It took the Izroth and the group only a few minutes to reach the center of the dome.
Izroth studied his surroundings closely and instantly became aware of something quite peculiar. Although there was nothing suspicious in sight, there was a strange aura lingering within the area. It was faint and the source was no longer present, but Izroth was able to detect it.
'Why is there the energy of a Shadahi lingering around this place?'