The Ant Nest (2)
Using an Ice Barrier and Declaration of Freeze, Jin-soo steadily hunted the worker-ant pretas and soldier-ant pretas pouring in on him. He wanted to push on at once and search for the queen, but simply holding the line against the swarm was already more than he could spare.
The Yellow God's blessing has grown.
The Red God's blessing has grown.
All he had done was hunt without pause, and yet the blessings grew. This was not their first growth, but their third—the yield of level-ups stacked one atop another, and of the many worker-ant pretas he had cut down.
One kind of monster. Easy to stack achievements, and easy to grow the blessings.
Achievements could be earned at 1,000 worker-ant pretas, and again at 10,000. Title growth came at 2,222, and once more at 22,222.
They rise by 42.2% now.
Once the number of items whose level he could lock climbed to 22, and the locked level itself rose to 122, the width of his stat gains jumped from 32.2% to 42.2%. It was satisfying. It was also not enough.
The blessing-exclusive skills aren't increasing.
As the item-level lock grew into 22 slots at level 122, the lock on blessing-exclusive skills grew with it—22 slots, level 122. The trouble was that the only blessing-exclusive skill Jin-soo owned was Status Window Switch.
What use is raising twenty-two of them to level 122 when I only have one?
From where he stood, it was a fine-looking wild apricot with nothing worth eating inside. He would rather the gods had handed him a blessing that locked class level, or constitution level.
Both of his classes, the Ice Dragon Mage and the Blood Demon Swordsman, remained at level 2, so not a single mid- or high-tier class skill had awakened. His constitution was still level 2 as well.
I'll wait.
He had only one for now, but if the blessings kept growing, he was certain they would grant him exclusive skills in time. A blessing that locked skill level had already appeared. One that fixed class level and constitution above level 2 was sure to follow.
Base stats are up. The Shadow Summons should be stronger, too.
The ant nest was poor ground for a dark-affinity class like the Blood Demon Swordsman, and that made the Shadow Summons difficult to use. Even so, just as a straw shoe has its mate, the nest had its own hour when the dark class and the summons could be brought to bear. That hour was sleep.
"Let's stop here for today."
At Jin-soo's words, Shin Sua's face darkened.
"Already?"
He faltered. Whenever he declared the day was done, Shin Sua had always brightened, worn thin as she was, and welcomed it. Today was different. She clutched a staff still smeared with worker-ant fluid, regret written all over her, her eyes dyed with a strange madness. Guilt surged through him—the sense that he had ruined a perfectly normal girl—and he shoved it down before he spoke.
"Yeah. If we don't rest, we can't hunt again."
"Okay. You'll leave the Dragon Tooth Soldiers and the stone golem outside the Sanctuary, right?"
Shin Sua asked it as though the answer were obvious, forcing the disappointment off her face.
"Yeah. But I'm not leaving the Dragon Tooth Soldiers. I'll put the Shadow Summons outside the Sanctuary."
"Then do that, and tell me when you're ready."
She nodded, calm as ever. Jin-soo recalled the Dragon Tooth Soldiers, switched his status window, and summoned the Shadow Summons.
The ice cracked apart. The moment the mana feeding it was cut, the barrier he had raised as the Freeze Mage shattered and came down, and the ant pretas slowed by Declaration of Freeze surged back up to speed.
"Do I open it now?"
Jin-soo nodded.
Light flared. Shin Sua activated Sanctuary, and a zone of safety spread open.
"Kieeeek!"
"Kik! Kik!"
The ant pretas hurled themselves at the Sanctuary. It did them no good at all.
Kill the monsters.
Jin-soo gave the order, and the Shadow Summons obeyed. Steel bit, flesh tore, and a boom rolled through the cavern as they began to scythe down the pretas swarming the Sanctuary at a dreadful speed. Shin Sua's stone golem fought on as well, stomping and crunching pretas underfoot without rest.
Find where the larger ones gather.
He issued a separate command to the shadow assassin. While the other summons beat the pretas down, the assassin slid into the dark with a soft rustle. A cavern drowned in heavy gloom was the finest ground it could ask for.
Good thing Status Window Switch hit level 122.
The cooldown had fallen to two hours, and the stacks had risen to twenty-two. That was enough to swap between the dark and holy status windows in real time, even in the middle of a fight.
The Shadow Summons' range is up to about twenty kilometers, too.
With luck, he might find the queen ant before he woke. The problem was if he didn't.
Their cooldown is the catch.
It had dropped to twelve hours. Switch to the holy window, though, and the cooldowns on the dark window's skills stopped counting down.
They're stronger, but they still can't kill every ant pouring in from every side.
Efficient hunting needed the ice-attribute skills of the Ice Dragon Mage.
Well. I should at least get a rough location.
The queen lived under the heavy escort of giant soldier ants. Find, within that twenty-kilometer radius, a place where the giants clustered thick, and he would have succeeded.
If I don't, I'll have to swallow inefficient hunting and a little risk.
Farming a mass of ant pretas for levels and achievements was good. He still could not afford to miss a chance at an Impossible Feat.
Jin-soo and Shin Sua woke from a deep sleep and ate a simple breakfast.
"Whoa. This is actually insane."
Halfway through the meal, Shin Sua looked around the Sanctuary and her mouth fell open. Items of every kind were heaped around it. They had already gathered loot and sold it at the auction house before raising the Sanctuary the day before, and still this much had piled up.
"There really is a lot."
If his inventory level hadn't reached 122, he might not have been able to collect it all.
"Looks like the stone golem broke."
Regret colored her voice. The Shadow Summons were intact. The stone golem was not.
"Just summon it again. The cooldown's finished, right?"
"Yeah."
"When we're done eating and you drop the Sanctuary, summon it right away."
"Okay."
They talked, and breakfast stayed peaceful.
"Kieeeek!"
Around the Sanctuary, the fighting was anything but. Shell crunched, flesh split, and a boom shook the stone. The shadow tank swung its shield; the shadow warrior split ant pretas clean in two with a greatsword; the shadow archer loosed five arrows a second and punched them through hundreds of bodies. Every time the shadow mage cast an offensive spell, thousands of pretas were swept away. Even so, the line held, because the ants were replacing themselves faster than the summons could cut them down.
I thought one of them might burn out and vanish.
None had been destroyed in the fight, and though their mana hung by a thread, a little of it remained. All of that was possible only because the Shadow Summons had reached level 122. As the skill level rose, the pull of Jin-soo's stats and blessings grew stronger, and the mana in their cores swelled. It helped, too, that most of the pretas were worker ants—trash mobs, if he was honest.
If they spill out like this, knowing the location still might not let us move.
They could force a way through if they had to. The trouble was how brutally slow that way would be.
Did it find the queen?
Jin-soo focused on the shadow assassin, and the information it had gathered poured into his mind.
"Oh ho."
A smile touched his mouth. The assassin had done its work well. It had not found the queen-ant preta, but it had located a passage packed with giant soldier-ant pretas, and from that passage worker-ant pretas and soldier-ant pretas poured without end.
There's a hatchery. No question.
Find the hatchery, and the search was over. The queen would be inside, laying eggs without pause.
The problem is cutting through to get there.
The assassin's memories had given him the road. Whether he could reach the end of it was another matter.
Let's try.
Until now the pretas had hit them from both sides at once. But if he sealed one passage completely with an ice barrier?
What comes at us should drop by half.
It seemed workable. The Shadow Summons' mana was also on the verge of running dry. Cores or not, level 122 still had a limit, and that was only natural.
"Should I release it now?"
Breakfast done, Shin Sua looked to him.
"Yeah."
The instant she released the Sanctuary, Jin-soo switched his status window. The Shadow Summons vanished where they stood.
"Ice Barrier. Declaration of Freeze. Summon Dragon Tooth Soldiers."
He cast the skills one after another. One wall sealed shut behind a massive barrier of ice. Along the other, Dragon Tooth Soldiers spilled into view in a rush.
Go.
At his command, twelve Dragon Tooth Soldiers forged from White Drake teeth took the lead, and those made from lizardman teeth followed behind.
"Summon stone golem!"
Shin Sua called her stone golem back into the fight.
"Ice Storm!"
He cast the wide-area spell and drove hard to open a path.
"Kieeeek!"
"Kik! Kik!"
Advancing was not easy. Worker-ant pretas and soldier-ant pretas died quickly, and greater numbers surged in to take their place.
I am so sick of this.
Before the regression, Jin-soo had conquered an ant nest on a far higher floor of the Tower. Wiping out its ants and taking the queen had cost him more than three months.
Then and now. They just throw themselves at you like animals.
Set his strength against the pretas' level, and this was easier than it had been before the regression. Time was the problem. Back then, three months or four had been plenty. He no longer had the leisure to clear an ant nest at that unhurried pace.
I kill the queen within two days. No matter what.
Failing wouldn't be a loss. He had power-leveled at a ridiculous pace and taken a staggering haul of loot. That still fell short of what he wanted.
It would be different if the shadow assassin hadn't found where she was.
Now that he knew, he had to take her.
Jin-soo and Shin Sua cut down the pretas that never stopped coming and shoved their way forward. They hunted without a rest. Lunch was eaten with a staff in one hand, swung between bites. However far they went, their pace stayed painfully slow.
"Kieeeek!"
Something crunched, then split. Absurdly hard. The closer they drew to the queen-ant preta, the fewer workers there were, and the more soldiers. At last the giant soldier-ant pretas began to show themselves, their footsteps booming through the stone. One of them filled half the vast underground cavern with its bulk, and its attack and defense were both immense.
The Dragon Tooth Soldiers made from lizardman teeth came apart in its jaws like toys cut from styrofoam, sheared away with a crunch and a snap. Their own attacks did not so much as register on the giant.
"Ice-Piercing Arrow."
He sent them in a chain, and they struck one after another. They sank in deep enough, and still they didn't seem to deal any real damage.
"Ice Explosion."
The instant the linked skill went off, the cavern detonated, and the giant soldier-ant preta died.
The mana cost is too high.
If killing a soldier-ant preta cost 10 mana, killing a giant cost close to 50.
"Kuaaaaargh!"
Blows thudded home. Shell cracked and gave. The Dragon Tooth Soldiers forged from White Drake teeth were far stronger than the giants, yet the defense was so high that finishing a single one took more than ten seconds. He had only twelve of them. As more giant soldier-ant pretas joined the press, their forward pace began to collapse.