Ashton looked at the group of approaching goblins. It was just 5 of them, but they were accompanied by an orc, which was the troublesome part. Though, this was actually a great opportunity for him to test out what he could do to channel the summons better.
Of course, there was always the option of just controlling them all mentally, but that was quite literally like multitasking a couple times over in the middle of a fight to the death. It was too risky, and most importantly, too mentally straining for the time being. If his spirit stat rose a bit more, maybe that was going to change, but right now it wasn't a realistic option.
And so, he tried to let some mana flow into his staff. He didn't exactly have a ton to work with yet, but it could be enough. With the staff filled, Ashton could project his existence into it. Basically, he was just turning this staff into a true extension of his body. It was something that he had done a lot in Lumia, after hearing about a concept called Sword-Body Unity. It was apparently something possible for every sort of weapon, not just swords, once someone had become skilled enough for their weapon to practically meld into their very being. Not physically, but... spiritually.
Ashton was never skilled enough to achieve this. In the hundred odd years that he tried to become stronger with a staff, he was never able to get good enough. He just wasn't suited to become a fighter. However, after he started learning more about potion-making and how to control his mana as a consequence, this idea just came to him.
One of Ashton's specialties was 'mana state alteration'. Basically, he could fairly easily change the natural pattern that mana presented in to make it accept certain aspects of materials or refuse others. But it could go beyond that. Everybody's mana had a natural pattern that it defaulted to when left on its own. That pattern was disrupted when mana was actively manipulated, but Ashton was able to, shockingly easily at that, force mana that he manipulated back into its default pattern.
There generally wasn't a use for this, obviously, but it seemed useful for when he manipulated his weapon. By filling his staff with mana in this way, he just managed to have this 'passive' knowledge of where the staff was just by feeling it. Spinning it around was like swinging his arm. It didn't make him immediately more powerful, but it definitely helped speed up the pace at which he improved. Though, with the level of mana and overall power he had until now, it was a bit too hard to keep this up for long. But even if it was just fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, this could be pretty damn useful.
Ashton hoped that somehow, he could use that method that basically extended his body to then channel the summons with. Once the staff was filled with his mana, he activated the channelling skill with the wisp. Like they were pulled there magnetically, the wisp shot toward one of the staff's ends.
Ashton moved the staff a little, and the wisp followed along with the tip of the staff. Of course, the same rules seemed to apply as with moving his hand. The further the tip of the staff was away from Ashton, the closer to the edge or his channelling range the wisp would move.
A smile appeared on Ashton's face, and he started spinning his staff around to build up some momentum. The wisp moved along with the tip of the staff, shooting around Ashton with ease. Though, the wisp was lagging behind a bit, since they still had a speed limit. Ashton focused on the wisp and told it to shrink down a bit to gain more speed. That much was possible through purely mental channelling at least. Now, this should be useful for some far, far more complex attack patterns.
As the goblins were coming closer, Ashton also came out of 'hiding', though he really had just positioned himself behind some of the playground equipment. The first one that saw Ashton hit the others on the shoulder and pointed at him.
With that, the five goblins reacted fast and ran ahead, and even the orc seemed furious and ready for a fight. After all, the orc corpses were pretty hard to miss.
But Ashton kept spinning around the staff, pulling it closer to his body or pushing it away to create a good route for the wisp to follow. Right now, it was just four inches in diameter and, due to the nature of the wisp, clear white and translucent. The orc seemed to have spotted it, though the goblins simply weren't looking at it right now.
And so, the first goblin was hit with an attack to the side of its head. As blood splattered around and it fell to the ground, a message appeared to Ashton's side. Followed by a few more annoying ones.
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[You have killed a [Goblin]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 15 Coins]
[[Observer in the Veil] awkwardly points at the unique method of Channelling]
[[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] scoffs and explains they like this method better than before]
[[Executor of the End] is surprised at your improvisation skills]
Ashton ignored the messages. He wouldn't let himself get distracted by these things in the middle of a fight again.
As he spun the staff, the wisp kept shooting around, hitting the other goblins. They didn't always die in just one attack. Rather, it was actually a little hard to aim like this, since he wasn't quite used to it. Plus, as the goblins tried to push through the edge of Ashton's range, it was getting a bit harder to hit them since Ashton needed to pull the staff in closer in awkward ways..
Obviously, if anything managed to get through the wisp, they would be attacked by Ashton with his staff directly, but this still made it clear that this wasn't quite perfect just yet. There had to be some more ways that he could improve this method.
But well, he would have plenty of test subjects today, so hopefully that wouldn't be an issue. In the end, once four of the goblins were dead, the orc grabbed the last one by the head and threw it backward, grunting at it. It was clear what this orc was doing.
It told the goblin to go and get the rest of the monsters so that they could take Ashton down together.
"Clever. I guess you know you alone aren't enough?" Ashton said, holding his staff loosely in one hand, "But that's fine with me. I wanted to test some new stuff out anyway, so this works."
Ashton clicked his finger and swapped out the wisp for the salamander's flames for now. It was important to know how the different elementals' channelling abilities worked with this method. After all, it was hard to move the flames and water and the same speed as Ashton could move the wisp. So if they were going to lag behind, he had to get a feel for it.
Ashton started spinning his staff around again, and the salamander's fire seemed to follow behind pretty well. Though it was hard to keep it in that 'sphere' shape that Ashton usually used it with, which would cause an explosion upon making contact with an enemy. But this time, the flames were being moved too fast to keep together like that.
But well, fire wasn't just strong when it could be used to cause explosions. Ashton kept spinning his staff around, hitting the orc with fire from basically all sides. Its clothes soon caught fire as well, and its flesh was being charred and burnt off its skin. It wasn't exactly quiet about how painful this was either, yelling as loudly as it could as if to make sure the other monsters were going to come back faster.
Though before long, the orc just started running in. It seemed to be under the assumption that Ashton could only fight at a distance, but of course, that wasn't the case. The moment the orc came into his own range, he tightly grasped the spear and stabbed it forward, hitting the fist that it was trying to punch with.
Ashton could feel the bones in the orc's hands cracking breaking the vibrations in the staff, but at the same time, he could feel the impact of the attack in himself as well. So, he slightly loosened his grip and let the orc's punch push back the staff, and then Ashton tightened his grip so that was holding the weapon by the 'front'. But that only caused ruin for the orc itself, and it was hit from the back by the flames.
It was startled and turned its head around, but Ashton just hit it on the underside of the chin with his staff. The orc stumbled backward, and Ashton continued hitting it as much as he could with his staff. The monster fell to the ground, and Ashton detached the flames from the staff again, instead manipulating them more closely with his hand.
He pushed the fire into the orc's face. It was a pretty brutal death, but it was effective. While the orc tried to tear the fire away from its face, Ashton slammed his staff down onto it a few times. A broken nose, caved-in orbital bones, a popped-out jaw... and soon, the orc's skull had cracked, and a death message appeared in front of Ashton.
[You have killed an [Orc]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 26 Coins]
He let out a slight, relieved sigh. That went well. Ashton was doing great. He just had to be careful now with the monsters that would be coming any second now.
For that, he decided to climb onto the playground equipment, specifically, that wooden castle that was standing in the middle. There was a spot fairly high up that seemed like it could be good to hide in. Plus, if he was up there, he could act defensively even if a mass of monsters came at him.
And that was a good choice. The moment he sat down up there, he spotted the first monsters coming in. It was at least another thirty goblins and... three whole orcs. If there were eight of them here, including the leader, that meant there were just two more in the main camp on the other side of the school.
But that was good. They obviously weren't going to send the entirety of the group from the front back here, but Ashton was a bit worried about that scenario.
If they split up naturally like this, though it was still not how Ashton would have liked this to happen, he had a much better chance at taking them all down while staying safe.
Hiding on top of the playground's wooden castle, Ashton quickly channelled the Backpacker. He had to see if there was something that he could use to finish these guys off faster.
Particularly the orcs were troublesome. The last one was unarmed, but these guys were well-equipped. Hell, one of them was using a torn-off car door as a shield, and an orc with a shield was the last thing that Ashton wanted to deal with right now.
But then, his eyes landed on one of the plastic bottles with a bright red goo within it. The plastic was already weak because the slime was in there for a while, so he would have to swap it out soon anyway...
"... Fine, I'll do it," he groaned a bit. It was a little annoying since he wanted to use it for a combat potion, but it's not like he just had one or two. He had around five right now, so even if he used a couple, he would have more that he could use for that potion, too. Plus, with the soda slimes now being a thing, he hopefully wouldn't run low on generic slime...
Actually, now that he thought about it, this was probably the best way to use the red slime after all. Ashton asked the backpacker to give him three bottles, a few of the prepped distraction-coins, which he was really running low on as well, and the soda slime's old can. The slime was in a closed bottle now, but Ashton kept the can exactly for this purpose.
One of the main ways that the coins actually made noise was by hitting the ground and bouncing around the whole time. They crackled on their own even if you just held one in your hand, but they weren't nearly as effective. And with all the sand and grass around here, they just wouldn't make enough noise.
Ashton carefully placed the coins into the can and then bent the top so that they couldn't fall out again, before taping the can to the red-slime bottles that were barely holding on now.
He took a deep breath and tried to aim as well as he could, throwing the makeshift slime bomb into the centre of the large group of monsters. It hit one of the goblins in the head and fell down. One of the bottles seemed to have already broken from that, but the others held on while the coins in the soda can started making noise, attracting the other goblins.
As they gathered, Ashton climbed out from the castle and called on the wisp and the salamander's flames, fusing them together. Ashton had the wisp grow as large as it could, and once he was close enough he made the wisp slam down as hard as he could right onto the bottles.
The blunt impact from the wisp was enough to break apart the bottles and throw the slime around, covering the wisp itself. Ashton felt bad for that, but that was only for a moment anyway, since the flames currently within the wisp almost immediately exploded outward. The red slime now covered all of the monsters that had huddled together, and since Ashton had aimed right for the orc with the car-door shield, that was covered in quite a large amount as well.
The slime immediately started eating away at the metal, but it wasn't like the flesh that was hit was unaffected. While red slime was the most effective when dealing with metal, it was extremely potent against biological matter as well.
It was just a bit weaker in that aspect since most of the slime he used came from the one Ashton took down during the tutorial. But even so, at the very least, it made the monsters more vulnerable.
Ashton pulled back his hand to get the wisp to come back to him, having the elemental force their way through the group of goblins standing in the way. Though the explosive effect hadn't recovered yet, the wisp was still red hot and burnt all the monsters they touched even slightly.
"I'd give you a kiss, but I rather like my face the way it looks right now," Ashton smiled a bit, trying to stop the wisp from getting closer. They liked snuggling, but that could be fatal if it happened right now. That being the case, it was time for Ashton to continue attacking. His mana was still in the staff, so he just had to quickly change its pattern to make the wisp switch over to being channelled through it instead of Ashton's hand.
He told the wisp to shrink back down, and then, the true barrage began. The monsters, panicking because of the slime, were taken out pretty easily. Especially the goblins that stood in the way between him and the orcs. Though, the orcs weren't just going to stand there.
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At some point, they forced themselves through the crowd, actually killing some of the injured goblins for Ashton in the process by throwing them away to the side. Them being as pissed off as they were after the slime attack was great for Ashton, actually. Usually, they might have worked together a bit more, but right now, they wanted to individually and personally kill Ashton. They pushed it each other to the side and messed up attacks that the other wanted to make.
And since one of them was holding a sword — it was generally pretty large, but due to the towering the size of the orcs looked shockingly small — Ashton was able to have the wisp impact the side of the sword. The consequent explosion shot it right through the throat of the orc next to it, who proceeded to use its dying strength to smash the other one over the back of the head with its club, something that Ashton took advantage of.
He was already there and ready to go with his staff, hitting the orc in its face. The monster's skull was crushed from both sides and the two orcs fell to the ground, leaving just the orc that was still carrying a shield. And, of course, the dozen or so injured goblins.
Since this one wasn't hit by the slime directly, instead blocking it all with the shield, it was a bit more level-headed and knew that pushing in like that when Ashton was already basically surrounded wasn't a good idea. But now that the other two were dead, it also decided to attack him directly.
Ashton continued dodging out of the way. The annoying part about using slime this way was that he couldn't even attack the shield directly anymore, or else the steel-caps of his staff would start breaking down. But for that, he obviously had the wisp.
And so, Ashton focused on the rest of the goblins, fighting in a way where he could continue hitting the car door with the wisp. It was a bit awkward, but much more effective than before. Like this, he could at least fully focus on fighting with his staff as he was used to, and just had to add in some useless or otherwise awkward moves sometimes to direct the wisp where it needed to go. Usually, he had to somehow figure out how to properly use his staff with one hand and direct the wisp with his other.
And luckily, he knew what these guys were like. The shield was this orc's 'weapon of choice'. It was going to use it as much as it could. Of course, a shield wasn't a weapon, it was meant for defence. So, if a shield-bearing monster, especially one that was carrying just a shield and nothing else, was attacked, it would do everything it could to use that shield as intended, so it was pretty easy to distract this orc.
And before long, as the last goblin was killed, Ashton saw that the shield, turned into a fragile mess by the slime, finally just shattered apart instead of being dented in by the wisp the whole time.
The orc seemed confused at what happened and stared at its precious car door for a moment, before finally falling into a deep rage. It yelled out loudly, seeming even more upset than when any of the other monsters were killed. It held onto the rim of the smashed window, and instead of continuing to use this as a shield, no matter how broken, the orc slammed the door down onto the ground, swinging it around wildly.
"Whoa there, big guy! No need to get upset, there's so many cars out there!" Ashton continued to jump backward, dodging out of the way of the car door. The orc started smashing the bodies of the goblins that were strewn around on the grass, and splatters of blood flew around. Ashton spun his staff around and used this small, mindless rampage to keep hitting it with the flaming wisp.
Before long, one of the attacks caused it to let go of the car door.
It flew through the air and hit the swing set, actually breaking the seat of the swing.
"Dude, come on! I wanted to clean this place up and let the kids play again, now the janitor will have to repair that!" Ashton clicked his tongue, pushing his staff forward to hit the orc in the stomach. It was still distracted from throwing away its precious shield, so it was a good opportunity.
It buckled slightly, and Ashton quickly pulled the staff back and up to hit the orc into the back of the head.
An unarmed, injured orc was an easy enough opponent for Ashton right now. And soon, the spoils of war came to him.
[You have killed an [Orc]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 26 Coins]
[Contract | Lesser Salamander - Level 5 -> Salamander - Level 6]
[Skill | Channelling - Level 6 -> Channelling - Level 7]
[Class | Summoner - Level 6 -> Summoner - Level 7]
The last of those messages came as a surprise. He had just levelled up when he was out with Sam earlier, so rising up so fast was great. Usually, it was supposed to take around a week of constant effort to reach level 10, but Ashton was scheduled to get there in probably half that time.
Ashton took a few deep breaths. He was done with this wave for now, and honestly, would love to take a break. But Ashton probably didn't have more than a few minutes until some more goblins came to take a look. He didn't want to deal with the monsters right here. Rather, he had been working on a much better plan after the honey plan worked so well earlier.
Ashton sat down on a bench at the side of the playground and asked the Backpacker for a bubble of the paralysing venom from the Blue Moondew.
"Let's try to knock those guys out."
Though he was already pretty exhausted, that last level-up gave him a little bit of a boost. His resilience stat had gone up by 1 this time, so he could feel a slight increase in his stamina. That was enough for him to hold on without taking a break just yet.
But first, there was something else he had to do. Ashton had the backpacker give him a few more materials beyond just the moondew's venom. Some magic stones, some poison ivy and other toxic plants, and the soda slime from before.
For now, Ashton was hiding out on top of the wooden castle again. It was a decent enough hiding spot, and it was on the safer end even if he were to be spotted, though he doubted that would happen. It also had enough space for Ashton to do what he wanted to test out first.
He took a bottle's worth of water and formed it into a bubble, proceeding to heat it up with the salamander's flames. Ashton mixed some of the dried toxic plants into the water with some crushed-up magic stones, and then proceeded to mix in the unprocessed soda slime.
As long as Ashton was just holding the water up like this and didn't have to move it too much for the time being, it was easy enough to keep control over it even while all of this was going on.
Once some of the water evaporated and the bubble was about half the size as before, Ashton injected some of his own mana and changed its pattern to 'accept' magical affects into itself, and then added in the moondew's venom. While mixing it all together, Ashton made sure to inject a few other small things into it.
Now, changing mana's pattern wasn't easy. It was like a balancing act, because if even a small part of it was wrong, the whole thing could collapse and crumble, potentially causing unwanted or even dangerous effects. As for when the 'accept' pattern was disrupted in a particular way, it would change into a pattern more aptly named 'reject'. Rather than compressing and containing the effect within itself, the potion would force it all out of itself in the form of an extremely potent mist.
Frankly, this was the number one cause of death for potion-makers. Even Ashton had died to it more than a few times, though he was always forced back to life by the Summoner. He almost shuddered at the memory, but he held himself back, focusing on the 'potion'. Really, this wasn't a recipe at all, it was just all the toxic stuff that he could get his hands on without any of the materials or measurements that would change them into something beneficial.
The blue moondew's venom would paralyse them, and the other toxic plants would damage them otherwise even if they managed to hold out against the paralysis. And as for the soda slime, it wasn't just there to increase the mana that was in the 'potion', increasing the effects a bit, but since Ashton didn't treat the slime first, it was still extremely acidic to the point where it would tear up the mucus membranes of the monsters as they inhaled it, making it absorb into their blood even faster. On top of just, once again, damaging them as much as possible.
But soon, he was done. Ashton grabbed the extremely unstable bubble and funnelled it into some glass bottles. He was running low on these, so he should try and get his hands on some more.
Ashton placed some of the smallest, most fragile magic stones he had into the bottles so that they could break and start up the chain-reaction of the mana crumbling later on.
With three small half-litre glass bottles filled, Ashton was ready to go.
[[Observer in the Veil] is unsure if that potion will be very good for you]
Ashton sighed, "Obviously not, it's not a potion."
[[Daughter of the Scarlet Heart] points out that it's not a great poison either]
[[Executor of the End] agrees despite their lack of experience with either]
"Either trust me, or shut up," Ashton told them, finally climbing off the wooden castle. He looked over toward the garden, seeing the bush where Poppy was hiding. In case they were watching right now, Ashton waved at them with a smile, and then continued on to the front of the school grounds.
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Luckily, there weren't any more monsters coming to take a look right now. Rather, they didn't seem particularly interested. It was likely that they figured that there was nobody that could take down that many of them at once. Though, that was perfect for Ashton.
As he came a bit closer to the main camp, he still couldn't see the leader of these guys. Just around fifteen goblins and an orc out there. It looked like the rest of them were inside, in the building right next to the camp.
But that was fine. It was why Ashton made more than just one dose. Well, he didn't really have to think too much about it. He grabbed the bottle and chucked it right into the middle of that rudimentary camp.
Almost immediately, a thick white mist started spreading throughout it. The goblins and leftover orc started coughing, trying to get out of the mist. Ashton could hear a couple of thuds as some of the goblins fell down, though a couple seemed to understand what was happening and managed to hold their breath.
Ashton took a deep breath and approached the mist. He had specifically constructed the collapse of the magic pattern to then fall off extremely fast.
Once, he made such a bad mistake that he accidentally caused a 'Berserker Potion' to explode out and cover a full mile radius in it. Not only did Ashton go so mad that he nearly ripped off his own arm, but everything in the vicinity with lungs to breathe it in or skin to absorb it through became a physically strengthened, furious maniac with the inability to feel pain... and that time, the mist lasted for a full week.
That was not a good week. As a punishment, the Summoner left him in there, erecting a barrier around it, and resurrecting him whenever he died.
But after that, Ashton at least made sure to learn everything he could about preventing this from happening again.
One of the goblins stumbled out of the mist, and Ashton flicked his wrist, sending the wisp toward it. Its was dead before it could even react. Ashton stood there for a moment, and asked the backpacker for a cigarette, one that had had prepped earlier. He took a spark from the salamander and lit it up.
It was a basic detoxifying effect to help Ashton against anything lingering in the air that wasn't directly visible.
By the time the mist faded, most of the goblins were either down on the ground or barely holding on. Even the orc had dropped onto one knee. The goblins were taken care of easily, and the even the orc, stumbling around like a drunk, was dispatched with a few relatively easy attacks.
Ashton wished he could have done something like this earlier, but this kind of potion caused too much collateral damage. He didn't want it to soak into the grass or ground that the kids might play on later. Plus, it wasn't like he had infinite resources.
With the monsters out here taken care of, Ashton approached the house. It was a quite small place, on the corner of the street across from the school. For a moment, Ashton did wonder why the monsters chose this one, since there were plenty of other houses adjacent to this one, but it was most likely just because the door to this one was already open.
The lock was perfectly intact, so it wasn't broken open, at least. The windows, while broken, weren't shattered enough for something to climb through, either. It was clearly just extremely bad luck.
Now that he was inside, though, Ashton felt immediately a bit more comfortable. He did call the salamander back into his vessel, though, since he didn't want to cause a fire or anything, but in here, it was so narrow that he would have to fight one or two monsters at a time. And if he could only fight one or two at a time? There was nothing here that could take him down yet.
Well, maybe the leader of this group could be a threat, sure, but otherwise? It was easy. Some goblins were sitting around on the couch, others were in the kitchen, throwing plates and cups and glasses onto the ground, tearing out the cabinets, and just trashing everything they could. And the moment Ashton entered each room and the monsters realised someone was in here with them, Ashton already hit them in the face with his staff.
With how many monsters were outside, and with the size of this place, Ashton figured there would be another twenty goblins at best in here. And within the course of around ten minutes, there were none left alive.
Ashton got up to the bedroom at some point. The woman that owned this place, she had hidden in here. She had tried pushing the drawer in front of the door, but monsters had forced their way in. It was likely that she tried to leave through the front door, but was seen. The monsters ran inside, she fled up the stairs and into her bedroom.
But this was her last stop.
The bed was covered in blood, vomit, and bits of torn flesh. It smelled... unpleasant, to say the least. Ashton walked up to the window and slowly opened it up. Some scavengers would get in here through the window in time and clean this place up. Or at least, mess it up enough that it wasn't so obvious what happened here.
Nobody should see something like this.
Ashton leaned out of the window and took a deep breath. He took a last puff of his cigarette and put it out on the windowsill outside.
While he was at it, looking outside, Ashton could see exactly where his next target was. Right outside in the garden, sitting on the armchair that had been pulled out.
The orc was sitting there, with a torn leather jacket, just as the kids had described, and to Ashton's surprise, a red wolf right by its side. It was incredibly injured, and clearly it was that orc's doing.
Just like the kids were saying, this orc was at least a head larger than others. Its tusks were so large they almost tore into its own cheeks, one of its ears was torn off, and it was covered in scars.
"Huh... Let me guess, you've got the 'Warlord' trait?" Ashton asked, grabbing one of the other prepped bottles from the Backpacker.
The orc looked up at Ashton, yelling out at him, but before it could even get off the armchair, the bottle broke on the ground and a thick white mist spread through the garden.
Remove
The white mist spread through the garden, and Ashton could see the orc try to stand up from its seat. It was yelling something in orcish, and the red wolf by its side yelped and started running into the house.
There were also a few stray goblins still in the garden, but they were knocked out pretty fast. The orc, though, seemed weirdly unaffected and just slowly walked toward the back door.
With a click of his tongue, Ashton turned around, "Fucking warlords..."
It was an annoying trait. Of course, he wasn't sure if it was exactly that trait, but it was very clearly something along that line. That size difference, that clear combat experience that far surpassed the other orcs, as well as its superior intelligence and leadership ability made it obvious that there was some special trait at play. That wasn't just a simple personal difference. The orcs that were running around here were already the more physically powerful specimen, but this one? That went far beyond what was normal. And warlords were truly sons of bitches that Ashton genuinely did not care for.
"What kind of maniac would send a warlord here in the first quest anyway..?" Ashton sighed and turned around. He walked out of the bedroom, picking up the body of one of the goblins that he had killed up here, dragging it to the edge of the stairs. He waited for a moment, soon hearing the rushing footsteps of the red wolf.
And then, roughly when the wolf had run onto the stairs, Ashton threw the goblin corpse right down there. The wolf, unable to dodge because of these insanely narrow stairs that were even a pain to get the staff up through, was thrown back down and buried. Ashton walked down the stairs and crushed the red wolf's head as it was trying to get out from under the goblin's corpse. It was already incredibly weak, so it wasn't a surprise, that...
[You have killed a [Red Wolf]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 17 Coins]
Ashton stepped over the two corpses, and then looked down the hallway next to the stairs.
"There you are. Barely fit in here, huh?" Ashton pointed out, looking at the orc, pushing its way through. It had a large, shockingly high-quality, two-edged war-axe in its hand. The moment that it saw Ashton, it raised the axe up and slashed down, cutting into the wooden ceiling and tearing it apart. But the orc did so with ease, as if the wood was just some paper.
Ashton dodged into the adjacent kitchen, stepping onto a goblin's body as he did. The orc pushed its way through the doorway, which was clearly far too small for it, and the axe briefly got stuck. It kept tugging on it, and then in a single moment, the axe got unstuck and swung diagonally up in front of Ashton.
He had already moved far enough away, so the attack didn't hit. Ashton moved to the edge of the small wooden kitchen table, and kicked it on its side before pushing it forward.
It was almost immediately torn into splinters, but Ashton used that moment where he was hidden to move forward and hit the orc's right knee with his staff straight on, and then flicked his wrist to make the wisp hit it just a moment later at an angle from the side. The orc flinched slightly, but didn't buckle just yet. Ashton continued to lower his stance, pushing himself away from the orc with his staff.
It tried to slash down at him with the axe, hitting away a part of the already-destroyed table. As the orc looked past these pieces of wood, Ashton threw a half-broken glass from the ground right into the monster's face. It broke even more and splinters of glass got into the orc's eyes. It screamed loudly and tried to get the glass out of its eyes. It wasn't a powerful attack, and it didn't even seem like it was even really bleeding, but it was painful. Even monsters felt pain, that was clear. And the biological instinct of trying to get something out of your eye was something that almost every being with eyes possessed.
While this was happening, Ashton ran through the kitchen to get back out of the door, but the orc swung his arm wildly. It did end up hitting Ashton, but not with the axe head, but rather its fist. That was mostly just wild flailing as it roughly noticed Ashton try to get past it, rather than an actual attack.
It would probably cause a massive bruise in a bit, but it wasn't too bad. Ashton was thrown through the hallway and hit the side of the stairway, but that wasn't a big deal. Ashton continued through to the livingroom, but before he could even fully make his way inside, the orc threw the axe down the hallway. Ashton barely dodged out of the way before the axe got stuck in the back of the couch, actually cutting into the corpse of one of the goblins and spilling guts all over the furniture.
"Oh man, I actually thought that was a pretty cute couch!" Ashton groaned, approaching the nearby bookshelf. Though, rather than books, it was covered in tons of little ceramic corgi figures, which Ashton quickly grabbed and threw at the orc. For no reason in particular, to be honest, he was just buying a little bit of time, trying to cause more and more small cuts all over the monster's body as the corgis shattered.
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The orc groaned, and with heavy steps, walked up to the couch and pulled out its axe.
And by then, Ashton came to a conclusion. He probably couldn't beat this monster with just his staff. He needed the wisp's help, but as he had established, if he used both the wisp and staff individually, it weakened their power. And channelling the wisp through the staff wasn't an option either — his range went far beyond this room. And using his staff so close to his body would make it useless as a weapon, and he could just channel the wisp on its own. But he couldn't afford that either. Ashton had to use both, he knew that for sure.
There was something that had bothered him the whole time. There was no way the system was so rigid with something like his channelling range. While it was unlikely he could just push past that range, there had to be a way to manipulate his effective range within its given limits.
Meaning, create a smaller range that covered just this room. Having this ability was still extremely new to him. Sure, he could control mana extremely well, but that was mostly a matter of practice. That didn't mean he knew every way to use his new magic.
Ashton continued to dodge all the orc's attacks, whether it was swings of the axe or it trying to throw things back at Ashton, or even just grab onto him.
In the end, it grabbed a vase, which had miraculously survived, and threw it at Ashton, and though he dodged away, he was still splashed with the water inside. The 'water'. The slightly yellow, rancid water. He looked over at the dead goblins and almost gagged.
"Oh, dude! Come on! I'm about to go talk to some kids! Do you know what-" Ashton yelled, basically vaulting over the dining table using his staff, "-kids say to people that smell like piss?! They will never let them forget it! Never! I don't want to be known as the guy that smells like goblin piss!"
As he stared at the orc, it almost seemed to laugh. Ashton narrowed his eyes, "Do you speak English?"
"Gruakh!" the orc grunted out, grabbing onto the edge of the table. It flipped it over, just as Ashton had done a moment ago, and kicked it at him. He was almost crushed between the table and the wall behind him. The orc clearly though that he was going to dodge down, but now that Ashton's power and speed stats had risen just that small amount more, he started not being as restricted anymore.
He jumped up, pushed the staff against the sideboard behind him, and used it to leap over the table being pushed at him. While the orc wrongly cut downward, Ashton leapt past it.
During this entire time, though, where Ashton had been focused on dodging rather than attacking, he was trying to get a grasp on something, anything, really, that could help him out with channelling the wisp. He had already made a breakthrough, so why not just make another?
His spirit stat was at 20 now with that level-up earlier, and something had changed. He could feel something... more, ever since he had started channelling the elementals before. Whenever he tried using the skill, a small wave of mana, an imperceptible amount, just like how you didn't notice all the other minuscule gases mixed in with out air, was mixed around everywhere in the general ambient mana within his range.
Most skills used mana in some way, so he didn't know why he hadn't realised this before, but the 'range' was defined through this extremely thin mist of his own mana. If he could just hold onto it and tighten it, just like how the wisp tightened up their own body when shrinking, Ashton could reduce his effective range.
He tried and tried and tried, and soon, Ashton managed to compress his range to just a few steps around him. It was extremely straining to do, but it was worth it. Because now, he could properly attack the orc.
Ashton spun his staff around, swapping it between his hands, making it roll over his shoulder and neck and elbow and even leg. In part, it appeared like some kind of party trick, but rather, it was just Ashton controlling the wisp in a pattern that allowed it to dodge past all of the orc's attempts at countering.
And each and every one of those attacks went straight onto the orc's knee.
Sometimes, Ashton faked the monster out, hitting it with his staff instead, and other times, he didn't attack it at all. Trickery was another one of Ashton's specialties. Though, the way that other summons back in Lumia put it... his combat specialty was just being kind of a dick and pissing off his opponents.
And that worked extremely, extremely well.
The orc continued rampaging through the livingroom while Ashton dodged and attacked and dodged and attacked. It didn't take long until this place was barely recognizable anymore.
And then, it finally happened. The orc's knee broke. It leg buckled as it tried putting weight onto it.
"Finally!" Ashton groaned, holding his hand to the side as he asked the backpacker for the last dose of the bottled poison mist. Without hesitation, he turned around and threw it onto the ground behind him while running out into garden, pulling the door shut behind him.
The entire living room was filled with the white mist, and the orc, unable to walk as fast as before, with small cuts all over its body, wasn't able to just run out of it like it did a moment ago.
While waiting, Ashton took care of the few goblins that were still laying out here, paralysed from the mist earlier. By the time he was done, the orc limped out, breaking the glass door with its axe.
It was breathing heavily, and Ashton could see that it was struggling with even just that.
Ashton stood there, while the orc lifted the axe over its head, and then... fell down onto the ground.
"Finally," Ashton groaned, and stepped up to the orc. Orcs were known for how sturdy and stupidly strong they were, and a warlord orc would be much worse. Ashton knew that he wouldn't be able to take this thing out through normal means, and physical attacks, unless they were very specifically focused, wouldn't work amazingly well.
However, he did also know that a monster this size weighed a lot, and that one of the main things that Sam would always complain about were his knees. And a monster way larger and heavier would struggle with its knees as well, to some degree. It really wasn't something that Ashton ever thought about in Lumia, though.
By the time these guys showed up, he was strong enough to not need to bother with these tricks.
Ashton bent down and grabbed the axe that the orc had dropped, holding it tightly in both hands. He pulled it over his head, and then swung it down. Once, then twice, then thrice. It took a few more attempts for him to get through the thick neck muscles, but before long, the deed was done.
[You have killed an [Orc*]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 51 Coins]
Remove
[You have killed an [Orc*]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 51 Coins]
The message popped up in front of Ashton's eyes.
"The hell is that star about?" he asked, not exactly sure what it was supposed to mean. Was it just that it was a special specimen of that species? Ashton had never seen this type of system message before the day, so he was only guessing. Well, the orc was also worth almost twice as much as a regular orc, so it was very likely to be just that.
To be sure, though, Ashton was going to thoroughly check this orc to see if it had anything special on it. He placed his hands onto his hips and took a deep breath.
"So? Guardian, I'm done. You know what to do."
He just had to wait for a moment or two until the message he was waiting for came.
[You have completed the [Bonus Quest - Save Drakewood Primary School]! You have been awarded 2000 Coins! Choose your reward item]
Ashton smiled, dismissing the list of items that was popping up under the notification. He would take a look and make the choice later when he had the leisure to.
With a groan, Ashton looked down at the bodies surrounding him, "Fuck, I really need to contract a gatherer."
He asked the Backpacker for a knife, and once he had it in his hand just got started immediately. Since the speed stat also affected things like dexterity, Ashton was able to get the magic stones out a lot faster than before. The magic stones of the garden's goblins were quickly taken out, and then Ashton focused on the big fish. The orc.
He flipped it over, as difficult as that was, and then tried to take the knife to its chest. It felt like he was cutting into it with a completely blunt blade. Even in death, this guy's skin was ridiculously tough. He had to basically saw through the flesh for a while.
[[Guardian of the Innocent] is asking why you are still here]
[[Observer in the Veil] tells the Guardian not to bother and that you do this every time]
[[Executor of the End] admires your dedication to gathering]
"Mhm, dedication. Let's just call it that," Ashton sighed, looking over to the side. The backpacker was standing there with the phone in their hand, tapping away, "Hey, are there any new interesting posts in the community?"
The backpacker quickly nodded their head, and came trotting over to Ashton. They turned the screen over to him, trying to show him a post from a user named 'Pendragon' explaining the way that classes worked.
"Huh, that's the username that Sam usually goes with. I guess he decided to go that route after all. Not a bad idea." Ashton smiled, glad to see what his friend was trying to do. Frankly, if he had known that the community was going to be a thing, he would have considered this as well. "Maybe I should write a basic system guide for Sam that he can put online. Probably better if it comes from him anyway."
Ashton figured that leaving the overall public stuff to Sam would be best. Sure, Summoner was also technically a class that required leadership ability, but in a much different way than dealing with... people. Sam was far better at that.
He knew what to say and when to say it. He actually had the organisational skills to take care of a large group of people. And most importantly, Sam was charismatic as hell. It was almost impossible to dislike him. Actually, Sam made sure of that almost obsessively, he hated to be disliked. Though that was something he had to figure out if he wanted to be a true leader in this world.
Either way, while Ashton wanted to help people, he wasn't in a position to be tied down to one place. If he wanted to grow in power, he had to travel around, gather materials, and help take down things like dungeons.
So having Sam be the guy that was helping all those people with guides would be a much better plan, even if Ashton was the one providing those guides to him. Not like anyone else had to know about that.
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"As long as that shadow bastard leaves him alone, it's all good," Ashton sighed, still looking at the screen while cutting apart the orc, "Oh, and uhm... We'll need to figure out the battery stuff."
There was a message that had popped up on the screen. A warning. '5% Battery remaining'.
The backpacker turned the screen around, and immediately started panicking, looking down at the phone, then back at Ashton, and then back at the phone. They were basically stuck in a loop for a while.
"Hey, hey, calm down, it's fine. There should be a relatively easy way to charge a phone. Here, give me that for a second," Ashton said, and the Backpacker did so without hesitation.
He dismissed the warning message and tapped around on the screen, trying to find any more functions that seemed off.
"Hm, I can't see anything..." he muttered, absent-mindedly picking up the goblins' magic stones next to him, "Could you grab me the different magic stone bags already? We'll figure it out, I promise."
The backpacker nodded, but the moment that Ashton grabbed the small crystals, a new message appeared on the screen.
Would you like to charge the phone using Magic Stones? [Yes] | [No]
Ashton didn't even have to think about it, immediately tapping the 'yes' button under the message. The three magic small magic stones that he was holding fell apart in his hand, and the phone's battery went up by 31%.
"Okay. Smart, got it." Ashton smiled again, placing his hand onto the other magic stones he had gathered. He quickly charged the rest of the phone up and handed it back to the Backpacker. "That's easy enough. And makes... sense, I guess? I'm actually not sure, but who am I to complain?"
The backpacker looked at the phone happily, starting to tap around on it excitedly.
With the spirit happy, Ashton turned back to the orc. Its chest was finally open by now, but he definitely wouldn't be able to get through the ribs at all. He pushed his arm into the chest cavity and tried to clear a way to the heart. At the size that this stone would be at, it would all gather together in a small growth at the side of the heart. It was practically like some kind of tumour. IT was easy to find, really.
And then, going back in with the knife, he cut into that tumour and pulled out the magic stone. It was the largest one so far, to the point where it made Ashton wonder just how the hell the heart could keep beating like that.
It was far larger than a regular orc's magic stone. But even so, he placed it into the bag with the other orc stones. He would know which one this came from. If Ashton formed the right contracts later on or got his hands on the right magic item, he would be able to sort this all a bit more precisely.
He would be able to categorise the items properly. Back in Lumia, he was in charge of that as well, and he basically came up with his own version of the Dewey Decimal system for all potential materials and items.
"I just can't wait until I've got an actual base set up," Ashton whistled slightly as he got up. He walked inside, and picked out a few more goblins to collect magic stones from. Especially if they were going to be the best way to recharge a phone now, he could use this well. Maybe he could even sell magic stones to some people.
If you didn't know about it, no sane person was going to cut apart a monster to try and find these things. Over the course of the next few weeks, once the monsters' corpses were picked apart by scavengers, people would see the magic stones laying around. They would pick them up, and the ones with magical talents amongst them would figure out what they are and how they could be useful, and things would go from there.
For now, Ashton figured he might have spent a bit too much time on this. He did want to make sure that the school could be properly secured, so he made his way back outside, and then back onto the school property.
He got to the red door, and knocked on it loudly. It took just a second before he could hear someone unlocking the door and tearing it open. It was the headmaster, who had been clearly waiting this entire time, hoping that good news were going to come.
Before Ashton could even say anything, he was pulled inside and the door was locked.
"Are you okay? Did something go wrong?" The headmaster was clearly extremely anxious, but Ashton calmed him down quickly.
"I'm okay, I'm just here to let you know that I'm done. Send out this Rory guy and as many teachers as you can spare, we need to barricade the-"
"What?" the teacher stared at Ashton, "What do you mean, you're done?"
"I mean what I mean. I'm done. They're dead."
"You were out there for maybe two hours... You want me to believe that you took care of that mass of monsters?"
Ashton shrugged, "Yeah. Guardian, tell him."
Though the headmaster was still confused, his eyes focused on something else a moment later. A message from the Guardian, clearly. A moment later, the headmaster looked back at Ashton, as tears welled up in his eyes.
"This is so... incredible. Truly, I do not know how I could ever thank you," he said, taking off his glasses to wipe the tears out of his eyes, "I will send out everyone immediately."
"Great. Oh, and, uhm, Mister..."
The headmaster laughed, "Right, I'm sorry. In that whole mess, I must have forgotten. James Crombe. But please, no 'Mister', just call me James."
"Sure. James, then. Tell the teachers that, if they have a change of clothes, to maybe wear them. It's pretty messy out there, and we should clean up a bit before the kids can go out," Ashton explained, opening the red door again. "I'm going to keep watch and make sure no other monsters come here. Oh, and maybe update your post and say that someone's already come to help you, and that all the kids are safe, and all that. In case their parents are still alive and are worried."
A bit startled by the bluntness, the teacher nodded, "Of course! Yes, for sure!"
"Oh and this is awkward, but... what was your name again?, watching as James rushed down the hallway. As the door was pushed shut, Ashton quickly made his way to his main destination.
He had a little fairy to talk to.
Ashton walked over the playground, making his way back to the small fenced-off garden. It was quiet here, dead quiet. It was actually a sort of pleasant thing, not having to deal with the low buzzing of cars in every direction, for at least a while.
He squatted down on the ground in front of a bush in its corner, smiling lightly.
"Poppy? Are you still there?" Ashton asked, waiting for a few moment in complete silence. Just the wind rustling through the nearby bushes was heard. Again, it was a pleasant thing.
And then, a bell rang out, as Poppy slowly stretched their head out from behind a patch of leaves. They had clearly been crying a lot more since Ashton left.
"Hey, hey, it's okay, they're gone. They're gone," he explained, and Poppy slowly looked out from the bush. They glanced past Ashton, seeing that there really weren't any monsters left alive, and then stared at the man before their with a broad smile.
Poppy jumped out from the bush, trying to float in the air. Their wings fluttered around, but they were barely able to keep themself upright.
So, Ashton extended his hand toward them to give them something to stand on. Once they were standing, Poppy grabbed the ends of their dress and curtsied to him with a bright smile.
"Don't even worry about it." Ashton stood up with Poppy on his hand. "Actually, I have an offer for you. Would you like to form a contract with me?"
The fairy tilted their head to the side, curious about what Ashton was saying. Since fairies were beings that existed on the same plane as their contractors, it was possible to contract them without having to summon them initially. The Summoner would do that by forcing them into submission on sight, but Ashton wouldn't do that, obviously.
But he would still have to write up the contract itself for that. At least Pixie contracts had pretty 'easy' offerings. To form the contract, you usually had to do something for them. It was generally a fairly small task, though with the more powerful fairies it was something like clearing a dungeon all on your own.
Ashton was certain that saving Poppy would count as that task here. But that wasn't all. There was a simpler, more baseline requirement for their contract.
In a lot of cases, they just had to be happy, and often, one of the easiest ways to accomplish that is through rather... vain methods.
Echo pixies liked pleasant voices, fairies that dabble in item enhancement tended to be fashionistas, and flower pixies, well... they like handsome and beautiful people. And though it was a little embarrassing to admit, Ashton knew he was pretty handsome.
It was one of the reasons why the Summoner had forced Ashton to learn how to sew and make his own clothes — so that he could be the easiest way to keep the extremely picky fairies at least a little compliant. There were other ways to keep them happy, obviously, but the Summoner didn't like to put in that kind of effort and waste resources where they felt they didn't need to.
However, there was something else that made fairies a bit more complicated. They couldn't lie. If they promised something, they had to stick to it. There were plenty of fairies that liked to play 'games' with people, and even if they were beat and humiliated in their own game, they would always give up gracefully, because that was in their very nature.
So, being the same in that sense, being true to your word was another more basic requirement. Though in this case, it was just that fairies lost all respect for their contractor if they didn't keep promises. They understood the purpose of lies to some degree, and keeping secrets and speaking in riddles was something they themselves loved to do, but if you said something important, it better be the truth. And most importantly... if Ashton failed a quest, he would probably lose Poppy's respect very fast.
But for now, after a bit of thought, it seemed like Poppy would be very happy to come to an agreement with Ashton. So now, he just had to write up the contract.
Ashton asked the Backpacker for some paper and ink, and quickly got started. The good thing about forming a contract like this was that it lowered the basic material requirements. He didn't need as much magic in the ink, and the summoning circle wasn't really needed. Ashton wasn't summoning anything right now, after all. So, just creating the baseline form of a fairy contract, he quickly wrote down the conditions into the outer circle.
Ashton placed the contract down onto the ground, and Poppy slowly stepped onto it.
"You know what a contract means, right?"
Poppy slightly tilted their head, so Ashton slowly explained.
"Your existence will be tied to me. You're allowed to always cancel the contract when you want to. Though, if you do it one-sidedly, you will lose most of the benefits you were given through the growth of our contract. Most new spells, magics, anything like that will be gone, because they were bestowed upon you by our contract. Now, some things will stay, like if your existence changes into something else. Like... you're probably 'Lowest' grade right now, but if you grade-up into a 'Low' grade fairy, that would stay. And if we both agree to dissolve the contract, you can keep most of your growth," Ashton explained, and Poppy didn't hesitate for even a moment after listening. They nodded their head, seemingly understanding what they were being told. Really, Ashton was just repeating what was already on the contract terms he laid out.
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"Okay, if you're sure. Also, you don't have to stick by me. You can stay here, or somewhere else that's safe if you prefer. I can summon you then, though it might be good to talk about a summoning offering you would like. Flower pixies usually like berries or candy, right?"
Furiously, Poppy nodded their head, smiling broadly at the mention of some sweet treats.
"I'll get you those anyway, don't worry. I do also need to give you something to be able to borrow your powers, after all. Are sweets fine for that?"
Poppy once more nodded, placing their hands behind their back excitedly.
"And for the initial offering to establish the contract, me getting rid of the monsters counts, yes?"
As though they were getting a bit impatient, Poppy tried grabbing Ashton's hand to push it down onto the paper they were standing on. And so, Ashton poured his mana into the pattern, and established the contract.
Poppy was enveloped in a white light for a moment, like a shell was forming around them. That shell soon cracked, and an outwardly unchanged Poppy re-emerged.
[You have formed a contract with a [Flower Pixie]!]
[[Fairy Summoning] Category is being created under the [Summoning] Skill]
[[Flower Pixie] is being registered in the [Fairy Summoning] Category]
[Skill | Summoning - Level 5 -> Summoning - Level 6]
Ashton smiled lightly as he looked at the pixie in front of him. To his surprise, she had already told a few more things to him just through that contract.
Usually, these were things that only came with a certain level of familiarity. Basically, the connection between the two contractors was strengthened, and they simply came to learn more things about the other. Poppy, for example, just told Ashton that she was a girl. At the same time, with that stronger connection came the knowledge that Poppy was acting tougher than she really was. She was in a ton of pain.
"Let's get you healed up in a bit, yeah?" Ashton smiled, and Poppy immediately nodded her head. She jumped up and flapped her wings, quickly climbing onto Ashton's head.
"You like it up there?" he asked, and though he couldn't see, he figured she was nodding her head. With that, Ashton had ticked that off his list. Contracting a fairy was something he hadn't expected to do in quite a while, and his contract capacity increased enough to give him the space for emergency contracts he wanted to have at the moment while allowing this one with Poppy. Plus a few more, depending on the strength of the contract.
Either way, for now, Ashton had a companion with him. That was another fun part of beings that belonged to the material plane. Even if you couldn't afford the offering at the moment, you still didn't have to be alone.
Amongst types of beings you could contract, there were just three that fell under that category. Constructs, Fairies, and Beasts. Though, at lower levels, constructs were generally 'asleep' and had to stay in the contractor's vessel a lot. For a construct like the Pen of Insight, that should change with roughly level 10, if he had to guess.
And while fairies and beasts could technically be summoned from far away, if you formed a contract with them like this or sought them out outside of their summoning, they could just stick around. Just like the backpacker, for example. They could also easily disappear within their summoner's vessel if they wanted to. But it seemed like Poppy preferred being outside, at least for now.
Ashton made his way back to the front of the school grounds, to the parking lot. That way, he could make sure that no other monsters just wandered onto the grounds. He sat down on the trunk of a car and decided to look through some things. For one, what abilities Poppy actually had. Since she was a young fairy, she probably didn't have a lot of baseline abilities.
[Flower Pixie - Level 1]
[Familiarity - 26]
[Type - Fairy]
[Grade - Lowest]
[Abilities]
[Flower of Swiftness]
"Hm..." Ashton let out. He didn't love that it just showed the species name there at the top, but that was just the way things worked. It was stupid, but whatever. That high familiarity did explain the immediate knowledge Ashton got about Poppy, as well. And then, there was her ability, 'Flower of Swiftness'.
And now came the best part of fairy summons. As long as they were happy, they could use their abilities without problem. The only offering that was required was the part that was needed to actually summon them to your location, and since Poppy was already here, Ashton didn't need that.
While jumping off the car's trunk, he quickly channelled the pixie sitting on his head and 'tagged' himself. As his feet silently hit the ground, he could see ethereal petals folding up from the ground, enveloping Ashton for just a moment.
And once that happened, his body suddenly felt weirdly light. Ashton jogged around the parking lot for a moment as a test, and could feel that he was noticeably faster, even if just physically.
It was a difference worth at least one point in the Speed stat. And that would only grow as Poppy did.
At some point, Ashton noticed someone standing at the edge of the parking lot. It was an older man, in his late 50's or early 60's. A thick grey beard sprinkled with brown here and there, and messy hair that made it clear he didn't really care for his looks.
He walked forward with a slight limp. An old injury, clearly, not from all of this. The man stretched out his hand toward Ashton, and started to speak with a Scottish accent that had clearly survived through years and years spent around Englishmen.
"Ashton? I'm Rory Campbell, the janitor."
Ashton smiled broadly and shook the man's hand, "Oh, it's a pleasure to meet you!" And that was nothing but the truth, as well. But Rory just placed his other hand around Ashton's as well, squeezing it tightly.
"Thank you. I saw what ye did to those... things. We're in yer debt for protecting the bairn."
Ashton had no idea how he was supposed to reply to that. It wasn't like he did this to have someone be in his debt. Well, he gladly took something from a constellation, but these people? That wasn't why he did this.
"No, you're not in my debt. This world's going to shit. If you all keep looking out for the kids, that's enough."
Rory laughed a bit, "Good Samaritan, aye?"
"Nothing like that," Ashton replied, shaking his head. "Just someone that doesn't want to see any more kids die."
Okay, right, and then you cut through the veins and pull the heart out. You might need to tug on it a bit, but it should come out without much trouble," Ashton explained, showing a couple of teachers how you harvested magic stones from monsters. They were clearly apprehensive, but knew that this was something that they had to learn to do. Especially once Ashton told them that this was how could charge their phones, they suddenly seemed very determined.
Ashton had basically decided to 'donate' all the corpses to school, so that they could build up a small base of magic stones to begin with.
And once those stones were harvested, the bodies were carried out to the street in front of the parking lot, so that they could be picked off by scavengers away from the actual school grounds.
Some of the other teachers were helping Rory with the fortifications, using the cars to block the entrance and then using old tables and parts from other cars to block it off fully.
The rest of the property was blocked off by fairly tall brick walls. They weren't exactly 'safe' directly, but they were better than nothing.
"You, lad, come with me fer a second," Rory walked past Ashton, waving his hand toward him. Of course, Ashton did exactly that, following behind.
"What's up?"
Rory grunted slightly and guided Ashton toward the shed standing at the edge of the schoolgrounds. He pulled out a set of keys and opened it up. There was all sorts of random clutter in here. A few broken chairs, some woodworking equipment, random pieces of wood in different sizes, buckets of paint, a lawnmower, and a massive spool of metal wire that Rory placed his hand onto.
"I was thinkin' of usin' this to make a small fence in front of the bushes. The bairn always climb into them and get hurt. Not good for the bushes either," Rory explained, "If we turn this into barbed wire, how well would it hold those things off?"
Ashton crossed his arms for a moment, "Well... You guys are already pretty protected because of the Guardian. Now, that immediate protection is going to wear off at some point, but by then there's other ways to keep the kids safe..." he said, basically just thinking out loud, "Now, usually, monsters are forced to attack people, but with the kids here, and you all acting as the protectors of those kids, don't have that as strong. So the incentive for monsters climbing over a tall wall like that is already pretty low. And if you make it even more annoying to potentially climb... Sure? That should work. Can't hurt to be extra safe. It's going to take a while to set up though."
"Mm. That's fine," Rory replied, starting to look through the shed for some tools, "I've had some other questions for ye."
"Alright, shoot."
"First. Why've ye got a toy on yer noggin?" Rory stared at the small figure sitting cross-legged on Ashton's head.
"Hm? Oh, yeah, she's not a toy," Ashton said, holding his hand up toward Poppy. She climbed down onto his palm, and as she was held forward quickly waved at Rory.
"Well, ah'll be..." Rory started to laugh, and Ashton smiled.
"That's Poppy, she's a Flower Pixie. She lived and presumably was born in the garden now that magic is flooding this world," Ashton explained, though Poppy turned around to him and shook her head. "Hm? Oh, you weren't born there?"
Poppy shook her head even more furiously.
"So that's not what you meant? What, do you mean you weren't just born?"
With a proud nod of her head, Poppy put her hands onto her hips. That... was confusing. There was no way that pixies could exist in this world beforehand. But slowly, Poppy placed both her hands onto her right cheek, miming the action of sleeping.
"You were just... okay, okay got it," Ashton whispered, though he quickly looked back at Rory who seemed just enamoured by the pixie, barely listening to what Ashton was saying, "So, anyway. I formed a contract with her, so she's going to stick with me from now on."
"Contract? Like, she works for ye?"
"Sort of? But it's a bit more equal than that. But anyway." Ashton let Poppy back onto his head. "I also have a question for you, actually."
"Mm, what'd ye want to know?"
"Do you have the Carpenter class yet?"
Rory's eyes widened, "What? How'd ye know about that?"
"You've done a lot of work with wood inside. Those windows and doorways weren't just blocked with randomly cobbled-together tables and planks. They were all really solidly made, and clearly by the same person with fairly high skill. That should be enough to get you the Carpenter class. And I'm guessing it's not just the basic one, but probably a 'skilled' class."
The older man let out a laugh, nodding his head as a smile peered out from under his thick beard, "Yes, that's exactly it. I'm a 'Skilled Carpenter' now, apparently."
"Did you know what a class was before you accepted it?"
"Naw. Asked some of those troublemakers upstairs, they seemed to get what's happening a bit more."
"They do. They're pretty tuned in," Ashton agreed. "Okay, I'll give you a tip. The carpenter class is incredibly useful, especially at this stage. Take apart anything wooden that you can and keep fortifying this place, make random knick-knacks out of scraps, and make the school more... liveable. Have the headmaster keep posting things when possible to invite people over, particularly folk with combat classes."
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Rory frowned lightly, a bit confused, "Didn't ya say that we'd be safe in here?"
"Well, you're safer, not safe. You're also going to need to leave sooner or later. Whether it's for food, quests, medical supplies, things like that. Or for you, so that you can strip some houses for their materials," Ashton explained, watching as Rory grabbed an old, filled-out notebook and took notes inside of it with a pencil he had rolling around in his pocket. "Make sure to explore your skills well. They might seem pretty basic or useless for now, they're going to be far more useful than you'd ever think. Plus, since you're a 'Skilled' Carpenter, your stat growth will be higher than a regular carpenter."
"Right, about all that. These 'skill' things. One of'm says I can cut wood better. Another that I can get wood into the perfect state fer workin'. The last is something called 'Blueprint'. The first I get and notice, but the other two're a mystery." Rory grabbed a piece of wood from the pile in the corner, and Ashton quickly explained.
"Right, okay. Uhm, I don't know exactly what the details are, but from what I know generally... that first skill is just a passive boost. Blueprint skills should let you design things beforehand, or save things you've already built, and will then give you some kind of 'guide' while you work." Ashton started, waiting for Rory to finish taking his notes before continuing. "And the second one you mentioned, it should be a transmutation type skill. Drying, compressing, that sort of things."
"But... how'd I do that?" Rory questioned, and Ashton thought for a moment.
"Usually, there's certain activation conditions for skills. For that transmutation skill, to begin with, just try to hold onto the wood, think about the skill deeply, and then hopefully it should work. For the blueprint one... Try drawing sketches of what you want to make, or concentrate on a 'thing' that you've built."
"Mm. That should work. What about you? Do ye have a class?"
Ashton smiled, "Yup. I'm a Summoner."
He clicked his finger, and the Backpacker appeared from behind a pile of chairs, happily tapping away on the phone. Rory stepped back, startled, "Jesus fuckin' Christ! What's that?!"
The Backpacker looked up at Rory, their shoulders slumping a bit.
"That's a Backpacker spirit. He's helping me out a lot," Ashton explained, smiling at the spirit to tell them it was fine to get back into the vessel. It didn't seem like the Backpacker particularly liked Rory, the way they were looking at him. They disappeared after a moment, and Ashton looked back at Rory, "Anyway. I'm a magic user. That won't be a common type of class for a while."
With a loud laugh, Rory nodded his head, "Ya, that explains it."
Ashton smiled, stepping back out of the shed with Rory following right behind, "Anyway. I'll leave you guys with a map before I leave, I've marked two important camps that I know of so far. Send someone to either one if you need help. Keep an eye out on the community, specifically posts from the user 'Pendragon', he's going to keep posting guides on different system functions."
Rory nodded, "Mm, that your account?"
"Oh, no, he's Sam Penn, my friend." Ashton replied, "Oh, and I want to give you guys one more tip, but for that, I need to talk to the headmaster."
"I'll come with ye," Rory and Ashton walked through the school grounds. For the time being, they were fairly well-secured, and most of the monsters' corpses were finally gone, with just a few exceptions.
It didn't took long to find James Crombe, the school's headmaster. He, as well, was getting his hands dirty. He was basically leading by example, really putting in the effort. That was one of the big reasons why Ashton was sure he could properly talk to him about this.
He pulled James aside, and didn't hesitate, "You need to let the kids join in."
Both James and Rory stared at Ashton like he was absolutely insane. The headmaster stared at him with a confused frown, "Excuse me? We need to let them join in?!"
"Yes. For the record, I don't mean the fighting. That's still too dangerous. But let them do things. Let them help prepare this place. Expand the garden, fortify the walls."
"I'll have you know, we will not rely on the labour of children for our survival!" James yelled out, and soon, some other teachers got closer, clearly also unhappy at the idea.
With a long sigh, Ashton rolled his eyes, "The protections you all have won't last forever. The monsters will only get stronger, and the quests more difficult. I'm not saying to work them to the death, but listen... You have a couple of extremely eager kids that clearly know what they're talking about. Especially those three, Millie, Joey, and Sean, they seem extremely bright. They somehow gathered all the information I needed to take down the monsters from inside the school." Ashton explained, but the teachers seemed just uncomfortable at the idea. "And you can't just have the other kids sit there and cry and mope around. They need something to do. Just keep them busy somehow. It's best if they can get their own classes as well."
"Hold on, they can get those as well?" Rory asked, surprised. Clearly, the other teachers had no idea what classes were supposed to be, so Ashton just told them to look at Sam's post later, and then continued.
"Younger kids, around the age where they still get protection from the Guardian, can get 'trainee' classes. Easy to level up, but extremely low growth potential. But they can always be replaced by other trainee classes. Let them test out what they want to do, how they can feel useful and helpful. Kids aren't stupid, and they're a lot more resilient than you may think. The guardian is going to do what they can to protect them, but that has its limits. And you yourselves also have a limit," Ashton tried to make sure that the teachers all understood this idea. As he did, though, the Backpacker came out of Ashton's vessel and showed him a post on the community. He continued. "And uhm... sooner or later, some of their parents or siblings or aunts and uncles, the ones that survived, at least, will come here and join you and make things easier. But until then, just please, don't let the kids just fester away."
The headmaster let out a long sigh, "Okay. I guess you've got a point there... but it's not like we can do whatever they want. What do you think we should-"
"I'm sorry, man, that's your job to figure out. Kids are cute and all, but I do not get them. Please, just talk and figure out... I don't know, a curriculum for the apocalypse! How's that sound?"
"A curriculum for the apocalypse?" James laughed, "Fine, if you think so. Would you at least be able to consult on that?"
Ashton grimaced slightly, "Listen, I would love to, and I'm going to come back in a few days to check on you guys and all, but I have to leave. I can't stick around here too long, especially not right now."
It was clear that the teachers noticed something had come up, "Wait, are you already leaving?" the headmaster questioned with a puzzled expression, and Ashton quickly nodded. The Backpacker had just shown him a post that he couldn't ignore.
"Not quite yet, I'm going to head inside and grab some things from that vending machine, and I want to talk to the kids upstairs again," Ashton replied, turning around and heading over to the red door.
It might have been a bit sudden, but he didn't really care. He just had to do what he wanted to right now, and then head out.
The post that the Backpacker showed Ashton was from one of the Market Street survivors. They were talking about a group of people running through the city centre alongside monsters.
Ashton knew who these people were. They were those that had made a terrible choice extremely early on. They were the 'Marked'.
In this world, where there were so many possible things to hunt, quite easily at that, when the first quest told them to kill '5 creatures', they didn't choose monsters.
They chose people.