One late autumn morning, she set out with her backpack flung over her shoulders. In it, she had four fully loaded "Mana Gem[1]"s, a "Monster Totem[2]", and a bit of food. She walked for a few kilometers, until she reached the end of her Spirit Sanctuary. The forest immediately grew thick and dark, but she pushed on, about another kilometer into the darkness of the forest. She found a small clearing, and immediately got to work.
She used the spell "Terraform" to dig a five-meter deep hole into the earth, and then expanded it to be about 100 square meters long. This drained about 2000 mana, but that was fine. Next, she made sure to make the walls of the hall extremely flat, and invert them to be about 110 degrees, to make climbing up extremely difficult. Finally, she used her spell "Create: Oil Field" to cover the entire bottom of the hole with thick, gooey black oil.
Then, she used the last bit of her mana to raise a small platform of stone in the middle of the hole, and covered it with sharp stone spikes. That is where the Monster Totem would go, tomorrow. With the preparations made, she hiked 1 kilometer back into her Spirit Sanctuary, and spend the night resting in the grass underneath the stars. Come morning, most of her mana had recovered, and so she returned to her "Trap-Site" as she had dubbed it. The rest of the day consisted of walking around, preparing the ground a bit more, and filling it with more oil. She had made a small "Watch-Point" by the edge of the hole, fully enclosed in stone with tiny windows she could use to look out from, where she could monitor the situation from relative safety. Or at least, she assumed it would be relatively safe.
She ate dinner there in her little Watch-Point, as night began to set. Once the sun was entirely down and stars and moon had risen overhead, it was now time to test her plan. She was very nervous, but she felt confident she could at the very least escape to her Spirit Sanctuary if things went awry, given she had four Mana-Gems available. So, time to put things into motion. First, she levitated the Monster-Totem down into the hole, onto the small spike-covered platform. Then, she used the activation spell, and the effects were immediate. The totem let out a shrill shriek as it began to glow and pulsate red. From that point on, it continued to shriek loudly and pulsate with that red aura.
Instantly, Lyra cast "Invisibility" on herself, which cloaked her from sight. It might be a bit overkill seeing she was already in her stone Watch-Point, but she couldn't be too careful. She consumed a single mana-gem to restore 3000 mana, bringing her back up to full, and now she waited.
She did not have to wait for long, as within minutes, the first monsters emerged from the woods. Without any hesitation, they threw themselves down into the hole, in a desperate attempt to reach the Monster-Totem, only to get stuck in the tar-like oil. They were large spiders, crocolisks, hulking bears, large snakes, and creatures Lyra had never seen before, like massive centipede looking insects the size of a bus, and then other creatures taken straight out of fantasy, which this actually was. A group of large minotaurs for example came tumbling down the hole, as well as hulking golems made of wood. The golems were somewhat similar to the Dryad she had seen before, but did not appear to possess the same kind of intelligence.
As all of these creatures went down the hole, they struggled against the oil, yet even now the only thing they seemed to care about was to reach the Monster-Totem and destroying it. Some of the more nimble creatures even made some headway against the tar-like oil which filled the bottom of her hole, but that was what the spiked platform was for, to protect the Monster-Totem.
After some further twenty minutes, another thirty creatures had made it down the hole, and the entire hole was filled with creatures struggling to move in the black oil. It was like watching a scene from hell itself, Lyra mused to herself. But what came next would truly be Hell made manifest.
She took a deep breath, then used her spell "Absorption Aura[3]", which instantly drained almost her entire mana-pool. She quickly consumed another "Mana-Gem" and the dizzyness faded, as she marveled at the blood red aura which seemed to surround her. Then, it was finally time. From her stone-encased watch-point, she peeked out just enough to hold out her arm. She pointed it down into the oil-covered hole, and chanted: "Fireball!", which instantly shot out a fireball from the palm of her hand.
The fireball struck one of the oil-covered monsters and instantly exploded in flames. The fire touched the oil and roared and surged like a dragon come to life, spreading like an explosion in but a few seconds, immediately consuming every corner of the hole like a hungry beast! As the fire roared, the many dozens of monsters stuck down in the hole were crying and screaming with agony, and Lyra could not help but to cover her ears. She thought she had prepared well enough, but this amount of suffering was difficult for her to face, even though they were supposedly monsters.
However, in no time, she was flooded with notification after notification.
"You have slain a lvl 41 Helltusk Boar, 21,456 experience points gained! An additional 23,273experience points gained due to the massive level difference!"
"Additional stats absorbed from the Helltusk Boar!"
"You have slain a lvl 36 Darkwood Minotaur, 18,456 experience points gained! An additional 21,684 experience points gained due to the massive level difference!"
"Additional stats absorbed from the Darkwood Minotaur!"
"Congratulations, you have reached level11! 5 attribute points gained."
"You have slain a lvl 56 Man-Eating Centipede, 37,153 experience points gained! An additional 40,284 experience points gained due to the massive level difference!"
"Additional stats absorbed from the Man-Eating Centipede!"
"You have slain a lvl 63 Ironwood Golem, 42,198 experience points gained! An additional 45,762 experience points gained due to the massive level difference!"
"Additional stats absorbed from the Ironwood Golem!"
"Congratulations, you have reached level 12! 5 attribute points gained."
And it just continued and continued, ding after ding after ding from hundreds of notifications. After perhaps ten minutes, she dared to open her eyes and uncover her ears. It was silent now, save for the crackling of fire burning in the hole beneath her. Smoke clung to the forest, stinging her nose whenever she breathed. She dared to look out, and down into the hole. Down there, it was truly a hellscape like nothing she had ever seen before. Twisted burnt carcasses poking out of a still burning field of oil, in many cases only bones remained of the beings that had, just moments ago, been alive. Nothing was moving anymore. Everything was dead. Dead beyond absolution.
Her plan had been a success. But how much of a success? "Open Status." she said, only for her eyes to widen in shock at the results.
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Name: Lyra Lunarsong
HP: 4110 MP: 8670
Level: 32 (23,000/67,000)
Race: High Elf
Age: 26
Stamina: 411
Strength: 337
Agility: 358
Spirit: 293
Intellect: 394
Job: Mage (Apprentice and Novice level spells costs 50% less mana to cast.)
Skill: Magic Creation (SSS) (The User may create spells with their own unique effects, the manacost is proportionate to the effect of the spell)
Available attribute points to spend: 110
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She could scarcely believe it. This was insane. Well, given she had killed perhaps 60 rather high-level monsters at once, and absorbed 10% of all their stats, this wasn't that unexpected. She just simply had not believed it would actually work. And she still had attribute points to spend, from all that leveling up. She had jumped from level 10 to level 32, meaning she had gained 22 levels in one go.
In disbelief, she looked at her Strength stat, and considered something for a moment. Then, she punched the stone wall of her little "Watch-Point". Rather than hurting her own hand, the stone shattered and cracked under the power of her fist. She laughed nervously as she dusted off her hand with her other hand. "Well, that does it..." she said to herself, before stepping out from the stone shelter she had made for herself.
She took another moment to look down into the still burning hole, before she offered a bow. "I thank you all, for becoming part of my power. May you find peace in death." she said, surprising herself by having become rather sentimental. She wasn't sure exactly why, all of these creatures would have happily eaten her if they had been given the chance. But maybe it was just the scale of this destruction and death, and how helpless they had been, but it affected her.
Not wanting the fire to spread, she covered the entire hole with a thick layer of dirt and earth, suffocating the fire. She had considered using water first, but thankfully realized in time why that was such a bad idea. She remember her mother having once told her, back on Earth, to never use water on burning oil. It would only make the oil and fire spread even more. "You always kill an oil fire by suffocating the fire, Lyra." she recalled her mother having said, wagging her finger. The memory brought forth a short smile on her lips, and she briefly found herself wondering how her family was doing. Were they happier, now that she was gone? No longer a sickly child to hold them back. Paradoxically, she did want them to be happy, but she also wanted them to miss her, odd as that may be.
She sniffled and wiped her nose. Clearly tonight had done a number on her emotionally, but she couldn't afford to loose focus here, as she was still in hostile territory. So, she scooped up her backpack, and trekked back a kilometer inland, until she reached her Spirit Sanctuary. She kept going, and reached her cottage around midnight. She did not bother undressing, but simply went to bed then and there.
The implications about what she had done tonight, she'd think more on that tomorrow...
[1] Mana Gem: "A consumable item capable of storing 3000 mana. Can be consumed to return 3000 mana to the caster."
[2] Monster Totem: "Once activated, will aggro all monsters within a 1km radius for 30 minutes."
[3] Absorption Aura: cost 5000 mana to cast, and for 10 minutes the caster will absorb 10% of the stats from any creature killed while under this effect.