The explosion from Flame Mine ripped the dome apart from the inside out.
Chips of stone and clumps of dirt were blasted in every direction, hissing through the air like shrapnel as a gout of red-orange flame consumed the entire inside of the earthen barrier before blasting outward.
The outer blast knocked Deacon back a step, forcing him to raise his arms to shield his eyes from the blinding blast. The remnants of the barrier didn't so much fall apart as disintegrate, revealing the scorched crater where Jasper had been standing a heartbeat prior.
"… A…. Aguh," a voice rasped.
Jasper was on his back, half-covered in smoldering rock, his robes blackened and fluttering in the fiery updraft. His left arm had been blown completely off at the shoulder, leaving only a cauterized stump, while his right arm was melded to the burnt grass below, and what was left of his face was barely recognizable – skin sloughed off in curling sheets, hair gone, and both eyes fused shut from the heat.
He gurgled something, unintelligible, choking on the smoke still clinging to the back of his throat. His remaining left stump weakly reached toward the satchel at his hip, fingers trembling, but it was to no avail as he could not reach it.
Deacon didn't hesitate.
He stepped forward and drove Echoform Reliquary's broadsword down through Jasper's sternum, the blade still wreathed in flame. There was a sound like crunching charcoal as the sword bit through flesh and bone and sank into the scorched earth beneath him. Jasper's eyes that were fused to its eyelids tensed wildly for a moment before going slack, along with the rest of his body.
*[Human Lv 12 // Mage Lv 10] has been slain – XP has been given.*
*Your Class has reached Lv 10 – Points allocated, +1 Free Point*
*Warrior class skills available. Choose one of the options*
Deacon exhaled, letting out a long stream of steam rising from his lips in the sizzling-hot, soot-covered air around him. He could hear his heart hammer against his ribcage; he could feel a cold and empty sensation begin to creep into his body as a result of his mana pool bottoming out, and his left shoulder still faintly ached despite the potion's rapid healing.
Wiping his face from all the blood and soot that covered it with the back of his left forearm, he then planted his broadsword into the scorched dirt beneath him and leaned against it for a couple of seconds to catch his breath.
"… Alright," he muttered to himself, eyes flicking toward the horizon, where smoke from their battle still lingered over the treetops. "That was… not something I was expecting to do this early into my journey within Floor Two's World Map."
Taking a look at the warrior Darian's corpse, Deacon gave another long glance at the horizon around him and barely caught a hint of a figure with black and pink hair that was hidden in the shifting long grass staring at him with black binoculars.
Almost immediately, ignoring the state of his practically depleted mana pool and its exhausting effects on him, Deacon stood at attention, tearing out his broadsword from the scorched ground and raising it in front of him.
Sensing Deacon's attention on them, the observer of the fight pushed themself up from out of the ground and turned on their heel before sprinting away, using the three hundred meter gap between them to their advantage before activating some sort of skill that began to obscure their form the further they became away from him.
"… Crap," Deacon muttered as he stared at the almost completely obscured form that was sprinting away from him. "I might be getting some company if I linger any longer."
Deactivating Flame Armament, Deacon decided to save himself time by doing what was arguably the smartest thing to do in this scenario. Reaching into his Spatial Sling Bag, he took out a Mana Crystal and crushed it to replenish his mana pool, and a Stamina Potion, which he quickly downed to replenish his stamina pool and soothe the aches in his muscles.
After downing the potion, he reached over to Jasper's corpse, the mage, and grabbed him by the middle of his melted-off robes and stuffed him and everything attached to him into his Spatial Sling bag. Then, rushing over to Darian's corpse, Deacon quickly stuffed him into his Spatial Sling Bag along with his double-handed axe, before taking out three bottles of The Handmaiden.
Looking at the three bottles in his hands forlornly for a moment, Deacon launched them into the three separate directions around him before shattering their glass containers with three mana-infused pebbles. Giving the area where his fight took place, around the base of the CFMT Tower, one last look, Deacon cast Ignis on the grass around where the alcohol had drenched the grass and dirt and set it aflame.
Within mere milliseconds of touching the alcohol, the small flames erupted and began to spread to their surroundings.
Just after Deacon took out his manaphone and popped an earbud into his right ear, he quickly began sprinting out of The Grasslands and towards Meadow's Reach.
***
The CFMT Tower should be fine, Deacon thought to himself as he was taking refuge inside a cave 23 kilometers away from The Grasslands and 14 kilometers away from Meadow's Reach. They're made by Tier 2s, and if they were able to become damaged by a Level 9 like me, then they would have been all destroyed long before me.
Reaching into his Spatial Sling Bag, Deacon pulled out a couple pieces of jerky to munch on along with a mana-infused blank parchment.
Tossing the parchment into the campfire in front of him and catching it as a second later, it shot back into his outstretched hand, Deacon ripped out a large chunk of jerky as he rested his head on the cave wall he sat against.
Opening his eyes, he looked at his Status Page.
Spell Upgrade: [Ignis (Common → Uncommon)]
Skill Upgrade: [Basic One-Handed Weapon Mastery (Common → Uncommon)]
Deacon Surtr Hayes
Race: Jötunn Lv 9
Class: Warrior Lv 10 [Warrior Skill Available]
Health: 620/620
Mana: 189/200
Stamina: 432/472
Stats:
Vitality: 62
Strength: 51 (53)
Endurance: 45 (47)
Agility: 31
Intelligence: 15
Wisdom: 20
Willpower: 29
Perception: 11
Free Points: 4
Racial Traits:
General Skills: Identify (Initiate), Meditation (Initiate)
Class Skills: Basic One-Handed Weapon Mastery (Uncommon), Light Shield Mastery (Initiate), Academy of Beginnings Sword Style (Uncommon)
Spell Masteries: Fire [Spark (Initiate), Ignis (Uncommon), Flame Armament (Common), Flame Mine (Common)], Water [Water Ball (Initiate)], Earth [Gouge Ground (Initiate)]
Affinity: Fire (High) – Innate skill: Undying Flame
Achievements: Finder of the Hidden I [+5 All Stats]
"Not bad," Deacon murmured to himself as he saw that Ignis and Basic One-Handed Weapon Mastery were upgraded as a result of that fight.
Looking at his Free Points, Deacon placed one into Willpower, before dumping the remaining three into Perception.
He then turned his gaze towards the elephant on the page, the Class skill he had to select from.
Tapping onto the [Warrior skill available] button beside his Class, the Status Page shimmered before being replaced by an entirely new page that was divided into four separate rows.
Blistering Flames (Uncommon):
Your flame not only scorches your foes, it festers within them. When you deal damage with fire-based attacks onto your foes, they are afflicted with Blister – stacking burn that deals low damage over time. Blister can stack up to 3 times, refreshing duration on re-application after a period of time.
Oh, a passive skill, Deacon mused while reading through the first Class skill option offered to him. A really good one too.
"Basically, every time my flames reach whoever I'm attacking, they deal additive damage over time that's able to stack," Deacon summarized to himself. "I wonder if the damage from Blister is enough to prevent a Regeneration Potion from working if whoever I'm attacking takes one? Or would it only be effective against them once I applied three stacks of Blister?"
If only I could test it out to see just how effective it is, Deacon mused to himself before glancing down at the next option offered to him.
Warrior's Charge (Common):
A warrior charges through the battlefield with nary a thought of fear for uncertainty, with the only goal in mind being their chosen foe they are charging toward. When activated, you are able to charge forward at your top speed in a straight line, closing the gap between you and your chosen foe with a fleeting boost to your speed.
Hmm… This might be what Darian used to close the gap between me and him so quickly, Deacon mused as he read through the skill's description. Unless gaining a boost of speed was his innate skill or some type of wind spell he knew, and when he was still moving after I almost cleaved him in two, was some sort of last-stand type of Class skill.
Either way, this skill sounds pretty handy to have especially when there's a gap between me and whoever I'm fighting, Deacon noted as he considered how the battle between him, Darian, and Jasper could have gotten if he had this skill and blitzed toward Jasper and cut him in half before Darian charged at him.
Between this and Blistering Flames, I'd probably choose Blistering Flames due to how versatile it is compared to Warrior's Charge, as most of the spells I use are of the Fire Affinity, and making them stronger without any change to my current fighting style sounds like a no-brainer.
Power Strike (Uncommon):
With a surge of raw strength, a warrior channels their stamina into a single, mighty strike. This move is the embodiment of brute force, designed to overwhelm foes in a head-on confrontation. This skill can be used on all melee and martial weapons.
"Oh, Power Strike, I didn't think I qualified yet to get that skill offered to me," Deacon said aloud as he read through the skill's description. He hadn't remembered consciously manipulating his stamina within his body to deliver a stamina-infused punch before.
In the Academy of Beginnings, due to the overwhelming number of cadets who decide to path themselves into being a mage or something similar with an emphasis on using mana, over the course of over three centuries, the academy only taught its students their bodies with mana alone.
As a result, there were barely any lessons offered to those who wished to learn how to actively manipulate their stamina.
Which is why I should probably ignore this one, since I plan on visiting the Kingdom of Knights either before or after the tournament, and seeing if I can learn from the knights on how they actively use their stamina in fights. And after learning how to do that, it should be relatively easy to learn Power Strike on my own, Deacon nodded to himself. Because charging up my stamina for over a minute and a half to do only a bit more damage and risking blowing up my arm sounds too big of a risk to try out in a fight.
Grit and Steel (Common):
Where others wince and flinch under the attacks of their foes, the warrior shrugs them off without a second thought. While below 50% of your maximum health pool, you take reduced physical damage, and your sense of pain will be reduced. Grit and Steel does not stack with other direct physical damage-reduction skills, but remains active as long as your current health stays below the 50% threshold.
While this does sound good, I'm not sure I'm fond of the idea of feeling less pain when fighting because without pain how am I supposed to know how screwed I am or how screwed I will be when doing xyz.
Looking over the list of the four Class skills offered to him once more and seeing that he truly had two options to choose from, he decided to go with his original choice and select Blistering Flames.