Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia entered the code on exit door 7 and opened it. Her vision changed.

So that’s that done.

[Objective completed in 4 months 35 days 17 hours, teleporting to floor 5]

“Seven hours shy of five months. And I’m not even halfway done with phase 1.”

[Ranking Spire Phase 1 : Floor 5/10]

[Objective : Completely fill one of the orbs with your mana.]

[Preparation time : 10s; Time limit : 2 hours]

Two hours? Where are the orbs?

Sofia was currently standing in the middle of a circular room like she had been for the poisoned food floor, except the room was about ten times larger in all dimensions.

The ten seconds of preparation time ended.

On every side, ‘something’ was coming out of the ground. But it wasn’t digging; it was phasing through. No way!

Sofia was speechless.

Skeletons!

Out of the ground rose four giant skeletons. They were at least fifteen meters tall, and each held a different weapon. There was a sword, a spear, a cleaver, and a staff.

Before they could fully make their way out of the ground, Sofia had flown up and out of reach of the giant weapons. Pareth had also moved, rushing to the curved walls of the room to avoid being surrounded.

Sofia couldn’t identify the giant skeletons, but they looked no weaker than the lesser drake. She also found the orbs; they were glowing white and hard to miss, floating in different places. The cleaver-wielding skeleton had an orb where his heart would be inside his ribcage. The spear skeleton had the orb in one of his eye sockets. The sword skeleton had an orb acting as his sword’s pommel, and the staff-wielding skeleton's orb decorated the top end of his staff.

As soon as the giant skeletons turned fully corporeal, Pareth engaged in the fight. His goal was to occupy and, if possible, immobilize the skeletons.

I’ll [Identify] the orbs first.

[Decoy orb] : When filled halfway with mana or destroyed: explodes, releasing dangerous shrapnel and a cloud of highly toxic fumes.

Oh. Not the staff decoration, then.

Pareth barely managed to hold off one of the giants in terms of raw strength. Thankfully, the giant skeletons’ weapons weren’t all that effective on another skeleton. But Pareth could change his into a more appropriate mace or war hammer, and his skills were well suited for such situations, so he still occupied three of the four.

The staff-wielding one was channeling magic, though, and Sofia felt the attack was for her. She had one rune up to save her in case of a severe problem, but that could be a problem since it stopped her regeneration, and she needed mana to fill the orb.

She quickly scrutinized each orb and found that the real one was the sword’s pummel, while the other two were also decoys with different effects and activation thresholds.

The spell from the staff-wielding skeleton finally came. It was an unending barrage of fireballs as tall as Sofia, aiming for both her and Pareth. He was touched by many of the fireballs but lost no health. Sofia flew past the fireballs aimed at her one by one as she dived toward the mage’s skull.

The good thing about bones. I can break them.

Sofia’s hand reached the giant skeleton’s cranium.

[Bone dominus]

The skull exploded in a rain of bone shards. Despite being headless, the skeleton still tried to grab her with his free hand. She slapped the hand off, every bone that she touched exploding at her contact.

Sofia vaulted out of the cervical vertebra she was standing on; she let herself fall, her hand sliding over the whole spine on the way down.

In a series of bone explosions, the first of the four bone giants fell as its spine crumbled and started fading into the mana it always was. Sofia even managed to catch and store the actually real ‘Decoy orb’ before it hit the ground.

‘You have defeated [Bone colossus - lv. 299]’

I couldn’t dream of an easier opponent.

The three others soon suffered the same fate. Pareth was full-on grappling them to keep their attention, and Sofia flew around until she found an opening.

In only five minutes, Sofia landed with the three decoy orbs in her storage and the real one in her hand.

She pushed some mana into it, and the orb filled slowly. Very little mana was needed, only around 100 points in total, but to fill the orb required good mana control and prolonged direct contact. It took Sofia about fifteen seconds.

That’d be way harder to do while the four things are coming at you. But when it comes to skeletons, I’m the one in charge.

[Objective completed in 5 minutes 42 seconds, teleporting to floor 6]

Actually halfway through now. Sofia stored Pareth, and her vision changed.

Sofia had been teleported to a sort of small, traditional-looking training room with wood walls and soft mats on the floor. There were some racks of wooden weapons lined up against the walls. The room smelled fresh and clean. It felt like a comfortable place to train in. The warm atmosphere was complete with a soft afternoon light shining through the opaque white windows. Sofia could see the particles of dust flying through the rays of light.

“This is a nice place.” No space for Pareth, though.

[Ranking Spire Phase 1 : Floor 6/10]

[Objective : Get the Master’s approval.]

[Preparation time : 10 min; Time limit : If the master throws you out.]

Approval? Throwing out?

Sofia’s first reflex was to store her armor and weapon. I have ten minutes to prepare, much more than usual. So I think this is an important detail.

First impressions are key in social settings like these. I know nothing of the ‘master’s customs, though. I guess being polite is a good start?

Sofia looked around, and a few details in the room caught her attention. Square purple cushions were lined up on the ground behind her, and a single brown cushion in front of her.

She couldn’t quite make sense of them until the paintings on the wall caught her attention.

They all represented scenes inside this room. On most of them, you could see the same frail-looking tall old elf in a white uniform with a red belt. Must be the master. The master was always frowning and looking over a group of students. They wore similar white outfits, but their belts were in a lot of different colors. But no red.

On one of the paintings, everyone was sitting cross-legged on the cushions, the students on the purple ones, facing the master on the brown one.

If I’m to get approval, I should probably be a proper student and sit cross-legged on a purple cushion. What else?

She only gave a cursory glance to most paintings; there was more to explore. Behind the cushion, on either side, were two small rooms behind closed sliding wooden doors. One had a drawing of a woman and one of a man on the door. Reminds me of the public bathrooms in inns. I never used them, though. I’ve been living in luxury…

Sofia walked over to the women's room. It was quite small, with empty square shelves against the walls and three wooden benches placed haphazardly. There are some of the white uniforms piled in the corner. Sofia sifted through the pile of neatly folded uniforms, looking for one her size. They all looked like they were wearing uniforms too large for them in the paintings… I’ll take a size above what feels right, I guess.

I’m surprised they even have something that fits me.

Sofia had no trouble putting on the two-piece uniform; it was only pants and a jacket. Woah, this is… Airy. I need a belt to close this up. She returned to the main room to look at the paintings again and ensure she was wearing that thing properly. Oh, they’re all barefoot. Need to do that too. Also, where are the damned belts? The women all have their hair attached, so no need to change that…

Returning to the changing room, Sofia found a container with neatly folded belts of all colors that had been tucked into the lowest shelves behind one of the benches. Some of these never even appear in the paintings, some sort of trap? They’re also not arranged properly by rank. It clearly felt like there was some sort of ranking, but these are all piled together.

She walked back to the paintings again.

It looks like children usually have white, yellow, or orange. Teenagers green and blue. Adults brown and black. Black belts are mostly old-looking people, though…

Should I take a white belt? I’m probably considered a beginner in whatever this guy is a master of. The training seems to be varied, but mostly close combat. And some of the older people have white belts there, even if it’s mostly children wearing them.

Sofia couldn’t help but fixate on the red belts standing out from the rest in the chest.

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