System Change

The heat was everything Derek had come to expect from Silvi’s flames. In fact, with it being so concentrated and on a small area, and the fact that this was pretty much the closest he’d ever been to the flames, it may have been even hotter than usual. A bead of sweat even appeared on his forehead and he had to wipe it away with the back of his hand. After that, he decided it best to take a step back.

“Oh, wow!” Tyler muttered from behind them.

Derek turned to look at the former prince. He had actually already activated some of his skills. His hands—up to his elbows—were made of solid ice, and he had a small blizzard circling around him. However, just as each piece of snow appeared, it melted just as fast. The young man’s face had even turned a shade redder because of the heat Silvi was giving off.

Whatever the entrance to the treasury room was made of, it was durable. Either that, or some of the runes did more than just lock the door. Silvi seemed to think so too, as another wave of heat—an even stronger one that before—washed over Derek.

Finally, with that second effort, Derek saw the stone surrounding the door begin to melt. Soon after the stone began turning to magma and dripping to the floor, the door—which was some type of metal—followed after. Together with the metal and stone, the runes deactivated before disappearing as well.

Silvi continued to increase her fire output, and Tyler moved even further back from the flame. Derek also took another step back.

Soon enough, Silvi’s fire made a hole in the door and walls. Carefully, Silvi redirected her flames around the hole so they didn’t go inside and ruin the treasures within. She wouldn’t have that, not after the amount of possible rewards that she’d already lost because of the flame.

Eventually, a large portion of the entrance was dotted with holes that led to them being able to see inside the room. Finally, Silvi stopped her skill, and the flames disappeared. Soon after, she moved back to Derek’s shoulder, and the pot lid she had been standing on faded into nothingness.

‘That… was hard.’ Silvi’s childlike voice rang through Derek’s head. ‘Too much focus.’

‘Of course,’ she replied, and Derek chuckled.

“First thing’s first,” Derek said and moved forward to where all the melted stone and metal was. It was all still in liquid form and steaming heavily. He turned around and looked at Tyler. “Hey, come cool this down.”

The former prince broke out of his stunned daydream and rushed forward without a thought. Soon, he was standing over the pool of burning magma and releasing a stream of ice.

Combined with the former prince’s ice, Derek reached forward and touched the rapidly cooling material. With a thought, he willed the stuff inside one of his storage rings. Surprisingly, it worked for the most part. The material was a sludgy consistency, and hadn’t completely melded to the floor yet, and Derek was able to store about two-thirds of it. That was a win in his books.

He didn’t know how useful it would be, but it couldn’t be too bad based on the fact that it had withstood Silvi’s flames for so long. If nothing else, it will give Brandi something new to work with, he thought. The rest of the material had, however, melded to the floor already, and he wouldn’t be able to store it unless he either had Silvi melt it again or he broke the floor that it was stuck to up into chunks and stored it as well.

“That’s good,” Derek said, motioning for Tyler to stop with his ice. “Now…” Derek looked at the now quite thin walls and door to the treasury to decide what to do. With a nod of his head, he held out his hand and Harbinger appeared. Checking the durability on his glaive, he smiled slightly. It barely lost any durability, but it did lose some. It should be more than enough to make a hole big enough for us to go through.

“Woah…” Tyler let out another word of shock at seeing Derek’s glaive. “Now that’s a weapon. I already thought your armor was amazing when I grabbed it… but that weapon.”

“Made by the best blacksmith in Cydaria,” Derek said. “He made the armor, too, but he is specialized in weapons. You can do a lot with dragon bones and scales.”

After speaking, Derek thrust Harbinger forward—the tip of the bladed portion just entering one of the little holes that Silvi created. Then, he used Material Drain. The void colored sphere started at the point of the blade, then grew. Soon, it was the size of a large beach ball. Derek quickly moved his glaive down to take out more of the entrance.

He only managed to move it down around a foot before Material Drain deactivated and Harbinger was completely repaired. Derek pulled Harbinger back and looked at it. For a moment, he thought about letting Silvi hit it with some flames, but he decided against it. He had made a big enough hole in the entrance that they could all fit through. There was no need to make his glaive suffer the wrath of Silvi’s Dragon Flames.

With a thought, Harbinger disappeared back into Derek’s body. The hole in the wall was about three and a half feet wide, and, because he was able to move Harbinger down a little, it was about four feet tall—more than big enough for him to duck through.

‘Silvi,’ Derek sent through their bond. ‘Stay back for a minute. There’s going to be poison on the other side, and I don’t know how long it will last.’

Without a word of reply, Silvi disappeared and Tyler squeaked. Derek turned to see his companion resting lazily on the young man’s head. With a small chuckle, Derek took a step forward, then maneuvered himself through the newly created entrance to the treasury.

Once inside, he prepared himself. He looked around, but didn’t see any runes like he thought he was going to, but as soon as he took a step forward, he saw them. Scattered on the floor and around the area was a bunch of green and brown runes. It seemed the room wanted the intruder to move inside far enough so they couldn’t escape back out before they activated.

A loud crash sounded behind him, and when he turned, he saw multiple layers of stone had fallen in front of the entire wall. They weren’t able to make it where the stone only trapped the place the intruder went through, it seemed, so whoever did the runes had instead made them activate and block off the entire area of the wall.

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Then, just as Tyler had said, the room began filling up with green mist-like particles. Derek took Harbinger out again, then channeled the void into it before using Sweeping Slash on a cluster of the green runes that had appeared on the ceiling. He didn’t know how long they would be activated for, but if he could destroy them, things would go more smoothly. I really hope nobody’s on the opposite side of the ceiling.

Damn, he thought. There are so many poison runes. His strike finally met the green runes and caused them to flicker before going out. Looks like they’re not that durable, he thought. That’s probably why there are so many. They wanted to fill up the room fast enough that even if the person who entered managed to destroy them, the damage would already be done.

With Sweeping Slash on cooldown, Derek went around the area physically smashing the runes. He wasn’t sure if it was his void disrupting them, his physical attacks, or a combination of both, so he continued to channel the void into each of his basic attacks. During this time, the poison found him and penetrated his skin. He tried not to breathe it, but it looked like that didn’t matter.

His large health pool of 37,625 rapidly decreased as the poison entered his bloodstream, but Derek activated Greater Meditation to help offset the decrease. However, even with the benefits of his meditation skill, the poison continued to eat through his health—though, at a much lesser rate… one he wouldn’t be too worried about. He touched his hand to his chest and cast Cure Toxin, then Rejuvenate one after the other as he continued to smash runes.

Five minutes later, and the green runes were gone—the poison no longer appeared in the room. He continued to alternate his healing and support skills as he thought for a way to disperse the poison. Wait… this poison comes from mana from runes that were created with skills, so it would technically be considered a skill or spell, right? With that thought, Derek activated Absolute Nullify, and to his surprise, it worked—just not as well as he thought it would.

The mist wasn’t really moving, so his skill only pulled the poison that was in close proximity to it. It wasn’t a problem, though, just a little tedious. He had to move his skill around the room to suck everything up. Maybe at a higher level, it will be more like a black hole. It took a bit longer to clear the room of the poison than it did to deactivate the runes, but he was soon standing in a clean treasury.

‘Burn through again, the danger is gone. I’ll stand in front of where you’re burning with my nullify skill so you don’t have to worry about damaging anything inside. Just don’t go too big at first—I’m pretty sure the new stone is a lot less durable than the old stuff was,’ he sent to Silvi, who was waiting on the outside.

Soon enough, Derek felt the heat. He made sure Absolute Nullify was cast directly in front of the wall and waited. Silvi was through the roughly made trap wall in seconds, and her flames were eaten by his nullify skill. Silvi stopped with her fire, then Derek canceled his nullify skill, and soon, all three were inside the treasury—even Tyler had chosen to go in.

Derek was busy stopping the poison before, so he hadn’t had a lot of time to examine the room, but now he could. In the center of the room, there were several glass cases—almost like the kind he’d see at a jewelry store back on Earth. Each of those cases held a single storage ring. On the back wall were dozens of scrolls on shelves—also covered by the glass.

“Interesting,” Derek said, and stepped forward to the first case. He went to open the case, expecting it to be locked or trapped, but to his surprise, it easily opened. “I guess they didn’t expect someone to make it this far…” he said as he reached in, grabbed the ring, and began examining the contents.

“Here, take some of the stuff in here. Just leave at least half or more. It looks like alchemy or cooking ingredients,” he said to Silvi as he tossed the ring on the ground in front of her. “Well… maybe take some more. You can share with Brandi.”

After that, he went from case to case and picked out some things. He knew that Silvi wouldn’t want anything but the ingredients he found in the first ring, so he didn’t bother with anything else for her. There were a couple of rings with what looked like crafting materials inside, so he took a portion of each of those for Brandi. He also ran into storage rings holding some very well crafted weapons and armors.

These will do great until Brandi can make something better, he thought. He picked out a nice spear for Thomas, and swords for everyone else. He also made sure to grab a few spare swords, too, just in case. Unfortunately, it seemed that Astrus had the same thoughts about knuckle weapons as Cydaria did, and he couldn’t find anything for Clare. All the weapons were much better than any of the weapons he’d brought with him from Earth. It looks like it’s about time to get rid of all of those.

After going through the weapons, he looked through the armors. He wasn’t an expert on armor at all, so he just through in some leather and steel armor that looked pretty good. He doubted they would fit and everything would need to be readjusted.

Finally, he came to one of the last storage rings and was happy that he finally found something that he was interested in for himself. Inside the ring, along with other potions, were two dozen of the potions that increased skill experience, and another dozen of the ones that increased class experience. He didn’t bother leaving any of those, and stored them in his bracelet instantly. He also took most of the Resurrection Potions as well.

“Here,” Derek said and tossed one of the skill increase potions to Tyler. “For your troubles.”

Finally, he moved to the back wall and began examining the skill scrolls. He was looking for something he could use—like an active movement skill he could level so he wouldn’t have to rely on Silvi’s Active Void Shift so much. But he was also keeping an eye out for anything any of his people could use.

Instantly, he yoked up all the passive resistance scrolls he came across. It wasn’t many, a few Magic, Physical, and Toxic Resistance scrolls, and a single Mental Resistance one. He thought of how Brandi was probably constantly exploding things and losing her eyebrows, so he did pick up a Fire Resistance scroll this time… then he grabbed another one… then another. I might need this if Silvi’s flames get any hotter… she may need one, too.

Then, he came across a ton of ice related skills and scoffed. In actuality, most of the wall of skill scrolls was littered with ice related skills. He did take a couple—hoping that Clare would be able to use them. Though she would be using water-based attacks, so he doubted she would want ice ones. But this Ice Weapon’s skill could pair really well with her weapon of choice.

Finally, he did find a water-based skill scroll. It was actually a scroll that gave the Resurrection skill—the one that cost so much when he was going through Cydaria’s list of skill scrolls. There was no way he wasn’t taking it—it was free, after all.

In the end, Silvi got a bunch of ingredients and a skill scroll for Physical, Magic, Mental, and Fire Resistance. The rest of his people would all be getting a little something, and Derek walked away with dozens of potions to help him build his skills, and three new skills.

One was Powerstride. It channeled his mana into his feet and legs and would allow him to move a great distance. It reminded him of a skill called Flash Step from one of his favorite shows back on Earth, though it did also require good strength and dexterity to work really well. Fire Resistance was another of the skills he found for himself, but that was just a preventative measure.

And finally, he found a basic, but perfect attack skill. He’d used Sweeping Slash so much that it was part of his favorite combo, so when he found Whirlwind Slash, he had to have it. It didn’t seem to be as powerful as Sweeping Slash, but where the former only arced out in front of him, Whirlwind Slash covered 360 degrees.

All in all, he was happy with his… heist. He would learn his new skills soon and then use his potions to help with the leveling. He was especially excited to see how Whirlwind Slash paired with his void energy, and how Powerstride would work with Void Step. He’d be able to cover a vast amount of distance without opting for Void Travel.

Derek let out a breath and smiled as he walked past the former prince, who was staring at him. With a pat of his hand on the young man’s shoulder, Derek said, “It’s probably best if you don’t take too much. Oh, and you should also get someone to fix the entrance—can’t have just any Tom, Dick and Harry running in robbing the kingdom blind, now can we?” Then, he walked out of the treasury with the young man behind him muttering something about who Tom, Dick, and Harry were.

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