Maze The Endless Quest - 129 Collecting Samples

She made a few notes on her tablet. A few of the affinities seemed interesting or dangerous. Hera needed to understand them and know how to counter-attack if she ever found a monster with one of them. Among the rocks, there were also a few scales from the Carbuncle. Hera grabbed the stones that she considered to be the more interesting, mostly the opposite elements and the unique ones. Aside from that, she just tossed a bunch of rocks and scales in one of her pouches. Thankfully, the stones weren’t very big, so Hera was able to get a handful of them.

The Carbuncle made some noise, and Hera quickly took off her chakram from its legs, untying it before running away from the monster. As she ran by, the smaller pangolins rushed towards the pile of stones that the tyrant had made. She was about halfway through the plateau when a loud roar came from the back. The Carbuncle was back on its feet, and it was angry. Hera could hear the cries of the pangolins as they ran away from the creature.

Hera ran towards the path, trying to leave the plateau to ensure that the monster wouldn’t follow her. She ran past the pangolins, even as some attempted to grab her pouch full of rocks. She just slammed her handaxe on its back, pushing the monster away. Yet, they didn’t fight back as hard as the one had fought before. It seemed like they were more vicious when protecting their piles than when trying to steal the stones.

Not wanting to have the rocks stolen, Hera kept running towards the path that leads back to the cave. She managed to avoid the small monsters, hitting a couple of pangolins on the way. After leaving the plateau, she walked for another ten minutes before stopping. There were no monsters following her, and now she could do some inventory.

She had twenty stones in her pouch. Most had double affinities, but three of them had a single affinity. The number of mana points in them was also very different. Unlike the 40 to 60 points of the others, each of those three had 150 points of mana on them.

“I’m guessing it’s just about the mana amount? Or do they have something else special? Let’s seen, they have fire, lighting, and piercing affinities. But they don’t seem to be any different from the rest,” Hera spent a few moments pondering what it could all mean. Unable to figure anything out, she shrugged and turned her attention to the plateau once more, “I think I should get more scales. They might be useful to put this all together.”

Her shoulder had a few cuts. The thorns from the first pangolin she faced had done a number on her arm. The blood had dried up, and she needed to clean it using her water. She still had a couple of bottles, but it would be better to head to the ocean to fill up her filter. It looked like a regular bottle, but a small mana fueled tube in the middle could turn seawater into drinkable water in just a couple of minutes. The problem was that the mana inside the filter. Hera could only fill the bottle twice before having to recharge it, and she needed a thousand mana to refill the filter. It took over one hour of constant mana cycling to restore it completely.

“I think It’s better if I go there refill the bottle before the sunset. But not right now,” Hera kept focusing on the mend spell to fix both her arm and her back. It was hard to concentrate on the spell in a place where she couldn’t see, yet she felt it working.

Hera took a break, taking a moment to eat another protein bar. At the same time, she kept practicing the new way of moving her mana while adding the cycle technique to her muscle like concept. It was an odd situation. She had one part of her mana contracting and expanding while the other gathered on her hands before traveling to her feet. When the two parts of the mana touched each other, Hera could feel more mana being pulled towards the center. However, she had no idea where the mana was coming from. It wasn’t as if she was pulling her mana to a specific point like the cycling required. The mana was just… appearing.

Hera did a couple of tests to figure out how much she was recovering and if it was possible to move around while doing that. Her regeneration had increased significantly, from the 16 points per minute while cycling her mana. It jumped to 25 using the two techniques combined. However, it required too much concentration to combine them, and it made it nearly impossible to do it while moving.

“Still, I can recharge my mana in under ten minutes. That’s a big help. I need just two minutes to use the mend spell again.”

Hera waited for another half an hour while eating and practicing this new way to recover her mana. Feeling more rested and with the wound on her back not stinging so much, she went back to the plateau. She wanted to grab a few scales that had similar elements to the stones on her pouch. The pangolins in the entrance were the smaller and had mostly primary colors. Some had one combination of shades, but nothing too complicated.

Compared to the Carbuncle fight, the other ones were much easier, even with the unpredictable abilities. Some had considerably weaker breath attacks. Others could harden their scales and make their claws longer. Hera started the fights thinking about knocking the monsters out so she could look for loose scales, but that was taking too long, and she got hit a couple of times while fighting one of the smaller ones. Getting annoyed with the situation, Hera stopped trying to leave them alive. They were monsters. She had to stop caring about killing them.

As she walked deeper into the area, the pangolin’s patterns became more complex. She managed to kill a couple of them to gather the scales, but these monsters had more unique skills. One of them even was able to lock her in place while their shadows were connected. Another could create mirror images of itself while it moved. After crossing most of the area, she noticed one pangolin with a single crystal scale on its forehead. Hera got closer to it, but before she was able to do anything, a familiar roar came to the side. The Carbuncle was staring at her. Its eyes becoming bloodshot as the veins bulged on its face.

“Oh shit,” Hera gasped before turning away and running back to the path.

The Carbuncle stomped its feet on the ground, and a large rock went flying towards Hera. She heard the projectile coming towards her and dove to the side. The attack hit her arm, making her tumble to the side. She quickly got up and made sure her rocks hadn’t fallen before using her light spell to make a floodlight once more and bolt towards that path that led her here.

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Spell acquired

Blinding Flash

Rank: Beginner

It creates an extremely bright light source to disturb the sight of those who see it. The more mana used on the spell, the stronger the light will be.

Base mana cost: 75 mana

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Hera waved off the notification that popped up. She didn’t have time to read it. Zigzagging through the area, she did her best to lose the Carbuncle before heading to the path. She assumed the monster wouldn’t chase her too far from its hoard, since that would create another frenzy from the nearby pangolins. Still, she didn’t want to give it a chance to follow her to the path. That was her only safe spot at the moment. After being sure that the beast had given up on her, Hera went back looking for the pangolin with the crystal scale.

This time, Hera made sure to be on the lookout for the Carbuncle. Before even reaching the place where she saw the pangolin with a crystal scale, she had to hide from the plateau’s tyrant a couple of times. She had to search for the pangolin once more. The creature wasn’t as large as the ones around the area, and it seemed much more sneaky. The first time Hera saw it, it growled in a way that lured the Carbuncle to the area. Then the monster vanished inside its own shadow. After a while, Hera had to run back to the entrance to avoid the tyrant once more.

On her fifth attempt, she managed to sneak up on the pangolin. Using her poison needle a few times, Hera hindered it enough to allow her to kill the monster. It was odd that she could never find its pile, and the creature didn’t seem to care about the rocks. The fight was much easier than the other ones. Poisoning the monsters was much more effective than she expected. The pangolin didn’t have any special name, and all its scales were brown with no affinity, aside from the single one on its head.

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Crystal Prism Scale (Mana Affinity)

The scale of Prism Pangolin that was crystallized due to a mutation. It can amplify a spell or a magical effect when used through the scale.

The crystal can only sustain a certain amount of magical power before shattering.

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Hera grabbed a few more scales and headed back to the path. It was already getting late, and she wanted to get some more water before setting up camp. Around one hour later, she was back in the spot where she camped the first night. This time, she remembered to grab some wood for the bonfire. She practiced her new mana technique some more and wrote down all the notes she made about the creatures before getting ready to sleep. It took her some time to charge up all her camping gear, and she would be with little to no mana while doing that.

“I’m glad I have a safe place here, but if I’m in an area with more monsters, it might be better to keep half my mana with me just in case,” Hera mumbled after getting her bed ready.

Hours later, a loud hip-pitched beeping noise woke Hera from her slumber. The Carbuncle had trespassed the perimeter of her camp. Hera jumped up, but the beast saw her movement. It seemed somewhat disoriented, not only by the noise, but it was avoiding the flames. Hera could even see some large drops of sweat forming on its face.

The monster dashed towards Hera, who had to dive to the side, getting not only closer to the flames but also the edge of the cliff. Fighting in this situation was very stressful. One wrong move and she could meet her end in the whirlpool infested waters.

“Fine, take the rocks. They are there,” Hera pointed at the bag with the stones by the bed.

The monster kept staring at her while walking towards the bags. It rummaged through them and only stopped after finding the crystal scale. The Carbuncle moved it with its nose as if it was trying to make it move. When it had no response, it let out a pained cry before turning to Hera. Its face was turning a deep shade of red together with its scales. The monster ran towards Hera, who dashed to the other side of the fire.

The creature stopped and moved to the other side, still keeping some distance from the green flames. Hera sent two poison needles towards it, hoping that the toxin would hinder its movement. The two of them started to do a weird dance around the bonfire. Hera kept jumping from side to side while the Carbuncle attempted to get a clear shot at her. The monster started getting more and more impatient, sending rocks, thorns, and even using its fire breathing attack. When the flames hit the green fire, the repellent grew strongest, scaring away the monster enough to allow Hera to jump away from the edge of the cliff.

She sent a few poison sprays towards the creature, hoping it would be enough to push it back. The Carbuncle ran towards her and truck Hera with its body. It was moving several times faster than before. Getting angry with the situation, Hera sent her chakram to its legs once more. Not to warp it. This time she wanted to hurt it. At the same time, she walked back to the green fire, not letting the monster out of her sight.

The Carbuncle rushed at her, lowering its head. Hera waited for it to get closer and jumped to the side, hitting the monster’s head with her handaxe. There was no damage since she just hit the scales, but it was enough to make the creature take a step to the side and hit the bonfire. It tumbled forward and started trashing while walking away from the flames. Hera saw one of its back legs dangerously close to the edge and rushed towards the Carbuncle. She jumped at the last moment and hit the monster’s side with both her legs, pushing it from the cliff.

Hera looked off the precipice and saw the Carbuncle spinning in the air before falling into the water. The monster was instantly caught in one of the whirlpools and pulled underwater. Feeling safer and with the perimeter alarm still buzzing in her ears, Hera lay down, looking at the sky.

“This is what I get for trying to be nice.”