Chapter 509 - Extra Crispy (Patreon)

AN: I goofed my edit schedule a HAIR. I had a note to go back and edit the skill names and exact system notifications last chapter, and literally was doing it a few hours after it posted before going "wait shit I just posted this ughhhhhhhh".

Anyways, the changes are relatively minor, but important. I'll just list them here:

[*ding!* Would you like to upgrade [Kaleidoscope] to [A Raging Tempest of Golden Phoenix Feathers]! Would you like to replace a skill with it?]

[*ding!* You’ve unlocked the Class Skill [Blazing Presence of the Phoenix]! Would you like to replace a skill with it?]

[*ding!* Would you like to change [Solar Corona] to [Crowned by the Summer Solstice, Blessed by the Noon Sun]! Would you like to replace a skill with it?]

The Heron Phoenix definitely has a theme going on... Egyptian mythology is pretty cool and inspired it.

Also, I'd been bored at one point, and generated this. 2/3 isn't bad (and never fear, I'm still spending absurd amounts on real artists...) https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/761216379838791690/1192708248072110130/SPOILER_file-VMrPwHtMkqPoKNLpRtHKv186.png
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I tried to put my hands in the pockets of my tunic - it had pockets! - but alas, my tunic didn’t survive the conflagration I was subjected to. Neither did my amulet - should’ve taken it off before coming here. Stupid. I’d left it on out of habit. The heat and the flames had taken the metal and gems straight from solid to gaseous, preventing me from needing to work out how I could handle the molten metal.

Oh well. Note to self: Don’t have valuables near the phoenixes.

Instead, I put my hands on my hips and looked around, noting how big the blaze I was being subjected to was, trying to think of pithy one-liners. I noted that it was only the red flames of Inferno - the classic golden look of Radiance or black flames of Pyronox were entirely missing.

This was an almost peerless opportunity. A phoenix trying to kill me with its flames? Training, drilling, and ‘for real’ had wildly different impacts on skill gain and class levels, and just because I was immune, it didn’t mean there weren’t fantastic multipliers going on to any experience I could get. [Parallel Thoughts] went on and kicked into overdrive, each mind hitting a different set of skills, seeing which ones I could quickly practice.

Being on a Celestial skill kick, I threw out a tiny [Shroud of the Stellar Sea] bulwark, unsurprised as it instantly broke, the all-consuming flames eradicating it without a whimper. [Zenith Everlasting] got its first trial run, and my heart started to beat wildly as if I’d just ingested a dozen stimulants.

I [Blinked] in place, but there was sadly nothing intact and near enough to use [Rapid Reshelving] on. I tried to manipulate the flames themselves with the skill, but it just didn’t take. Either [Rapid Reshelving] itself wasn’t able to move flames around, or the phoenix had just strong skills that I couldn’t touch it.

I was just preparing to [Imbue] a butterfly when the Pyronox owl flew over in a blinding blaze of dark flames, smacking the Inferno tupandactylus with its wing. The flames vanished, and I stretched and yawned loudly.

“Oh! Thank you for the lovely warm-up, it was getting a little chilly here.”

The owl’s head snapped around as he stared at me, and the other two phoenixes looked at me with frank disbelief.

Rapid-fire, the three birds started talking to each other, trading whooo’s and squawks and great honking cries, wings beating and small gouts of flames erupting in their argument. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying - my phoenix-fu extended to Auri’s brrrpts and nothing else.

One part of my mind quickly checked on my level up loot from my shenanigans.

[*ding!* [Etheric Aegis] leveled up! 2 -> 20]

Damn shame. My tunic had lasted only a fraction of a second, getting only a fraction of a second of experience. If it had lasted even a hair longer, I probably could’ve skipped a few hundred levels. Interesting to know that my fire immunity didn’t extend to my clothes.

[*ding!* [Aurora Curialis] leveled up! 741-> 743]

Oh nice, I hadn’t even tried to level that one up.

[*ding!* [Luminary Mind] leveled up! 477 -> 490]

I had a feeling this skill was going to just start leveling up all over the place. If simply thinking was enough to level the skill up, I was in good shape. My hopes of it merging with [Parallel Thoughts] were going up.

[*ding!* [Shroud of the Stellar Sea] leveled up! 580-> 610]

Easy levels! Shame I didn’t have a way to try and delete the flames as they hit.

Ahha! That was an idea though. Use the [Shroud] to cup a bunch of water, have Auri hit it with weak fireballs from above, the ‘shield’ is ‘deleting’ matter. That would be an easy way to push the skill in that direction!

[*ding!* [Zenith Everlasting] leveled up! 566-> 580]

Nothing to say.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Butterfly Mystic] has leveled up to level 645->646! +8 Strength, +8 Dexterity, +70 Speed, +70 Vitality, +70 Mana, +70 Mana Regen, +70 Magic power, +70 Magic Control from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Strength, +1 Mana Regen from your Element per level!]

I suppose ‘get engulfed in a phoenix’s flames’ counted as ‘new experiences and magic’ enough for the class to level up.

[*ding!* [Blink] leveled up! 140-> 142]

The skill was a huge pain in the ass to level. I’d take it.

Seriously, it felt harder than a level 500 skill for some unknown reason. Maybe if I’d tried to escape with [Blink] instead of staying still I would’ve seen more levels.

No levels on [Rapid Reshelving], which said my skill couldn’t move flames in the first place.

[*ding!* [Parallel Thoughts] leveled up! 298-> 333]

Yes! Another thought process!

[*ding!* [The World Around Me] leveled up! 174-> 180]

I mentally patted myself on the back for thinking to try and level up under an enraged phoenix’s attack. The only thing that concerned me was his control - he’d kept it to just the park, yeah? Hadn’t blasted half the city? I struggled to imagine someone as high level as the phoenix hitting so many targets they didn’t intend to, but then again, I knew nothing about phoenix culture and mentality.

I pretended to brush some ash off my shoulder.

“Part of my companion bond with Auri,” I said in an even, conversational tone. “Is a complete immunity to phoenixes. Come on now, we’ve sent for her, she should be here any day now, if not later today. No need for such hostility.”

I was naturally lying through my teeth. I was fairly certain my fire immunity extended to Pyronox, but it only worked on some types of Radiance skills. That was ignoring the phoenixes potentially having some meta-magic that could bypass my immunity, or just, like, making a solid bar out of Pyronox or something and beating me over the head with it. That wasn’t fire anymore, that was a club. I was immune to a sword made out of Inferno, in an odd twist of ‘how the fuck does this work’, but I wasn’t willing to test things.

Before any one of the phoenixes, I was nothing. I was potentially durable enough to survive various shenanigans, but I didn’t want to test them or infuriate them. Perhaps I was underselling myself a little, but it was better to be humble than to have a swelled head.

The owl gripped his amulet again with a claw.

“It is not our goal to simply burn you from existence,” He glared significantly at the tupandactylus phoenix, who threw his crested head back in defiance. “But we do require answers. There are no records of a phoenix going missing that matches the description we have been given, nor are there any eggs unaccounted for. A bond with a dwarf? Preposterous!”

I looked down at my body, stroked my still-beardless chin, and back up to the phoenix. For some reason, the last part bothered me the most.

“I’m not a dwarf?” I said, the accusation so out of left field it had me dizzy. The owl squinted and looked closer, tilting his head to a degree only an owl could manage.

“Are you sure about that?” He asked. “Short, stocky, elvenoid? You meet all the criteria.”

I was willing to let Night call me an otter, but an owl calling me a dwarf? No way. I also wasn’t going to try arguing over the criteria or getting him to change his mind. It was a stupid, losing battle.

“Yes… yes I am. I’m a human.” I said.

“Hmmmmmmmmmmm.” The owl drew back and looked at me skeptically. “Now. About your bond and Auri. Explain.”

Dark flames erupted in a circle around us, reaching all the way up to the Ashen clouds far above. The pillar of flame could probably be seen for dozens, if not hundreds of miles away, and I broke out into a sweat that had nothing to do with the fire.

I snapped myself into reporting mode, wondering if Sanguino was cursed. First Arachne, now some phoenixes, maybe I should avoid going into the city at all. I was a big believer in ‘the truth will set you free’, and so far, telling people the truth had only landed me in hot water once or twice. Apart from situations like the Han empire where I really, really needed to keep my mouth shut, open honestly had only punished me with Emperor Augustus, and even that had been acceptably bad.

“Forgive some of my language, but an entity is involved whose name and species I’d much rather avoid giving voice to.” I preambled.

The heron nodded in agreement. The tupandactylus was still sulking. Over level 2000, and still sulking like a kid. Honestly.

“Skipping most of the story, tens of thousands of years ago I found myself in the lair of one of the creatures we were not discussing.” I said.

I was interrupted by a blade of pure Darkness slashing through the owl’s flaming walls, leaving a gash that rejected further fire. Night walked through, a blade of shimmering obsidian held loosely in his hand and murder on his face. He had a thick belt with seven glittering gems on it, each one larger than my fist. He spoke softly, but every word cut through the roaring flames like a knife through hot butter.

“This is my city. You are here at my sufferance. Behave yourselves.”

Night was fucking terrifying. Three against one, phoenix against vampire, and the owl had 1000ish levels on Night alone, and Night’s presence, not even directed at me, had me wanting to pee myself just a little in pure fear. It wasn’t like I was hunched over or cowering, but Night being beside me let me stand up a little straighter, a little bolder. Night was on my side, nothing could go wrong.

Upon closer examination, his blade clearly wasn’t obsidian - nor was it any material I’d ever seen before. My best bet was a magical metal alloy of some sort.

I would have questions for him and Arachne later.

The three phoenixes looked at Night, and after a brief invisible power play between the two of them, the sky-reaching pillar of flame winked out. The owl bobbed his head towards Night.

“Apologies progenitor.” He said, the four of them starting to stare at each other.

With the flames dead and my exceptional eyesight, I could see how we were utterly ringed by a dozen of my fellow Sentinels, most of them standing on one building or another in full ‘ready for shit to go down’ armor, as well as two full Ranger teams setting up. I was able to spot Iona on top of one of the buildings, shortbow in hand but pointed down. I was touched that she was willing to help, no matter how ridiculously outclassed she was and how little her skills could help if things went south. I was willing to bet there were another two dozen Sentinels either out of sight or just finishing getting ready. When Arachne wanted things to happen and people to move, they moved, and ‘city-destroying skills being thrown around’ definitely qualified.

Hells, I had to wonder if the fucking Guardians got poked when the phoenixes were acting up here. Sanguino was a dense, highly populated city - far larger than Shuixi. They tended not to act preemptively, but it was a strong reminder of the scale I was dealing with.

After a minute of the four of them staring at each other, I awkwardly cleared my throat.

“As I was saying…” I went on to explain to a skeptical set of avians about my adventures in Lun’Kat’s lair, how I’d healed the dragon, retrieved the egg, then brought it back home and hatched it. The heron let off a trumpeting blast of Radiance towards the sky when I mentioned how she looked like a hummingbird, and the tupandactylus hopped excitedly from foot to foot. The owl’s eyes went wide, and his pupils shrunk to a pinpoint as he stared at me. Guess that was something of a big deal? I carried on with the story, ending up with how we’d gotten screwed by the fae, and brought far forward.

Before they could start trying to peck apart my story, Night interjected.

“Sentinel Dawn here reported the events as they happened to me at the time.” He stressed. “There has been no foul play of the sort you suspect or are concerned about, and indeed, you should be praising her for successfully retrieving an egg effectively lost to a dragon’s clutches. One so powerful that she is still alive to this day.”

The three birds started talking with each other, clearly arguing. Wings flared and the birds postured at one another, the owl occasionally needing to shout the other two down, glancing towards Night.

Finally the owl turned towards us.

“We would like to meet this Auri as soon as possible. Bring her to us.” He commanded. To my small surprise, Night smiled and gave the tiniest of nods to the bird.

“Naturally. We all desire that the poor wayward bird be given the opportunity to meet her family, and indeed, she has expressed the same desire. As we have told you.” The last few words were pointed.

The birds fluffed themselves up, conversed a moment longer, then turned back to us.

“This is acceptable.” The owl said.

Manners, manners, I should be polite.

“Thank you for your time.” I said, sorta awkwardly leaving Night and the three phoenixes to talk. I made my way over to Iona, thankful the whole ordeal was done.

For now.

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“Need a tunic?” Iona asked as she hopped down from the building she was on, casually dropping four stories like it was nothing. Credit to the roads, they didn’t seem to notice her landing either!

The rest of the Sentinels were dispersing, some nearby with a friendly word my way, most back to whatever they did day to day.

“Yeah, give me a moment.” I said. A quick trip to [Vault of Ages] later, and I had one of my cheap ‘clothes got destroyed again’ tunics on.

[*ding!* [Vault of Ages] leveled up! 64 -> 65]

Oh nice.

“That could’ve gone better.” I idly commented. Iona shrugged.

“It seemed to go swimmingly from where I was standing.” She said. “No major incidents, nothing went outside the boundaries, nobody’s dead, they’re not flying away in a huff, you’re uninjured… given your record, it’s practically a divine miracle.” Iona teased.

I blew a raspberry in her direction.

“Fine, fine, yeah. Let’s go shopping?” I proposed.

Iona slung her arm in mine.

“Let’s!” She agreed.

[Parallel Thoughts] once again to the rescue! I had three new interesting skills offered, and given they were from the strongest Radiance [Mage] I’d ever seen, on top of being a legendary phoenix, there could be some nice goodies.

A Raging Tempest of Golden Phoenix Feathers: A single flap of the majestic phoenix’s wings summons a blinding tempest of razor-sharp golden feathers, filled to the brim with destructive potential. The feathers appear to move under their own consciousness and power, their mystical fluttering confusing to those who behold it. In truth, they are controlled by the summoner, each one going exactly where directed. -8,128 Mana Regeneration.

I squinted at the skill, sure there was some catch to it, something I was missing.

But no, it just looked like a straight-up upgrade to [Kaleidoscope]. Stronger, more powerful, a sharpness aspect, and instead of butterflies, I’d have feathers. It had the same ‘passive regeneration drain makes it stronger when used’ aspect that I’d started to see in [Arbiter], hinting at how deadly it was. It didn’t quite have the insane numbers that [Arbiter] skills did - I suspected I was getting a ‘halfway’ skill, not the full-powered version - and it was fun to see how the regeneration was a perfect number.

Really, the only ‘issue’ was I was moving away from the ‘Butterfly’ theming of the class, which would influence the theming of future evolutions. If I entirely replaced all my skills with phoenix-related skills - or killed all the butterfly ones with phoenix ones at least - I’d get offered [Phoenix Mystic] as an upgraded class over [Butterfly Mystic]. Which wasn’t the worst thing to have happened. Probably be rewarded a little more for being noble and phoenix-like over wandering around, but that wasn’t the end of the world. Especially not if I upgraded a number of skills now.

Well, that and the new name was a mouthful and a half.

Unable to see a true downside, I accepted the new skill.

[Blazing Presence of the Phoenix] was less interesting. It was an aura/domain skill, and it was the reason the place had felt hot when I’d entered the garden. It amplified Radiance skills and abilities, and implied a whole host of minor things that I was frankly uninterested in. I liked my current skills and set up too much. The fact that it’d been offered as a level 1 skill, as opposed to an upgrade, showed how far off it was.

If I was a triple-Radiance Classer, I’d have jumped on the skill in a heartbeat, making it one of my crowning accomplishments and the center of an entire build. I wasn’t though - I didn’t have the spare skill slots to entertain the aura.

[Crowned by the Summer Solstice, Blessed by the Noon Sun] left me feeling smug as a bug in a rug. I dismissed it.

[Solar Corona] was already better in virtually every aspect. It was why the System had offered a change, not an upgrade.

All in all, I had strongly upgraded one skill without even trying, and I was a happy panda.

The two of us went through the city on an idle date, just browsing the thousands of sights to see. Deadly encounter one minute, shopping the next, being a Sentinel was weird as heck at times.

The chatter I was picking up all around me was another indicator of how weird things were at times. A good number of people were talking about the pillar of Pyronox flames that had reached the Ashen clouds above us, but it wasn’t like that was all people were discussing. A good number shrugged and said something along the lines of ‘so what?’ It wasn’t like they were unused to casual displays of huge skills, although they were frowned upon.

Two [Alchemists] were arguing with each other across the street. One was distinctly scaly, while the other had a bone theme going on.

“All you sell are poisons!” The bone-alchemist accused the scaly one. He hissed in laughter.

“Yesss, yesss, but I label my poisons properly! I don’t slip laxativesss into healing potions!” He accused right back.

The two were high-level and probably Immortal, and were bickering like an old couple. They were driving away all sorts of business from the two of them, but seemed to enjoy shouting and arguing across the street more than making a living.

It took all types.

“Lettuce! Cabbages! Get your produce here!” A devil shouted from behind his stall, effortlessly juggling a dozen different fruits and vegetables. I instantly spotted my favorite treat.

“Oooh! Mango!” I cried, bounding over to the vendor. He grinned at my approach and clear eagerness.

“I’ll buy all your mangos!” I declared, Iona facepalming behind me.

Ehhh, I was probably breaking a dozen of Amber’s rules about ‘how to buy and sell in such a way to squeeze every last arc out of a body’, but I was getting mangos!

Not even Iona’s silver tongue could stop me from getting horribly fleeced, not with how eagerly I’d approached. Eh, I had almost four years of pay that I hadn’t spent in the bank, I was fine. It was practically a rounding error. We left with a sackful of mango, and I took one out. I lovingly gazed at it, admiring the soft skin and beautiful colors. The smell! The touch! Oh blessed perfection that was mango, how I missed you so.

“Can I borrow a knife?” I asked Iona. She started to hand me hers, but pulled it up at the last second. I tilted my head, wordlessly asking the question.

She wagged a finger at me.

“I know you haven’t forgotten your bet with Artemis.” The Valkyrie said. “I’m not going to stop you, just reminding you.”

My face fell. The evil sadist grinned at the look on my face and the dilemma I was facing.

“Fuck.” I swore with feeling. Any mango I ate would be the first mango.

“Artemissssss!!!” I screamed at the sky, shaking my fist dramatically.

Naturally, that was the moment Sentinel Spark skidded to a halt in front of us, Lightning crackling around him in a great halo.

I only had eyes for the little bundle of flames cupped delicately in his hands.

“Brrrpt!”