Chapter 212 Level-Up And Start...
Two days later, at the Vault-76, Samiel was finished absorbing another bunch of the Silver-Tier Mana Crystals. However, he was already emptying the reserves of his Mana Crystals because his consumption rate was too fast.
He was draining them like a black hole, one after another and soon here literarily ate hundreds of them within several tens of minutes. However, they were not only Silver-Tier Mana Crystals because there were also some of the Bronze-Tier ones and Steel-Tier ones which he obtained while raiding the kobold colonies in the Bone Mountains and on the 9th Floor of the Tower.
Suddenly Smaiel felt that the Mana inside his body was undergoing a new wave of consolidation, as he felt it was increasing tremendously, finally advancing from Level 39 to Level 40 as he was stagnating for a pretty long time already.
[User Samiel Zentaur has reached Level 40.]
Samiel then heard the notification from the Akashic Records when his eyes opened from the long meditation as he stopped circulating his Mana with the Nuclear Void Mana Control Method, finally reaching the next step in his path for supremacy.
After advancing toward the next Level, Samiel could now depart to the Bone Mountains once again in their pursuit of completing the Advancement Quest and also the Unique Quest missed by the Tower's System. This time, he planned to delve deeper into the Bone Mountains, probably into the inner area of the Mountain Range, where more stronger opponents would be.
Yvraine has long ago reached Level 48 and soon would be reaching Level 49 because she required way fewer resources compared to Samiel. Though if it was about the raw power that each of them possessed, then Samiel way eclipsed her, as his raw power and combat prowess were absolutely frightening.
During the last spar with the Dharzug, who was nearing the peak of the Silver-Tier, he was able to go for a draw. Naturally, neither of them were using anything aside from their Abilities and raw power, not God's possession or any similar things, just their own prowess and the fact that Samiel managed to end a draw with him was astounding as Dharzug could fight the weakest Gold-Tiers of some races on equal ground.
The difference between the Silver-Tier and Gold-Tier was like heaven and earth because the Gold-Tier Professionals have extremely potent and dense Mana, not something that even peaks Silver-Tier Professionals could compete against.
"Have you finished already?"
Yvraine asked after entering the chambers as she left Samiel alone when he started his meditation to increase his Level and went to do her own things while he finished digesting all of the Mana Crystals that he had in his disposition and managed to reach Level 40.
"Yes... now I have also finished digesting all the memories from the souls of the killed Dragonwrought kobolds that were killed last time. It appears that the situation is getting more complicated in the Bone Mountains."
Samiel said from this meditative position.
"How complicating?"
She frowned at this because this could be either good or bad, depending on the situation itself.
"From the memories of Kobolds, the strongest players in the Bone Mountains are Dark Seldarine Pantheon, mainly the Spider Queen worshippers, the Church of Lolth, Blood Gods of Faerûn; there were aware of Greater God Andruil and Daemon Cult of Sitri. Essentially speaking, worshippers of Lolth and cultists of Sitri are preparing to launch a massive campaign against the other factions within the Bone Mountains to clean out the inferior factions and take the entire territory of the Mountain Range for themselves. So, in short, the war is knocking on the doors."
Samiel stated with a charming smile, as Yvraine had the temptation to smack him because he was so cheerfully talking about fucked up situation. Not to mention she found out who the big players in the core of the Bone Mountain Range were and it was not positive.
Lolth was the Chief Goddess of the Pantheon and was Greater God, Andruil was one of the Blood Gods who were worshipped by the Blood Races and was based in the Faerûn and was also a Greater God and Sitri was one of the Daemons of the 72 Pillars, ranking 12th with the rank of Prince.
So their worshippers were naturally far more powerful than those like Kurtulak or Kuraylek who were just Lesser God and one incomplete Transcendent, so from a certain sense, he could understand why Yvraine was stressed about the situation.
"Are you nuts?! This makes out Quest many times harder!"
She shouted at him, to which Samiel just nodded happily because while he agreed with her statement that it would make their Advancement Quest harder, at the same time, it would present them with opportunities.
"Yes, it will, but at the same time, it will present us with many opportunities. Yv, there are more than thirty other factions in the Bone Mountains and mainly worshippers of the Spider Queen and Fallen Prince are participating in this conquest. Even with the bolstered forces, they would need to attack multiple fronts in an ambush in the first wave to take out some of the opponents closest to them, so they could establish proper positions and advance from them. We can use this to attack them during the time they would be conducting ambushes on the weaker factions when their forces would be divided, giving us the best opportunity to take them in one swoop."
Samiel explained his strategy as Yvraine was monetarily stuck in one place as she thought about it over and couldn't find anything wrong with it. In the end, she was aware that Samiel was very good at creating various strategies and he was a good tactician.
"We can depart to the Bone Mountains once again... this time, I think we can get here within five hours."
Samiel stated with a nod while standing up from his meditation position; he then went together with Yvraine once again to the deserts of the Sikarra, heading to their target, the Bone Mountains.
***
"I have told you that we will get here within five hours."
Samiel said with a grin, because this time, they indeed managed to cut the time down by two hours, getting into the Bone Mountain Range within just five hours instead of the initial seven. While this was still indeed a lot of time, it was a good result.
"Yes, yes, yes... what else now? Where should we head over first?"
Yvraine asked when they arrived, while Samiel started calculating the most optimal approach of things through his Level 4 Transcendental Ability Architect. After several seconds he opened his eyes and decided on the next target of their attack.
"Lesser Evil God Axun, mainly worshipped by humans in the Mana-Less Worlds, I don't even know what he is doing here, but apparently he has some small cabal of worshippers here and they should be one of the first targets for either Church of Lolth or the Cult of the Fallen Prince."
Samiel said as Axun was the most suitable target to be the first one. Surprisingly considering his strength and powerbase of his cult, they managed to snatch nice territory which was close to both Church of Lolth and the Cult of the Fallen Prince; they were not that numerous, but their position was well defended, mainly thanks to the environment and natural defenses themselves.
After Samiel stated that, Yvraine didn't reply and just followed after him while they were crossing through the mountains and valleys of the Bone Mountains.
"What should we do after we arrive? Attack or wait?"
Yvraine questioned when they passed another of the corridors and were one step closer to the territory of the Axun's Cult. Not all Evil Gods were worshipped by the Calamity Church, which was the primary organization of the worshippers of the Evil Gods.
Some of the newly ascended Evil Gods were worshipped by their Cults instead and some other Evil Gods also preferred this approach, mainly because there were many factions among the Evil Gods as well, as they were in no way a united front.
The Calamity Church mainly worshipped the God of Calamity and his followers, not all Evil Gods that lived in the Abyss or were spread across the infinite Cosmos.
"Wait... we will create some hiding place and hide until someone of the big three doesn't make a move on them; only then will we strike."
He explained their next steps; while the notion of waiting here for the time when someone will attack the Cult of Axun didn't seem that appealing, but right now, after viewing the memories of the Dragonwrought kobolds properly, he found out that the attacks should be happening in these days... sometimes so they didn't have the luxury of going back to the Vault-76.
Not to mention, he felt the connection between him and his familiar Nefetari strengthen, signifying him that she was closer to the location of the Bone Mountain Range, meaning it would be productive to remain here and wait for her.
"Then we will do as you say..."
Yvraine said as she followed after him as they started searching for a suitable place to hide and wait until the attack on the Cult of Axun arrived. They find a nice cave area in one of the mountains, where they settle with Samiel taking out one of his Magic Tomes and started studying it while Yvraine was attempting to distract him from reading the book with either pestering or seduction.
"Yv, please stop with that... I am trying to go through this Tome once again..."
Samiel said, annoyed, because contrary to him, Yvraine was sometimes a little bit too hyperactive?
Not to mention her constant love of annoying him or distracting him from doing things...
"But you are so cute when you are so focused on something."
Hearing that he nearly got a heart attack, hearing him call him "cute" was too much for him; right now, Samiel was like a gaping fish, not knowing how to react to this.
"Okey, you win... what do you want to do?"
Samiel asked with defeated sight because this time it was her win, so they would be doing something entertaining even for her, not just reading magical tomes, which was his joy and her torture.
"I don't know, actually... what about we play cards?"
Samiel nodded at her as she took out the set of the Class Fight Cards, essentially a card game where various famous Professionals were written down and people battled against each other in various combinations and so on...
It was pretty interesting, though, because one could learn many things about the famous Professionals of the Material Plane while at the same time learning some bits of strategy and tactics?
Who knows, though, the most common usage of these cards was their collector value, as they were prized objects for various people who collected them.