Ascension of Chaos

Restore the Tower

You have found the mini boss of the Domain. The following objectives have been unlocked.

Complete one or all of them to conquer the Domain.

Objective 1: Kill the Roc of the Towers

Objective 2: Restore the Core of the Towers

Objective 3: Survive for ten minutes

I put my hands in my pockets as I watch the mini boss from a distance, identifying it while doing so. And the sight of its level doesn\'t worry much at all. Nowhere near as much as the last mini boss I faced.

♢ Level 16 Roc of the Towers – 273 Potential Skills – X ♢

It\'s a few levels beneath me, with far fewer potential skills than me and probably fewer actual skills too.

And judging by the lightning wrapping around it, this thing probably uses lightning magic. Meaning my lightning magic should be able to counter its own out.

Maybe.

The large bird is probably about four meters in length from the tip of its beak to the end of its tail, and a wingspan of even longer than its body\'s length. It has brown feathers with some deep orange streaks running through it, and glowing yellow eyes matching the lightning running across its body.

Oh, and there\'s a strange cloud of lightning around the tower making it hard to see the tower itself.

I raise both of my hands in front of me and convert more of my mana into decay mana. Then I proceed to build up several spells at once that I hold in place. Each one being blasts of mana.

Three different types to be exact.

Decay, lightning, and fire. With decay having the most mana put into it.

And after I finish using up several units of mana for this, I let them all fly straight at the roc from this distance. Making the thing instantly wary the moment they get within a dozen or so meters of it. At which point it sends the lightning around its body straight at my bolts of mana.

But since I sent so many, some of them make it through and slam into the creature.

That\'s not all, though. Because I\'m currently using Chaotic Surge. So every hit also applies an effect to the mini boss.

Overall, about seven of the bolts hit the bird. And of those seven, three of them had useful effects. With one of those three being a poison that decreases the effects of healing, one that makes it trip every few seconds, and one that makes fire magic more effective against it. Which I didn\'t realize the effects could do.

Not really sure if the tripping one will work very well when it\'s flying though.

And it doesn\'t hesitate to start flying at that. Immediately jumping up into the air, making the lightning cloud that was around the tower begin to fade a little bit. Just enough that I can see a strange glowing yellow orb there with lightning running through it.

Orb.

Is that the core the quest mentioned?

Not really sure what I need to do to restore it, but I\'ll deal with that after I kill the roc.

I pull my blades out of my ring, manifesting them in my hands before beginning to fly towards the roc. Only to pause when the thing suddenly stumbles for no reason while flying. Then just continues flying again like normal.

Huh. Guess it can trip while flying.

Not sure how that works.

The roc suddenly sends several bolts of lightning my way from its person, making me immediately fly away to dodge it. But the bolts just follow after me without hesitation, so I quickly spin around to move backwards while facing the bolts before sending a couple bolts of my own lightning to strike at the roc\'s lightning.

Just to have the roc\'s lightning surprisingly win out over mine, possibly implying that the creature has a more advanced lightning mana manipulation than I have.

My eyes narrow ever so slightly before I send more bolts at the roc\'s bolts as the roc itself flies in my direction. And this time my bolts counter it now that the roc\'s bolts were weakened from my first ones.

I turn back around and – after enhancing my weapon with gravity mana to make it heavier – slam both of my blades straight towards the roc who meets them with its beak. The creature\'s wings folded to its sides as it streaks towards me with lightning shooting from behind it as a propulsion.

And when our attacks clash, a wave of lightning shoots out from its beak, up my blades, and into my arms. But at the same time, its beak begins to bend inwards and crack a little.

I completely ignore the pain of my arms being burnt by the lightning. Especially when they begin to heal from my health and Minor Regeneration skill anyways.

The roc, on the other hand, doesn\'t manage to do the same.

Especially when another effect is applied to it by my strike making contact with its beak. One that makes its pain sensitivity increase a little.

And right as we\'re relatively even simply because of my arms growing a little weaker from the damage, the thing stumbles again. Losing a lot of the momentum it was building before my attack goes through in full force, sending it flying straight back down to the tower.

I quickly activate Assimilate before it slams into the tower. Just in case.

{You have activated Assimilate. The skill will last for ten minutes, and you will gain the ability to permanently unlock the Skill Trees of anything you kill during this time.}

But the roc doesn\'t simply go splat when it hits the tower, unfortunately. Instead it kicks up a cloud of dust and smoke as the tower crumbles a little bit closer to the edge. Then it lets out a loud screech while drawing in a bunch of the lightning from around it into itself.

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And nothing happens after that. The lightning just vanishes.

I blink in surprise at the lack of anything happening.

Even the roc looks surprised, glancing down at itself through its rather disfigured head.

Then I notice some faint signs of some small amounts of healing on its wounds. Not much, but a tiny bit.

Nothing enough to actually matter.

Oh. Nice.

The healing interference effect turned out to be useful.

It stumbles again, giving me the perfect opportunity to fly straight down towards it, my arms having healed up again by now using a few units of health and Minor Regeneration. And with multiple units of mana, I charge my blades with more gravity magic to weigh them down while also summoning more bolts of decay magic that I send at the roc.

With all of my attacks slamming into it at the same time while causing more effects to build up.

And this time around, when it falls over onto its side on the top of the tower, I get the message I\'m waiting for.

{You have been granted 25 Skill Points for killing a mini boss within a Domain.}

{You have slain a being while Assimilate is active. You have now unlocked the Skill Tree: Roc of the Tower}

{You have unlocked a new Skill Tree, therefore the root skill of the Skill Tree, Low Grade Lightning Mana Manipulation, is now unlocked for your usage.}

{Congratulations, you have now reached level 21. Your PHY and MEN have increased by 1 point, and your MAG by 2 points. Please choose where you wish your 1 Free Point to be allocated.}

And this time around I allocate the points into PHY to keep my physical strength up.

Then I go ahead and open my status.

Alright. So that battle didn\'t take long.

I also got an improved version of lightning mana manipulation. So that\'s nice too.

With the roc handled, another wave of text appears in my vision.

Restore the Tower

You have defeated the mini boss of the domain.

Restore the Core of the Towers within the allotted ten minutes of objective three, otherwise the quest will automatically complete upon the completion of objective 3.

Objective 1: Kill the Roc of the Towers

Objective 2: Restore the Core of the Towers

Objective 3: Survive for ten minutes

Alright. In that case…

I turn in the direction of the orb thingy, all of the lightning around the tower being gone by now. Having all been absorbed by the roc in its failed attempt to heal.

And without hesitation, I walk over towards the orb. Then I place my hand directly on it after arriving, only for the thing to begin draining the lightning mana I have in me.

I blink in surprise before giving an inner shrug and converting more mana to lightning mana.

A second passes, then a minute, and after three entire minutes of it draining my lightning mana, the thing flashes with a bright yellow light. Then a notification appears.

Huh. The first reward isn\'t half bad, but I don\'t exactly know how to shoot a bow.

And the second reward is useless for someone with wings.

So I just dump both in my storage ring, deciding that the benefit for this Domain was the ring that I quickly put on my finger and the Skill Points and levels I got from the place. Then I turn around to find another Gate appearing on the tower. Just waiting for me to pass through.

But I don\'t go through it just yet.

Instead I walk over towards the roc\'s corpse and dump it into my storage ring as well.

Then I walk over to the Gate and step through it.

Because loot isn\'t restricted to the actual item rewards.