For the rest of the day, Lefie trained her skills up even further while Riza focused on her two new skills. [Animate Critter] (passive) couldn’t be improved but Riza began to build her army.

The spiders never stopped searching for them so when the first group passed by, Riza made sure to [Leech] each and every one, coming out of it with three zombified spiders at her command–above average. As expected, none of them were a drain on her essence.

Because [Parasite] was only level 3, she could only implant a maximum of six [Parasite]s without using [Maximise Mastery]. Although maximise multiplied the cap by seven, it did the same with the cost so the next [Parasite] would take 4,900 essence.

With a sigh, Riza began the implantation and saw the deluge of essence sink out of her.

[Parasite] [Level up]

Good timing. It meant the next one was now only 800 so she swiftly got to work on that one.

Before she could install the third and final one, however, Riza actually had to wait for her essence to regenerate. Down to 3500, she needed 6300 essence for it.

And then she slapped herself in the head for not realising how stupid she was being.

Hidden skill

[Leech](10/10)

Animation skill (1/10)

[Parasite] (4/10) -Learned

Implant up to 8 parasites in summoned entities. When your health drops to 0, automatically drain all the health from a summoned entity regardless of distance

Cost: 900 es

And now with [Maximise Mastery]:

Hidden skill

[Leech](10/10)

Animation skill (1/10)

[Parasite] (4/10) -Learned

Implant up to 56 parasites in summoned entities. When your health drops to 0, automatically drain all the health from a summoned entity regardless of distance

Cost: 6300 es

The additional cost was coming from the massively inflated cap! She only needed to increase the cap to 9, which was a 12.5% increase. Therefore, the actual cost should be 1012.5.

Scurrying over to the remaining spider, Riza quickly got to work with the adjusted formula, feeling the essence flow out of her once more, successfully. She smiled at the result.

A total of 9 [Parasite]s now implanted in demons amongst the bunker. 9 times Riza can fall to 0 health and survive. Take that, cats!

Riza hadn’t wanted to risk anything with [Essential Leech] so she had stuck with just one activation at default strength at the start of combat. A facet she hadn’t been thinking of was the lack of range listed on the skill--she actually needed to touch the entity she wanted to drain.

The last spider, therefore, found itself grappled by Riza as, through trial and error, she learnt how to correctly use the skill and marked the spider. When the dagger went through its head, draining it of life, she checked her stats.

Name Riza Level 22 Health 104/104 Stamina 68/100 Essence

9200/9200 Power 5 (5) Constitution 5 (5) Endurance 5 (5) Vim 6 (6) Essence

5 (460) Spirit

145 (2190) Health Regeneration

100/day Stamina Regeneration

120/day Essence Regeneration

638/minute

Yes! Riza threw her hands up in celebration. Fuck yeah!

[Essential Leech] [Level up]

[Essential Leech] [Level up]

And, because of the exorbitant essence cost, Riza gained two level ups from that single activation.

Hidden Skill

[Leech](10/10)

[Essential Leech] (3/10) -Learned

Choose a living entity. Upon death, drain 0.6 stat points from it's highest stat if possible

Casting Time: 5 secs

Cost: 10000 es

Doesn’t increase 5000 at a time either! Only 2500 which means the conversion between essence to stats becomes more efficient at higher levels. Today has been a good day, and it’s only just started.

By the time both Lefie and Riza were tired and were willing to call the day to an end, Riza had a following of ten spiders, each with a [Parasite] inside of them. [Reanimate] had grown to level 6 and [Parasite] level 4.

[Essential Leech] had grown to level 4 after Riza drained herself entirely of essence three time, maximising the amount of stats she gained per combat. A way to optimise it further was to capture the spiders without killing them so she could constantly use [Essential Leech] whenever she could but that was too narrowly focused for Riza to attempt.

Nevertheless, Riza’s health had increased by a whopping 37%! While any points in essence or spirit would be a drop in an ocean, for her physical stats, she took whatever she could get.

As Riza was walking through the bunker, it felt slightly surreal that this was potentially the last day she would ever see this place. Of course, she had planned to leave eventually but that was all hypothetical–there was never a concrete plan to actually leave.

She was feeling unexpectedly wistful at leaving this place. It was familiar, if not secure, and that counted for something.

Riza shook her head, getting herself to focus. They were nearing the next humanoid now, Dave leading the way. Both of them were full of health and essence and prepared for the fight.

Compared to the first two humanoids they fought, the previous five hadn’t been much of a problem. Ambushes were particularly effective, Riza noted, as well as reducing the number of attacks needed to take down an enemy.

The reason they were in so little danger was precisely because of how deadly Lefie was; by the time the humanoid demon realised they were being attacked, just a couple of more seconds was all that was needed to finish the job.

The final form of such an attack could be epitomised as ‘one shot, one kill’, Riza mused, her mind going to the [Overcharge] skill. Damage per activation was another metric to judge skill acquisition in the future.

Nevertheless, the next humanoid demons were going to be far riskier than the rest.

They were close enough now for Dave to do his thing, separating from the group.

A minute or two later, Dave returned with a fresh humanoid demon in tow, leading it to the ambush spot.

Dave backed away a bit, creating some distance, the cue to attack.

Riza began a sprint from her hiding place, crossing the few minutes swiftly and jumping onto the back of the startled humanoid demon, wrapping her arms and legs around it as she instantly began the process of [Essential Leech].

The demon bucked forwards and backwards, failing to dislodge it’s assailant. Then, it rached around behind it, arm twisting unnaturally, as the fingers dug into Riza’s flesh, ice cold and drawing blood.

Fuck! Riza bit down on her tongue, muffling a scream as the hand closed around her thigh and, one second later, her breath was ripped out of her.

Without time to react, her burning arms were torn from their grapple, her body flung from the humanoid and slamming into the wall so hard she caved in the metallic panels.

The world went black, then white, then fog as a sudden rush of air filled her lungs as she switched her sight to a nearby, uninjured spider. She could feel the excruciating pain of sudden inflation, of pierced flesh rapidly being sewn up, of her rib bones cracking back into place.

Blood splattered out of her mouth as she breathed like an asphyxiated person, desperate for oxygen.

Her mind was hazy, unable to focus. She felt an arm wrapped around her torso, pulling her backwards, as sudden flashes of white light filled her vision.

She coughed and sputtered and tried to breath, her brain beginning to catch up. An instinct kicked in, her hand on her chest as the green glow of [Heal] filled her.

The brain fog began to clear, clarity returning to her mind as well as overwhelming pain that was quickly diminishing.

A clattering of footsteps followed by Lefie sliding to the ground in front of her.

“Are you okay? Are hurt?” The words tumbled out of her mouth, face etched in concern, as the teen checked Riza all over.

“I’m-” A cough. “I’m okay,” Riza replied breathlessly.

With some struggled, Riza staggered to her feet, leaning only slightly on Lefie, as she stretched her limbs. Bones popped back into place, contorted muscles smoothing out, her body repairing itself.

Well, shit.

With a shake of her head, Riza tried to put all of those thoughts and feelings away, the cold callousness of [Meditate] taking over, directing her mind.

She stalked on over to the freshly departed humanoid demon, an entire arm having been blown off it’s body and chest pummeled with [Lightning Bolt]s.

Not knowing how it would work, Riza picked up and placed the arm, only a few metres away, back on it’s body as she began the raising process.

Her hands glided over the white corpse, the essence seeping in uniformly. The flesh connecting the arm began to knit back together, tendrils reaching out and sinking into the limb, pulling it towards the body through an amazing regenerative process.

The minutes passed quietly as Riza focused on the essence, on the magic, and nothing more. Her whole body burned with exhaustion but she carried on nonetheless.

Finally, the flow of essence stopped, the sign for Riza and Lefie to disappear.

Riza slumped down against the wall as soon as she could, closing her eyes and focusing on the energy signals she could feel in her head. She visualised the form of the humanoid demon, looking around and then getting to it’s feet.

Dave walked up to it and began to speak. Orders given, the demon returned to it’s farm, none the wiser.

That could’ve gone better.

Name Riza Level 22 Health 143/143 Stamina 31/100 Essence

9200/9200 Power 5 (7) Constitution 5 (5) Endurance 5 (5) Vim 6 (6) Essence

5 (460) Spirit

145 (2190) Health Regeneration

100/day Stamina Regeneration

120/day Essence Regeneration

638/minute

Shit. Not even a level up.

“We’re good,” Riza informed Lefie once she felt the humanoid demon leave. Dave returned quickly.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Lefie insisted.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. My health is at full. My body is just taking a little while to catch up with the fact,” Riza said with a groan as she got to her feet.

“More importantly, we learnt something today,” She continued, trying to ignore the dizziness of a remote perspective.

“Return,” She said towards the nearest spider, aching to have one on her shoulder once more.

Sit rep. Let’s check out my essence regeneration.

A few seconds as it filled up informed her none of the other humanoid demons were drained through [Parasite].

Closing her eyes and focusing on the signals of the spiders, she counted 8, including the one now climbing up her body.

Two fewer than I entered the fight with. One was sitting on my shoulder and so must’ve died with the impact. Same as me.

I’d died. That’s weird to think about.

But [Parasite] kicked in, draining another spider. Only twenty health but it seemed like it restored only the fatal damage.

I didn’t decide which summon to drain, it was automatic. Either, it chose the most recent or the lowest health or the lowest level. Any of those are possibilities.

“My health increased by 6. That’s about 0.3 stat points, annoyingly half because we had to be in a party, but it means that humanoid demon has power as it’s highest stat.

“It didn’t use any essence skills, unlike the first two. And even then, the first one specialised with ice while the second with earth. It’s a strong possibility that the humanoid demons all have different builds,” Riza explained.

“Like the Dominion.”

“Yeah,” Riza nodded. “That’s probably why. In which case, this one was probably from the Chosen, I reckon.”

It made sense.

Unfortunately, Riza hadn’t been able to implant a [Parasite] in her latest summon. She had set [Essential Leech] to maximum to compensate for being in a party and hadn’t thought about saving some essence for [Parasite] so she was down 14, 8 of which were expendable.

“Anyway, how was the fight? I missed it.”

“Went according to plan. Mostly. I started shooting as soon as you were clear and took it down before it could get to you. I even levelled up!”

“Excellent. Well, let’s get going to the next one.”

Along the way, a few more groups of spiders attacked, allowing Riza to replenish her [Parasite]s.

She had gotten 4 zombies from the first group which seemed like a good omen but the next only gave her 1 and the final didn’t give her any.

After only one [Parasite], the skill levelled up! Great timing as it meant the next lot would be cheaper. Sadly, no more level ups after that.

She did manage to use [Essential Leech] three times as well, bringing her total health up 178. It was just a matter of time before she’d have doubled her base health but it’d still take a rather long time before it rivalled [Well of Power] in effect.

This whole process took a couple of hours, however. With Riza having to maintain 6 humanoid demons now, it left only around 1.5 essence per second for her to use so regenerating everything needed for [Essential Leech], [Parasite]s, and refilling Lefie took up a lot of time.

At least [Raise Dead] had levelled to level 8.

But it was worth it. So far, the demons’ plan hadn’t changed at all. Beast and greater demons were keeping their distance and there were no additional defences for humanoid demons so it seemed like whatever higher power was at play hadn’t learnt of their plan.

Which was a massive breath of relief for Riza. She was juggling so many things at once that just one less thing to worry about was great.

It was time for another humanoid demon hunt.

It began to feel disturbingly routine by this point but Riza winced whenever she thought about dying again. A recent addition, and not often do you purposefully include death in a plan of attack, but she knew it had to be done. Any chance to gain additional stat points was one grabbed with an iron fist and she had the [Parasite]s to spare for it.

The only bad thing was the pain. The massive, terrifying pain. Just reliving those moments sent shivers down her spine and stalled her brain, requiring a nudge from Lefie to focus. Even [Meditate] couldn’t overpower the memories, though it did a lot for avoiding them entirely.

So, Riza acted like she just didn’t die. It seemed to work.

When in reach, Dave went off to do his thing. Talk, return, ambush. Everything went to plan.

Riza, again, jumped onto the humanoid demon, only this time, she was impaled with an icy spike that had erupted out of the ground, piercing her chest and sending a glacial feeling of coldness throughout her whole body until warmth began to radiate once more, her heart beating even more powerful than before.

She had managed to scramble away again, eyes glazed over, hand on her chest as the waves of healing energy quickly covered the whole in her torso.

Lefie did her job excellently, batting down the humanoid with a barrage of lightning and ultimately killing it.

The humanoid demon, for whatever reason, never seemed to attack Dave and so it was often him that dragged Riza away from the fight while she recovered, as she had learnt he did the first time. Even without a command, his nascent mind allowed him to autonomously preserve the life of his master.

[Level Cap] increased to 25

Riza was too exhausted for emotions, mind celebrating in silent jubilee as she just sighed and got to her feet.

Lefie once more peppered her with questions about her being okay, fine, ready to move on, all between her own exultations of the level cap increase.

Like a monotonous machine, Riza fell to her knees before the corpse and went through the motions of raising it. It was all in one piece, this time, Lefie showing a bit of restraint.

Riza had the forethought this time to spare some essence for [Parasite], which she promptly did before scurrying away and letting Dave do his thing.

With how long [Raise Dead] took, she regenerated more than enough for [Parasite], meaning Riza could put even more into [Essential Leech] for the next fight while still having enough essence left over.

However, Riza was physically exhausted, as was Lefie–dying takes a lot out of you–so they decided to call it a day and return to the dorms.

No [Reanimate]d zombies this time as Riza just set her army of spiders around the place to be on the lookout for any demons stronger than the spiders themselves. Dave was stationed nearby in case he was needed.

Lefie clambered into bed after Riza, easily falling asleep while Riza remained wide awake.

Even though her body and mind was tired, it just refused to slow down and rest. Her thoughts were on the humanoid demons, essence, their plan, what they’d do next. She was going round and round in circles, repeating thoughts and barely even focusing on what she was thinking about.

All in a subconscious attempt to not sleep.

But even this was tiring, far more than just not sleeping. Eventually, her brain caved and her eyes closed. Goosebumps trailed her arms as an enveloping cold overtook her body, thoughts drifting towards the ice-cold, spike of frozen water that had pierced her body.

It had missed her heart but broke through bone and muscle, stabbing straight through a lung, and finally coming out through a gap between ribs. She could remember the pain, the terror perpetually frozen in her mind as the fact of her death suddenly swallowed her whole in the moment.

Tears dripped down her cheek as slumber finally arrived.

By the time Riza had woken up, the state of her mind last night was long forgotten.

Today was the day they were leaving.

Riza didn’t even want to attempt fighting another humanoid demon; she just wanted out of here.

Lefie didn’t object, even when Riza didn’t clarify why the sudden urge appeared, eager to follow along and happy to finally leave this place. Part of her would miss the comforts, the luxuries, but her desire to return to above ground overpowered them.

The group returned to the entrance to the bunker, where Riza looked up at the window overlooking the hall one last time. She had never managed to reach that place, finding the treasures that were hidden there.

It didn’t matter.

This part of the plan was risky.

Recalling how long it took for Dave to learn the language, it was doable.

Lefie was informed of the plan and happily agreed with it.

The spiders fanned out, all within 100 metres of Riza and keeping guard around all the entrances and then some.

“I’m sorry, Dave,” Riza said, stifling a chuckle. “Die.”

This was never a pleasant process. Her lower leveled zombies killed themselves easily because of their low health. Even the higher leveled ones she sometimes used didn’t look that disturbing, their insect-likeness not overcome by their size.

A spider dying was a spider dying; it was hard for Riza to conjure up empathy for it.

But a humanoid demon was different. He was without a weapon, without offensive skills.

It began with a punch as Dave walloped his face, the sight a bit ridiculous but with his points accumulated in power, caused Riza to cringe from the impact.

Another punch, and another, as she watched on. Eventually, apparently deeming the process too inefficient, Dave turned to the wall, reared back, and slammed his head into it, caving in the metal.

Slam after slam after slam, the wall deformed little by little, as well as Dave’s head. His forehead had begun to flatten and then, the final slam, his head caved in entirely, the skull apparently crushed.

Sorry, Riza couldn’t help but think, knowing exactly how bad dying felt.

He wasn’t alive–he wasn’t even human–but there was a consciousness somewhere inside that body, now extinguished.

Riza wiped that thought from her memory as she crouched beside him, going through [Raise Dead] once more, now at level four.

The five minutes passed by in relative silence, Dave reborn as a stronger version. For good measure, Riza implanted another [Parasite] in him.

Like before, she had Dave take the three linguistic skills but she added [Earth Shape] to his roster.

She was on a timer. With Dave at level 4, he was consuming 4 essence per second. That put her regeneration at a deficit at around 0.5 essence. A couple of hours and she’d be drained, all humanoid demons collapsing suddenly. They had to get out before then.

Riza talked quickly but properly, trying to embed the most vast vocabulary she could in Dave as she anxiously watched her essence tick down.

About an hour passed, with Lefie and Riza in heated conversation, when Dave said his first word.

Without waiting, Riza immediately gave him his orders and he promptly got to work, palm against the cave-in as she slowly began to shift the rock beneath his finger.

It was slow going at first, only a few inches at a time, but he gradually sped up. All his stats were allocated to essence, with Riza acting as his spirit, refilling him when necessary.

As the rocks were being deformed, moulded like wet clay, a hole being gradually punched into the earthen surface, Riza pritted from foot to foot, watching her essence. They didn’t have long left and Dave was taking his sweet time.

Suddenly, the piled up rocks shifted and began to collapse, falling onto Dave as he was taking a step backwards. The rocks fell with a loud crash, rattling Riza’s body as she rushed to Dave.

His legs were trapped under a fair few, heavy pieces of rubble and, Riza finally noticed, he was dead.

Damn.

Not wanting to lose their chance of escape, she began clawing and pulling at the rocks, trying to loosen them and roll them off of Dave.

She was surprisingly successful, the rubble small enough, and her power inflated enough that she eventually managed to clear Dave enough to pull him out from underneath it all and back to the hall.

“Is everything fine?” Lefie asked, running up to them.

“No, yes, it’s all-” Riza sighed. So fucking complicated. Her nerves were getting to her, [Meditate] struggling to keep her calm.

She sat back on her haunches and closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths.

There’s no time rush. We'll make it.

She opened her eyes.

Now, let’s look at what happened. The attempted tunnel collapsed. Why? Because the wall was made up of numerous rocks and stones. They weren’t stable. How do we prevent this going forward?

She remembered something Jakks had said when they were trying to tunnel out initially. Riza couldn’t help but chuckle; it felt so long ago.

Earth

0th Tier

[Earth Sense] (1/10)

Sense dimensions and material properties of nearby earth

2m radius

Cost: 1 es/sec

[Earth Shape] (1/10)

Manipulate 2kg of earth

2m radius

Cost: 1 es/sec

There were two skills here. The first one seemed useless but maybe not.

Dave came into being with no knowledge apart from that of a demon. He lacked knowledge of the language and so would lack knowledge of how to best use the skills. He’d lack knowledge about how to structurally reinforce earth.

Maybe this skill could help? It was better than nothing.

So, Riza raised him once more, now at level 5, only after having waited for her essence to regenerate to full, and had him take both earth skills.

She and Lefie talked again and quickly sent him to work once he got caught up on the language again.

This time, however, Riza specified in her orders to reinforce the walls and keep everything stable so it didn’t collapse.

After about half an hour of waiting this time, with Riza’s essence worryingly low, Dave had managed to carve a deep enough tunnel through the cave-in. The walls looked like they were melted together, the rocks joined in a smooth and homogenous fashion.

Not having any essence to spare, Riza ran around to each of her spiders and ordered them to follow her, rushing back to the group and ushering everyone into the tunnel.

Dave began piling rocks and sealing up the entrance, ensconcing the group in pure darkness.

Shit. No lighting. We had a lamp; let’s just tunnel in the same direction until we reach the fog wall. It’s gotta open up eventually, right?

And so, their arduous journey began.

It was somewhat cramped with the dozen spiders, Riza and Lefie, and Dave running from end to end, opening up the tunnel and covering where they came from. More and more earth was placed between them and the bunker and, with that, Riza’s heart began to lighten, her worries beginning to disappear.

We’ve made it. They may not have been above ground yet but they were out of the bunker, out of harm’s way.

However, not long after that relief, Dave abruptly collapsed to the ground, banging his restored head against the ground harshly.

A sudden anxiety shot through Riza before realising it was because she had utterly, entirely, ran out of essence.

Sure enough, checking her essence, it was ticking up at 10 per second.

All of the humanoid demons were dead.

There was no time to worry about that. Riza got straight to raising Dave again, having to spend the following, painful hour teaching him the language and then resending him the same orders as his previous version.

And so, they tunneled. And tunneled. And tunneled. In complete darkness.

It was taking a worryingly long time even though Riza could replenish Dave’s essence indefinitely and she began to rethink just how much of the labyrinthine tunnel system was intact.

Maybe the area with the lantern is gone as well? It was a worrying thought. She didn't know how being in perpetual darkness would affect them.

Lefie had [Lightning Bolt] but that wasn’t a stationary thing they could use as a light source and, besides, it was far too bright. Maybe they could use it to light something on fire but the only fuel they had was their clothing and besides, their oxygen would even-

“Fuck.”

“What? What’s wrong? Is something wrong?” Lefie asked, the whole situation stressing her out.

“I didn’t think. We’re going to run out of oxygen soon.”

How can we get oxygen? Lefie creates water, and that contains oxygen. Can we separate the hydrogen from the oxygen? It’d require electrolysis, which would require a current. And a circuit. Lefie’s lightning may work for the current but I have no idea the voltage or anything, and we don’t have the materials for a circuit, or even the electrodes.

Not to mention, it may not even produce enough oxygen. That’s a no go.

What about carbon dioxide to carbon and oxygen? A whole bunch of issues that would be solved if we were simply plants.

Fuck. Should’ve focused more in chemistry.

What else can we do? [Heal]? It worked for me but that’s an active skill. How much do I regenerate without [Meditate] active?

Name Riza Level 22 Health 182/182 Stamina 68/100 Essence

9200/9200 Power 5 (9) Constitution 5 (5) Endurance 5 (5) Vim 6 (6) Essence

5 (460) Spirit

145 (2190) Health Regeneration

100/day Stamina Regeneration

120/day Essence Regeneration

30/minute

How do the maths work out? With Dave, that’s -4.5 es per second. Gives me about half an hour of uptime.

How much damage is oxygen deprivation? I think it was about 1 a second. How much does that cost to [Heal]?

[Heal+] -Learned

Restore 1 health, 0 stamina, 0 essence to a living entity

Cost: 0 es/sec

Great. All that tells me is it’s less than 1. Double for safety and then double for both of us?

[Heal+] -Learned

Restore 4 health, 0 stamina, 0 essence to a living entity

Cost: 0 es/sec

Fuck it. Let’s get started now.

“Come here, Lefie,” Riza said quietly.

Lefie waddled closer and Riza placed a glowing, green hand on her as soon as she was within reach.

“We’re running out of oxygen but [Heal] can keep us alive. I’m still figuring out the maths on it, though.”

“Like the room where you turned on the lights?” Lefie asked, hugging close to Riza as the temperature in their little pocket of earth continued to decrease.

“Yeah. Exactly like that but now there’s two of us. And Dave.”

How do we work this out? I’m going to run out eventually, right?

But it’s 60 damage a minute. That’s not either of our entire health pools. I regenerate a bit over 10 essence per second with [Meditate]. Dave makes that 5. That’s 300 per minute.

Add 10% for safety and double it for both of us. What does that give us?

[Heal+] -Learned

Restore 132 health, 1 stamina, 1 essence to a living entity

Cost: 6 es/sec

Nowhere close to 300. If I use [Heal] every minute, with [Meditate] active in between, that’s enough regeneration to keep us all alive and on the move.

Just requires constant focus. How hard can that be?