Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 19

The next few months in Royal Road for Quietus were spent increasing his abilities.

He practiced his herb gathering skill, which he used to train his alchemy skill. Both of these were increased to beginner level 7.

He hunted monsters, increasing his stealth, dagger mastery, and dark magic mastery.

Dagger Mastery

Beginner level 8

*Increases attack power with a dagger by 40%

*Increases attack speed with a dagger by 40%

*Increases critical hit chance with a dagger by 16%

Dark magic mastery had leveled surprisingly quickly. Since he was almost constantly using either dark cloak or dark hand, and he always used darkvision at night, it had advanced all the way to intermediate level 1.

Dark Magic Mastery

Intermediate level 1

-Increases the effectiveness and reduces the cost of all darkness related magic, depending on level.

-Your affinity for the darkness has increased, granting you 20% resistance to dark, but 20% vulnerability to holy.

-All abilities are increased by 15% in areas of total darkness and 5% in shadows.

Stealth was at beginner level 9, and had 90% experience.

He practiced his listen skill while stalking observing the red-headed bard, who seemed to be spending most of her time in town. She seemed to no longer be working with the party he had seen her with a few times. However, because there was seldom anything to actually overhear, he was only beginner level 4 in his listen skill.

He even used his climbing skill when taking a break to recharge his mana, he could sit in a tree and be safe from any accidental combats. Plus, it was useful for getting one herb nearby that grew near cliffs, although there were few enough cliffs around Morata. He wasn’t terribly serious about this skill and only got it up to beginner level 3.

One skill was troubling him. This was anatomy. After he had reached beginner level 5, it had stopped gaining experience.

Then there were two skills he raised unintentionally.

Poison Resistance: Your exposure to poison has made you more resistant to its effects. You take less damage from poison. In addition, you are slightly tougher against all forms of attack.

Beginner level 4

-Poison Damage taken reduced by 8%

-Health increased by 200

Poison Resistance, which he had gained accidentally while testing his poisons.

Similarly, when he made a mistake while testing his poisons or hunting, and once while attempting to climb the walls of Morata, he trained The Power to Accept Death. That is, he died. Even so, over those few months he died less times than his relatively short time in the dungeon where he had gained that skill.

The Power to Accept Death

Beginner level 6

Upon death, experience lost will be stored in a buffer, which will give you a 30% bonus on experience until the buffer is empty. In addition, the lockout time upon death is reduced by three hours.

It now had a very significant effect, allowing him to return to playing three hours sooner. Of course, this meant that when he died, he was still locked out for twenty one hours, so it was still not an unimportant matter.

He also got his level up to 40, which was not astoundingly fast growth- but he also had to go to school. Besides just leveling, he also did a few murders quests for the guild. He had an easier time returning to town, even with alert guards around, because of his cloak. Once he had gotten it repaired, and therefore working, he learned that it enhanced his stealth skills, and it would change color and patterns to help with his disguises. With some of the money from the jobs he purchased some light, flexible armor from the assassin’s guild.

Guild Armor:

Durability: 50/50

Defense: 10

Leather armor for use by members of the Assassin’s Guild. Easy to move in, but does not provide as much defense because of the thinness of the material.

Equip:

+5 agility

Limits: Assassin

Special:Can also be worn by members of the assassin guild who are not members of the class. This prerequisite is only visible to members of the true guild.

The armor was brown, of course. It was the most nondescript color, didn’t stand out in most places, and most importantly, didn’t scream “I’m an assassin”. However, the guild had not had much work for him lately. Perhaps it was time to move on to another city.

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Mortimer spent the same few weeks following pretty much the same routine as before, with one big difference. Master Valarao wouldn’t spar with him. Not that he wasn’t getting practice, because he was told he had to defeat Angela before moving on with his training. Since he was steadily improving in both speed and technique, this shouldn’t have been a big problem.

However, he couldn’t beat Angela because she kept improving as fast as him. Even more, he could not figure out how to overcome her reach without breaking the rules they followed in the sparring matches. Frankly, it was starting to annoy him.

However, Mortimer had other things to think about. Things involving a certain girl at school. Now when he was stalking observing Solara, there was another person there. It was no mystery to Mortimer who this person was. He was just confused as to why Angela and Solara would become friends. It was troubling to him. Mostly, because Angela seemed better at telling where he was. There were a lot of awkward moments where she saw him, and he had to pretend to be walking by in the hallway. Even worse, he really had to leave when he was caught, because he worried she might say something.

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Quietus went to talk to Jack.

“I plan to leave this city soon, thanks for everything you have done for me.”

“I was glad to help, in fact, how could I not help my excellent assistant?”

“Still, I must thank you. In fact, I intend to impose upon you a bit more. I very much appreciate the magic you taught me, and I was hoping that you could direct me to someone who could teach me more.”

“Well, I’d be offended if you hadn’t asked. You have much potential, and I would hate to see you not use it. It does occur to me that I know of a place not too far from here where you can advance your craft.”

You have received a quest!

Dark Magic

The time has come to learn more advanced magic. Seek out the instructor in Twinsburg Heights.

Difficulty:

Class Quest

“Twinsburg heights is to the northeast of here, a few days journey away, in the mountains. There you will learn much.”

“Thank you teacher, for all the things you have taught me.”

“Yes, well, go on and get out of here. We don’t want to start getting all emotional.”

Quietus took this advice to heart, and shortly went outside, after giving a smile to Jack.

Then, he got a message.

-”Psst, hey cousin. Come find me in the square.”

He had no particular reason not to go, so he went.

Once he was in the city square, he saw a blonde knight. Well, except this knight was missing a key feature.

“Leather armor, Angelo?”

“What? Do you really expect me to be able to afford a nice set of plate mail at my level? I was lucky to be able to afford this wooden shield and longsword. I’m not really rolling in cash here.”

In truth, Quietus couldn’t even have afforded plate mail at his higher level. However, he could have purchased some decent metal armor if he had reason to. Murder Quests paid pretty well.

“Ok, but why a longsword?”

“You expect me to use a rapier? That doesn’t really fit well with a knight. Besides, I’ve been practicing with one of these, so I’m just as used to it as my rapier.”

Since his questions were done, he turned around to leave. Then, someone grabbed his shoulder and tugged. He spun around two and a half times, before finally ending up facing them.

“You think I called you here for no reason? I want more people in my party, and you’re going to be one of them. We’re heading on to the next town!”

“Denied. I don’t like people. Good luck with that though.”

This time, he made a quick dash through the crowd around a corner, into an alleyway. Then he half jumped, half climbed onto the roof and out of sight. He was not a moment too soon, because he heard feet running around the corner just as he slipped out of sight.

“Gone? But it’s a dead end! Well, I guess I can’t really make him group with me yet… He is higher level after all.”

Quietus heard the sound of rummaging around barrels, and then Angelo’s footsteps retreated out of the alleyway. He followed. He may not be interested in partying, but he was curious who his cousin was hanging out with. He disguised himself with a change of his cloak to green, as well as some alchemy ingredients that temporarily changed his hair to a lighter color. A disguise was much better than hiding if he were to be paying attention to the square. Then, he waited.

End Chapter 19

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