Zectas Volume I: Enigmatic Village of Nanahuatl (43 page)

 

 

As soon as Smoke finished his sixteen hits attack, he released Sharanga's best trap, the eight trap system. Instantaneously the eight traps attached themselves to the Maneator fusing together with the already attached five traps to his body.

 

 

The Maneator now had a total shackled weight of 1,300 kilos. His lifebar indicated that he had (101,140/300,000 HP) left. He was also suffering the status ailments of poisoned, burned, shocked, and paralyzed.

 

 

Sierra took Adder to safety, while everyone continued on their attacks. Everybody was attacking the Maneator ardently. But most especially Smoke, his strikes with his dual knives were personal. He didn't realize it but his face started to show a devil's countenance.

 

 

It wasn't until the Maneator's lifebar displayed (34,923/300,000 HP) that he ordered everyone to stop attacking. Earlier, Smoke was busy building strong earth walls from all four corners of the forest and now that the Maneator's life was almost 10%, he willed the earth walls to move in.

 

 

Smoke wanted a private audience with the Maneator. He had the beast pinned to the ground. He wasn't taking any chances. Even if Sharanga's traps made him encumbered. He still created earth shackles binding the Maneator's body, arms, legs and neck to the ground.

 

 

The earth walls finally reached their destination, creating a completely sealed chamber. To illuminate the chamber, Smoke ordered Igniz to increase his radiance.

 

 

"Welcome to my chamber. Do you know that you were the inspiration for this chamber? I grinded my levels and abilities to get here and let me tell you it's really satisfying."

 

 

Smoke poked the Maneator with his knives while he was talking. He remembered the times when he was tortured by this monster. This was his payback!

 

 

He stopped attacking as he noticed that the Maneator's Regeneration ability was not able to keep up with his stabbing.

 

 

"So, how does it feel to be on the opposite end of the knife? Do you like it? Do you like the pain?"

 

 

Somehow, Smoke's horrific torture made him believe that the Maneator was real and not a character inside Zectas. He only wanted the monster to suffer as much as he did. He was about to continue stabbing the beast when out of nowhere he heard the Maneator speak.

 

 

"You call this torture? Ha! This is nothing. From the moment I was created. I have been stabbed, whipped, peeled, and beaten."

 

 

Upon hearing the Maneator's voice, Smoke regained his senses and remembered that he was in a game. He took a step back and reevaluated everything. Was this Maneator a special NPC?

 

 

He noticed that the beast no longer had his blood red eyes and that the pumped body of the Maneator had softened, as if all his muscles collapsed. Then the Maneator continued to talk.

 

 

"I took all of their torture but I drew the line when they forced me to kill my own kind. I had to escape that place."

 

 

"What are you talking about? Weren't you created to be the guardian of the Coatl City's treasure?

 

 

"How do you know that? Everyone should only know me as the executioner in the underground labyrinth. The city officials made sure of this."

 

 

"So, what are you really? Are you a guardian or an executioner?"

 

 

"The dark creators made me to be a sadistic guardian of the city's treasure, the corrupt city officials made into a killer for amusement, and my kind, well they made me into their King."

 

 

"You are the King of the Maneators? That means there are more of you out there?"

 

 

"Yes, and since you've shown interest and have bested me. I find that I could only ask this of you. I know that you plan to kill me, but before you do, will you listen to my request? Would you free my people and help them escape out of the labyrinth?"

 

 

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED ...

 

 

 

 

 

SIDESTORY:
Solo Adventure on Mount Gliseloc.

 

 

 

Smoke and Laernea arrived at the foot of Mount Gliseloc. It was covered with colorful trees. The mountain was so bright and vibrant, it was as if Mount Gliseloc was the end point of a rainbow.

 

 

Mount Gliseloc was so wide that no matter how far Smoke tried to look from left or right he was met with the same resplendent view. Miles and miles of rainbow trees from the base up to the middle of the mountain. He could only see until the middle because clouds were already blocking the view to the top.

 

 

While riding the carriage on his way to Mount Gliseloc, Smoke was busy enhancing his arrows with the clay stone that he got from Giro's hideout.

 

 

He needed to have 50% Earth affinity in order to gain the 'Earth Manipulation' ability. He learned that using the elemental attacks helps increase the affinity but only by a little, still every little bit counts.

 

 

Smoke got down from the carriage and bade farewell to Laernea, he told her that once she arrives, she should do whatever Sierra asks. Laernea understood that the two of them must have had a small argument before leaving Nanahuatl village, and agreed to help Smoke out to the best of her abilities.

 

 

With Laernea gone, Smoke and Igniz readied themselves to face Mount Gliseloc. Taking out his bow and arrows, the duo entered the polychromatic mountain.

 

 

 

Upon further inspection of the trees, the leaves started rustling and took flight when he touched them with his hands. The trees were actually covered with rainbow butterflies.

 

 

As he saw the rainbow butterflies floating away from the green tree, he saw a spix camaw, a bird like monster about the size of a falcon.

 

 

The flying monster was opening its jaws wide and was quickly gobbling up the flying rainbow butterflies. He couldn't see the camaw at first because its colors blended well with the rainbow butterflies.

 

 

He tried aiming for the spix camaw but only five of his eight shots were able to hit their targets. Deciding that he should get a better shot at the spix camaw if he cleared up the butterflies, he asked Igniz to create a spiraling fire orbit.

 

 

Instantly, the rainbow butterflies caught in the fire orbit burnt to a crisp. Igniz had created a clearing of about 30 meters in diameter. Smoke now had a perfect view of the spix camaw. The lifebar of the spix camaw revealed that it only had (3,554/6,000 HP) left.

 

 

Making a loud shrieking call the spix camaw alerted its kind that there was an intruder in their midst. Smoke had already detected the presence of the incoming four spix camaws.

 

 

Igniz reflexively created a smaller orbit of fire to protect Smoke while he easily picked off each spix camaw one by one. Smoke's critical damage against them was only around 428-498. He really wanted to gain one more level in order to use the 'Item Transmutation' ability tome.

 

 

Each spix camaw only gave him 8,000 exp. At this rate he needed to kill at least two thousand more spix camaws before leveling up.

 

 

There were two main objectives in this solo mission. First was to increase his Intelligence to at least 150. He needed that much in order to use the 'Earth Manipulation' tome and also enables him to acquire the hidden basic stat 'Wisdom'. Second was to increase his fighting potential. The handicap of only using 25% of anything needed to be conquered ASAP.

 

 

Wisdom requires 128 Intelligence and an acquired knowledge of 512 books. He was already good with the acquired knowledge and with 9 more levels he will also satisfy the requirement for gaining the hidden basic stat.

 

 

In preparation for the 'Earth Manipulation' ability, he had been reading books about architecture, structures, weapons, shields, basically anything that he thought he could use to build better things with the ability.

 

 

After six hours of hunting spix camaws, the setting sun from Mount Gliseloc gave a stunning view. Smoke was about to get his 2000th kill when a dark cloud came out from the side of the mountain.

 

 

The scattered caves on the side of the mountain simultaneously erupted with the same dark clouds. They looked like giant tentacles coming out of a hole.

 

 

The dark clouds were actually colonies of gigantic bats called winged foxbats, these monsters must have numbered in the thousands. They devoured the rainbow butterflies in their path, revealing the lush green trees that were hidden beneath.

 

 

Hurriedly, the spix camaws fled into the safety of their spherical nests, the ones who didn't make it were easily swarmed by the winged foxbats.

 

 

Protected by the defensive fire orbit that Igniz constantly created, Smoke was leisurely attacking the swarm of winged foxbats. Each foxbat had an HP of 15,000 but their experience was almost twice the amount from the spix camaws at 15,500 exp.

 

 

The winged foxbats avoided Smoke's fire orbit and only went after the spix camaw stragglers and the abundant rainbow butterflies. Since there were so many winged foxbats, they weren't bothered by Smoke's attack at all. For the next four hours, the dark cloud of winged foxbats continued on their flight of wiping out the rainbow butterflies in Mount Gliseloc.

 

 

With their stomachs filled the colony of winged foxbats went back into their caves. Inadvertently, changing the  appearance of Mount Gliseloc completely. Instead of its rainbow appearance, the mountain was illuminated by the moonlight and looked like a sea of green trees.

 

 

Smoke could now clearly see the spherical nests of the spix camaws on the branches of the trees. He also saw that the trunk of the trees looked like they were moving, there were brown caterpillars of the rainbow butterflies.

 

 

He couldn't believe what he had just witnessed. Zectas had its own ecology. Smoke's first ten hours on Mount Gliseloc resulted in one level up with fifty percent left for his next level.

 

 

He placed all ten stat points into Intelligence and took out the 'Item Transmutation' ability tome. He was giddy with excitement, now that he completed the only missing requirement for this tome.

 

 

+ consumed 'Item Transmutation' tome.

 

 

 

He couldn't wait to try out his first ability from Giro's secret library. Swiftly, Smoke used his new gained ability. He created the transmutation circle that was needed in order to merge his desired objects and used five pieces of rabbit meat for his first experiment.

 

 

 

His five pieces of rabbit meat melded into a slightly larger rabbit meat. There were no added effects but his Item Transmutation ability gained .0001% experience.

 

 

Smoke continued on experimenting with his new ability with different types of base and raw materials. He didn't stop until his Mana became zero.

 

 

He used stones, branches, feathers from the spix camaw, and anything else that was disposable. He needed this ability to be in the intermediate level before using them on his precious equipments.

 

 

Sticking to the same pattern as his first day of arrival. Smoke would hunt the spix camaws for about six hours and then have a merry time shooting at the great mass of winged foxbats for the next four. In between hunting the flying monsters, he would do some random item transmutations just to increase the ability's level. He did this for the next three days.

 

 

After four days on Mount Gliseloc, Smoke gained 3 levels and his Earth affinity rose to 7%. He was still far from reaching the desired 50%, but he was still happy that somehow he was getting there.

 

 

Once 'Item Transmutation' reached Beginner level 8, Smoke used one of his arrows as the base item and added in a feather of a spix camaw and a wing of a foxbat as components. The result was promising, the arrow gained an additional range of 3 meters and increased its damage by 2.

 

 

With the influx of feathers and wings, he continued transmuting all 3,000 pieces of his arrows. The worst case of the transmuted arrows was that they only increased their range by 2 meters and they retain their current damage and the best case was an increased range of 5 meters and increased damage by 4.

 

 

It was high noon and as he continued his trek up Mount Gliseloc, Smoke came across the entrance to one of the caves of the winged foxbats. It wasn't time for them to come out of their caves yet, so, he was confident that he could go in and investigate safely.

 

 

Squish squish squish.