Chapter 16: The first Test (1)

Deryn had instantly chosen mana shield over the other ability for two reasons.

The first being he was disgusted by the corpse's shield ability. This was an ability that used corpses to surround the user, absorbing damage before exploding. Whilst the explosion wouldn't deal any damage, just the thought of a corpse not only surrounding him whilst exploding body parts all over him made him nauseous.

The second reason was that the mana shield not only suited his need for a lifesaving measure. It could also be used for regular attacks.

————————————————————————————————————————————

< MAGE SKILL: MANA SHIELD >

DESCRIPTION: The user is able to form a shield made out of mana. 1 point of mana used will allow for 10 points of damage absorbed. No cap on mana inputted.

Upon shield reaching a critical threshold, it will explode outwards towards the enemy which caused the shield to break. The attack will be in the form of a mana blast and will deal < (mana inputted to the shield x 10 ) / 4 > as a magical attack.

Damage over the threshold of the shield will stick impact the user.

The skill has no cooldown.

Mana shield lasts for one minute and cannot be stacked.

SYSTEM REMARK: A strong skill with extremely high potential. Has the ability to evolve through unknown means.

RARITY: Ligh Blue (Rare)

————————————————————————————————————————————

This skill cost Deryn 300 AP which brought his total down to 20. Deciding he would save these points till tomorrow he cast the mana shield spell using 5 mana points.

A light blue bubble surrounded Deryn, hovering around 10 cm from his clothes. As he observed it Deryn could instinctively feel how much durability it had left, currently, it was 50/50.

Deryn had an idea so quickly tried it whilst the bubble was up. He jabbed forward with his fist into his chest with a semi-strong punch.

*Thud*

*oof*

Deryn knocked the wind out of himself.

Looking around he could see Kev and Archer 1 looking at him like he was crazy.

Blushing to his ears Deryn realised he couldn't attack the man shield himself so couldn't test how strong the durability of it was.

He didn't want to try it out using Kev or Archer 1 either as if they broke the shield they would suffer from the mana blast effect.

Sitting there in thought the mana shield burst into motes of mana as its form disintegrated quickly as the minute duration was up.

Not minding this Deryn was thinking about the durability. If the mana shield durability was equivalent to hp then 1 durability would be 1 hp. When he took the arrow to the back he lost 60 points of hp.

Deryn looked at Archer 1 before asking it a series of questions.

After the interrogation was over Deryn realised that the archer who ambushed him yesterday which shot him in the shoulder used a skill called first strike that all kobold archers had. It dealt 2x damage to an undamaged enemy.

This meant that if he lost 60 hp to the skill, a regular attack, from the same archer would deal around 30 hp to his shield. This meant it would cost 6 mana to completely block the first strike ability and 3 mana for a regular attack.

This also meant that the attack of mana blast from a 6 mana point shield breaking would amount to 15 points of damage shot back at the enemy.

Deryn found that this wasn't a bad tradeoff. It did however bring in another issue.

He was potentially going to have mana issues during fights. He had a total of 79 mana points maximum at present. His most damaging means were the two spells, fireball and wind blade which each cost 5 mana points each.

Along with his spear skill and now the mana shield, Deryn had a feeling he would run into mana issues sooner rather than later.

He could either rely a bit less on his spells or find more equipment which increased his mana, which relied on luck or using his advent points.

It wasn't all that bad, however. Quite the opposite. He now had both attacking and defensive options available to him and if he didn't use the Windwalker boot's active ability then he could also have an extremely strong escape ability.

Deryn thought through all this over the next half an hour.

By the time he realised it, the time was 11:22 pm.

He had to sleep before the first test tomorrow.

With that in mind, Deryn pushed his thoughts about mana issues to the back of his mind as he had a quick shower and went to bed.

————————————————————————————————————————————

< 8:00 AM >

Deryn had gotten the system to wake him up sharply at 8 am. He had a quick breakfast with the two kobolds before opening up the regional chat.

Deryn Adams: Goodmorning. I hope you have all prepared well.

Owlen Davids: Goodmorning to you too. Myself, Cerry and Chris managed to find each other late yesterday. We have a few more of us in this region working together with our shelters in a valley. I won't lie Deryn, we could use some advice as we weren't expecting the difficulty spike.

Cerry Allen: ^^ Not only that but a few of the other survivors who were interested are getting cold feet about joining us now.

Chris Leeds: Morning!

Deryn Adams: If they don't want to join now don't let them in at all. You need people who will go through challenges with you, not those who want an easy time being protected without contributing Cerry.

Deryn Adams: Owlen. Whilst it was a bit unexpected you have a clear advantage with the numbers. Battles will be a lot easier as you have more options for battle available. How you use this advantage is up to whoever is in charge.

Owlen Davids: Right. Any suggestions that we could implement before the test starts Deryn?

Deryn Adams: I'm not omnipotent. But I can say some preparations I have done. I recently have fought with kobolds, one of the alien races. By wiping them out, I only have one encampment left which gives me a clear advantage. Not only that but my shelter is in a fortified place with traps and a wall which will make it easy to defend and hard to attack.

Deryn Adams: I have to go prepare now. Good luck and survive.

With that brief interaction, Deryn had helped as much as he was willing. What he didn't realise once more was that they had copied his messages and all spammed them in the world chat. The world chat exploded once more but Deryn didn't see this as he had already closed the chat.

Whilst he could have potentially driven the buggy to where they were and taken a few of them back with him, he just wasn't willing.

The potential risks outweighed the potential rewards in his eyes.

He gave them information for two reasons. The first he didn't want to see the human race slowly go extinct. Whilst the second was if they survived and his information had helped them, perhaps they would repay his help in the future.

Deryn shook his head to get rid of these useless thoughts. He had enough to worry about with the upcoming test.

It was 8.30 am at this point and the test countdown showed there were only 1hr 30 mins before it began.

Deryn had two options he could take.

The first idea he had was to go out in the buggy with Kev and Archer 1 to try and thin out the kobold numbers. Whilst the second was to wait and fortify the defences some more and defend from the valley his shelter was situated.

After a few minutes, he decided on the second option. Whilst the first might mean he could get more resources after potentially completing the first test instantly, he wasn't sure if the danger the system felt yesterday had gone.

The system didn't warn him of anything either, but he was worried as if his survival rate was above 1% the system wouldn't warn him.

Deryn grabbed the two kobolds before going outside. He wouldn't have to worry about three sides of his base coming under attack due to the terrain of the valley.

The only place he would have to defend was where the stone wall was built. In front of the stone wall were the spike pitfall traps he and Kev built recently so it was relatively well guarded.

There wasn't much else he could do to fortify his defences at the moment. He had built the only two defence buildings he had and there wasn't enough time to build a significant amount of pitfall spike traps.

Lost in thought Deryn's eyes lit up. There was still one thing he could do. Rushing back into the shelter he went to the underground floor.

On the shelf farthest to the left were 2 5l gasoline canisters. He had the idea to spread the gasoline on the floor in front of his shelter in patches. He could ignite it with a fireball which would definitely surprise the enemy.

He got to work.

10 minutes later in front of the pitfall spike traps were patches of gasoline on the floor. Deryn had tested how effective it would be a bit further away from the valley and realised 1 litre of gasoline could cover a fairly large area.

With a single fireball, the area would be ignited. The explosion from the fireball would also launch the gasoline-soaked earth in a small area as it lit on fire. It looked like a grenade, with the fireball causing the explosion and the flaming earth as the shrapnel.

Whilst completing this Deryn had another idea to use earth walls to create another line of defence. He quickly gave up on this. The mana invested simply wouldn't recover in time due to the amount he would have to build to make a difference.

If he had thought about this last night he could have completed it and still have woken up with full mana.

Not one to dwell on what-ifs Deryn felt he was as ready as he could be.

————————————————————————————————————————————

< 9:50 AM >

Deryn was atop the wall outside of his shelter. He had come out of the shelter this early because Kev rushed to get him as Archer 1 spotted something using the binoculars.

In the distance around 300 metres, away walking along the ridgeline of the forest were a group of kobolds.

Deryn counted 24 Melee kobolds, 8 archer kobolds and two mage kobolds. He had a feeling there were more though as in the forest there seemed to be shadows moving forwards at the same pace as the group.

Not only this but Deryn also spotted what looked to be a 2-2.5 metre tall kobold. To say it was a monster would be putting it lightly.

From the binoculars, Deryn could see it had a huge spear that wasn't much smaller than its body and had a set of leather armour covering everywhere on its body other than its paws and head.

He wasn't expecting to see a new type of kobold so this brought no small amount of shock to him.

The group stopped around 200 metres away from the wall and seemed to be waiting for something.

————————————————————————————————————————————

< DING >

< WORLD ANNOUNCEMENT: THE FIRST TEST WILL BEGIN IN 5 MINUTES. PLEASE SEE PERSONAL INBOX FOR YOUR LAST PIECE OF INFORMATION >

————————————————————————————————————————————

Deryn rushed to open his inbox. There was a single page of the information displayed in front of him but it made his heart slightly cold.

————————————————————————————————————————————

The first test is upon you. You will be attacked by Kobolds. See below the number of enemies.

Melee Kobolds (Common): 30

Archer Kobolds (Uncommon): 10

Mage Kobolds (Rare): 4

Kobold Elite Warrior (Very rare): 1

It has been detected that you are in a high difficulty area, rewards for surviving/completing the test are doubled.

It has been detected that you have killed the majority of Kobolds in the area, greatly lowering the difficulty. To remedy this the Kobolds will chase you until you are dead. Should you kill all enemies a special reward will be given.

Good luck and survive.

————————————————————————————————————————————

"Fuck" Deryn swore.

He wasn't one to use foul language but felt that this situation called for it like no other. He not only had an increased difficulty based on his starting area but also now had no chance to flee.

The message saying that the kobolds won't stop chasing him until he is dead gave him goosebumps. He didn't know why but had a feeling that he definitely wouldn't escape should he try to flee.

There were only a few minutes before the battle inevitably began and Deryn was already drenched in sweat with his teeth clenched in what seemed to be nervousness. Though it wasn't until one saw Deryns face and eyes that you would realise he was in fact a little excited.

With the remaining few minutes Deryn thought of a simple battle plan.

He would try to take out the Archer kobolds and mages before dealing with the 31 melee kobolds. Whilst this wasn't the most soundproof plan it was the best one he had.

Archer 1 and Deryn were the only ranged fighters in the base so it seemed like Kev wouldn't be useful here.

With how the wall was set up Deryn decided Archer 1 would sit directly above the gate. It was the most fortified part of the wall and had cover from all sides should one crouch down. He had Kev get ready to pass the arrows to Archer 1 to improve its firing rate.

Deryn ordered Archer 1 to target the archer kobolds, whilst he himself would try to ambush the mages from above; hopefully taking them by surprise before they could erect their defensive shields.

Reminding Archer to not attack before Deryn ambushed them a notification came once more.

< WORLD ANNOUNCEMENT: TEST 1 BEGINS NOW >

With that announcement ringing in his mind, Deryn spied the Kobolds moving towards the stone wall of his valley.

200m away.

150m.

100m.

50m.

25m.

Deryn took to the air using his Windwalker ability with a fireball in hand. A few seconds later and he was right above two mage kobolds standing next to one another.

*BOOM*

The two mage kobolds and an archer kobold were blasted into pieces. With a wind blade already in hand, Deryn threw it at another Kobold mage which instantly decapitated it.

"Three down, one to go" Deryn muttered to himself as another fireball appeared in his hand which was launched at the last mage and two archers next to it.

*BOOM*

"WHAT" Deryn shouted.

He couldn't believe what he had just seen. The elite kobold warrior had picked up a melee kobold and threw it directly in front of the path of the fireball, which blew the kobold to pieces yet saved the mage and two archers behind it.

Deryn was dumbfounded for a moment.

*Thwack*

*Squelch*

No one could react in time. The mage kobold fell to the ground with an arrow sticking out of its eye socket. Archer 1 had nailed it with its first strike ability which had instantly killed the enemy mage.

It was only when another arrow found its way into the chest of an archer kobold that everyone gathered their wits again.