The Forgotten Legacy

One day, that’s how long he gave himself to fully recover, mend his armour and get an update from Eric. He had chosen not to go back to the village that Viv was making, if it could even be called that now. Apparently, he had been gone for just shy of two weeks and in that time they had sent out scouts to scour the surrounding area, seeing if there was any threats around and also to bring back people in need. At the same time even more people from their tutorial had shown up, following the links back to Viv and increasing the population even further.

What was surprising was that they had not heard or seen anyone from The Pantheon yet, but they were keeping a close eye out for anyone suspicious or anyone that showed up and was hesitant to pledge themselves to Viv. Eric also passed on an update from Xavier, so far a good amount of F grade dungeons had been claimed but no cluster was fully owned by anyone except theirs, for E grade dungeons none had been claimed except the one he had already taken. This news didn’t shock him, he knew how rough the E grade dungeons were, it would take a long while yet for anyone else to claim them unless there were people like him on Earth, those with a Heritage and more powerful than they really had any right to be.

He no longer knew where the dungeons were on the remaining three E grade mountains, so when he did set out to find the next one it took longer than he would have liked. At the rate he was working, by the time he had finished claiming all the E grade dungeons three months would have passed, leaving him only three more before the event and then 6 months after that until the year would be up.

It took two full days of searching the mountain to find the dungeon, including the travel time to actually get from one mountain to the other. He didn’t mind the downtime though, he trained his skills while he searched, focusing on his mirror sword skill mostly as it was only one level from level 10 which would mean he got another sword to use, but also his mind and mastery skill.

**Welcome to Bow before the Queen (E grade) Dungeon**

This dungeon forms part of an unclaimed cluster. Current dungeons claimed in this cluster: F grade 15/15, E grade 2/5, D grade 0/1.

Note: to claim this dungeon you need a minimum of 2,000,000 TE. No rewards will be provided if dungeon claimed.

One participant located, would you like to enter the dungeon?

The name of this dungeon was interesting, like all the others it didn’t give any hints as to what it would be about outside of there being bowing involved and a queen. Neither of hose things really appealed to him but the name of the dungeon could be misleading and involve something more interesting that what the name suggested. Seeing as he could stand outside forever and still not figure anything out he decided to just enter.

**Objectives of Bow before the Queen dungeon**

The Terminte Queen has burrowed deep into the ground, forming a colony that has taken over the planet, devouring all within their path and damaging the integrity of the planets core. All have bowed before the Queen, leaving no one to stop the destruction of the once fertile planet.

To complete dungeon kill the Queen before the planet is destroyed in 7 days time. If participant is still in dungeon when the timer runs out and the Queen still lives everyone in dungeon is destroyed.

Note: You may leave the dungeon at any time by retreating back to the entry point. Dungeon difficulty set to max until dungeon is claimed.

Shit. Double shit. Fuck. This dungeon as not only timed but if you failed to kill the queen in the 7 days and hadn’t evacuated the dungeon you died. The options you had in this dungeon were simple, you went all in for 3 days, hope to get past the halfway point in that time. If you didn’t, the chances were you would fail the dungeon if you continued so you would have to turn back and escape.

He was going to be fighting termites and if his experience with fighting insects in previous dungeons was anything to go by, if they didn’t have any weird resistances, than fire was going to be the best way forward. He had yet to finish an E grade dungeon in less than a week, but this one was also more straight forward and all he needed to do was fight. Also, there was no robots to deal with. Having made his decision to go all out until he dropped, he decided to get moving, time was wasting.

The dungeon was underground, the termites having burrowed so deep that it felt like he was in another cave system just like he had been in the start of the tutorial. This time there was very little light through the caves, but given his advanced echo skill and his higher than average Perception he adjusted to the darkness quickly. It didn’t take long for him to encounter his first termite, or really group of termites. There were five in total and although they were huge compared to your average termite, standing knew height, they weren’t overly large compared to some of the other monsters he fought.

**Worker Termite – Level 63**

Testing his theory that fire was the way to go he sent a fire strike at the insects, who, as soon as they noticed his presence started moving towards him at an average speed, slower than any other monster in the E grade dungeons. The attack he sent was not that powerful, if anything he had used slightly less mana than usual in the attack, but the results spoke for themselves. The termite that the strike hit was killed instantly, the surrounding termites caught in the resulting blast didn’t fair much better, dying in the proceeding seconds.

When he though it over, there was two reasons for this, the first being that they were truly weak to fire. The second being he was now nearly 20 levels higher than these monsters. To test the theory he found several more groups of termites, killing each group with a different type of strike. Lightning did okay, but wasn’t as effective as fire, ice he put at about the same level as lightning and magma was just as effective as fire, if not a little more so. His basic affinity, outside of fire, were all pretty average, they did do some damage but couldn’t compete with his other elements.

Considering he had no issues killing these monsters, he decided to take this as an opportunity to train another of his skills. He used his Elemental Strike skill a decent amount, but usually didn’t push it to its limits like some of his other skills. This was an opportunity to really focus on the skill, at least in the beginning where he knew he would move quickly even if he only used the one skill. When he started to slow down he would add in some other skills in the mix, but for now it wouldn’t slow him down at all.

For two straight days Shaun took only short breaks to recover his mana and stamina, eat, drink and recentre himself. Like every other dungeon he wasn’t getting any notifications but he felt that he was gaining new insights into his skill. He was close to something, having tested using the strike skill in different ways, one in particular he felt he was close to succeeding at. He had killed hundreds of termites, not giving them even a moment to fight back against him. They did slowly rise in level to the point that they were now in the high 70’s, but even then, they didn’t prove much of an issue to kill.

Eventually, at the end of the second day in the dungeon, he located a larger cavern in the cave that seemed to be a hub for these Worker Termites. The moment he found the cavern with his echo he made for the quickest route towards it. If he was right this would form the end of what would be the first area of the dungeon, and thankfully he wasn’t wrong. In the middle of the huge cavern was what could only be described as a mass of termite vomit. The Worker Termites were all going up to the mass and regurgitating something from their mouths to add to the size.

It didn’t take long for all of the termites to notice his presence once he entered the cavern, but it was too late for them to do anything. He had already powered up a stronger than normal fire strike, but testing a theory, when he released it he tried to only send out a third of the mana he had accumulated in the attack. To his surprise it had worked, although it did strain him to succeed in doing so and he didn’t have enough control to just send a third, it ended up being closer to 40% of the accumulated mana.

He quickly tried again, aiming for half the mana he had left in the strike and shortly after released the rest of it. The results of his attack spoke for themselves. All three of the strikes hit, one after the other. When the first hit the resulting blast was normal, but when the second and third hit his target it was as if the resulting blasts formed a concussive effect where the blast of each proceeding strike nearly doubled the resulting blast, as if feeding on each other to cause more damage.

Even from where he was standing at the edge of the cavern, he felt the heat and lick of flames on his skin. It did no harm to him, but the termites? All dead. The mass in the room? Reduced to cinders.

**You have defeated a (Worker Termite – Level 63). Bonus experience for killing an opponent above your level gained.**

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**You have defeated a (Worker Termite – Level 79). Bonus experience for killing an opponent above your level gained.**

**Class: Elemental Blade Slinger has levelled up by +1 levels. [Advanced] Elemental Blade Slinger has reached Level 105. +3 Str, +2 Dex, +3 End, +3 Vit, +4 Soul gained**

The level was fine, killing hundred of monsters under your level didn’t really ever get you much, but what he was more interested in was his Elemental Strike skill, which had gained 6 levels. He had been right though. Using skills in new ways, pushing them past the usual, was the best way to level them.

He again got no loot, still unable to loot the bodies, but that was fine with him for now. Spending some time meditating to recover quicker, he reviewed his progress. If he was right the next area would be termites from level 80 to 100. After that it would be in the low hundred and a boss, the queen. It had taken him just under two days to finish the first part and if he could replicate that in the next area he should be ahead of schedule, after that he would have three days to clear the final are and the queen, unless there was something more that he hadn’t accounted for. Still, he was confident at this point, as long as he could keep his speed up.

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“Let me summarise, food is becoming an issue, even with the F grade dungeons being run continuously and the loot being provided to the kitchens and crafters guild we are dipping into our reserves. Those that are in the E grade that aren’t gaining any levels want to run harder dungeons. Those that have Professions are asking for materials and places to work. The population is growing too quick for us to keep up and we need to start moving into other F grade areas quicker, which means we need to expend more TE. Does that about cover it?” Viv was trying to stay calm, but she had underestimated just how hard and stressful running an entire cluster would be.

Everyday more problems arose which she needed to deal with, some being easier to handle than others. The issues she jus covered off were the major ones that all had solutions, but they were either expensive, dangerous or weren’t currently part of her plan. Still, she needed to do something before there was active rebellion in her home base. To do that she needed to make concessions.

“We need to stretch the food for as long as we can, see if we can recruit more people to be power levelled in the F grade dungeon so that when we have access to a suitable E grade dungeon, hopefully we will be able to farm that for more food with the stronger fighters. We will need to buy stores from the system, we should be able to purchase different types of food through there but its expensive, and until we start generating enough goods to sell through the store we will be losing coin that we wont be able to get back. Or we make some kind of agreement with Shaun when he is back. He has enough coin to purchase every store in the settlement crystals in every area, including the E grade areas probably.”

“Okay, we should be able to last a few more weeks like that, I will keep you updated.” Gabe confirmed back to her.

“Good. Eric, gather the E grades that are making the most noise about wanting to get stronger, take them to the E grade dungeon that Shuan is letting us use already, the robot one. But only go in on the weakest setting for now. No big risks. Everyone comes back alive. You can lead them through that. We will need to set up some kind of loot system, some kind of tax. But for now we can provide an IOU for all loot that we want until we have a proper economy worked out.”

“Will do.”

“I also want a list of everyone that wants to work on their professions, what they can do, and what they will bring to the settlement if they are provided with space to work. From there we can start sorting out how we will organise the different groupings of Professions and see if we can get people working together. Once that is done we will expand further into another area, one focused on professions related to crafting which should free up space here. Does that work?”

Once she got confirmation from everyone they all split up to get to work. She had a lot more planning to do, both in creating an economy, getting people stronger and keeping people happy. She missed the days where her biggest troubles were staying alive in a fight.