The Forgotten Legacy

Hunting down and fighting the Harpy was a much easier task than when he had tasked himself with killing every Arachne in the forest. The Harpy were easier to find which cut down on the time he needed to spend moving from one monster to the next and the fights themselves had become somewhat boring. They were still D grade so Shaun needed to be careful during the fights so as not to be hit by their talons but their magical attacks were practically useless against him.

Shaun travelled from one platform to the next with only a few hours of rest in between each, he had decided to change the way he fought, focusing on two skills on each platform and no more. He alternated between his skills, always using Blade Mastery with another of his skills as his class was orientated with always having a blade in his hand.

He had spent what he assumed to be just a little over a week fighting through the Harpy and had found the leader on the third day. He was tempted to just kill it and move on but the monsters had been a gold mine of skill levels so he decided to clear out everyone he could find first. There had been 10 platforms in total, and he had already cleared 9 of them out, which is why he found himself just out of range of the leader, watching and waiting for his time to strike.

This final platform was different than all of the others, it was larger and as expected the Harpy were stronger. The reason he waited wasn’t because he didn’t think he could kill all of the Harpy, but rather because he was curious to see if he could pick up anything further from them using his mana skill.

Over his time hunting these monsters he had been using the skill to learn as much as he could about how their skills formed and the threads that bound a being to a skill. He hadn’t cut a thread like he had in that first fight again, instead he focused more on the intricate way threads formed into a weave and how that was then powered into a skill.

Looking at the platform with the leader he was able to see a very large weaving connecting one Harpy to another, as if they were expecting him to show at any time and had prepared an attack that would be unleashed the moment he arrived.

He didn’t know how, but the Harpy were monsters that could share their power with each other, boosting the strength of a skill through these connected threads. He didn’t think this was something normal that just any person on monster could do, it was something special to this type of monster and he wanted to learn as much as he could about how it worked before he moved on. The reason why was simple, if they could do it, why couldn’t he?

He had been thinking about this since he first saw the Harpy weaving their skill to kill him on the first platform. If he could somehow replicate this with his summons, he would be able to either give more mana to them when needed or even take it back to power a skill to greater hights.

It was something he planned on testing soon, but as this was his last chance to get a look at how they did it, at least for a while, he wanted to take advantage of these last moments of study before he attacked. It wasn’t until he had not found anything new for an hour, simply retracing the threads over and over again until he had it memorised and save down in an orb from Creators Plan that he decided that it was time to finish off these monsters and move on.

He had already summoned his Zapian Eagles, all of whom were just sitting around him waiting for him to give the order to fly by his side and attack. He sent a silent command that the time had come to go to battle and as one, his summons flew into the air with him and made for the Harpy at full speed.

He didn’t spend long making a plan of attack, he was going to go straight for the leader and his summons would attack the other Harpy and cause whatever damage they could. The moment they had risen into the air and started flying closer to the platform, the Harpy took notice, as always though they didn’t approach him but waited for him to enter their domain.

When the distance closed between the two groups he saw the threads binding the Harpy light up with power, mana travelled along these threads towards the leader and an attack was powered up, ready to be sent towards him. He had learnt pretty quickly that the Harpy always started out with their strongest attacks, hoping to end the fight before it even started, which never worked well for them.

Just before the leader let its attack go, Shaun shifted into lightning and sent himself directly towards the centre of the platform, right beside the leader. He had gotten much better at controlling how quickly he moved in this form and his accuracy had improved exponentially, to the point it took only a split second for him to move from one place to another and attack as soon as he reformed.

He lashed out with both of his blades, each powered with a magma strike, making the leader of the Harpy abruptly stop its attack to move out of the way or be struck down by his swords before the fight truly started. As expected the Harpy chose to live and immediately shifted out of range of his attacks. It still took the hit, but instead of being bisected it received a cut through clawed leg.

Shaun didn’t let up on his attacks, instead he summoned mirror blades of all his advanced elements and began to spin them around him and the Harpy leader, effectively trapping them in a whirlwind of blades. The Harpy flapped its wings once, then twice, creating a sound like thunder with each flap. The vibrations sent through the air nearly knocked both himself and his blades off course, his control kept his blades spinning and he was able to push through the skill by sending his own burst of air through the area around him, bringing his surrounding under his control.

With another flap of its wings the Harpy leader tried to blow everything around it away, entering into an elemental fight of control against him. Shaun nearly laughed at the change in tactics form this Harpy. His elemental power was so far above the Harpy that if he chose he could lock down the entire area by tapping into his affinity and pushing down on every Harpy here using a combination of his air and lightning affinity, but instead he surrounded each of his blades in a bubble of air and sent them directly towards the Harpy.

Just before his blades were going to skewer the leader he made each blade explode in an explosion of mana and elemental magic. This was something new he found he could do while fighting the Harpy, the blades were made of mana and elemental power, although the skill kept them in a physical form, with a bit of effort Shaun had found that he could also unmake them, causing all of the power stored within them to act as a magical bomb which was both hard to avoid and defend against.

When he had first discovered this he had gained so many skill levels in the mirror blade skill that he cackled in glee at the discovery. Being inventive with skills was the best way to level them, and turning magical swords into magical bombs by unravelling part of the skill was definitely inventive.

The Harpy leader, not prepared for the sudden explosions, was sent crashing towards the ground by the explosions, parts of it had been vaporised by the explosions and other parts of it were frozen solid or on fire. Not letting up on his attack he shifted himself through the air and when he appeared he was standing directly under where it would land on the ground. Unable to right itself from the damage he had inflicted on it, Shaun launched himself upwards towards the Harpy and with a blow that impressed even him, used the opposing momentum of both himself and the Harpy to cut it in half with Death’s Kiss.

His momentum still took him further into the air as he felt the Harpy, now in two pieces, fall to the ground with his echo, ending the second leader of the dungeon. Without bothering to circle back down, he changed his course to now dispatch the remaining Harpy that were still around the platform.

One after the other he used his skills to kill them, with the death of their leader the weaving of their skill was falling apart and killing them was a simple task of attacking with blade and element, until there was nothing left except for himself and his remaining summons who flew around the platform letting out their own squarks of victory.

His eagles had done this after every fight they had been in recently, the higher his level in his summons skill got the more his summons showed a deeper personality and thirst for victory. He continued to let them fly around in their victory loop, announcing to the world that they had won. Shaun enjoyed watching them preen and squark like this, he felt their joy and pride and had he often joined them by sending his own feelings their way through the bond.

**You have defeated a (Harpy – Lvl 149). Bonus experience for killing an opponent above your level gained.**

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**You have defeated a (Apex Harpy – Lvl 160). Bonus experience for killing an opponent above your level gained.**

**Class upgrade available on [Advanced] Elemental Blade Slinger. Would you like to upgrade class? Note all experience is forfeit until class is upgraded.**

Quickly reviewing the notifications, he dismissed them and the class upgrade. He wished he could be able to loot the D grade monsters, purely for crafting materials. Working with D grade materials would be a sure way to boost his skills in his profession and make some high levelled equipment, but like with every other dungeon, until he claimed it, he would get nothing but experience he couldn’t actually use.

When the Eagles were finished he dismissed them and after a moments consideration decided he would rest later when he was closer to the area that held the remaining tribe of monsters. Killing the Harpy had taken a fraction of the time it had taken to kill the Arachne and his hope was that the next monsters would be equally quick to kill.

Without wasting any further time he sent himself soaring through the air towards where he knew the final monsters would be, excited that he was closing in on the completion of the dungeon.

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“What is it now?” These lasts few weeks had been nothing but trouble for Eric, with the event closing in on them the schools resources were being looked at more closely by Viv and every few days she would show up with demands that he would usually deny and send her away.

The relationship between the two of them had gone from strained to icy, especially since the first person to gain an affinity from one of Shaun’s natural treasures was a promising student, who, in their excitement, told everyone around them that they had bonded with the air element. The news travelled quickly and not hours later Viv showed up on his door and demanded to see the child.

“The rune crafters are refusing to craft spells into weapons for our soldiers unless payment is received up front. Complaints are coming in in waves and the impact this will have to us winning the event is huge. Why are they still denying their services to our soldiers?” This was a conversation they had had more times than he wanted to recount, it always ended the same way.

“They are at capacity already, crafting runes sun up to sun down for the school and all those here who are entering the event. If you want to cut the line pay them. They don’t belong to your army and are part of the school, if you want their services pay them like you would any crafter.” Why shouldn’t they be paid? It was a service provided, like crafting a sword or bow and should be treated the same way.

“They refuse to train our own crafters even though it would alleviate the pressure they are under! They cannot hoard their knowledge forever!” And now we are back to this argument.

“As we have gone over before, you can’t force them to part with their knowledge and skills just because you say so. It is their own department within this school, they choose who to accept into their classes, not you.” He had already spoken to Jo about this and they were in agreeance, they wouldn’t let in random crafters that Viv wanted to learn the craft of using runes, it would harm them now and in the future when it came to the schools prestige and reputation.

“And what about the Natural Treasures? We need our soldiers in their more than your students. At least until the event is over.” Again, another argument they had had before.

“You have full use from sundown to sunup, just as we agreed. Many of the staff and students here are planning to go into the event, why shouldn’t they have equal opportunity to succeed as your soldiers. I wont disadvantage those at the school.” He tried not to let his irritation show but he was having time holding it back. “Anything else you want to go over again?”

“I run this settlement…..”

“Shaun owns this settlement.”

“For now.”

Eric was well aware that when the year was up Viv would take full control, but he knew well enough that Shaun had more pull with The Empire, they owed him a great deal and he was going to get a reward, which Shaun had already passed on to Eric. When the time came Eric fully planned to have the school put fully in Eric’s hands, allowing it to be a separate entity within the settlement under his control, not Viv’s. It was something that he would push for before Shaun handed everything over. He expected that, with everything owed to Shaun, there would be no argument from Xavier. Viv would hate it, but she wouldn’t have much choice.

As Viv stormed out of the room he went back to looking at the updates from his faculty, it only took 5 minutes before he couldn’t stand sitting still any longer before he made to gather his team and head for a dungeon, growing his level and skills was still high on his list of things to do and at times like these, working his frustrations out by killing monsters was the best type of therapy.