Arcane Journey

Chapter 2 My Situation

Mantor Dris is a huge natural cavern in the Underdark, the result of eons of tireless water carving.

The water here is alive.

In this underground trading market shrouded in strange silence, the only sound is the sound of running water.

Even if you close your eyes, you can feel the waterfall running deep in the cave, flying down from the high dome, splashing down on the rock wall of the cave, and the gurgling stream passing through the cave, forming a waterfall at every turn. Little bubbling pond.

For Manto de Reis is not a bustling bazaar, but a shadowy place of secret deals and shrewd negotiations.

It wasn't crowded here, judging from the soft whispers and the occasional low footsteps on the icy road, there were no more than 200 people in the entire cave.

Taking advantage of the bargaining time between the drow wizard and the human businessman, Brian, the war mage prisoner who was temporarily freed, walked out of the tent, stood at the door with a complicated expression, and looked at the surrounding environment.

Although the place is quiet, it is full of light. Because the walls are inlaid with colorful crystals and gemstones, a few dim candlesticks are enough to illuminate the entire cave.

Brilliant stone buildings abound in this quiet subterranean trading bazaar.

The walls surrounding the fountains are studded with precious stones in bizarre patterns, the crystal bridges spanning the streams are natural, and even the sidewalks are paved with polished jewels.

At this time, he happened to be stepping on a path paved with sapphires shining with starlight.

Even if he is used to the gorgeous lights of the bustling cities in the real world, now that he walks on such wealth again, he will inevitably feel dazzled.

He looked at the familiar scenery that seemed to have passed away, sniffed the long-lost, thick, and mushroom-filled air, and sighed with emotion, unconsciously recalling his own experience as a visitor from another world. life.

As a game player, he was inexplicably reborn into the game world. Even with a slight sense of loss hidden deep in his heart, he still thinks this is something to be happy about.

Who would have thought that when he adjusted his mentality and was about to use the knowledge he had acquired in his previous life and the ability of foresight to realize his lofty ambitions, he discovered that the place where he was reborn was actually a little girl who was being targeted by an ancient evil and was always facing destruction. world.

There is no doubt that this is not the world of Toril and Faerun he is familiar with at all.

This is nothing, and what makes him speechless is that this small world, which is extremely far away from the main world, is still a genuine low-magic world, and magic civilization is as rare as a few wisps of smoke remaining in the air.

The shackles of the rules and the limitation of strength undoubtedly completely dispelled his idea of ​​trying to quickly improve his own strength and then run away.

In order to save his life, he had to try his best to delay the time for the evil to perish in the world.

In this way, you can have more time to think about how to leave.

Fortunately, this time, the goddess of luck took good care of him, and everything went smoothly as he had imagined.

With his unremitting efforts, not only with the help of the will of the small world plane, he successfully delayed the speed of the world's demise.

He also met a psion from the elves. Together, the two got the coordinates to the main material world through a wizard tower left by the remnants of the Arcane Empire, and went there immediately to find a way to save the world.

After all, as a veteran game player, Brian also has lofty ideals and ambitions.

After he completed his goal of conquering the world, he already regarded this small world rich in material and abundant resources as the origin of his arcane magic development. Naturally, it was impossible to just sit and watch it being destroyed by the ancient evil.

So under the leadership of the psion who mastered the power of the astral brigade, he embarked on the astral passage to the continent of Faerun, the world of Toril, without hesitation.

The star realm belongs to a subspace and spiritual world that is almost stagnant in the multiverse, and even the legendary powerhouses dare not set foot on it easily.

Naturally, this trip was enough to be called thrilling for Brian.

They've encountered dreadnought-looking astral leviathans, escaped astral hunters who feed on the flesh of astral travelers, and even seen astral dragons streak across the shadows of the silver void. .

In this dangerous journey, accidents still happened.

Brian and his accompanying psion encountered a group of githyanki known as 'Star Pirates', and the two were separated.

Without the guidance of a psion, relying on the blessing characteristic of Tianjie Mountain, he managed to attract the attention of an Asmer paladin who called himself 'Astral Apostle' and brought him to the Crosswind Fortress in the Iserin Nebula.

After tossing and turning all the way, he was teleported to the Underdark by an Aasimar wizard with extremely unreliable teleportation spells.

The result can be imagined.

The unreliable teleportation spell made him fall into a caravan heading to the Underdark to trade slaves, and was captured alive by a strong man who was at least two levels higher than him.
Eventually it became what it is now.

Regarding his unknown fate, Brian has no choice but to make bold assumptions and try carefully. After all, there is a gap in strength.

As it is now, the drow wizard who bought him is not worried about him running away at all.

Because this is the most mysterious Manto Dris in the Underdark, a huge cave hidden three kilometers below the surface, protected by heavy magic, stronger than a wizard's tower.

Some powerful beings can't find the location of this market through magic. The solid rock surrounding the cave emits strange rays unique to the Underdark, and no magic can penetrate it.

These spells are either weakened by scattering, or reflected to the caster intact, and even life-threatening.

Therefore, any attempt to investigate the mysterious Manto Dris with magic is doomed to failure or tragedy, let alone an escaped captive.

Therefore, Brian is very aware of his situation, and now he can only choose to endure the humiliation, wait until he leaves this mysterious trading market, and then find an opportunity to find a way to escape.

Thinking of this, with a thought, he called up his own system panel:
Name: Brian
Race: Half-elf (Athas elven blood)
属性：体质13、力量15、敏捷17、智力19、感知16、魅力15
Occupation: Battlemage 6/Part-time Psion 1

Racial Traits: Low-light vision, elven blood, mask of the wild, keen senses, psionic talent

Battle Mage professional characteristics: armor-piercing mage, spell sharpening, sharpening enhancement, spell extension

Psionic Warlock Class Features: Mental Resistance, Psionic Meditation

Psionic Domain (Department of Mind Creation): Psions who specialize in mind creation are called: Shapers.

Instincts involve drawing ectoplasm or other matter from the astral plane to create semi-solid or solid objects, which can be weapons, armor, or astral constructs to fight at the Shaper's beck and call.

Creation department talents: ectoplasmic barrier, ectoplasmic entanglement

Common Feats: Lightning Reflexes, Alertness, Mobility, Combat Casting

Personal expertise: magical talent, photographic memory, iron will

Metamagic Feat: Empower Spell

Battlemage Spells: (7/7/6/4)

Zero Ring Tricks: Acid Blast, Strike the Undead, Freeze Ray

First Ring Spells: Lesser Acid Ball, Lesser Cold Ball, Lesser Fire Ball, Lesser Electroshock Ball, Lesser Sonic Ball, Arcane Missile

Second-ring spells: Flame Explosion, Ice Blade, Ma Youfu's Acid Arrow, Ring of Electric Shock, Whirling Flying Blade

Three-ring spells: Fireball, Wind, Lightning Bolt, Ice Storm
Psion powers (power points): 8 points

Level [-] powers: astral construct, psionic lesser creation, astral traveler, mind stab, mind blank

…………

This is his overall strength in a small world where strength is severely limited.

Although it is not worth mentioning here, in the low-magic world, there is a ceiling of combat power.

The most important thing is that although the overall strength of this small world is low, there are many things that make him worthy of praise, such as his elven blood.

In the vast multiverse, Toril is not the only world.

In the remote world of Atas, the doomsday-like harsh living conditions make most of the creatures and races living there possess the ability to display psychic powers.

And his elven blood is the elven survivors from the world of Atas.

Although the psychic talents of these elven survivors from the Atas world have been completely lost with the passage of time due to the different living environments.

But with the help of a psion, Brian finally managed to awaken the original psionic talent in his body, and part-time took the psionic profession of psion.

Still, Brian was very aware of his situation.

This seemingly luxurious attribute panel is actually not very helpful to him now. After all, the level of the two professions is too low, and it is not enough for him to escape.

His current strength belongs to the second-order extraordinary, and the drow wizard who bought him, Brian guessed, is at least the existence of the fourth-order model.

The gap between the two levels makes it easy for the other party to handle themselves.

What's more, the other party is still a wizard.

In the world of high demons, the most difficult thing to deal with is the caster.

Therefore, without being fully prepared, he really didn't dare to try to resist.

Since he couldn't escape by virtue of his strength, Brian had to use his other advantage.

That is the foresight ability that he, as a time traveler, has mastered.

So, he withdrew his confused thoughts and began to seriously analyze his situation.

From the conversation between the drow witch and the businessman, he learned that the main purpose of the other party buying him was to act as a deadly hunter.

This reminded him of the drow tradition: blood sacrifice.

A Blood Ritual is a unique drow ritual.

In this ritual, a young drow hunts and kills an intelligent or dangerous creature, preferably from the light places on the surface, and a surprise attack on the surface, for example, is one way of accomplishing this task.

However, such hunts are often carried out in tunnels in the wilds of the Underdark, provided suitable captives are available.

Thinking of the drow wizards choosing the deadly hunter so carefully, Brian suddenly understood that he was the right prisoner.

The reason why the drow wizard chose him was probably because he wanted to use the blood sacrifice ceremony and his hand to eliminate a drow elf who participated in this ceremony.

There is no doubt that this drow elf is very likely to be a talented junior.

After all, introversion is the family tradition of this group of drow who believe in the spider god queen.

Brian, who wanted to understand the reason, knew that his life should be safe for the time being.

Then he began to guess which city in the Underdark the drow wizard belonged to.

He first ruled out Menzoberranzan, the most famous dark city of the drow in the underground world of the Northern Alliance.

Because during their conversation, he learned another piece of news.

The drow wizards are very familiar with the surface kingdom of Cormyr, which means that their city is likely to be located within the scope of the underground world of the Kingdom of Cormyr.

Bryan quickly recalled the underground cities distributed in the Kingdom of Cormyr, the Valley, and the Kosoman region.

Soon, he thought of three suspects, which were Sichendalene City, Shamus City, and Ancient Orens City.

The city of Sichendalene is the closest to the Kingdom of Cormyr, and he still remembers that the Forest of Kings within the kingdom hides a passage leading to the surface.

Judging from this time period, it should not have been discovered yet.

The city of Sichendalene was built on the ruins of the Kuu Tao fishmen, and the dense underground rivers kept their buildings in the style of fish, which is similar to Venice in the real world.

The food sources of the drow are mainly algae and fish.

However, Brian had carefully observed the drow wizard, and found that whether it was her dressing style or the smell around her, it was unlikely to be a drow elf from the city of Schindarin.

As for Shammas City, it is even more impossible.

Because this is a city ruled by male wizards, male drow wizards have won a numerical advantage through successive generations of high birth rates, gradually reducing the number and power of drow mistresses, and finally gained absolute control.

The drow priestesses of the Spider Queen played only a minor role, which is undoubtedly very rare in the drow underground cities.

The city of Shammas was also jokingly said by players: male wizards must have defeated women and succeeded in gaining positions through the study of chromosomes.

A city of drow defeated by chromosomes.

Brian once wondered whether a wizard had invented a magical potion.

After all, if you sow beans, you will reap beans, and if you sow melons, you will reap melons. The right to decide whether to have a boy or a girl really lies with men, not women.

It was precisely because of this special situation that the male wizards in Shammas City prohibited any female drow from learning magic. Naturally, it was impossible for such a powerful female drow wizard to appear.

In this case, the drow wizard is likely to come from the ancient city of Orens near the Sunset Mountains, Brian thought.

If so, his chances of successfully escaping have at least been halved.

Ancient Orens City is the oldest city of the drow elves, dating back to 1 years ago when the original drow civilization just emerged.

However, these are not important to Brian.

Because if there is no accident, the city is likely to be completely destroyed one day in the future.

Brian had witnessed the destruction of the ancient city of Orens through various channels and information.

The real trigger was the god that the drow elves believed in—Rose, the spider queen. She tried to upgrade from a medium divine power to a strong divine power, which led to a short slumber.

During the time when the Spider God Queen was asleep, all the drow priestesses in the Underdark region lost the ability to cast divine spells, and most of the priestesses who were not mentally prepared fell into panic.

As a result, it is conceivable that countless oppressed male drows resisted one after another, wanting to occupy the upper position no matter in their physical posture or their sitting posture in terms of power.

Among them, the worst is the ancient Orens city.

This ancient city was used by a crazy drow wizard to pull many incarnations of demon kings from the bottomless abyss to the material plane through some kind of evil sacrificial ceremony, to brush the drow elf copy of the ancient city of Orens.

Among the demon monarchs that Brian is familiar with at least include: Otis, Lord of Immortality, Yenoghu, King of Gnolls, Grazter, Lord of Darkness, Zugmoi, Queen of Fungus Demon, King of Ooze Monster, Phantom Demon King , the King of Horned Demons, etc., and there are even many others whose names he can't even name.

After all, the Kingdom of God of the Spider God Queen is located in the bottomless abyss. If she is really promoted to a powerful divine power, her demonic neighbor will be the first to be unlucky.

The improvement of strength, followed by the territorial expansion that absolutely matches one's own strength.

Judging from the current situation, there should still be a few years before the city of Ancient Orens is used as a dungeon by the incarnations of demon lords.

The reason why Brian hoped for the city of Ancient Orens was mainly because he was most familiar with the drow elves in this city, and the difficulty of escaping should be the least difficult.

While he was thinking about his escape plan, he recalled the lost ruins of the floating city in the Underdark and the specific location of the Netherese remnant 'Iolum' who claimed to have a challenge level of 68.

Because the ruins of the floating city have not been discovered at this time, he can take this opportunity to take a Nether scroll inside ahead of time-this is a key item for the advanced arcanist career he planned.

If you are lucky enough to find Iolum's Echo Chamber, you can just use your predictive ability to confirm an immature guess to him.

Of course, the premise of all this is to get rid of his captive status first.

At this time, he could only pray in his heart that the destination he was going to was the ancient Orens city of the drow elves.

Otherwise, after leaving Manto Driss, he could only bite the bullet and risk his life to escape from a fourth-tier wizard.

(End of this chapter)