Unchosen Champion

Coop continued his meticulous descent into the Coral Forest. Every flash of light that reflected off a wet surface drew his attention as he investigated each hint for another small treasure. He hoped to collect enough to start getting arrays on his residents’ equipment, but so far the jewels seemed to be far too rare. Of course, he was still only at the very beginning of the well; the good stuff would surely be deeper.

The steady clamor of the streaming waterfalls cascading down from the entrance slowly diminished as he explored further away. Eventually, the consistent sounds were replaced by intermittent thin streams of dripping seawater tapping away against the corals. Droplets still percolated down from the porous coral rock ceiling, splashing across the coral platforms, where they pooled into shallow puddles of crystal clear liquid, or continued over the edges and into the depths. The orchestra of droplets created the ambience of trekking through an alien forest after a heavy rain saturated the canopy.

While the entrance mostly sank directly into the bedrock, the cavernous hollow held a slightly northward and mostly westward angle. The momentum of the original meteor seed seemed to have directed the formation, presumably by sending the core sinking through the sediments as it chased the much larger meteor mountain that had landed even further away.

Coop primarily traversed the coral platforms laterally. His only vertical movement came when he dropped to the next platform. For every bit of depth, he went at least three times as far across. While more difficult challenges surely awaited him if he went deeper, along with greater rewards, he wanted to continue fighting the first stage monsters before he progressed any further. It made sense to him that he should complete Stage 1 before moving onto Stage 2.

There were two things he wanted to accomplish before he left. One was to scout the mana well, keeping an eye out for treasures and assessing its potential for power leveling his companions. The other was to determine how efficient the mana well would be for grinding experience for himself.

The factions, as narrow as their perspectives were, had been accurate in calling the settlement events rewarding. They had also espoused the virtue of fighting inside mana wells, so he had high hopes. He gave credit where credit was due and believed the factions weren’t totally blind to opportunities for their Chosen during the assimilation, even if a lot of their other advice had been disappointingly inept.

As much as his progress took him along the platforms, he could still see that the cavern went much further down. He was only scratching the surface. The fact that he had only found a single creature would have been disappointing, but he tempered his lofty expectations by reminding himself that the Coral Forest was a vast chasm filled to the brim with overgrown corals, and most likely, an assortment of awaiting monsters should he venture further.

A simple peek over the edges of any coral platform revealed how truly expansive the mana well had already become. If the core was still sinking, the Coral Forest would keep expanding. Monster density would be the primary factor that determined how much time Coop would spend in the environment and he strongly suspected he would have to go down before he was satisfied, but he’d try to be thorough on the way.

While his plan was to return to the surface before nightfall, there wasn’t any particular reason he needed to rush back other than preserving his routine. Time was holding back most of the major developments that he would have to participate in. Everything else could be handled by the residents of Ghost Reef. Coop felt comfortable sticking around inside the mana well until he could give his own comprehensive report to Shane’s party.

It took him a few minutes and a few coral platforms before he found the next One That Hunts. This specimen was slightly different from the last, having a different, much brighter coloration. Fire engine red bled across its carapace, fading to black as the color stretched toward the edges of its armor and down the sides all the way to the tip of its tail. Otherwise it was the same shrimp-fish-raptor hybrid creature as the last. Coop inspected its aura to make sure he wasn’t in for a surprise and prepared to start another fight.

[One That Hunts (Elite Level 102)]

[(Agility)]

[Of The Feast]

A new faction? The previous monster had been ‘Of The Hunger.’ Coop thought that was interesting, but otherwise nothing was different. Once he confirmed it was physically the same, despite its colors, and only a single level more advanced, Coop hopped to its platform. If it had a different main stat he might have been wary of a new set of attacks, perhaps with flames in mind with all the red, but he got the impression it was merely representing a different group of shrimp with its colors.

Coop didn’t need to go through the same song and dance, testing his opponent while it measured his own capabilities, so he quickly stepped into a brittle shield throw and sought to refine his burgeoning shrimp hunting tactics. The shrimp, on the other hand, waited patiently as it gauged the mysterious challenger, not sharing the knowledge gained by its brethren’s experience.

The shield exploded into shrapnel when the creature’s top right claw countered the projectile, and the other three claws similarly attacked the fragments, leaving it temporarily defenseless. Defenseless if ignoring its substantial passive physical defenses, anyway.

Coop attempted to take advantage of the creature's overcommitment to countering his ethereal shield fragments by mistjumping to one of the dissipating bits before it completely returned to mist. Mistjumping to the broken shield was the first variation to his newly established strategy that he would test. He was surprised by the level of precision his Ethereal title afforded him when he was able to target a specific fragment that flew to the shrimps exposed right flank.

The creature was an Agility focused speedster, though, and was able to react to Coop’s movement even if it lacked the ability to articulate its torso laterally. Luckily, Coop already had some experience sparring with someone even faster. Ledwidge may have only taken defensive actions, but he had been too fast to catch off guard with any of Coop’s techniques, so the shrimp’s reaction wasn’t an undue burden that fell outside the realm of expectations.

Coop’s teleport caused the shield fragment to bounce off his own forearm, and the shrimp did its best to spin and match Coop’s sudden appearance. Coop was already thrusting his freshly summoned war fork, wielding it like a farmer jabbing a haystack. The twin bladed prongs caught one of the spear-like claws and prevented the creature from regaining its defensive posture. It was a bit like holding an alligator’s jaw shut to prevent an even more powerful bite.

The claw was pinned against the creature’s carapace and Coop activated Legacy of the Mists before the other three claws recovered. A phantasm jumped out of the mist and slammed its own ethereal war fork underneath the pinned claw, between carapace and abdomen, where an armpit would be on a more humanoid opponent. The phantasm’s attack blasted through the shrimp like an explosive shock stick, crippling the creature by removing both claws on the exposed right side and demolishing the upper right side of its torso.

The phantasm had attacked rather arbitrarily, even though the attack itself was a perfectly executed leaping thrust, it didn’t seem to have aimed anywhere in particular, landing more or less where Coop had been concentrating his own attack. Coop mentally urged the phantasm to stab the shrimp in the head as he grunted and swept his own war fork across the monster. The weapon broke a forelimb with the outer edges of the blades and he tried pinning the opposite claws between the prongs before they could retaliate.

The phantasm yanked its weapon back and executed a quick thrust to the head of the shrimp even as the ghost exploded into mist, finishing the creature off when both prongs went clear through the wide fish-like head.

Coop watched as the mangled shrimp evaporated into mana smoke, in contrast to the previous non-Primal Construct opponents he had fought in the past. The smoke was whisked away into the depths of the mana well, following invisible currents that carried bioluminescent plankton and Coop assumed were thick with loose mana. The closed-loop system of the well reminded him of an instanced dungeon.

He exhaled into the billowing mana. The disintegration of the body confirmed the end of the fight, and it had been fast enough to be called a success, a step toward an efficient grind. The fact that Coop was able to mistjump to the ethereal shield fragments, after the shield was broken, was a small surprise that he hadn’t fully counted on working. The fact that it did actually work meant it would be the perfect opener against these opponents. The creatures were completely exposed immediately after countering his shield, so rushing in to take advantage at that point seemed ideal. Consolidating the opener with the follow-up would leave less chance for something to go wrong. He anticipated many shield throws in the future.

The benefit of using the war fork was still up in the air. He had intended to apply the weapon as a form of crowd control while he utilized Legacy of the Mists to deal all of the damage, but pinning one of four claws didn’t really accomplish more than if he just whacked the creature with any of his other weapons to keep it off balance. He’d give the war fork a few more tries before he gave a different weapon a shot.

Legacy of the Mists, on the other hand, had been a complete success, dealing massive magic damage even with a different, potentially less ideal weapon. If the phantasm had gone for the head in the first place, the fight would have been over in a single motion. The ghostly soldier had gone for the killing blow after its initial strike, and Coop wondered if he had influenced its decision to attack again.

In the past, he had tried directing Presence of Mind in different ways, either to pressure his opponents with the weight of his aura or to deceive them into falling for feinted attacks. None of the tactics had yielded particularly stellar results outside of what they accomplished with brute force, but Coop’s experience with those experiments gave him the inkling of another concept.

He might be able to direct the phantasms by properly exploiting Presence of Mind. Hopefully, all the aura practice he had been doing would pay off in some way.

Coop gave the arena a quick search, checking for more jewels, but there weren’t any for him to spot. Once he was satisfied with his sweep, regardless of a lack of treasure, he swapped his war fork for his opener shield set and continued to the next platform. The notion of discovering a new aspect of his skills put a little pep in his step as he rounded oversized tubular corals.

The next monster was facing the wrong direction when Coop approached its coral platform. The previous creatures had all been waiting for him as soon as he crested the edge of the adjacent platforms, but this one was leaving its back completely exposed to the direction that Coop had arrived from. He wondered if it was supremely confident in its carapace or if this particular individual was simply a lackadaisical sentry.

Either way, Coop would test its senses with a sneak attack. The shield he wielded was brittle, but he decided not to swap it for a solid version. In the event that he was detected early, he would simply transition to his ‘flak the claws’ strategy.

Coop nodded to himself and swapped his grip on his ethereal spear before he tossed it behind the creature. The spear arced toward the center of the platform and Coop timed his mistjump so that he would end up in the air, still behind the ignorant shrimp. His movements would be at least as silent as the mists he traveled with.

The mistjump shifted his vision to grayscale and pulled him through the black and white world. He prepared to immediately cast Legacy of the Mists before he touched the ground and he deliberately concentrated on directing the phantasm to decapitate the monster with Presence of Mind before it even knew Coop was there.

However, when Coop silently reappeared several feet above the ground, he felt a powerful click wash over him that caused goosebumps to appear on his arms. It was the same sound that the first shrimp had used to avoid being disoriented by his Fog of War, and Coop knew he had been detected. Were the shrimps sensitive to fluctuations in the thick mana substrate of the mana well?

Coop’s phantasm appeared at his side, leaping through its own mists with a rectangular shield and long spear, looking like a ghostly Roman legionnaire. The phantasm didn’t get a chance to go for the kill shot. The shrimp’s tail smashed down first. Before Coop had even touched the ground himself, he was buffeted by a blast of wind that reversed his momentum and sent him tumbling backwards, thanks to his complete lack of footing.

The phantasm exploded into mists as it was broken by the unexpected gust of wind, mid-thrust. The wisps of its presence blew past Coop as he stopped himself and sat up from his back.

The One That Hunts had already turned around to face him, and with another slam of its tail, shot forward, attacking his vulnerable position with all four claws raised in preparation of devastating attacks. Coop only had his brittle shield, and he wasn’t in position to arrest the charge with his spear, so he scrambled to reposition.

As he moved, Coop cast Legacy again, once again applying Presence of Mind in an effort to direct the phantasm into seeking a killing blow by attacking the creature’s head. Once the shrimp had begun its charge, it moved so quickly, Coop wouldn’t be able to get out of the way, even if he had started on his feet, so he braced himself to awkwardly catch the shrimp with his own spear from his knees. He was assuming the shrimp would survive the insubstantial phantasm and attempt to grapple with him as soon as it got in range, but it would have to smash through his brittle shield first. Coop would toss his shield forward in an effort to bait the claws into attacking the shards before it reached him, then counter attack.

The phantasm appeared directly in front of the shrimp, where Coop had thought he would toss his shield. All the rest of his summoned phantasms had leapt from his side, mirroring his dominant hand whenever he summoned them. The spear and shield wielding ghost stood in the trajectory of the charge, rather than leaping forward, like a disciplined ancient soldier waiting to receive an impending cavalry charge.

Coop didn’t put any faith in the phantasm, since the ethereal phantasms had never shown themselves to be anything but incorporeal mists that dealt magical damage, and gripped his spear with a tight grip, but the sound of the claws colliding with the ghost’s shield was undeniably solid, like strong chitin colliding with a tempered plate of steel.

The phantasm thrust its long spear forward, meeting the grappling rush of the creature with its own powerful strike, and the shrimp exploded, showering bits of carapace, forelimbs, and claws past the sides of the large ghostly shield that had completely blocked the preliminary attacks. Coop was engulfed in the light of a level up while his tossed shield crashed onto the ground uselessly, as Coop’s plan was superseded by the phantasm.

When the ghost disappeared, Coop was kneeling in the only spot of coral within several feet that was free of debris, as if he had been hidden behind a blast shield. As everything disappeared, transforming into mana smoke and drifting away, Coop nodded to himself, admiring the aftermath, as the revelations around the phantasms kept coming.

He checked his notifications to confirm that another level had come so quickly.

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

While it was possible he had already been close to another level from kill experience after getting his last few from quest completions, he still suspected that the mana well was more than a little responsible. He’d wait for another level before he projected too much hope on the experience gains from the Stage 1 monsters.

But, Coop was still trying to wrap his head around just how powerful his phantasms were. Forget about a simple diversification of his damage types; these things had way more potential than some additional firepower.

The phantasms barely had any duration, lasting for only a few seconds at the most, and they appeared to be physically weak. The fact that a relatively strong gust of concentrated wind was enough to disperse one of his phantasms back into mist moments before just provided further evidence for Coop’s understanding. They dealt weapon damage based on Intelligence, had weapon proficiency based on Mind, speed based on Agility, and substance based on Acumen. He had easily accepted their fragility was due to his low Acumen, but after watching a phantasm use its shield to successfully block the extraordinary claw attacks of the One That Hunts, he was having to reevaluate.

The phantasms might be weak, but the weapons were not, as they seemed to be directly based on the power of his default Retribution skill, as they borrowed durability directly from his own weapons. The phantasms themselves were the upgrade provided by the Legacy skill and they were bringing other benefits to the table which were scaled on their own, independently from the base weapon.

He was previously considering the phantasms as a pure manifestation of his weapons, and their appearance was more of an aesthetic feature caused by his own subconscious imagination, a bit like the appearance of his armor, but now he was thinking that the ghost that wielded the weapon was much more important. The weapon only determined what the phantasm wielded, but the ghosts had their own styles, abilities, and scaling. If they had simply been using an exact magical copy of his current weapons, the last phantasm’s shield would have been brittle and wouldn’t have withstood the shrimp’s charge.

Then there was the interaction with Presence of Mind. Coop was sure he had some level of control now, or at least the ability to communicate what his intent had been when he activated Legacy of the Mists. Before, he was simply activating the skill. The phantasm would leap from the mists, on the side that he was wielding the weapon that he applied the skill to, and it would attack. He was concentrating on the shrimp’s charge when he summoned the last phantasm, and it had delivered on Coop’s intention to have the charging monster collide with the shield even if he was planning on doing it himself.

The previous phantasm attacks had been incredibly powerful and executed with perfect technique, but they didn’t really appear to be targeting any specific weak points like an actual expert would. Instead, they were following his ambiguous intent while he focused on his own actions. His first tests even had them attacking nothing. But, when Coop’s intent was for a specific place to be attacked, they complied. The restriction was because Coop's basic command when he activated the skill was simple: ‘Attack.’ After all, that’s all he wanted out of the skill, magical attacks, but as usual his imagination was too limited.

The fact that he tried to obstruct the shrimp’s charge had been at the forefront of his mind when he summoned the last phantasm, and it had done just that, using the weapons with a proficiency that Coop could still learn from, despite being his most proficient set. There were parallels to how he had discovered his ability to mistjump through a desperate desire to catch the Primal Kites. In this case, his desire had been to counter the shrimp’s charge.

The phantasm had also appeared directly in front of him rather than from his side. Being able to summon the phantasms from other angles could also open up even more combat possibilities. Coop spent a lot of energy in combat trying to catch his opponents off guard, sliding into their flanks, or mistjumping into blindspots. Imagining the potential of coordinating his attacks with phantasms leaping out of nothingness from any direction to further complicate standing toe to toe with him was enough to get Coop riled up. To start with, instead of summoning a phantasm to ’attack,’ he needed to be far more descriptive: ‘attack from the left and aim for the head.’ He would add more complications as he gained experience.

He was beginning to think that the phantasms should be considered a manifestation of his Haunted title, where limitless expertise had a chance to be tapped into thanks to his Revenant abilities. It was a lot less subtle than subconscious, instinctual, technical approval, but that knowledge must have been coming from somewhere. It wasn’t like Coop was especially intuitive when it came to martial techniques, so he didn’t think he was personally the source.

Coop was frequently impressed by the versatility of his class, but in this case he had to give credit to his mana affinity for allowing him to tap into a small part of the proficiencies accumulated across the eras of humanity.