Chapter 663: Nevermore: Impatience & A Witch's Evolution

Floors 1 to 5 had pretty clear goals in mind: determine the dungeon divers' ability to adapt to different environments and handle different enemy types. It also included a good deal of exploration, with a major part of each floor being about finding the exit.

Floors 6 to 10, on the other hand, had none of this. There was no difficult environment to adapt to, no mystery about where one had to go, and no doubts about the objective. These five floors were all about one thing and one thing only: combat. At least on the surface.

Jake and the four others had appeared within the entrance area to a giant colosseum. Giant, in this case, was honestly not enough to describe the sheer size of the place, as it looked more like an entire city constructed in a donut shape with a large open area in the middle. Entering the colosseum, their party was met by a guide who introduced them to the place and, along with the system message about the floor, told them all they had to know.

In order to move on to the next floor, they simply had to win ten battles and thus advance to the next rank. Contrary to earlier floors, floors 6 through 10 were connected, and all shared the same arena theme. In fact, the guide would be the same throughout all these floors as they moved on to larger arenas and colosseums every time they climbed a floor.

This setup did make earning bonus points harder as there weren't as many opportunities for achievements and bonus objectives. On floor six, the bonus objective required them to collect an adequate amount of in-depth information on at least five of their opponents, which was another aspect these floors had that the others didn't: the opportunity to prepare.

It was possible to research your foes before entering the arena with them. They could discover facts about these opponents and their abilities, and as they decided to do the bonus objective on the sixth floor, they got a good idea of the scope. It was so in-depth that they even learned one of their opponents - a giant Kraken-like land monster - had an existing injury caused by a curse that they would be able to exploit. One of the battles was also against a party of five like their own. There the Sword Saint ended up learning two of the party members used to be in a relationship. Without the girl knowing, the guy cheated with the other girl in the party and broke it off, so if they revealed this to them before the fight, it would likely make them fight worse during the actual bout as they were pissed at each other due to relationship drama.

So... yeah. That was a thing. Anyway, Jake and the others didn't really need any of this information and only gathered it for the bonus objective. The floor was also made more annoying by the fact that one could only fight in the arena once a day, and before winning a fight, Jake and the others would have no idea who their next opponent was and who to collect information on. All this resulted in it taking them a bit over a month to do the floor as they had to wait for information brokers and stalk people. All in all, it wasn't a good time. Especially not when they didn't need what they learned at all, as every single fight on the sixth floor was utterly one-sided.

The only interesting thing was the achievements. On the sixth floor, they would get a bonus of between 1 and 6 Nevermore Points every fight based on how much the audience liked it, and from what they learned, this would be the same on floors seven, eight, nine, and ten. This meant one could double the reward for passing every floor just by being entertaining.

Jake and co ended up earning 45 points total for audience satisfaction, which was still pretty good. It turned out that a lot of people loved overpowered people doing overpowered stuff to utterly dominate their foes.

Floors seven, eight, nine, and ten were just more of the same, with the arenas getting bigger, the audience growing, and more points on the line. Floor seven had the same bonus objective of collecting information as floor six, but this time they didn't bother to do the bonus objective but just did their fights as fast as they could, meaning they completed their ten fights and, thus, the seventh floor in only ten days. Potential bonus points per battle had gone from 6 to 7, with Jake and the others doing even better than the sixth floor.

They also learned that there was an achievement that gave the exact same points as the bonus objective for fighting without gathering any information and another for completing the floor in ten days, meaning they had lost points by doing the information gathering on the sixth floor. So, yeah, they weren't gonna do that again.

On floor eight, they decided to test a bit and did the fights solo rather than as a group. No fight so far had been harder than the Monarch of the Skies, so they all easily swept through the battles one by one, completing this floor in only ten days too. They got 78/80 points for audience satisfaction, with the Fallen King and Dina being the only ones to lose points during their solo fights.

The two were - naturally so - bullied for this as they moved on to the ninth floor. Mostly the same as before, with them once more doing the fights solo for extra entertainment value. The only fight of interest here from Jake's point of view was when he faced a party that had pretty interesting synergy and used mixes of water, lightning, and earth magic to lock down and kill him. Not because Jake was in any real danger but because it was his first time trying an instantly-summoned lightning bath.

It was only when they reached the tenth floor that things changed a bit again. This was the final colosseum, and once more, they had ten battles to finish. However, once they had done the tenth battle, they unlocked the option to do a final event round, the same as on the fifth floor. This final battle would be against the current "champions" of the arena and consisted of a full party of humanoids.

Considering the levels of their opponents had increased, they decided to not send anyone solo to take on this final challenge. Not because they doubted that any single one of them could solo this final fight, but because chances are it would take a while, and nobody wanted to wait around before moving on to later floors. Hence why all five of them entered the arena and utterly demolished the poor champions before they all moved on.

The constant one-day waits between fights had annoyed the hell out of Jake. Sylphie and the King also weren't happy. Dina and the Sword Saint took it in strides as the Sword Saint enjoyed taking his time working on his profession by painting in between fights, and Jake learned that Dina had a special spatial storage with an entire garden within that she took her time tending to during their waits.

Jake also got some alchemy in, but that still left Sylphie and the Fallen King. Neither had professions, so all they could do was meditate or work on skills if they wanted to stay productive. Sylphie especially found this downtime difficult, as at least the King had lived for long enough for the wait to not feel that bad, while Sylphie was used to constantly having something to do. Ultimately, she ended up sleeping most of the time while digesting the natural treasures she had eaten.

On the topic of his special puzzle cube that he had gotten as a gift at the Chosen ceremony, he held off on playing with that as he feared he would find it too entertaining. Jake felt confident later floors would have even more downtime or quiet periods considering they had fifty entire years, so he would show patience and play with it when the time was right.

After floor ten was complete, they moved on to their second city layer and had, points-wise, gotten quite the increase.

Nevermore Points: 1512

They had done far more achievements than on the prior floors, as the only true judgment here was how well one fought. There were far fewer hidden points to be found, which was also reflected when they reached the Leaderboards on this floor and compared their score with the current record.

Current Nevermore Points Record (Floor 1-10): 1650

While they had been 88 behind on floor five, they were now only 138 behind, which means they only lost 50 additional compared to the top team. As for how well they did in comparison to the average party... well, the gap had only widened.

Average Nevermore Points (Floor 1-10): 706

As for this second city layer, well, it was even less populated than the first one by quite a margin. There was simply no reason to stay there, so they quickly moved on and went to floor eleven and onwards.

By now, Jake and company only had one priority: to reach the harder floors as fast as possible. And with that mentality, they truly picked up speed and blazed through floor after floor.

"Is it heretical to want to rip a Chosen apart?" Miranda asked Lillian as they talked within a large tent set up not far outside of the Fort.

"Probably," Lillian shrugged. "But I would assume it can be forgiven considering the circumstances he put you in."

"Yeah, let's go with that," Miranda smiled. Looking at the map on the table in front of her, she felt pretty damn stressed. After returning to Earth, things had been much more hectic than she would have liked, but honestly, not more than she expected.

One hundred and twenty million slaves. That was what she had to deal with, but at least she had been helped along by one thing: her C-grade evolution. That's right, after returning from the Chosen ceremony, Miranda had finally chosen to evolve, and damn was she glad she had waited because she had a strong feeling her patience had paid off.

Her profession at least seemed to indicate this:

Court Witch of the Primordial's Chosen - It is said that behind every influential leader is a court wizard offering advice - or in your case, a court witch. As the foremost confidant of Jake Thayne, the Chosen of the Malefic Viper and Harbinger of Primeval Origins, you have taken upon yourself the task of operating as his liaison and right hand. Be it managing his territory, exerting his will upon the world, or simply interpreting and acting out his intent, you will find yourself well-equipped through your diverse set of skills. As your Records blend together with the Chosen and you continue to walk your Path, so shall success follow as you bathe in the shadow of greatness. Be warned that should you lose the confidence of the Primordial's Chosen, you will not escape unscathed. Stat Bonuses per level: +100 Willpower, +100 Free Points.

This profession was interesting and didn't feel like a direct upgrade to the Mistress of Haven profession she had in D-grade. It still had many of the same aspects and was still inherently tied to Jake, but it also mixed in more aspects of who Miranda herself was. Just the fact that it was called Court Witch meant it was truly based on her and felt more personal. It had also gone beyond simply being about managing cities and territory, with that restriction of requiring her to defend the city of Haven gone. Something she was quite relieved about, as the entire Ell'Hakan situation had put her on edge, and it was honestly a miracle - or perhaps the plan of the enemy Chosen - that the city had remained under her control.

Now, after her evolution, she was only required to keep Jake confident in her. Something she had no idea how to do and, for some reason, barely felt she even had to. He cared for so little of what she did as long as she acted within his moral compass and didn't do things to piss him off... heck, she had a feeling she could decide to dedicate the entire budget of the World Council to constructing a base on the moon, and all he would do was shrug and say "cool," while maybe visiting for fun.

One interesting note about this profession was also how it referred to Jake. It put the fact he was the Chosen of the Malefic Viper and that he was a "Harbinger of Primeval Origins" side by side. That the system chose to do this truly hammered home how impactful his feat of creating the True Royal had been, and the fact that everyone knew it now made the sheer level of Records matter so much more. This detail for the description was one of the reasons she felt confident that evolving after the ceremony counted, as she doubted she would have gotten a profession offering 200 stats per level - only 40 below the theoretical maximum - without it.

As for her class, well, she wouldn't complain about that one either.

Verdant Witch Sister - The Verdant Lagoon lies waiting, ready to listen to your beck and call, ready to consume any who dare stand in your way. Recognized as part of the coven's sisterhood, the Verdant Witches truly view you as one of their own, and your connection to the Verdant Lagoon is more powerful than ever, allowing you to pull on powers from the ethereal domain. As a Verdant Witch, you are a spellcaster focusing on magic rituals and intricate spells, making preparation your key to victory. All who dare intrude upon your domain should tread carefully lest they find themselves swallowed by the Lagoon. Beware that should you lose the trust of the Verdant Witches and be cut off from the Verdant Lagoon, the consequences will be highly unpredictable and potentially fatal. However, if you succeed in your Path, you shall one day eternally claim a part of the Lagoon as your very own. Stat Bonuses per level: +60 Will, +55 Wis, +45 Int, +30 Vit, +20 Per, +50 Free Points.

This class was also far better than she had in any way expected. 260 stats per level was considered really good, even if it wasn't absolutely top-tier.

Miranda didn't have the best profession or class in F-grade, she had average or maybe slightly above average in E-grade, good ones in D-grade, and now pretty excellent ones in C-grade. She knew that compared to someone like Jake, she still fell behind, but with every step, she was slightly closing the gap. One could get far, far more stats in C-grade than all the grades before it combined, even more so in B-grade, A-grade, and S-grade. It was possible to close the gap, with earlier disadvantages - and advantages - in lower grades mattering less and less the further one went.

When it came to the class itself, this one naturally came due to her connection with the Verdant Witches. The fact that they had included her in important meetings, asked for her advice on how to "keep Jake happy" and treated her like more than just a D-grade had led to this being offered. It indicated that she was moving at least a little closer to being considered an equal of the Godqueens. She still had a far way to go, but at least it was something.

As for what the class gave her, it was a bit more complicated. During her time with the witches, Miranda had learned that the Verdant Lagoon was a bit more than simply their divine realm. True, it was also their divine realm, and they had even created it, but the place had grown to resemble something greater. A conceptual existence, almost, that one could call upon. Maybe it was because they were witches, but even if they were "only" Godqueens, they were considered borderline invincible if one dared intrude upon their realm. A verdant witch like Miranda also pulled on the Verdant Lagoon and its mystical powers, allowing her to display feats above what she should actually be capable of, and if she became a god, a part of the Lagoon would come to be within her own divine realm, independent yet linked to the same concept as the Sisters of the Verdant Lagoon.

All this is to say that her class was damn good, and Miranda was already working on securing Earth better by making use of it.

Anyway, her evolution was done partly because it was time after the ceremony and partly because she would need it to deal with what was to come. The slaves had not begun arriving yet not only due to Miranda and Lillian stopping it, but also because it took the many factions time to set everything up.

As for why Miranda had stopped it... quite a few reasons. First of all, getting accommodations for over a hundred million people was difficult, especially when one factored in that a lot of them would be lower grades that still needed food and whatnot. Considering they didn't want to treat them badly either, they also needed the housing to be proper.

Then there was convincing the World Council that having them come was fine. Arthur had been receptive so far, but convincing him that bringing over a hundred million slaves wasn't some invasion-level event wasn't easy. She needed him on board to not cause widespread panic.

Oh yeah, and they would also get representatives from the United Tribes coming. They were guests and they would have to provide wholly different kinds of accommodations for them.

Did Miranda mention the issues popping up from the Fallen King effectively abandoning his domain and the Sky Whale being busy dealing with that?

And the growing fanaticism spread by Felix after his return?

Miranda kept staring down at the map of the entire camp they were constructing to receive all the slaves as Lillian pointed something out.

"I heard that quite a few races don't get along together, so would it be an idea to not mix the beastkin, humans, elves, and whatnot? Build natural dividers?"

"Oh... oh yeah, that too," Miranda nodded. "Lillian, why did I agree to this job again?"

"Because you are ambitious and, even if you don't want to admit it, greedy for power and influence, and you recognize that riding Lord Thayne's coattails is beneficial to achieving these goals?"

"Right, right," Miranda nodded. "Silly me."