City of Fallen Souls: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 3) by Jez Cajiao (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

in pleasure at the minty fresh taste. It felt like downing a glass of gritty spearmint somehow, and the feeling of my mana regenerating and refilling made me relax. It was a weird sensation, the lower my mana got; like being hungry, but not. I shrugged, dismissing it as unimportant, as Oracle started work on the next person.

We rested for a few minutes, enough for our mana to refill a little and for Arrin to heal Miren and one of the prisoners, while Oracle and I did the other two.

“Jax!” Yen called from the stairwell, jumping back as a glowing golden yellow orb flew down at speed. It slammed to a stop, spinning around and trying to leave, before Bane’s thrown dagger hit it. It burst with a hiss, the glowing orb dissipating, as Grizz started to swear sulfurously.

“What?” I asked, seeing the looks he exchanged with Yen.

“That spell; the Skyking knows who and what we are now,” Yen said angrily. “It’s ‘Percival’s Personal Examination,’ a disgusting spell that shows the caster anything it sees. It pierces through almost all invisibility spells and it’s a bastard to counter. Its use is punishable by death in most places.”

“Looked like a useful spell to me; what’s wrong with it?” I asked, confused. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather it didn’t know we were here, but with all the noise we’ve made, that was never really an option.”

“It’s not a popular spell amongst the ladies, Jax,” Grizz said delicately. “Percival designed it to mimic a popular celebratory lantern for the ‘Feast of Souls’, specifically a candle in a ball of paper that floats up into the air, carrying people’s thoughts and prayers for those they’ve lost.”

“Right…?” I asked before Yen cut in.

“Except that Percival was a fucking pervert and used it to spy in windows and changing rooms. He designed it so people would think it was a ‘Soul-Lamp’ and ignore it, while he could get his rocks off by watching!”

“Sneaky fucker!” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “He really created a voyeur spell?”

“Yeah,” Yen said sourly, “and he taught it to all his noble friends. For a series of years, nobody was safe. Variants on the original made it almost impossible to know if there was one in your bedroom or not, until someone was caught using it on the old Lord of Himnel’s mother. The law was made that day: anyone caught using it would be executed in the name of ‘state secrets’.”

“Well, at least…” I started, before being cut off.

“But the nobility, being the nobility, meant that a load of them kept using it. They just kept it away from their own and used it to perv on the common folks instead!” Yen snarled, and Grizz shrugged.

“It’s not a commonly seen spell anymore, thanks to all that. If a noble was actually caught using it, they’d be publicly censured by their own kind, even though I bet they all know who still uses it secretly. The problem is, if the Skyking is using such a spell, it means that it’s either a noble, or it has access to the nobility. It’s also a strong magic user, since that spell needs a lot of mana to cast.”

“How much?” I asked curiously, readying myself and checking over my notifications quickly.

“About two hundred mana, plus the maintenance cost,” Yen replied, and I whistled in understanding. That was a lot of mana to just throw away, considering it had to know we were coming for it.

Congratulations! You have killed the following:

1x Promethean Personal Guard for a total of 8,800xp

3x Human Mercenaries of various levels for a total of 1,350xp

A party under your command killed the following:

9x Human Mercenaries of various levels for a total of 3,150xp

3x Alkyon of various levels for a total of 1,875xp

2x Promethean warriors of various levels for a total of 9,850xp

1x Promethean Personal Guard for a total of 7,500xp

1x Promethean Rabble Rouser for a total of 5,250xp

1x Anubai Dark Champion for a total of 15,000,

3x Greater Stone Imps of various levels for a total of 8,500xp

9x Imps of various levels for a total of 4,200xp

Total Party exp earned: 55,325xp

As party leader, you gain 25% of all experience earned.

Progress to level 16 stands at 362,874/165,000

“Oh, hell yes…” I muttered to myself, feeling the Experience waiting to be unleashed. I acknowledged the prompts, gasping as I gained not one, but two levels. It was quite a rush, jumping all the way to level seventeen, thanks to the experience boosts from creating both the profession and the class. Due to the bonus stat points I’d earned as well, I now had twenty-four points available, and I seriously needed them right now.

I pulled up my character sheet and skimmed it while calling out to everyone.

“If you’ve gained levels, now would be a great time to use those points!”

I was tempted to see what dropping all twenty points into Agility would do for me. I had to admit, it had already kept me alive on a literally daily basis and being able to dodge even better would be amazing, but hell, I needed those points everywhere.

I dismissed Charisma and Perception outright. While I knew I needed to boost them all, I also needed to live through this, and they wouldn’t immediately help with that. Dexterity helped with my weapon handling, but I was doing okay there; not good, admittedly, but okay. Constitution, I’d bumped recently, and it was already paying dividends, but if I got stabbed somewhere vital, like in the heart, I was dead, regardless of how many HP I had.

I was down to Endurance, Intelligence, Strength, Luck, and Wisdom. Endurance was important, but with my meridian points already invested there, it was leveling nicely. While my Strength was starting to lag behind a bit, I could supplement that with my ‘Mana-Overdrive’ ability.

I pulled up my abilities and saw that my ‘Mana-Overdrive’ was actually level Seven now. With three more levels, I could seal shut the mana channels that it had torn open,