Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3) by John Gold (novel24 TXT) 📕

five, something generally utilized by mind mages and mixed classes.

You can get spells once you hit the right level and advance your skills far enough. I, for example, could learn quite a few if I only had the money.

Tomorrow, I have my first battle for the first level. If I win, my Life Magic will pick up a five percent boost.

The flowerbed is the perfect spot to work on it. I sit down quietly at the far end, where nobody will notice me, and focus all my streams of consciousness on healing. It’s quiet, dark, and snowing, while my Life Magic is giving off a pleasant warmth, and the air is crisp and chilled. As I look over at the guard towers, erected along the wall ringing the mage quarter, the light of the full moon falls on me. There are large astral creatures with barely visible contours wheeling around in the sky.

At first, I feel unnerved, like somebody is watching me. It isn’t a god, and it isn’t that thing from the astral. It’s something different, something studying me, probing my soul, and watching my reaction. I look around—nobody. The anxiety rises, my nerves tighten, and I start to feel hostility, rage, interest. It’s like a beast is eying its prey. My senses are heightened, and I can even feel vibrations in the air. Still, I can’t figure out where the threat is coming from. The enemy is nearby. I use all my streams of consciousness to instantly throw up a shield in case I’m attacked suddenly, but nothing happens.

Minutes of anxious expectation tick by, and I don’t even notice at first that the air is starting to glow. It happens slowly enough that I don’t see it and run off. The snow melts in the air; rain drops are falling to the ground.

Dogs stop howling, all the other background noises die away, and an imposing silence settles in. I hear my heart beating, my blood flowing through my veins, the water dripping from the roof, the air tingling.

“Phase ten,” calls a voice from the sky.

Damage received: 5315 (ignored: 81422)

6400/6400

I’m mashed into the ground, the flowerbed slowly flattened by the increased gravitational force. The entire backyard feels the blow, and everything around me is being pressed into the ground.

A wild roar breaks out over the mage quarter, the glass windows of the dorm quiver, and the plaster starts falling off the walls. Gravity is getting stronger. I’m halfway underground, and even my amplification doesn’t help me get up. Shield! Maximum!

As soon as I sit up—just barely—I sense new creatures in the air. Fifty meters away, there’s a person floating. He has three enormous snakes made entirely of light next to him.

Debuff received: Mental incinerator

Effect: Morale -22%, Intellect -36%, Wisdom -27%

Duration: As long as you are within range of the incinerator

The plants in the flowerbed die away instantly, the snow melts, and the air fizzes like water on a hot stove. I feel like I’m in a catalytic self-cleaning oven. Everything is burning, but only on the mental level—that light is searing all the mental bodies within its aura.

The snakes start moving slowly toward me, while the man watches my reaction. One of them brushes up against a guard tower, leaving it to crumble in its wake. Concentrated Light Magic!

“Spear of darkness! Maximum!”

I aim for its head but end up barely catching its tail. The explosion takes out the remains of the guard tower, and I get a stun debuff. The second snake gets even closer—the next spear of darkness does catch it in the head. Just then, however, the third snake throws itself at my shield, and the explosion flings me against the stone wall of the dorm.

Damage received: 166780 (ignored: 292021)

6400/6400

Lightning! The bastard is toying with me. The windows on the first floor shatter one by one. I’ve always thought I was a monster, but apparently even monsters have their monsters. This is one of them.

Damage received: 277515 (ignored: 1155597)

6400/6400

 

Debuff received: Call of the dark depths

Effect: Morale -44%, Intellect -36%, Wisdom -27%

Duration: As long as you are within range of the spell

 

Lesser purgatory! So, he’s a dark mage, too. An aura of death surrounds me, stones and trees crumble, the ground turns black. Dark tentacles touch my mental body and slither around, not strong enough to do any damage.

I get up in time to dodge another lightning strike. The sound is starting to attract people. I can hear them running over from the other side of the building. They’re coming out of the dorm, and my enemy, in the meantime, starts giving out a fire aura, still not coming down to the ground. With each passing second, the air gets hotter, the snow melts, and the water it leaves behind sizzles away. Ten seconds later, glass starts to melt, too, and the roof of the building next to us catches fire. Clawed paws covered in short white fur! Large whiskers poke out from under the hood. Shapeshifter?

Damage received: 960817 (ignored: 1177204)

6400/6400

The buildings burn, glass shatters, and even the stone starts to melt. The searing air finds its way into all the different alleys as the shapeshifter finally settles to earth. He comes down softly, cat-like, to the burning ground.

Human, Krash, non-level

What?! That’s impossible! You can’t get that kind of strength the normal way—he’s on par with death’s confidants. For a second, we stand there looking at each other. I’m on edge; he’s expectant. There’s no point fighting with him, since I can’t win. Getting into a battle would just mean the deaths of the people living nearby.

I miss him teleporting over to me. With one hand, he lifts me off the ground and starts to choke me. A pair of cat-like eyes stare at me, and I sense his expectation.

“Stop