The Forgotten Faithful: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 2) by Cajiao, Jez (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📕

The rooms we’d explored already showed a corresponding outline of equipment and debris, while the remaining rooms, the unexplored ones, showed a wireframe diagram instead.

It took less than a minute to build that floor out, but the next higher floor, including the stairway to reach it, was filled with rubble almost entirely. There was also a lower floor that shifted and shook strangely until Oracle made the connection.

“It’s full of water!” She exclaimed, and those that could see the map murmured as it became obvious to us all.

At the edges of the map, I found five damaged pillars. Three were shattered beyond all use, pulsing and then melting away when I looked at them, but the remaining two shook and started to move when I concentrated on activating the mana collectors. One of the two shuddered after a few seconds and vanished from the map, showing as debris suddenly, but the final collector continued to grow.

A full five minutes passed as the collector slowly shifted into position, and ominous creaks echoed around the underground structure, but eventually, the lights in the room gave a sudden pulse before strengthening to full daylight.

As we looked around, the walls began to shudder faintly, dust, dirt, and debris cascading from them as the structure began to repair itself. In the distance, I heard a crash as falling stone announced that not all the repairs would be smooth, but after a short wait, nothing else seemed to happen.

I concentrated again, and a new screen appeared before me.

Greetings, Lord of Dravith and Master of the Great Tower.

This interface is limited by damage and capacity. Please select from the following options:

System Repair:

Current condition: 27%

0-100%  of Mana allocated

Structural Integrity:

Current condition: 42%

0-100%  of Mana allocated

Golem recharging and Maintenance:

Current charge: 0.01%

0-100%  of Mana allocated

I read over the options and allocated ten percent to system repair, twenty percent to Structural Integrity and seventy percent to charging the Golems, receiving a final popup. I could see there were more notifications waiting and I resolved myself to working through them as quickly as possible.

Allocation of mana resources confirmed.

Estimated time to completion:

System Repair: 142.6 days

Structural Integrity: 383.7 days

Golem Recharging and Maintenance: 1.25 days

I blinked at the timescales and resolved that I would get the Golems up and running, then redirect the mana to repair the mana collectors. Once they were fixed, it shouldn’t take long to fix the rest…I hoped. To be fair, I was only really interested in the Golems at the moment. The bonuses for claiming this structure and the surrounding land were just an added extra. I focused in and managed to redirect the charge going to the Golems to prioritize the Servitor, getting a notification that it would take six hours for that one alone. I figured it’d be the most useful to us in the short term.

“Oracle, can I use the mana collectors here to refill my own mana? Or use it to heal everyone directly?” I asked suddenly, a thought coming to mind, but Oracle was shaking her head before I’d finished speaking it aloud.

“No, Jax, not without a resident wisp to direct the other end. Even if I were to bind to here, you’d still need someone on your end to stop you from drawing too much. I’m sorry.”

“Ah, well, worth a try,” I sighed. I slowly stood up, my back cracking as I realized I’d been seated in an uncomfortable chair for hours without moving. As the blood rushed back into areas starved of it, I bit my cheek to keep from groaning, and concentrated on staying upright until the feeling passed.

While I fought through the pins and needles, I brought up the notifications, reading through them and dismissing them as quickly as I read what they contained.

As I’d managed to condense the fight notifications into a single easily absorbed list before, Oracle adjusted them for me now.

Congratulations! You have killed the following:

267x Basic Goblins of various levels for a total of 4,320xp

13x Goblin Fighters of various levels for a total of 390xp

7x Evolved Goblins of various levels for a total of  250xp

4x Spiders of various levels for a total of 60xp

A party under your command killed the following:

611x Basic Goblin of various levels for a total of 36,750xp

27x Goblin Fighters of various levels for a total of 3,100xp

1x Goblin Matriarch for a total of 1,500xp

13x Evolved Goblins of various levels for a total of 5,150xp

6x Spiders of various levels for 1100xp

Total Party xp earned: 37,500xp

As party leader, you gain 10% of all experience earned.

Progress to level 14 stands at 116,530/120,000

That goddamn experience drain! Jenae had warned me about it, saying it was partially because I’d broken myself by using too many Spellbooks at once, and partially because of who and what I was. I needed a goddamn healer! A real one!

It looked like I was getting literally ten percent of the experience that I would be otherwise, for my part in that fight, I’d have earned… I stopped myself before I could work it out. I settled on the fact I’d earned far less than I should have, as I could feel my anger and frustration begging to boil over again.

I dismissed it and went onto the next notification in the backlog.

Congratulations! You have raised your spell ‘Weak Lightning Bolt’ to its first evolution. You must now pick a path to follow. Will you choose the path of the STORM, or concentrate on the INDIVIDUAL? Choose carefully, as this choice cannot be undone.

STORM:

The storm does not discriminate, but you can. Following this path will fundamentally change your Lightning Bolt spell into an AOE or Area Of Effect spell, rather than a single target. You must now designate an area to create fear of your attention. As you grow more experienced with the spell, you will learn to make changes, increasing or decreasing the area covered and the duration. Beware distractions, as the Storm will only spare those you