Tartila Mine (The Alchemist Book #5): LitRPG Series Read online

  Tailyn paused indecisively. It was the moment of truth, and he couldn’t decide which way to go—turn his back on cards, leaving himself with nothing but the dragon, or go back and avoid getting too fancy. The decision was too much for him. After hearing the boy out, Valia had a few words of advice.

  Take the risk! You’ll be the world’s only true mage, and I can always just kill you and bring you back without any of your restrictions. If you don’t do it, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.

  That did the trick.

  With that resolution, the boy pushed his mysticism to 120 to get himself regenerating two mana each minute. Each spell cost Tailyn 4%, or 1.64 mana, though the fact that mana only used whole numbers meant there were two important questions to answer. Did the System round up or down? And was the 4% measured from the amount of mana he had left or the total amount?

  You spent 4% of your mana on the Athleticism ability.

  Tailyn’s heart practically stopped when he checked his blue bar and let out a whoop. He had forty mana left. There was no rounding or reducing—the god just dropped the decimal. And what did that mean? When he got his intellect up to 120, his spells would all work for two minutes.

  That also made automation perfect for Tailyn, freeing him up to focus on other things. It was flawless. All he had left to do was decide on a fate for his remaining attributes.

  Cartographer was a goner. The boy’s map was already full, and he didn’t care too much about updating it. Resilience was useless, as well, since regeneration was enough to handle the pain. Monster knowledge stayed along with anatomy master and shooting, its two dependent attributes. Because Valkyrie would have been pointless without them, Tailyn needed the trio. Scanner was out, rendered obsolete by Raptor. Frankenstein needed to get to level one hundred so the boy could give people three enhancements. Integration was important for the dragon. Marauder was discarded. Without hacking, it wasn’t important, as forcing opponents to give up their belongings voluntarily was much simpler. And the boy had specialists in that discipline.

  That left concealment, and there Tailyn paused. It had helped the boy get into the academy, but was it still relevant? Something told him it wasn’t. If it turned out to be important, he could always unlock it at any remote terminal—in that moment, the boy needed the parameter points for his plan.

  You deleted Alchemy: Magic Enhancement Elixir, Card Saturation.

  82 free skill points received (146)

  ***

  You deleted attributes: Strength, Cartographer, Resilience, Scanner, Coordination, Armor, Agility, Concealment, Marauder.

  460 free attribute points received (460)

  ***

  Automation +100 (100)

  Crystal Miner +46 (91)

  Frankenstein +41 (100)

  Intellect +68 (120)

  Mysticism +117 (169)

  Optimization +100 (100)

  Shooting +3 (54)

  For all his calculations, Tailyn had forgotten one little detail: intellect impacted how much mana he had, pushing his total from forty-one to forty-four. That didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, of course, as the spells continued burning just one mana, but the boy still had to invest heavily in mysticism. It took 388 parameter points to push it to level 169. Even at what seemed like a snail’s pace of three mana a minute, it had to replenish itself as fast as possible. Tailyn dumped the rest of his points in shooting, accepted the changes, and took a look at his character. Quite a bit had changed. For example, it was a stretch for him to call himself an alchemist in anything but name.

  Status table

  General character information

  Tailyn Vlashich, head of Mean Truk, betrothed to Valia Levor

  Alchemist

  Level

  100

  Age

  12

  Coins

  564373

  Gold

  761806

  Main parameters

  Shield level

  28012

  Mana level

  44

  Physical attack

  4912

  Magic attack

  8912

  Named item level

  15

  Companion level

  8

  Attributes

  Intellect

  120

  Mysticism

  168

  Wisdom

  52

  Perception

  52

  Regeneration

  52

  Integration

  52

  Monster Knowledge

  51

  Anatomy Master

  51

  Frankenstein

  100

  Shooting

  54

  Optimization

  100

  Skills

  Potions

  41

  Mana Restoration Potion

  41

  Abilities

  2

  Lesser Regeneration Potion

  *

  Concentrated Noa

  *

  Alchemist

  Points invested:

  43

  Amilio

  41

  Herbalism

  Points invested:

  41

  Lix

  *

  Linguist

  Points invested:

  1

  Crystal Miner

  91

  Mining

  Points invested:

  91

  Investigation

  *

  Automation

  100

  Unification

  *

  Mentality

  Points invested:

  102

  Leaving herbalism behind completely was a bridge too far for Tailyn—Amilio was too valuable a resource to throw away. On the other hand, card saturation was cut, leaving that particular service to Valanil and Forian. It was pointless with just forty-four mana. Turning his back on alchemy wasn’t an option for Tailyn, either. Having a reserve supply of mana was critical to the boy’s plan, and mana restoration potions were perfect for that.

  You added Athleticism to Automation.

  Cost: 4% of your mana (1 mana) every 120 seconds.

  ***

  You added Force Armor to Automation.

  Cost: 28% of your mana (12 mana) and 1% of your mana (0 mana) per second for maintenance.

  ***

  Would you like to activate both spells?

  Tailyn confirmed the changes and once again felt an incredible levity, only that time it was accompanied by a shimmering film around him. His biggest worry was that the System would round up the amount of mana needed to maintain his force armor to one unit each second, making it too expensive, but the plan worked. Just as it had before, the god simply dropped the decimal. Tailyn was protected.

  Was it a bug? Possibly, but whatever it was, Tailyn was a fan. Although, something strange was definitely going on with magic—there was no list of spells to speak of. No descriptions, no attributes. All the boy had to go on was his memory. And since he didn’t like that particular situation, he had to give his virtual self his last integration spot so he could build a database of magic abilities. The boy wasn’t sure if he was making the right move or going off the deep end, but it was the only thing he could think of. He needed a system. Having returned magic to the world, the god hadn’t seen fit to give mages a spell book. The boy might have had access to all the magic in the world, only he needed to know what to ask the System for. It would handle the rest.

  Mana

  Result

  Active spells

  Athleticism

  4%

  Physical abilities enhanced by 120. Duration: 120 seconds. 1 mana required to activate.

  Force Armor

  28%

  Absorbs 84000 damage. 12 mana required to activate. Maintenance: 0 mana per second.

  Available spells

  Lesser Shieldr />
  4%

  Absorbs 1200 damage. Duration: 120 seconds. 1 mana required to activate.

  Air Blade

  4%

  10694 magic air damage to a single target. 1 mana required to activate.

  Air Shove

  4%

  Pushes an object up to 120 kg 24 meters. 1 mana required to activate.

  Heat Strike

  4%

  Heats the air around an object. Duration: 12 seconds. Temperature: 1200 degrees. Radius: 1.2 meters. 1 mana required to activate.

  Ice Blockade

  4%

  Forms an icy prison around an object. Duration: 120 seconds. Ice thickness: 1.2 meters. 1 mana required to activate.

  Summon Elemental

  12%

  Summons a powerful level 120 creature. Active duration: 12 seconds. 5 mana required to activate.

  Water Fist

  4%

  10694 magic water damage to a single target. 1 mana required to activate.

  Fireball

  4%

  10694 magic fire damage to a single target. 1 mana required to activate.

  Earthen Spike

  4%

  10694 magic earth damage to a single target. 1 mana required to activate.

  Teleportation

  28%

  Teleports to a previously studied object within line of sight or scanning radius (with Raptor). Maximum distance: 120 meters. 12 mana required to activate.

  Return

  28%

  Returns to Mean Truk. 12 mana required to activate.

  The time left before the next update flew by. While Tailyn had been demolishing trap after trap, the local machines had been hard at work. He finally reached the reptiloid, checked his map, and sighed—there was no way to the lab’s control center. But it had been there the first time. And that meant there had to be some kind of pattern.

  Powerful blows landed from the direction of the tunnel. The Lesser Grialas were battering away in their attempt to break into the location. With how certain Valrus had been that the ancient gate would hold, Tailyn wasn’t particularly worried. The creatures presumably didn’t have it in them to get through. If it was possible, the mages would have pulled it off—they’d had many years and unlimited resources, after all.

  But the next strike was accompanied by an unpleasant metallic scrape. Data from Raptor immediately popped up in front of Tailyn, and the boy’s stomach sank deep into his boots. The ancient slab separating the lab from the outside world was dented. And while it was just a couple centimeters, that was enough for the stalks to begin creeping meter by meter into the labyrinth, filling all the space around it. The first trap threw up a wall of fire a few moments later. The creature’s greenery was reduced to ash, but they were quickly replaced by the next wave to maintain its progress. The first trap had done nothing besides kick the creature into a higher gear.

  Valia, get us out of here! Tailyn began to really worry when the fourth trap was triggered. Only ten meters into the cave, the monster was picking up steam. The boy could have jumped back to Mean Truk himself, but that would have meant leaving the lifeless reptiloid to the tender mercies of the plant.

  Ready! Activate on three.

  Do it! One, two... Oh!

  Tailyn felt his chest tighten. He wanted to scream in frustration. Activating the two-way portal card cost only fifty mana, which was nothing even to someone who’d just gotten their first blue bar with one hundred mana. But Tailyn didn’t have that much. Not about to give in, the boy picked the reptiloid up and activated his magic leap. At least, he wanted to until the System turned him down.

  The Return ability can only take you.

  Would you like to return to Mean Truk?

  Get out of there! Leave Valrus and go! Valia yelled when she heard the news from her betrothed.

  I’m not leaving him! Tailyn shot back as he fought to control the fear. His body craved action; his usual calm was nowhere to be seen. He’ll wake up and activate the card in a couple hours, and we can hold out that long. All the traps will slow Griala down. Everything updates here every hour, too, so we’ll be okay.

  The boy himself didn’t know how he was so sure, but he was going to fight to the end. He could always head back and leave the reptiloid later. Back from the direction of the entrance, there was another crash and another scraping sound as boulders poured down into the corridor, but the stalks found every opening they could to keep moving forward. Flying up into the air, Tailyn tossed the other end of his rope around the dragon and had the latter pull toward the way out of the hall. A shadow of regret flitted over him when he thought about leaving the robots. The plant was going to eat them, but there was nothing the boy could do about that.

  Right before he left the big space, Tailyn caught sight of something unusual: the first trap was a brace holding a few large boulders in place above the ceiling. The boy flew through carefully, after which he turned around and shot through the brace with Valkyrie. The boulders tumbled down to block off the passage—it was an entire mountain of them rather than the two or three the boy had thought it would be.

  “Let’s see how you deal with that,” Tailyn muttered as he had the dragon pull them farther down the corridor. The dynamic map showed him the next hall about three hundred meters away. It was their next safe spot. Taking a risk and finding themselves in the labyrinth when it changed was not something Tailyn wanted to try.

  They just had to be careful about activating the traps.

  What were the traps even there for, anyway?

  Chapter 10

  “PUT IT ALL BACK! You’re ruining things for the city!” Forian and Valanil’s combined shout could probably have been heard anywhere in the ancient lab. The mage was one thing—Tailyn had already seen him lose his temper. But the boy hadn’t known Valanil could do the same. Of course, he’d figured it was theoretically possible, though that was more on the level of a scary story you tell around the campfire at night. The herbalist had always positioned herself as the epitome of wisdom and calm, someone impossible to dislodge. And yet, she’d turned out to be even louder than Forian.

  “Okay, I have to go. I’ll let you know when I have news.” Tailyn turned off the intercom and sighed, scratching his head worriedly. Having been counting on a pat on the back, he’d just earned himself a scolding, and that had thrown him for a loop. He was really feeling it.

  The main point the older pair had been trying to make was that Tailyn had doomed the city to destruction. They had no business touching the upcoming battle without the ability to recharge cards, and they’d counted on Tailyn as the only person capable of handling that mission at scale. With that in mind, they’d even decided where they were going to hide him to ensure he didn’t get the battle status, who was going to take cards to him to be recharged, and when he'd get rest, sleep, and time to himself. But the boy had gone and cut the legs out from under their plans. How could they not blow their top?

  The intercom vibrated again, only Tailyn was in no hurry to answer. Valia had let him know that Valanil didn’t appreciate how he’d ended their conversation—she was ready to give “that kid” a piece of her mind. It was almost as if that wasn’t what she’d spent the preceding thirty minutes doing.

  A crestfallen Tailyn looked around. Valrus was still sleeping soundly. With two hours left until he was supposed to wake up, the boy had spent the time moving further and further away from Lesser Griala. The monster was still pushing forward through the bevy of traps. Still, with each passing open area, the explosions rang out farther to the rear, finally growing so faint the boy could no longer hear them. The lab had rebuilt itself a few more times, though there was still no way to the control center. It felt like a joke was being played on them.

  But Tailyn wasn’t letting up. Back before they’d set off, he’d checked his logs to make sure his perception really had shown him a way forward. It had. And that meant he just needed to bide his time and possibly get as close to the main lab building as he could
. Potentially, there were a few barriers covering for each other and somewhat close together, opening only once in a while. That sounded logical enough. The boy even thought he might need to get to the edge of the mountain approaches to trigger whatever the change was. Most importantly, he had to keep moving forward as fast as the traps would let him—he’d already covered five kilometers under the mountain. There was another fifteen kilometers ahead of him, and getting to the far side before Valrus woke up was impossible. That was a problem. The reptiloid wasn’t a risk-taker, so he was probably going to insist on heading back to Mean Truk.