"Congratulations for surviving the Monster Horde Event."
"Your safe zone has completed the event: Monster horde"
"Event rewards will be distributed based on contribution"
"System store and profession options have been unlocked"
"The average level of monsters has increased"
"The next Monster horde event will be in 24 days and come from the ocean or mountains"
"Your contribution for your safe zone is: Mythical"
"You have received a 'Weapon skill upgrade token - Adept'"
"You received 1st place in this event, broadcast your rating to the safe zone?"
"Yes/No"
Eli was surprised that the north had cleared their boss almost just as fast as he had killed his boss, but they probably had an army and a lord up there. Shaking his head to bring his thoughts back to the present, he began to rethink his time before the next horde event. The next event was in 24 days instead of 12 so his options opened up to where he could go and how much training he could complete. Thinking about it further, the safe zone extends into the water, so he won't be able to help this zone anyways, maybe he would be better off heading west to the safe zone that is closer to the mountains and helping them.
A lot of options were floating through his head at this point so he just stayed laying there for a while trying to plan his next move. He may not actively try and lead, but he did want to be sure that his friends thought of him as a leader with a plan. He could work on his body and his soul, his magic level, or his nodes, skills, and spells. None of the options were jumping out at him since he really did try and stay as an all-around, jack-of-all-trade, kind of fighter. His leveling had started to slow and everything was moving so fast he hadn't even looked to see how far he had leveled before this event started.
"Your contribution from this event has given you 13 magic levels of experience."
"Your magic level has increased from 62 to 75"
Eli blinked a few times, then closed all system windows, then opened his stats and magic level to see them again to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks. With 13 levels gained from this event, he decided to take magic leveling off his list of things to work on. He could be wrecking the curve for how much stronger the monsters would get after each event, better for him to level his body and maybe open another node. Still on his back and enjoying the sun and soft breeze, he opened his stats and allocated them as evenly as possible, when he was done, this is what they looked like.
"Magic level 75"
"Stats: Strength 53, Reaction 53, Vitality 53, Intellect 53, Wisdom 53, Resistance 57, Will 602"
Crossing the 50 mark in each stat increased its value, just like at 10 and 25, so he had to do that for each one slowly and individually since that took some getting used to. Eli was beyond even noticing what was going on with his will at this point, he wasn't going to figure it out any time soon so it wasn't really worth his attention. Happy with his stats he started to think about a list of what to accomplish before heading out to the safe zone closer to the mountains. He wanted his group to be stronger, and for them to recruit more, maybe one or two people each before the next event and start getting them trained. Not that he knew what he was doing, but he wanted them to get a confident mindset, they needed to know they were capable. He frowned, thinking about how that would open their group up to betrayal and spying, but either way, they needed more people.
Just as his plans were starting to solidify in his mind, the ground shook a little, and the warm sun on his face wasn't as warm. Eli sat up and looked around, the scars of battle were still all around, dead trees and scorched earth, but it was dark, far darker than it should be. When he looked up, all of his plans evaporated as his mind was suddenly filled with nothing but bone shaking panic. The volcano he had blown up was now spewing a massive column of ash into the sky and the wind was blowing it towards them. Lighting jumped through the cloud in an almost constant stream of flashes as the sound of thunder finally reached him.
After a few seconds of letting bricks fall out of his ape underwear, he fired off several messages to his people and took off toward the volcano as fast as he could. The speed at which he could travel now was staggering, with his improved stats, it was hard to keep track of what he was destroying on his way there. A journey that had taken him almost 2 days a short 20 days ago now only took him a little less than three hours. He left a straight line in the forest, his passage destroyed any plants and left a two foot deep ditch in the ground. After he arrived a pair of system windows appeared that complicated things.
"Your area of the new planet has been deemed safe enough for those who were in stasis to return. All children under five years old and at least one of their parents will now be appearing in the center of the safe zone. The penalties for killing in a safe zone will be tripled until the next event."
"Warning: one of the volcanoes in the 'Forest and Volcano' zone is going critical."
This was the system's response to him defeating that boss so easily, a punishment to make things harder. It re-made 3 worlds into one in a few weeks, it could stop this volcano easily. Eli tried to get a feel for the magic in this area, at first everything was too chaotic with the fire and earth magic flying around as well as air and something else in the ash cloud. He felt that it could be shadow magic, but it was very hard to tell and there wasn't very much of it. However, after calming himself and really focusing on the magic, it wasn't that all the magic here was chaotic, it was that there was chaos magic mixed in.
This chaos magic was unlike anything he had felt, raw and uncontrollable. It would swirl around the ash and heat causing it to erupt towards the sky, then vanish completely, then reappear shoving the heat down causing the air to super-heat and explode. It was pure power without intent, just flowing through the other magic, changing its strength and direction. It sometimes didn't seem to have an effect at all and at other times it would destroy itself and the magic it collided with, generating more chaos magic. This volcano was getting worse, it wouldn't take long for the chaos magic to be the prominent kind and it would destroy the other kinds in a massive eruption of power.
Eli had an idea, he winced when he realized that all of his solutions to things were self destructive and caused a lot of pain. While running into the middle of everything and sitting down as close to the lava pit that was formerly a volcano as he could, he was going to upgrade his chaos node and probably his soul, perhaps even his body, all at once. He had the open nodes needed to pull in all surrounding magic and filter it through his body so that it wouldn't go critical. He would just need to hold in the chaos magic to upgrade his node and push the rest through him enough to level his soul. If he can saturate his body enough he could even end up leveling his body, but all of this together was going to hurt. He was going to have to suffer pain to his physical body, to his magic, and to his soul.
Sitting down and pressing his will into himself, he began the process self-torture, that would save his friends and make him stronger. He just hoped he would be the same person when he was done that he was now. Every person that he knew that had been through lengthy torture was different forever afterwards, some experiences change how you look at the world forever. He held in his heart what parts of him he didn't want to change, gathered his will and pressed himself into the pain in an attempt to stop a raging volcano by essentially swallowing it.
*************
Lord Ghost was again worried by the published results of the event being sent to every person in the safe zone. The more it was advertised that not only was someone doing more to help with the event but they were doing more than double what he was doing, the more he got upset. He wasn't going to say he was angry, because anger would imply that the man and his followers were worthy of his attention, so he would say that he was upset at the situation. In an attempt to reduce his tense energy, he was currently screaming at everyone for their low contribution.
Ghost didn't mention Lord Ash or his people all being in the top 20 but his people knew that it was getting under his skin. After his speech about failure and success, effort and competence, he seemed to calm down and sent everyone out to get back to work securing more land and town loyalties, with the exception of his spies. To them he gave a mission, they needed to get a better idea of how strong Lord Ash's people are and what their intentions were for the safe zone. He told them to use any means to get the information except hurting them since the last time they were spying, the spies were vaporized.
When everyone had left, Ghost sat at his table in his big chair. Relaxing his posture, he slumped back and closed his eyes and wanted to sleep, fighting for so long had worn him out down to his bones and he felt like only two days of sleep would help him recover. A knock at the door echoed into the room, then the person just walked in, not waiting for him to tell them to enter. The man was panicked with wide eyes and a pale face.
"My Lord, the volcano is erupting and the ash from it is heading this way." a nervous skinny man said.
"Show me," Ghost said. The two of them ran toward the southern wall and climbed up to the top where a small walkway went all the way around it. They both could see that the volcano was shorter than it had been and there was a pillar of ash shooting out of it, and the wind was blowing it in their direction. It was already almost to the safe zone barrier, then as it almost reached the barrier, it was all pulled into the ground like a giant vacuum was sucking it in.
"Is that the barrier for the safe zone protecting us?" Ghost asked.
"No, my Lord, that is the exact spot of Lord Ash's new base just outside the safe zone barrier."
"So is this supposed to show us that he can contain an eruption or that he started this one on purpose?"
"I'm not sure I know what the difference in power would be for those two things."
"You're right," Ghost said, "Either way, we need to keep things friendly for now. Why don't you go see him and ask him if he will host me at his place. Tell them that I wish to discuss the future of the safe zone and the possibility of our cooperation."
"Right away," he said with a small bow.
Then the man left and he was alone again.
"Who was that guy?" Ghost asked himself.