Chapter 107: Elemental Altar

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

I’ve activated a possibility to advance into an advanced profession?, Soran thought.

He didn’t expect the possibility of advancing into Shadow Dancer.

Soran glanced at the others, with a hint of joy on his face, and said slowly, “I had a breakthrough. I think I have a new understanding of my abilities!”

The Halfling looked at him as though looking at a monster.

Gloria’s face also had a lost expression, in just a few minutes, Soran’s fighting skills had improved so much. It was only Vivian who wasn’t shocked, clapping her little white hands with bright eyes and said, “Big brother is so awesome! It’s like you were playing with those monsters just now!”

Two abilities which improved his evasive capabilities.

Although they were not as good as his previous [Legendary Evasion], [Legendary Reflex Evasion] and [Legendary Danger Sense]abilities, Soran still felt like it was easier dodging attacks even in extreme danger. His abilities improved bit by bit. As long as you understood the fundamentals and had the attributes of mastering the ability, it would be a matter of time before you could level up. As one experienced more battles, one’s basic level ability would gradually increase into a higher-grade ability.

The average Evasion was a general ability that Rogues and other professions had.

Reflex Evasion, on the other hand, was adjusted according to the one’s Agility. The higher the Agility, the faster the reflex was and had a better chance of evading sudden attacks. Finally, Danger Sense was the most difficult and effective evasion skill. The ability required the person to have a high Wisdom. This helped in predicting any dangerous attacks in advance. Monks were experts in Danger Sense. If Evasion was the elevation of basic dodging skills, then Reflex Evasion would be the instinctive response to sudden attacks, and Danger Sense was the ability to have an intuition of danger.

[Danger Sense] was also one of the most difficult abilities to train. Apart from Monks and their advanced professions, it would take a long time for other professions to train this ability.

Other professions also needed to have a higher Wisdom compared to the Monks. Additionally, Monks had many evasive abilities, one of which was [Deflect Arrows].

…

The Halfling looked at him and teased, “Going for another one?”

Soran shook his head and said, “No way. I am almost at my limit. I would have to accumulate more combat experience to improve. Recently, it has been getting many insights, but only just now did I find the opportunity to break through.”

It was impressive to gain two abilities at once.

Soran wasn’t naive enough to think that he could get an upgrade again soon. There were strict requirements for more advanced evasion skills. He was able to do it just now because he was just at the critical point of the breakthrough and was buffed by spell support.

The body’s instinctual response had to be gradually accumulated. The more battles, the stronger the instinctive response would be. In the end, subconscious evasive skills would be generated.

“Well let’s do this quick then.”

Gloria took a deep look at Soran and then continued, “There are only ten minutes left for the buff.”

Soran nodded and picked up his curved sword and went into the canyon. The Halfling looked at him admiringly before he followed him with his daggers in hand.

This kind of breakthrough really needed talent, maybe in a hundred Rogues, there might not be one that could have this kind of breakthrough. They needed a long time to accumulate the experience needed.

In the canyon, you could see a large altar that was surrounded by huge stone pillars that were around ten meters in height, with nine steps in the center. At the center was a compass-like stone platform.

The Earth Elementals outside seemed average, but the ones in the canyon were different.

Their bodies were larger and had more stone body parts. They were more humanoid than others.

“Be careful.” Soran gripped his curved sword and murmured, “These Earth Elementals are the elites, and some of them may know the ability Landslide. If you see them grabbing stones, you’ll need to get away from them as fast as you can.”

Landslide.

It was a spell-like ability that allowed the Earth Elemental to manipulate energy and hurl rocks at the target. The attack could deal damage of around 100.

A hit would mean instant death.

Most Earth Elementals had no intelligence. They even had lower intelligence than the Undead. Elementals which had intelligence were legendary creatures: Dao, Djinn and Marids and so on. Such creatures belonged to divine beings.

Many were born as demigods, and occasionally, they could summon elemental gods with powerful divinity. However, one of the more famous spells was the legendary spell of [Wish]. The Elemental creature would fulfill some of your wishes according to the principle of equivalent exchange. It was even possible to resurrect the dead!

These were one of the oldest creatures, and most of them slept in the Elemental Plane. Elementals appearing in the material plane were mostly very low in intelligence, they relied mostly on instinctual activities in some areas and occasionally responded to caster’s summoning them. This was the case with the Earth Elementals in front of them. They had been here for such a long time that they wouldn’t leave the canyon.

…

Soran gave the Halfling beside him a gesture.

Once again, the two men joined forces to attract the attention of the Earth Elementals. The Halfling was responsible for attracting the enemy while Soran seized opportunities to cause damage.

Gloria glanced at the altar from afar. Her delicate eyebrows turned down slightly as if there was something off. She looked up at the sky, and a falcon-like bird circled on top. Since the view in the canyon wasn’t good, she wasn’t sure if it was a wild falcon flying by. She was alert so she, once again, cast a protective spell before moving forward.

Spellcasters who relied purely on magic would never use all their spells. They would always have a few spells up their sleeve, in case of an emergency.

One, two, three.

When Soran faced the ninth Earth Elemental, the situation had changed.

The obviously larger Earth Elemental waved its hands and half a ton of rocks moved and flew towards Soran and Aladdin. The Earth Elemental had cast Landslide. Huge rocks whistled through the air. Like a large dark shadow falling from the sky, the rocks instantly hit the ground and formed a deep pit.

“Aladdin!?” Soran yelled and lost half of his attack speed.

Behind a rock came a palpitating voice. The little Halfling’s figure came out from the back of the rock, clapped his chest and said, “Bloody hell, that was close! I almost became a meat pie!”

With the agility of the Rogue, it was rather easy to evade if you prepared in advance. It would be much more difficult for a Fighter.

The Earth Element could only use Landslide once or twice a day, but Soran couldn’t be careless. He launched his Shadowstrike ability, which also brought an additional 6 Shadow Damage to the advanced Earth Elemental.

Shadow Energy could directly damage the core of the Earth Elemental, and if the strike successfully came in contact with the core, it would erode its power. The Halfling also seemed to be provoked, while attacking he also launched Shadow Strike.

This was one of the more commonly used attack spells!

Soon the higher-grade Earth Elemental fell. After Soran picked up the core, he quickly rushed to the altar to kill the remaining Earth Elemental.

The spell buff on him was almost over now.

The remaining Earth Elementals wondered in an area close by. They would remain passive if no one entered their territory.

“Where’s the treasure?”, the Halfling asked excitedly as he got closer to the altar. He then said in a shocked voice, “there seems to be nothing here?”

Soran attentively observed the surrounding then said, “there’s probably something hidden up there.”

“But hold on, and let me check for traps first.”

After saying that, he circled around the altar. There were scattered Earth Elementals nearby, but they would be too troublesome to deal with without magic support. Although Soran really wanted the Slaughter EXP, it was better not to kill them all.

Since this was a connection portal, it was quite a special place. There may be creatures from the plane coming over. If he eliminated all of the Earth Elementals, it might startle the Spirit of the Land. He had experienced it previously when he killed all the minions and a boss appeared out of nowhere.

Soran slowly gestured to signal the back. Gloria was ready to cast spells, and even Vivian stood beside her nervously.

After passing a stone pillar, Soran pressed on a loose tile lightly. Suddenly, the altar made loud gear like sounds, and a hidden contraption appeared in front of them.

Portals usually needed the energy to be maintained, and most of the sacrifices dedicated to Earth Elementals were precious stones.

The contraptions weren’t exposed to the outside world. Usually, they lied in a place inside the altar.

Soran made a gesture toward the Halfling next to him, and the Halfling immediately went up excitedly. He carefully pulled out several jewels from the contraption and quickly put them in his pocket.

Soran slowly along the altar. He paused and pulled a yellowish stone from the left corner of the altar, and in a blink of an eye, he put it into his pocket.

It was not a very impressive stone, and there was no obvious aura around it. If you didn’t carefully observe it, you might think it was just a common stone. The stone was about the size of a pebble, had a smooth surface, but it was heavy. When he picked it up, it weighed nearly three pounds.

Got it!

Soran then looked at the Halfling and told him, “Take the things and leave quickly. The portal on this side might stop working, and it may disturb the creatures on the elemental plane.”

The altar made loud noises and started shaking considerably.

It seemed as though the whole ground had sunk a little. The Halfling quickly pack things into his dimensional bag. Fortunately, there were not many Gold Derahls, most of them were all kinds of gems.

Sometimes high-grade Earth Elementals would eat the gems like beans.

Tong, Dong, Tong!

The dull loud noise came from underneath the altar. Soran didn’t have enough time to take care of the remaining gems anymore. He picked up the halfling and ran away from the altar.

There’s probably an Elemental Spirit down there. Hope it’s not an Earth Spirit though.

“My!…My gems!…”

The Halfling’s cries still echoed, but Gloria had hastily cast a spell, and the four figures flew straight into the air.

“Group Flight!”

The altar was shaking faster and faster, and the central part had even begun to collapse. When Soran and the others were up to about 300 meters, a huge rocky arm suddenly burst out from the ground, followed by a rocky giant that was about 10 meters climbing out. It made a loud dull noise and looked like it was roaring. The huge figure circled the canyon and then re-entered underneath the altar when it detected nothing around the area.

“That was a close one!” the Halfling exclaimed as he wiped the sweat off his head. He looked at the monster and said, “I don’t think we would be able to deal with that bugger.”

Soran’s expression was calm, but he could not help but curse in his heart: “I knew there would be something hidden, how could a legendary mission be released so casually. That’s because there is a guardian underneath.”

More adventure, more experience.

Soran wasn’t convinced that a legendary grade mission would only be guarded by a few Earth Elementals. That’s why he arranged for Gloria to stay behind so she could cast Fly when necessary. The monster just now was probably a Stone Talus, a more advanced variant of the Earth Elemental. Its power was only lower than that of an Elder Elemental, and it had a monster level of about 18 to 20.

It wasn’t something that they could fight.

Soran, however, was looking at it from afar, calculating in his mind what kind of power would he need in order to safely defeat it.

This guy must give a lot of Slaughter EXP!

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