The Insider System

Chapter 41: Blastin

Lake took aim at the undead's lower back, because the way it was crouching was keeping him from seeing its head, and he was hoping to make it lose its capability to walk after the first attack. "Fire Blast." Before the spell landed on the undead's back it took off running down the tunnel on all fours and Lake spell splashed harmlessly on to the ground.

Lake had lost sight of it after only a few steps so he hadn't had a chance to attack again. "Joy, do you think we should go after it?" Lake wasn't really worried about his safety but the low light levels did make this more complicated. "Yeah, just take it slow. This is similar to cornering an animal, so once the fight starts it will probably just charge right towards you."

Lake had been thinking the same thing. This had been another situation where he should have used Marks of Interest, the darkness wouldn't have mattered anymore. Lake could probably shoot the undead from here. Lake slowly crept forward using his ears to try and predict when the undead was going to attack.

Hearing a shuffling up ahead Lake got the spell ready. "It's going to attack any second now." Joy was spot on right after she got done saying that Lake saw a pale streak coming towards him. "Fire Blast, Fire Blast." Lake just went ahead and fired both his shots because he felt like he had a good chance of missing at least once.

Only one of his shots landed and it hit the undead on its shoulder. The spell packed enough punch to stop the undead's charge and to blow one of its arms off. Lake watched the arm spin into the air and land next to his feet. Lake took a few steps away from it just in case it could still move. Lake realized this was stupid, but he didn't want it to grab onto his ankle.

"Let's trade places while you charge your mana back up." Hearing this, Lake crouched down and let Joy dive in front of him. Lake felt safe but he wasn't going to stop Joy from doing her Job. Lake watched the undead get back up and look at him and Joy. He could tell it didn't want to fight any more but it knew it didn't have a choice but it still decided to go on the defense.

Instead of attacking it got into a defensive stance and waited for an attack to come. Lake knew it made the right choice because if it had charged Joy it would have been cut in half. After a few seconds of recharging his mana Lake said. "Duck, so I can fire over your head." Joy crouched just enough to Let Lake aim at the undead.

Lake took aim at the undead's neck but did not fire until he marked it. "Fire Bolt." Lake used a cheaper spell because he knew the undead was going to dodge and he wanted to save enough mana to use Fire Blast once he thought he could land a hit. Lake saw the undead drop to the ground to get out of the way.

Lake thought this was good enough so he took aim at its torso and fired. "Fire Blast." Lake's spell landed on the undead's ribcage and blew a chunk out of its chest; this would probably be a fatal wound for a person but Lake doubted undead could bleed to death. After the undead recovered from the blow it turned and ran further down the tunnel.

"We have to be getting close to the end of the tunnel, there's no way it went far." Joy was right, Lake was currently watching the mark he had placed on the undead and it seemed to have already run out of room to move. "Joy let me get back in the front, we'll go after it once my mana is back." Joy squeezed against the wall so Lake could get by but it was still a tight squeeze.

Less than 30 seconds later Lake and Joy were moving towards where the undead had gone. Lake stopped before he got eyes on it because he felt they were close enough for his spell to hit and maybe it wouldn't be expecting it to happen. "Fire Bolt, Fire Bolt, Fire Bolt, Fire Bolt, Fire Bolt." Lake used half his mana in the hopes of overwhelming the undead.

After his mana recharged he did it again. "Fire Bolt, Fire Bolt, Fire Bolt, Fire Bolt, Fire Bolt." Lake knew he was wasting time but this was working he wasn't sure how many of these spells were landing but he could tell some were by watching the mark jerk around. Lake saw the mark was now on the floor so he took aim and said. "Fire Blast." [Level up]

Lake guessed he hit something important, maybe its head or something. Lake walked over to see if maybe the Intangible Loot drought had ended seeing the body wasn't glowing he turned to Joy and said. "Earlier when you said magic was the best way to kill undead, what's the advantage over melee weapons?"

"To kill undead you have to destroy the Unholy mana in their body keeping them alive and it's much harder to do with a sword." Lake had been wondering why you couldn't just cut them in half. "Do enchanted weapons work as well as magic?" Lake bet it worked the same as casting a spell. "It depends on the enchantment, but my sword would work."

So magic in any form worked, it wasn't just spells. This also made Lake realize why Holy magic was so good at killing undead. Holy and Unholy were opposite so it would instantly cause both to be destroyed. "Can you enchant weapons with elements?" Lake wanted to know if Holy magic could be used to make enchanted weapons to kill undead with.

"Yes, but the enchanter has to be able to use the element." Lake understood how rare holy weapons had to be if you factored in the odds of someone having the Holy affinity and the Enchanter job. Lake guessed he really didn't need one anyway so it didn't matter how rare they were.

"Alright let's go to the next tunnel." Lake was ready to keep leveling up; he didn't know how much longer he had down here, so he wanted to make as much progress as he could. Getting back to the junction Lake went into the next tunnel and a few minutes later he and Joy were back to the Junction.

Lake had run down that tunnel because he didn't hear anything coming from it. He was planning to do the same thing again in the next one because it was also quiet. Running down the tunnel Lake stopped there was an undead on the ground not moving. Lake wasn't sure if it was dead or it had just been born or whatever.

Lake switched on his mana vision to see if he could tell by the amount of mana in its body. Seeing some mana Lake said. "Fire Blast." Lake felt the feeling of Exp but he didn't earn enough to level up. Wanting to know how close he was, Lake pulled his stats up.

Race: Human Lv.3 ( 4/10 )

Job: Fire Mage Lv.5 (130 / 160)

Special: The Insider Lv.0 ( 3/5 )

Stats

Health 30

Stamina 30

Mana 30

Strength 10

Endurance 10

Agility 19

Dexterity 32

Perception 23

Intelligence 62

Charisma 6

Free stat points: 2

He was happy to know he didn't need too much more to level up again. "Hey Joy, do undead have cores?" When he was using mana vision he hadn't seen a core like he usually did with monsters or people. "They do, it gets bigger as they get stronger. These ones we're killing aren't worth harvesting even if we could find their core.

Lake wasn't sure about what Joy had said because he had been able to see cores in even really small creatures when he had been in the forest. Lake thought it was possible maybe undead didn't have cores when they first came back to life depending on if the body had a core or not. This made sense to him that they would have to grow a new one.

Lake and Joy went back to hunting for more undead, and after checking a few more tunnels they finally found another undead. Lake turned on his mana vision again, he wanted to see if this undead had a core or not because this one looked like a normal human. Staring at the undead he saw a small dot of light in its chest.

It seemed that once they looked human their core started to grow back. Lake found this interesting and it caused him to want to know more about the later stages of undead, maybe they started to become like they were when they were still alive. Getting back to what he was doing, Lake said. "Fire Blast."

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