The Tree of Ascension: A LitRPG Apocalypse (Peril's Prodigy Book 2) Craig Kobayashi (top 5 books to read TXT) 📖

when Garath’s eyes moved over them. He felt the instinctual knowledge that he could trigger Inspect on something in his line of sight, and did exactly that on the nearest monster he could find in this underground refrigerator.

Ice Elemental

Elemental

Health: 1,800/1,800

Level: 18

Station: none

Mana: 650/650

Description: Evolved from a Water Elemental, an Ice Elemental has increased armor and is able to fire shards of its own body to defend itself. It can use Mana to heal itself of any injury if provided with sufficient time.

They engaged an Ice Elemental not ten feet from the room’s entrance. When Raust got close enough to get its attention, they all got a better look at one of the foes they’d have to dispatch here in The Rolling Deep. It didn’t have any legs to walk on. Instead, its torso tapered into something of a fluffy tail that hovered a few inches off the ground. The Elemental didn’t move incredibly fast, but the damage that it inflicted on Raust with the spikes of ice it rapid fired was fairly impressive. Nearly a fifth of the tank’s red Healthbar was ripped away each time he failed to block a spike of ice from the Elemental. By Garath’s rough mental count, Raust failed to get his shield up in time or to the right position nearly half of the time.

Curly struggled to keep the Legionnaire at or near full Health. At first, he followed Garath’s advice to only cast the smallest of his three healing spells in order to conserve Mana unless the need was dire. When Raust took two back-to-back ice spikes to the chest, Curly  quickly switched to a repeated casting of the higher-cost Greater Heal, depleting his Mana bar within a few casts.

Garath, Handsome, and Andrea sent spells from the entryway while Fergus and Bill moved to the Elemental’s rear and took swings and chomps of opportunity. The fight was rather boring, in Garath’s opinion, but it was over quickly and he felt the surge of Experience Points as the lifeless body of the Ice Elemental fell to the ground where it was immediately absorbed into the floor.

Begin combat log:

[You have been awarded 4,731 Experience Points for slaying Level 18 Ice Elemental]

End combat log.

The Experience Points were higher than Garath had expected, considering the relative ease with which they were able to down the Elemental. After Garath’s quick explanation of the teal orb hovering where the dungeon mob had died, Raust poked it with one finger and the Party received their share of the Mana Crystals awarded for the kill.

You have received .3 Mana Crystals.

Mana Crystals will be stored in your Items panel until spent, traded, or until your death.

Led by Raust, the Party moved systematically through the too-bright room. On Garath’s order, they agreed to clear the room of every Elemental they could find before meeting back at the entryway to discuss their next step. The process was straightforward, and the Party’s pace was steady. Raust did a decent job holding the attention of one Elemental at a time. Unfortunately, the few times that the Party accidentally got the attention of two or more of the ice-hurling creatures, the Legionnaire quickly lost the attention of his first target while attempting to secure aggro on the others. During those times, Garath sent Bill to hold the attention of one Elemental until the Party could bring down the one that Raust had lost control of. Curly fell behind on healing when any two or more Party members took damage, but Andrea was quick to assist the Hallowed Knight in refilling everyone’s Health. She even tossed a healing spell at Bill when the Cambionic Fel Hound’s Healthbar began to get low, something that she must have heard Garath ask Curly to do if he had the Mana to spare.

After an hour or so of combatting Ice Elementals, the Party was as sure as they could be that the bright-white room was clear of its camouflaged inhabitants. Garath was unimpressed with both Raust and Curly, but the Party got the job done. Fergus displayed more restraint and patience than Garath had expected from the big man. The Brawler placed each swing of his large mace deliberately in order to maximize his damage output while also minimizing the chance of friendly fire. Unfortunately, the Ice Elementals were fairly small creatures at just over four feet tall, leaving less room for melee attacks than a larger creature would have. Even so, each time he smashed his big two-hander into one of the Elementals, the chunk ripped from its Healthbar was obvious to anyone watching.

Andrea surprised Garath with her attentiveness, as well as the versatility of the Spirit Master Class. The group didn’t stop to chat much, but from the few conversations they’d had when the group needed to stop to recover Health, Mana, or Stamina, he learned that Andrea had been a grade school teacher before the apocalypse. She looked the part too, between the floral-print dress she’d been wearing since The Culling and the frizzy bush of brown curls she called hair. The Spirit Master’s occasional spot heals made it look at first glance that Curly was doing a much better job than he really was. Additionally, Andrea had a buff spell that allowed her to increase a single Attribute of a Party member by 50% for ten seconds. When timed well, and used to increase Garath’s Wisdom, the buff made him feel like a total badass. The combat log in his peripherals showed some pretty incredible numbers while the short term buff was active, which made sense considering his spell damage was based on Wisdom. Unfortunately, from what Garath had seen so far, Andrea had very little chance of making the Dungeon team in the role of a damage-dealer. The single time that Garath had seen her attacking an Elemental without the added damage from either Fergus, Raust, or himself, it was a major let down. The Spirit Master called up ghosts from the ground as her