Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) Jez Cajiao (top ten books of all time TXT) 📖

none are magical or have a magical specialty. To instead increase the… smoothness… of the people, the flow of their work, it’ll affect everyone, not just the handful that are working on magical things. Add to that, the Manastones we have will make a huge difference to the Tower’s condition when we return… I think it’s the best choice.” I confirmed, forcing a confidence into my words I didn’t feel.

“A wise and sensible choice, Jax; well done,” Jenae said, and I felt Oracle squeeze the back of my neck reassuringly, rubbing the knotted muscles there, and I let out a relieved breath, deflating as I released it. Blessedly, I suddenly felt the nameless terror of picking the wrong thing recede.

Until next time.

“So, boss, are we going?” Grizz asked simply, gesturing towards the stairwell down into the darkness, and I nodded grimly, dismissing the notifications. A last one tried to pop up, and I glanced at it as I closed it down.

Congratulations! You have killed the following:

5x Adventurers (Himnel) of various levels for a total of 39,712xp

38x Undead of various levels for a total of 9,787xp

A party under your command killed the following:

176x Undead of various levels for a total of 51,709xp

Total Party exp earned: 51,709xp

As party leader, you gain 25% of all experience earned.

Progress to level 19 stands at 149,236/265,000

“Hey, Yen…” I called out to her, seeing the details as it closed. “That must have been mainly you, wasn’t it?” I asked, getting a gleaming grin reflected in the firelight.

“Oh, it was the whole team…” she insisted, trying to sound humble, but her grin gave it away.

“Enough to level?” I asked, and she nodded enthusiastically.

“I was close anyway; the Skyking and the city fights were good to me,” she admitted happily, and the others spoke up too, making me smile as I realized literally everyone had gained at least one new level in the last few days.

“Well, congrats to you all,” I said as I swept up my bedroll and dumped it into my bag, then started pulling my armor back on, and finally tugged my naginata out of storage.

A few minutes passed as we all made last-minute adjustments to our gear, and I spun the naginata gently, shifting my shield around to make it more comfortable. It was a bastard at times, using them both together. The length of the naginata made it awkward at first, and it would have been impossible had I used a ‘full length’ naginata, as I’d seen in some of the training videos back on earth, instead of my own shorter version, which was why I’d not taken a shield originally. Fortunately, gaining the DEFENSE skill for my naginata when I’d reached level ten with it had made it easier.

Add to that, the hours of drills that Augustus had put me through, while mainly with a sword, had trained me in the shield’s usage, and it’d made it easier.

I shifted the shield again on my arm, trying to make it more comfortable, and finally accepted that I needed a lot more strength to pull this combination off. Packing the shield back into my Bag of Spatial folding, I quickly checked my stats again as I walked over to the top of the stairwell, pleased to see that the ‘organic growth’ of my strength was going nicely. It was probably the best way to think of it, after all, I decided, as I could both invest points to increase them or invest time and hard work.

“Jax…” Jenae’s voice returned, and I stopped, realizing that she was speaking just to me this time.

“Yes?” I said quietly, directing my voice to her as we started down the stairs. I felt Bane take a deep breath before pushing out his Worldsense in a long, powerful blast.

“We need to talk about your stats… and soon.”

From below came a loud crash in the distance, and suddenly, Bane was backing away quickly and gesturing at us all to move, to run…

“Maybe another time!” I called out loud, and I felt her presence recede like the tide, just as a low grinding noise in the distance started up. It was joined steadily by more, the rumbling, grinding sound growing slowly and echoing up towards us as we ran for it, dashing back up the twisted, damaged stairwell and out into the room above.

The room with only one exit.

Chapter Fifteen

“What is it?” I heard Grizz ask, and I shut my mouth with an audible ‘clop’ as he beat me to it.

“I don’t know,” Bane said, and everyone paused, wondering why he’d made us run. “There’s something big down there. It’s at the outer edge of my range, tucked inside a cavern, but it’s huge, solid, and covered in living things. Whatever they are, those things became solid like stone and vanished into big constructions, things that are headed right for us now, faster than any horse I’ve ever seen …”

“Shit,” I said. “Okay, people, all we know right now is that’s there’s a lot of them, and they’re fast. Bane was right for us to retreat to here. We can use the stairwell as a choke point…”

“The bottom,” Grizz interrupted, and both Yen and Tang nodded emphatically.

“What?” I said, my train of thought broken.

“We need to start at the bottom, not up here. There, we’ve got the stairwell all the way to use as a choke point; up here, we take a step back and it’s all over.” It made perfect sense as soon as he said it. I glanced at Bane, and saw his shoulders sag as he realized the same thing.

“Fuck!” I grunted, waving my arm forward. “Right, then; everyone, back into the stairs!”

Grizz was the first, leading the way, with Bane on his heels, Tang then Yen, then myself, Jian, Lydia, Miren, and Stephanos. Arrin brought up the rear, huffing as he went. As we ran down the stairs, I had to hide a grin as Jian lightened the mood for us all by complimenting his girlfriend, Miren, on