Scab Fiends

Even after buying everything Ignatius had asked for, Siegmund still had a bit of Essence leftover from selling the trash items.

Metallic coins manifested in his hands as he handed the Essence over to Ignatius. Since the lore of the Onion Knight didn't include him being an Immortal, the coins he created from the Essence in his own body lacked the rainbow gleam of coins created by a player or NPC Immortal.

The profit was a surprisingly high 138 Essence, since there had been a random sale event on food items when Siegmund bought the rations. Ignatius happily tucked this away and added the remaining new food to his inventory.

Then he examined the Skill Gems which Siegmund had taken to the identification NPC.

The first gem was completely useless to him.

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┑

┠──[✧Piercing Shot]

┃　╰╼[Skill Gem]

┃　╰╼[Level 0]

┃　╰╼ Value ❖100

┠─[↷10 EP|⇝2.5 sec|↻3 sec]

┠─Motion Value ⇘3

┠─Requires Ranged Weapon

┠─Requires Alchemist/Gunslinger/Rogue Class

┃"A hunter lines up her prey and

┃ kills three fools with one arrow."

┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┙

GAME: "Piercing Shot" will pierce through all targets until it reaches your weapon's maximum range. Leveling grants a damage multiplier for each additionally pierced target and lowers the cooldown time.

This could be a fantastic DPS skill for dungeons, especially once it was leveled up, so that it could be used more frequently.

Alchemists, Gunslingers, and Rogues all had ways to add huge amounts of damage to a single ranged weapon attack—poisoned arrows, elementally charged bullets, etc.—and [✧Piercing Shot] would allow that bonus to apply to several targets, rather than just one, so long as the arrow or bullet passed through each of them.

But Ignatius didn't belong to any of these classes, so he'd try to sell or trade [✧Piercing Shot] later on for something more useful.

The next Skill Gem, though, brought a smile to Ignatius's face.

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┑

┠──[✧Cold Heart]

┃　╰╼[Skill Gem]

┃　╰╼[Level 0]

┃　╰╼ Value ❖100

┠─[↷50 EP|⇝0.1 sec|↻0 sec]

┠─Motion Value ⇘0.1

┠─Requires Magic Focus/Staff

┃"Nurture a spark of icy hate,

┃ then chill a worthless world."

┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┙

GAME: "Cold Heart" creates a small AoE centered on you. Enemies caught in it receive a slight amount of ice damage, as well as one stack of "Icy Hate." Each stack of "Icy Hate" slows the target and increases damage dealt to them for a short time. "Icy Hate" decays at a rate of 1/second. Leveling increases the damage dealt and the potency of stacks of "Icy Hate."

The cost of 50 Energy was huge, considering a Level 1 character only started with 100 and that single stack of Icy Hate would only last for a single second. In fact, even Ignatius at Level 7 only had 100 Energy, because he hadn't found any treasure to raise that stat.

And, well, Ignatius didn't have either a staff or an item in the "Magic Focus" category at the moment. Most of those were Astrologer and Wizard items, like magic mirrors and crystal balls.

But later on, he could find a relic Staff that could be used as a Monk weapon. The ability to crowd control everyone around him, even for only a second or two, would be extremely useful.

So Ignatius decided to keep [✧Cold Heart]. "Great work," he said to Siegmund. "I think this will be really useful, since it's a general skill which anyone can use if they equip the proper item."

The Onion Knight sighed happily. "I'm glad to hear that, my friend!" He shifted on his feet uncomfortably. "Shall we seek the exit to this place? The heat is beginning to bother me inside this armor."

Ignatius nodded. The Hell-Iron Jungle 'was' quite uncomfortable, even as a player.

Path of the Immortal carefully calibrated the levels of pain and discomfort which players experienced, so as not to cause systemic shock or to drive players away from the game, but NPCs reacted much more realistically. Siegmund would be "feeling" much more discomfort than even Ignatius was at the moment.

"All right," said Ignatius. "You walk ahead and try to draw out the enemy. I'll follow behind and kill them when they try to attack you, alright?"

The Onion Knight nodded, his stance full of determination. "A strategy which hasn't failed us thus far, my friend! Very well, I will lead the charge!" He turned and made a deliberate show of stomping through the center of the shadowy, sweltering industrial plant, drawing the attention of many enemies.

"Goodness me!" Siegmund called in an innocent voice. "I am merely a humble knight walking all alone through such a scary place. I certainly hope that no devious criminals or unholy monstrosities take advantage of my lack of wisdom and preparation to attack me from behind!"

The whole facility seemed to shake as an enraged howl filled the air. It sounded as though a whole pack of wolves was being burned alive.

Then the doors to furnaces and smelting chambers burst open, spilling bright molten liquid onto the floor!

Eight ghostly apparitions glided from their fiery prisons across the floor, each having the appearance of melted flesh dripping off several human skeletons fused together. These Scab Fiends left trails of fire behind them, creating a zig-zag pattern of danger which would burn anyone who stepped on it.

Ignatius leaped over these burning lines, slamming his fist down into one of the several skulls of the closest enemy.

The Scab Fiend disintegrated with a wail, leaving behind a core of fire which vibrated for a moment in the air, then exploded!

Ignatius knew this after-death explosion was coming, and he'd already dodged away to attack another Scab Fiend. The outer edge of the AoE hit him, but the damage was much lower at the edge of the explosion, and Ignatius suffered very little damage.

But Siegmund, being slashed by most of the enemies at once, wasn't so lucky. "Ooof!" he groaned as the explosion blasted him three meters into the nearby wall. The Onion Knight immediately pulled himself back to his feet, but he'd lost a full 10% of his HP from that attack.

Combined with the auto-attacks of all the Scab Fiends in the first few seconds of the fight, Siegmund had lost a total of 30% of his HP.

Ignatius gritted his teeth in frustration. He'd hoped that Siegmund's armor would protect him better than that, even if it was a bit weaker to fire damage than to other elements. But if every killed Scab Fiend took out another 10%, then the Onion Knight would be dead by the time this first encounter was finished.

And there would definitely be several more fights before they reached the end.

Though Ignatius could re-summon Siegmund once he reached the next floor…

…There was no way a squishy Monk like him could make it through the Hell-Iron Jungle alone.