63: Chapter 63 New Spells and Exploration

The sudden appearance of Richard stunned the Displacer Beast.

Its intelligence was insufficient to comprehend how a hulking human clad in steel breastplate could traverse such a great distance in an instant.

But it could sense one thing: this human's speed had suddenly become faster than its own, which filled it with fear.

It let out a low growl, kicked back two steps with its six legs, and then turned and fled.

Its displacement field continued to create phantoms as it fled.

But its fur was still coated with glittering dust, and those phantoms were completely ineffective at creating deception under the reflection of the dust.

"Stop chasing it for now, this guy is too fast."

Richard sheathed his axe at his waist, bent down to pick up the halberd he had dropped, and gently brushed the scratches on his breastplate with his hand.

His breathing was a little ragged, not from physical exertion, but because he hadn't yet fully adapted to the sense of displacement from Blink.

He would need to practice more when he had the time later.

He looked back at Morpheus, who was still sitting on the ground with his staff across his knees, wearing an expression of someone who had just survived a disaster.

"Captain, thank you so much. If you hadn't blocked that blow for me, my life would likely be over."

"That must have been Blink just now; I didn't expect you to have also embarked on the path of a mage." Morpheus stood up and brushed the gravel and dust off his robes.

"Blink is a very difficult spatial spell to learn. It's only been a little over a month and you already..."

Richard interrupted him, "You've got it wrong, Morpheus. This is the spell effect of one of my pieces of Enchantment equipment; I paid a hefty price for it."

He didn't want to expose too much of his abilities, even to a teammate he was currently cooperating with quite pleasantly.

Morpheus nodded, "I see... Haha, I was overthinking it. Regardless, I must thank the Captain for saving my life."

Then, Richard checked the new notification that popped up on the panel:

[Killed Displacer Beast × 1 — Gained 200 experience points.]

[Current allocatable experience points: 640]

As usual, he used the experience points to level up his Mage class first.

[Mage level up! Current level: Level 4 Mage (40 / 800).]

[Gained 1 free attribute point.]

[Please select one of the following skills:]

[Counterspell] — Causes another creature's spell to fail. The opponent's spell must be equal to or lower than your currently mastered spell level; if it is a higher-level spell, you must possess a higher-level Counterspell for it to take effect. Consumes 5 mana.

[Fireball Barrage] — You drive a swirling mass of flames, continuously firing three burning fireballs from your palm toward the enemy's location, covering an area with a radius of about five meters. The fireballs burst instantly upon impact, dealing fire damage. Consumes 5 mana.

He first added that attribute point to Strength.

The Strength value on the panel jumped from thirteen to fourteen.

The moment the addition was complete, he heard a low roar from his entire skeleton; every joint and every tendon was ascending to a more perfect form.

He subconsciously clenched his fists, and the steel breastplate on his body now felt as light as a linen shirt against him.

Richard stood in place, adjusting his breathing as his two hearts beat continuously.

He estimated that with his current terrifying strength, he should be able to throw a fully armed knight, armor and all, across a moat!

A strange thought crossed his mind: from now on, he no longer belonged to the category of ordinary people, but was a killing machine forged from flesh and blood.

On the other hand, Richard felt that he needed to start strengthening his Constitution attribute next, otherwise his excessive strength might end up harming himself.

Then, he looked at the two skill options and fell into a brief silence.

This made him very conflicted; to be honest, he thought both skills were good.

Fireball Barrage, three fireballs bombarding continuously, five-meter radius area damage, a purely high-intensity spell.

Fireball itself is a high-level spell, and Fireball Barrage is even more powerful.

Although he currently only had 5 mana points and could only use it once a day without the aid of mana potions, it definitely counted as a trump card.

The other one, Counterspell, was also very good.

If learned, it would be his strongest countermeasure currently, capable of making another creature's spell directly fail.

If he had had Counterspell when his teammate was controlled by Hypnosis in the dungeon on Golden Island, the situation might have been completely different.

What does a warrior fear most when performing a Charge?

It's not fear of losing, but fear of being stopped in their tracks by a magic-user's crowd control skill before they can reach them.

Counterspell is specifically designed to solve this problem, and it would also allow him to better support his teammates. After some thought, he made his choice.

[Learned new skill: Counterspell lv0 (0 / 50) — Causes another creature's spell to fail. Must be equal to or lower than your currently mastered spell level. Consumes 5 mana.]

He glanced at his Meditation technique; it was currently only level zero, and the proficiency was only a little bit, far from the threshold to increase his mana cap.

There was a short-term solution:

That was to rely on equipment, to find a few magic items that provide a bonus to mana cap, like the ring Morpheus wore on his hand.

However, all that would have to wait for later.

Now, Richard had just killed one Displacer Beast, the other had fled, and there were still unknown dangers in the lair. They needed to find the Elven ancient book as soon as possible.

The team members walked over to the Displacer Beast's corpse, crouched down, drew their knives, and began skinning it.

The Displacer Beast's fur still shimmered with that eerie dark purple luster under the light, and the horny serrations on its tentacles felt rough and hard to the touch, with tips sharp enough to be used directly as daggers.

Jinbao and Morpheus helped by carefully folding the skinned fur and tucking it into a specially made tarpaulin.

Displacer Beast hide is an extremely precious commodity, which can be tanned to make magic cloaks with displacement effects.

Those cloaks allow the wearer's figure to create faint phantom displacements just like a Displacer Beast, making them hot commodities in black markets and auction houses.

The Displacer Beast's eyes remained open after death, emitting an unsettling green fluorescence, like two shrunken ghost-fire lamps.

The Black Cat drew a dagger from his waist and very carefully gouged out the eyeballs intact, placing them separately into two small wooden boxes stuffed with cotton.

These glowing Displacer Beast eyes are quite popular "lucky charms" in the Rogue and prowler trades.

Many Rogues believe that carrying a Displacer Beast eyeball on them makes it harder for them to be noticed in the shadows.

Richard stowed the wrapped fur into his dimensional bag, then continued to harvest the tail stinger, poison glands, and other usable alchemy materials.

After processing the entire Displacer Beast corpse, he stood up, stretched his legs that had gone numb from crouching, wiped the blood-stained knife on his trouser leg, and sheathed it.

"Let's go, find that ancient book." Richard gripped the dwarven roaring battleaxe in his hand and led the way toward the archway.