Volume 3 Takeoff Chapter 294: The Rat People's Movements
Apart from these, in Levi's opinion, the items of real value should be a shadow owl egg and a book on magic expertise.
As a wizard, Sally has never had a magical familiar, so now is the perfect time to give this egg to her.
Sally did not refuse. Although she did not particularly like owls, it was not impossible to replace the magical pet. At worst, she could get a better one in the future and then change it.
Soon, a little owl, whose body was as black as ink and looked quite cute, appeared on her shoulder.
Levi also looked at its attributes and skills. Wow, this little guy is not only stronger than Xiaoqi in terms of physical strength and power, but also has two special skills.
First, it can provide its owner with 90 feet of dark vision, and then there is a shadow hiding skill, the effect of which is similar to the skill of the same name of professions such as thieves. When standing still, it is possible to use the shadow to hide oneself and avoid being discovered by the enemy.
Although overall it is far inferior to his own magical pet Xiaoqi, it can still play a certain role in the Underdark, which is considered very good.
Next came the spoils that Levi valued most this time.
Spell Amplification, a feat that allows you to increase the area of effect of certain magic, including but not limited to burst, diffuse, line, or spread spells.
If you do this, you will need to spend additional magic points (at least 50%) depending on the tier of the magic.
Levi naturally learned it as soon as possible. After doing a few experiments, he roughly understood the actual effect.
It is most effective against low-level magic, and the consumption is acceptable, requiring only an additional 50% of magic points, such as quicksand traps, to about double their area.
The effect on high-level magic is significantly worse. For example, the area of Spider Web and Ice Storm can only be expanded by about 30% at most, and for this he needs to consume about 1 times the magic value.
In most cases it is not cost-effective, but in some emergency situations it may play an unexpected role.
The effect of Fireball is even worse, and Meteorite is almost ineffective.
But it is very effective against ray-type magic.
For example, the first-level magic holy ray was originally just a line, but now it has become two fingers wide. Although the power has not changed, the level of it has suddenly increased.
Moreover, Levi also suspected that such a wide ray would likely cause certain damage to enemies along its path, rather than only causing damage to enemies directly hit as before.
But this is just his guess at the moment, and he still needs to go through more actual combat to understand its exact effect.
Overall, Levi was quite satisfied with the gains this time. As for offending Visharoon and directly reducing his reputation in his sect to hatred, it was not a big deal.
Most of the guys in the evil camp are narrow-minded, and Velsharoon and his followers are the worst among them. Moreover, almost all the necromancers are of the chaotic evil camp.
Even if you do nothing, just look at him for a second on the road, or even if you don't look at him, you may offend the other person because they are unreasonable at all.
In comparison, at least he gained a lot this time.
After distributing the spoils according to their contributions and giving some extra compensation to Cai Jin, who suffered the most losses, Levi also gave some words of encouragement to his subordinates, mainly the two girls Cindy and Sally.
Actually, this was Cindy's first formal command, but her performance was far beyond Levi's expectations. She was simply a natural general. If she was trained more, maybe she would be able to stand on her own like Donna in the future.
At the same time, through this battle, Levi also discovered the advantages of the elf rangers. Although their defense was as fragile as paper, their attack speed was high and they were agile, making them the natural enemies of zombies and other types of soldiers.
Moreover, with Cindy's help, their efficiency in killing enemies is also very high. It seems that they can no longer be treated as cannon fodder in the future.
Well, in this case, maybe when I report the information about Visharoon to the two goddesses Lilith and Moonbow, I can also recruit some troops for Cindy.
He still remembered that the Shadow Mist Servant under Lilith's command was a similar type of soldier, and they could also use the cover of fog or shadows to raid the enemy, which was considered a more powerful version of the Ranger.
It’s just that before, there was no room for the other party to play in his troops. Now that he has discovered that Cindy’s bonus to them is good, he might as well use it.
The ogres also performed well. Although their attack speed was very problematic, they were still very qualified as meat shields. They performed very well when fighting against low-level undead, basically killing them one by one.
At the same time, Levi also discovered during the battle that he originally thought that the ogres' slightly bloated belly would be their most fatal weakness, so they deliberately covered it with shields, pot lids and the like.
But in reality, it has been proven that this is definitely not their weakness. On the contrary, it may even be the most defensive part of their body.
Because under their big belly, in addition to a thick layer of fat, there is also a layer of very strong muscles. They look like big fat people, but that is just their appearance.
I don’t know if this was intentional or a mistake, but once the enemy really misunderstands this, it will often result in half the effort with twice the results.
They even said that some stronger ogre butchers would simply expose their bellies, without shields or clothes, just to deliberately attract the enemy's attention, and then they would take advantage of the situation to launch an attack.
As for Sally, she deserves even more praise. Her fire magic is the natural nemesis of the undead. She killed hundreds of low-level undead in one battle, and even more were injured by her. As long as she fights one or two more battles in the future, she may be able to advance to level 5.
When a mage has good equipment and friendly troops as protection, his overall output is much greater than that of other professions.
The others also performed very well, so Levi praised them when he was distributing the spoils.
But everyone on their side was very happy, but Cai Jin was not feeling well. When Levi turned around, he found that she was looking at him with some resentment.
Originally, she had some small plans and planned to act together with Levi. After getting enough benefits, maybe she would have a chance to make a comeback.
But now, she had only followed him for less than half a day, and her harpies and greenskins had died a total of four to five hundred. If the situation continued at this frequency, what she should consider was not how to develop in the future, but how many days her troops could hold out!
Levi raised his eyebrows. He felt that there was nothing wrong with the tactics he arranged this time. Afterwards, he gave extra care to Caijin and the others according to their contributions.
Although it was far from enough to offset the losses of Cai Jin and her team, that was entirely because her troops were too weak and too many of them died.
He couldn't just replace as many of her subordinates as she lost, right? Wouldn't that make him a free babysitter?
Of course Cai Jin would not be so stupid. She just wanted to take the opportunity to show her weakness so that Levi would take better care of them in the future.
Even though she already knew that Levi was very powerful, it was only after they actually fought side by side that she had a better understanding. If she could really get along well with him, he would be a stronger and more reliable backing than Boiling Blood of the Beast!
After chatting for a while, Cai Jin expressed her desire to find a village in the Underdark to settle her sisters.
Levi naturally would not refuse. There were many races and small villages in the Underdark, so her goal could be easily achieved.
Moreover, after having a fixed territory, they will have the confidence and hope for development, as well as a certain degree of weakness, which is all good for them as allies.
After reorganizing the troops, they continued to move forward. Not long after they went, Levi received information saying that the Sun Knights ahead seemed to have just finished a battle .
Levi immediately knew that it was very likely that the fleeing Nimbas had run into them, and he didn't know whether the Sun Knight had taken his head.
So he immediately rushed to the meeting point, and then he was slightly disappointed to find that the guy was probably too cunning. Even if the Sun Knight and Qian Thief worked together, they only killed all his troops in the end, and the guy still got away.
Moreover, only Rowan came to Blood Glory. Levi did not see Nar. He didn't know what had delayed her.
But at the same time, the Sun Knight chuckled and said that he had sent Qian Thief and the others to chase after them.
Even if the opponent is a man with the innate invisibility talent, even if he can transform into a ghost and move around in the air, his profession is a necromancer, which is not professional enough and will leave extremely obvious traces when he escapes.
And his magic points are limited, so he is absolutely sure that he can catch the opponent.
Levi thought about it and signaled to the other party that there was no need to rush to kill that guy, because he really wanted to know where the other party would run to in the end.
Should I look for other followers of Visharoon, seek temporary refuge with Gost, or go find the vampires under Dracula?
If it was the first two, it would be fine, but if it was to find vampires, then it would be a great thing for them.
Because up to now, they have not found Dracula's exact whereabouts. If they can find this clue by tracing the clues, it will definitely be a very useful information for Teclis and others.
The more intelligence he came into contact with, the more he realized that the situation in the Underdark was rapidly becoming more complicated.
Originally, the Spider Queen Lolth was involved. If this is linked to the two gods Velsharoon and Shar, both Teclis and the two goddesses Lilith and Moonbow behind him will have to treat it with extreme caution.
Shar is a powerful deity and one of the oldest goddesses, so there is no need to say much about her.
Even without mentioning Visharon
Of course, that would only happen if both goddesses really only had weak divine powers on the surface.
In fact, Levi had already begun to doubt. With the wisdom they displayed, would it really be just a weak divine power that could be ranked at the bottom among all the gods?
Moreover, their priesthoods all include the moon corresponding to the sun.
You have to know that among the human gods, Lathander only occupied the morning light and dawn, and was not yet the real sun, but he had already become a powerful divine power.
Even though the sun's influence on most mortals is obviously much greater than the moon's, the two of them can't be just weak divine powers, right?
However, he had never mentioned this to anyone. Since the two goddesses were willing to show weakness in this way, they must have their reasons. It was enough for him to know this and actively move closer to them.
After giving the Sun Knight a few words of advice, Levi also introduced Cai Jin, Sui Feng and the others to each other.
The Sun Knight immediately patted his chest and promised that he would do his best to help Cai Jin and the others. In the future, they would develop together in the Underdark, and only cooperation could bring win-win results.
Cai Jin had heard of the reputation of the Sun Knight a long time ago. Being rich was his first characteristic, and generosity was another one of his characteristics. She was looking forward to working with him in the future because she knew that it was unlikely that she would suffer any loss.
After chatting for a while, they returned to the base together, and Levi also learned about the development of the Sun Knights in recent days.
Although he missed the battle in the haunted town, he gained more benefits here and has now occupied several villages, but they have almost reached a bottleneck.
Because recently the subordinates of the legendary necromancer, Herman Gost, have also been conquering cities and launching attacks on other forces, large and small. In addition, there were conflicts between the two sides before, so the conflict has intensified recently.
If you continue forward in the other direction, you will encounter the drow elves.
Those guys are not easy to deal with.
In fact, many powerful races have similar characteristics, that is, their troops are more regularized, the various types of troops are matched very reasonably, and there are no obvious shortcomings.
Moreover, they often have a very strong desire for revenge. Even if you defeat them once, as long as you do not completely eliminate them, they will definitely bear a grudge and will try every means to find opportunities to retaliate, whether it is the younger ones or the older ones.
Levi also felt a little embarrassed. The old black dragon, the drow elves, and Dracula were three powerful enemies he had known before.
But now we have to add Herman Gost, the Silver Blood Army whose identities and attitudes are still unknown, and the new followers of Visharoon we encountered today. Isn't this too confusing?
This is in no way worse than the previous chaos on the surface world caused by the demon lord Orcus, which involved powerful people!
They chatted as they moved forward and soon arrived at Blood Glory. The Sun Knight also reached an agreement with Cai Jin. For Levi's sake, he would give the other party a village as a temporary place to stay.
Of course, this doesn't mean that he is really generous to this extent.
Mainly the many small villages in the Underdark, which are often worth less than the surface world. Some of them don’t even use the Heart of the Village. There may be wild monsters or resurrected skeletons inside the village.
But despite this, Cai Jin was still satisfied. Only with a village could she have a stable place to stay. Moreover, in this way, the architectural drawings she prepared could really come into play, and she could replenish the army as soon as possible.
At the same time, Levi also learned that the reason why Na'er did not participate in the battle was not because she was lazy, but because the team from the Harpers seemed to have discovered some secrets yesterday, so she cooperated with the drow of the Moon Singers and went to investigate together.
As a member of the Harpists, Nar had nothing to do at the time, so she went to help, and has not returned yet.
Hearing this, he couldn't help but frown, a little worried. The Underdark was so chaotic right now, and in front of the massive army, even if each of the members of the Harpist Alliance was an elite, they were not worth mentioning at all.
Unfortunately, because Na'er and he were just friends and comrades who had fought side by side, rather than superiors and subordinates, he could not see each other's attribute panel. This meant that even if something unexpected happened to her, he would not be able to see it and could only worry in vain.
But after looking at Alduin who seemed to feel nothing, he adjusted his demeanor and decided not to put pressure on each other. Who knows, maybe Nar is doing well and will return tomorrow?
After arriving at the village, Levi discovered from a distance that a dozen helicopters were hovering in the air. At the same time, some dwarves holding hammers and shields were standing on the city wall, looking ahead vigilantly. It was the dwarf Stump who was leading his troops in coordinated defense.
After receiving Levi's order, Rowan and his team led the attack. He happened to be strolling around, so he temporarily helped to look after the house. Because except for the helicopter, the movement speed of other dwarves was relatively slow, he should not join in the fun.
And this is not the first time he has done such a thing. To Levi, he is definitely a very trustworthy friend.
After seeing Levi and his troops, Shudun came out to greet them with a big laugh. Levi naturally expressed his gratitude immediately. Although they were familiar with each other, this was a matter of basic courtesy.
After chatting casually for a few minutes, Levi also found that not only the number of helicopters had increased significantly, but the strength of other troops in Tree Stump had also improved to a certain extent, especially the addition of long-bearded warriors armed with heavy weapons.
Generally speaking, the longer the dwarves' beards are, the longer they have lived, the more combat experience they have, and generally the stronger they are.
In this world filled with fighting and killing all the time, very few people can live to the end of their lives, so most people become stronger the longer they live.
Ordinary long-bearded warriors are at least level 4 soldiers, and the elite among them may reach level 5. They have a high chance of having titles such as squad leader, which allows them to command a part of the troops and have extremely low bonuses to them.
For the God-chosen heroes, whose leadership has always been tight, they are definitely very valuable troops.
Now Levi looked around and saw that there were at least one and a half teams of long-bearded warriors in Tree Stump's team, and one of them was even suspected to be a hero unit. Obviously, after not seeing him for a few days, Tree Stump's strength had improved significantly.
"It looks like you've had a good harvest recently."
Tree Stump couldn't help but smile and said, "Thanks to Qian Thief and the Sun Knight, the strength of the nearby good camp has been greatly strengthened."
"Plus, we just beat up the ratmen again and almost completely eliminated this threat, so our Helhain clan has more manpower."
"Beat up the rat man?"
Levi immediately became interested. He still remembered that Reiner had wanted him to help investigate some information about the ratmen, and it would be best if they could join forces with the dwarves to eliminate this threat .
Most of the ratmen hide in places like city ruins, sewers, and the Underdark, and have no conflicts with the elves, but near the Red Cloud Tribe there is a ratman clan called Clan Eshin, who occupy a ruin called Flayed Rock.
They originally fought with the dwarves and occasionally ambushed the greenskins, but now that the elves have occupied the territory of the Red Cloud Tribe, they have naturally become an enemy that they need to be wary of.
It's just that he had been busy fighting the greenskins before, and the ratmen's whereabouts were too secretive. During the time he stayed in the Underdark, he basically didn't encounter any ratmen of any size, so he put it aside for the time being.
Unexpectedly, Tree Stump said now that the dwarf natives seemed to have defeated the other side?
Naturally, Shudun had nothing to hide, and he quickly told Levi in detail all the information he knew.
Three days ago, a dwarf ranger noticed that the ratmen seemed to be preparing to begin a large-scale evacuation. Not only were they withdrawing from the vicinity, they seemed to want to leave the area completely.
So they seized the opportunity and launched a successful raid on the ratmen, killing tens of thousands of them at one time.
This immediately made the rats run faster.
At the same time, a friend of his in Zhendan told him that recently ratmen in a certain place have been becoming increasingly rampant, and are waging a war with the Zhendan Empire. These ratmen happen to be from the same clan, the Clan of Eshin, which is famous for its assassins.
Among them is a legendary ratman hero, an assassin who can use three swords - the master of death - Snikch.
So he had every reason to suspect that these ratmen might have traveled thousands of miles to support the other side.
Levi suddenly sighed. If that was the case, the journey would be really long. From here to the Zhendan Empire, it would be more than a thousand miles.
Although these ratmen most likely do not need to travel through the surface world and therefore do not need to pay the ogres a toll, there are more evil forces blocking their way in the Underdark.
Unless they really have some secret passage, Levi suspects that it would be good if only 3 to 5 out of 100 ratmen could successfully reach there. Life is not easy for these big rats.
However, the reproductive capacity of the ratmen is off the charts. If the survival of the elite troops can be guaranteed, the 95% casualty rate of the cannon fodder troops should not be a big problem for them. Anyway, as long as there is enough food, they can immediately give birth to more.
This is not Levi's own guess, he saw it on the forum.
It is said that ratmen are not monogamous, but rather an entire clan shares one or several reproductive female rats, and only a very small number of elite ratmen are qualified to mate.
As the name suggests, reproductive mother mice are tasked with giving birth to baby mice all day long. They are often several times larger than ordinary mice and are already showing a tendency to evolve into queen ants. They are all specialized reproductive tools.
This is a bit off topic, but in short, because they have already found out clearly that the ratmen have almost completely abandoned the Flaying Rocks, and the threat to the dwarves has disappeared in the short term, the natives have also relaxed some of the recruitment restrictions on Stump and his men.
Of course, this doesn't mean that they will have peace from now on. After driving away the ratmen, the next thing to do is to deal with the drow elves and their blood relatives and blood enemies, the gray dwarves.
After chatting for a few more sentences, Levi also revealed his true purpose, he also wanted to recruit some helicopters.
He had had similar thoughts and impulses when he first saw the helicopter, and now this impulse was even stronger.
Because in addition to helicopters that spray hot steam, Stump's troops now have several new tricks.
One is a bomber that drops bombs, one uses a crossbow and a hand crossbow, and the last one simply mounts a machine gun.
Bombers are fine, but if the latter two types can be recruited to protect the Sky Slasher airship, that would be a lot less trouble.
Shudun immediately patted his chest and assured that judging from the current relationship between the two sides, there would definitely be no big problem.
Not only was the rune blacksmith Hans always very nice to Levi, but also during the days that Levi was away, the dwarves, Nar, Rowan and others had not stopped cooperating with each other, and they joined forces to beat up the nearby evil aliens several times.
But if Levi wanted to recruit helicopters on a large scale, that was not something Stump could guarantee. He suggested that Levi should go to Gray Mountain in person.
Levi thought about it and felt that it made sense. At worst, he might be able to recruit other types of soldiers there. Even if it was inconvenient for him to bring them with him, they could be used to strengthen the defense of Blood Glory.
Then he began to discuss with Tree Stump whether there were any suitable targets nearby. He wanted to invite Hans to join the encirclement and suppression to further improve the friendship between the two sides.
But before Tree Stump could come up with a plan, a beam of light descended from the sky and headed straight for the meeting room. Then a female voice with a slightly crying tone rang out: "Lily, wake up, Lily, say something?"
Levi immediately felt something was wrong, and Alduin next to him jumped up directly, because the female voice came from his good friend Nar whom he hadn't seen for several days!
