Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Forty-Five

As soon as Adam arrived to the goblin village, he immediately skipped the wait time and killed the first goblin as it appeared, rushing straight into the second one before it could react. Despite the bone armour they wore, Adam was able to deal fatal strikes with every swing of his fist.

The biggest hurdle for the stage seemed to be how to harvest the ears intact, but with a careful application of his acidic touch and using his stone hand to pull, they came off the bodies easy enough.

< < Collectible Relic > >

< Goblin Ear (Common) — The trophy of a dead Goblin >

He went through the next wave with ease, using his stone hand to catch the evasive blue goblins off-guard, before delivering a killing punch to the face of each of them in turn.

In the third wave, he killed the green goblins with a quick flurry of swings, before teleporting behind one of the yellow archer goblins on its platform, using the charge in his night moth’s bracelet.

Unfortunately, after finishing off the wave by jumping from one platform to the other and killing the last archer, Adam realised that the bracelet wasn’t recharging. His fear that it only charged at night turned out to be true, which made it far less useful than he’d first hoped.

Still, Adam blazed through the fourth wave with his tremendous speed, using a green goblin’s body to block an arrow from the archer, before flinging the body at one of the blue spear goblins and rushing them down.

In the last wave, he sprinted through the tunnels to bring the six stray goblins following behind him to the boss chamber, and then triggered the secret boss by throwing the rusted crown to the hobgoblin, before looting the lucky stone in the adjoining chamber where Belamouranthe sat. He returned to quickly deal with the six green goblins, and as soon as the last one fell, Adam turned and killed the hobgoblin lord with a swing powered by his shapeshifter’s claw, and then he followed it with a second punch to get past the boss’ ability to survive a fatal hit.

< < Stage Complete > >

< Tallying Score >

< < Score > >

< 40 Seconds Completion Time >

< 500 PointSecret Boss Bonus added >

< 400 PointFlawless Bonus added >

< 250 PointSpeedrun Bonus added >

< 150 Point All Secrets Bonus added >

< 0Damage Received >

< 3890 Points Awarded >

A new record.

As he harvested their ears, he made sure to grab the hobgoblin’s tongue as well, which he’d discovered was a collectible during stage nine in his last loop thanks to Seo-Yoon.

< < Collectible Relic > >

< Hobgoblin Tongue (Uncommon) — The trophy of a dead Hobgoblin >

Adam had been able to squeeze all of the trophies inside the bag that Weaver had made, alongside a mushroom he’d found just outside the cave entrance before wave five, which would go to Sprite for his quest. He made sure to also pick up the crown that the hobgoblin lord dropped, but fitting it into the bag proved a bit of a challenge, since it was already packed to bursting.

< < Collectible Relic > >

< Damaged Crown (Uncommon) — With the proper care, even a tarnished symbol may rekindle its former glory | Subordinate allies gain 10% more Health >

Next, he went on to select the rarity-boosted upgrade rewards. So far he’d gotten four legendaries, but he wondered if maybe a divine would show up.

I could use the lucky stone on the relic chest to get a divine relic perhaps.

But would there even be one?

Adam considered it while picking the upgrades. Once he was done, the six he’d gotten from the stage were:

< < Upgrades Selected > >

< Damage (Legendary) x2 >

< Crush (Legendary) x1 >

< Movement (Legendary) x3 >

As soon as he had picked the last upgrade and reached level thirty-one, something unexpected happened.

His body started to glow.

[Your Fool Class has reached Level 30. At Level 30, your Fool Class can be evolved in one of three possible directions.]

“Fool can evolve??” he asked, confused.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

[All Classes are capable of evolving, although the Fool Class follows an alternate path.]

“How many evolutions does it have? Three?”

[Fool has four.]

“That’s a lot of different evolutions then,” Adam muttered.

[You are mistaken. Fool does not evolve based on previous evolutions. Each evolution tier has the same options, regardless of what you picked as the previous evolution.]

“But there’s a new evolution every thirty levels?”

[Correct.]

“Well then, let’s see what I’m dealing with,” Adam said, excited by this unexpected development.

Instead of turning Adam’s body to golden particles, which would probably not be very comfortable, Parvillo projected three images in front of Adam, each showing himself, but warped and wearing strange clothing. The first featured him as a foolish court jester, the second as a grinning silhouette hiding out of sight, and the third and last as a juggler with a sinister smirk. The images were red, yellow, and orange respectively.

< < Select an Evolution > >

< Dancing Jester — Deal double Damage following a successful Dodge >

< Leering Prankster — Reactivate a Relic on cooldown. 1-hour cooldown >

< Cunning Trickster — Thrown objects return to your hand intact after hitting a target. If the object is a potion or consumable, it is refilled or its charge is restored, so long as the contents or charge were used upon hitting the target >

These are all quite good.

Jester would be purely combat-oriented, and it would be possible to push my evasion to 100% with enough upgrades to make the buff almost permanent, so long as I keep the inherent cooldown of dodge in mind. Double damage also seems to apply after all other buffs, so I could be looking at something like 2,000% damage just with my current damage numbers and the shapeshifter’s claw. With enough buffs, the effect would be truly powerful.

Prankster has a lot of utility, but can also potentially break several relics, such as the ‘True Flame’s Oath’ ring, which has the ability to do a true flame attack every twenty-four hours, but using Prankster, I could lower that to every hour, which would just absolutely break the challenge of stage nine, at least if I go about it in the right way. It’s also just a lot of really good utility.

Trickster has a lot of potential with potions, which could make relying on Sprite and Meilo quite a boon, since they might be able to help me make some very powerful potions. I wouldn’t even need to worry about finding the ingredients more than once, because I could just juggle the same potion repeatedly.

Adam sat down while weighing the options.

“What do you think, Parvillo?”

[My advice would be to select Jester.]

“The straight-forward route, huh?” Adam remarked, surprised his companion had even deigned him with an answer.

Jester did have the biggest potential in terms of damage, but damage alone wasn’t always the answer, and he would need to be fairly close to his attacker to dodge a ‘direct’ attack and capitalise on it.

Prankster had the most utility, since there were many different relics he could use it on, besides just the true flame’s oath. He could for example pair it with the relic renewal stone to renew items several times in a stage, not just once per stage, which would in effect allow him to do something similar to Trickster’s boon, albeit nowhere near as quickly.

Trickster was the true wildcard of the three options, but like Jester, Adam thought it was a bit too single-minded, even if the idea of juggling the same potion or consumable, like the paralysis venom, was kind of hilarious and terrifying in equal measure.

“I’m selecting Leering Prankster,” Adam decided.

< < Evolution Selected > >

< Fool =>Leering Prankster >

< < Mastery Shard Obtained > >

I’m able to still earn mastery shards with Fool!

That means that, with the three evolutions I have left and the seven shards I’ve got, I can buy another vanity this loop and give it to Luvicidix. Hopefully giving the vanity to each of the moths has some special effect.

Adam’s body flashed yellow once after the golden glow was gone, but that was it.

“Has anything changed about my appearance?” Adam asked.

[Your eyes are now yellow,] Parvillo responded.

“I don’t have eyes, I’m a slime.”

[When you cease being a slime, your eyes will be yellow.]

Adam laughed.

I’m glad I got this guy instead of Shitbox.

Adam immediately tried to activate the night moth’s bracelet, even though it was not charged, and the Prankster’s effect allowed him to activate it despite that, teleporting his body directly to the shadow cast by the relic chest.

While he’d been looking at the evolutions and talking to Parvillo, Belamouranthe had snuck into the boss chamber. Adam listened to her speech and nodded. Even though he’d heard it so many times already, he thought it rude to ignore her.

Before he opened the chest, he looked to Parvillo. “If I use my lucky stone, will I get divine relics to appear?”

[To cause a Divine-rarity relic to appear, you require more Luck. It is not possible with your current amount of 90, regardless of the rarity-increasing effects.]

“Do I need a hundred luck to make it possible to obtain divine relics from rarity-upgraded rewards?”

[Indeed.]

“I feel like there are too many hidden limitations to these effects.”

[Divine rarity is separate from other rarities. There is nothing higher or more valuable, thus it does not adhere to standard rules.]

I guess requiring guaranteed legendary rarity makes some sense, since stacking rarity-boosting effects is pretty easy with enough preparation.

“How many divine relics would it be possible to get right now?”

[Currently, there is only one Divine relic for you to obtain, and you may not hold more than one of these relics at a time.]

“So, it’s basically pointless to go for?”

[That is not for me to say.]

Maybe it’s the ‘Creation Spark’ consumable.

Adam thought about trying to get it after stage three, when he should have enough luck for it to be possible.

< < Relics Available > >

< Hobgoblin Pendant (Epic) — Player becomes immune to pain | Survive a fatal hit. Relic breaks if triggered >

< Goblin King’s Golden Tooth (Legendary) — Receive a 10% discount in every transaction >

< Fated Wishing Stone (Legendary) — Wish for any Relic of Epic rarity or lower. 1 use >

< Conjuring Stone (Legendary) — Combine 2 Relics of Epic rarity or lower to produce a new unique Fusion Relic. 1 use >

“Are thou certain thou are mine saviour?” Belamouranthe asked sceptically.

[I believe your grin is scaring the girl,] Parvillo remarked.

Adam put his hands on his face to try and force down the corners of his massive smile. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to shape his own face into a grin, but he could feel a big mouth on his otherwise featureless face.

The golden tooth is easily the most useful relic I’ve come across. A discount on all transactions means I can upgrade for so much less, and use my remaining points on buying legendary relics and investing in my meta upgrades, all of which would be cheaper too.

I wonder why I haven’t heard about it before, since people get the lucky stone in this stage, so it should be possible to unlock if the last wave is cleared quickly and you have just twenty-five luck. But maybe defeating the secret boss is a prerequisite.

As though Parvillo could read his thoughts, he said, [The Goblin King’s Golden Tooth does not work with meta upgrades or transactions involving unique currencies, such as Mastery Shards, Soul Drops, Victory Pearls, and others.]

“You’ve gotta fix the wording of your relics…” Adam replied with a frown. It would still be an incredibly useful relic, but not quite as overpowered as he’d hoped. After all, a 10% discount on his mastery upgrades would mean he just needed two more shards to get a fifth vanity.

[I am not in charge of such elements in the Trials of Defiance.]

“Then tell whoever is to add those limitations to the description…”

[Are you selecting it, despite knowing its limitations?]

“Of course.”

< < Relic Selected > >

< Goblin King’s Golden Tooth (Legendary) >

I wonder where it equipped itself to, since I don’t have teeth.

Or wait… I do. Since my skull is floating around somewhere inside my slime body…

“Will you tell me about any hidden demerits it has?”

[They shall become obvious soon enough,] Parvillo replied ominously as he teleported Adam back to Interim Island using his golden beams.

< < Now Entering > >

< Interim Island >

Adam landed in the centre of the island, and both Finnian and Migraine were waiting for him there.

“Aight, boss? Yer looking very slimy today,” Migraine greeted him.

Adam looked to Parvillo. “Don’t tell me this guy is part of the tooth’s demerits?”

[Surprise,] Parvillo replied in the most deadpan tone possible.

Fuck…

“Where to, boss?” Migraine asked.