Eldritch Creature's Guide

"And for that purpose, they send in the Drider... do you have any things in mind, what their reason could be?"

Samiel questioned Yvraine, who started thinking, and before she could answer the question, the City Lord "in probation", Sarun Daragan arrived with great haste and answered for her.

"Their true purpose, probably the one that even the Drider and his servants aren't aware it to test the Mana Canons that the Nesser Dynasty developed in cooperation with Khazad-Turum."

Meanwhile, this time, it was Yvraine's time to be surprised as she realized that this was their true aim, or rather, this was the aim of the Underdark, while the personal aim of the Drider was unknown and probably not even that important.

"Indeed, Magetech is still rare, and it is often very hard to incorporate the purely scientific knowledge into the Magical ones, creating a perfect fusion. Even after the countless Epochs, only a few have mastered the power of the Magetech, and not many of those prevailed to see this day."

Yvraine stated.

The new generations of the Mana Canons that were being right now tested in the Zephystrand City had firepower comparable to a 4th Level Spell on average. However, the bigger Cannons could reach the destruction level of a 5th Level Spell.

"So, they are doing everything just to scout the development of some Magical Technology?"

Samiel asked with an unbelieving voice. From his point of view, as someone who was still having some difficulties adjusting to thinking of those Mortal Hegemons and Transcendental Beings, it was still an enormous amount of resources.

"Yeh... for the Underdark, they are just getting rid of some of their spider population, which is always overpopulated in their Worlds and their Floor. Not to mention, this generation of Mana Canon and other types of Mana Weaponry is becoming semi-automatic to fully automatic. For various Dwarven holds, this is great progress because, with this, they could push some of their foes to extinction."

Typically even if some civilization managed to fuse scientific and magical aspects together, and give birth to magical technology, the common end scenario of the weapons developed was the lack of efficiency.

For example, most of the Mana Cannons that were developed till this day were not that efficient and needed some time to recharge themselves after shooting out one salvo, meaning in real-time battles, their usability was relatively lower compared to purely technological weaponry, which could achieve rapid fire.

Naturally, this didn't apply to all, but only to most. In the endless Cosmos, there existed several civilizations which perfected the usage of the Magetech. However, they guarded their discoveries with extreme jealousy and never let them known to outsiders.

And contrary to popular belief, not many people or factions wanted to invest resources, money, and manpower into researching the Magetech because of one single reason.

Samiel could see that most of the factions were stuck in their ways, and investing a tremendous amount of resources into something which may not even yield sufficient results sounded terrible. So, they would instead invest them in cultivating some Legendary Level powerhouses or in training other Professionals.

"Aside from species like Mind Flyers which had perfected Psionical Technology or a few other factions that managed to fuse Supernatural Energy with Science, not many factions are willing to invest resources into that... several factions did it, and for most, the results were not so satisfactory compared to getting several Legendaries or cultivating countless Silver-Tier and Gold-Tier Professionals."

Yvraine explained, and in truth, Samiel understood the thought process.

"And yet the Dwarves are still continuing with those efforts."

He then said as both of them nodded.

"Yeh, Dwarves, and Gnome are two species which are continuously pursuing these paths, and here and there they manage to get some neat things and develop interesting Magetech. Some Dwarven Fortress Cities and Forge Cities have very advanced levels of Magical Technology..."

Yvraine then halted in her words.

"But they are greedy and won't share their discoveries with the other City States. And because the Dwarven Coalition isn't really a faction where one person could decide or others, the rest of them either could pay a tremendous price for the advances or get nothing."

Indeed dealing with Dwarves was problematic, and Gnomes were even more greedy and troublesome than Dwarves. Gnomes were species that were similar in appearance to Dwarves, just like they also were similar to goblins a little.

They were thinkers and built a majestic civilization that depended on Magetech. Unfortunately for others, Gnomes were the greediest bastards ever, and their Kingdoms and Empires never really left the Principal World they were occupying. Not to mention, sneaking up there is almost impossible due to constant surveillance of some sort of Magetech System that was able to detect even Transcendent Level beings.

"Okey, back to the topic; I think we are getting lost from our initial aim. How to deal with the upcoming Magical Beast Invasion?"

Interrupted them Sarun Daragan, as they were indeed started getting lost on the way o life.

"Our best chances would be the classic. Using our superior defense position with a combination of traps to deal with them. We should specifically target the Ettercaps, which are controlling the Monstrous Spiders; unfortunately, we don't have any means to prevent them from scouting the capabilities of the Mana Cannons, as they already obtained probably enough information from the year ago."

Samiel proposed his idea, and while Saran nodded, Yvraine looked pretty pissed at this because, de facto, they were used by the cunning Drows.

"As I already said to Samiel, I will notify the Frozen Court about the nefarious plots the Underdark is carrying out on the 67th Floor with their Frostbite Spiders... that will entertain them a bit."

Stated Yvriane with a bloodthirsty grin; even Sarun looked intimidated.

Even though the Frozen Court was not a member of the 13 Gates, they were still very powerful factions that didn't lose in terms of power even compared to some of the 13 Gates. They just remained on their rocks of ice, not really bothering with anything or anyone.

Certainly, they would be beyond pissed that Drows and races from the Underdark were planning to "kidnap" some o their Frostbite Spiders from the 67th Floor.

"And then, there is the problem of the Drider and some people who descended directly from the Underdark City; all o them are Silver-Tier."

Samiel continued after a while; based on the memories he got from that Drow Warrior, there were about six or seven Silver-Tier individuals from the Underdark City with an unknown purpose.

And, of course, the Drider himself was a Silver-Tier Professional.

"People from the Underdark are not the problem; they won't be participating in this at all."

Yvraine was pretty confident in this, and even Sarun seemed inclined to agree with her on this statement.

"Are you sure?"

Samiel put out the question he had on his mind, just to be sure.

"Yes, whatever they told the Drider they were here for, is probably a blatant lie, to trick the Drider into carrying out this suicidal mission, where he would die for sure. Their true purpose is to monitor the situation, collect the date and watch over the Drider and possibly kill him if he stepped over the line."

She enlightened Samiel as now he understood the reason behind their presence on the 3rd Floor.

Driders were uncontrollable abominations of Spider Goddess Lolth, so there still existed the possibility that the Drider would do something against the order from the Underdark, and for that reason, there were several Silver-Tier Drows here.

If something went the wrong way, they would kill the Drider and finish the mission themselves.

"And that leaves only the Drider... how strong it is?"

There were, right now, no Silver-Tier Professionals in Zephystrand City. However, that didn't mean that there were no people with the combat prowess of the Silver-Tier.

"Newly advanced one... I believe that I can kill him."

Samiel knew that if he achieved Level 19 or Level 20, then he could kill the Level 51 or Level 52 Drider with relative ease without an outside him.

"I was not aware that your Cross Tier Battle Prowess reached that high level."

There were some hints of respect mixed with a healthy amount of fear and admiration in his voice. Cross Tier Fighting was, in reality, rare because not many people could fight those who were one Tier higher.

Yeh, those of the Superior species could, but mostly if they were fighting someone of the lesser species than themselves, but fighting two Tiers higher was unheard of.

While Samiel was partially proud of his power, he knew that this gap would soon enough disappear when he entered the higher Tiers. That was because, while he could indeed fight higher Tiers than himself right now, none of them required special conditions to achieve that Tier.

Like in the Gold-Tier, people had something called Mastery, which would considerably enhance their combat prowess. That gap between even the weakest Legendary and strongest Gold-Tier was immense, like that of Heaven and Earth.

"With that, the problem of the Drider should be cared off, but to be sure, I will ask for more reinforcements to arrive... we can use this as a good training exercise for more recruits of the Silvermoon Knight Order."

Sarun stated to both of them while he went to carry out several things that needed to be done. The first was to give orders to start bolstering the defenses of the Zephystrand once more and also to call the Headquarters of the Silvermoon Order to send in more recruits.

Right now, there was a relative calmness in the Tower, and truth to be told, even in the entire Cosmos. Yeh, there were some skirmishes and small-scale wars, but it was not like a whole Cosmos was enveloped in war.

It was like a calmness before the storm.

"Now this done, when is your duel with Estrid commencing?"

Asked Samiel while both of them sat down next to the Moon Pond; just this time, Samiel wasn't drinking from it, not wanting to irritate the female Silvermoon Elf even more than she was after he asked her this dreaded question.

"Tomorrow."

She answered swiftly, a hint of nervousness evident.

"And how sure are you?"

He remembered how their last encounter ended, probably in her imminent defeat, as Estrid was a league above her, though now her chances may have changed with new strategies, Spells that Samiel taught her, and Grimoire Elementia Magicae.

"Much higher than the last one... we will see, but if nothing unexpected happens tomorrow, then the victory is about 60% mine."

Yvraine sounded confident, and Samiel didn't want to say anything more, just deciding to stay silent.

In truth, he wondered what made her so confident, even considering the fact that Estrid would most likely use her dragon form in the fight.