CHAPTER 154: TRUTH SCROLLS

"Woah! Nice work!" Ning called out approvingly.

Melayne continued her close-range assault, her fire and light enhanced blade cutting deep wounds into the creature. As Jax had predicted, she soon began showing signs of poison exposure, her movements becoming slightly sluggish.

"Hang in there!" Roman shouted, casting another healing spell on her to counteract the poison’s effects.

The battle continued for one more minute, with Melayne attacking mostly. Jax used his threads when he could since he didn’t want to run out of Navi soon.

The fire damage the two dealt together was overwhelming for the boss to heal from. No attack it did or any spell it used halted their offense.

Finally, Lucille’s Fire spell finished the job. Bright flames covered with black shadows flew past them all, striking at the boss.

The Blightbloom let out a final, ear-splitting shriek before its form collapsed completely. The fungal tissue burned away, leaving only scattered loot where the creature had stood.

The grassland environment immediately dissolved around them, returning them to the familiar dirt-packed arena floor. The transformation was so sudden it was almost disorienting.

"We did it!" Roman said, relief evident in his voice.

Melayne sat back in relief as well. "We did it," she said in a slow voice.

It had taken about the same time as last time.

They had a 2 minute resting period before the 21st Round started.

"Look," Jax gestured to the sky.

Five tickets materialized in the air above them, each marked with a single star, before drifting down to land in front of each party member.

"Oh, right! The ticket," Melayne said. She had nearly forgotten about them.

The moment she touched it, a notification appeared before her eyes. The others experienced the same thing as they grabbed their own tickets.

"We can leave now, it says," Lucille said with some fascination. She ignored it outright. "Alright, prepare for the next round. Roman, go heal Melayne."

Roman immediately cast his Total Cleanse spell on Melayne, removing the poison that had been affecting them. Then he used additional healing spells to restore her to full health.

"Much better," Melayne said, stretching her arms and feeling the poison’s effects completely fade.

"2 more minutes before I can get to you," Roman said with an apologetic look.

"That’s fine. Take your time. I won’t die so soon."

They gathered around the loot that had dropped from the Blightbloom. As expected, there were five Emerald stones, which they distributed one to each member.

"Do you want this?" Melayne asked Jax, pointing to the slightly green colored stone.

"No," Jax said. "I have both Wind and Poison. We can sell it later."

"It’s not a Poison stone," Melayne said, tossing the stone over to Jax.

"It’s not?" Jax took the stone with a surprised look. He saw the description of what he was received and was surprised.

"A Nature stone," Jax said. "That poisonous thing dropped a Nature stone? I would have expected it to drop a Poison stone, given all the toxic effects."

"It drops either," Lucille said, having remembered the details from the analysis spell. "We got lucky. You can use it."

"You don’t have Nature threads, do you?" Melayne asked.

"I don’t," Jax confirmed. "This will actually be quite useful for upgrading them."

He put away the Nature Emerald stone.

The last loot to drop was a necklace, one with an active spell attached to it. The group looked at it with a strange expression, seeing a Spell slot on the item, along with a Spell stone attached to it.

"I’ve never seen a spell stone drop from a boss," Roman said with disbelief. "It’s supposed to be impossibly rare, isn’t it?"

"Not impossibly rare, but yes, it is rare," Lucille said. "What does the necklace do?"

Melayne pulled out a scroll from her Inventory before everyone’s eyes. Jax raised an eyebrow. "You bought Truth Scrolls?" he asked. They were sometimes also called Reveal Scrolls, used to reveal the details of an item.

"We couldn’t go hunting monsters without them, could we? We had to buy them at some point. It’s coming handy now."

"I have some too," Roman said. "Don’t you guys have them?"

Ning shrugged and Lucille sighed.

"I get my items from her anyway, so I’ve never needed them," Jax said. "We’ve also been kind of busy this last month or two."

Jax remembered about the axe in his Inventory. He had to get to that someday too.

Melayne used the scroll on the necklace, which vanished into motes of light, and the necklace shined at the same time. Melayne could now read the information.

"The necklace gives some resistance against Poison and Nature elements," she said. "It’s an okay necklace, but I think the Spell stone might have some value. It’s a healing spell."

"Oh! That’s nice. Who wants the necklace?" Lucille asked.

"Can we get just the stone?" Jax asked. His plate armor had spell slots that were vacant.

"I could get it out, but it would require me to destroy the necklace," Melayne said. "Monster drop items have permanent Spell stones."

"We don’t want that," Lucille said.

Jax nodded. "Someone should take the necklace. I don’t need it. I already have one," he said, showing off his Gorgon necklace that could block one spell from any opponent that he was directly targeted.

The necklace went to Roman in the end so he could heal himself if things were awry.

"I’ll take the next few rounds," Ning offered. "You all should rest and recover your Navi."

But Lucille shook her head. "No, we need to be prepared for everything now. Multiple monsters are going to start coming out regularly. We can’t afford to have anyone fighting alone anymore."

"She’s right," Jax agreed. "I will help too."

"You’re still weak," Melayne said.

"I’m fine. Roman healed me," Jax said. "You all did the most. Rest up and heal."

The countdown for Round 21 hit its end, and then the next monster came out of the gate.