It went without saying, the palace knew well enough to never allow rarer elements in the rewards. If those four orbs could be formed of psychic elements he could slip through most of the fourth floor and rack up a huge difference from everyone else. But that came with the assumption that any room he entered contained less than four things like the manticore, more than one beast at master tier also ruined him.
“I’m just too slow too… All these things are level 80 or so, but here I am with 40 Agility, technically 64 points, but most level 50 beasts have more than that! I don’t really have a choice then, all 18 points into Agility!” Icy called out to the Nexus, and felt how every step lightened considerably. Every single step now redirected and increased his momentum far easier.
Also, it drastically increased his flight speed, not that he even tried to rise up in these tiny rooms. Even as a shrunken dragon, the claustrophobic space simply constricted movement too much.
Now for the decision.
On the surface, this decision appeared to pick between reduced danger and increased power, but this completely missed nuance. In his eyes both options did the same thing. They both gave him time. Perhaps the most important thing when one fought enemies stronger than themselves.
“I pick… Wait, are the attacks boosted by our Nexus boosts? Temporary and permanent ones,” Icy posed a last-second question to the palace, his voice suspicious and wary. Previously, he sort of assumed that the array and markings applied, but made sure to ask.
Thankfully, it actually provided an answer as the toneless voice said, “All attacks are created in such a way that they are ‘cast’ by the possessor. The Nexus can confirm this.”
[That’s true. However, it only applies to these special rewards. The shield and sword you found are unaffected]
“Good to know. I pick the elemental orbs!” Icy’s shout caused a new marking of blue light to glow on the side of his neck. Specifically, it lit up beside the ‘Sword’. This one said, “Orbs.” With these three abilities he possessed a reasonable degree of might, and while he wanted to test the attack, he knew best to avoid that.
Three minutes approached, the time limit granted on a room’s clear, so Icy rose up a floor and entered one of the black doors.
The array turned quickly and the challenge for this room appeared, three tiny creatures the size of watermelons with massive wood masks over their faces. Their dark brown arms contained grains like wood, and if not for the hollers they released on sight it was easy to misidentify them for carvings. Each one wielding a wooden weapon with four finger hands, claws on each finger gleamed with liquid coatings.
An incredibly quaint species, cutely called pygmies. Vicious natives of select jungles who excelled in use of camouflage and poisons, in reality, they were likely the biggest threat if anyone ventured into any tropical location.
Fortunately, in a palace, they lost all environmental benefits, and possessed a rather notable weakness.
“Array. Orbs,” Icy called out both words at first sight, a pulse of light passed through the whole room but was overshadowed straight away.
Four balls of condensed flame appeared around him, they spun around in a stable, rapid cycle and flew off to one pygmy each. The three dashed away as their stubby legs exploded with speed, but it fell short of the manticore, let alone the homing balls of red. Each miniature star collided with a target before a second passed in the battle. However, even as the flames engulfed each one, Icy cautiously said, “merge.”
Danger passed over his neck, enough of a faint sensation for Icy to leap upwards and see a flaming pygmy slash their flaming sword where he once stood. The release of flames stung his cold body but all damage recovered near instantly anyway, below, one of the pygmies already dashed out of the violent implosion of fire, the other two sucked within as an explosion combined to tear apart their bodies.
His final orb flew down, but for safe measure, Icy summoned his Mind palace at the same time, the added mental suppression kept the final one in place as it burnt to death.
“Was I lucky or are they chosen based on rewards?” Icy posed his question only once sure the flames completely crippled all three pygmies. Their masks collapsed in the process to reveal faces composed of a spongy wood, close to flesh in its elastic nature. However, this too burnt and soon killed all four.
The middle-range Adept true spell doing as much damage as a top-end one also played a huge part, Icy’s massive magic power boost played an incredible role.
[Additional bonuses for Undying Body Ice-cream: +100% max MP, +50% MP regen, +200% HP regen, +50% Soul & Psychic defence, -25% physical defence]
Why did a bloodline which made his physical body infinitely recoverable actually decrease its defence?
Good question, the Nexus claimed it was just to make up for his ‘true deficiency’ and increase dependance on recovery. After all, for a normal beast with this body, their high natural defences might mean they never even lost a limb. A reduction in defence pretty much demanded constant regeneration. Which… sort of worked out for him. And on the other hand, the defence increase meant his unique Proto-formed soul did not fall short of any other.
Icy spent a few minutes recovering his mana and Origin Force, and then walked through another set of black doors.
The illusion this time a lone pheasant appeared, its feathers gleamed like metal with a deep lapis blue and black wing tips which cut on sight. Icy didn’t even need to think about what came next, his mana sight already sent a tremble down his back as the black eyes stared at him in coldness.
Terrified of the illusion in front, he shouted out, “Array. Sword!”
The familiar pulse of light moved through the room, as that same rusted sword appeared above the pheasant’s neck. It slashed down faster than it could move, although that hardly stopped a reaction as the black wingtips curved upwards to meet the blade. The pheasant flattened against the ground, but its wings barely held off the rusted sword, Icy summoned the orb immediately and stuffed it full of Origin Force and Mana.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Two trails of light followed the orb, why it released such a flashy display unknown to him, but each attack penetrated through thin, hollow bones in each wing. In pain, its concentration faltered for a moment and the wings finally buckled. Finally, a downwards slice decapitated the pheasant, and cleared the room. Two seconds passed for all that. Not that he’d have survived more than one on his own.
“Defeated a floor challenge, defeat two more for access to the floor lord’s room,” the palace’s blank tone broke his train of thought. A master tier had to beat three of these monsters just to meet the floor lord?
That single lazurite pheasant was already a mid-range master tier! Not just that, but it actually blocked the sword strike at first… an attack equal to a top-end Starlite rank warrior! He almost died to an illusion half a tier higher than himself, but it somehow managed to temporarily hold off an attack just as far above itself.
He moaned out loud, “Can I at least avoid these floor challenges? How was I even supposed to know that was here?”
“There are hints and clues for many features. Their identification depends on your skills and ability.”
He preferred the Nexus. Its insufferable responses were far more enjoyable than the palace’s. Icy stuffed the organ beside his heart with mana, initiating a conversion to Origin Force, and returned to his Mind palace. Dozens of souls burnt away as he quickly recovered the last bits of lost soul power, ready to enter a new room before his time ran out.
“They can’t put two challenges right next to one another, right?” Another black door closed behind him, not a hint of confidence in his stature or voice.
Just as he awaited a new set of illusions, a beam of light fired out of the ground. He dodged, expecting more, but grimaced at his mistake just a moment later. The pocket watch activated as that same beam of light bounced endlessly off the walls in random directions. Far slower than true light speed, he barely kept up with its white trail. At about an inch in diameter, the thing already pierced through the ice cream body with ease, if given just ten seconds it would’ve reduced him to nothing.
Thankfully, the slow down combined with his spirit made evasion slightly easier. More importantly, he rushed towards another room exit and threw himself towards it, the door opened and shut instantly in his presence.
Another trap room, only a few appeared every floor so it truly was bad luck to come across one this early on. Nonetheless, his pocket watch granted enough time to make it past with minimal injuries. The dozen or so holes in his body closed up easily, none of which bored a hole through his heart or brain.
But now in a new room, the arrays fired up as new illusions appeared. Not that he’d be here much longer.
…
Icy frowned at the memory of what exactly forced him from the trial. An axe-wielding giant cut down and almost pulverised the tiny dragon, as he accelerated as well. He unfortunately, happened across a second challenge and died without a shred of hope.
‘Died’ was written a bit heavily. The palace automatically ended the attempt when he entered that unrecoverable state, from there it teleported him in front of its black wooden entrance. As he turned around, more than a few dragons stood around to see what changed… Thinking about it, he never found out how they even checked their rankings.
No displays or arrays to transfer the information existed here, but that didn’t stop a few dragons from shouting, “He actually got first place on that one attempt! How far into the fourth floor did he make it?!” A few more called out, but none of the unrecognisable dragons in the crowd approached him.
At the sight of this, Icy just headed to the palace’s back, however, halfway there a dragon with sapphire scales impeded him. Not long after, one with light-brown earthen scales stood beside her to block his way.
“Can I help you two? I think I’ll take another shot at the trial as well, I got rather unlucky and made–”
Kalmiktar snorted and spoke as though every word with Icy annoyed him, “Forget the trial, I can’t advance much further without an evolution. Select a time and place to battle.”
“Me too… If this is your version of unlucky then are you going to clear the whole fourth floor?” Pritaslo spoke with more grace and clearly treated him as an equal, but it now made him wonder what the limit of these dragons were. Obviously, any dragon double his age could create an array similar to what he managed. Let alone these ones well over triple his own, and their levels likely exceeded his own.
Put aside for a moment, Icy stared at both and replied questioningly, “Three days around sunset. How does the lonely mountain peak sound? I’d imagine far too many will be watching.”
Kalmiktar nodded straight away and took his leave, leaving just Pritaslo in his way but she shifted to the side such that the two walked together. Taking this as an opportunity to ask, “How far did you exactly reach then? The fourth floor’s lord possesses a transformed body, you’d be lucky to even injure it.”
She questioned him bluntly, not at all hesitant to ask precisely how far he reached or with what methods. Certainly not something a human nor elf asked, but it reminded him of those times back in the mountain range.
While he held back the methods, Icy spoke of the final floor freely, “12 rooms, just one of three challenges too. I died by accidentally walking in on a second. My own question, how are you supposed to find secrets? The puzzles aren’t exactly simple.”
“You can sense those? Those are made for scholars or master tiers, that wizard might be able to help. I’ve heard quite a few dragons went to her for help on researching some matters.”
The two briefly talked on the way to the teleportation array, Icy realising that mithril tiers like themselves were only intended to obtain items from offset tiles. About halfway through it became apparent that Pritaslo specifically asked what fights he succeeded in to glean more information about his abilities sans divinity, and began sprinkling in a few more lies from there on.
For example, making it seem like the orb depended on soul power as well as mana, she thought this reasonable because of its origin. For the dart, he shrugged and claimed it lacked any battle usages, and then came up with false weaknesses for some other things. Meanwhile, specifically hiding the current weakness of his soul and physical body. His regeneration never came up though, thankfully everyone assumed the recovery of his leg against Lostradus depended on divinity.
This information would likely make its rounds as well, so he knew it best to set all battles to a similar period as the already determined ones. Someone challenged him within the central mountain as he exited the stitched realm, the previous second place individual who impatiently glared at Pritaslo for slowing down Icy’s exit.
Four others took the initiative to challenge Icy. These seven other dragons reached the fourth floor before his arrival and many considered the likeliest to triumph.
Two battles in three days, and then two more the next day. Finally, he set the weakest of the seven challengers, just three dragons, to fight the day after that.
An unhappy sensation arose when he thought of Lostradus, but these thoughts quelled rather easily. Even if an elder made immense sacrifices to restore a half destroyed heart, the lasting damage would still reduce his power. Furthermore, Icy couldn’t think of any restoratives which healed such a wound and then allowed a dragon to grow so much in a mere month.
However… Icy knew the next time they met he’d be forced to endure another grizzly battle against an opponent ready to counter his moves.
But the dragon’s thoughts were, of course, wrong. A fact still unknown.