A few hours later, Sol looked at the descriptions of his new and enhanced skills.
[Invincible Body] Lv 6: Increase Defense by 220. Nullify physical damage by 30%. High chance to ignore mental status effects. Increased health regeneration by 300%. Able to slowly regrow small body parts.
[Weapon Enhancement (Variant)] Lv 7: Enhance two aspects of your weapon: Sharpness, weight, speed, etc. Able to apply life stealing properties in place of one enhancement. Mana cost varies depending on the strength and type of enhancement.
[Storm Blitz] Lv 8: Violently spin your blade towards a direction using momentum to further increase its destructive power. Continuous use will increase the distance and power of each subsequent spin. Chance to lose control increases the longer it’s in effect. Cooldown: 3 minutes.
Sol added [Increased Health Regeneration] to [Invincible Body] thinking it would be better to combine it with the defensive skill over [Increased Mana Regeneration]. Though the two were named similarly, they fundamentally functioned differently and he doubted it would become a good combination. The new addition to [Invincible Body] ended up degrading the skill back to level 6, but he believed it to be worth it. It gained the additional effect of slowly regenerating small body parts. While he wasn't sure exactly how small it could regenerate, he wasn’t very keen on losing a hand just to find out.
Sol also combined [Life Drain] into [Weapon Enhancement], removing the skill's main weakness. Originally, to use [Life Drain] required physical contact to be used, but Sol mostly used weapons when fighting. Sol would have to let go of his weapon to make use of the skill which made it hard for him to make good use of it. Now Sol could enchant the weapon itself to gain the life stealing properties. This change wasn’t drastic enough to become its own new skill, so it only became a variant version of the original skill.
‘So [Reinterpret] isn’t the only way to make variant skills… Would it be possible to make variant skills without [Reinterpret] or [Aggregate]?'
If Sol thought about how [Reinterpret] functions, he would understand that the way the skill changed was based on how he directly changed it after analyzing and improving it. The talent skill made the process much easier by providing an environment where he could completely envision and practice with skills endlessly, but it was possible without it.
Sol had yet to see variant skills and didn’t know if anyone else had even managed to do such a thing, so he changed his focus to the only other actual new skill he made. Sol combined [Destructive Charge] and [Death Cyclone], which became [Storm Blitz]. Without trying it out, Sol felt like it was a decent upgrade but not anything amazing. How it used to be, [Death Cyclone] couldn’t be used while moving. It worked well in the earlier floors, but in this section of the dungeon, enemies wouldn't blindly charge into a sword if they saw it coming.
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Having a higher sense of awareness made [Death Cyclone] essentially useless. Sol hoped by adding the not often used skill of [Destructive Charge] would give him more agency in moving around while keeping the destructive power of the spin.
By the time Sol finished his skill improvements, Amber came out of her tent looking much better than before. With higher vitality, the recovery speed also increases, so what would normally have left someone sleeping for over half a day was only a 6 hour rest for Amber.
Sol made a savory meal for both of them using the supplies they bought beforehand. Sol’s cooking was once again rapidly devoured by Amber, and the two headed off into the dungeon.
The enemies they encountered were no match for the coordinated efforts of the two, and they had already developed strategies for each enemy type with the exception of one they had yet to encounter.
When fighting Dead Prowlers, they would have to bait it into attacking first. If the Dead Prowler realized the two knew it was there, it would immediately run away, using all its movement abilities to get as far away as possible. While the two could give chase, it would be unwise to do so, as the guide stated that Dead Prowlers would try to bait chasers into traps or other enemies.
Specters mostly relied on their talent skill [Soul Fire] to deal damage. They mostly fought by flying at their enemies and burning their health and mana with multiple debilitating skills. The only way to prevent them from doing so was to never let them touch you. Their only weakness was their relatively slow speeds. Sol and Amber were able to easily maintain their distance, leaving the Specter helpless to their onslaught of attacks.
The most troubling of the enemies were the Animated Armors. The pure chunks of walking metal were so incredibly durable that Amber was not able to deal much damage even with her unique daggers. Their only reliable source of damage was the usage of magic, so their strategy had to change accordingly. Amber played the role of distracting the Animated Armor as she dodged its attacks while Sol cast spell after spell.
The duo continued taking down undead after undead until they saw a pitch black root that appeared to consume even the light surrounding it.
Sol exclaimed, “Look over there, Amber! We haven't seen any materials until now.”
Having to trail behind where the large group had passed through, there were no materials or resources to be found. That group had completely stripped the dungeon of everything it had. Now that they were on the 13th floor, they had a real chance of finding materials.
The two had found a shadow root, one of the rarer materials one could find in the dungeon. It was a highly concentrated version of dark essence useful for a variety of industries, making it worth a good amount. The guild paid 40 gold per shadow root, and the two were in rather dire need for money after spending most of it on upgrading their weapons.
Sol commented to Amber as he took out the tools to remove it. “This one looks especially potent, never seen one absorbing light.”
Carefully removing the shadow root from the wall it sprung out of, Sol was about to put it in his spatial ring until he heard someone shouting from behind him.
“Hey you! Put that down!”