“Ahhh!” Jin screamed out.

“Don’t panic. Feel the metallic particles between you and the monster. Feel the metal element that makes up the monster. Instead of gathering them, create friction between them!” The titan’s confident voice rang in Jin’s head, calming him.

Just as he started to fall down, he held his right hand forward facing the monster. Manipulating the metallic element, he had practiced almost every night in the Titan Domain. The scripture from for the metal element had been hammered into his head. Jin quickly attempted what he was told to do.

Although it is the first time he had done so in real life, he managed to create electricity! A streak of lightning appeared from the air and struck downwards. Not only that, as Jin got closer to the monster he managed to do the same within its body. Lightning busted outwards from his insides.

“Gah!” The crab-like beast screamed about, its pinchers which were pointing upwards dropped. Its metallic body flailed about as a course of electricity ran through him. The lightning from within his body was outside its expectation.

“Quick, aim between its eyes.”

Jin quickly withdrew the lightning and gathered all the metallic particles towards his right arm. His fist grew three times its normal size and became a gauntlet.

Bam!

The grey crab monster tumbled backwards and collapsed. Not taking any chances Jin quickly threw another punch without any restraint at the same location. The head of the beast caved in and a small grey flash shot out. After the blinding light, a small metal pincher was left on the ground.

“The boss of this dungeon can have other avatars working for him?” Jin said as he panted. He had used up most of his strength. If that second blow didn’t finish the monster off, Jin would have had to use his trump card.

“That must be one of the Avatars from the owner of this dungeon…” Prometheus mused. Jin knew better to interrupt when the titan was talking to himself.

“Whoever made the laws of this world is an eccentric… If my theory is right, you can absorb the Avatar.”

“Make it my third Avatar?” Jin didn’t understand.

“No, you can refine the power of that metal type Avatar and make it your own.” The titan proceeded to explain the process.

“Allow the energy of the Avatar to flow into me and make it my own…” Jin repeated as he sat down. Grabbing the claw, Jin attempted to sense the energy the titan was referring to. It took him a second but he instantly felt a familiar force. It was the metallic presence that he had been painstakingly training for months to sense. The claw was filled with an abundance of that force!

“Carefully extract a small amount of it. Let it flow into the center of your body where the rest of your internal strength is. This is where your core is. Right now it’s just a container and you have to fill it up.”

Small streams of energy started flowing into Jin. The energy was disobedient and fought every step along the way, if Jin tried to absorb the crab’s spirit in its entirety at once then he would have seriously injured himself and failed. Following the titan’s method, Jin forcefully suppressed the foreign energy and rotated it with his own.

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The assimilating process took a while, Jin had no way of telling how long it took to absorb half the beast’s power. The blazing orange sun in this environment showed no signs of changing. The more Jin absorbed, the harder it was to continue. After Jin rotated the crab monster’s energy into his own, he had to filter out the impurities that was not of pure metal element. The result was that eighty percent of energy from the Avatar had to expel as waste.

However the changes he felt was instant even though he only got twenty percent of the total energy from the beast. It was as if he was high on caffeine, Jin felt invincible as his internal strength reached a new height. After getting evaluated as an E- Rank fighter, Jin didn’t feel his strength improve as fast afterwards. It is to be expected since each level is exponentially harder than the previous. Jin could confidently say he must have crossed over from E- to E Rank now.

“Good, now practice the lightning strike again until you can perform both the lightning strike and metallic reinforcement simultaneously. You don’t know if there’s any more guardian left in here or if the boss will show up himself.” The titan instructed.

Jin nodded, he totally forgot about the danger he was in. Focusing his attention, Jin tried the skill again and felt his control over the metallic particles increased. With ease a streak of lightning appeared as he directed it downwards from the sky and into the sand. The trick was to make sure the particles are always moving, always rubbing against each other. If they clump up and slow down, the power of the electricity will drop tremendously.

“Alright now let’s head east before you dry up.” Prometheus said indifferently after twenty minutes. Although Jin didn’t need to eat much under regular conditions, under this scorching heat he might just die from dehydration!

“Ah!” Jin cried out after he kicked something. He nearly tripped but after he saw what he made contact with, he fell down.

“It’s… it’s a person!” Jin gasped. There was a silhouette of a skeletal remain of a person.

“He must have died in here.” The titan said plainly.

“Is there no way to leave this place without beating the boss?” Jin asked in alarm with a shaky voice.

“Go see if he has anything useful for us.”

“But…”

“Just do it, do you want to end up like him?”

Jin was reluctant but after a few breathes of time he inched forward and dug the skeletal remains out. Beside a tattered robe, there is only a steel spear with a broken blade and a ring on its finger.

“Inject some of your internal strength into it. You can take the items out with your thoughts.” Prometheus instructed.

Jin picked up the ring and did as he was told. A series of items appeared on his mind; a small pile of gold, a few daggers, spare clothes, a few scrolls, some books, a few yellow elixirs, and three pills.

Before Jin could take any items out though, a sudden gust of wind originating from afar hit him. Waves of sand followed and suddenly the sky darkened. A large flying creature was obstructing it, the only thing Jin could see was a pair of cold red eyes.