After I cut down the wooden spear, I began to run to the side. Still, instead of moving in a straight line, I zigzagged and changed directions by jumping to other directions and thanks to that; I saw several wooden spears emerging from the ground. At the same time, the monster didn’t move at all from its original position.

‘This one should have roots all around the chamber… that is why it can’t move that much.’

I wondered if I could burn them and make the monster flinch and give me an opening… I didn’t have any close combat weapons with that kind of effect, though.

All of a sudden, the monster realized that impaling me was no longer an option, so the creature soon used its arms to expel a lot of weird gas in the chamber. I saw them emerging from the grass… and that gave me a good idea of the location of the roots, but soon I felt the smell making me dizzy and my limbs numb.

I quickly covered my face with a piece of wood that I tried to carve the mask. Still, that was bad, since I wouldn’t be able to breathe properly. I was in a race against time.

I could blow away the poison a bit with some fireballs, even explosive bolts, but I decided to hold them back for a bit longer. Without hesitation, I charged toward the monster to check if the creature could use the wooden spears and expel poison at the same time.

The roots that were on the ground kept expelling the poison, but when I was ten meters away from the boss, the creature suddenly made a bunch of branches emerge from its arms, making some of them assume the shape of shields while others took the shaoe of spears. That didn’t stop me and soon I slashed one of those shields with all my might.

A single one-handed slash didn’t do the job… the shield was tougher since it was made from a boss. Still, I followed with a slash of another sword and then made it half of it hit the ground. Before I could follow with the attack, two wooden spears came from the side to impale me. I blocked them with my swords and then pushed myself backward.

I felt it right away, the burning sensation in my chest like I had swallowed embers that smoldered and threatened to burst into flames. My lungs felt hollow, aching with this desperate need to expand, to gulp in even the smallest breath. Thirty seconds. It was supposed to be just thirty seconds, but I could feel every tick dragging into eternity, each second as heavy as the last.

I pushed through it and kept my body moving, but the effort only made it worse. My limbs felt leaden, each muscle straining and screaming as if they, too, were gasping for air. My vision started to blur around the edges, dark spots creeping in as my heart pounded, hammering like it was trying to keep up with the oxygen I was denying myself.

Instinct clawed at my mind, yelling for me to stop, to breathe, but I fought it back and pressed on, feeling this strange mix of dizziness and numbness roll through me. Every nerve felt on fire, my head pounding with each heartbeat until, just when I thought I couldn’t last another second, a faint tremor in my arms told me the end was closed.

That wasn’t a good sign, but all the ideas that came to mind weren’t related to fighting with swords. Probably because I wasn’t used to improvising with them… I made the mental note to think of ways to add that kind of improvisation to my training routine.

Before long, even without breathing the poison directly, it began to get to my skin and made more parts of my body get numb… at this point in time, I couldn’t afford to be picky anymore. It had to be done. The match up with the boss was just too annoying considering the restrictions I had put on myself.

I jumped backward and then dropped my swords. In the next moment, I grabbed my grappling crossbow and then pointed to the ceiling. Before long, I was pulled toward it in half a second. I found the poison getting weaker thanks to that, perhaps just like cold air. Poison tends to be heavier than clean air.

Regardless, I found myself standing above the boss and out of its reach as well… the creature tried to expel more poison, but I used my hand crossbow and attacked the monster with three bolts that were fired all at once.

A massive explosion took place in the middle of the boss chamber… flames moved in all directions burning everything around them, even the poison in the air. The blast also pushed away the poison to the limits of the chamber and destroyed a lot of the tall grass around. Before long, I saw the boss falling on the ground with three large holes in its body.

You received 4000 experience points.

You completed a trial. Please choose between the classes: Templar, Sorcerer, and Ninja (Assassin, Dual Wielder, and Trickster).

“I guess my crossbow is powerful enough to even instantly kill something like this, huh? Well, what now?”

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The options this time were quite good, but it was obvious the one that stood out, the Ninja class. The class itself was already good enough, but the fact that it required two others made me feel even more eager to pick it. It was exactly what I had planned to do next no matter what. Perhaps this also would increase my cards for melee as well.

Still, that made me wonder, what would have happened if I didn't have those classes? Would only two options be given or the third would only be the ordinary option? It was quite curious.

You obtained the Ninja class.

You unlocked the Attack Speed parameter.

You unlocked the Aptitude: Silent Observation.

You unlocked the skill: Shadow Step.

You unlocked the skill: Magical Shurikens.

Silent Observation: Gain 1 point of experience per minute while on enemy territory doing reconnaissance.

Shadow Step: Instantly teleport a short distance to an enemy’s blind spot, allowing you to strike or evade undetected. This ability also increases your next attack's critical chance. The distance crossed is equal to the level of the skill multiplied by two meters. Cost: 50 mana

Magical Shurikens: Launch a barrage of shuriken at multiple enemies, dealing damage equal to your dexterity and magic. This attack has a high chance to stagger opponents and disrupt. their attacks. Cost: 10 mana per Shuriken.

“Hm… this isn’t quite what I was expecting, but at least it is pretty good.”

Shadow Step was simply excellent. I could move fast by myself, but instantly? This was simply an insane skill. I guess I could understand why that weird maid of the Garnier house could move so fast.

As for Magical Shurikens, they could be useful as well, despite my lack of magical power. It was a spell with no elemental properties, and they wouldn’t make much noise on the fly, either. In any case, I could do some tests later… it was time to dismantle the boss and then check the next section. Perhaps I should instead use the parts of the creature to try to make a legendary bow.

I unequipped my grappling crossbow and then fell to the ground. Although I had gotten stronger, a thirty meter fall still hurt my legs a bit… they trembled for a few minutes.

The wood of the monster dried quite a bit after it shrunk, so I felt that I could make a mask with the effects that I wanted. I wondered what would happen to the extra effects by making this kind of defensive gear.

In any case, carving out the mask had been pretty easy. Since there was a lot of vegetation here, making a string to keep the mask attached to my head was easy too. Perhaps I didn’t have to do that since it would be hidden under the bandages on my face. In the end, the result was better than I had expected.

Wooden Mask (Rare)

Enchantment Slots: 02

Bonus Effects: Poison Resistance - Decreases the effects of poison attacks by twenty percent.

Durability: 05/05

It was pretty good… even though I forgot to use Material Infusion, the quality of the materials still helped quite a bit. The mask had some small holes in the front to let the air come in and my voice to be heard as well. Now I just had to find the combination of effects to make the sentence look even more hard to forget: I am your father.

“I need friends… my poor attempts at jokes are quite sad.”

That was easier said than done… aside from one time, when a friend openly disobeyed my call and then went to talk with some prisoners, the others ended up either betraying me or promising that they would kill me. My track record was pretty bad.

Regardless, I checked my parameters and confirmed that my attack speed bonus was there… exactly one percent. It would be easy to level up, but I had to get some multipliers there if I wanted to make any real difference.

You received 01 experience point.

“Hm? This was random… did I do something just now?”

This kind of thing happens when I usually write something down about the system. When it was something of low value and when it was an assumption as well, but I didn’t do either of that. While I was thinking, the alert returned.

You received 01 experience point.

“Is this happening because of Silent Observation? It is the only thing that changed from before…”

I knew that when several classes became one, their aptitudes started to work together and even their skills could be found under the main class, but I still couldn’t understand how Sneak was working with Swift Strikes and the aptitude of the Trickster class.

After a couple of minutes, I got some ideas… since I was on the run, perhaps the aptitude worked like that. I wasn’t born in the human territory and a lot of people were after me, even if I changed my identity.

Another possibility was that the aptitude simply worked inside dungeons all the time since people were the enemies of dungeons. I had to test this eventually… but before that, I decided to use Shadow Step as much as possible. The potential of this ability was simply insane, and I had to make it stronger. It definitely would make me a lot better when it comes to melee fighting.

The only downside was the fact that I had to keep making bows… it was the agreement I had with Cassius, so it couldn’t be helped. In any case, perhaps I could trade the mana cores I got for mana potions. He said that he had all kinds of businesses, after all. So, he should be selling them as well.

It would be better if I could extract the energy in the mana cores myself, but while this was an idea that I had, I had no idea how to pull it off… I needed to understand the mana draining effect that some weapons had before I could pull that off. Perhaps he could find that for me as well… with those thoughts in mind, I headed to the entrance of the dungeon and soon was left speechless.