You obtained the Dreadful Enchanter class.
You improved the Mana Pool parameter.
You unlocked the Aptitude: Malevolent Artifice.
You unlocked the skill: Cursed Imbuement.
You unlocked the skill: Ethereal Chains.
Malevolent Artifice: Gain experience by crafting enchantments or curses on objects based on their potency and complexity. The stronger and more intricate the enchantment or curse, the more experience is earned.
Ethereal Chains: Summon spectral chains that bind a target in place for up to 8 seconds, making them unable to move. While bound, the target suffers minor damage over time. Breaking free requires a significant effort, scaling with the skill level. Cost: 50 Mana.
Cursed Imbuement: Enchant a weapon or item with a dark curse, adding debuffs such as reduced target dexterity or strength to the inflicted target. The curse lasts for 15 seconds and scales in potency with the level of the skill. Cost: 45 Mana per effect.
I felt the knowledge of the skills appearing in my brain a bit at a time and soon enough; I felt something else inside me as well. A weird feeling began to spread from the bottom of my stomach to the rest of my body. A cold feeling… anger began to boil inside me, and a bitter longing began to creep through my veins… images of Rayner and his family flashed through my mind for a few seconds and those feelings only grew stronger, but eventually, they subdued.
‘What the hell was that?’
I knew what it was, but I still had to ask since I didn’t expect it entirely. Now, I could add debuff effects to my enchantments, and weaken the enemies with each attack. Maybe it was because the nature of that kind of magic was dark or something and that made me feel that way. Still, since the class appeared like that and had that name, I could tell that it wasn’t a class of humans, it was a class for vampires.
Regardless, it was time to move on. I sighed to recover from that odd situation… and then used my grappling crossbow to pull the body of the boss when it reached the surface. All that hard work was worth it in the end. I modified my hand cannon last year to fire only earth-enchanted iron balls. That would make it more powerful and more durable as well.
Still, I also decided to change the multiple likes of ammo for a single one in order to increase its power even more. Thanks to that, it could only keep five iron balls. They were three times bigger than the previous ones, so it was quite heavy to keep the hand cannon equipped and loaded at all times. Still, thanks to that, I had a lot of frogs skin to use without any real damage. It was time to get to work.
It took me two days to tan the whole thing, but I was satisfied with the result in the end. I was able to use the bones of the previous boss as the foundation and covered it with the skin of the second boss. Since I didn’t have to stitch too many parts together, now I had a boat that could float without losing air. It was a bit weird since it looked like a giant frog from a distance, but it was a minor detail.
‘It is a pity that I can’t enchant this…’
Still, I could use the magic engine of my automatic bike as an engine for the boat. I just have to change the back wheel a bit. It would work better if the blades of the propeller were a bit curved. Still, it would be just fine with me using a paddle. Thanks to my strength, I could cover a lot of ground with a single paddling without getting tired as well.
The only problem was that I couldn’t store such a boat inside my magic bags, it needed to be at least of rare rank to take things that big. Still, I could disassemble the boat, so it was fine. I also had two extra sets of materials since the boss showed up two times, but I didn’t play with the creature this time around. In the first chance I had, once they tried to eat me alive, I pierced their brains from inside their mouths.
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‘Time to take a break before moving on to the next section… I know that the boat will be useful to escape the labyrinth and reach land, but I sure hope it will be useful in the next sections as well.’
I slapped my cheeks a bit and then decided to move to the next section. Aside from those weird feelings, I haven’t noticed any changes in my body so far and I even took out the bandages and checked my appearance as well.
It was weird, though. I didn’t notice any changes when I got to the Dark Scrollmaker class. Still, things would be fine for as long as I don’t feel the literal thirst for blood. Avoiding those kinds of classes was a better option unless they were involved with enchantment.
As I was climbing the stairs, I felt a chilly wind coming from above and that really made me worry… soon enough, my worries were confirmed. There were some small icebergs around and it goes without saying that the entire floor was underwater as well.
‘I really shouldn’t swim in a place like this…’
My Spirit has increased, but it wasn’t nearly enough to endure this freezing water for long. I couldn’t see islands around anymore, so it seemed that one would have to use the icebergs to move. Fortunately, I was well equipped for those.
Without wasting time, I used my grappling crossbow to hit one of the icebergs. I confirmed that it was heavy and sturdy enough to endure the pull. I jumped on the water and then pulled the second trigger. Thanks to that, I began to surf while I was being reeled in toward it.
‘Hehehe, this is fun. It is cold!’
A few droplets of water touched me, even though my legs and arms were covered in the frog leather. They were very impermeable. In any case, before I could start to sink, I tried to jump and then landed on the top of the iceberg. It was only half a meter wide, but it was big enough for me. Despite my landing, it didn’t move an inch either.
I checked the surroundings, but I didn’t find any signs of monsters, so I decided to move to the next iceberg. I wasn’t planning to use the boat until I had a good grasp of the monsters in the new section.
Much to my surprise, the creature appeared when I approached the next iceberg… it jumped from the water and landed on the one I was moving toward.
‘A sahuagin…’
The creature in front of me was human-sized, a bit bigger actually. Its form was fierce, like a monstrous blend of fish and man. I had a scaled body, shimmering in hues of green and blue, darker in patches where the shadows of the water clung to it. It was huge, nearly seven feet tall, with wide, webbed hands that ended in claws sharp enough to tear through flesh, and broad shoulders lined with fin-like spines that gave it an eerie, fluid grace as it moved.
But what caught my eye was its face, a visage of pure malice. Its eyes were pitch-black voids, empty of any warmth, just cold and calculating. The mouth, lined with rows of jagged teeth, curled in a snarl, while its gill slits pulsed with each breath, making the whole sight even more unnerving.
And then there was the spear. It wasn’t ordinary; it was made entirely from ice, the surface jagged and barbed, radiating an intense, unnatural cold. Frost drifted off it in thin wisps, chilling the water around it as if freezing the very air. In that instant, I saw the creature’s otherworldly magic at work, the way its spear glowed faintly, and how the water near its clawed hand froze as if waiting for its call.
The creature soon jumped toward me and then retracted its spear before thrusting forward when it began to fall in my direction. This was an odd instance to fight, so I didn’t hesitate in using my hand crossbow and firing an explosive bolt… much to my surprise, the monster blocked it.
‘What the heck…’
The blast pushed the monster away and almost made it land on the iceberg back… the creature was covered in burn marks and trembling thanks to the damage while its spear was falling apart… I immediately fired another and this time, the beast was unable to block it.
You received 50 experience points.
I landed on the iceberg and then dragged the body toward it… it didn’t look like the type of creature that I usually could get materials from. Still, I had to find ways to use it, if nothing else, I had to get the mana cores, at least.
‘If the push comes to a shove, I might have to stop using projectiles… in any case, I need to make a crossbow with three slots for enchantments if the monsters are attacking me under those circumstances.’
Since the monster could use ice magic, I was expecting to find parts that I could use, but aside from the bones, nothing seemed useful. The creature had a tough hide and scales, but they were slowly losing durability for some reason. They probably gained extra power by absorbing the mana of the beast.
Getting the bones of a humanoid creature was rather disgusting, but it had to be done for now to see if I could turn its bones into something decent. Another crossbow would be a good idea, but I couldn’t imagine it being better than the previous one.
‘Maybe I should just trade the enchantments for a while…’
Freeze Hand Crossbow (Rare)
Enchantment Slots: Windy - Increases the attack speed and flying speed of projectiles by thirty percent.
Windy - Increases the attack speed and flying speed of projectiles by thirty percent.
Bonus Effects: Eagle Eye - Provides an increase in range and accuracy of 20%, allowing the archer to shoot from great distances with little penalty.
Silencer: Makes your bolts fly without making any sound.
Even if I decided that, I wasn’t skilled enough to make Mana Drain take fewer slots. Perhaps I should just trade the parts… but I couldn’t use Material Infusion when the parts were already made. I still had the other parts of the giant frog… perhaps I could make a crossbow out of the bones of the beast.
Another option was to somehow use the bow with the mana drain effect with a single hand. Pretty difficult to do actually. I could attack it to a part of my hand crossbow, but it still would take too much room.
Regardless, I decided to move until I had some ideas… I couldn’t stop to make anything when I just started the exploration of the new section, after all.
I resumed my exploration, but since I was lost in thought, I didn’t realize that some trouble was following me from behind.