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Chapter 163 – Sand Golem

Although I increased my movement speed enough to clear four sections of a labyrinth in four days, I was still getting tired… probably because I didn’t take time to rest for even a minute and because I kept using my mana.

Still, that would be a good experience for me. I had to make this kind of memory even more intense to learn from my mistakes. I was a bit too worried about making things as efficient as possible. Instead of that, I had to obtain all the tools that I would need for all kinds of situations and then worry about efficiency later.

There were so many things that I could do that I didn’t realize until now. Maybe I only realized it now because my body and mind were reaching their limits. I couldn’t tell for sure if those ideas were pretty good, but they seemed good now when I had them.

For example, I forgot to try to find a way to make meditation into an amulet. As long as the drawback of the skill was being done by a medium, I didn’t have to stand still and let the process work. Then again, there was a chance that the amulet wouldn’t restore my mana and stamina… it would just overflow with energy stored inside and then explode.

My amulets that I created until now were mainly offensive, but Shadow Step and Camouflage worked as they were supposed to, so perhaps it could work as I had planned. It would be amazing to have several of them equipped and make meditation level up all the time.

Soon enough, I also had this idea on how to improve my bike. It would need to be remade from scratch, but it made me recall a vehicle from a sci-fi series. The only wheel of the vehicle was around the seat of the driver and it could be used as a weapon too to cut down enemies. I couldn’t make it as big as the original, or it wouldn’t fit inside a labyrinth, but it certainly would be useful.

‘It is annoying that I only have those ideas when I leave my break period…’

There was no point in complaining about it, so I decided to move on… Before I noticed it, I reached the next boss’ chamber. I should have put some distance between me and the water, but I couldn’t drop my guard. Since the monster will probably be made of sand, I didn’t have to worry about damaging the materials that I could obtain, so that was a good thing.

‘Time to exterminate the boss and get the hell out of here…’

I put away my bow and equipped my hand crossbow. For longer battles, my bow was the best option, but to make things end as soon as possible, my hand crossbow was the best option. A sand golem wasn’t supposed to be affected by poison, but my decay bolts didn’t cause poison damage… they caused true damage. It was truly a broken tool that I had in my body… I couldn’t use it that often for obvious reasons, though.

I climbed down to the boss’ room while running and soon found a large place filled with sand. There were even some dunes around and that showed how large the place was. On the other side of the chamber, I couldn’t find an exit, so it looked like this was truly the end of the line for the labyrinth. I sighed in relief since there was a small chance that I would have tried to get the next class… one that was on the same level as the Arcane Archer… it was too appealing to ignore.

‘I guess I am starting to get mad at not thinking clearly thanks to the exhaustion.’

While I was thinking about that, the chamber began to shake and then a massive figure began to emerge in the middle of the chamber… It was a massive figure, an almost shapeless figure made of sand.

The golems that I faced in this section were kind of clay dolls made by a child, without many details, but with a humanoid shape. This one didn’t look that detailed, but I could tell that it was similar to that monster that I faced with Nimir… it could use the environment easily until its core was completely destroyed.

I waited until the monster was half made above the sand, only from its waist and above a body could be seen, but the creature was still able to move despite that. The creature was still thirty feet tall despite that and when it raised its arms toward me, it fired sand spears like a machine gun.

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I dashed to the side and avoided them, but soon the monster was able to adjust its arms while chasing. I eventually moved to the back of the creature, but arms still kept twisting around the body of the monster, its eyes as well.

‘I guess one doesn’t need to worry about joints when one’s body is made of sand.’

I used Shadow Step ahead and then disappeared from the enemy’s field of vision for a moment and then, when it found me again, I used my five loaded Decay Bolts on the head of the creature.

The massive impact made the chamber shake, and the creature stopped attacking. At the same time, the face of the monster began to fall apart. Still, I knew that things wouldn’t be so easy… I immediately reloaded the crossbow and when the neck of the monster had fallen off, it soon began to take shape again.

‘It isn’t in the head or in the neck… the real question is, can this guy move its core?’

If it could, then trying to find the location of the core by destroying the parts of the monster separately would be a waste of time. Another idea came to mind… if I could make some glasses with the effects that could find traces of mana… just like Nimir could, dealing with golems would be a lot easier. Weirdly enough, the Seer class would have granted skills like that, but I didn’t have any reason to pick it at the time.

Once again, I reminded myself that there was no reason to think or regret that choice. I got the class that I wanted at that time and it helped me more than enough. The monster soon began to fire the sand spears again and I couldn’t see the mana of the beast falling, so my guess was right… all the sand in the chamber was part of the body and it was also a weapon in the hands of the beast.

‘No pain, no gain…’

I grabbed my bow once more and then charged at the beast. To end things as fast as possible and avoid being drowned inside a labyrinth, I had to accept the risks of my plan. The sand spears began to get closer to me since approaching the monster obviously made things easier.

When one of them almost hit my shoulder and I felt a hot air passing nearby, I unleashed a bunch of freezing arrows on the arm of the monster. The first arrow froze the palm of the hand of the beast and then one of the waves of sand spears was blocked. Still, I didn’t recover any mana… only from the second shot upward I hit the ice and then caused some real damage, and then my mana was restored.

The hand of the monster began to fall off thanks to that. I used that chance to jump on that arm and then run over it. The creature soon tried to crush me with the other, but I used Roll and avoided the attack.

The other arm still was able to fire Sand Spears at me, but I jumped and spun in the air to avoid them all. At the same time, I fired a bunch of frost arrows at the head of the monster… the sand began to freeze all around with each arrow and before I could fall, I used my grappling crossbow to pull myself toward it.

Somehow, despite not being able to see me, the monster was able to hit my back with a sand spear… the impact made my whole body shake, half of my health was dropped in a moment, but thanks to the motion of approaching the beast, it was weakened enough so that I could withstand it.

I reached the head of the monster and then equipped my bow again. This time around, I enchanted my bow instead of my arrows with Dread Enchantment instead of Arcane Arrow.

Dread Enchantment Lv 08: Temporarily enchant an ally’s weapon with a dreadful curse, causing each of their attacks to drain a small amount of health or mana from their target based on the level of the skill. This enchantment lasts 20 seconds. Cost: 100 Mana.

I unleashed a quick barrage of arrows on the head of the monster, which made me recover some health and a lot of mana thanks to the enchantment. At the same time, the head of the monster began to fall off… my plan was to destroy the whole body of the monster until I found the core. When I had the chance again, I also used the explosive arrows… flames erupted around and even burned my legs a bit, but I kept going as my health was slowly being restored.

Still, despite my plan that was apparently working, the monster was able to catch me off guard. All of a sudden, sand began to emerge and envelop my legs and pull me in toward the body of the monster. I tried to use Shadow Step, but the skill didn’t work since I couldn’t take a single step.

To make things worse, the arms of the monster began to approach in order to smash me… I clicked my tongue in annoyance. I should have considered this much, but I was too tired to think of every single detail.

I decided to use one of the few remaining decay arrows that I had left, but then I changed my mind when I had a certain idea. I grabbed one of my magic bags and then threw it on the sand below me… in the next moment, I fired a frost arrow on it.