“All right, girl. Keep using Icerend.”
Glacien finished slashing the neck of a snow rat and with another slash, she finished another target.
You received 05 experience points.
You received 05 experience points.
She didn’t get a class on the first floor, so I wasn’t expecting that she would get any in the labyrinth. Perhaps once we clear it, but it isn’t certain. So using a single skill all the time to unlock another was the best way for her to gain more cards… although I wasn’t certain if that would work either.
“I guess they aren’t going to drown me like the empire tried… It is quite something when a group that uses tentacle monsters is less nasty than the empire.”
Still, I couldn’t drop my guard yet… until all the enemies came here inside the dungeon and then they died. I couldn’t relax.
Instead of worrying about that, I began to skin the bodies of the snow rats… I couldn’t help but think for a while about how they spawned from that ice like that and we had seen it, but they still had a proper leather and body after they died. It was the kind of thing that makes you lose when you try to understand the logic behind it.
I enchanted one of my short swords with flames and then tried to carve out a magic circle in the piece of leather that I just got. Since the weapon was burning now, the process went a lot more smoothly. Still, since I was trying to speed up the process, I could make a mistake at any moment, so I couldn’t drop my guard even for a moment.
I managed to make an amulet a bit faster. Maybe it was weird to call it like that given that it was essentially a circle made of leather. I put it on Glacien back and confirmed that both meditation effects were working. Still, I could tell that she looked troubled, since she was essentially wearing something that came from one of the enemies she had killed.
“Don’t complain. As long as it makes you fight better and offer some protection, everything else doesn’t matter.”
“Woof… woof.”
“We should be able to get better materials in the next section. I am not a fan of the idea of using rat leather, either.”
I sure hoped that the next floor would have better materials… I was just planning to use the leather of the rats for practice. I soon confirmed that the amulet using their leather only lasted half an hour and two mana cores.
Regardless, soon we reached the seventh floor and six of them began to spawn in front of us now and then. I just used Mystic Barrage to wipe almost all of them… then I used the extra mana to use Shadow Step. It will probably be a good idea to make one Shadow Step amulet for her, one that could last for quite a while.
As I was thinking about that, Glacien finished her target and then soon turned around and began to growl at me.
“What is wrong? Did you want me to leave more of them behind?”
Soon enough, I noticed that she wasn’t growling at me… she was growling at something behind me. I raised my guard and got ready to fight, but I didn’t see anything.
“Perhaps your senses are too good since I am not catching anything.”
Still, I knew it better than to ignore such an odd behavior. I trusted Glacien’s magic senses too. So, I decided to dash ahead with her and decimate the monsters along the way to gain some space against possible enemies.
“Sorry, girl. Let’s leave your grinding session for the next labyrinth when no one will be looking for me. This is rare to happen nowadays, partially because I am a guy who attracts trouble everywhere I go, but one day, for sure…”
Putting that aside, I wondered what the enemies were up to this time… Hopefully, it won’t be anything related to water, drowning or cold. In any case, I disposed of the monsters with ease while considering my next steps… The tentacle monsters’ weaknesses were the cloaked guys, but I couldn’t be certain that the same strategy would work every single time.
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‘My options are to increase my attack power to make the arrows pierce deeper, or increase my magic for the explosive power to cause more damage and make the enemies suffer more damage and heal less than before. At least those two are the most simple ones.’
Arrows enchanted with holy energy were a better option, but I didn’t have that kind of enchantment… wait, I actually had them.
Infernal Bane: Imbue your weapon with holy energy, allowing you to deal bonus damage to demonic entities. This skill increases your damage by 25% against demons for 20 seconds and also weakens their magical defenses, making them more vulnerable to your attacks. Cost: 50 Mana.
Demon's Snare: Summon chains of binding energy that target and immobilize demonic foes. This skill traps a demon in place for 10 seconds, preventing it from attacking or casting spells. The chains also drain the target’s mana over time by the level of the skill per second. Cost: 100 Mana.
It would be amazing if I could make an amulet for each of them… the arrows would not only damage them, weaken their defenses and drain their mana. For the first time, I also considered… even if I didn’t use the amulets directly and just kept them with me, wouldn’t their effects work? It made me recall a certain dungeon crawler that became legendary. When I was a moron and didn’t know how to play, I filled my inventory with amulets and didn’t have any space to get any loot.
‘Good times. any above uncommon equipment dropped, and I was forced to teleport to the city to open some space for it. In any case, I have to draw the magic circle and then decrease its size before anything else.’
I was getting ahead of myself… before anything, I had to test the theory with other and more simple enchantments. After calming down, I soon realized that Demon’s Snare probably couldn’t work like that. It was an offensive skill, after all. Infernal Bane was another matter.
I began to draw the magic circles in my notebook. It wasn’t magic ink, so it wouldn’t change a thing. Still, while I was doing that between the battles, I couldn’t help but wonder as I recovered the bodies of the monsters… was that truly the best approach for me? Using amulets for the important things like increasing my mana and stamina regeneration was one thing, but to add extra enchantments for my equipment? I couldn’t help but consider that it was a cheap tactic… then again, I have been using that kind of tactic for a while.
‘My first goal was to make a rail gun in this world, but then along the way I was forced to become an elemental archer, since it was pretty convenient. For me to achieve my goal, I would have to focus on increasing only strength and dexterity, but that would just be satisfying my ego. I should be more pragmatic than that and use all the means necessary to survive.’
It looked like the memories of almost drowning in two labyrinths were getting too weak and I was getting relaxed… perhaps I could focus on just satisfying my ego if I only had to worry about the labyrinths, but I couldn’t.
While I was lost in thought, I reached the boss chamber and then looked around behind me once again… there was nothing there. Glacien looked a bit more relaxed, but she wasn’t as energetic as she was before.
‘I spent such a long time inside that cave, but it feels like now I didn’t think that much… Maybe it is because the world is expanding before me with more problems, or maybe I am just that easily influenced by the surroundings.
“Mew, mew, mew!”
“What is now? I am in the middle of an important brooding moment.”
“Mew, mew, mew!”
“I see, I see… Can you speak more slowly, please? I am not fluent in your native tongue yet.”
Glacien jumped from my shoulder and then moved to the boss chamber before turning around to look at me.
“Mew, mew, mew!”
“What? Do you want to face it alone?”
“Squeak! Squeak!”
“You are probably trying to bite more than you can chew, you know. You can’t even face four snow rats at the same time.”
“Awooo! Awooo!”
“Ah, the audacity of youth… back in my time, cats, or in your case, sabertooth tigers, would learn to walk first before trying to run. Perhaps I can let you fight the boss, but you will have to accept my magic support and my direct interference if something goes wrong. Got it?”
“Mew, mew, mew!”
I was happy that I was starting to understand Glacien better, but I also felt that I was losing my mind. Staying alone for far too long should have affected my mental health to some extent.
In any case, seeing this world’s version of a pokemon battle will probably make me relax a bit… between dealing with people that want to hunt me down for my body parts, people who want to kill me just for the heck of it, and people that just saw me as an abnormal existence, I probably could consider myself healthier mentally than most.
We headed to the boss chamber and soon found the place. It wasn’t that large, around one hundred meters in radius. Right in the middle of it, there was a massive ice block. It began to shake and then exploded, revealing the figure of a snow rat taller than me standing.
“Having second thoughts yet?”
“Grrr... grrr...”
Glacien ignored my words and then glared at the target… despite the difference in size, it looked like she wasn’t losing in willpower. For starters, she charged at the beast without hesitation and when the monster swung its claws at her, she used Froststep and then disappeared from the monster’s sight.
I could see it clearly, but from the monster’s perspective, it was like Glacien simply vanished or teleported elsewhere. In the next moment, Glacien appeared in front of the head of the monster and then slashed one of its eyes… making blood gush from the wound.