Author's Note: To the ladies reading this, know that I am not the kind of person to objectify Medusas.
--------------------------------------------
Null chose to leave the dungeon and head into the forest surrounding it. He chose an area that looked like there would be no monsters, and went up high in a tree and sat in a meditative position.
'Okay. I have to see if this is feasible. First, let me try to pour my mana out to see if it does anything. The mana should bounce back, as mana has a property of bouncing off other sources of mana if the concentration of mana is high enough. After all, that's how my mana shock wave blows work.'
His mana control is very proficient. It should be, as his Essence of Mana is at intermediate level 1, but that doesn't mean he knows everything about it. Null has only been using his mana to control the mana inside his body, and the mana close to his body, but he has never attempted to use mana far away from his body. He first pushes mana out of his body. It was weak, and quickly fizzled out, but there was something Null could sense from that. He sensed the branch under him when the mana bounced back to him.
Null had spent 10% of his mana with that. 'That was a good start, but it looks like I can only sense around 2 feet from me, and with what I can sense, it's not very clear. I can't really do anything with what I can sense right now, so I will need to learn how to get used to it, but that will come later. I need to find a way to make my mana go farther.'
He started experimenting. Null sends a bigger push of mana. He spends 20% of his mana doing it. It goes twice as far as the first mana push. He refills his mana with mana potions, then pushes out all his mana. It goes as far as 20 feet away from him.
'This isn't going to cut it. 20 feet is too close, and that was me pouring out all my mana. I need to find a way to make my mana go farther.'
He experiments with the mana. First he starts to rotate the mana before pushing it out. It showed phenomenal results. The mana push traveled 10x as far compared to the earlier attempts. The faster he rotated the mana in his body before pushing it out, the farther it went out, and the less mana he had to use altogether.
He augmented this further by focusing the mana into a sphere inside his chest region before firing it out. This went even further when he compressed the sphere of mana in his chest into a smaller size before firing it out. He then shot out the mana in short pulses. It takes 4200 mana to turn the mana into a small sphere inside his chest that can be used for mana pulses, and takes 150 mana per second to maintain it, but to use the bursts take only 20 mana per pulse.
At first, the mana pulses were few and far between. Later on, the mana pulse firing rates become faster. He sensed around him with the mana. He noticed that the tree had the mana bounce back faster than the rocks on the ground.
'Yeah, I remember the guy who wrote the Essence of Mana book said that life contains a lot more mana than non life. It looks like the more mana something contains, the faster my mana pulse will bounce back to me.'
He keeps practicing his mana pulse in the tree until the fuzzy image of the trunk becomes clear enough to become practical.
'Okay, now its time to make this practical. I can't exactly fight cyclopes while meditating.'
He comes down from the tree and ties a piece of cloth over his eyes, so that he couldn't rely on his eyes. It took a while to correctly manipulate the mana while walking. He shot out mana pulses to avoid obstacles. His mind was trying to make sense of all the mana coming back to him. He was tripping over various things because he paid more attention to one thing than something else. It was very difficult for Null to get used to. Compared to the trees, nonliving obstacles barely gave out any mana, so he never paid enough attention and kept crashing and tripping over them.
********************************
After around a week had passed, Null got very proficient at using his newly found mana pulse technique. He ran through the forest skillfully dodging trees and boulders. Null found it exhilarating that he didn't have to see. If it wasn't for the fact that the technique spent mana, he would never use his eyes again.
Null practiced his fighting when he was satisfied enough with walking around blindfolded. Right now, he can only use one mana technique at a time, but he switched from using mana pulse to instantly manipulating his mana into strength producing a mana shock wave along with it. He practiced this to the point where he can switch between the two in less than a fraction of a second.
'Now its time to practice on something.'
Null went through the forest when he finds what he's looking for. There are a group of enemies that look like a mix between a frog and a squirrel. It has frog-like legs and a bushy tail.
“Identify”
SquogInformation: Known to have high Dexterity. They attack in swarms. Their skin and tongue are poisonous, so don't let them touch you.
Attack: Poison tongue lash and Poison headbuttLevel69 Health 780Mana 1980 Strength 10 Dexterity 220 Vitality10Charisma10Intelligence50Wisdom110Luck10Attack17Defense24
'Oh? This will be really fun.'
Null puts on his blindfold and fires his pulse.
'Wow. Animal life has so much more mana that plant life. It's amazing.'
Null runs out into the middle of them. This is not so much to fight them as it is to work on dodging while using the mana pulse. The group of Squogs in the front launched their tongues at Null. Null kept using his mana pulse until right before the tongues were about to hit him, then switched to manipulating his mana for dexterity and dodging all of them by twisting his body and doing somersaults. He would have made Neo proud. While in the air after a somersault, Null fired his needle launchers, poisoning them with a different poison than the ones they have, killing them.
The other Squogs were not afraid. They knew they had the superior numbers, so they went with the strategy of surrounding Null. He can't fire his needle launcher in all directions, they think. He only has eyes on the front of his head, they reason. Null then pulls out his blades on his gauntlets and started cutting them down one by one when they started attacking. Even the ones behind him were not spared.
The Squogs had thought that if they surrounded him, they could beat him. Humans don't have eyes in the back of their heads, so how could he do that? The Squogs in the back of the formation, not knowing how he is doing that, chose to retreat.
'Amazing. This is truly amazing.'
Null heads back towards the dungeon.
**********************************************************
Null is on the floor in the D+-ranked dungeon, Cyclopes' Domain, where he starts meeting the Cyclopes. He didn't know, but he had started regaining experience in Essence of Mana when he started practicing his mana pulse. He chose to do the dungeon blindfolded. It wasted a lot of time, as he constantly had to stop to wait for his mana to refill. All these new experiences made Null's Essence of Mana grow to intermediate level 2, and along with that, he got a new ability out of it.
Essence of Mana has grown to intermediate level 2.
Essense of ManaSkill typePassive/ActiveSkill ProficiencyIntermediate level 232% decrease in mana consumption for techniques.
Increased control of mana. Can now simultaneously use two mana techniques at the same time.
This was a life saver to Null. No longer would he have to worry about manipulating mana for strength and using a mana shock wave and worry about the timing. A lot of times, the mana shock waves would fail because of that. It's still very difficult for him to manipulate mana for strength and dexterity at the same time without it coming out pathetically, so he still only manipulates mana for one stat at a time.
More importantly, he can fight while using his mana pulse to see.
He saw the Cyclops down the hallway. It was a single one. Null did his mana pulse. He shot off an arrow with his crossbow at the cyclops. It got hurt and turned around. The second it turned around, Null fired off an arrow from his crossbow at the Cyclops' eye. The arrow hit and blinded the Cyclopes. He would have never been able to do that if he relied solely on sight. Null took off his blindfold, because now he doesn't need it.
The cyclopes only really feels pain in the eye area, and it went berserk swinging his club around because of the pain in its eye. Null easily dodged the clubs though because the Cyclops was slow. He slashed at his face and the Cyclops' health fell down to zero pretty quickly. He didn't hit Null once. The kill was incredibly easy to Null. It took him a lot longer to kill the single Cyclops from before.
Null put his blindfold back on, and went down the path, killing Cyclopes until he saw a group of 3 Cyclopes at the same time. Null smiles. He pulls out canister of tear gas and throws it between the Cyclopes. It blinds them and they yell out in pain. Null ran in between them, cutting them down by running up the cyclopes' body, then slashing at their eyes, killing them.
Null goes further down the path. This was as far as he could make it. It was a group of 7 Cyclopes. Null was out of tear gas, but that didn't matter to him. He ran towards the closest one, and fired off an arrow in its eye. Null then left that area. That Cyclops started yelling out clutching its eye. The other Cyclopes were wondering what was wrong with him.
While a cyclopes in the back was looking at his downed comrade, it felt something running on its arm. It tried to hit Null with his club, but it only served to harm him, but it didn't do much damage thanks to its hard skin. It looked and saw that Null was gone. He thought he had killed him, but something came in his field of vision and slashed at his eyes. It also yelled out in pain.
Now the Cyclopes there realized something was up. They looked around and saw Null in the center of the room. It confused them that there was such a low leveled person who wasn't affected by their paralyzing eye technique, but that didn't matter. He was dead. They went closer to Null, and each of them had stepped on a mine. It didn't really hurt them, but that wasn't what Null was aiming for. It provided a suitable smokescreen and they couldn't see, while Null could perfectly see them with his mana pulse. He slashed at each of them in the eye blinding them. Null had used his crossbow to aim at the other Cyclopes' eyes farther away from him. With this they were all blinded. He took off his blindfold and started swiftly killing them all.
********************************************************
It took a long time, but he had finally made it to the boss room. There was a giant hieroglyphic picture of Medusa on the door with 10 snakes with glowing purple eyes on her head. Her upper body was that of a human, but her lower body was that of a snake.
'Well let's get this over with. She should have the power to turn me into stone or something like that if I look at her face. It's a good thing I don't have to.'
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
He puts the blindfold on and opens the door. Unlike the other boss rooms he visited, this one has a neat and tidy feel towards it. There were no obstructions on the ground, which worked well for Null. He walked in, and the door slammed shut. A door on the opposite side of the room opened up, and a huge Medusa came out of it.
Her upper body alone was over 5 feet tall, and he doesn't even know how long her tail is.
Null had no idea if she was ugly or pretty, as he hasn't gotten the nuances of his mana pulse down to that level yet. He really wanted to take off the blindfold to see if she was topless, but he reminded himself that his days of stupidity were over.
'Come on, don't be stupid because of a little curiosity. Focus on killing her.'
He couldn't do Identify, as he had a blindfold on, so he doesn't know what her level or abilities are.
She slowly slithered towards Null.
“Have you come to be one of my new statues?”
“Nah. I came to kill you.” Null said as if he was ordering a salad.
“Let's see how big you talk after you die!”
The snakes' eyes on her head started glowing purple. It didn't do anything. She did the technique again, but nothing happened.
Null not knowing what's going on, but using his mana pulse to see her staring at him says, “Is everything alright?”
“Everything's fine! But it won't be for you!”
She did the technique again.
“Are you checking me out?”
“Sh-Shut UP!”
She did the technique again.
“WHY ISN'T IT WORKING!?”
The technique that she's using can turn 10 people under level 150 to stone, and anyone over level 150 to become paralyzed for a limited time. This means you would need at least 11 people to have at least a chance fighting Medusa, but here Null is, just standing there as if he's waiting in line at a grocery store check out.
“Oh, I have a blindfold on, so if there's a technique that requires me to look at you, it's not gonna work.”
“...Blindfold?”
“Yep. Blindfold.”
She smirks and attempts to swipe at Null with her tail. Null jumps in the air and dodges it. She then tries punching him while slithering around. Null dashes from side to side as she keeps missing all her attacks. Her smirk quickly disappears.
“*huff* *huff* I thought you said you were blindfolded!”
“That's because I am blindfolded.”
“Then how could you dodge my attacks!?”
“I guessed.”
“...Hey do you want to see my boobs? They're pretty big and heavy.”
“Oh wow, well since you asked,”
His hand reaches for the blindfold, then stops.
“Wait. Oh ho ho. I almost fell for that. Using my own hormones against me? You're a clever opponent.”
“Enough games!”
A bunch of holes start coming out the ground and snakes come out. A bunch of doors to the side also open and multiple cyclopes come out. The snakes start slithering towards Null, while the cyclopes stomp towards him. They surround him from all directions. Null takes mana potions to refill his mana, and dives in to attack. He starts slashing at them. Unknown to Medusa, Null's blades are covered in a poison, so he only needs to slash at them once in order to deal with them. The cyclopes themselves are unwillingly helping Null get rid of the extra snakes. He runs up to a group of snakes, and the cyclopes slams down killing a lot of them. Since its so slow, Null takes his time to run up his body, swiping at its eye, killing it.
The snakes don't seem to care, and they came at him with greater numbers. Multiple snakes numbering in the hundreds slithered towards him. Not even Null could take all those attacks. The cyclopes are attacking him while he's fighting off the horde of snakes.
'I need to get rid of the cyclopes first or I will never win.'
He goes rushes towards all the mana signatures that were the cyclopes, killing them slowly, one by one. The snakes kept amassing more and more while he was killing them all. After killing the last cyclops, he rushed to a wall and fired his needle launchers. When he fired his shots, he reloaded as fast as he could and fired again. This happened over and over again. He was pushing the snakes back. When he thought he was winning, Medusa's tail swipes at Null. He saw it coming, but there was nothing he could do about it, as the snakes were blocking his path. Medusa's tail hit Null along with the snakes, killing them and injuring Null.
It only shaved off 40% of his health, which wasn't that bad compared to the King Kong boss he fought. Medusa's strength lies in paralyzing her opponents and turning them into stone, and without that, she's just another powerful enemy instead of a boss level enemy.
The snakes were coordinating with Medusa to attack Null. The snakes on her head were extremely fast and powerful. If it wasn't for the extra snakes on the ground, Null could deal with them.
'I played around too much. I need to deal with the snakes on her head, but she is a very swift enemy. Every time I fire an arrow at her head, she moves out the way. I haven't even gotten a hit out on her yet. Well, now is a good of time as any to use this.'
He throws out a smoke bomb. She now couldn't see where anything was. She's carefully looking around for Null. She hears a stepping sound, and throws a punch at it. It was just a bunch of pebbles that fell from the roof.
She continues on and realizes something. 'Wait. Pebbles that fell from the roof?'
It was too late. Null had climbed up the wall with the blades on his gauntlets and boots, and threw the pebbles down to keep her distracted. While she punched at where the pebbles fell at, he jumped down, and had slashed at two of Medusa's head snakes. He tried to slash at her head, but it's like she can sense when he's close to her.
Null thinks, 'Don't snakes have pits in their noses that lets them sense body heat? No wonder.'
This was the first hit he landed on her, and she was furious. Her speed increased and she was zipping from place to place. Null could barely keep up with her.
'This is a D+-rank dungeon!?' Null thinks frantically.
Null rolls out of the way from a tackle she was preforming. Her dashes were lightning fast, and it took everything he had just to keep up with her. Lucky for him her attacks are relatively weak, but that doesn't stop her from decreasing Null's health.
The snakes on the ground weren't helping. Every time he moved, the snakes in the area would bite at him. He had to keep moving or he would be dead. Medusa raised her tail, and jabbed the tip of it at Null as if it were a spear. He tried slashing at the tail, but it retracted too fast. Null had to be careful. Snakes on the ground and the tail? He had to choose which he wanted to hit him, and he chose the snakes.
If that wasn't bad enough, the upper body went in to punch him while he was being bitten by snakes. He threw another smoke bomb and got out of there. He drank health and mana potions while hiding. The snakes found him before he could refill his health and mana to full, but it was enough to where he could survive a little more.
Medusa changed her tactic. She started throwing the snakes at Null while attacking him with her tail. The snakes on the ground, and the snakes coming in the air, were attacking Null. He threw another smoke bomb, but the snakes were learning to deal with it. They use the pits in their noses to find Null and attack him. He was attacking the snakes, but for every snake Null killed, 5 took its place. Null's health and mana were going down rapidly.
'Ah. I see. She's going for attrition. I won't last long if I don't end this.'
He throws a lot of explosive bombs which hurt her and slowed her down, but that doesn't make her let up. Her constantly pressuring him makes him use up his health and mana. He tries to run, and he reaches to drink a health potion, but her tail raps around Null constricting him.
“No smart remarks this time? No quips? I will enjoy killing you.”
Null breathes heavily, saying, “Nah. You're already dead.”
“What do you mean by-”
BOOM!
A cascade of bombs from the ground blast her, bombs on the roof explode, and a bunch of debris fell towards her. Null had constantly kept puncturing her with a paralyzing poison, but it took a while for it to take effect, so he constantly kept firing it, and she didn't notice it because of her zipping around. It was in the bombs he threw, and on the needles that were on the ground. He also placed bombs on the ceiling while he was up there.
Null had pretended to be constricted like that to keep her in this spot. Before the debris fell on her, Null had escaped from her constriction by manipulating his mana into strength and pulling himself out of there. The paralyzing poison didn't fully work, but it worked enough for what Null was going for. She couldn't escape from the falling debris.
It fell on her and she yelled. The debris, along with the paralyzing poison, made it so she wasn't able to move away in time. The debris also took a substantial amount of health, making it go to red. Null loaded an arrow in his crossbow and aimed at her head.
Medusa says “You are powerful. I never seen a man fight like you. I bet you are very handsome. Can I at least see your eyes before I die? I want to at least go seeing a handsome man.”
“Aw, since you asked so ni-... Ah. Hahahaha. You are seriously clever. Die.”
“You bastar-”
He fired multiple arrows from his crossbow aiming for her head, killing her.
You have leveled up.
You have leveled up.
You have leveled up.
You have leveled up.
…
Null had leveled up 7 times from taking out Medusa.
'Bombs can solve all problems. If there is a problem that bombs can't solve, you just aren't using enough of them. Now that that's over, let's see what I got for drops.'
He got a skill book.
Skill Book: ParalysisParalyze the enemy for a limited amount of times if they look into your eyes. Restricted to demon races.
'Well I can't use that.'
He got 200 gold.
'Neat!'
Medusa's bloodUsing this will make some paralysis potions become more powerful
'Oh hello there.'
All the other drops were pretty generic, but he pocketed it anyway. A portal opened inside the center of the room. It can only be used once, and it teleports him to the dungeon's entrance. He walks towards it saying, 'There wasn't any information on where I was supposed to go in the Wakefield library to train in the transmutation circle techniques. Well, I guess I'll head towards the next town.'
Null doesn't know it yet, but he will meet a great old enemy in one of the towns he travels to, an enemy that will tests the limits of his everlasting patience, an annoyance that would make flies jealous.
********************************************************
A few months later.
“Man, that was a great hunt. You make it so much easier for us.”
“Yeah. We always feel so weak whenever you go away. Are you sure you have to leave?”
“You're our backbone! Please don't go!”
The person those three are talking about speaks. “Well I have to. It isn't often where a C-rank mission to heal an entire town from an epidemic presents itself. All the good clerics and alchemists will be going there.”
“Yeah, you're one of the best clerics out there. I'm pretty sure you'll be the one to complete it.”
“Are you sure you don't need someone to help protect you?”
“Oh come on. I'm a cleric, but that doesn't mean I'm helpless.”
She sets out.
“Hope you complete the mission, President Cecile.”
“Haha. Please. In this game, call me Cici.”
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Author's Note: DUN DUN DUUUUUUN! Null's nightmare is about to begin. Will they get along? Will she become Null's first PK? How long before Null becomes sick of her shit?
If this were a volumed work, I guess this would be the end of volume one or something. I don't know.