After my fight with the fire giant, I fought a few more rank A and below monsters before deciding that the returns weren’t worth the time and effort. From then on, I just flew past them to seek out rank S monsters. The higher the rarity of a class or an evolution, the greater the experience required to level it up further – that made leveling a particularly demanding endeavor for me.
That said, rank S monsters didn’t grow on trees, and while they did begin to spawn in the fourth floor, the encounter rate was just abysmal. The further down the layers I went, the more common and powerful rank S monsters became.
“Hmm… Mom did say I could go to the fifth layer. Might as well head on over there and see what it’s got.”
That said, finding an entrance to the fifth layer was easier said than done. Already, I’d been flying around this fiery hellscape for nearly an hour, and I’ve yet to find anything besides flamerock, magma, and regular monsters.
“Maybe I’m missing something…?” I wondered.
Just as the thought crossed my mind, light tremors began to shake the entire layer. Rocks began falling off the ceiling, and the nearby monsters scattered like frightened abyssal lizards. Feeling that something was about to emerge from the ground beneath me, I quickly dashed sideways.
Where I once hovered, a massive maw filled with rows upon rows of teeth emerged from the flamerock beneath, its unstoppable momentum carrying it straight towards the ceiling. Covered in magma was a new rank S monster – and my next foe.
[Great Magma Worm Lv. 17]
HP: 172,748/172,748
MP: 54,369/54,369
SP: 63,218/63,218
Vitality: 8,351
Strength: 7,357
Dexterity: 9,398
Intelligence: 5,043
Wisdom: 4,926
Racial Traits:
[Manarock Diver]
[Heat Vision]
[Worm Combat]
[Pillar of Fire]
[Flame Infusion]
[Vaporizing Inferno]
[Berserker Quake]
Skills:
N/A
Titles:
N/A
Rank S creature. The Great Magma Worm is a subspecies of the Great Worm species, which is capable of swimming through any and all kinds of mana-infused rock like water. Normally found on floors with favorable terrain, this creature’s powerful attacks and ability to attack from behind layers of mana rock make it a deadly foe.
By the time I’d finished skimming over appraisal’s information, the worm had already dug through the ceiling and was gone, leaving no mark of its dive into the flamerock behind. My attempts to rely on mana sight to fight the monster were met with failure, given the sheer amount of mana omnipresent in this floor.
Mere moments after its first attack, the worm emerged once more from atop. The catch was that this time, it was shooting a massive fire pillar at me!
As quickly as I could, I used [Mana Commandeering] to contest and redirect the fire pillar away from me – and not a moment too soon, since the magma pillar crashed right next to me. In the moment I took to divert the attack away, the worm had already sunk into the ground, ready to strike once more.
I frowned.
‘I am not going anywhere if I let the worm keep attacking with impunity like this.’
Stolen story; please report.
Recalling what mom said about elemental advantages, water beats fire, but fire beats ice. Or at least, that’s how it is normally.
“Hmm…”
An idea quickly takes shape in my mind. With a flick of my wrist, I summoned a massive ice spear a few meters ahead of me, with the spearhead pointed towards the ceiling. Both the spear and I were floating a good distance from the floor, where the worm was likely going to emerge from.
I waited patiently for the beast to reemerge, and my patience was soon rewarded. A pillar of fire emerged from directly beneath me, and right behind it was the massive, toothed maw of the worm.
I activated [Mana Commandeering] a second time, pushing the fire away from me and the spear. The beast knew I was going to push its flames away, which was why it was attacking me directly after.
Unfortunately for it, I was already using my staff to fire a salvo of [Orb of Devouring] – causing a large amount of damage as the orbs went through the full length of the beast.
“ROOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!” the beast bellowed, quickly angling its mouth away in an attempt to dodge me and run back to the ceiling.
“Oh no, you don’t!” I yelled, activating [Destined Collision] on the beast and the spear.
Since it was flying at an angle after dodging me, the spear’s tip met with the side of the worm’s maw, which rapidly began to fizzle as the flames covering the beast began melting it.
With its trajectory altered, I activated [Force Lord] on the worm and the ground to counteract gravity and deny it access to an escape. Then, I put both hands on my staff and funneled a large amount of mana into it.
“[Tomb of Frost]!”
The worm’s entire twenty meter length was instantly encased in ice, which rapidly began sublimating from the inside out.
“ROOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!” the beast trembled within, shattering the jail I’ve built for it – or whatever was left of it, anyway.
Unfortunately for it, re-encasing it in ice was trivially easy, leading to a war of attrition between my mana and the combination of its mana and stamina. I activated my [Ring of Mana Regeneration], pushing my mana regeneration ahead of my consumption, if temporarily.
And yet, it was more than enough.
The beast’s skin was rapidly cooling, and the flames on its skin were quickly extinguished. Moreover, instead of turning the ice directly into vapor due to sheer heat, the melted water from the ice prison made for even greater absorption of heat from the monster’s body, only to be frozen solid with another cast of [Tomb of Frost].
With this mana-intensive, yet more economical-than-[Ensnaring Domain Field] strategy, the worm’s skin lost all of its heat and began cracking due to the rapid shifts in temperature, sending its health plummeting. With no more mana to keep its skin on fire or stamina to break through the ice prison, the worm was helpless as I impaled it with spell after spell.
In the end, the monster fell equally helplessly before my attacks.
You have killed a [Great Magma Worm Lv. 17]!
37,145,348 EXP awarded!
15,276,383 bonus EXP awarded due to the effects of [Giant Slayer]!
Experience gain divided between [Sorcery Dragon] (22%) and [The Crusher] (78%)!
Unfortunately, I didn’t gain either divine shards or any skills and titles from slaying the monster. After I dispelled [Force Lord], the great worm’s carcass crashed into the ground below.
‘Hmm.’
I silently debated with myself over whether to carry this beast back to the surface for processing or to simply leave it be and continue my hunt.
“Killing the worm wasn’t too difficult – encountering it in the first place was the greater challenge. I am also unsure as to whether the adventurer’s guild can process the body of a rank S monster like this one, and there’s no way I am carrying it all the way to the isles.” I mumbled.
Still, there was no reason to leave everything behind just because I couldn’t carry the whole thing with me. I descended in front of the beast, then using a frost blade I summoned, I carved out the monster’s teeth and mana core out of its body, before putting the former in my backpack.
As I realized that I’ve never seen a rank S mana core before, I held it closer to for inspection.
Unlike the spherical shape of usual mana cores or the rectangular shape of my dual mana core, the magma worm’s mana core didn’t take a proper symmetrical shape, with uneven bends and unequally long sides.
What it did have, was an intense aura of fire, where the core’s shape almost seemed to bend and twist the longer you stared at it. Despite that, it wasn’t the least bit hot to the touch, at least without mana flowing through it.
‘Maybe I can get something good made out of it or traded for it – if not for me, then at least for someone I know.’ I thought as I pocketed the mana core.
“Now, where was I?”
The moment I took in my surroundings, I found a large, perfectly circular hole leading straight down.
“…Of course I had to find one now, after an hour of searching and a rank S monster encounter.”
I shook my head as I jumped into the hole, prepared to see whatever the fifth floor had to offer.
***
Akilla Amset
You have killed an [Immortal Scorching Phoenix Lv. 17]!
29,837,175 EXP awarded!
Experience gain divided between [Mana-Augmented Human] (14%) and [Zephyr Sylph] (86%)!
The elemental beast’s body faded before me, leaving only a rank S mana core behind. With a wordless command, the air obeyed my will and brought the mana core back to me. Despite silently enduring the scorching heat of the fourth layer, despite just slaying a rank S beast, I found myself unable to think of anything but my country’s betrayal.
‘That wasn’t a betrayal.’
‘It hadn’t happened yet.’
‘The Pharaoh was stepping down and couldn’t interfere.’
‘The Gods had bigger things to worry about.’
No matter what kind of excuses I tried to come up with, I simply couldn’t mollify my feelings of anger and bitterness. In the end, when all was said and done, I was a mere commoner. My country had no qualms about enjoying the rewards of my service and tossing me aside like a used rag.
I sighed.
“Well, Akila, at least you’ve got what you’ve always wanted.” I smiled with bitter sarcasm.
“You’re now free in every sense of the world.”