Lan hopped from ant to ant, crushing their armoured skulls like they were made from paper mache. They never moved, tried to dodge, or squirmed as their life left their bodies.
It was eerie, to say the least, but Lan wasn't complaining. He was on a time crunch. The longer he waited, the more ants the acid dissolved and the stronger the tree got.
He looked up at the ceiling, checking what level it was now.
Crypt Keeper: Level 16
Lan was only level 5, which meant if he got to level 6, he could still earn the title for beating something 10 levels above his own. And he really wanted that title.
As he moved mechanically across the acidic swamp, he tried to devise a way to kill the monster above him.
The cave was enclosed on all sides, so the only way he was getting out of there was through the Crypt keeper and from what he could tell, it wasn't too keen on letting him escape.
He had covered half the cave by now, crushing ants every step of the way as he walked on top of them like lily pads.
"I need something that can hurt the tree," He mumbled.
Sure, he was strong. His strength must be nearly a hundred now, but that tree was level 16 and had skills and a class. Just sheer force wasn't going to cut it.
Pausing in his massacre, he looked through the pockets of his robe. 'Hopefully, something I stole from the crafters' village will be useful,'
The first thing he pulled out was a fruit that looked like yellow strawberry with purple splotches on its skin. 'Can I eat that?' He wondered, setting it aside and grabbing the next thing.
He pulled a black, shrivelled mushroom from his pocket and then a bright red root of some kind. From what he could see, he only grabbed small and edible things. At the time, he had been taking
whatever Archie took, so he wasn't really paying attention to the details. He regretted that now.
Finally, he reached the bottom of his pocket and fished out the glowing glass vial. It was full of viscous neon orange liquid. He held the vial tightly in his hands, taking the utmost care not to drop it.
Not that it matters if he dropped the vial. It was made from a material stronger than steel, and even if a truck drove over it, the vial wouldn't break. But still, he wasn't about to risk his life by trusting what the guy from the black market told him.
For all Lan knew, the vial was faulty somehow, which could be why it was sold in the first place.
D-rank acid. His acid, in the vial he had brought with him from Earth. Even though it had only been five days since he was running through the sewers, it felt nostalgic in a way. So much had happened in so little time.
Acid… Lan lowered the vial and looked beneath him. Everywhere he turned, there was acid. Sure, it wasn't as strong as D-rank acid, but there was a hell of a lot of it.
'Will it work, though?' He wondered. His foot still hurt from where it was burned, so he knew the acid was strong. But the tips of the tree's branches were completely unaffected when dipped into the deadly pool.
Lan had figured out roughly how this whole cave thing worked. First, the crypt keeper used its roots to drag prey down into the cave, where they were trapped. Then it allowed the acid in the bottom of the cave to slowly dissolve them.
Once in the cave, it was like you were inside the crypt keeper's stomach.
Finally, its branches absorb all the valuable nutrients from the acid. Like massive, twisted straws, they sucked up the essence of the crypt keeper's prey.
'That means its branches are definitely immune to the acid. But hopefully, the tree works like a snake. A snake's fangs may be immune to its venom, but if it gets bitten, it will die all the same.'
Thinking like this, Lan was hoping that the tree's branches were its fangs. While they may be immune to acid, what if the acid got on its roots or trunk…
'Now that I'm thinking about it, there must be a reason the crypt keeper stopped attacking me with its roots. Maybe it's too scared to send them down here in case it gets acid on them. If that's the case, this is definitely a weakness I can exploit!'
Lan looked down at the bubbling pool of acid, possibilities appearing as he did so. If he could just get that acid up to the tree somehow…
He was suddenly reminded of the way Thea controlled blood. Even though it was a liquid, she could manipulate it however she desired. And then he remembered how the lake water had reacted to him.
If he considered the acid a weapon. Why wouldn't he be able to control it like Thea did?
Pausing mid-jump, he changed directing, bounding towards the tallest pile of ants, where Thea was lying unconscious.
He arrived in a hurry, his face flushed as he sprinted up the side of the hill of ant corpses. In a flash, he was beside Thea, looking down at her unconscious face.
"It's a good thing I didn't end up killing her," He muttered.
Reaching down, he gently slapped her face, getting no response.
Again, he slapped her, a little harder this time.
Still no response.
Again.
Nothing.
Again.
She stirred a little, her eyes flickering beneath her eyelids.
Again, even harder this time.
With a gasp, she woke up. Racking coughs tore at her throat, and her eyes were distant and unfocused. 'Is she concussed?' Lan wondered nervously, trying to get her to look at him.
"Thea," He said softly, not wanting to scare her.
She looked up, turning her head agonisingly slowly. When she finally made eye contact with him, Lan was sure she was concussed.
"Can you tell me how you control blood?" He whispered, trying to mime how she had done it.
"Blood?" She mumbled absentmindedly; her words were slightly slurred.
Lan nodded eagerly, "Yes, blood. How do you move it?"
"I- I just…." She trailed off, gesturing vaguely with her hands.
"Sorry, but I'm going to need more than that," Lan said softly, patting her shoulder, "Can you do that for me?"
Thea nodded, frowning as she tried to think, trying to pick thoughts from the slurry in her mind. "I- with the mana… I just… It all flows together,"
Lan nodded, repeating that to himself. "Mana, mana, it all flows together… Are you saying I should combine mana with the liquid?" He asked, excitement growing.
Scrunching up her brow even more, Thea's face twisted into an intense frown as she thought over Lan's words. Finally, her face brightened, and she nodded. "Y-Yesh, that's it," She slurred.
"Brilliant!" Lan exclaimed, almost jumping for joy.
He patted Thea on the head and ensured she wasn't in danger of falling off the pile of ants before running down to the pool.
'I have to see the acid as a weapon and then fill it with my mana... Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't actually have a huge amount of mana. Maybe I should reach level 6 and put the free points into
intelligence before I try this,"
Changing direction, Lan burst towards the far side of the pool and began slaughtering ants like a farmer reaps wheat.
He was so used to the notifications from the system that he could completely tune them out by now, focusing only on the crunch the chitinous armour made. Crunch, crunch, crunch, and then a new sound. A heavenly sound.
Alert: Level up! [5->6]
Lan rushed like a kid opening their present on Christmas day. His fingers blurred as he put all 10 points into intelligence, meaning he now had 240 mana. He wasn't sure how much mana he needed to do this since he had never really used mana before. But there was a first time for everything.
He leant over the edge of the ant he had just killed and slowly placed his hands into the acid, ignoring the sizzling his skin made and the searing pain. With a glance at the ceiling, he found his target and with that, his talent was activated.
His talent was like a tyre in the snow, trying to find traction on something, trying to find a way to use a liquid as a weapon. At first, there was no success. The acid slipped through his fingers or ran down his arm, scoring his skin with angry red marks.
But when he added mana into the equation, the tyre stopped spinning uselessly. It was like covering the tyre in snow chains, and the car took off.
The second he channelled his mana through the water, his talent almost exploded, sending countless inspirations into his mind. From what he could tell, the way he had been channelling mana was all wrong.
He needed to send it out in a specific shape, enclosing the acid within a container formed from his mana.
Slowly, he lifted his fist out of the acid a rough cube of clear fluid went with the fist. It hovered around his hand like it was solid, but the acid within still moved. It looked like he was holding a glass cube full of water. Except this water would melt steel if they touched.
Stolen novel; please report.
He looked at the crypt keeper again and then back at his fist. All he had to do now was get the two to touch.
'Come on, Talent! Let's do this thing,'
Lan ran towards the centre of the acid pool, an area he had avoided like the plague until now.
Hopping from ant to ant, he arrived in no time and not daring to slow down, he sprinted towards the nearest gnarled branch. With a grunt, he jumped towards a branch, his vastly increased strength making him fly through the air like he was jet-propelled.
He crashed into the side of a branch, grabbing it and swinging like a monkey to a higher branch.
As he climbed up towards the trunk, he felt a weird sense of vertigo. The higher he climbed, the thicker the branches got and the closer the ceiling became.
Unfortunately, the crypt keeper was much less passive than the ants, not just sitting and waiting to die. Countless black roots descended from the glowing ceiling, writhing angrily above him.
The crypt keeper didn't dare lower its roots too close to the cave floor for fear of the acid. Instead, it kept them halfway between the ground and the ceiling, an impenetrable barrier between Lan and his target.
Lan smirked as he climbed the tree nearing the waving black tentacles.
He was in their range in a flash, and they beset him on all sides, lashing like whips down towards him.
Swinging through the branches, Lan used the tree's own body as cover, weaving his way up and between its gnarled limbs.
Roots got tangled between the densely packed branches, trying desperately to get through to Lan, who, despite the crypt keeper's best efforts, refused to stop climbing.
Again and again, he swung, and he swung, nearing the tree's twisted body all the while. Occasionally a root would slam into his legs or a trailing arm, but he ignored the throbbing pain and kept climbing.
Finally, he reached the tree's main body. It was twisted and black, looking like it had been carved from stone. Heaving a sigh of relief, Lan was just glad he managed to make it here before his mana ran out.
The cube of acid was wobbling dangerously. It looked as though it could fall apart at any time.
As he placed one hand against the trunk and felt the rough bark beneath it, the tree started to scream. Or rather, its flowers began screaming.
They were almost entirely open now, on the very verge of blooming and with their petals spread wide, the tiny skulls in their centre started to make the most horrific noise Lan had ever heard.
He felt like his ears were getting torn off, and even breathing was difficult as his mind swam like it was trapped in honey. 'I just need to get the acid a bit higher up,' He told himself, gripping the tree for all he was worth as he weathered attacks from both the roots and flowers.
Lan clawed his way up the withered trunk in a superhuman effort of will. By the time he reached the centre, his ears were bleeding, and his teeth were clenched so tight they had almost shattered.
But it was too late. He had won.
With a scream that almost matched the flowers, Lan smashed his empty hand into the side of the trunk. His fist sank a few inches into the tree's tough bark before stopping, and searing pain ran up his arm.
Then, he pulled out his fist, which dripped with blood and moved the hand coated in acid into the hole.
When the acid touched the inside of the tree, it gave off a sizzle like cooked meat. And the tree began to scream and writhe in madness and pain.
The roots lashed Lan's back, but he refused to let go of the trunk. If he fell from here and landed in the acid, he would probably wake up in the entrance hall.
Seconds trickled by, and the sizzling intensified in unison with the screaming. The tree began to shake and wobble as though it was trying to escape from the cavern's roof.
And then a thought occurred to Lan, a terrifying thought.
'If it dies, how will I get out of here?' The cave walls were too steep to climb, and there weren't any footholds.
His stomach churned as he realised he was living on borrowed time. He looked down through the tangled mess of branches and roots at Thea's helpless figure. Like someone marooned on an island,
she sat lonely and afraid, clutching her ears in pain from all the noise.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Lan cursed, letting go of the trunk and falling towards the ground.
He used branches to catch himself as he fell, descending to the ground at breakneck speed.
In a moment, he was back on the heaping pile of ants, reaching out to grab Thea with his hand. It was the same hand he used to punch the tree, and the second he tried to close it around her shoulder, a stabbing pain ran up his arm and assaulted his psyche.
"Oh shit, I think it's broken!" Lan cursed, trying and failing to close the bloody hand. "Is it because my strength is too high?" He hadn't checked in a while, but after putting so many points into strength, he was pretty sure his endurance wasn't keeping up.
With a grunt, he took off the sash of his robe and tied it around both his and Thea's waist, praying it would be strong enough to keep her from falling.
And then, using his good hand, which was, ironically, the one burned in acid, he climbed back up the tree.
The thrashing roots didn't even bother to attack him as he climbed this time. The crypt keeper seemed to have gone beyond the point of caring.
It just flailed and flailed as the hole made from the acid in its trunk gaped wider and wider. The agony from being eaten alive from the inside was driving the monster insane, and it had no time to spare on Lan anymore.
His face beat red from the strain; Lan ignored the pain in his burned hand and climbed. It was hard for him to concentrate on which branch to grab next with all the screaming, but somehow, he managed it.
Eventually, he reached the trunk again and kept climbing, finally arriving back at the spot being devoured by acid.
As he passed by, he lashed a kick at the hole.
With the creaking splintering of a rotten floorboard, the trunk cracked, and part of it fell down into the acid, sending a wave of acid out over the remaining ants below.
Lan swallowed hard and climbed the rest of the way out into the cavern covered in moss, heaving for breath.
By all rights, he should have been exhausted and miserable. The agony in his hands was overwhelming and made even thinking straight a desperate trial. But he couldn't help smiling when he saw the notification.
Alert: Killed lvl:16 Crypt Keeper - Experience gained (Bonus due to level difference
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Alert: Level up! [6->7]
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Alert: Title gained: Disciple of David
Lan wasn't an idiot, so he dragged his exhausted body to the tunnel's edge before eagerly checking his profile.
Title acquired: Disciple of David.
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Description – Levels are nothing but mere decorations to someone of your strength. Just as the weak David slayed the mighty Goliath, you have overcome considerable odds to show equally colossal strength.
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Reward: +10 in all stats
Name: Unknown
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Title(s): [Punching Up] [Class Of Your Own] [Disciple of David]
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Age: 18
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Race: Human - G
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Class: None
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Talent: Weapons are my Weapons - G
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Health: 180/477
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Mana: 340/340
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Level: 7
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Strength: 67
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Dexterity: 38
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Endurance: 44*
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Vitality: 29
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Mind: 32
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Intelligence: 34
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Luck: 32
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Free Points: 10
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Skills: None
He quickly decided to put his remaining 10 free points into endurance, feeling the pain in his broken hand ease from a piercing agony to a dull throb.
With a sigh, he felt his new body. It was stronger and more robust than before. His muscles twitched, reacting to his every thought, while his bones were as strong as if he cast from steel.
He would have liked to lie in the cavern and rest for a million years, but a single thought gnawed at the back of his mind, settling in his stomach like burning coals.
"Archie… You thought it would be this easy to get rid of me?" He muttered, using the wall to support himself as he clambered to his feet.
With Thea still strapped to his back, Lan trudged up the now-empty tunnel. Not a single ant remained. He had killed them all.
***
George ducked under one of the humanoid ant's red arms, the pointed barbs on its armoured skin flying over the top of his head.
He lashed out, his superhuman speed making his daggers sing as they sailed through the air, flashing silver as they dug into a gap in the royal guard's armour.
It squealed, opening its mouth and sending a stream of sticky, liquid flames coursing from the back of its throat. This was its ability, as George had quickly come to learn. The tubes that pumped fiery red liquid throughout its body carried some sort of liquid flames.
When the ruby ant opened its mouth, flames gushed out like a dragon's breath.
The searing fire scorched the ground where George had been standing seconds before. He just barely managed to roll out of the way in time, wishing he had spent more points in dexterity and less in intelligence.
The problem was his talent required mana to work, and as such, he placed most of his stat points into intelligence and mind. This resulted in his sonic shockwaves being incredibly powerful, but he was basically crippled inside a cavern.
His shockwaves would do more harm than good, possibly even collapsing the cavern down on top of their heads.
George suddenly had an idea. If the ruby ant used those tubes to get its fire, what would happen if he cut them?
Dashing forward, he swiped out with a dagger, slicing through tubing like butter.
Liquid fire spilled down the side of the ant, bubbling like lava when it hit the ground.
The ruby ant screamed, breathing a tidal wave of flames a George, who was desperately scrambling backwards and out of its range.
It pursued him doggedly, launching wave after wave of fiery breath every time George tried to attack.
'I need to use my ability... if I can just whisper, then maybe it won't cause too much damage,'
George waited until the next wave of flame crashed down on him, and when he was sure, the ruby ant couldn't see him anymore. When he was sure he was buried beneath the fire, he opened his mouth and let out the softest of whispers.
"Split."
If it was anyone else, it would barely have registered as sound at all, but when George spoke, things were different.
Like Moses parting the red sea, the fire split down the middle and the ruby ant was flung back like it had been hit by a train. It slammed into the cavern wall, sending cracks shooting along the rock face all the way up to the ceiling that was trembling from the impact.
It was like a bomb had gone off in the cavern and while the other three ants were distracted, David and Archie made their moves.
David brought his club down on one of the green ant's wings, producing a sickening crunch as the beautiful butterfly wing was snapped like a twig.
While Archie finally managed to find a chink in the armoured ant's impenetrable defence. His sabre screeched like nails on a chalkboard as it slid into the gap, blue blood gushing out.
George didn't waste the opportunity either, surging forward and cutting another couple of the ruby ant's tubes.
Flames filled the cavern, along with the pained screech of wounded ants that echoed back down the tunnel they had come from.
At the bottom of the ant hill, Lan heard the sound and looked up, eyeing the tunnel the noise had come from.
While George was undoubtedly having a tough time dealing with ruby ant, David was genuinely struggling.
He had to juggle the golden ant and its razor-sharp limbs, as well as the flying ant… Although now it could only flutter helplessly in erratic circles thanks to its wounded wing.
All things considered, he was doing a surprisingly good job of it.
By keeping the golden ant at a distance, he could avoid its most dangerous attacks while focusing on the flying ant. It was finished as long as he got one good hit on its wings.
A strategy that paid off, considering he was now standing over the helpless jade ant, both its wings now crushed.
Just as David was about to collect his experience from the wounded ant, the golden one threw itself in the way, losing one of its wickedly sharp arms to David's merciless club.
The giant man pressed forward, not letting the golden ant recover as he crushed another one of its limbs. The problem with this ant was that while dangerous, it didn't have much in the way of defence. So to be matched up against David was a death sentence.
David's bearded face was solemn as he crushed limb after limb of the terrified creature. He didn't like doing this, didn't like killing things, not really. But if he didn't… If he didn't level up quick enough, didn't get enough stat points…
His talent would kill him.
It was with no joy that he snuffed out the golden ant's life and levelled up. And when he finally crushed the green ant's head, he only felt empty in his chest. A gaping hole where his heart should have been.
If not for his talent…
He might have been an ordinary boy.
Talent: Growing Boy
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Ability: The tallest tree weathers the storm and gets the most sunlight. You will never stop growing in both size and strength, always becoming stronger and more outstanding.
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Penalty: Your own strength will become dangerous to you, if not managed properly
The only way for David to stall his growth and reinforce his body against his immense strength was to put every stat point he had ever gotten into endurance.
He sighed, looking over at George as he finished off the red ant. Every tube had been cut and flames leaked from its ragged body. With a swipe, George's dagger separated the ant's head from the rest of it and then walked over to David, nodding at the big man.
They both turned to watch as Archie finally managed to sneak his sabre into a gap in the armoured ant's chest, wrenching the handle of his sabre like a crowbar as he tore through its insides.
The black ant dropped, joining the rest of the royal guard in death.
Archie looked up, frowning when he noticed both of them were still alive before he quickly tried to hide his expression.
He walked over to them, just about to start speaking, when he heard footsteps echoing down the tunnel. They weren't the clattering steps that ants took but the sound of human feet on rock.
Archie froze, mouth wide open as he stared at the tunnel. There were only two other humans in this dungeon.
"H-how can they be…?" He mumbled, staring into the dark tunnel. His expression was a mix of horror and wonder.
"Archie." A voice rasped from the darkness.
"You've got some explaining to do,"