(This chapter was uploaded on Sunday 10/December/2023 8:00 PM, timezone GMT+3)
('1), ('2), ('3), etc. means that there is some explaining for the thing in the notes at the end of the chapter.
"..." small moment of silence
"Talking"
"He-" Someone was interrupted.
'Thinking'
[Skills' names, chanting, spell keys and spells' names]
(Flashback)
(PoV)
(Line Break)
Is room#10 where it all changes for a harder maze? I vaguely remember that mazes get harder when you approach the center of them.
Let's step in for now.
(Nephelont's PoV)
This... This could become a problem. Room#10 has six paths, including the one I used to enter it.
Two of these paths are upward slopes and one seems to lead down, while the last two lead horizontally for as much as I could see.
I feel like I need to change the way I identify rooms. Rooms 1-9 will become room#1-1 - room#1-9. Room#10 will become room#2-1.
Anyway, room#2-1 has several misshapen rocks with a vague human shape and what appears to be one purple eye.
They were accompanied by some creature that also felt like kin, just like the green kin. And just like the green kin, they were wingless.
Those new kin had a pair of impressive horns and some sharp looking fangs. But aside from that and their bulging muscles, there is nothing of note about them.
Now that I take a closer look, they are about 1.5 times the height of that human leader guy.
(AN: He is referring to the guy he threw far away, the leader of ten-man party in floor 29. That leader is the average human height)
Hunter, what are your thoughts on these bipedal kin?
'Their skin looks thick and a bit loose. Skin of that nature is normally resistant to piercing and also hampers slashing. You will either need to use excessive force or maybe avoid them altogether'
What about you, Arsalan?
'Try the area between the underside of the jaw and the neck. That place needs to be a little softer and thinner for them to move their heads freely.
You can also try blunt force. Bludgeoning them with your fists will bypass their skin to some extent'
I do as Arsalan suggests. I went up to one of the bipedal kin and kidnapped them without the others noticing it.
I go back to room#1-9 to test its resistances and what I can use to injure it.
I start by slashing it casually, nothing happens. I tried aligning my claw's sharp edge more with the direction of the swing, nothing happened.
By now, the bipedal kin was struggling to move away, but it was weaker than moving my whole weight. It still gave me a good idea as to how strong bipedal kin would be on average.
Allen, can I reinforce my claws the same way as my scales?
'Yes. They are made of the same crystal and respond to energy the same way. And just like the scales, only their durability and defensive attributes increase'
That's a bummer.
I reinforce my claws sloppily and deliver a quick, overbearing slash with the edge aligned well. The skin was cut open this time. The cut would have bled a human to death, bisected them, even. But this kin's flesh didn't even get exposed.
Let's try another thing. Next, I try to pierce its skin with the tip of one of my claws. I swing with strength that would allow me to injure myself, or so I felt it will. The next thing I knew, my claw was inside its body.
If I remove my claw now, a gaping hole would be left in its chest. That will bleed it to its impending death.
I give it mercy by crushing its head with all my weight put behind a strike. It was painful, but less painful than most other methods that come to mind.
I stealthily go and kidnap another bipedal kin. This time, I wanted to see how much of my strength will end up crushing them. It was astronomically easier to just simply put them under pressure and see them fail to live.
I go to take another bipedal kin again. But to my surprise, they started filling the area with dust.
'They are trying to locate you through the displacement of dust particles'
You think so, Arsalan? Then I think they won't fall for my invisibility again.
I dash at the one closest to the edge of the dust cloud and grab them. I ran away with the others failing to see their comrade as I cloaked them in my invisibility.
Well, they won't fall for my invisibility again if they were able to see the unseen.
I took the last bipedal kin I will kidnap for today back to room#1-9. This one will be the test for how much blunt force will be enough to kill them. I reinforce the scales around my knuckles and the ones covering my fingers. Then, I struck the poor kin in the chest. They were launched to a wall, digging into it and staying there, motionless.
Did it die? That wasn't even my full strength. If anything, my tail could deal with all remaining bipedal kin there alone if they were this weak.
*splash* Suddenly, a sticky, burning sensation covered my tail again.
"Hail arson!" I ended up burning another roomful of blobs of different colors.
(Day 7 of Nephelont's arrival) (Bell's PoV) According to Ais's words from a few days ago, Nephelont could be here in the 30th. We should hasten our steps.
"Bell, Nephelont moved to a lower floor"
"You were not following him the entire time?"
"No. My sun doesn't like it when I track him that way. I only do it sparingly"
Really, Ais? Whatever the case, we will just move further down. We should have moved in a small group like this one much earlier to save time. None of us expected Nephelont would head down.
"Uncle Bell, can we move faster?"
Eucleia is anxious. Her state is getting worse the longer this goes. Her face looked as if she had not slept for days on end. It was the worries she had affecting her health.
She even brought Seraph with us to heal him if he needed it, in spite of Henryk possibly needing Seraph's help.
"I think we should" There are two things I fear the most now. The first possibility is for our hopes to turn out to be nothing but vain, that the crystal dragon was not Nephelont.
The second one is Eucleia's mental state crumbling back to its darker stages, the ones right after witnessing his death.
It was a very destructive state for her to be in. She cried every day and blamed herself for it. She loathed herself for a while, thinking that Nephelont would not have died if not for her.
The children's existence brought a therapeutic effect on her. It made her focus less on his absence and more on their wellbeing.
Now, we go and confirm this dragon's identity for ourselves.
"From here on out, we will go full speed ahead. Remember not to go too far ahead, away from the party"
Eucleia's stature has become too big after Nephelont's skill affected her. She now stands at four times her height as when she was a human. The children generally stand at the same height as Henryk.
I lead the others with the hope of finding my son. I missed him, all of us did.
(Nephelont's PoV)
Day 8, 7:24 AM.
I thought I burned more time in my little experiment. But hey, I ain't complaining. This just means I have more morning for today.
Now, should I deal with the remaining bipedal kins?
I went back to room#2-1 and looked at them. They were huddled together, back-to-back, and were looking everywhere their eyes could reach. They oozed off panic waves so dense, the naked eye could almost see them.
Of course, I was, yet again, invisible. Just how broken is this ability?
Let's try a new tactic. Why shouldn't I throw the misshapen rock monsters at the bipedal kins? That should give a good amount of blunt force.
I take one who was wandering alone at a distance, rear my arm back then throw it at them full force.
The two bipedal kins who were hit were launched back with caving chests and abdomens.
"Aaauug!" The one who seemed to be the leader ordered the remaining two to huddle back with him, disregarding the dying duo.
I got closer and reinforced my tail. A good flick from my tail to his head and the leader was sent flying with a broken neck. The impact against the wall broke some of his bones, judging by the bendy limbs.
The remaining two were stomped to dust.
During all this commotion, the misshapen rock monsters were slowly marching towards us. They were way too slow to reach us while I was slaughtering the bipedal kins.
The misshapen rock monsters were especially weak to blunt force, to the point of shattering off upon impact.
Why are they only strong in numbers? I want something that's strong in its lonesome. I want a monster who can fight me equally.
'No'
Come on, Marthanóir. We have been arguing about this for some days now. Just once? Please?
'No'
Okay, you stubborn old man. I will go fight one even if you don't agree.
'No'
Leaving that behind, I-
'Hey!'
- need to revise how I name the rooms.
'You brat! I'm still talking!'
Once I enter a path and reach a dead end, I will come back to enter another path. The rooms need to indicate what path I took to enter them. I was lucky with the first area of this maze, almost too lucky, even.
Let's see... The path I use to enter the room carries its number from the last room over and is counted in the room's name. The other paths, starting from the closest one to my right would be 1-x.
I want to carve the walls to indicate the paths, but the walls regenerate. It feels like I'm inside a living creature's body.
I compromised by moving loose rocks to where the paths are, leaving the one I entered the room from with no rocks.
I carved the numbers representing the next rooms on their respective rocks. I then went back to rooms from 1-1 to 1-9 and put rocks on the paths I took to enter them. I may need to return to the forest area to eat fruits for the water in their juices later.
It goes without saying, but I committed a mass arson against an army of gooey blobs that waited for me in almost every room.
Now, into room#2-1-1.
Room#2-1-1 has five paths, one pointing up and another pointing down, while three were horizontal.
The room had rocks moving everywhere. They looked like the misshapen purple rocks from before, but they had an earthly color. One of them was shiny, a metal brand of shiny.
Once they noticed me, they started making their way to me painfully slowly.
They were annihilated after the laziest of battles. It was so boring I could take a casual walk and avoid everything they threw my way. If compared to humans, their fastest would be a faster version of the walking speed for humans.
By the way, Allen, I feel like I reached a limit. My strength doesn't feel like it increased at all, even a bit.
'You need to break that limit by consuming a purple stone that is excessively abundant in energy'
What about my energy reserves and my invisibility?
'They stopped increasing at what would allow you to remain invisible for 3.9-4.2 hours'
That should be enough for now. Say, if it was an enemy of the same scale as I am?
'That depends. Does it have the necessary amount of energy to break your limitations?'
So, it only needs an excessive amount of energy, huh?
'Correct'
What about eating many purple stones at once?
'It is uncertain'
Then I will search for a monster with the necessary energy. If I try gathering that many purple stones, monsters might snatch them before I could gather enough.
Oh! They finally caught up to me while I was distracted! They didn't hurt much after one hit me. My scales are too much, I guess. They were shattered everywhere. The metal one didn't die yet, though.
Right! Allen, what happens if I fused my fire with energy? I remember that it didn't use up energy when I breathed fire. Will it get stronger if I did that?
'Rather than the attack changing, it completely changes to something else. The nature of the new attack is not known, however'
Then, let's try that on this shiny guy. He took my punches like a champ. Getting heated by roided-up flames should be a good test for his endurance.
I tested my normal flames on him first. The result? He almost melted.
What about the other flame?
'There are two other types of attacks you could make. One would be to simply put energy in the flames as you breathe them. The other would be for you to use pure energy to control light and fire said light as a plethora of different ways to attack'
That was plenty helpful. Thanks, Allen.
After hearing what Allen said, I tried to go for the pure energy attacks. I tried gathering it in my mouth and waited. The light from all around my scales was getting sucked in completely. I looked around me to see nothing. This attack is dangerous for me as well.
I thought of leaving the light around my eyes to act as it normally does. Allen helped me do that, letting me both see and charge the attack. But the charging was all on me.
As I gathered light, my mouth widened to accommodate the size of the light sphere. The sphere itself didn't shine. Quite the opposite, actually. A black sphere was in my mouth, sucking light around it alongside the light from around my body.
I felt a little burdened after charging it for a few minutes straight. It felt draining. Should I just fire it?
No! I want to reach my limit! To see what I could do with this one! Just how much can I push it when it took this long to charge?
'Fire it now, physical body. The light sphere is ready'
I got a brilliant idea as Allen was instructing me to fire my attack. I used my fangs and the crystal covering my mouth to reflect and concentrate all the light into one straight shot, rather than the natural scatter it takes.
A very narrow beam of light fired from my mouth. It drained me even more to control it when I spent much of my energy to create the thing.
*BOOM!**RUMBLE!**RUMBLE!**CRICK!**RUMBLE!**CRACK!**RUMBLE!**RUMBLE!**RUMBLE!*
Now, "How strong is it?", I hear you ask. The damned thing penetrated the maze and went many walls deep. From what little I see from here; I can tell there are three more walls like the one separating rooms category 1 (Beast's Room) and rooms category 2 (Soldier's Room).
That means I will need to go through them to reach the center. And that also means I can always fire this attack and fly through the hole to cheat my way there.
"SCREEEEEEEEEEEE!" That emitted lots of anger and unfounded hate, pain too. It seems I struck a pretty big one behind the walls.
'Physical body, that monster alone suffices for the breakthrough'
So you say, Hunter. Then all the more reason for me to search for a way to the center.
To the next room we go.
What unfolded next was me reaching dead ends for all the paths branching off room#2-1-1. All the monsters there were misshapen rocks and metals. There was this particular misshapen metal that was too durable, except for when I roasted him alive.
I put a pretty big 'X' on the stone for room#2-1-1. That will prevent me from going through a room of dead ends.
Room#2-1-2 had an unexpected encounter for me.
There was an alluring figure there. Another being covered in beautiful crystals, rather, they were made of them. The problem is? That human-looking lump of crystals was the easiest to dispatch. It was hard to catch because of its speed, but it also had weaker defenses overall. Sadly, it didn't give me a piece of its body like the bulls.
...
I should go hunt for more bulls. I wanna eat meat.
I went back to room#1-9 and saw a lot of bipedal kin standing there.
So, can I assume their natural habitat is here rather than in room#2-1?
Regardless of that thought, I slaughtered them. I searched for bulls in the other rooms and found some, none of which gave me any meat.
'Sad... truly...'
I see, Gourmet is the only one who sympathizes with me.
*Splash* "TORCH THEM!" A lot of blobs were burned to ashes once again.
After that horrific experience, I went back to exploring the paths from room#2-1-2. The path leading to room#2-1-2-4 didn't lead to a dead end. Room#2-1-2-4 itself only led to further dead ends.
Allen, lower my scales' energy consumption to its natural state, where it should be if you didn't control it.
'Positive'
I already feel more exposed and vulnerable. Let's test my natural defenses with this misshapen metal. It didn't even do that much. Although, I must admit that its hits stung a little. But when I struck it with my fists, the scales on my knuckles cracked this time. I got enough information from this misshapen metal and melted it.
Nah, thanks. I still want my scales. Allen, return them to the energy consumption levels you were assigning them before.
'Positive'
This feels much better. Now that I think about it, Allen has always been boosting my scales with energy since the start. I didn't notice it until I had them remove the boost.
I started moving again, invisibly avoiding every encounter as they offer me no benefits.
I eventually reached room#2-3-2-5-6, which had two pleasing features. The first feature, and most important in my opinion, is that the room had only crystal things moving in it, many of them.
I need to gather every single one of them gems. They are precious. They are life. They are more import- No! Nephelont! Get a hold of yourse... My precious gems... "AAAAHHHH! CHARGE FORWARD! FOR THE PRECIOUS GEMS!"
...
The less important feature would be the huge white wall that indicates me reaching rooms of category 3 (Warrior's Room).
Now that I came back from that embarrassingly crazed state, I made my way to room#3-1.
I didn't forget to stuff the few gems the crystal beings gave me in my mouth for safekeeping. They are too precious to leave alone, where monsters could reach them easily. One never knows if a monster had the habit of stealing or ruining precious gems.
I halt my steps and think it over.
Why was I gem-crazed when I wasn't interested in them before?
'Part of who you are right now has the desire to gather shiny gems that seem to hold a value of their own'
I should be careful of that, then. But these gems I already gathered will stay with me.
Day 8, 3:47 PM.
Onwards, Allen.
'Positive, physical body'
(End of Chapter)
Have a nice day, ladies and gentlemen.