Episode(72) New Trait! Companion needed urgently!
SOVEREIGN OF DEATH~(72)
The only reason Nagisa didn't get frozen while using hopeless was simple, not only was he the creator, he was also the required wielder of the sword.
The sword would in essence, do him no harm.
And to begin with, trolls had tough skin but with enough skill you could easily cut through their flesh like butter.
Not to mention, even the variant trolls barely had resistance against abnormal ailments so things like freezing and poisoning would work a hundred percent of the time as long a you could cut past the skin.
[I can't just praise hopeless-]
Right, it wasn't just hopeless that ended up as a broken cheat item.
Nightfall was similarly just as overpowered.
When comparing elemental damage, Hopeless would undoubtedly win the competition with no competitors in sight.
It wouldn't even be a race, utterly pointless.
However, in terms of sharpness, Nightfall overwhelmed Hopeless by a reckless amount to the point it was terrifying.
Why did Nagisa think so?
When he had first faced a troll, he used a sword that he found on the 31st floor intending to test the difference between swords.
According to the info it was a peak top grade weapon.
But-
The sword that should have been a top grade high ranking weapon shattered after just one use!
Of course Nagisa managed to kill the troll, but that was only due to his skill and the sword was practically a plastic kids toy when used against the troll.
But when using Nightfall, even a careless swing without an ounce of technique or force could split a variant troll in two halves.
[Hehehe, my babies! Daddy will take even better care of you in the future]
His eyes, looking at the two swords seemed like a doting father unwilling to even let dust defile his lovable daughters.
He embraced the swords gently and spoke as if they were genuinely real people.
[Don't worry I'll make you guys into the strongest swords ever!]
Well, aside from going crazy over his swords there was not much to report.
No, that might not be the case.
Maybe because he'd lost himself fawning over his swords but he had almost forgotten an important fact.
Nagisa had awakened an overpowered trait!
Opening the status using his mind, Nagisa gave a satisfied smile at the new trait sitting quietly beside his original three traits.
[Soul Exploitation(EX)]
It was a trait that allowed him to devour the essence of a person's soul once they were dead or killed by himself.
It turned out that his 'Ruler' title granted him a privilege to awaken dormant unique special abilities in his soul under certain conditions.
The condition he cleared this time was eating all the monsters he came across, so though it was nasty and tasty like crap he was satisfied by the gain.
He could also 'Exploit' equipment and objects, but according to the skill they had to either have no ownership or belong to himself to be devoured.
He was lost about it at first, but after trying it out on a broken sword once he finally knew what it meant.
<<+1 durability(Defense) has been gained>>
So apparently, he could either randomly copy stats or skills from unowned items or corpses that he didn't kill.
In such a case the skill would be random and there was even a chance it would be a useless skill belonging to that corpse or item.
And the stat/attribute that was copied would be randomized as well, not to mention the amount he gained from whatever attribute he exploited would be halved.
But for those that he did kill, he could either choose to copy a trait or skill or even complete stats.
It was the same for any item he owned.
As for how it differentiated between owned and unowned items?
Unowned would be those weapons that were link to an owner, whether previously or presently.
For example, apparently in this world you could nurture weapons and link them to your soul.
However a person wouldn't just nurture every weapon they owned as the number of weapons you could nurture depended on your mana capacity.
Nagisa knew this thanks to randomly 'exploiting' knowledge from the corpse he had gotten the sword from.
It seemed to be similar to how he was the 'required' wielder for hopeless and nightfall, except without him the swords would never activate not to mention it would kill whoever dared to touch them.
A linked weapons could still be used by others, just that without removing the prior mark of the nurturer and infusing your own mark it would never bring out its full power.
At any rate, nurtured weapons were called 'Links' and those links were considered owned by that person whether they were dead or alive.
A link could be removed as stated above and replaced so it wasn't foolproof, just practical.
For such weapons, the trait would consider them unowned by himself and so he could only devour randomly.
He could also remove the marks and place his own but Nagisa didn't want to nurture another persons weapon, especially ones at such a low grade.
Still, considering that he only gained 1 point of durability from the sword he wasn't too disappointed as it must not have been too outstanding.
'High ranked my foot, can't even measure up to my babies!'
Nagisa gazed lovingly at his swords.
In any case, Nagisa was now on the hunt for a very particular skill that only the trolls had.
[Self Heal]
It wasn't that he didn't already have the skill.
He did.
Afterall he had been killing and exploiting trolls since the start.
Still, he made a very important discovery after repeatedly exploiting the same skill.
That was, he could stack skills to make them level up rather than train them!
And especially skills like healing that didn't have a set regimen for training became relatively easier to upgrade with this method.
It wasn't like he could constantly hurt himself?
He wasn't such a masochist, not to mention that his skin was becoming harder by the day.
The day would come where such a training would become obsolete so he was grateful for this discovery before that day arrived!
Through devouring trolls, his self-heal had already risen from a low (F) to become (B+).
And this was after killing more than at least one thousand trolls including those variants.
At this level he could already recover from deep wounds and could grow back fingers in a week!
Growing back a limb still seemed impossible but with reluctant active, he didn't need to worry about dying unless his mana and will to live ran out.
Still, even though he'd massacred and devoured every troll since the 31st to the 37th floor he seemed to be stuck at (B+) level.
'I guess even stacking stats won't be too easy'
Still, it didn't dampen his spirits.
Afterall-
[I occasionally transfer strength stats too]
Yes.
In this word, it wasn't possible to see your attributes like strength, speed and so on through the status.
Even at the same level two people might have very different strength but you could never know the exact numerical value.
But, through constantly devouring strength stats from the trolls, Nagisa was sure that even at the same level he was a monster!
This alone filled him with satisfaction.
After a bit more walking, Nagisa sighed and sat down to take a rest with a yawn.
Aside from fighting, there wasn't much to do in this dungeon not to mention his phone had died ages ago.
With no source of power to recharge it, he could only deal with the boring silence of the dungeon when he wasn't swinging his sword.
Still, it wasn't all bad.
Used to being alone, although he nearly lost his sanity a few times he managed to keep himself together!
Even so-
'I wish I had someone to talk to'
Nagisa was a solitary person but that didn't mean he liked being alone all the time.
Before he would at least have his grandfather or servants around even if they didn't talk much.
But, now he was all alone.
In this situation, 'Art of Death' seemed to be useful, if he could create a companion then maybe this unbearable place wouldn't be so unbearable anymore.
Yet, all Nagisa could see were bones!
Flipping bones everywhere!
Old dry and decayed bones that turned to dust at a touch.
Was this the apocalypse???
Bones wouldn't help him!
If he only wanted a companion, he could surely make a skeleton.
However, Nagisa didn't want rattling bones clattering beside him all the time.
He wanted to find at least a corpse that retained some form of flesh and most importantly a tongue so he could create a servant that could talk to him!
[Sigh, am I going crazy?]
He decided he would take a good rest.
As for thinking about a companion, he would figure it out when he woke up.
For now, just sink into dream land and frolic with candy sheep.
...
.....
...
*Yawn*
Nagisa yawned as his blurry consciousness awakened.
His mind was still in a haze and he felt as if he had slept for hours, a rare occurrence for himself.
But still one he welcomed having skipped sleep so many times before.
Although reluctance would allow him to avoid death even if his body was exhausted from having no rest, that feeling of being spent all day was painful.
Reluctance would let him avoid death but he would still suffer blood loss, he could avoid death by poisoning but for a few days he would suffer the effects of said poison and dying of exhaustion was impossible yet at the same time he would still be exhausted.
It was a powerful ability but its drawbacks were very apparent.
Worse was if he ran out of man or the determination to live, the skill would no longer work!
He sighed.
Shuffle!
Suddenly-
A sound as if something were shuffling closer and closer snapped Nagisa wide awake.
His mind was still a bit confused, but seeing the fist even larger than his body smashing right towards him Nagisa rolled to the side before hoisting himself into the air.
Woosh!
[Rude bastard!]
He snapped back extremely irritated.
The troll before him was as huge as any other he had seen.
Seriously, each of them were like a several story building and this did nothing to ease his annoyance at nearly being attacked in his sleep.
Tap!
Landing with bent knees, Nagisa glared at the creature.
[You must not have learned not to interrupt someone's sleep]
He stood slowly, taking a stance and slowly drawing out his sword.
The metallic sound as the blade rubbed against the sheath echoed like shrills of death.
[But I guess you really want to die]