Option â Dexterity +40, Magic +40, Charm +40. Immune to sneak attacks. Flame Sucker is always active.
Flame Sucker â Absorbs all flames up to SSS rank and converts them to magic and health. Flames above SSS rank can be nullified, but EX rank flames cannot.]
Although I had many questions, I asked the most important one first.
âWhatâs an EX rank flame, Lin?â
âImagine the flame breath of a 10,000 year old high dragon thatâs prepared to burn its throat, Thatâs EX rank. Or, imagine the Demon Lord from the Luka continent sacrificing his arm to make a flame. That would be EX rank. Itâs hard for the dungeon to estimate anything above that. Just think of them all as EX rank.â
âSo itâs an ultimate flame that can even injure the user. I wouldnât be surprised if the Demon Lord will bear the risk to use something like that, so I guess Iâll be in trouble if I think I can block all flamesâŚâ
âGood, now youâre thinking.â
Lin nodded with satisfaction. Then, he shoved his face toward me and continued.
âKang Shin, be careful with that armor. Iâm the one who made it, but itâs too overbearing. I managed to make use of its aggressive nature to greatly increase the chance of landing critical hits, but its aggressive nature also increases the wearerâs chance of receiving critical hits by a whole 50%. Itâs going to be quite troublesome. You have to be especially wary of Devourerâs side effect.â
âThe mutation, you mean?â
âYeah, that. Iâve seen many people who have made fun of it, but only ended up being done in by it. What Iâm trying to say is, donât use Devourer so freely. Got it? If you mutate due to the Demon Lord factor⌠Damn, noonimâs going to end me.â
Lin glared at the black bracelet on my wrist with a look that seemed to say, âshould I take it back?â I nodded seriously and retorted.
âIâm immune to mutations so itâs okay.â
âRight, since youâre immune to mutations, you should try not to use⌠Immune to mutations!?â
âRight. Isnât being immune to mutations the basic requirement of all explorers? Are there explorers not immune to mutations? That canât be, right?â
âKu, kuuu⌠I want to⌠hit youâŚ!â
I thanked Lin again and left Fairy Garden. For some reason, Linâs expression wasnât so happy when I thanked him!
Mm, being able to tease Lin was very satisfying. Today was turning out to be great!
Subclass Skill â Endow Skill, Taming (Lv 4), Spirit of the Collector, Spirit of the Mixer, Spirit of the Tamer (Lv 4)]
Before I challenged the dungeonâs 60th floor, I checked my status to celebrate getting new equipment. At the same time, I used up all the bonus stats I hadnât had the time to use. I had become Gold Rank 7 before I noticed, and a few stats had grown unbelievably high. Strength, dexterity, and constitution stats didnât need much explaining. As for intelligence, while the base stat was only 40, I was getting 82, almost double the base amount, as bonus. Even my luck stat had reached an absurd 111 points.
As for magic, which was my highest stat, I didnât even know what to say. Unlike the other stats that were extremely difficult, if not impossible, to grow naturally, it was constantly improving along with Peruta Circuitâs usage.
In terms of stats, I was most likely one of the highest in the dungeon. Though the two additional Legend-grade equipment heavily increased my bonus stats, Iâve gotten rather aloof about stat increases.
Of course, I could still feel myself getting stronger every time my stats increased, but with so many explosive increases in a short period of time, my body hadnât adapted to the change and was pretty much always in the process of updating. With all the stats Iâve gained from Event Dungeons, Event Raids, Beyond, and other sources, it was if Iâd broken through the dungeonâs 100th floor. That was even including all the stats one could gain by grinding Floor Masters!
However, to be so overconfident in my stats, there were too many things I learned from the Panan continent. Traps, special attack methods, power of oneâs levels, and even the level-ignoring difference in oneâs league of existence; knowing all these, it was impossible to be happy with an increase of 10 or 20 stat points. Rather, I realized that I needed to focus on honing my skills, which were in a unique and independent position.
In that sense, having all skills increase by a level for defeating a worldâs enemy was an outstanding benefit. Though, there were skills that had to be âupdatedâ, like stats.
âThat means Beyond is just that important.â
Not only did clearing a Beyondâs floor raise my HP and MP, but it also added experience to the skills I used to clear that floor. Beyond would undoubtedly help me hone my abilities. To defeat the Demon Lord I met in the Luka continent, the current me was still lacking. Plus, I had to think about the other worldâs enemy that had yet to make its appearance. I couldnât be content with just this. I had to get much stronger.
Though not even a month had passed since Lorettaâs announcement of a 2 year time limit, I felt anxious. Perhaps it was because so many things had happened in the past month. Regardless, I couldnât do much about this feeling of anxiety. Knowing you might die in 2 years and cause the entire world to fall to ruin, it was impossible to be completely unaffected. The important thing was knowing what to do about it.
To deal with this anxiousness, I decided to tackle the 60th floor. After all, when things seemed complicated or when I just wanted to sweat off the stress of everyday life, climbing the dungeon was the best thing to do!
⌠Though something felt off, I decided not to pay any attention to it.
Just like before, I equipped the armor by imbuing mana into the bracelet. Unlike the Crimson Scale Armor, which had hints of black on a red base, the Pure Black Desire was a pure black full plate armor just like its name suggested. That said, across the black armor were strange engravings, which looked sophisticated and seemed to give off magic power.
These engravings maintained a black glow and grabbed my attention. It was a rather ominous glow that seemed to suck me into a trance when I looked at it. Overall, it was a cool armor that provoked the desires of puberty hidden within me!
With the help of the new armor, I broke through the 60th floor in just 3 hours and found myself in front of the Floor Master room. Next to me was Lotte in her human-form. In the past, she couldnât fully spread her wings out in the dungeonâs narrow passageways. Now that she could take the human form, she was an excellent damage dealer with both speed and power. As she was treated as my tamed beast, it still counted as a solo clear when I brought her along.
âWhew. Considering how the number of golems increased as I climbed last few floors, the Floor Master is probably a golem tooâŚâ
âGolems are annoying because my claws donât penetrate them well. Regardless, letâs finish this quickly and go rest, Hero.â
Lotte, you easily break them with aura-imbued attacks or flame breath. Donât lieâŚ
However, since the dungeon liked to play tricks on explorers, it was entirely possible for the Floor Master to be a mimic. I tightened my grip on Chaotic Spear and kicked the door open.
âFight me!â
[Guoooooooooooo!]
A loud, strange roar greeted us. The ceiling was unusually high, and an enormous steel giant was looking down at us. It had the exact appearance of a 12 meter tall human covered in steel. I trembled excitedly at the overwhelming sense of existence I hadnât met in a long time.
âLotte, you can fly here!â
âIâve been waiting for those words, Hero!â
Lotte immediately transformed to her wyvern form. I jumped onto her back and raised my spear. It was the perfect chance to test one of my new armorâs abilities. Desire Thorn and Devourer were both straight-forward. However, Sacrifice seemed to have a somewhat ambiguous clause.
[Sacrifice â Usable with any attack skill. Receive half the damage of the skill, but doubles the skillâs effect. The damage received by Sacrifice cannot reduce your HP to under 10%.]
Just like its name suggested, Sacrifice traded oneâs flesh for the enemyâs bones. Although the skill wouldnât kill me, it could potentially put me on the verge of death. I had to be careful before I used it.
The ambiguous part was receiving half of the skillâs damage. Did it double the skillâs effect after I received half the damage? Or did I receive half the damage from the doubled skill effect? In other words, given that the skillâs damage was 100 and the amplified damage was 200, I didnât know whether I took 50 or 100 damage. That was what this fight was for. Once I tried it, I would get a feeling for it.
I immediately readied Sacrifice and aimed my spear toward the enemy.
[Kuaaaang!]
The giant golem raised its fists and sent a jab toward me. This guy, he knew boxing! Though Lotte seemed surprised by its quick jab, she flew backwards swiftly and dodged it. Meanwhile, I slowly gathered energy in my spear. Sacrifice wasnât a skill that could be used only once per day. As such, there was no need to save the skill for anything. There was nothing wrong with being a bit bold and using it now.
âElemental Blade!â
In an instant, the spear blade elongated by over 10 meters. Immediately after using Sacrifice, I made Lotte accelerate and thrust my spear toward the giant golemâs left shoulder joint.
[Critical Hit!]
[Kuaaaaaang!]
âKuhuk, that hurts!â
That hurt enough to make me scream! Immediately after cutting off the golemâs arm, I checked my HP after feeling the electrifying pain. Shockingly, my HP had decreased by 35%. I really couldnât use this skill freely! I grit my teeth and gulped down a potion. At that moment, Lotte called me.
[Hero.]
âYeah? Whatâs wrong?â
[That guy seems to be a weakling.]
â⌠What?â
I confusedly turned around. The golem that had lost its arm was roaring and charging toward me. Indeed, it did look quite pitiful. Wait, Elemental Blade was powerful, but still, it instantly cut off its arm?
âThe 50% damage I tookâŚâ
Did it hurt so much because I got a critical hit? But even critical hits only doubled the damage. That meant that the Elemental Blade with Sacrifice had dealt 4 times the normal damage. Mm, I couldnât quite understand how it worked. Maybe if it had bones and was affected by the Skull Breaker effect⌠Ah!