163 -) 23rd Floor
Year 1452, month 10, day 20
***
Race: Ice Spike
Sex: None
Status: Normal
Level 23
***
“Don’t stay close to them too long!” I shouted and fired fireballs toward Wyn and Woya.
The fireballs landed close to them and melted the surrounding ice. Decreasing the effect of cold on the girl. It did not negate the whole effect, but helped them greatly. This is the major difficulty of this floor.
Ice spikes are compound element cores. They are able to use both water and wind elements and can create a special phenomenon like forming ice attacks and making their surrounding ice fields.
It is not hard to avoid, nor does it affect its enemies much. However, if you don’t deal with it fast, the cold will accumulate. Then it will start to damage the body, and your movements will be slower.
That was the only serious issue with them. So if you can be fast to annihilate them, they are quite easy to deal with compared to most of the cores. They are faster than flexible muds from the previous floor. Their attacks are a bit trickier than flexible muds, and they can also use water shields.
However, they are not as sturdy as flexible muds, so as long as you can catch them, they are much easier to break apart. So Elaris can hunt like a partridge as long as she can hit the target.
Magic also works just fine with fire and earth elements. The fire element attack deals less damage because, when it liquidates because of the heat, it just turns into water, and turning water is not bad for a water element user core.
The earth element attacks can shatter ice, so it is more suitable for direct impact. However, that doesn’t mean that fire attacks are less useful. They can temporarily eliminate ice spikes’ area freeze effect.
Getting my aid to warm them, the girls continued to fight the cores. As the cores’ numbers decreased, their environmental manipulation also weakened. Wyn and Woya surrounded them one by one and combined their attacks; they drove cores towards Elaris and let her shatter cores with consecutive attacks.
It took less than 5 minutes for them to clear 5 ice spikes. After a short rest around a small fire I created, we continued the same process several times.
The girls forced themselves to move faster before cores converted the whole area to icy land. Elaris used her bow and arrows on both assisting them and delivering concrete damage. I mostly supported using fire to warm them and prevent environmental change.
I used earth bullets from time to time to both hasten the fight and practice my spells. Furthermore, I started to be able to create bigger stone bullets lately. If I inject more mana into it before releasing, it gets bigger.
However, the amount and size are not proportional. If I use 2 times the mana of what I normally use to create a simple earth bullet, it gets a bit bigger, not 2 times bigger. It is either the spell gets more complicated, or I am just not proficient enough at handling mana yet.
Even reaching this state is thanks to my continuous practice and insight I got from leveling up my mage job. I am sure it will get better as I continue to practice and level up.
We took care of every group of ice spikes on our way and made it as fast as possible. Thanks to that, it seemed possible to pass the entire 23rd floor in a single day.
After 4 of the group were obliterated, only one ice spike remained from a group of 5. It had an arrow and a few sword marks on its surface. Part of its spikes melted. It was hardly hovering around. And then, Woya came close to it and delivered a fast and heavy downward slash, cutting it in half cleanly.
This was the last group of cores on this floor for us since we reached the boss room a few minutes later. There were two groups waiting in line. Compared to previous floors, their equipment was focused more on keeping them warm than physical defense.
The waiting time was much shorter if we tried to compare it to the previous floor again. We waited nearly half an hour before we could get inside.
When we entered the room and the door closed, the room started to form. However, this room was a bit different from all the rooms I was in before.
The appearance was that of a polished orb, though it seemed as if the top and bottom had been sheared away to form a level surface, providing a stable footing for those entering. The floor we walked on was so smooth that it would be possible to ice skate.
That’s when I got how convenient this room was created for the boss monster. As soon as it applies the icing around, the floor will be slippery to the point that moving alone will be a hardship.
***
Race: Ice Spike
Sex: None
Status: Normal
Level 23 Floor Boss
***
As I started to devise a plan and responses to the possible situations, a bigger ice spike finished forming. It looked identical to a regular ice spike, just aside from a slight size difference.
The surrounding area turned a bluish hue, and a cold wind started to blow toward us. I could see the ground underneath it starting to form ice particles. If left alone, it would be hard to even get close to it.
“Elaris, use sharp shooting!” I commanded.
“Yes, big brother!” She answered sharply and drew her bow.
“Wyn, Woya, charge as soon as Elaris fires the arrow!” I then shouted toward Wyn and Woya.
“Yes, master!” They readied their weapons and took a stance.
I also formed a fireball in front of my hand and got ready to fire it as soon as Elaris took action. And soon enough, I released it when I heard the bow gritting as it was being either strained or released.
Wyn and Woya started to run as soon as Elaris’s arrow took off and gave off a whistling sound. They tried to approach it from the right and left like always. However, they were obviously running slower.
It was probably because the floor was slippery, and they were focusing on their balance. They would certainly find it harder when near the boss. The ground was already transforming into a skate platform.
Fortunately, Elaris’s arrow hit the boss right in the middle, making the boss stumble backward. Right after that, my fireball blasted on its surface, making both the part of it and the ice formed under it melt.
This did not eliminate the low surface friction, but increased the girls’ future balance problem. The girls quickly approached it, then tried to strike. It was hard to land a hit at this setting, and even some of them were blocked by water shields.
It was also hard for Elaris to fire an arrow out of fear of hitting the girls.
The girls continued to push down the boss, and Woya finally managed to hit with her long sword, albeit with just the tip of her sword’s blade. Then she lost her balance and fell on the ground.
Seeing the gap, the boss fired water balls and wind bullets, but Wyn put herself in front of Woya and cut water balls skillfully while blocking wind bullets with metal parts of her armor. She was instinctively moving to help her sister.
Since the girls became apart once again, another arrow hit the boss. The boss’s movements and attack frequency slowed down further. Seeing this, Wyn and Woya pushed upon it once again and managed to deliver a few serious hits this time.
The boss was in shambles. The girls gave me a way to end its miserable state. It was in tatters. While I was getting closer, it tried to form a simple water shield between us, but that was so slow.
I slowly raised my sword over my head and swung it downward as soon as its shield was finished forming. The sword cut it in two despite the shield, which also cut without resistance. The monster separated into two damaged pieces and slowly disintegrated.
As the room turned hollow, we collected 27 silver and 60 copper Obscura coins dropped from the boss. On this floor, we defeated 65 cores that dropped 130 silver and 4.940 copper coins. All of them totalled 157 silver and 5000 copper Obscuras, which is equal to 204 silver and 65 copper Obscuras after merging copper coins.
“Big brother Han!” While I was stuffing the coins in my inventory, Elaris came running and asked with shining eyes, “How was I? Did I do well? I hit it many times right in the middle, didn’t I?”
“...” Against her nonstop barrage of questions, I could only smile and wait for her to finish before approving, “Yes. You did so well this time.”
“Hehehe.” She giggled and jumped around.
Seeing her like that, we forgot our exhaustion.
“Let’s change and eat something out,” I said to not tire the girls anymore but…
“M-master…” Woya was restless for some reason. “D-do you not like the meal we do at home?” So this was what she was worried about.
“... Oh.” I was a bit lost about what to say at first, then collected myself and said, “You know it is not true. Nothing can replace the warm meal we eat at our home…” Then continued to explain, “But you know we are so busy, and it would be a hassle to prepare something, as it must have been a while since the sun set.”
“S-so you don’t dislike it, then.” She murmured with a nod. “Okay, master. Let’s go then.” She added with a confident smile this time.
‘I must enjoy homemade meals more in the future.’ I made a mental note to myself.
After that, we stepped onto the 24th floor and left for dinner. We slowly enjoyed our dinner, then dessert and finally drinks. No alcohol for Elaris, of course.
When we returned home, what followed was as routine and hot as always. There is no way to get bored with this. Just before falling asleep while the girls were sleeping on both of my arms, I opened it to check my Player Window.
***
Player Window
—
Name: Han
Sex: Male
Age: 22 (1 Up)
—
Equipped Jobs:
Hero Level 49 (6 Up)
Job Collector (Hero, Elder Monk)
Mage Level 40 (20 Up)
Sword King Level 10 (8 Up)
Magic Knight Level 10 (8 Up)
High Knight Level 10 (8 Up)
Truth Seeker Level 10 (8 Up)
—
Acquired Jobs:
Elder Monk Level 3 (New)
Master Enchanter Level 10 (New)
Alchemist Level 5 (4 Up)
Ascetic Monk Level 50 (9 Up)
Equipment Merchant Level 40 (30 Up)
Enchanter Level 50 (30 Up)
Total Job Count: 35
***
The progression is slow lately because of how busy I am. However, it is still rising steadily. I just wonder what would happen when the Hero job reaches level 50.
***Elder Monk:
- A high-level job to use fists to fight and can use basic healing.
- Strength increase (medium)
- Endurance increase (medium)
- Vitality increase (medium)
- Dexterity increase (small)
- Intelligence increase (medium)
- Wisdom increase (medium)
- Heal 10 HP of the target
- You should touch the target to activate the skill
- Skill cost = 5 mana
- Ignore all the defenses of outer protection.
- Increase the dealt damage by (20 + 0.2 * level) %
- Skill cost = 20 mana
- Can read enemies’ moves slightly for (10 + 0.2 * level) seconds.
- Skill cost = 30 mana
***
Master Enchanter:
- High-level job to add skill crystals to equipment up to 6 crystals.
- Strength increase (medium)
- Dexterity increase (medium)
- Intelligence increase (large)
- Wisdom increase (medium)
- You can create equipment that you created manually before instantaneously.
- Equipment will be of the same quality as the manually created one.
- You can update the equipment with a new one.
- Skill cost = 10 mana
- You can imbue a skill crystal in equipment.
- Equipment has to have at least one empty skill slot.
- Equipment cannot have a skill crystal with the same attribute.
- Skill cost = (20 * skill crystal count) mana (fourth crystal = 80, fifth = 100, sixth = 120, etc.)