Chen didn’t respond when Kairos called out to him the first time. This confused Kairos a little, but he didn’t question it all that much. Instead, he coughed.
“Um, I think we made it to the exit. Do you think we should search for Pablo or just go in?”
Chen flinched, almost like Kairos had intruded on something personal.
“N-No. We should just go. We should just go now.”
While saying that, he stumbled forth, but tripped over himself and fell to the ground. Logically he should’ve had the coordination not to trip, and even if he did he should’ve been able to recover rather easily.
Yet, he fell flat on his face.
Nicole glanced over curiously for a moment, but then turned right back to Kairos. As for Kaede, she shakily got up to her feet, but had her arms wrapped around herself almost like she was cold.
Not to say that it wasn’t exactly cold, but for most people at the D rank, this would be a comfortable temperature. In fact, it may even be a little hot.
Kaede gave a glance at the three that were there and quickly looked away. She didn’t say a single thing more before jumping into the blue pillar in the center of the room and disappearing.
As for Chen, he slowly pushed himself back up, but found himself unable to stand. In the end, he crawled into the blue pillar, almost like he was running away from something.
Kairos cast one last glance behind him before sighing.
“Well, if Pablo gets here he gets here. If not, that’s a shame.”
He reached out towards the blue pillar while mumbling to himself.
“…We would’ve been able to complete both of our missions rather easily.”
Nicole was holding onto him, but then that sensation suddenly disappeared as he found himself in the middle of bright blue mana that strained his mind slightly. Thankfully, it was soon over, and he found himself in a confined room.
[You have cleared the 1st Floor – 5 dungeon points awarded]
[Please wait 3 hours, 22 minutes, and 13 seconds to access the second level of the dungeon.]
Kairos looked around himself and saw the holographic projection sitting in the corner staring at him blankly once more. After a moment of thought, he walked up to it and asked for the shop to be opened.
[Shop]
[Dungeon Points: 11]
[Water and Rice – 1 point]
[Orange Juice and Hamburger – 3 points]
[Wine and Oysters – 5 points]
[Pillow and Two Blankets – 1 point]
[Random Upper-Elemental Spell – 10 points]
[Hide]
Kairos raised his eyebrow when he looked at the options. It was different from what he remembered, that was for sure. However, the thing that he cared about most was available.
The random elemental spell.
However, it seemed that in this shop, there was a better version. This interested him greatly and with less hesitation than he should’ve had, he bought it.
[Dungeon Points – 11 – 1]
He felt a rush of information rush into his mind as a new spell gradually became clear to him. Then, he promptly opened his status panel.
[Status]
[ID: 345315364923]
[Rank: D+]
[Objective: Survive]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 22.1]
[Stats –
Strength – 30.0
Endurance – 30.0
Agility – 30.0
Willpower – 30.0
Mana Capacity – 30.0
Magic Affinity – 30.0]
[Special Abilities: Alone (D), Water Spell (E), Pulse Spell (E), Fire Spell (F), Gale Spell (F), Darkness Spell (F)]
[Hide]
He raised an eyebrow when he looked at his new spell before checking out its description.
[Darkness Spell (F)]
[Afflict one intelligent being with a random mental weakness depending on channel time.]
After reading that, Kairos raised an eyebrow.
“A mental weakness?…”
He couldn’t help but think of what he had just experienced. The last trial required in order to clear the floor. His first guess was that it was something like that, if not the same thing.
Kairos couldn’t help but wonder how this was considered an elemental spell, but decided not to question it. He was a little annoyed though because there was obviously nobody for him to test it on as of now.
Yet, right as that thought got into his mind, he realized that there was someone he could use.
Himself.
Kairos wondered if doing this was a stupid idea, but decided to do it anyway.
After reaching out with his hand in the form of a claw, he began channeling the darkness spell and immediately found that it was considerably more difficult than normal elemental spells, and may even be harder than some unique spells people had.
Then he pointed the claw at himself, channeling with the minimum amount of mana.
After doing it, nothing seemed to happen. He wondered if he somehow messed up, but then he felt something feel loose on his face. Before his eyes, his glasses fell off. Or at least, that’s what it looked like.
In reality, his glasses were still on his face, but a copy had fallen off of his face. Right as it hit the ground, the entire thing became purple and misty, before dispersing into nothing.
Kairos couldn’t help but laugh when he saw that. He actually was a little panicked when he felt his glasses slipping off of his face, but he wasn’t really concerned about the lenses. Instead, he was afraid that the frame would break.
From what he knew, the lenses were quite durable.
He continued to think to himself, wondering if this spell could really be useful. After all, if he used it on someone and the degree of fear was their glasses falling off, it wouldn’t be all that useful in a life or death battle. Especially because it couldn’t even directly cause harm to them.
If anything, it would be good to use as a random prank.
Kairos shook his head and decided to give the spell another chance. After all, it seemed that channeling more mana would somehow improve it. He channeled it for a few seconds, and as he was channeling, he found himself intuitively understanding the different ways he could increase its power.
He was honestly a little confused as he didn’t remember this sensation, but then related it back to limit-breaking his mana capacity.
His eyes narrowed slightly once he found that he could increase his targets to two, but it would weaken the power of each individual effect by two-thirds. Naturally since there was only one person to use it on, he didn’t do that.
Instead, he just channeled for a second, which caused a tiny black ball to form in his hand, which appeared with glowing white eyes and a wide smile. And upon releasing the spell, that black ball shot towards him rapidly.
He saw part of his surroundings slowly darken before turning pitch black. Then out of nowhere, a boy appeared. Or rather, a body with all its limbs broken off.
Kairos’ eyes narrowed slightly. He didn’t say anything and just remained there. After roughly ten seconds, the corpse turned into a familiar misty purple before dispersing.
He rubbed his chin in thought.
“It doesn’t seem to be completely useless…”
From what he could tell, the afflicted person would have part of their surroundings turn black depending on how long he had channeled, something that wasn’t shown in the spell description.
After thinking for a bit, he set down his spear on one side of the room before beginning to channel the spell once more. Except this time, he continued channeling it for five whole seconds.
The black ball gradually expanded in size, while its eyes and mouth began looking more sinister with each passing second. By the time he reached the five-second mark, it had actually changed its form slightly, seemingly growing to appear more like a ghost with tiny stubby arms.
Kairos raised an eyebrow, but didn’t hesitate to throw it at himself once more.
This time, nearly the entire room blackened. Kairos looked over at his spear and noticed that he couldn’t see it at all. He reached over to where he remembered it was and found himself able to pick it up.
Seeing this, Kairos couldn’t help but think that the side effect of the spell made it all worth it. After all, the person hit by the spell would have difficulty making out nearby things. It seemed to purge both light and shadows, making it hard for anybody to make sense of anything nearby.
Though, before he could think about it any longer, he saw his father in front of him with a stern expression. He was yelling at him.
“Didn’t we tell you before not to be violent with your peers? This got you expelled last time! Are you really going to keep causing trouble for us like this? You have to learn that your actions are hurting other people!”
Kairos narrowed his eyes slightly and mumbled to himself.
“You’re one to talk.”
For the next thirty seconds, his father continued to yell at him for various different things, but eventually dispersed into a purple mist like all the other apparitions. His morale clearly was a little lower than before, but he still wanted to experiment to see how far this spell really went.
After taking a deep breath, he began channeling the spell once more. This time, he planned on holding it for a full fifteen seconds. For the first five seconds, it appeared like a phantom with stubby arms. Though as he continued to channel it, the phantom elongated even further, and gradually took the form of what seemed to be a snake. As for the smile, it also grew wider and wider.
Once Kairos did eventually release the spell, the snake-like phantom jumped at him and opened its mouth almost like it was the real deal.
Almost immediately, the entire room became black. Kairos immediately began swinging his spear around. He wanted to test if the spell had any effect on his actual mobility. However, from what he could tell, he was completely unaffected.
As he was swinging, Nicole suddenly appeared in front of him, and she was looking to the side. Kairos looked at her silently, wondering what the spell was going to show him this time.
Would she die some sort of horrible death in front of him?
Or maybe she would turn and begin yelling at him for no reason.
For the next twenty seconds, he just looked at Nicole, who was just looking off at the side with a neutral expression. Eventually, she turned to him and scratched the side of her head.
“Um, are you looking at me?”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“…I guess so.”
Nicole tilted her head to the side with an awkward expression.
“Ah, sorry but do I know you?”
Kairos stared blankly for a few seconds before shaking his head.
“No, no you don’t.”
Nicole looked back strangely.
“Er… ok.”
And with that, she began walking away, leaving Kairos with a strange hollow sensation in his chest.