Almond selected the first skill option from one of the two level-up boon windows.
[Congratulations, your class skill—Spirit Syringe has been upgraded to SS-rank.]
‘Mhmm, let’s see what it got,’ Almond opened the skill’s status panel.
[Spirit Syringe]
-Rank: SS
-Type: Off-Support.
-Cost: 10% of maximum stamina.
-Effect(s):
—> Absorb 10% of the user’s stamina to conjure a Spirit Syringe, which can absorb the Vitality and Mana of a target up to 100% of the user’s Vitality and Mana. You can store up to 5 Spirit Syringe.
—> Syringes can be used to recover vitality and mana and, additionally, give a 20% all-stat boost for 1 minute.
‘A buff?’ Almond’s eyes shone. ‘20% boost to all stats is awesome.’
Almond was satisfied with that upgrade. Moving on, he selected Skill Option from the other level-up boon panel.
[Congratulations, your class skill—Spirit Explosion, has been upgraded to SS rank.] Read new adventures at empire
‘Oh…’ Almond was a bit disappointed. Although Spirit Explosion was a very powerful skill, no doubt, he was using up Spirits to craft items mostly.
He also had some Spirits Stored inside the pocket that needed to be saved, like the Dungeon Boss spirits, this Heroic Challenge boss spirit, and the other bosses he defeated on the way to here on the second floor.
‘100 slots are totally not enough anymore,’ Almond wryly smiled. ‘I need to upgrade Spirit Pocket and Spirit Absorption, both with the skill upgrade cards, but not yet. I’m going to level up more. Surely, I’ll get at least a couple more Skill options as I level up to Gold level 100 this month.’
‘Anyway, let me see what new effect Spirit Explosion got.’
[Spirit Explosion]
-Rank: SS
-Type: Offense.
-Cost: 1 Spirit per Spirit Explosion.
-Effect(s):
—> Anywhere within 50 meters of yourself, you can place a spirit and make it explode. The damage is determined by the stats of the spirit’s owner before death. There’s a chance for the explosion to turn special, granting it effects related to the memories of the spirit based on the powers its owner wielded.
—> Spirit Nuke: You can stack spirits and store them in a special space accessible through this skill. The stacked spirit will take time but eventually condense and create a Spirit Nuke. You can stack up to 100 spirits and can only store 1 Spirit Nuke at a time.
‘Spirit Nuke?!’ Almond was startled and also thrilled. ‘That sounds powerful. I have to keep one in store in case of an emergency.’
He didn’t have any spirits to spare since he turned all he got from the second floor into items, aside from boss spirits.
‘Should I use a skill upgrade card to upgrade Spirit Devour now or wait?’ Almond contemplated.
‘I don’t need stats yet, and I am also crafting items since I’ll need a lot to craft Epic-grade items later as each craft of an Epic-rank would require 20 Super-grade items.’
‘I can start stocking items right now in my Spirit Forge Factory. Using Uncommon-grade items to craft Rare-grade and Rare-grade items to craft Super-grades,’ Almond’s eyes glinted.
He wasn’t going to unlock the Epic-grade forge option yet since everyone could use their Epic-rank items to progress faster on the third floor.
‘Yeah, I’ll save the skill upgrade cards for now.’
Almond looked at others and said, “Let’s finish eating. We’ll distribute the items and whatnot before beginning our adventure after resting.”
The four of them were immersed in checking out the new S-rank and SS-rank skills they just learned using the Instant-learning skill slab.
Maya had gotten an SS-rank skill from her high-ranking skill scroll, while the other three had gotten an S-rank skill.
“Yeah, let’s finish eating. Help me cook,” Natalia said right before her stomach rumbled and everyone burst out laughing.
But everyone was indeed very hungry after their five hours of rush on this second floor.
“Almond, you rest,” Lily said as she turned to Almond and gently pushed his chest to lay him down in the tent, “You pushed yourself too hard three times in the fight.”
“I’ll take up on that offer,” Almond weakly smiled. “I’m mentally and physically aching all over even though I’m fully healed.”
…
The food was cooked as soon as they had bought meat and other ingredients.
After eating, everyone immediately fell asleep inside the tents.
Lily and Almond were in one tent, while the other three had their individual tents.
Time passed, and Almond automatically woke up six hours later, fully recovered.
The others had woken up an hour or half an hour earlier and had freshened up.
They were testing out their new skills and items, but after Almond woke up, everyone gathered around at the camp and drank herb tea before discussing item distribution.
The total items they had gotten after opening Epic-rank boxes were as follows:
1. Blazing Duskpiercer Bow — Low-tier Epic-grade.
2. Chainmail of Crimson Requiem — Low-tier Epic-grade.
3. Circlet of Starfrost Wisp — Low-tier Epic-grade.
4. Inbound Geomancer’s Boots — Low-tier Epic-grade.
5. Wrathful Wood Titan’s Necklace — Low-tier Epic-grade.
6. Ring of the Shattered Edge — Medium-tier Epic-grade.
The Epic-rank item boxes that everyone got from the bonus rewards based on their contribution yielded those six items.
Unlike maximum valued items that Almond could craft, these items weren’t like that.
Their effects appeared a bit worse than Almond’s high-tier Super-grade equipment set!
However, the most important thing was the perk each of them gave. Each of those Epic-grade items gave everyone roughly 120 stat points.
“After seeing Almond’s spirit items, I am not interested in these,” Marcus wryly smiled. “We definitely want the Epic-rank items you create.”
“True,” Maya nodded. “But these items are enough for us to roll over the third floor easily. Just the stat boost they gave us by using just one is good enough until we reach the third floor’s Heroic Challenge.”
“Then let’s finish the third floor quickly with all the power-ups we have,” Lily said with a sharp smile. “After that, we’ll meet familiar faces on the 4th Floor. We can increase our party by a couple of people then.”
“Yeah, let’s distribute the items and move,” Almond said as he first took out the Epic-rank set from the Floor Boss chest.
“The set is also of low-grade Epic-rank, but it’s power and aligned with Earth-attribute and gives set bonus, so Marcus would be able to utilize it better.”
“Woohoo! Thanks, leader!” Marcus said while grinning from ear to ear.
“What about the other four items? Are they random?” Natalia asked.
“Yeah, ” Almond nodded as he took out the other four random Epic-rank items he got from his MVP reward chest.
“The weapon I got from the random weapon box is a bit unorthodox, but so I’ll use it. I’m interested in it,” Almond said as he grabbed the bronze-bladed metallic Chakram with crystal patterns on its surface at the periphery.
The chakram floated up and started spinning.
“Woah, that looks dangerous. It’s spinning fast, too,” Marcus exclaimed.
“I can control it like this, but it cost Mana per second. But I’m just going to stick with throwing it and then getting it back to me using Mana to keep low consumption,” Almond smiled. “This can be a good flexible long-range attack weapon.”
“Moving on, the other three Epic grade items are also of mid-tier like this one—A mage robe aligned with light attribute.”
“That’s mine,” Natalia raised her hand.
“A ring that boosts water and ice attributes, granting some effects.”
Maya’s eyes glowed, “Could I get to use that, please?”
She had mastery of both Ice and Water elements, so this accessory item was perfect for her.
“Yep. It’s yours. The last one is a pair of gloves, boosting the darkness element and increasing the attack speed of the hand,” Almond smiled and handed the gloves to Lily. “They are yours.”
“Damn, the Epic items you got from your MVP reward chest are pretty good, and all of them are medium-tier,” Natalia grinned as she wore the white robe with golden and blue embroidery design with tiny crystal patterns.
“Oh yeah, people. What do we do about our roulette tickets?” Marcus asked.
“Save,” Almond said.
“Yep, we’ll save those,” Lily nodded. “We are going to get more tickets as he clears the heroic challenge floor boss, so it would be better if we use them later.”
Maya blinked and asked, “You sound like you’ve used one before.”
“We did,” Natalia chuckled. “They give pretty good rewards, very good in fact, but only if we are lucky. That’s why it’s better to save them for now and open in bulk later.”
“Let’s distribute the remaining six items and start moving,” Almond said as he waved his hand, and items floated up and went to everyone.
Lily got the Blazing Duskpiercer Bow since she was good with the bow.
Chainmail of Crimson Requiem also went to Lily for better protection, and since it was blood-attributed, it matched with Lily, who had Blood-attributed specialized class. She couldn’t use the element, but it at least matched and boosted her blood recovery.
Circlet of Starfrost Wisp went to Maya since it was an ice-attribute. It was headgear and gave one defense-type and two buff-type effects.
Marcus got the Inbound Geomancer’s Boots as they matched him.
Wrathful Wood Titan’s Necklace went to Natalia. Nobody had wood or natural-related attributes, but this necklace gave defense, buff, and an attack-type effect.
Ring of the Shattered Edge, the only medium-tier Epic-rank items from those boxes, went to Almond as he kept it. It was a pure-offense enhancing ring, best suitable to him.
And with that, everyone got up and put their tents into the storage pouches before finally leaving through a portal.
Maya and Marcus went inside first while riding on Chimera Frank. Afterward, Lily and Natalia went together after mounting on Starlight Beast.
Lastly, Almond entered, his eyes already displaying a thirst for action after the short rest.
Meanwhile, the situation outside that people in the Labyrinth weren’t aware of yet was very tense.
The meeting had begun five hours ago with all important people gathering, and it was still ongoing, though it was time to make some decisions to move about resolving the situation.