Meanwhile, the adventurers inside the Labyrinth were still busy with their adventures, unaware of the events transpiring outside, but it was only a matter of time as this was the third day and everyone would leave after 21 hours.
“By the way, I have a darkness elemental skill, and you can instantly learn it, too,” Almond said as he took out the Dire Mist Dispersion skill stone.
Lily took the skill stone and inspected it.
Reading the details, her eyes glinted, “This is good. With my darkness mastery, I should be able to coat it around my weapon and other skills to make it more lethal, too.”
“Yeah,” Almond nodded. “You would need Mist elemental mastery for full control, but having Darkness at S-rank should give you that much control over it. Anyway, you should try it.”
“Yeah,” Lily grinned, “And I will use this skill as one of the three bases for the weapon art.”
“Good.”
Lily was done after some minutes and also got her Weapon Art, called Raven’s Umbral Cascade.
As they were done, the duo left the cave and arrived outside, where Ashkar, Benedict, Nyssara, and Viperfiend were already waiting as they had reached Gold level 40.
“There are two more limited challenge areas, but they just give Epic-rank accessory items, and they are at the other part of the floor, so we won’t bother going there,” Almond said.
“Yeah, that’s fine. But you can sell the information to others later,” Lily smiled.
“Yep, that’s the plan. Those accessories of Epic-rank on this floor will be useful forever for future generations, so their value will be high. I’ll take 20% of the total value of the items people get in exchange for selling it,” Almond grinned.
“Nice, that’s perfect.”
“Mhmm, for now, I want to kill a variety of monsters and reach the maximum stats limit of Gold rank as soon as possible,” Almond looked at the mountain ahead, “The territory ahead is two hundred kilometers long until we reach the floor boss area. We’ll maintain pace and kill monsters so that we can reach there after 10 hours.”
“15 hours? Oh, wait, yes. We need to rest for the remaining time so that we are in the best condition to fight the Heroic Boss.”
“Yep. We have roughly 20 hours to reach there according to the deadline I set for everyone.”
“Let’s hope those two can also catch up, or they will miss the opportunity,” Lily chuckled as she remembered about Marcus and Amir, who were in meditation to learn their new skills from Advanced Skill Scroll.
Almond shrugged and turned to the mountain, “Let’s go. If I remember correctly, we’ll encounter Thunder Lycon Wolves and other beasts on the mountain, and then we’ll encounter the Tempestcall Tengus after descending the mountain.”
“Ashkar, give us your horse. And the rest of you, keep up with us and spread out. If you want to kill monsters, kill them within 200 meters of my position so I can absorb their spirits.”
“Roger,” Benedict grinned and vanished like a shadow, going ahead.
Ashkar conjured a pair of flamy wings and also flew up.
Nyssara snorted, “Always in a hurry, those two. Anyway, we’ll be going ahead, Master, and get to work so you don’t have to kill them.”
“Thanks, and take Viperfiend with you,” Almond smiled. They knew he didn’t want to level up anymore and stay at Gold level 40 until reaching the Floor Boss.
Nyssara glanced at the fatty Viprfiend and rolled her eyes. Snapping her finger, she created an icy carriage and said, “Get on.”
Viperfiend blankly sat down on the icy carriage. Having no proper intelligence like others, it easily obeyed other Spirits’ orders as per Almond’s command.
Nyssara also sat down on the carriage at the front before controlling it as it slid up towards the mountain while creating an icy path. This territory was her domain because the mountain was icy, and the entire territory of Tempestcall Tengus had a high amount of both ice and lightning elements.
Meanwhile, Almond and Lily jumped on Agramon as it neighed loudly and rushed forward.
“Let’s hope this level-up boon’s skill option upgrades my Spirit Pocket or Spirit Devour,” Almond said as he opened the only level-up boon that had skill open.
Leveling from Gold level 10 to Gold level 40 gave him and Lily a total of six level-up boons.
But out of them, Almond got only one, which had the skill option, while Lily got two this time.
Lily had used the two skill options already. One upgraded her Phantom’s Plunder skill to SS rank, while the other gave her a new primary class skill, a passive one—Phantom’s Veil (S).
“Well, good luck,” Lily said with a chuckle and turned to him before kissing his cheek, “This should give you the luck boost.”
“Thank you very much,” Almond grinned. “Now I’ll definitely get what I desire.”
At that, Almond used the skill option.
[Congratulations, your primary class skill—Spirit Devour of SS-rank has been upgraded to SSS-rank.]
“Let’s fucking go!”
“Which one got upgraded?” Lily asked, her eyes sparkling. “My bet is on Spirit Devour.”
“You are correct,” Almond grinned and shared the new skill with her as both of them looked at it.
[Spirit Devour]
-Rank: SSS
-Effect(s):
—> Devour a spirit stored within your spirit pocket to acquire permanent stats. There’s a limit to gaining stats from the spirits of the same species. If your foundational stats have reached the lifeform rank limit and you devour a spirit, you will gain bonus stats equivalent to 50% of the devoured spirit’s original stats for 1 hour. The chance of Spirit Plunder will also increase slightly.
—> Spirit Plunder: There’s a small chance that you will trigger Spirit Plunder, allowing you to steal a skill, talent, or other aspects from a devoured Spirit.
“Oh my god…”Lily’s mouth was wide open as she read the skill details.
“Damn, this is awesome!” Almond was excited despite knowing that this skill was bound to become powerful!
“Darling, what if you ate the spirit of a Heroic Boss after reaching the stat limit of Gold rank?!” Lily’s eyes shone. “You’ll become giga powerful!”
Almond sucked in a breath, getting goosebumps just thinking about getting 50% of those massive stats to himself.
“This is a solid trump card,” Almond muttered as his eyes glinted. “I have to save a powerful spirit or two with me all the time, just in case. And let’s keep this between the two of us. Admiral Rudra told me that there are evil forces outside, so it’s better to keep such trump cards to ourselves lest they make us use them first before revealing their true hand.”
“True,” Lily nodded.
Almond had also saved all of his unassigned points so far because he didn’t need to use them when he could get stats from Spirit. As such, he deemed it better to save all the unassigned stat points gained from leveling up!
He already had a whooping 190 unassigned stat points so far!
…
While Almond and Lily entered the Tempestcall Tengus’ territory, Xavier, Talia, Noah, and Galvaren, who had entered the earliest, encountered another party in the Infernal Palace of the territory of Blazing Leon Tribe.
The main boss, Blazing Leon King, was defeated by them, but then this party arrived.
“The super rookies, huh? You all reached here quite fast.”
“Who is that monster with you? Damn.”
Noah narrowed his eyes as he immediately recognized some of the individuals, “Since when did the house of Fei and Tuskin start working together?”
The opposing party of 12 people belonged to two prestigious families, the House of Fei and the Tuskin Family. They were top 30 families in terms of influence and power, and each of them had several Platinum-rank Adventurers along with a few frontline ones who had participated in the 10th-floor raid.
“Well, we started working together after entering here,” Raymon Tuskin said with a grin as his half-black half-green hair crackled with lightning. “Anyway, since you got the special item, then it’s fine. Let’s go and summon the floor boss.”
“Nope,” Xavier flatly rejected with a deadpan expression, “The floor boss will not be summoned until 20 more hours pass. You can either wait or move to the next floor.”
“Huh? Are you serious?” Hua Fei narrowed her eyes. “The other three groups already have the special items and are going to the floor boss area. What the fuck do you mean by nope?”
“Nope, means nope. Did you hit your head or something?” Galvaren snorted. “Perhaps you should watch Television more.”
“…”
“Whose monster is this?” Hua’s face darkened.
“I am your daddy’s monster, who is my lord. His name is Almond Crowshade,” Galvaren crossed his arms as his majestic draconic wings unfurled and his broken sword floated to his right side before him. “Now, roll away or get shredded beneath my blade. The choice is yours.”
Noah, Xavier, and Talia exchanged glances while weakly smiling upon hearing Galvaren’s words.
