The vast darkness welcomed Ed for the umpteenth time. The only interesting thing that could be found in the soundless void was Ed's glowing self and the glowing message that had appeared in front of him.
[10 minutes before respawning]
It seemed that he would be respawning as an orc immediately after his death. But Ed didn't feel in any way happy by the way things had turned out. He failed to kill a single person.
As grim as it sounded, Ed could almost guarantee that the way for him to level up was to kill others. Maybe even take their souls… This obviously left him feeling conflicted but if he mulled over this matter any longer he might not deserve to be free from the dungeon.
Casting aside his conflicted emotions, Ed decided to think back on ways to improve a future struggle. He needed to analyze things.
'First things first, my skeleton body sucks' As he had been stuck as an orc he couldn't increase the skill of his skeleton body through assimilation or even train its mana.
With the increasing difficulty of adventurers that would come, that body would become simple cannon fodder, or on the optimistic side tough cannon fodder.
He found this unacceptable. If he kept that body as it was now he would be summoned by the dungeon just to be slaughtered.
If there were more floors and more bodies for him to inhabit he could already see how things would turn out for him if he didn't stop the adventurers in the orc plains.
The dungeon's second boss would be breached prompting the dungeon to summon him to a higher level in preparation. When the stronger adventurers came he would be summoned to the first floor to be slaughtered. The next floor to put up resistance, and the last floor to once more hopefully stop them. This cycle might continue until the dungeon is eventually cleared. Such a cycle was nothing more than torture.
He had no intention to let that happen for a variety of reasons the first one being his inevitable doom. If things played out like that he would never be able to level up making him a slave to the dungeon and when it is cleared if ever, his life would likely cease to exist.
The second being spite. He wasn't keen on letting the dungeon dictate his life. Although he had learned to be a bit more grateful for the second chance at life he was also unsure if this could be called a life. He was being treated like a tool after all, maybe a chess piece. Whatever that may be. His gratefulness was easily overshadowed by his resentment.
But he was getting sidetracked.
'The skeletons are also useless' If he was to have any chance of stopping the adventurers he would need stronger allies. Based on how easily the skeletons were massacred he wasn't sure if they even qualified to be cannon fodder anymore.
He racked his brain on potential solutions but found himself unable to come up with one. The portal inside of the boss room suggested that he might be able to move skeletons up a floor but not vice versa.
After pondering for a while, he came up with a few potential solutions.
One was the bone he himself dropped. This however was an unrealistic method since he wouldn't be killing himself to give the skeletons one or two points in constitution. Those points wouldn't make much of a difference and they might be better off in his hands.
The second solution was simply making them smarter. And thanks to the system space this seemed like a far more likely solution.
Last time he merged two of the skeleton's consciousness and it resulted in a larger wisp. That alone wasn't enough to convince him, however. He only came to this conclusion after seeing Murbol's consciousness which was lively and bigger than the skeleton's.
If he could somehow bring out the upgraded consciousnesses and insert them into the new skeleton's this might indeed be possible. Unfortunately, he didn't really know if this was possible.
He couldn't see consciousnesses in the real world for after all so taking them out of the storage might be a waste. He knew this because a skeleton's skull was obviously hollow and they didn't emit any light which based on experience consciousnesses did.
He could also try to use himself as an example. Maybe the reason for his missing memories was that he simply couldn't hold that many due to his low level. This would imply that the skeletons and orcs also had levels which he couldn't be sure of.
In the end, it came down to a simple conclusion.
'I need to level up the system link skill again' The previous level up gave him the soul calling sub-skill to gather "life" so the next sub-skill should be something that allows him to put these "lives" to use.
By the time Ed finished gathering his thoughts, the ten minutes had passed. A vacuum opened up in the endless void sucking Ed in.
[Summoning Dungeon Champion]
His consciousness wavered and when he recovered from the momentary daze he found himself laying on the forest ground.
'I should hurry to inform Vorgarag' Assuming that time flowed the same between floors, Ed had spent a fair amount of time in the crypts.
He lifted his groggy body, held on to his bag. And got right back to running. It was as if nothing had ever happened.
***
The swift swordsmanship the green armored skeleton had displayed clearly demonstrated that it was a swordsman and a great one at that. This stuck out to Samuel since the disparity between a swordsman and a mage was fairly large until the higher levels where mana was basically a requirement.
That wasn't the point he was trying to get across though, it was that this definitely did not count as a variation of a lich. In regular dungeons, the bosses tend to respawn in an almost systematic way with little to no variation.
An example being that a golem boss that was usually made of granite might instead be made of quartz. The boss in front of them was clearly a wind magic swordsman which was stretching the way boss variations were supposed to work really thin. What most would expect would be a lich of a different element not one with an entirely different profession!
Still, now wasn't the time for useless thoughts.
With a single bound, the boss monster had managed to jump towards Eon who stood at the forefront of the party. The Sleek green sword which he held was forced to a halt by a clear purple barrier. The skeleton which seemed unperturbed by the sudden stop instantly backed off only to come back with a much fiercer attack.
Before it could, however, a slew of spells which had been hastily cast by the B-class adventurers flew towards the swordskeleton not leaving an ounce of free space towards which the skeleton could retreat.
Contrary to expectation, with blinding speed, the skeleton spun and generated what seemed to be a raging vortex of wind. It sucked up all of the spells and launched them in all sorts of directions creating a dazzling firework show. Of doom.
Eon wasn't idling away, after finishing his chant he brandished his staff and performed a simple cutting motion, it didn't have a simple result though as space itself was seemingly sliced apart.
The vortex seemed separated into two parts before quickly dissipating. The sword-wielding skeleton also had a large gash across its green armor and the purple flame that illuminated its eye sockets shone furiously.
"I, Augustus, have never met an unbeatable opponent." It determinedly declared. At first glance, it seemed to have been totally outclassed but if it chose to it could easily take a lot of them with it first. Its personality was preventing it from taking this route though.
Having ignored Augustus' words, Samuel simply took the opportunity created by Eon to attempt to get a strike in. Drake also followed next to him not willing to give an inch to Samuel.
"Eat this" Said Drake as he ruthlessly punched out with his Vermillion flames. It was a wonderful sight and although it seemed as though the fist would easily hit this was far from the truth.
If Augustus were to have a gimmick it would definitely be his crazy speed.
The ruthless fist was easily deflected by a swift slash from Augustus but Drake wasn't one to panic under such circumstances. He simply lashed out again with his other arm,
Samuel who was right next to him also pressured him by incorporating the wind element into his own swordsmanship in hopes of reaching the frighteningly fast Augustus.
The warriors that had come along felt incredibly useless as the fight was simply happening and progressing too fast for them to keep up and as for the magicians they were also having trouble keeping up but their main deterrent was the potential friendly fire that attacking Augustus at this moment could cause.
Eon who had been preparing a spell right after the previous one didn't have this fear, however. Augustus who was deflecting and dodging the attacks from both of the A-class adventurers suddenly froze in place giving Samuel and Drake their long-awaited opportunity.
both realized it was the space lock spell sometimes referred to as space freeze but didn't pay it much mind.
Drake's Vermillion fists hit the valiant green armor and Samuel's swift strikes slashed away at it as well. Surprisingly enough however this resulted in nothing happening. Not willing to give up they kept up their flurry of relentless attacks.
At least until Eon's spell ended. At which point Augustus was sent darting towards a wall at great speeds. His body soon disappeared into the dust that his crash collision had created.
Samuel now noticed that the spell Eon had cast had to be a variation of space freeze as he didn't remember it having such an effect.
The adventurers seeing the three A-class people manhandling the boss felt as though victory was already in the bag.. That was until the dust settled at least… many of the optimistic ones paled in realization.