Frost eyed the ice golem as it pulled up its weapon after realising it missed. It turned around robotically ready to attack once again.
"Try not to lose any limbs young master." Maya nonchalantly waved while yawning, she was making herself comfortable preparing to take a light nap, not caring about what might happen.
Frost had a dumbfounded expression on his face as he heard that, his momentary lapse in concentration allowed the golem to reach striking distance once again.
"Ah shit!"
'Can't even have a second to think, isn't this a bit much for a beginner. You wouldn't chuck in someone who couldn't swim into the middle of the ocean.' That's exactly how it felt to him, the golem was just as if not faster than him plus it knew how to wield a glaive while he didn't. Without magic or chakra, it was certainly going to be an uphill battle.
He had to inelegantly roll away once again to avoid being sliced. This time however he attempted to attack as soon as he regained his stance.
He swung down from up high similar to the golem's first strike hoping to catch it off guard.
"Pang!" The ice golem quickly raised its glaive, expertly parrying away his strike with ease leaving him wide open. The golem then smacked his chest with the butt of the glaive severely winding him and launching him through the air.
"Ughhh!" Frost coughed violently trying to catch his breath, his ribs had been bruised making every breath hurt.
The golem didn't chase after him this time, allowing him to momentarily heal before taking a defensive stance and beckoning him with its hand.
This filled him with anger, it wasn't the fact that a golem was toying with him that pissed him off but the fact that it had Maya's face.
'She did that intentionally that damn vixen.'
Frost took a painful deep breath to calm down, since the golem wasn't attacking and was waiting for him, he took some time to prepare. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the golem's movements before repeating them himself.
His eyes opened when he was ready. He slowly walked towards his opponent, taking a battle-ready stance when he was within a few metres of his target.
The golem stood there silently in wait for his strike.
After a few seconds of them staring each other down, Frost made his move. He slowly edged closer until he was in reach before once again swinging down, this time however it was more controlled and lighter.
It made no difference to the golem though as it once again parried away his strike with a simple flick, easily finding the weak points in his movements.
Due to it being a light swing he didn't become open to a counterattack, allowing him to roughly parry the oncoming bash, resulting in the glaive's butt merely scratching his side.
The attack didn't end there though, the golem spun around, rotating its glaive to slice off Frost's head.
"Shi…." He quickly ducked having a just a few hairs float down, before falling and rolling backwards.
The golem once again entered a defensive stance beckoning him forward. The golem acted like an instructor, first teaching their student how to defend themselves before attacking.
This process of Frost attempting to attack the golem lasted for an hour before it was satisfied with his abilities, it then went back on the offensive having Frost be the one defending this time.
"Bang"
"Vwing"
"Pang," a large number of different sounds continued to escape within the training room. Frost and the golem were repeatedly swinging at one another without remorse, smashing their weapons together with extreme force.
After several hours of pure glaive combat, Frost was covered in cuts and gashes as well as multiple bruises from when he was struck with the handle or butt, hell the golem even kicked him a few times.
The golem however was not looking so good either, there were cracks and fissures along its body, even its face looked as though it got punched repeatedly-which it did-, much to Maya's annoyance when she saw it.
Frost was now fighting equally with the golem, matching its speed, precision, and technique. He could now safely parry away its strikes and counterattack but struggled to surpass it, that's why both of them were injured.
"Hu hu hu" Frost panted heavily as he stood his ground against the golem's onslaught of strikes. Several times throughout combat he needed to reapply mana to the morphing metal since it kept denting from the blows.
He could feel that he was on the cusp of grasping something, every time he successfully caught the golem or parried its blows, he felt lighter, faster, like he was in the zone.
He was currently parrying its unending attacks like nothing, as if he didn't feel their weight in the slightest. He was waiting for something.
"Now!" Suddenly after one of his parries the golem was completely unguarded giving him ample opportunity, this was what he was waiting for. He'd managed to understand its rhythm and exploit its weak points.
The golems arms were in the air and weapon nearly escaping its grasp, Frost lowered his body before gripping his glaive firmly with both hands. He smiled and mouthed the words 'thank you' before rapidly swinging his weapon like a god of war, slicing the golem at its waist, cleaving it in two.
The golem's two parts smashed against the ground before fading back into mana, he succeeded. Sweat was pouring down his forehead and he could barely feel his arms due to exhaustion but even, so he felt so full of energy.
"I did it," he jumped up in joy, fist pumping the air, ignoring his injuries.
"Clap clap" Maya started clapping from her sofa, like a queen watching a gladiator match, congratulating the victor.
"Well done young master you won." After hearing her voice all the tension in his body left resulting in him collapsing onto the floor, prone on his back panting for every breath.
"That was fun." He truly enjoyed every second of that battle, from beginning to end he constantly felt himself improve and every time he did the golem would up the ante. Adding another attack to its moves or even increasing its speed constantly making him work.
It was at this moment he realised he was a bit of a battle junkie.
"I could tell from the large smile you constantly had on your face that you enjoyed it."
"[Heal]" Maya casted a healing spell to restore his skin from the gashes and regenerate his lost blood. There was a good chance he'd faint now that the tension was gone if she didn't.
Frost slowly stood up once the spell was complete, using the metal glaive to assist him.
"Check your status." Once he was fully standing, he opened up the dungeon menu to view his status.
Name: Frost (007)
Race: Dungeon core
Element: Ice
Skills: [One with ice], [Basic glaive mastery]
Spells: [Ice bolt]
It was slightly different from the last time he looked, now he had a spell section as well the [Basic glaive mastery] skill.
"It's there, I have the skill [Basic glaive mastery]." He was unsure as to what it actually did for him, it was the same with the [One with ice] skill, he couldn't feel it or activate it in any way.
"Tsk," Maya clicked her tongue in annoyance, she expected as much since he managed to defeat the golem, she summoned but it still ticked her off. He was only supposed to get [Beginner glaive mastery], [Basic glaive mastery] was one level higher.
"What's with the tongue clicking?" Frost asked rather annoyed, he had no knowledge on the different levels of mastery.
"Nothing just a little envious." Maya rubbed her brow and sighed.
"The golem I summoned was actually a little stronger than it should have been."
'You think!' He nearly lost his life a fair few times.
"I thought as much." He knew there was something wrong with the difficulty. The golem was far too adept at using the glaive for a beginner.
"Ugghh," Maya groaned and looked to the side with slight guilt.
"The golem had almost [Basic glaive mastery] like the skill you got instead of beginner level which is the first level of mastery when it comes to weapons."
'So basic is the second level.' Frost pondered wondering when he might have achieved the beginner level.
"Weapon mastery is spilt into 8 levels.
· Beginner
· Basic
· Adept
· Advanced
· Expert
· Peak
· Perfect
· And finally, Origin.
However generally only the first six are taken into consideration since so few people ever reach perfect or origin level. Each successive level is multiple times harder to achieve than the last and generally even after decades of practise people rarely surpass advanced mastery, with the majority being stuck at adept for their entire lives. The fact that you achieved basic mastery within a few hours is astonishing, your innate talent for the glaive is truly unique."
Even Maya who was considered a prodigy among the already legendary Fenrirs took 3 days of constant battle to achieve it. Of course, it may just mean that Frost's talent with the glaive was incredibly high and that he's useless with other weapons but still it's a miraculous achievement. Maya couldn't help but feel envious and a little annoyed, as if the system was rigged for Frost. She just hoped that he'd come across some difficulty in the later levels otherwise she wouldn't be able to hold her head up high.
Maya wasn't exactly far off with her imagination. Dark didn't exactly rig the system, but he certainly made it easier for the dungeon cores to advance. He gave each of his children high levels of talent in differing areas in the hope that they'd become strong enough to survive the world quickly. They'd still need to put in a lot of effort to improve further on, but their talent would make it far easier. Maya also couldn't really complain since she too was born as a Fenrir and one with a high level of talent, Frost was just of an even more powerful species.
Frost's face heated up with pride, the fact that he was only a single level beneath the world's majority filled him with happiness. He smiled rather obscenely as he grew cocky.
"Don't get cocky, you're still considered weak in the grand scheme of things." Maya quickly shouted the instant she saw his irritating smirk. She half said this out of anger from her inferiority and half to teach him humility. Even though he was considered a prodigy, right now many could swat him like a fly before he gets to grow in strength.
"Cough cough," Frost coughed in response as he attempted to straighten out his face and regain his composure.
"Now that you've achieved [Basic mastery] with the glaive and your magic and chakra skills are enough to use in battle I guess we're done here." She brought up the dungeon menu.
"We've got just over half a day until the dungeon opens and 250DP left in the bank so do what you want until then, I'm going for a short nap." Maya held her hand up as she yawned before stretching upwards straining the chest area of her clothes and teleporting out of the training room.
Given the features of the dungeon, Maya and Frost didn't actually require sleep thanks to the constant stream of mana flowing within the dungeon but talking about the Church of Light, drinking, and then summoning an advanced golem for a prolonged period of time created a lot of mental fatigue and a taking a nap is the best and most pleasant cure, plus to get as beautiful as Maya it takes a lot of beauty sleep.
Frost barely managed to say 'good night' before she vanished from his sight.
"Well, what should I do?" He couldn't use any of the training rooms features since Maya wasn't present, but he could still use the room itself. After being healed by Maya he didn't feel that tired, so he had more than enough energy to practise some more magic or chakra.
Chakra manipulation didn't have a level system like magic or mastery like with weapons so it's hard to gauge how good one was with it. Although he could generate ice armour on parts of his body it was nowhere near the same strength or density as the one Maya produced.
"Why isn't my chakra represented in my status?" This questioned puzzled Frost after he learned about the different levels of weapon mastery. Spells had different levels depending on the complexity and strength of the magic crest used but chakra had nothing yet there was a clear difference. Even with his mind being full of questions about chakra, no new information suddenly flowed into him like earlier.
"How bizarre," it seemed as though he just needed to repeatedly train and train without any clear-cut system. This didn't actually bother him that much since he was fine with it, but it did puzzle him, what's the difference? Why do they have a system, yet chakra doesn't?
Unbeknownst to Frost, Chakra was a very recent discovery. Only monsters were known to be able to utilise magic like attacks without crests, so they hasn't been enough time to establish a proper system as the world was still learning its capabilities. Dark had thought about trying to establish a system as he did with the monsters levels but either ran out of time, couldn't be bothered, or simply forgot but if asked he'd probably respond by saying.
"If there isn't a system, why don't you make one." Even though most people would simply be in awe due to his status, Frost knew his true personality and would probably pick up on the false bravado.