WHOOOSH
The figure dashed between monster to monster, not failing a single time to slap his palm into the face of them as he passed by. Each slap was followed with a bright gray light as the head of whatever his palm connected with violently erupted into a cloud of red mist.
His little combo was broken by the fourth monster that had seen what happened to its compatriots the moment this human connected with them. As such it leaped back swiftly and opted to attack him from afar, lifting it's black stinger into the air, the giant scorpion aligned it's shot before launching a green liquid from its tip.
Ivan stopped his movements altogether, half a second later a transmutation circle appeared beneath him and the earth around formed a protective dome against the acid.
SIZZLE SIZZLE
The corrosive substance burned through his defense instantly as he performed another transmutation to form a wall between him and the ensuing shots.
This would give him a few seconds to dig out of his satchel a little projectile of his own.
Leaning out of cover to adjust his shot, Ivan was perplexed as the targeted scorpion had disappeared from its position.
RUMBLE
As the ground beneath him rumbled, Ivan made a dive for the nearest boulder. Ever since the event with the giant worm he would never take the ground shaking lightly ever again.
His move turned out to be the safest as the very same scorpion that had shot at him appeared burrowing from the position he was last standing at.
Ivan dashed out of cover and made his way to the nearest scorpion corpse he could find. The scorpion that had burrowed out of the ground looking for him spotted his movements and immediately began shooting at him again.
"Got ya'!" His left hand came in contact with the corpse before he was engulfed by a thick cloud of vapor.
"....." The scorpion halted its fire before inching closer to the cloud of red mist. Step by step, Ivan halted his breathing and waited for it to get close enough to finish it off.
"Now!" His right hand withdrew what seemed to be a halberd made of blood red ice from what remained of the scorpion's corpse, he immediately equipped it in both hands and did an overhead swing at the scorpion that stood right before the mist.
"GRAAAAAUH!" The halberd swiftly pierced the exoskeleton of the scorpion, and after a cry of pain the scorpion remained lifeless on the ground.
Ivan tried unlodging the halberd from the scorpion's body but only the handle came out as the head broke apart from the body.
He sighed looking at the broken halberd before dropping the handle to the ground and electing to lay against a wall to rest.
It was a cruel and unrefined craft of his and yet it did its job perfectly. Though Ivan wanted to find the material for a more permanent weapon he wasn't satisfied with the quality he found on the floors he traversed.
So up to now he had made it to the 64th floor using crude weapons made from his opponents blood. Sure they usually broke after one use but there was something satisfying about attacking a monster with a tool made of its own blood.
Every once and a while he would spend time transmuting a stronger blood weapon just so he would have something in case a fight broke out, but they usually melted and weakened before that next fight ever happened.
As for how he was able to use his transmutation using one hand, well after some messing around he transmuted himself a pair of gauntlets after his old ones became worn out and rusted, probably from all of his water experiments.
But it was as he was making his next gauntlets that an idea came to mind, similar to how mana crystals were used in magic circles, what stopped him from engraving transmutation circles into his gauntlets. That way all he would have to do to activate his transmutation would be to infuse a bit of his mana into his gauntlets.
Well after a few failures and trials, Ivan managed to birth a pair of gauntlets engraved with the same circle as his transmutation circle. So long as he wore them he wouldn't need two hands to transmute, a single touch was all that was needed.
Unfortunately that same logic did not apply to his Hands of Mana, as engraving his hands with the same pattern just made them explode with whatever they came in contact with.
But he did get an idea for making a pair of boots that held the same purpose. That way he could run across a surface of water using the ice that would appear beneath him, or if he was in a situation where he couldn't use his hands or his Hands of Mana he could just kick whatever he wanted to transmute and potentially kill with a single kick or create a cloud to get away.
It's just that he'd hold off on the boots idea until he found a material he was satisfied with. Well that and he was afraid of accidentally kicking a stranger or stepping on their foot and them exploding.
In a sense Ivan found it funny how his transmutation circles seemed to hold some semblance to runes he'd see in video games and their properties.
Getting up from the wall, Ivan dusted off his clothing and walked up to the scorpion corpses that still had their stingers intact. He was quite amazed by their corrosive properties and thought to include them in a weapon of sorts. Of course he'd have to find some steel or mineral that wouldn't melt upon contact.
But for now he'd store them in a little plastic container he made sure to tightly seal. Hearing the swishing of the acid made him a bit fearful but he wanted to carry it around from now on sort of as his extreme version of pocket sand.
Doing a few stretches, Ivan packed up his things and made his way to his base deep into the heart of the 64th floor. He knew what awaited him on the 65th floor and wanted to be absolutely sure he had what it took to survive against it.
The behemoth was a beat no one ever beat, not even the legendary hero and his team from the past. So right now, Ivan, who was solo, was fearing a bit for his life.
It had been a week, a full seven days, since he faked his death and got to where he is now. Sooner or later his classmates and Captain Meld would follow after him. He couldn't afford to hesitate any longer.
As for how he was sure his class would follow after him so soon, Ivan had no doubts the Kingdom and Holy Church would heavily insist that they begin their delve into the dungeon despite a classmate having passed.
Not that he felt his death would have impacted his class anyways. He had seen the looks they gave him and knew they treated him no differently than an outsider, not that he could blame them. It's not like he tried to befriend them even after their transmigration.
Anyways, he was sure they'd restart their expedition real soon.
During the span of this week Ivan worked real hard adding another regime to his daily agenda, that being working out. He felt his biggest weakness currently would be his stamina. I mean even with his ability to basically kill upon touch it wouldn't mean anything if he couldn't even make it to his enemy before running out of breath.
It wasn't as horrible an experience as the bookworm expected, in fact it was quite satisfying seeing his progress so quickly. Of course with the assistance of the status plate that literally tracked his progress.
Being someone with an unnaturally high magic stat, the physical stats he trained rose faster than one would normally take to raise their stats. It was an advantage Ivan was blessed to have. If it weren't for that he probably wouldn't have even bothered, seeing as how it might take months or a year of work to see any progress.
In short his daily routine consisted of: Hands of Mana practice for three hours, water-style transmutation training for three hours, and another three hours of work outs.
Basically he'd spend nine hours a day training in his little safe room he'd transmutate. As for food, he's been cultivating the berries he found on floor 35 and even set up a beautiful little garden. Using his herbalist and auto-harvest skills it's been quite a breeze, of course he had to thank his Aiko-sensei who taught him a bunch of things about growing before he left.
Eventually he was going to get bored of eating berries everyday but if a situation ever came up he'd suck it up and eat them as a survival necessity. It's not like he ran out of preservatives or canned food yet, he just thought it'd be a good idea to eat his perishable berries first and save his preservatives for emergency situations.
It was a life that made him think he was living in a zombie apocalypse.
Behemoth: Found on the 65th floor, it's a powerful monster with a huge body of 10 meters length. It is shaped similar to a triceratops, with a head like that of a bull with two huge horns sprouting on its head, and has glowing red eyes.
From what Ivan gathered that's all he could get on the beast information wise. He didn't know if it was hidden or maybe no one thought of documenting its abilities since no one has ever reached that floor again but as far as he could find there was not a single document of its abilities.
Which was a bit ridiculous in his opinion considering surely someone in the old legendary hero party made it back to the surface to report the beast, otherwise there wouldn't be any documentation of what the thing looked like or what floor it was on.
And yet there was nothing of its abilities. Either it was strong enough that it didn't need to use its abilities when facing the old hero party or it didn't have any abilities at all.
The former was something he feared while the latter he seriously doubted, if the Rockmounts on the earlier floor had magic abilities then why wouldn't this Behemoth.
This was precisely why he needed to proceed with extreme caution. He absolutely did not want to enter a fight like that without the necessary equipment. He'll take caution over excitement anytime.
He counted seriously the things he held in his satchel again and again, making sure he had everything. When he felt there was no more preparation to do, he slumped back into a wall and thought about the ensuing battle.
'Odds are I'll die….oh wait I'm already dead, Hahahahah!" Making such pointless jokes to himself, Ivan leaned over and went to bed, affirming his resolution
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I really need to stretch after this one, my back hurts quite a bit.
Anyways I'm a bit worried writing about the fight against the Behemoth. Hell, this is my first time writing period. Even before I started fight scenes were always something I dreaded, but I hope you'll stick around to see it.
By the way I apologize for asking of this but I'd greatly appreciate it if you took the time out of your day to write at least a short review. I believe I need ten to reach my goal. Once again I'd greatly appreciate it, the support really does mean a lot.
Thanks again for reading and may you have a great day/night!
If you want to support me and read ahead 10-15 chapters, you can check out my p.a.t.r.e.o.n right here: https://bit.ly/ardoaleister
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