At the other end of the portal, Troy felt dizzy. He would probably never get used to the feeling of the portals. Shaking his head to remove the dizziness, he looked around. He was in a dark void, which lined up with what he had read the 4th floor was like. No floor goal had appeared in the watch's notifications, so while Troy waited he looked at what he got from extracting the corpse of Hugo Vaver.
{Extracted: D-rank skill: Harden skin(active, physical), 11 VIT, 3 INT, 2 AGI}
{D-rank skill: Harden skin- boosts defense effectiveness by 10% and base defense by 5%. Costs 1 stamina and 1 mana per minute}
He was still unaware of what decided how many attributes he extracted, and he had found out that extracting a talent dropped its power. He had not checked his own status panel in two floors, so he pulled it up.
Name: Troy Arginstin
Age: 17
Level 5 EXP 32/255
Talent: SSS-Unlimited extraction
Base attack: 5
Base defense: 2
Natural abilities: ambidextrous, cool and collected
Skills: Lump toss-upper F(active, magic), Appraisal-B(active, magic), Strong kick-E(active, physical), Fast dash-D(active, physical) Amateur crafting-D(crafting, growth), Harden skin-D(active, physical, defense)
Free attribute points: 20
Health-30/30
Mana-20/36
Stamina-42/63
Strength- 56
Vitality- 40(+11)
Intellect- 38(+8)
Perception- 44(+7)
Agility- 61(+7)
Luck- 54
Looking at his stat panel, Troy was sure that no other person had ever had a status this large when they were at floor 4. A notification from the watch brought him away from his status panel.
{complete the class test}
With a simple adjective, the 4th floor was very short, being only about an hour in length. After this floor, you would get a class, which would boost a person's power immensely by giving them skills and bonuses to stats that would help their class.
A shadowy figure appeared in front of Troy. It was wearing basic clothes and had a wrench. It used its wrench to strike at Troy, but was easily dogged. Troy stabbed the shadow in the eye, and it burst into scraps of darkness, before another shadow appeared in front of Troy.
This one was better equipped, wearing tight-fitting clothes and holding a metal knife, albeit made for cutting steak and not fighting. Once again, it rushed at Troy, and Troy quickly dispatched it, watching as it exploded into scraps of shadows.
This time the shadow respawned with a hammer in its hands. More dangerous than the previous two, but not that much of a threat. As it ran towards him, Troy sidestepped and stuck his leg out, tripping it. He stabbed it in the neck, killing it.
The next shadow that appeared was a genuine threat, holding onto a bo staff. This time, it didn't immediately attack him, circling him slowly instead. Keeping his face towards the threat, Troy waited for it to attack him. When it realized that it wasn't going to catch Troy off guard, it moved forward, and lightly swung its staff at Troy.
Blocking the staff, Troy was two arm lengths away from the shadow, too far to get an attack in. Grabbing the staff and pulling it forward, the shadow's feet came out from under it, and Troy was able to kill it quickly.
The next shadow spawned about 50 meters away, holding a bow and wearing chain mail armor. It knocked an arrow, amid it at Troy, and fired. Troy sidestepped the place the arrow was aimed at and ran towards the archer. The archer managed to get off two more arrows before Troy got too close for firing an arrow to be a useful method of attacking. It pulled out a dagger, managing to block Troy's first attack, and dodge his second, before getting stabbed in the side. After Troy ripped the blade out, twisting the blade as he did so, the archer dropped its weapon and put its hands over the wound, trying to hold in a dark smoke which Troy guessed was the equivalent of blood. While it was distracted, Troy ended its life.
The next enemy was a knight, in full plate armor with a halberd in its hands and a small shield strapped to its arm. In addition, there was a short sword strapped to its waist. A second after it appeared, it rushed at Troy and brought its halberd down from above. As Troy blocked it, his eyes went wide. His knees nearly buckled, and his arms were bulging from the exertion of holding back the halberd. Because the halberd acted like a lever, the knights' strength was far more effective than if it was applied with a sword.
After pushing the halberd away with great effort, Troy attempted to get closer to the knight, but the knight had already recovered its stance and swung the halberd from the right, the pole hitting Troy's shoulder. Troy was knocked down, sliding on his back for 3 feet. Fighting through the pain, Troy rolled to the side, dodging the halberd that had just been swung down on where his chest was seconds ago.
Getting to his feet, Troy Jumped back and proceeded to put ten feet of space between himself and his enemy. Quickly looking at his remaining mana and stamina, he calculated what he could do while still leaving enough energy to kill the next enemy. He crossed lump toss and harden skin off the list, as there was no soil in this place, and he was trying not to get hit again, as his shoulder was still in pain.
Using fast dash, Troy took off, his increased speed causing the knight to pause for a second. This pause was enough for Troy to run behind the usable range of the halberd. When he was in kicking range, Troy lifted his right leg and used strong kick. The knight let go of the halberd with its right hand, putting the small shield strapped to its arm in front of itself. The kick threw the knight off balance, sending it several steps backwards trying to regain its footing. Before it could, Troy ripped the halberd from its hand and threw it in the opposite direction.
Tackling the knight, Troy pulled the face guard up, revealing a head with no features, just like the other shadowy beings he had faced on the 5th floor. Fighting through the extreme uncanny valley feeling he got looking at it up close, Troy prepared to end the knight, only to be kicked off. Rolling on the ground for a foot or two, Troy got back to his feet and turned to face the knight. The knight had pulled out the short sword that had been strapped to its waist and undoing the straps that had held the shield on its arm, putting it in a firm grip.
The knight began running at Troy. When it got close, it stabbed forward with its sword. Leaning to the side, Troy let the sword go across his chest, leaving a shallow black mark from one side of his torso to the other. Grabbing the knight's arm, Troy avoided the shield, and stabbed the knight's head with the left blade.
The knight melted into shadows, but the black mark across Troy's torso remained. It stung, but it did not it impede his movements, so he guessed it was just a scoring tool by the tower.
Putting aside his thoughts on the mark because the next shadowy figure was spawning in, Troy was confused as to what it was supposed to be. It held a staff in its hands, yet it wasn't a bo staff like one of the previous shadows. At the top it still had branches left from where it had been cut off the tree. It had on leather armor, yet had no close range weapons on its body, at least that Troy could see. Troy was still looking when he subtly felt the movement of mana from the being, and a large ball of fire was conjured above its staff.
Moving its staff forward, the fireball shoot forward, getting smaller as it consumed itself to accelerate. Running to the side, the fireball missed Troy, getting smaller and smaller until eventually it burned out.
Putting his blades in his belt and pulling out his bow, Troy knocked an arrow. As it flew through the air towards the shadow, the shadow disappeared, and reappeared 5 feet to the left instantly. The arrow missed completely, and the shadow launched another fireball. Once again dodging it, Troy shot another arrow, and this time the shadow reappeared 5 feet to the right.
Dogging another fireball, Troy once again knocked an arrow, pointed it at the shadow, but did not release. He was looking for some sign as to where the shadow would appear. He watched as the shadow turned its feet left, mimicked the actions of firing the arrow, and the shadow diapered, reappearing to the left, where the arrow Troy had just fired hit its chest. The shadow dispersed, and the next one morphed into existence.
This shadow was holding a thick bladed dagger, good for penetrating heavy armor. It was wearing a light set of leather or hide armor and a hood. Troy watched as it stepped forward and disappeared. Then, his instincts screamed that something was behind him. Turning around, Troy put the bow he was still holding in front of him. The bow was split in half, buying the time Troy needed to step back and avoid the rest of the swing. Dropping the pieces of the bow, Troy quickly pulled out his blades, hiding the left one.
By the time he was ready to attack again, the shadow had disappeared. Looking around, Troy raised his guard to the maximum level, as he couldn't find the shadow. Suddenly feeling a terrible pain in his side, Troy swung his dagger, only to be thrown off his feet. The last thing he saw before blacking out was shadow swinging its thick bladed dagger down.
****************************************************************************************************
Waking up, Troy sat up and noticed that the black mark across his chest was gone, before he suddenly heard a robotic voice in his head.
{Surveying talent…. Found talent for magic. Carving mana veins.}
Troy was once again on the floor, with the worst pain he could image thundering throughout his entire body. It was as if red-hot knifes were carving tunnels all over his body. That wasn't the worst part, as soon after the first pain stopped, a different kind started. He suddenly felt his mana boiling, before it condensed into a ball. It then went on a rampage through the newly carved paths, seemingly burning the entire way.
After the pain subsided, another system notification told him that he had gained 200 mana permanently. Checking his status, he noticed a new aspect of it.
Name: Troy Arginstin
Age: 17
Level 5 EXP 32/255
Talent: SSS-Unlimited extraction
Base attack: 5
Base defense: 2
Natural abilities: ambidextrous, cool and collected
Attunements:
Skills: Lump toss-upper F(active, supernatural, 3mana), Appraisal-B(active, supernatural, 2 mana), Strong kick-E(active, physical, 2 stamina), Fast dash-D(active, physical, 2 stamina per 5m) Amateur crafting-D(crafting), Harden skin-D(active, physical, defense, boosts defense effectiveness by 10% and base defense by 5%. Costs 1 stamina and 1 mana per minute)
Free attribute points: 20
Health-30/30
Mana-200/236
Stamina-63/63
Strength- 56
Vitality- 40(+11)
Intellect- 38(+8)
Perception- 44(+7)
Agility- 61(+7)
Luck- 54(+1)
He would figure out what attunements were in checkpoint station. For now, he wanted to rest after nearly a week of being on guard.