Plummeting to the ground, all I could do was brace for impact by creating a mana barrier around me and positioning myself so that I would land feet first, to minimize the damage.
"Crash!!!!"
Dust exploded everywhere as I created a circular hole 5 meters deep in the ground.
As the dust cleared, I was able to look up from my broken position in the hole.
Without even having to take a look at the lower half of my body, I could already diagnose from the pain that I had broken several of my toe bones, had snapped my achilles, and had broken the shins and femurs in both my legs.
Of course, there were some differences in which bones were broken, but my senses weren't precise enough to detect that yet.
Taking a HP potion out of my inventory, I quickly gulped it down.
As my bones, cuts, and bruises healed themselves, all I could do was stare up at the monster above me.
'Man, I programmed Jerminus so that he couldn't move from that center spot, except for that one in ten thousand chance that he could, I should have realized that earlier, so that I wouldn't be hurt, but now, I know that I'll get better rewards, hehehe...'
Rubbing my hands together and smiling evilly under my mask, I stood back up with my mended bones.
Wiping the blood that had come from an already healed deep cut on my forehead, I took out a cleaning scroll from out of my inventory and ripped it. After all, one of the most important things in battle was to always have your senses maxed out, so blood all over your body was a big no-no, as it could hinder your fighting.
Feeling refreshed, I stretched my hands up, like I had just woken up in the morning, before finally using one of my skills.
'Firestorm.' (A/N: Yeah, he's not gonna say it out load.)
A familiar sight, that I had seen a few times before, descended onto the arena, as it once again became a blazing inferno.
"Eeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!"
Jerminus shrieked as its cold blue exterior finally broke away into hundreds of brittle pieces that floated away into the wind.
Underneath, the blue skin was a palish pink skin, one that now looked extremely reminiscent of that of a giant squid's.
Raising its tentacles, its final passive skill activated as its third and final layer was revealed.
Water started quickly gushing out of its tentacles as the water instantly filled the whole room.
Switching out my cold resistant clothes for the tech suit that I had bought earlier, I took a deep breath before diving under, into the blackness. (A/N: If you don't know what a tech suit is, it's like those special swim suits that olympians use. This one that I'm mentioning here is the type that was deemed illegal for men by the olympic committee in, I think, 2012. Well anyways, it's the full body type.)
As the water filled up the entire room, I took out another special object out of my inventory.
Spreading this particular "paste" on the area of my skin around my neck, I could feel my flesh shifting, as, a moment later, gills started forming on both sides of my neck.
It was definitely a weird feeling, being able to breath, but not actually using the breathing muscles to do the familiar motions.
Actually, the gills were more like that of a shark's. I had to be continuously moving with my mouth open, so that water would always be flowing through the gills, giving me oxygen.
Putting on fins and paddles to complete the set-up, I started swimming around rapidly.
Because this was the "mutated" version of Jerminus, I knew that I had to bring all my trump cards out now, because the water was its natural habitat, with it being a squid-like monster after all.
I hurriedly invested all my extra stat points, leaving none in my stock.
[Player Shinubwa Lv. 95 (75,123,774 TC):
Strength: 57 (+20)
Stamina: 57
Agility: 47
Mana: 51 (+4)
Hp: 37
Perception: 47
Intelligence: 37
Extra Stat Points: 0
-------------------------------
Job: Undying
Innate Ability: Psychopath's Carnage
Titles: "Perseverance Maniac", "The One Who Broke the Limits of Humanity", "Millionaire"
Skills: Tactical Domination (S), Figureless Shadow (AAA), Firestorm (AA+)
Bounded Weapons: "The One That Split the Night"]
Immediately, I stagnated in the water, feeling overwhelmed by an energy I never knew I had, coursing through the veins in my body.
My muscles all immediately bulged, a change visible to the naked eye, and the blood vessels in my arms and legs popped out, becoming defined on the surface of my skin.
My face remained expressionless throughout this whole process, even though I had been racked with an immense pain.
'Hmm, I guess now that there aren't any "little sister" figures around me, I'm back to my "usual" self."
Quickly composing myself whilst ignoring the searing pain racking the muscles all across my body, I forced myself to start kicking again.
Now that I was strengthened, I headed straight in for the kill, not sparing any more time for Jerminus to complete his transformation into a full water monster.
With my increased strength, I was able to immediately come up straight in front of Jerminus.
'Well, it's time to say goodbye for the last time Jerminus. It... it was a good fight.'
With my fan still in its knife form, I stabbed down in the same fashion that I had done when descending from the sky earlier.
If it was before, then my meager 37 point strength wouldn't have even been able to leave a dent on the monster, but now, it cleanly pierced through Jerminus' head and severed its brain from its, well "spine" if you could call it that.
As soon as the monster was killed, several notifications popped up.
Ignoring them for a little bit, I couldn't help but kneel down in front of the monster's dead body, the water having all vanished magically a second ago, and close its eyes. They had still been open.
You see, Jerminus held a special place in my heart, being the first ever complex boss that I had designed in my, well, our game.
His computer program had been the one that I tested everything on, and I had also used it as a bare bones template for many of the later "named" bosses.
'Thank you for all your help in the past.'
After a moment of silence, I finally opened my eyes and looked at the system notifications.
[You have leveled up!]
'Ugh, it's getting harder and harder to level up now, I need to get to the higher floors quickly.'
Figuring that it wasn't going to be that useful to just keep two stat points laying there, as it was also a sore spot for the eyes, I just used them quickly.
[Player Shinubwa Lv. 96 (75,143,286 TC):
Strength: 57
Stamina: 57
Agility: 47
Mana: 53 (+2)
Hp: 37
Perception: 47
Intelligence: 37
Extra Stat Points: 20
-------------------------------
Job: Undying
Innate Ability: Psychopath's Carnage
Titles: "Perseverance Maniac", "The One Who Broke the Limits of Humanity", "Millionaire"
Skills: Tactical Domination (S), Figureless Shadow (AAA), Firestorm (AA+)
Bounded Weapons: "The One That Split the Night"]
'From now on, Mana will be one of the most important stats for any position or job.'
Done with that, I looked at the rest of the system prompts, skipping all the ones about the gods, cause I was too tired to deal with them right now.
[Congratulations to Player "Shinubwa" for clearing the 10th floor of the Tower of Ordeals!]
[World Wide Announcement: Player, "Anonymous" is the first player to clear the 10th floor of the Tower of Ordeals. With this comes a new update to the Tower! Everyone! The times of solo leveling are now over! Please prepare yourself for the new... Era of Guilds!]
[Due to the nature of your achievement, and the resulting update, your fame has increased by 200!]
[Transporting player to the Rewards Room...]
This was the last thing I saw before a bright light engulfed me.
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1. The Discord server is up!!!! The link will now be here, in the paragraph comments, in the chapter comments, in the synopsis, and on my profile. Join if you want to get chapter updates quickly, and if you want to be privy to any new information regarding the two series as soon as possible.
The new discord link (This one will work.): https://discord.gg/8ePQESSSHT
2. I would like to shout out a book that I'm editing. Check out "World Online" by "jdbeue" a top 30 author on Webnovel. I'll assure you that the series is good, which is kinda obvious due to the author's quality, and that it's worth checking out.
3. Powerstones for extra chapters:
So, here they are:
75 PS - 1 extra chapter
100 PS - 1 extra chapter
150 PS - Another extra chapter
200 - ??? (I'll go there if we even get there, although I seriously doubt it.)