"Alright, lay it on us."
"Do you guys remember the incident in City #14 up in the north? It happened several months back."
"Yeah, my parents live there, there was a case of a dungeon takeover, right?"
"Exactly. The local authorities didn't manage to clear a dungeon consistently because their forces were spread thin. On top of that, the dungeon is of a poisonous environment and irregular type. A breakout occurred and a corporation swooped in to take over the ownership."
"They even managed to make themselves look like heroes, even though they are suspected of underworld activities."
"It is possible that they are the ones that manipulated the situation for something like that since their team was suspiciously well prepared for this." Conrad made a small pause. "What I'm getting at is, such an incident did provoke a response from the Union milita-"
The crack that served as a dungeon entrance trembled and Alex came out. With his mind set on getting the most out of his visit here, he jumped back in right away.
"-ry... Now I see what you were talking about."
"Yeah, It's so bizarre that I even thought it was just a dream for a moment. I never seen someone clear dungeons like this."
"He may as well be a high-rank awakened. How big your energy reserves should be to clear dungeons like that?"
"Alright, I'll cut the talk and just say it. My theory is that he was sent here by the order of Union Council to prevent situations like in City #14."
***
While the personnel outside was indulging in theory crafting, Alex was focusing on his grind. Considering the skills and equipment he'd gotten from his previous runs, he began to purposefully let monsters' attacks through his defenses, just so he could raise the proficiency of his protective and healing skills.
While this type of training was a lot more exhausting, Alex found that getting hit actually increased the proficiency of his skills extra fast. The pain was still hard to deal with every single time he got bit and burned, but looking at the proficiency progress his skills were getting made him almost feel that it was worth it. Thankfully, working in mines for more than three years had already built a lot of tenacity. Otherwise, he'd probably lack the guts required for such a harsh way of training.
Alex has been to the lowest lows and didn't want to go back there, only up from now on.
He kept on going and by the time he reached the Fire Elemental's arena, he already raised the [Resistance] proficiency to the maximum and his [Rejuvenating Flame] proficiency had also surpassed 30 points. He already barely felt any heat, and this bit that he was still feeling, likely had come from him wearing his fire boots, rather than the environment.
Despite that, he still didn't dare to turn off [Resistance] for the sake of training his [Rejuvenating Flame] while fighting the Fire Elemental. The alpha-level monsters were always a lot stronger than the normal ones, and without his defensive skills, Alex wouldn't dare to take it on right now.
Instead, he had turned on his [Guardian Barrier]. Focus training it like he did with [Resistance] would be his goal for now.
Once again he stepped in to fight the Fire Elemental. But instead of trying to kill it right away like the tries before, Alex let him lead the battle, focusing on defending and dodging.
Even though the Fire Elemental was more of a mindless entity that had a single goal to kill, it was still quite a valuable experience. Bit by bit, Alex grew more accustomed to evading its attacks and using the skill his boots had provided. By now he could already maintain a certain distance from the boss at almost all times. This finally prompted the Fire Elemental to switch its tactics and start casting its skills.
Alex prepared to cast [Ice Razor] but stopped. Instead, he activated all his defensive skills together.
The Fire Elemental began to draw the surrounding heat, and one by one, several flaming spheres appeared circling around the boss's body.
Alex counted ten before the new ones finally stopped appearing. The fiery spheres stopped rotating and arranged themselves in a semicircular formation above the Fire Elemental and rushed toward Alex.
The first four spheres crashed against the [Sanctuary Sphere] with the fifth finally breaking through its defense. The skill dissipated, and before Alex was able to activate it again, the rest of the spheres had already flown past the barrier's location. The [Guardian Barrier] was almost as strong, and as soon as Alex realized it wouldn't be able to stop all of the spheres, he tried to activate his boots skill, but before he could do it, the skill broke down and the last sphere hit him right into his chest.
The resulting explosion kicked him several meters away, almost flinging him right into the river of lava that circled the arena.
"Cough, cough, fucking hell, this hurts." Along with a nasty burn, there was also the impact pain from all the kinetic force his body experienced right now.
Just as he got his bearings back, he realized that the Fire Elemental was already looming over him. Alex quickly activated the [Rejuvenating Flame] and his boots' active skill, flinging himself back to the center of the arena.
[Rejuvenating Flame] was hard at work restoring his body, but the only drawback of the skill was that compared to something like [Cure Wounds] it was simply too slow.
Alex got up and focused on maintaining his distance from the boss. The Fire Elemental saw that it had lost its opportunity to finish Alex off, and began to gather flames once again.
This time, however, Alex was not planning to just stand still.
Looking at the boss preparing his skill to fire, Alex had an idea. An icy shard from his [Ice Razor] was condensed quickly. Then another one. And another one.
By the moment the Fire Elemental had his spheres grow in number to three, Alex already had more than ten icy shards floating around him. By the time the boss was ready to fire, the shards number surpassed forty.
Alex hoped to be able to intercept the fiery spheres with his ice shards. In case it doesn't work, he'd try directing all remaining shards to the boss and dodge using his boots skill.
The Fire Elemental finally released the fiery spheres. Thankfully, their trajectory maintained the formation, aimed to only converge at Alex's position.
Alex quickly released the ice shards aiming three of them on each sphere. It was too hard for him to aim so many of them precisely, but as long as he was able to take out at least one he would be fine. The spells collided in the air creating a wall of flames from resulting explosions.
The protective barrier of [Sanctuary Sphere] easily blocked the three spheres that got through, and the remaining dozen of ice shards quickly annihilated the Fire Elemental.
Alex sat down on the hot rock that made up the arena. He took out the water bottle from his backpack and took a sip.
"That was close."
Even with his vitality surpassing the level of a 1-Star awakened, the fiery sphere still hurt him a lot. Even now, the healing process has not yet finished.
"I am way stronger than any 1-Star awakened, but if I was careless I could still die in a blink of an eye. I'll have to test my strength again with the last boss... Alright, time to check the drops."
Alex picked his aching body up and walked over to the remains of the Fire Elemental. Pieces of shattered core littered the area and between them, several crystals were lying, glittering in the orange glow. Unfortunately, there were no equipment or skill shards.
Alex grabbed the crystals and stuffed them in his backpack.
"Gotta get a bigger backpack soon."
His backpack was almost completely filled up. A little bit could be still fit in, but he probably won't be able to bring everything back if he decides to go for yet another clear.
As Alex traveled to the last boss's room, he'd aggro two to three packs of salamanders and let them to chew at the [Sanctuary Sphere], slowly raising up the proficiency.
He opened his stat panel to gauge his progress.
[Alex]
[1-Star awakened]
[Talent: Attribute Consolidation, EX-Grade Mana Cost Reduction, Skill Master, ???](73%)
[Vitality:50+10]
[Force:25+16]
[Skills: Ice Razor - 88%(Inferior 2-Star, Variant-); Resistance - 100%(Inferior 1-Star); Rejuvenating Flame - 39%(Inferior 1-Star); Spark - 1%(Inferior 1-Star); Guardian Barrier - 18%(Intermediate 1-Star); Fire Whip - 0%(Superior 1-Star); Sanctuary Sphere = 24%(Superior 1-Star)]
"The percentage next to talents had gotten to 73%. I should get a talent point when I reach 100."
He kept on his grind as he moved further. Thankfully, his new "shotgun" spell helped greatly when it came to clearing large groups of monsters.
"To turn a 2-Star skill into a shotgun... sometimes my genius is almost frightening."
Finally, Alex had arrived at the last boss's room.
He took a deep breath and stepped in.