"[Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]!"
A Laughing Skull spewed spell after spell without rest, inundating the hallway with its black flames.
Sol stood at the end of the passage, being the target of the countless black flames, and chanted his own spells in return.
"[Light Spear]! [Light Spear]! [Light Spear]! [Light Spear]!"
Unlike the skull, which only summoned one black flame per cast, each of Sol's casts created three spears of light, quickly surpassing the number of black flames.
The light spears and black flames collided, creating explosions that shook the entire passage. Though Sol's spears overwhelmed the black flames, the confrontation between the two was even so far. [Light Spear] was an intermediate light spell, while [Grim Flames] was an advanced dark spell. The black flames were on the weaker side compared to other advanced spells, but they were nonetheless stronger than the light spears, requiring two to three light spears to neutralize one black flame.
As the two opposing elements clashed in a stalemate, someone stealthily moved in the shadows to settle the fight. Amber suddenly appeared 30 meters behind the Laughing Skull and sent a slash that distorted the distance, cutting cleanly through the skull. The fragile skull, not even aware there was another enemy lurking in the shadows, died instantly, unable to create a shield in time.
[You have slain a Lv 102 Laughing Skull! Gained 9,444,166 Exp (320%)]
Receiving the notification, Sol stopped chanting and gave her a thumbs up.
"Nice work!"
Amber, on the other hand, disagreed and called him out.
"Didn't disable skill. Also a waste of mana."
Sol didn't deny it. "Yeah, but we're near the stairs, and I wanted to try out the new skill I got. It really was a ludicrous waste of mana, but I can see it being useful in specific scenarios."
The new skill Sol was talking about was [Loop Casting], a passive skill obtained from the Laughing Skull. It allowed him to maintain the pathway of mana used to cast a spell, enabling him to repeatedly cast it by only chanting the final part of the spell's incantation and sending more mana through the already established path. He found it useful but ultimately limited, as currently the only advanced level magic he had was the one he recently siphoned from the skull, which only knew three advanced spells. But when he read through the description, he immediately combined it with [Superior Mana Control], which turned it into a variant skill.
With the split skull on the ground, Sol turned to it and used [Siphon] as usual.
[[Superior Mana Control (Variant)] leveled up! (2 -> 3)]
'Oh? Already?' He was pleasantly surprised and opened the updated description.
[Superior Mana Control (Variant)] Lv 3: You have taken a large step in mastering the manipulation of mana. Able to bypass the need to chant spells in their totality at 40% decreased efficiency. Increased mana regeneration by 600%, can also manually recover mana faster. All mana costs decrease by 60%. Able to multicast three spells at once at 40% higher cost. Can utilize the pathway created to cast a spell to recast the same spell with no delay at 75% of the original cost.
Sol didn't expect it to level up so quickly, especially since it had only reached level two half a day ago. However, he found it reasonable as the only skills he siphoned from the skulls were the ones used to combine into this skill, namely [Loop Casting], [Mana Efficiency], and [Increased Mana Regeneration].
'I might actually be able to use skills at no mana cost by the time we leave the dungeon, though only if I'm in an environment with plenty of mana to control.'
He knew the ability to use skills and spells without his own mana relied upon manipulating the mana around him instead. If he was somewhere with little mana density or if the environmental mana thinned from his constant usage, he would have to go back to using his internal mana.
"I'm done," Sol told Amber. "Let's keep going."
…
Half an hour later, they arrived at the rest area of the 24th floor.
Sol began taking out his cooking equipment as he felt bad for making her cook the past two times but was stopped by her.
"I'll cook," she said and took out her own cooking tools.
He shook his head. "It's okay, you cooked the last two times. It's only fair if I cook something."
Amber continued to retrieve her tools and, without a shred of hesitation, said, "No, mine tastes better."
"Huh? Is my cooking that bad?" Sol was stunned by her straightforwardness.
She shook her head. "Not bad, okay. Sometimes too heavy with spices. Never enough oil when frying. Meat is always well done…"
Amber continued on for a full minute, listing every problem with his cooking, and each one was a critical blow. By the end of her speech, he was left kneeling on the floor, completely defeated. This was the longest she had ever spoken, exceeding her usual five word limit, and it was only to roast his cooking abilities.
'She's worse than Zaman…' Zaman constantly pointed out his flaws and mistakes during their lessons, but at least he knew how to deliver the message without completely destroying his feelings. The worst part was that she accurately pointed out objective mistakes that he couldn't deny. Sol was so ashamed he wanted to dig a hole to hide in and never come back out.
From Amber's perspective, she wasn't saying this to demoralize him but to point out flaws similarly to how she would when they finished sparring. After all, how could one improve if they didn't know what they were doing wrong?
Seeing Sol devastated after her complete dissection of his cooking ability, she tried to cheer him up.
"You can improve. I'll help."
"N-no, it's okay." Sol immediately declined. If this was a taste of what's to come if he learns true cooking from her, he would rather fight A-Rankers.
Sol unsteadily walked away and left her to prepare whatever meal she had in mind. He made a stone hut and shut himself inside.
With his back to the stone door, he slumped down onto the floor and looked at the roof with a distant gaze.
'What… just happened?'
It took Sol a few minutes to recover from such a brutal surprise attack. In an attempt to distract himself from what occurred, he opened the Necropolis dungeon guide and flipped to the pages related to the floors he was on.
'We have fought Nether Wraiths, Laughing Skulls, and Tomb Hulks. The last enemy we haven't encountered yet is a Zomest.'
Sol reread the undead's details again, as he had done multiple times, and, like before, did not find anything new.
'If it's like the Shadow Amalgamation, I can only hope to encounter it once or twice.'
There was really nothing he could do as he didn't have the time to search until it appeared, so he could only keep traveling and hope.
Closing the book, Sol turned his attention to the strings that flowed out of his body. He noticed that the newly forming skill branching from [Aggregate] had grown in length and size, already being double the thickness of his normal skills.
'It's getting there; every second I cut down makes it slightly longer.'
Focusing on this direction had positive effects on the formation of the law technique, and until he hit a wall, he intended to keep shaving time off until he could instantly disable his opponents' skills.
Leaving the matter of his developing law technique, Sol turned to a line that was the real reason he was looking at the colored skill lines. It was a new talent skill he obtained, [Gigantify]. It allowed him to grow in size similarly to the Tomb Hulk, just not as large as it was an incomplete law technique that let it grow to that degree. With the skill, he could become five times larger, reaching nearly ten meters tall while also greatly increasing his strength and vitality at the cost of his speed.
'When I was siphoning it, I felt bloated all of a sudden. It went away when the assimilation was done, but it might be some kind of warning.'
Because of that feeling, Sol didn't dare to siphon any other talent skills until he figured out the cause. It could have been just a one off feeling from the nature of the talent skill, which involved growing in mass, but his instincts told him otherwise. To investigate further, he decided to see if the cause could be identified through the skill lines. After many minutes of inspecting and analyzing every aspect of the string and his other siphoned talent strings, he could not find anything out of the ordinary.
Just as he was about to go for another round of inspection, a knock was heard from the stone door. Amber opened the door and said, "Food's ready."
"Thanks, let's go eat," Sol smiled as he got up from the ground. He had already forgotten the massive blow he was dealt recently and went to eat whatever delicious meal she had cooked up.