In addition to everything above, he now offered, potions of greater healing (50 stones), potions of greater resistance (75 stones), combat skills (150 stones), special skills (300 stones)...
"I can only afford one potion of increased fire resistance… here are the 75 stones."
"Wise choice; you will not be disappointed by the effects, and you will be able to resist 75% of the fire energy for a maximum of 10 minutes...
"What's in the next challenge?"
"For ten stones, I could know something…"
·I left the stones on the desk...
"Fire elementals are immune to physical attacks."
I went to the next room without even saying goodbye... The beginnings of a new test or a mission always made me nervous... I could take things easy or spam magic and destroy my next enemies... The first system was typical of a cheater, but I wasn't already a little overpowered for the tutorial; unless it was the boss, I doubted that the first enemies would make me sweat a lot. With this thought in mind, I arrived at the next room, walked around the same desk, and stood in front of the door.
I inserted the gold coin into the slot, and the door opened, but this time there was no staircase up or down, just a hallway that continued forward.
Further ahead, a room opened up; it was identical to the other stairs; however, the room was empty, and only the fire of the torches in their cauldrons shone... my air mana extinguished all the fires at once...
Weakened, or so it seemed, a ghostly figure wrapped in flames floated out of one of them. The jet of pressurized water from my spear hit it in the center. Among the ashes of what had been the elemental, a red stone rolled...
The poor creature didn't even have time to start its attack... if it hadn't seen the imps transform into flames and move around the torches, it wouldn't have reacted so quickly...
The process was repeated with each of the following elements: even when they came in a group, the first attack on the torch with the deprivation of oxygen transformed them into mere puppets to be beaten...
If this was the third test for me at the moment, it was being a walk in the park...
I will define the next monsters as magma humanoids: a body of molten lava two meters high; they were bipedal, and they emitted an infernal heat. They were not very fast in their movements, and it is not that they were immune to weapons, but the metal of the weapons melted on contact with their bodies... I took the precaution of doing the test with one of the spears that I had taken from the lizardmen.
Being hit by a fist at more than 1000 degrees was no laughing matter, so keeping your distance was the key. The problem came when they exploded some part of their body to splash you with lava. It was like the attack of the salamander, but on a small scale.
As for the damage I could do to them with my magic, it was complicated. With their lava bodies, they recovered quickly from the air blades; not having flames take away their oxygen only slowed them down; they melted the stone if I tried to trap them... In terms of effectiveness, only lightning bolts, water bullets, and death magic were effective.
With five of them in combat, it became complicated. I had to constantly jump into rifts to avoid splashes; they were hard, leathery, and managed to exhaust my water reserves. This forced me to have long fights and even longer rests...
In the end, it was all a matter of time and patience. I sat on the floor of the living room, tired, wounded, and thirsty... It is true that the reduction of fire damage had made wounds that would have made me faint from the pain a little more bearable; however, regenerating all the tissue burned by the splashes put my life mana to work at 100% of its capacity.
I won't go back on my words, so it was a ride, but a long and exhausting one that I was looking forward to ending. Fighting the fire elementals meant a lot of wear and tear, especially if the battle dragged on. I couldn't face the boss in a long battle without a plan, I had to act quickly and forcefully. A short battle always gave me a better chance of victory.
I had to go and give it my all. I entered the tunnel on the way to the final room only when all my mana had recovered... When I could see the opening of the room, I took the potion I had bought from the merchant...
It was a large room, with dozens of torches on the walls, bonfires every three or four meters, and an altar in the center... This elemental was indeed imposing, 3 and a half meters high, enveloped in a multitude of flames that went from yellow, to red and even to blue.
I didn't waste time, and I surrounded myself with a bubble of air while my mana took all the oxygen out of the room... the torches were extinguished, and there were barely any embers left in the bonfires. I didn't give him time to be surprised by the first attack. When I threw two lightning bolts at it, the monster received the impacts but did not stop. While the flames burned down and revealed his internal body of lava, he began to advance towards me.
The heat in the room increased exponentially... I jumped into a rift, leaving him in mid-run. When I came out, I launched two more lightning bolts, of which he only managed to dodge one. Although it was far from the distance, I launched the jet of water from my spear, which, although it didn't hit him, it seems that it scared him since he didn't turn towards me, but rather pointed at me with his two arms... Each magma ball shot out like a cannonball; luckily, I had already gotten into another dimensional rift by the time they reached my position. I attacked him again with lightning strikes, but he changed his defense and, commanding all the remains of logs from the nearby bonfires, he took shelter behind.
He didn't come out unscathed, but he didn't receive even half the damage from my attack. Before he could reach me with his magma bullets, he had already appeared through a rift next to him at combat distance. I attacked him with the spear and water magic. Leaving an ugly wound on his body, however the elemental exploded... an explosion like I had never seen before hit me squarely, sending me rolling backwards... the oxygen in my bubble caught fire, creating a secondary explosion that was not as powerful, but much more painful for me.
If it weren't for the potion and my resistance to fire damage, I would have died on the spot.
I didn't cancel the oxygen deprivation because that would give the elemental control over it, so I conjured a new bubble.
The great elemental was nowhere to be seen. Had he committed suicide with that attack? It wasn't going to be that easy. Seven smaller bodies began to form around the room. He was taking advantage of the mass of all the wood from the bonfires to them, so each one of them measured about two meters...
With a premonition, I activated my "bullet time" while I was shooting towards a rift. A real shootout began; although they were no longer large bullets, they were still the same size as a lemon. Every time I appeared through a rift, I threw the bullet. I used water magic with my spear, whether they were close or not, but I didn't have time to cast any other magic before the bullets were aimed at me again.
I came out of a dimensional rift, but this time I didn't attack them with the spear... with my psychic strength, I pulled their bodies towards the "wet" area, and threw a "lighting bolt" straight into the water... I jumped into a crevice in time To free myself from the effects of the electric shock. By reappearing in the dry area, hundreds of water bullets riddled their bodies that were still shaking from the electric shock. From my position, I launched two more lightning strikes that killed two of the bodies.
The bodies began to fuse with each other, and a great elemental, although smaller and weakened than before, was forged, but I did not give him time for many flourishes; a ball of death hit him in one of the arms, which fell inert to the ground. Floor.
The next balls of death energy hit him, losing more and more body parts in rapid succession; in the end, only the central core of his body remained... When the water magic of my spear hit him in the center of his core, the elemental finally died...
His entire body grew cold, and what remained of his corpse were mountains of red stones...
"Congratulations to the player for absorbing the Greater Fire Elemental Essence during the tutorial. +2 constitution"
While I was healing my wounds, I approached the altar, a small stone urn, and inside five large red feathers.
The stone count had risen to 3728. The merchant was not going to be happy...
I took my time healing from my wounds, collecting all the stones, and beginning to retrace the entire hallway...
By the time I got to the living room with the desk, I was sitting nervously drumming my fingers...
"Another nap?" It was reflected in his eyes that he was worried about how far he had gone in the tests...