-Six months later-
After almost a year of living here, I got sick of the food. The monster meat was fine, but the low light meant low vegetation. I would sometimes have some mushrooms, but there were no vegetables anywhere. I worried about my health, but the nanomachines helped me stay on top of my minerals. They could digest the literal rock and minerals.
Vitamins were the more challenging ones to get. A couple of plant monsters would occasionally appear. They tasted terrible but were healthy. Sometimes, new monsters would appear out of thin air. There were still new monsters in the form of babies, but those were different.
Dungeons naturally lure monsters with their high mana densities and trap them. It had been a long time since anyone had cleared this dungeon, so it was teeming with monsters when I arrived. I thinned out the population just enough to not disrupt the ecosystem.
I also suspect some form of cannibalism caused the monsters to become higher-level. It would normally take decades for high-ranking monsters to appear. Monsters could get stronger faster by absorbing mana. They did this by eating other monsters and their cores. They could eat other animals or, in some cases, their own.
Magic beasts could also get faster this way, but it didn't work for humans or the other races. There was some biological difference between mana mutations and natural magicians.
Other than the food, I was also getting sick of the scenery. I had mapped out the second floor, and except for the packs, it was all the same. The caves were more extensive, and the river continued for longer, but that was about it.
The same river from the first floor continued meandering across the second. The longer river led to less conflict between the monsters as they no longer had to contest for water. Although, it didn't stop the bigger packs from skirmishing.
There are four main packs, each containing three or more sixth-ranked beasts. The bull pigs, the snake pack, the rhino horses, and the giant frogs each control around a fourth of the total area.
Something I'd noticed was that Arclen had a life like Earth's. All the animals in Arclen either exited on Earth or had some similarity. The bull pigs and rhino horses were two animals from Earth combined.
It was the same for the Hydra. A legend of Earth was a living lifeform on Arclen. I hypothesized that Earth and Arclen shared a history or had contact at some time.
While very productive, these nine months of work left me lonely. Humans are social creatures. And having no one and nothing to interact with was very frustrating. I was almost fourteen now. The only good thing about this isolation was it allowed me time to think.
Well, I couldn't even call it a good thing. I was lonely but wouldn't know what to say if another person were here. When I did think, my thoughts always went back to the daemon. The same fucking dream, over and over again.
Some days, it was so bad I couldn't even sleep. I needed the work to keep me busy, but the work also bore me. At the very least, there were no annoying hormones or social interactions.
While I was still a kid at heart, the knowledge I inherited gave me an old-soul vibe. I very well could have an old soul. I never did figure out what happens to souls in newborns and the dying.
While I was growing physically, I also leveled up. My mana core was now Lime, and my body was on the verge of sixth-ranked tempering. My magic rank was six, so I was also a rank-six warrior.
Today, I would clean out the second. I would've waited until my body reached the sixth rank, but boredom was killing me, and I could no longer wait.
I am currently standing outside of the bull-pig territory. They were the first ones I met and would be the first to go.
Unlike on the first floor, I wasn't stronger than the monsters. That meant I needed a plan.
The lieutenants would have to be the first to go. I couldn't get to the pack leader while they were still alive, but I couldn't waste too much time on them either. The more time I spent on them, the less I would have to deal with the leader.
I had a time limit to my fight. If the monsters swarmed me all at once, I could not survive. I needed to take advantage of the confusion to bring down the leader before all the monsters attacked me.
I went in while they were sleeping, killing all the scouts on my way. After arriving at the group, I prepared my magic. Bull pigs are hard to kill. They are strong, have good defense, and their skin is tough to get through.
I could use long-range magic, but where was the fun in that? This fight wasn't a scenario where I needed to win. I could always come back. I was here for a battle to ease my boredom. I was hungry, so I decided on roast pork and beef.
I stood in the shadows of the already darkened cave. With my concealment up, I decided on a short-range spell. It would be powerful, but it would keep the fun.
The area of effect on my fire pillar spells would also help me deal with extra fifth ranks. While the fire wouldn't be enough to burn the pigs, the heat could roast them from the inside. If I held it for long enough, there would be a lack of oxygen.
I hid in the shadows as I prepared my magic circles over the monsters. Five circles grew over the five sixth-ranked beasts.
The leader woke up as I put on the finishing touches to the circles. I don't know if it was random luck or if it felt something, but the leader leaped out of the way.
It had enough time to squeal a warning before the pillars struck down. The magic circles revolved as I executed my magic. A deep red glowing suffused through the cave as my magic filled the room.
The light was the only warning they had. I took no time to chant, as this wasn't a spell that required that. The light opened their eyes, and in a split second, the fire burned.
Three lieutenants died on the spot, but one dodged. The surviving lieutenant lost their leg. Instead of debilitating, it seemed it was still able to fight. The battle would be harder now, but the more, the merrier.
I expected the leader to live but never thought it would dodge completely. The good news was that the flames wiped out a third of the fighting force.
'I've out done myself.'
The rest were either injured or too disoriented to fight. My magic was more effective than I realized. I relished in self-fulfillment. This was the first time in months I felt genuinely good.
I needed to finish off the leader before they regained their senses. I blazed toward the leader, forming a two-hilted great sword in my hand. My original sword had broken after the daemon. This was a mana copy of pure elemental magic.
With boost magic added to my legs, I left behind a fiery trail. I flew like a rocket, bringing my arms in and hitting my sword against the leader's horns with a dull thunk.
At the last moment, the bull pig blocked. My sword dug halfway into the horn, and all momentum stopped. I twisted my body around, kicking the monster's head before landing on the ground in a somersault.
My hands still on the sword, I twisted around and flung the pig into the charging lieutenant. I magicked spinning stone javelin toward them both as they staggered from the blow.
As it regained its focus, the lieutenant faced off against the weapon. The lieutenant put up barriers, but it wasn't enough. The javelin plunged into its skull, not giving it the time to recover.
It wasn't dead yet, but one more hit and it would be. With no time to breathe, I rushed the leader again. A stone wave propelled me, launching me like a spring. The leader recovered quicker, using its magic to counteract my tsunami.
As the ground cracked, I leaped, flipping midair onto the ceiling. I launched off the roof towards the monster. The half-dead lieutenant intercepted me midway. The beast had also kicked off the ground, its giant maw reaching for my flesh.
With its brain turned to mush, the lieutenant didn't seem to have an ounce of reasoning.
I tucked and rolled midair to meet the flying pig head-on. With a new blade, I lunged into the open mouth. My great sword would have impaled a smaller beast, but I only pierced the roof of the pig's mouth. The collision stopped our momentum, and we fell.
I turned, front facing the ground, and kicked the monster. The pig hit the floor first, and I landed on the stone spear sticking out of its forehead, pushing it in further. With its brain skewered, the pig died.
During the time of the altercation, the leader had prepared many spells. A barrage of stone bullets, spears, and flames shot towards me. Using space magic, I created a barrier. All the spells that would have hit me flew past. Instead, they landed upon the rest of the monsters.
As I caught my breath, the leader was on top of me. It shattered the flimsy barrier easily. Learning from the lieutenant's mistake, the monster charged me with its horns. What it failed to consider was the state of its horns.
I grabbed the half-shattered horn I hit last time and leaped on the monster's back. I broke its horns off with a jerk. The horns contain a lot of mana, so the monster's magic is reduced if one is damaged.
Enraged, the bull pig started steaming. Cracks appeared all over its skin, and the flesh and blood underneath glowed like lava. It illuminated the dark surroundings, blinding me as I jumped off.
I was used to traversing darkness, and my eyes needed adjusting time. It was times like this when I wondered about getting mechanical parts and becoming a cyborg. I located the leader with my other senses but couldn't get as much detail.
Realizing my disadvantage, I retreated and put a light on the ceiling. It would blind other pigs, delay their joining the fight, and let me see after my pupils adjusted. My nanomachines sped up the process, recovering my sight after a second.
The leader was glowing white hot. It was a mutated monster like the Hydra, a fire-elemental monster. Not only did its body take on the element of fire, but its fire magic was also off the charts.
It could use seventh-rank magic. I asked for a challenge, but wasn't this unfair?