With Lloyd fully equipped, he walked down the corridor with both the Dawnbringer's Radiant Cloak and the Sanctified Wraithslayer equipped. It was not that he wasn't afraid of confronting the two. He just felt like this was something he needed to do in order to get stronger. If he would be frightened by a mere champion hellspawn and paralyzed out of fear, he shouldn't have left his old life just to enter the labyrinth of trials. His body was tense, with all of senses all focused in detecting what would suddenly attack him from the dark corridors. He was more than enough prepared to slaughter his targets.
After cautiously walking for almost a minute, he finally saw the two plaguebearers who had yet to notice his presence. They were just standing still while facing the opposite direction where Lloyd was standing. Their low growls were as eerie as ever which he found grating in his ears.
Taking advantage of the darkness surrounding them, he quietly tiptoed towards the nearest one. Upon standing behind the abomination, his muscles bulged a little bit from exerting a lot of force to stab the plaguebearer directly to the brain.
The Sanctified Wraithslayer made light work of the first one as it died immediately, unable to make any hateful screams and the portion of its head where he had stabbed it disintegrated from the purifying aura surrounding the blade.
The loud thud from the fall of the dead body alerted the other one which made it lunged forward to Lloyd with madness in its eyes. Lloyd dodged to his left as it tried to grab his neck. Seeing an opportunity to strike, he once again swung his sword and cut off the arms of the plaguebearer like he was cutting tofu. It screamed in agony as its arms disintegrated and the purification made it feel like it was being burned alive.
"Take this and die!"
He delivered another horizontal slash which split its head into half, with no brain matter spilled as the purifying blade turned it into powders of light. The body went limp and fell to the ground. He had easily killed two of them.
"I can do this!" He triumphantly exclaimed with a huge grin on his face.
"That's right. I have survived all this time on my own. Who needs companions anyway?"
After celebrating for his victory, he struck many times at the two bodies which turned it into dusts of light. The only thing left was the soul orb. He wondered what would happen if he tried to use the ghost blade ability on the soul orb. Would it be destroyed and become unusable? He wanted to try, but he felt like it would be such a waste to destroy one of orbs.
He had decided he would try it on the enemies further on the deepest part of the crypt. He also had to watch out for the elusive Accursed Wraith roaming in the crypt.
He continued walking and finally reached a junction that led to three directions.
'Great! I have to choose a path once again.' He cursed in his mind.
Lloyd thought for a while before deciding to take the middle path since he wouldn't know which was the right path anyway. He could just come back if in any case he would encounter a dead-end.
A few minutes of walking, Lloyd encountered another plaguebearer. It had lunged forward immediately as soon as it saw him. This was the moment he had waited for. He already knew where the soul orbs are located. After cutting off its limbs so that it won't be able to attack, he slashed at its abdomen where the two soul orbs were located. He heard something cracked like the sound of glass breaking and then the plaguebearer became still. It had died after its soul orbs were destroyed, thus making the body an empty husk without an owner inside.
"Soul attacks are really scary. If ever I encounter one, I should try not to let myself get hit, not even once." He promised to himself.
It would be disastrous if a soul attack would destroy one of his soul orbs. Not only would his power become weaker, he would even die the moment all of his orbs are destroyed. The thought of dying without even knowing what killed him made him shudder.
'Come to think of it, I haven't yet looked at my status. I should check if there are major changes.'
He concentrated his mind and a status screen popped out, displaying his stats.
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Name: Lloyd Claudel
Rank: II
Title: Awakened Aspirant, Eternally Stagnate
Innate Ability: Midas Hands
Skills: Materia Generator, Materia Refinement
Ascension Requirement: 77/2500 enemies killed
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His kill count was still 71 the last time he checked and it rose to 77 by the time he arrived where he was right now. Since he only killed three champion hellspawns, he assumed that the champion ones would count as two kills instead of the usual one. The higher its rank becomes; the more kill count he could acquire. If for some reason he would be able to kill the accursed wraith, then probably there would be nine added to his current kill count.
"I still have a long way to go." He sighed as he dismissed the status screen.
His mana was still recovering, although he could create one more equipment before advancing. He had thought that it was about time to create the spatial ring as carrying a bunch of soul orbs in his worn-out bag would hinder him later on since it would add to the weight he was carrying. Thankfully, he was able to ask what materials were used to create their spatial rings.
However, the problem was that even if he knew the names of those materials, not knowing how it looked like would prevent him from generating it specifically, so it was still impossible to do it. Nevertheless, he had to try generating on random. He activated the Materia Generator and produced two random objects once again. He inspected the two strange objects and read its description.
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Name: Devil's Heart
Description: ???
Name: Poison Sac
Description: A sac filled with poison from a highly venomous creature. It can be used as a material in refining.
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"Huh? This one doesn't have a description while this one is a common one, think." He mumbled to himself while pointing to the devil's heart and the poison sac respectively.
The devil's heart looked like a black stone with red-like tubes attached to it that looked like blood vessels. The heart was faintly beating which meant that it was a living material. This gave him a surprise. He never would have thought that the Materia Generation would be limited only to ores, stones and inanimate objects. This was the first time he had summoned two objects which were non-metals or inorganic.
The second one was literally a sac filled with poison sludge with a dark color. Probably it was so potent that it could kill anyone who ingested it in just a few minutes. Still, it was another organic object. Who knew what kind of venomous creature owned this sac?
He tried casting Materia Refinement on the devil's heart and the poison sac while paired with one champion orb. However, a screen popped up that notified him that the devil heart can't be fused with any other material. He scratched his head in confusion.
"Let's try it with just a soul orb then."
He once again tried to refine it, but without any other materials mixed this time. Still, the status screen popped out which notified him a bizarre message.
'Requirements not met!'
That was what the system had told him. His frown even became worse as he was confused about the devil's heart. There were no requirements stated in the description except for the '???'. How would he know what it was asking?
"Ah, whatever! I'll figure this out later. I should try the poison sac instead."
He used Materia Refinement on the poison sac together with a champion orb and fused it into a tool. Lights flashed and a vial filled with black sludge was created. He tapped on it to find out what that thing was.
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Name: Cursed Vial
Rank: I
Soul: Champion
Ability: Necrotic Poison
Description: A vial containing a very potent poison that had killed the King of Arcadia and destroyed the whole civilization in the city. Do not drink it!
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Upon reading the description, he found that this thing wasn't related in any way to the Vyris Deadlands or this crypt. A King of Arcadia was mentioned which made him ask more questions to himself.
"Where on earth is Arcadia?"
His voice was quite loud but he didn't care since no one was there anyway. And he had already killed the nuisance hellspawns on the area. No one would also think that he had gone crazy from being alone.
"Hm, I might be able to use it soon. I should check its ability first."
He read through the ability called Necrotic Poison. His eyes widened in horror as he went through the contents of its description. It has the ability to kill the cells slowly and spread infection like a plague. It seemed like this was quite similar to the curse of Vyris but also a different one.
He didn't understand that much but he could tell that this sinister tool is so dangerous that it had brought down a whole civilization. What would happen if he used it on a living person? Since Necrotic Poison can destroy the cells directly, it probably produced a rotting effect and it could also spread to other cells and even transfer to other people, thereby, causing an epidemic outbreak that ended the civilization of Arcadia.
He didn't have any other information that could relate to this vial, so he could only keep it for the mean time. He made it sure that it was thoroughly shut tight to avoid the contents from spilling while being carried inside his bag. It would be a disaster if it suddenly leaked or spill to his back. It would definitely be his doom.
Lloyd continued moving and walked for several hours, meeting plaguebearers plenty of times already and killing them. When we would become exhausted, he would take a short rest and take out his meals and water to replenish himself. Then once again, he would continue down the path towards the deepest area of the crypt.
He had discovered more of the ancient scripts written by the humans of Vyris, but it was only all about the culture and life they had before the evil god had spread the curse through the eight champions of humanity and the god of flames scorching them all eternally, which wasn't too important.
Nevertheless, he tried to learn as much as he could. Discovering a whole civilization has its own merits, after all. The government, who is a neutral party but as good as powerless in terms of status back in Asteria, encouraged aspirants to record some evidences of the histories of places they would discover such as the civilization living in that area in the past. There were lots of rewards promised to be given to the ones who discovered those ancient civilizations. He took note of only the important things needed for the submission of papers for the time when he could return to Asteria; alive and breathing.
Finally, after a few hours of exploring, he had reached the end of a corridor he took on where there was a large metallic door standing in his way. There were no keyholes and it didn't seem like the door was locked.
He tried to push it, but it was too heavy. He infused mana essence and pushed with all of his might until the door finally budged. He kept on pushing again and again, and the door was opened wide, with a large and spacious area inside.
At the center of the room, there was a big circle with ancient runes carved on it. He tried reading it, but to his surprise, the soul tree system won't translate it. It was like the soul tree system was preventing him from reading it on purpose. He stepped inside the room to observe it from a closer distance. Amidst his curiosity, he was totally unaware of the impending crisis that was waiting for him inside.
As he almost reached the center of the room where the circle filled with runes are, the metallic door slammed shut which made his heart almost leaped out. Then, a grave expression was visible in his face as he finally noticed a faint presence with a strong, murderous stare that pierced through his soul.