Chapter 364 - Asterios Vs. Minotaur Enchanter (1)

Yu Zhung was pretty exhausted after using his secret ability on the minotaur, only for it to backfire on him. The minotaur absorbed Yu Zhung's mana before he could materialise it in form of swords to complete his move. This only allowed the minotaur to further solidifying its already unpenetrable defence. But the worst repercussion of his failed attack was still waiting for him.

The Minotaur raised his arms like a pair of sledgehammers and slammed down them down on Yu Zhung. With the last bit of stamina Yu Zhung had, he jumped sideways and barely managed to avoid the Minotaur's deadly strike. But that was it. He couldn't move anymore, he just didn't have the strength to do anything. His body was now suffering from a condition known as Mana exhaustion.

As the name, mana exhaustion, suggested it was a scenario in which the warrior suffers from extreme mental and physical fatigue once their mana reserves were completely dried out. The used mana could be easily recovered by using special items or potions. But during this time, the body gets so exhausted that even basic movement seemed like an undoable task. Hence if someone gets exhausted during a fight, it was like inviting death to your doorstep.

Mana exhaustion was a condition every warrior was familiar with and tried their best to avoid it. Just like Brawlers and Tanks were known to suffer from physical or energy exhaustion from excessively using their energy-driven abilities. The remaining classes of warriors were prone to suffer from Mana Exhaustion.

Although the Swordsmen were classified as being a physical form of battle arts, they were most prone to suffer from Mana Exhaustion. This was because the few abilities they used required a high amount of mana consumption. Thus whenever the high ranking Swordsmen went inside a dungeon, they had a dedicated support mage to aid them in battle.

However, mana exhaustion had some more unrealistic after-effects as well. If the person affected by mana exhaustion wasn't treated within an hour, there was a high probability that the warrior would end up permanently losing the ability to use mana. Thus, It was also considered a disease because sometimes the lost mana can not be recovered even after using expensive potions and items.

This rendered the warrior to lose all his abilities and turn back to being an unpowered human. If they were famous and lucky enough to have some fans or proper backing, they would be allowed to act as mentors to guide the new generation of warriors. Or if they were rich, they could set up a variety of businesses to reap the benefits in one way to the other.

But if they were not lucky enough or had not already made plans in advance for such an event, then no one had a field-related job for them. And they were forced to leave their past behind and start a new life in one way or another. That was the reason why most of the warriors thought twice before going all out in a battle.

Yu Zhung, however, was not an ordinary person. He was no vassal or paladin by any means, but he had the power of cultivation. The world didn't know much about the practices the Chinese warriors utilised to break through their potential using questionable and unknown means.

It was also a reason why warriors from China had more physical type warriors than when compared to warriors from other countries. While others gave importance to things like types of equipment and stats, the Chinese trained to convert their bodies into full-fledged weapons. 

Still, how was Yu Zhung able to use his ability so indiscriminately? The answer was simple. He knew of a way to extract mana from his surroundings and turn them into his own. He himself had told this to Arnold. That's how he could use the ability as many times as he liked in his lifetime without being afraid of the long-term effects of Mana Exhaustion. But the process of extracting mana was really slow and it didn't look like the Minotaur was going to wait for Yu Zhung to recover. 

Seeing Yu Zhung in his pitiful condition, the minotaur did not hold back and wanted to finish swordsman as soon as he could. He was a moment away from caving Yu Zhung's skull into the ground below, when a gigantic Warhammer hit him in the head, flinging him in the sky.

"I'll be your opponent now." Asterios huffed loudly before pulling his prized Warhammer over his shoulder. 

A moment later, Yu Zhung was pulled out of the battleground by Arnold's automatons and Alice took care of his exhaustion by applying a series of buffs on him. By the time she was done, Yu Zhung felt even better than he had before his fight with the minotaur. 

Arnold thought that Asterios' attack wouldn't do much damage to the Minotaur. After all, the minotaur was already buffed thanks to Yu Zhung's amplified mana, however, he was wrong. The Minotaur was badly bleeding from his head. But the wound soon got healed by itself. This prompted Arnold to use Probe skill on the minotaur because as far as he knew, Minotaurs did not possess such type of regeneration abilities.

CLA.S.S: Minotaur (Evolved Being)

NAME: Minotaur Enchanter

LEVEL: 121

RANK: Cosmic C

ROLE: Mage

AFFINITY/ABILITIES :

• Call of Protection (Active skill)

• Call of Offense (Passive skill)

• Hardening (Passive skill)

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HP: 17000/17000

STRENGTH (STR) : 100

DEFENSE (DEF) : 267 [+350 due to the ability <Call of Protection>]

STAMINA (STA) : 120

INTELLIGENCE (INT) : 139

AGILITY (AGI) : 101

ACCURACY (ACC) : 88

EVADE (EVD) : 88

Damage Resistances: Fire Attacks (30% damage reduction), Shadow attacks (10% damage reduction), Piercing attacks (80% damage reduction)

Condition Immunities: Exhaustion, Frightened, frozen, ranged attacks, mana based attacks. 

Weak Against: Blunt / Crushing attacks, Physical Attacks, Astral damage

THREAT LEVEL: Negligible

REMARK: Something appears to be wrong. The minotaurs are not supposed to have more than 2 special conditional immunities nor are they intelligent enough to wield any type of magic. Especially high tier magic like Call of Protection which uses the mana of his enemies to increase their own defence. It appears that your interference in causing a dungeon break has somehow evolved the minotaur into something else. It is recommended that you do proper research before doing something like this again, or else it might lead to some kind of irreversible damage to humanity.

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"The hell? The Xenoic energy from the crystals ended up evolving the dungeon boss?"