Chapter 96

As the girls dashed away in the horizon, I faced against the second monster horde of the week, preparing to cut through even as I grabbed a disposable sword, my heartbeat quickening. I was about to delve into the belly of the beast, ready to meet the challenge.

However, it wasn’t going to be as easy, because the area-effect spells that I used to handle the previous horde were not available for me. While Iomene and the rest of the group had been dashing away, they weren’t far enough to miss a number of explosive fire spells illuminating the night sky. No, I had only one flashy option to use, and that was triggering the wards as an explosive, which would destroy the air gem unless I extract it from the mutated monster.

And even then, I was facing a time constraint, because Iomene and others would be expecting an explosion. Meaning, I had a couple of minutes at most to slip inside the monster horde, slay the mutated monster, and get away to trigger the explosion, getting rid of the rest of the horde in the process. I had to rely on my melee skill to achieve it, I realized even as I squeezed my dagger tightly, preparing to dash forward.

It wasn’t greed that motivated me to take the riskiest approach possible —well, not only greed. I wanted to test my melee skill to the limit while also developing some experience in the process. I wanted to test the true limits of my melee skill, which I had been neglecting due to my recent focus on magical abilities. It hadn’t been the worst of ideas as I had been discovering a new magical ability every single day, but with my leveling stalling —hopefully only a temporary setback— I needed to make sure I was using every single skill to their utmost limit.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that charging toward thousands of monsters, armed with only a knife —albeit a custom-designed magical one— didn’t look like a glorious suicide.

Rather than using arcana to sharpen the knife, this time, I decided to use the elemental mana, air in particular, using it to extend the cutting edge of my daggers. Running at full speed, I burst into a crowded mess of low-class monsters, only for them to turn into a neatly-sliced meat pile before they could react.

I was about to rush forward when I felt a shift in the wind, my reflexes allowing me to dodge the attack of a diving dire falcon before I could even process its presence. “Not bad,” I murmured as I analyzed my own reaction, trying to understand the reason. Yes, I had strong senses, but for some reason, it felt different.

I realized the reason after I dodged a few more assaults in the same manner. It was the airflow. To use air elemental on my daggers, I was constantly circulating the same type of mana in my body, and it seemed that it was granting me an instinctual connection with the airflow around me. It was such a nice surprise, as on the books I had never read something close to that, though, on second thought, it shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, how many elemental mages there were strong enough to connect with their surroundings in such an instinctual manner, yet had the physical capabilities and reflexes to leverage such a minuscule input.

“Come on, you bastards,” I murmured even as I dashed forward with a renewed enthusiasm, each slash taking the life of multiple creatures, leaving a deadly trail of blood behind. I received a wound here and there, but time was more important than staying untouched, and luckily, I had HP to spare.

[-196 HP]

I could feel the small nuggets of energy splitting from their presence, floating to nothingness as they failed to find purchase in my connection. What a waste, I thought before a wild thought entered my mind. I had a permanent connection with the girls, and maybe, I could use the connection as a conduit to transfer experience. It wasn’t particularly critical for Helga, as I could still use my own mana to boost her further, but Cornelia was about to hit the transfer limit.

I pulled my mana, once again guiding these nuggets of energy like I had done earlier, while hunting with Cornelia, but this time, pushing them through our connection rather than shoving them in her soul space.

“Perfect,” I murmured as I saw Cornelia’s experience counter stirring as I pushed the transfer. It wasn’t a perfect transfer. I could feel the nuggets losing a significant amount of power as they traveled through the connection, but it was significantly better than wasting all those kills —particularly so since I lacked the time to properly harvest anything.

With that done, I turned my attention toward the horde, dashing forward. However, as I moved deeper, facing against stronger monsters, I was glad that a monster horde was nothing more than a mindless crowd held together by hunger and madness, rather than a coherent strategic unit, because even with all my abilities, I wouldn’t have liked my chances if they were trying to anticipate my moves or surround me like the wild monsters usually did, their animal cunning enough to create a very dangerous threat.

I cut and sliced, driving toward the center of the horde, falling into a weird monotony as I did so in seconds, following the instincts provided by my melee skill. My body moved almost automatically at first, while I carefully observed the reactions of my own body, trying to learn from my own movements no matter how paradoxical and weird it felt.

As I moved forward, the sound of my own slices, the sprays of blood, cries of monsters all mixed together, creating a confusing blanket that prevented me from using sound as a source of alert despite my perception. Luckily, I had my new trick with elemental magic to help me cut through the mess.

I moved forward, like the calm center of the storm, displaying perfect control in a radius of two yards centered around me, killing any monster that dared to step in that distance with a calculated slash. With every blow, I could feel my movements getting noticeably smoother, something that was only possible through a combination of my agility and intelligence, creating a dangerous learning curve. In a minute filled with murder and danger, I could feel learning enough to surpass months of effort from the others.

The deeper I pushed, the faster I started to move, turning into a scythe of death despite having the form of a simple dagger. Identifying the location of the leading monster wasn’t too difficult, as the closer to the center, the more rabid the monsters become.

Even with my increasing skills, getting closer was not without its cost. I had to buy every step with gallons of blood, mostly belonging to monsters, though occasionally my own joined the crimson carpet that covered the ground. It had been barely a minute, but I was starting to feel like I had been fighting for an hour.

[-329 HP]

Then I finally found what I had been looking for in the form of a giant Elephant, one that looked remarkably like a normal one supposed to look like, though the way ground cracked under its feet with every stomp suggested otherwise —or its bloodshot eyes shimmering with power, but for reason, mini earthquakes were slightly more attention-grabbing.

Precision: 35 Perception: 37

Agility: 35 Manipulation: 40

Speed: 34 Intelligence: 44

Endurance: 34 Wisdom: 46

HP: 4912 / 5370 Mana: 4201 / 6600 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [97/100]

Master Arcana [95/100]

Expert Speech [70/75]

Advanced Craft [50/50]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 21/25]

[Helga - Level 17/21]