Chapter 79: "What Don’t I Go Through for Strength?!"

Chapter 79: Chapter 79: "What Don’t I Go Through for Strength?!"

"So to recap the difficulty order, so Kael can understand it, " Rika said. "The Bat is the easiest among the four to defeat, the the Spider, then the Slime, and lastly and the most hardest to kill being the Hound."

"Cant believe the slime’s actually harder than the spider." Kael said, sounding impressed by the jellies strength.

"It’s nearly impossible to kill permanently as it’s regeneration and absorption in a prolonged fight is a nightmare. "

"And the hound has three heads, each one having a strong line up of abilities." Vex added.

Zalor glanced at Lucien. "You’d probably enjoy that one."

"I appreciate your confidence in me."

"Now for the rules," Rika continued. "The entrance seals once we’re inside as we saw from the other parties, all the Bosses start at Peak C Rank and jump to Beginner B Rank in their phase two and the exit only appears after it’s dead."

"So either we kill it or die trying," Kael said.

"An unnecessarily dramatic phrasing," Vex said.

"Is it wrong?"

Vex paused. "...Unfortunately, no."

After going through all the information they had on the Bosses and planning how best to tackle each one, with Rika even managing to drill all of the info into Kaels thick skull, everyone decided to get some rest and prepare for the final fight.

"I’m going to cultivate," Lucien announced as they separated to do their own things.

"Sure but stay close this time," Rika said, pointing toward an empty and somewhat closed off cave behind the camp.

"Of course."

He slipped away, activated the concealment array and various other concealments, before taking the slime blood candies collected from this floor out from his storage ring and popping a few into his mouth at once since the only Trait he needed to level up was Mana Conductive Body.

[Ding!]

[Blood Trait Activated.]

[Blood Detected.]

[Race: Crimson Jellyfiend.]

[Trait Extraction Beginning...]

[Trait Leveled Up: Mana Conductive Body (Epic) — Lv.4 → Lv.7]

’Really that wasn’t enough, that was almost 20 litres of compressed blood.’ He thought flabbergasted at only gaining three levels for that.

’Must be because it’s an Epic Rank Trait, but I’m not stopping until it max level.’ He thought as he took another handful and shoved them into his mouth.

[Ding!]

[Trait Leveled Up: Mana Conductive Body (Epic) — Lv.7 → Lv.8]

’Only level eight?’ He saw and took some more.

[Ding!]

[Trait Acquired: Mana Conductive Body (Epic) — Lv.8 → Lv.9]

’One more time.’He thought, excited for his first max level Epic Rank Trait, yet at the same time disgusted at how much he had to consume for this.

[Ding!]

[Trait Acquired: Mana Conductive Body (Epic) — Lv.9 → Lv.10]

"Ugh, finally level ten." He said leaning back against the cave’s wall, stomach bulging a bit, as he pulled up his status to check if his Mana Affinity went up.

[Mana Affinity: B]

’B Rank, huh, good enough, I guess?’ He thought still not getting how his Affinity was so low despite having a Divine Talent and Mythical bloodline.

He waited a few minutes to let his stomach recover, well not really more like his mind to recover from stuffing himself full of blood before moving on to the bat candies next.

’Time for round 2, what don’t I go through for strength, well atleast I don’t have to fight some ancient God or something, right?’ He thought with a smile, a little over dramatic and somewhat jokingly.

"Please, I hope it never happens." He prayed to the Blood Goddess for her blessings.

He popped a handful of the bat blood candies I to his mouth, glad this time he could collect more than before. "This should be more than enough."

[Ding!]

[Blood Trait Activated.]

[Blood Detected.]

[Race: Bloodveil Nightbat.]

[Trait Extraction Beginning...]

[Trait Leveled Up: Keen Ears (Uncommon) — Lv.2 → Lv. 10]

[Trait Leveled Up: Mental Resistance (Common) — Lv.2 → Lv.9]

[Trait Leveled Up: Wet-Scent Arousal (Common) — Lv.3 → Lv.10]

[Trait Leveled Up: Paralytic Resistance (Common) — Lv.2 → Lv.10]

[Trait Leveled Up: Introvert’s Instinct (Uncommon) — Lv.2 → Lv. 10]

He popped one more making Mental Resistance level 10, before moving on to the hound candies.

[Ding!]

[Blood of Consumed.]

[Blood Trait Activated.]

[Blood Detected.]

[Race: Crimsonfang Hound.]

[Trait Extraction Beginning...]

[Trait Extraction Successful.]

[Trait Leveled Up: Predator’s Mark (Uncommon) — Lv.7 → Lv.10]

[Trait Leveled Up: Silent Step (Uncommon) — Lv.6 → Lv.10]

[Trait Leveled Up: Bloodhound’s Trail (Uncommon) — Lv.8 → Lv.10]

[Trait Leveled Up: One Fang (Rare) — Lv.5 → Lv.10]

And finally the spiders.

[Ding!]

[Blood of Consumed.]

[Blood Trait Activated.]

[Blood Detected.]

[Race: Bloodfang Weaver.]

[Trait Extraction Beginning...]

[Trait Extraction Successful.]

[Trait Leveled Up: Chitin Plating (Uncommon) — Lv.6 → Lv.10]

[Trait Leveled Up: Wallgrip (Uncommon) — Lv.7 → Lv.10]

[Trait Leveled Up: Sticky Situation (Uncommon) — Lv.7 → Lv.10]

[Trait Leveled Up: Eight-Point Focus (Rare) — Lv.7 → Lv.10]

[Trait Leveled Up: Threadstep (Uncommon) — Lv.7 → Lv.10]

[Trait Leveled Up: Silk sense (Uncommon) — Lv.7 → Lv.10]

[Trait Leveled Up: Blood Sacrifice (Rare) — Lv.1 → Lv.10]

Lucien exhaled slowly, scanning the completed list.

’Everything from this dungeon’s first four floors, maxed out. Not bad for four floors’ worth of monster blood.’

He pulled up his stored cultivation progress next, seven months left untouched for this moment and arranged a dense field of mana crystals around himself, mostly C-Rank, thousands of B Rank, and hundreds of A Rank.

’Hopefully this is enough along with the natural higher mana density, to not make a commotion and draw some High ranking adventurer.’

’Cant use the blood mana crystals for now as I don’t have a blood-based cultivation technique to refine them properly, using it would just waste the good stuff.’

He sat in silence for a few minutes, before he ate another handful of the slime blood candies and used his Talent ability to increase his cultivation speed.

’Using this with the higher Affinity should yield greater returns, along with the higher mana density and mana crystals.’

[Sanguine Crucible Activated.]

[Blood Detected.]

[Source: C Rank Crimson Jellyfiend]

[Bloodline Rank: Uncommon]

[Cultivation Acceleration Chosen.]

[Cultivation Acceleration: ×2 (6 hours)]

He tried using more blood candies but that only made made timer go Up instead of the multiplier, so instead he mentally used up the stored cultivation progress.

[Stored Cultivation Progress: 7 Months]

[Begin Conversion?]

"Begin."

His eyes widened as the circulation surged, mana rushing through, not just his veins, but his entire body, thanks to the Mana Conductive Body Trait, at nearly ten times his previous pace, refinement and absorption compressing into a tighter and faster loop than he’d ever experienced.

’Gather. Refine. Compress. Absorb. Again. Again. Again.’

The crystals lit up, gently at first, then violently, mana flooding into him from every direction. His cultivation technique caught it automatically, circulating, refining, feeding it steadily into his mana core.

The mana core inside of him spun faster as the air and the mana surrounding him distorted, Lucien’s body absorbed more and more mana, his mana core expanding to accommodate the massive amounts of mana that entered his body.

One month. Two. Three.

The mana crystals around him cracked one by one, the A-Rank ones dimming last, as Lucien’s breathing slowed to something barely perceptible, his body settling into perfect, motionless stillness.

His mana core vibrated hard enough to ache.

’Come on, it should be way easier with the higher Affinity and and new Trait.’

A crack split through the barrier separating Peak C from B-Rank.

Then another, then the barrier shattered completely and the mana surged in all at once, his rank rising without any signs of stopping.

Nearly two hours later a silent wave of mana rolled outward, bending the nearby roots flat and pushing the small loose rubber away from him, as the last of the mana crystals crumbled to dust.

A powerful aura spread outward from his body and through the concealed chamber, but the Concealment Array Plate suppressed and hid everything it before it could escape or anyone could sense it.

[Ding!]

[Cultivation Breakthrough Successful.]

[Previous Rank: Peak C-Rank]

[Current Rank: High B-Rank]

Lucien opened his eyes slowly, his mana settling into something heavier and denser back in his mana core.

He clenched his fist.

The increase was unmistakable, his entire body felt lighter, his mana was denser, all of his senses were sharper, even his blood responded faster to his thoughts.

"Not bad." He smiled.

Then he glanced at the remains of the mana crystals.

"It’s quite expensive, though." He said, determined to find a way to raise his mana Affinity even more.

For a moment, he sat there and simply enjoyed the sensation. Then he remembered that his actual cultivation rank needed to be hidden, he reactivated the concealment skill and lowered his cultivation rank back to Beginner C.

To the others, he would still appear to be a Beginner C Rank.

Satisfied , he looked toward the direction of the sealed door.

’Now the boss should actually be interesting.’

Somewhere beyond it, one of four boss monsters was waiting to become his snack.