Chapter 183: Heaven’s Window (Primordial)

[Eye of Truth has been upgraded to Heaven’s Window (Primordial)]

[Heaven’s Window (Primordial): A celestial, iridescent eye imbued with ancient divinity that replaces the user’s sight. When equipped, it instantly reveals the enemy’s stats, true name, and skill sets, while granting absolute appraisal to identify items, material compositions, and true market values; additionally, it provides passive True-Sight to see through illusions, invisibility, and shapeshifted targets.]

As soon as Kaelen read the description, the first thing that came to mind was Yelena’s ability.

The appraisal eye was incredibly useful in and out of the tower. Kaelen could now tell the evolution realm of targets who were stronger and appraise beasts before engaging with them.

Together with the Hearthstone, Kaelen could swiftly move across the floors while avoiding the real dangers until he was done with the small fries.

This was good, especially for him, who’d prefer going solo if possible. But he couldn’t be sure about that until he had a rough idea of how the upper floors might turn out to be.

He’d have to either wait and enter with the party the first time for backup, or wait until parties entered, then he’d simply watch their streams and figure out if everyone would be facing a similar floor or something completely different.

Even worse, the dungeon might have several blueprints for a single floor to make it hard for other candidates to prepare accordingly without knowing which one they’d be up against.

If that were the case, the Advanced Hearthstone had just solved it for him. Except the floor was built in a way that once you entered and exited, it’d reshuffle before your next try.

Kaelen was hoping that would not be the case.

He summoned the eye and, after inspecting it for a moment, brought it close to his right eye, and a streak of electricity connected the two and pulled the prosthetic into his eye socket.

Though the eye felt solid in his hand, there was no pain or discomfort as it merged with his eye, making Kaelen sigh in relief.

Lastly, there were his rewards for the final boss:

[Your contribution for killing the hidden boss has been calculated. Here’s your rewards]:

? [1,000,000,000 Evolution Points]

? [Fangs of the Lycan Skill Book]

[10,000× Reward Multiplier Triggered…]

[You have received 10,000,000,000,000 Evolution Points]

[You have received an additional 50,000,000,000 from the Book of Cheng]

[Fangs of the Lycan Skill Book has been upgraded to Maws of Annihilation (Primordial)]

Kaelen smiled in satisfaction. Not only had the Book of Kaelen proven itself to be the real deal, but Kaelen had just received his first skill book. Just as he thought, with infinite Mana, he could spam it endlessly at the enemy.

[Maw of Annihilation Skill Book (Primordial): Summons a colossal spectral jaw at the target’s location that violently snaps shut, dealing physical/necrotic damage to all enemies caught within and dealing an additional 50% True Damage equal to 50% of the damage received from the last incoming hit within the past 10 seconds.]

Kaelen’s eyes widened on reading the description.

“Additional 50% damage from the last damage I took?”

It was even better than he imagined.

What a great start.

If he couldn’t even survive the next 10 floors with everything he had now, then no one else would be able to survive them.

At that moment, Kaelen noticed the inbox icon blinking at the corner of his vision.

“Oh, has she finally replied?” he mumbled as he clicked the icon. It expanded into his message requests page, not Lysandra’s inbox like he thought.

Huh?

He had received a message request from someone named Chloe Yoon:

Hey Kaelen, my name’s Chloe. I’m Lysandra’s teammate, and she wants to let you know that she isn’t ignoring your message. She simply can’t read the letters on her keyboard and therefore doesn’t know how to text back. There’s a voice chat feature here, so it’ll be great if you turn that on for her. You’re welcome!

“…”

What the hell?

If Lysandra had really asked a stranger for help, it must mean it really bothered her and she didn’t have another choice.

Kaelen left the message on read and swiftly returned to his chat with Lysandra, only to see a notification requesting him to accept the voice chat request from Lysandra.

He didn’t hesitate to activate it and typed another message:

Are you alone right now?

Before his finger could leave the send button, the message was marked as read, and the voice chat icon appeared below the chat.

“Kaelen, I’m sorry I didn’t text you back immediately. Did you see my message from Chloe?” Lysandra asked. “I’m currently alone at the border of the lobby.”

“Yes, I did. It’s surprising that you’ve made a new friend so soon,” Kaelen replied teasingly.

“What? She’s not my friend. I didn’t have a choice and didn’t want you to think I was ignoring your message.”

“I understand. Though I never expected you’d have difficulties reading. Anyways, how’s it going on your side?”

“We plan on entering the second floor first thing tomorrow morning.”

Kaelen frowned.

There was still enough time before anyone’s 3-day Visa card expired. Most parties would be playing the waiting game, waiting for other parties to venture inside first to see what it was like and learn from their battles, but Lysandra’s party wanted to be the first to enter.

“Why the rush? Who’s the leader of your party? Y’know you don’t have to follow their lead,” he said in a heartbeat.

“It’s fine. Our Herald is super friendly, and we plan on drawing a massive audience by entering first. If we pull it off and are the first to clear the second floor, that’ll surely attract potential sponsors early on, and we can build more facilities before the tenth.”

Kaelen was speechless. She wasn’t wrong. Their plan was rock-solid, and it was impressive to learn they were already planning ahead with a different strategy that the others were cautious of adopting.

“It sure sounds like a good plan. You seem to have found a home you can make it to the top with, huh?” Kaelen said flatly.

“W-What? No, it’s not like that. I’ll never ditch you for anyone. I can’t wait to see you again on the ninth floor. I also enjoyed your battle on the first floor, but… that woman,” she trailed off.

“Huh? What woman?” Kaelen asked in confusion.

“The one you hugged…” Her voice paused for a moment. “I-Is she your second wife?” she asked hesitantly.

Kaelen’s brain went static, and he tried to make sense of what she was saying before the scene flashed across his mind and his expression turned ugly.

“Hell no!”

[You have received a message from Elyndra Silver]:

Yo, I’m not sure I can bring your idea to life because there’s a huge problem and something you’re overlooking with it.

“Oh, she just chatted me now. I’ll talk to you later.”

“W-What?”

Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!

Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!