Chapter 31: The Price of Power

"This is..."

Raive took a step forward, grabbing the item, and gasped.

[Skill Book - Sword Flash Lv. 1 (EX)]

[A skill that allows the user to send a powerful slash through waving a sword, drawing a straight line to lead the enemy to its final destination. Range: 3 meters. Cooldown: 0. Mana Cost: 15.]

It was a skill book!

And it was actually the skill that the Tree Knight had been using!

The flying slash from before!

"If I have this...!"

Raive smiled, and without much hesitation, went to use the skill book... or not. He paused, thinking about the possible consequences.

The skill seemed to have a rank of EX. And from what Raive knew, that rank should be higher than even SSS.

"Will learning this push my vessel to its limit again...?" The worry flashed through his mind.

As such, before he moved, he decided to eat the dropped stat-up candies first. There were fifty candies that dropped this time, and he didn’t hesitate to eat all of them.

It was almost mystical how the candies melted away as soon as they touched his tongue, so it wasn’t hard to do at all.

As he ate them, he felt his body changing.

He could feel strength welling up from deep within. His senses grew sharper, enough that he could even feel a strange energy drifting around him.

"This... must be mana." He whispered.

He was just guessing, based on what he had learned, but it sounded probable enough, so he labeled it as such.

After he finished eating, he grabbed the skill book and flipped it open.

As soon as his eyes landed on the first word, information flooded into his head, fast—so much, in fact, that it felt as if his skull was being cut open with a rusty hacksaw.

"AGH!"

He cried out in agony, but thankfully, nobody was around to see or hear it.

About five minutes later, the pain finally subsided.

[You have learned Sword Flash Lv. 1 (EX)!]

[Warning, you are now using 50% of your vessel. Please be careful.]

"I knew it..."

Raive sighed.

If he’d learned the skill without eating those fifty stat-up candies, he was fairly sure his vessel would’ve broken, or overflowed. Whichever it was, it meant death.

After that, he checked through the rest of the drops.

But other than the candies and the book, there was nothing else he could use.

To upgrade his skill, Auto-Load, he needed a level 4 scroll, or a level 2 for the new Sword Flash skill. However, the only upgrade scrolls that dropped were level 3. Ten of them.

"Too many for what we need, so... I guess we’ll just trade the rest off later." Raive sighed.

After making sure there was nothing else he could use, Raive grabbed something from his pocket and stared at it.

A small bottle, or more like a vial, holding a single drop of purplish-black liquid.

The Rotten Rose Poison, dropped by the green dungeon’s boss.

There was only one reason he’d brought it out.

He twisted the tip, breaking it open, then poured the contents down his throat. If the description was accurate, he should die instantly upon consumption.

"...!"

Or at least that’s what he thought.

His throat felt like it was on fire. He wanted to spit it out, but worried that would just prolong the suffering, so he made sure not to even open his mouth.

His neck strained so hard all the muscles stood out. His veins darkened, proof the poison was spreading fast. And along with it came the sensation of his entire body burning in hellfire.

’Talk about false advertising...!’ he cried in his mind.

When the poison reached his brain and his heart at the same time, his suffering, thankfully, ended.

[User’s Heart had Stopped Beating.]

[Please select which save slot to load.]

[Confirmed selection: Second Slot.]

[Auto-Load activating...]

[Success.]

"BAH!"

The moment the Auto-Load kicked in, Raive took a deep breath and fell on all fours.

"Brother!"

Hershey rushed to his side fast, worried about what had happened.

Raive stared at her small face, and for a moment it overlapped with the shock-filled expression she’d worn the moment she died. He quickly shook his head and sat up, taking deep breaths to calm his mind.

The pain still lingered in his senses, making his hands and feet shake uncontrollably.

Everyone looked at him, worried.

"Phew..."

About half a minute later, he finally returned to normal.

He patted Hershey’s head and smiled. "I’m fine now," he said, reassuring her.

"Was it your precognition?" Shymine asked quickly. "Did you... see a bad future?"

Raive looked at her, then at the others, who all looked just as anxious. After all, it was a red dungeon they were about to challenge. The worry made sense.

"Yeah." He answered, after thinking it over. "It was a brutal boss fight. If we hadn’t figured out its weakness in time, it would’ve been hopeless."

Everyone gasped at that.

The only boss fight they’d experienced so far was the green dungeon’s, and that had ended with just one of Shymine’s moves. It barely counted as a fight.

"The way you’re saying that..." Hazel, experiencing Raive’s precognition secondhand for the first time, cut in. "You mean you’ve already figured out the weakness? Will that guarantee our victory against the boss?"

Raive turned to her, smiled, then nodded.

"Of course." He said. "As long as we get the initiative, victory is as good as ours!"

After that, he quickly briefed everyone on what waited for them ahead. He told them the dungeon’s gimmick, how to beat the normal and elite mobs, and even how to defeat the boss. Everything set in advance.

"As long as we perform exactly as I’ve instructed, we’ll walk out of this dungeon without a single scratch!" He claimed.

"What a convenient ability, that precognition of yours." Hazel couldn’t help but murmur. "With it, we can be ready for whatever comes. Really, how enviable."

Raive, however, couldn’t help but hear it as sarcasm.

"It’s got no fighting use, though. I’d rather have your ability instead—it’d let me survive longer, even alone."

Well, his words might’ve been true before.

But now that he had a new EX skill, they sounded more like lip service.

He grabbed the hilt of the machete he’d gotten from Khamish just now, something to replace a sword, and smiled.

"Alright, everyone. Time to beat this red dungeon in record time!"