219 Overestimating
Kathrine’s heart was beating wildly as she prepared herself for launching another lethal attack.
If she had been certain that Dilan would survive her first bolt of lightning thanks to his high stats, and the Stone Skin trait, her current confidence in Dilan’s defenses diminished greatly.
She was worried about severely injuring Dilan but he looked confidently at her as if she was being unnecessarily paranoid.
It made her feel as if she was overreacting even though she knew that she was not.
‘The others will definitely kill me if something happens to Dilan… Just why can’t he be a little bit more considerate to me?’
Kathrine was frustrated but she didn’t show how she felt on the outside. Her heart was beating wildly as the bolt of lightning was forming in her palms.
She cursed inwardly while her attack was charging up, just for Dilan to look at her in amusement.
He was not worried about dying at Kathrine’s hand.
Right from the first attack, he knew exactly how powerful her ability was. It was not even close to severely injuring him.
His hand would burn a little and he would sustain some light injuries but that was it.
There was no need for her to be too worried about him. He knew what he was doing and in what kind of situation his group was.
They needed him right now, and he was not supposed to sustain severe injuries that would prevent him from fighting.
‘If I cannot upgrade my Origin ability because I don’t have the right tools to safely injure myself lethally, I need to become stronger in different ways. I have more than enough other abilities that need my attention as well!’ Dilan concluded..
He understood that his mindset was different from others. But it was exactly this mindset that had brought him this far. It had allowed him to become the strong, independent, and the reliable person he was right now.
So he faced Kathrine head-on while keeping a smile on his face to reassure her that everything would be fine.
Once the bolt of lightning was charged up, Kathrine hesitated for a few seconds, took a few deep breaths, and only when she had calmed a little did she release her attack, blasting the bolt of lightning toward Dilan’s palm.
They stood less than 30 meters apart from each other. Thus, the bolt of lightning reached its designated target a mere moment later, entering Dilan’s body at once.
“Argh!!” Dilan groaned the instant he sensed millions of volts of electricity rush through his veins.
The pain he felt was unbearable but he grit his teeth and endured it.
Upon entering his body, the bolt of lightning devastated his arm as it passed through it before entering the rest of his body.
While his right arm was far more damaged than Dilan expected to be, [Bracing Pain] was activated, increasing his stats in proportion to the severity of the injuries he received.
His stats were amplified, providing him with better protection as the bolt of lightning left his body once it had passed through him.
‘Fortunately, I told Kathrine to use a fifth of her power…Looks like I overestimated myself and that I underestimated Kathrine’s power,’ Dilan thought with a faint smile on his lips.
He was still in pain and had to use his entire willpower to not let it show and make Kathrine worry.
If he were to start crying like a baby that had been injured a little bit, Kathrine would just blame herself.
To lessen his pain, he quickly activated [Regeneration] a few times in succession. Just a moment later, Dilan felt that his body was quickly dispelling the numb sensation that had spread through his entire body.
If he felt as if he had been paralyzed before, the sensation quickly changed as his Origin ability’s powerful healing effects were unleashed.
Even if Dilan had known that he would survive Kathrine’s attack, he was still a little bit baffled by its lethality.
‘As long as Kathrine inflicts the smallest cuts on her opponents, her bolts of lightning will be more than enough to kill her opponents. The only issue is that it takes way too long for her to charge up.’
Dilan tried to ignore the pain in his right arm, but Kathrine forced him out of his train of thoughts.
“I told you that it’s too dangerous! Now your entire right arm is wasted, and you won’t be able to use it to fight…just why did I listen to you… why are you always so reckless??”
Kathrine blurted out everything that was on her mind. She didn’t think for a moment that she was practically scolding him. Right now, Kathrine couldn’t care less as she looked at his burned hand and the state of his arm.
Even if one had witnessed Dilan in a bad state, the current condition of his arm looked as if a bulldozer had run over it, if she were to put it simply.
“Don’t exaggerate, I don’t need my right arm to fight. I don’t wield two weapons at the same time either way. My combat power won’t decrease just because of a small injury like this one.” Dilan waved off his left hand, trying to shrug off her concern.
The Blazing Serpentine Blade was stored in his storage ring, where it was safe, and he could simply use his left arm to wield it.
There was no problem with that.
However, Kathrine seemed to have a problem with that as she pointed her finger straight at his face. Her cheeks were beet-red and it looked like she was about to explode at any moment.
“What the hell are you talking about? ‘I don’t need my right arm to fight’? Don’t kid yourself. I know you’re right-handed. So how do you want to fight as proficiently with your left hand as you did with your right?
And your injury is more than ‘little’ as well!!”
Dilan’s smile didn’t cease even after he listened to Kathrine’s lecture. He found her behavior quite cute and wanted to keep teasing her.
But she looked genuinely worried about him, so Dilan held back his urge of having a little bit of fun as he cleared one of the misunderstandings Kathrine seemed to have.
“It’s just a habit of mine to use my right hand. I was trained, or to be precise, forced to use my right hand from a young age. I’m actually left-handed. You won’t notice a big difference in my combat prowess whether I use my right or left hand to fight.
As for my arm, it is really nothing serious. It will be fully healed by tonight.”
With that being said, Dilan wanted to end their debate. He had commanded Kathrine to attack him, so there was no need for her to be that worried.
Everything he did had its reasoning. He already had problems injuring himself severely. The Blazing Serpentine Blade was not a tool to injure himself with. Dilan needed a different, stronger, and sharper weapon to keep advancing the [Regeneration] Origin ability.
In the future, he was bound to face many issues in injuring himself lethally, simply because his body, especially his skin were bound to be too tough for ordinary weapons to cause even the slightest injury.
Dilan understood this, which was why he had commanded Kathrine to attack him.
And it had been a good decision by Dilan because he received a notification about the [Thunder Step] ability, just as he had hoped to after a while.
[-[Thunder Step] Tier-0 ★★★-
All upgrade requirements have been met
1) Get struck by lightning (2/2)
2) Absorb <Lightning> attributed Bronze Essence crystals (5/5)]
[[Thunder Step] Tier-0 ★★★] has been upgraded to [Thunder Step] Tier-0 ★★★★! Congratulations!]
It was great to see that he was finally able to see the upgrade requirements of the [Thunder Step] ability.
However, it still astonished him that he had already completed one of the requirements before. This was unusual and confused him.
‘I know that I’ve absorbed a few Lightning-attributed Bronze Essence crystals before…but why was that not enough to unlock the upgrade requirements for [Thunder Step]?’
“So even if you meet a certain condition, you might not necessarily be able to see the upgrade requirements? That is annoying…”
This realization made things quite difficult, especially because he couldn’t be sure if doing specific things were a sure-shot way to meet the upgrade requirements of his other abilities.
For him and the others, upgrading abilities were going to become more difficult with the new understanding he gained.
Thus, he could only frown while looking at the requirements to upgrade [Thunder Step] once again.
[-[Thunder Step] Tier-0 ★★★★-
Upgrade requirements
1) Get struck by lightning (2/5)
2) Absorb <Lightning> attributed Bronze Essence crystals (5/50)]
‘The first two times Kathrine struck me with lightning has already been counted. I will have to test that out a few more times. Once Kathrine’s mana is full again, she should attack me with the weakest bolts of lightnings to find out if that is enough to be considered as well.
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