The word intense could be used to describe the fight. However, that was only if one was to describe what happened to the boss room.
For Shiro, she wasn’t hit at all. Not even once. Her manoeuvrability with her boots were too much for the boss and even with his advantage in stats, he couldn’t do anything to her. Not to mention, when she was paired with her Rift Walker skill, she was untouchable.
With all her advantages, killing the boss wouldn’t be a problem…
*DANG!
Her weapon pinged off the rock hard shell of the boss as the moment it reached 1 HP, it had curled into a solid lump of stone.
‘£$%£$!!!’ Shiro cursed in her mind as she didn’t have many options with regards to killing the boss.
She could try to rift walk herself into the boss, but she didn’t know if she’d suffocate as there wouldn’t be enough room.
Looking at the rock the 6-meter giant curled up into, Shiro suddenly had the urge to spit at it in disdain.
“Fine. Since you want to be a useless piece of rock, you can die as a useless piece of rock.” Shiro said as she leapt upwards and landed on top of the boss.
Dismissing her nanotech boots and weapon, Shiro slammed her palms onto the surface of the boss.
Metal twisted around her arms as machinery started to form around her.
Once she was done, a device which seemed like a combination of both a drill and pile bunker could be seen.
Due to its size, constructing the device wasn’t kind to her body.
Feeling the ache that was slowly spreading through her body, Shiro really wished that she could go find the medicine needed to fix her up.
‘Nan Tian said that he would have the Phoenix Pill soon, I should ask him about where I could get these pills next time. While I can’t afford them, I could probably try harvesting them at their source or something similar.’ She thought to herself while she activated the device that laid in front of her.
*CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Four legs clamped down on the boss’s shell to make sure that it remained stable.
Flipping a switch, the machine hummed as the drill started to spin.
Shiro grinned while she watched the pressure gage increase in value.
Once it neared max speed, she released the drill.
*BOOM!!!!!
Smashing into the shell, the drill tore through the defence like it was wet paper. To make matters worse for the boss, the drill had its own rockets to keep it from stopping.
Shiro could feel the boss panic due to the drill piercing its body.
‘Now!’ Shiro thought as she detonated the drill when she guessed that it was near the centre of the boss’s body.
*BOOM!!!
A huge cavity could be seen with chunks of the boss being thrown across the room.
Since the boss only had 1HP left, its internal defences were rather weak, giving her the perfect opportunity to blow it up from the inside.
Landing inside the cavity, she excavated the mana stone before collecting her loot.
“Ohya? A purple shield.” Shiro muttered with surprise. She never expected a purple shield to be dropped from the boss.
[Rock Giant’s Protection – LVL 40 Shield (Purple)]
Requirements – LVL 40, 800 DEF, 800 STR
+150 DEF
+100 VIT
-50 AGI
Skills:
Rock Giant’s Projection:
Summon the projection of a rock giant that protects your entire team.
Damage is reduced by 60% (Limited by level. Loses effect against LVL 55+)
Aggro is increased by 70% (Limited by level. Loses effect against LVL 55+)
Speed is reduced by 80%
Cost: 5,000MP
Duration – 30 seconds
Cooldown – 2 minutes
Rock Giant’s Presence:
Increases one’s aggro on the field exponentially.
Aggro is increased by 70% (Limited by level. Loses Effect against LVL 55+)
Cost: 2,000MP
Duration: 1 minute
Cooldown: 3 minutes
Rock Giant’s Stomp:
A ground-shaking stomp that stuns your enemies for a short moment.
Cost: 2,000MP+
Range: Increases with the amount of MP used. (Maximum Range: 15 meters)
Duration of stun: 5 seconds
Cooldown: 1 minute
The benefits the shield gave was incredible in Shiro’s eyes. Especially the skills that the shield provided.
It would help boost the defensive capabilities of any tank that used the shield.
Storing the shield in her inventory, Shiro thought about whether or not she should help Madison upgrade the shield a little. Perhaps even add more skills to it which are taken from her database.
Over time, she had also collected a small pile of tanker based skills that would be helpful for both attack and defence.
Sadly, she barely had any use for any of them.
‘Hmm… I’ll wait a little while longer until I tell them about my Nanomancer class. In fact, should I even tell them at all? I can trust them now but what about later? What if they sell me out?’ Shiro thought with narrowed eyes.
The more she revealed, the more danger she would be in. Until she was able to disguise her appearance, she wouldn’t expose her second class.
Not to mention, having a second class was way too abnormal. Having a main class and a subclass was ok, but two main classes were not.
Looking at the 6-meter tall corpse slowly fading away, Shiro looked towards the huge gate that formed behind where the boss was.
“Seems like it’s time for the puzzles.” Shiro muttered as she walked up to the door.
On the door, she could see a tablet with words etched inside of it.
[Clue: Levers]
“Levers?” Shiro muttered whilst reading the tablet.
“What does it mean by levers…”
Looking around the room, she frowned when she found 2 levers hidden by the walls.
‘How many levers are there?’
Walking over, she switched the lever on before walking to the second lever and did the same.
Unfortunately, the moment she used the second lever, the first one flicked back up.
“Hmm…” Narrowing her eyes, Shiro got an idea about the puzzle.
‘I guess I need to flip all the levers in a certain order or else it’ll reset.’ She thought.
However, there was a small problem and that was that she didn’t know how many levers there were.
Thinking to herself for a moment, Shiro crouched down and placed her hand on the floor.
Metal and lightning sparked as a device was slowly being made.
Similar to last time, it was a device that would help her scan the entire room for the levers. Only this time, she coded it to only react to anything that resembled a lever.
After a few short moments, the device was created.
*Boom
A low pitched sound spread out from the machine as red spots started to appear on the display screen.
“Hmm… There’s a total of 20 levers in here.” Shiro muttered with a frown.
Though this number wasn’t confirmed yet as it continued searching for things resembling the lever. She’d have to check them herself to make sure that they were indeed what she was looking for.
Out of the 20 ‘levers’, only 15 were the correct ones.
“So I know the one to my left is the first lever since it stayed there after I flicked it.” Shiro said whilst assigning numbers to each of the levers.
With the first lever she flicked as number 1, she assigned the numbers in a clockwise direction.
“Welp, let’s get to work I guess.” She muttered as she started to slowly figure out the code for the levers.
###
“Haa!” Lyrica cried out as she cut down another monster.
Right now, they were attempting the Blood Vale dungeon. The reason as to why they chose this dungeon was because Jonas had a supply of potions that increase one’s willpower which was extremely effective against bloodl.u.s.t.
“Wow, just look at her go.” Jonas complimented as he watched Lyrica and Madison’s teamwork.
While Lyrica dealt the damage, Madison was able to hold aggro with ease.
So much so that it even put him to shame even though he was slightly higher level than her.
When he and Shiro first met, he was only level 30. Due to what he saw during the raid, he knew he had to get stronger so he and his party pushed for higher level dungeons. One of the only reasons as to why they were able to reap massive benefits was due to Silvia’s incredible healing and support.
With their attempts of higher level dungeons, their levels averaged around 36 while Silvia’s was a little lower at 34.
*BOOM!
Blocking a claw swipe with her shield, Madison’s body glowed slightly with a dark red aura.
Teeth started to grow on her shield as a phantom image of a beast attacked the monster.
Trace whistled slightly seeing a significant chunk of the monster’s HP disappear with that one counterattack.
What Madison had used just then was a skill that allowed her to redirect a portion of the damage she took and ignore the monster’s defence altogether. It was a great skill against heavily armoured targets since it deals true damage rather than damage after being cut down by their defences.
“Buff’s please!” Lyrica shouted out as a golden glow encased her body.
Silvia had buffed Lyrica before she had even finished her sentence.
With the buff increasing her attack damage and speed, Lyrica took a deep breath.
Her weapon shimmered with a rosy glow.
Bladedancer Class Skill: Rose Blossom.
She twirled her sword skillfully around her as waves of vibrant red energy cut outwards, dealing impressive damage for an area of effect skill. The energy made it seem like a rose was slowly blooming. As the number of attacks that were sent outwards increased, so did the growth of the ‘rose’.
Once the rose had reached full bloom, Lyrica stopped twirling her sword and stabbed it into the ground.
Rose Blossom Stage 2: Rose Garden.
All of the enemies that had been struck by the initial skill had a phantom rose explode out from their wounds.
Both the Rose Blossom and Rose Garden were self-made skills that was recognised by the system and recorded as a class skill. She had gained the insight for these skills based on her burning lotus.
The more she used energy wave based attacks, the more she could sense their positions and adjust their flight path.
During their exploration in the Blood Vale, she had attempted to see if she could make a lotus explode out from the wound and to her surprise, a rose had blossomed instead.
Following which, she had received this notification.
[Self-Made Skill recognised. Awarding 200 free stat points. Title awarded.]
[Please name your skill.]
After naming her skill Rose Blossom, since it was what she had thought of the moment she saw the skill, she checked up on her title.
[Creator of Rose Blossom Skill Set (Incomplete)]
After experimenting with your insight, you have managed to create the skills Rose Blossom and Rose Blossom Stage 2: Rose Garden. The more you add to this skill the better the benefits of this title.
Current Benefit: 5% Increase in damage when using Rose Blossom Skills.
Just looking at this made her giddy with joy like a child with a new toy. She couldn’t wait to show Shiro her newly created skill and title that she received.
###
“GAH! FINALLY!” Shiro cried out as she finally figured out the code for the 15 levers. The worst part of this was that there were a few dummy codes that seemed like it worked but instead, always sent her on a dead end.
It was only after reaching the first dead end did she realise the truth about the levers. No matter which lever she used, after the 8th lever, they all reset the code.
With this new knowledge, she then found out that there were five start points.
Overall, it had taken her around 2 hours to get the right combination. If there was just dummy routes at the start of the puzzle, then it may not have taken 2 hours. HOWEVER, there were also a few dummy routes during the later stages which only served to make Shiro want to smash all the levers in and say f*ck it.
With the final lever activated, the doors slowly cranked open to reveal a treasure chest and the pathway to the next boss room.
“Hou? A blue rimmed treasure chest to reward my efforts. How stingy.” Shiro said, annoyed at the rewards for her two hour long solving process of the levers.
Opening the treasure chest, she was surprised to see a scroll and a few miscellaneous materials laying in the chest.
Picking up the scroll, she inspected it.
[Low Tier 3 Attack Magic Scroll – Lightning Hell]
Raising an eyebrow, she was surprised that it was a low tier 3 scroll. At most, she expected a tier 2 and not tier 3. That was because tier 3 scrolls were normally equivalent to an attack sent out by a level 60 adventurer. Even the low tier 3 attack scrolls were equal to the attack of an adventurer which had just classed up. That being level 51.
“This should be helpful against the bosses later on.” Shiro muttered as she could imagine their defences increasing the closer she got to the end of this dungeon.
Storing the materials and the scroll in her inventory, Shiro proceeded into the second part of the dungeon.
