18 Strange Strengthened War Shadow
After grumbling a bit of his frustration towarss the dungeon, Alex regained his calm composure. Looking towards the 50 needle rabbits, he took a stance gripping his weapons.
Taking advantage of the darkness, three needle rabbits launched their attacks. Every time they charge, shot out some sort of ultrasonic waves, the dungeon reverberated, confusing his senses.
*Kwang* *Kwang*
Amid such turmoil, Alex accurately detected the position of each rabbit because of his sharingan, and flung three daggers in each direction.
Along with the sound of heads shattering and legs ripping, the rabbits fell down onto the floor. Then, he threw himself between the rabbits and finished them off. With a strike from a dagger, blood splurted from the rabbit making it to disappear to dust.
[You have shown great combat abilities. You have attained deep enlightenment in regards to perseverance and upon landing a critical attack.]
[The skill 'Coup de Grace' has been created.]
[Coup de Grace Lv.1]
Rating: Epic
[A divine strike, honoring the opponent by choosing them for death.
* Gaining a 15% chance of delivering a devastating 200% critical strike to enemy units.
Type: Passive
Skill Proficiency: 0%
Cooldown Time: None.]
"Hoo. I'm starting to get used to it."
Alex gently warmed up his shoulders
Ignoring the notification for a bit, Alex set his eyes to his next targets. Simultaneously using [Flying Thunder God] to every daggers he had thrown that was stabbed to the legs and stomachs of the needle rabbits.
After getting rid of the troublesome agile needle rabbits, Alex kept descending through the seventh floor and killed any monster he encountered. Moreover, just like the rest of the monsterd, it was hard to defeat them. Other monsters were quite difficult to deal with as well.
However, as the number of monster he hunted increased, he was getting more and more used to it, and after the number reached 100, hunting had gotten much easier.
Once he familiarized himself with their unique patterns, it became a piece of cake.
*Crack*
Closing his eyes and focusing on his senses, he could hear the sound produced by the changes occurring inside his body. At the same time, his body felt refreshed, and he once again felt something flowing rapidly through an unknown path inside of him.
The flow was something he would have never been able to feel if he hadn't increased his concentration. It was a familiar flow and a familiar feeling.
'Magic Power.'
As the progress on continuously firing fire spells and [Flying Thunder God] along with the continuous activation of sharingan, the feeling of Mind flowing inside his body was becoming more clear.
Alex realized that Mind was also involved in the changes of his body, so he tried finding clues from it. However, Mind only gave him a little taste and disappeared as if it was toying with him.
'There's nothing I can do.'
Even he now had the [Dragon Heart], it doesn't mean that he could immediately feel it from within when he still doesn't have a large reserve as he was still a level 1. Even his control of magic power was great enough to cast spells without problems, he knew to himself that he still had to continuously grow further.
As Alex was moving forward, he saw a colony of killer ants in front of him.
"Hoo!"
Alex gently took a breath and,
*Pat*
He quickly ran towards the entrance of the ant tunnel.
Kiric?
Keeec!
One by one, the killer ants noticed his presence and turned their heads towards Alex.
"I'm really sorry, but you need to get out of the way."
With an agile movement without immediately using the [Flying Thunder God], Alex grabbed some daggers from his inventory and threw them in between the killer ants.
His throw was quite accurate since he had practiced his throwing skills whenever he was bored during his stay in Orario coupled with the previous experiences in the dungeon.
The ants shrieked at his actions.
*Click*
To finish it off, Alex made a series of hand signs at an extreme speed as his profiency in hand seals had now increased.
And then,
*Kwang*
Kieeek!
A destructive explosion swept through the whole cave.
A huge storm of flame tore off the walls.
The army of Killer Ants were set ablaze, and screamed out loud as they burst into bits.
The flames that caused the explosion wasn't just a normal magic. It was a magic made of fire property with draconic magic. Moreover, It was scattered all over a closed space and was set on fire with a lighter.
The power of the explosion was incomparable to any explosion produced by his magic before obtaining the [Dragon Heart]. The explosion nearly shook the entire seventh floor upside down.
*Rumble*
"The dungeon really has a high durability."
Alex murmured looking at the dungeon that was only shaking up and down. Stone dust fell from the ceiling but no further damage was done.
Surprised by the sudden earthquake, monsters broke out of their areas causing a disturbance.
Taking advantage of the confusion, Alex rushed into the tunnel while holding his dagger in a reverse grip.
The scorching heat and the burning flames left no safe spot for him to tread on, but Alex held his breath and focused every single one of his senses on the ant tunnel.
Alex scanned the surrounding with his sharingan. As his senses reached their peak potency and with the help of his heightened concentration, all the information about his surroundings poured into his brain.
Alex rushed in between the ants that were struggling in pain and put them out of their misery by landing his [Vital Strike] on the first one then followed by [Assassinate] on the nearest killer ant.
Even those that ran towards him while letting out a screech had their shells burned. It wasn't hard to get rid of them. Looking around, Alex could see that the killer ants were weakend to a great extent.
"Maybe I should just finish them with plain use of sword and dagger."
The ants that were still alive or died of suffocation had now weakened to the extent that they could only barely move, so he could enjoy them later. Even if the explosion swept through the tunnel, nearly half of the ants had survived the impact.
But Alex was confident.
He strengthened the grip of his left hand that was holding the Splitting Edge. At that moment.
Kieek!
An ant let out a shriek and stepped one foot inside. Alex jumped forward, With a swing of his dagger, the ant's legs snapped as if it was made of foam. Alex jumped up, stepped on the ant and leaped high into the air. Underneath his foot, more than two hundred ants were screeching at him.
['Basic Sword Mastery' skill proficiency has increased. 2.1%]
[Your Strength has increased by 1 point]
[Your Agility has increased by 1 point]
['Basic Dagger Mastery' skill proficiency has increased. 2.1%]
[Your Agility has increased by 1 point]
[Your Dexterty has increased by 1 point]
Feeling the sword and the dagger in his hands, his movements had gotten much quicker and swifter. After continuously fighting with the killer ants only using close combat abilities without using any magic, notifications appeared as soon as the last killer ant fell to the ground and then turning into dust.
[The proficiency of the skill 'Basic Sword Mastery' has dramatically increased. 82, 83%…..96, 97%…..100%.]
[Congratulations! You have reached the maximum proficiency of your 'Basic Sword Mastery' skill.]
[Your understanding of sword has reached a new level.]
[The level of Basic Sword Mastery has risen.]
[All stats related to your skill increase.]
[Strength increased by 10.]
[Dexterity increased by 12.]
[Agility...]
[The proficiency of the skill 'Basic Dagger Mastery' has dramatically increased. 85, 86%…..96, 97%…..100%.]
[Congratulations! You have reached the maximum proficiency of your 'Basic Dagger Mastery' skill.]
[Your understanding of dagger has reached a new level.]
[The level of Basic Dagger Mastery has risen.]
[All stats related to your skill increase.]
[Strength increased by 10.]
[Dexterity increased by 12.]
[Agility...]
Looking at the system messages, Alex now knew that skill points wasn't the only thing that could raise the level of his skills. Also unlike the way that skill points only raised the level of skills, if he leveled up a skill by maximizing the proficiency, it would led him to acquire bonus stats.
Satisfied with this discovery, Alex inspected the upgraded skills.
[Basic Sword Mastery Lv.2]
Rating: Normal
[Allows the user to freely handle swords. Increases sword damage by 8%.
Type: Passive
Skill Proficiency: 0%
Cooldown Time: None.]
[Basic Dagger Mastery Lv.2]
Rating: Normal
[Allows the user to freely handle daggers. Increases dagger damage by 8%.
Type: Passive
Skill Proficiency: 0%
Cooldown Time: None.]
As Alex was about to make his hypothesis about the skills, he suddenly unconsciously shivered. Following his screaming instinct, Alex ducked luckily avoiding a sharp claws that could easily slice the monsters he had encountered in half.
Immediately turning into a crimson flash and retreating away from his attacker, Alex saw the identity of his attacker after having a safe distance.
It was a war shadow but a lone war shadow. Looking at it, Alex felt a sense of déjà vu remembering that he was also ambushed by a war shadow before.
As if it was cautious towards Alex, the war shadow distanced itself and rushed towards the magic stones in the ground quickly eating every magic stones it grabbed. Looking at its behavior, Alex could confirm that this war shadow is definitely a strengthened species.
Unlike the last time where the strengthened war shadow immediately attacked him, the war shadow was stealthily moving around, occasionally munching the magic cores that should have belong to Alex.
"Is it stealing my loot?"
