Grinding (2)

My vision went dark, and when I opened them again, I was at the exact same place.

throne room that was in ruins, but this time I wanted to see if there were any details here that could help me.

Ruins, debris, pillars, and cracks on the wall were mostly everything here. But behind the knight, I saw a very old painting. It was hard to see what was in the painting because of the darkness.

With the only light source being the sunrays that shined through the cracks,

This time, when my gaze lingered on the knight, there was no subtle shift. Instead, it was very aggressive as he slowly walked over to me.

I could feel the anger radiating out of him. I had no idea why he was this different compared to last time.

"Hey, can you understand what I am saying?".

He continued to walk forward without a single word escaping from his mouth.

So he can't communicate with me, or at least he doesn't understand what I am saying.

He lunged at me, his sword arcing through the air with lethal intent.

I deflected the blow, and with my strength increasing by 10, I thought I wouldn't be knocked back.

But just like last time, I crashed into the wall. This time, it was more forceful than last time.

Cough!

I started to cough up blood, and I thought he would follow up with an attack.

Yet in the middle of the ruined throne room, he was completely still and just staring at me, kneeling on the ground. This was just like last time, except he was stronger than before.

Did he get stronger because I also became stronger? If it worked like that, it would be close to impossible to defeat him.

But holy sh*t, he made me cough up blood. In all my regressions, I have never done that before.

I probably got an internal bleeding when I crashed into the wall.

I tried to stand up, but it was hurting too much.

'Have I already lost?'

I shouldn't have tried to block that attack. It would have been better if I had dodged.

'Is that why he was standing still?'

He probably knew that he had already won. I slowly tried to stand up again, but my vision was fading.

[You have failed the challenge!]

- Returning back to the floor

I teleported back to the field.

As I stood here, I noticed that the pain that I felt before was gone.

Did he really get stronger because I also did? That would make sense for why I got knocked back.

And because of my low endurance, I couldn't take the damage, and therefore I failed the challenge.

[Floor Cleared!]

[The biggest contributors to clearing the floor]

1st place: Kim Taeho

2nd place: Kim Hanja

3rd place: Lee Min-ho

The announcement appeared again, and this time I was in first place.

At the same time, I tried to connect the dots. The first time I met the optional boss, I was in 41st place, and he was not that aggressive and even let me live at the end.

But now that I was in first place, he was suddenly a lot more aggressive.

I realized that this could be the case, but I only had one question: why?

It didn't make sense for me. Isn't killing monsters a good thing? Why would he become more aggressive the more monsters I killed?

Maybe I am thinking wrong. It was probably that the higher the ranking, the more aggressive the boss would be.

Unless the knight was not a human and was actually a monster, I kept thinking that he was a human, but if he were a monster, it would make so much more sense.

That's probably why he would get angrier if you killed more monsters. I think it's time to see what the reward for getting first will be.

[Your rewards]:

- Weapon Selection

- Elixir selection

- Mana stone [D]

- Amulet: Aegis of the Last Stand

- Random skill [B]

These rewards were really good, and as I clicked on them one by one,

[You will get the rewards after leaving the floor.]

"Are you f*cking kidding me?"

What was the point of getting these rewards if I could only get them after I left the floor?

You will be returned to earth.

[Perfect clarity was not achieved.]

[Skill activation]

- Perfect Clear [X]

[Returning to the moment you first entered this floor]

*****

I pierced the wolf with my sword.

[Announcement: The special monster has been killed; new enemies will spawn.]

[Announcement: You have killed the special monster as the biggest contributor; please choose a reward.]

[Elixir of Endurance]

[Elixir of Agility]

[Elixir of Strength]

[Skill 'Wolf steps[C]']

[Skill 'Regeneration[C]']

After I regressed, I killed monsters so I could make the wolf spawn. Because right now, my method is very straight-forward.

Kill the wolf and get all the rewards. Fight the knight and try to defeat him to get all those rewards.

I picked the 'elixir of endurance' and the color of the elixir was green. After drinking it, I looked at my status window.

[Name::Taeho Kim] [Level: 13]

[Age: 21]

[Stats]

Endurance: 54.6 (39)

Agility: 54.6 (39)

Strength: 54.6 (39)

Magic: 0 +

Mana: 25 +

[Stat points: 12]

The difference between me now and when I first came to the tower is like the difference between night and day.

After killing the wolf, I immediately went to the forest.

Using mana now was still a little hard. It was like learning how to bicycle.

The way I use mana is by gathering it and then releasing it when it accumulates enough.

If I gathered mana for a long time, I would be able to use more force. For example, if I gathered my mana to my feet for a long time and then jumped.

I would be able to jump almost twice as high as before. So the more I gather mana, the more force I can exert.

But the thing is, after I use all the gathered mana, there is no mana left. Unless I want to spend a few seconds gathering mana again to then spend it all in one move.

The thing is, enemies will never give me those few seconds to gather mana. That's why I have been practicing a new thing.

Instead of gathering mana for a long time, I would try to gather mana in small intervals.

less than a second, making it more effective in battle. Of course, the force it can exert is way less, but at the same time, it's way faster.

That's what I have been trying to practice while killing monsters, and of course I have also been using the 'wolf dash' skill.

It was easy to get the hang of that skill. After using it a few hundred times, it was very natural for me to attack like a wolf.

I just had to swing my sword and use the skill at the perfect moment. It was very effective, or at least against these goblins.

But I have yet to try it against the knight.

After killing enough monsters, the transparent window appeared again.

[Floor Cleared!]