I've been on the 6th floor for a few days already, and even since the start, I have my [Mana Crown] activated and fill it with mana whenever I'm not using my mana to train with RTE or something else. After a few days, it’s nicely filled, not even mentioning my reservoir, my core with kinetic and thermal energy, and my own body containing its mana.
A few creepy horse-sized insects with their knock-off domain cannot compare, right?
“Try saving your mana a bit and be more accurate; plenty more will come,” I throw toward Min-Jae, who keeps shooting his hundreds of orbs at the monsters.
“I’m already trying to!”
“But you are missing a lot.”
“There are too many orbs,” he gestures wildly.
“So use fewer of them.”
“But in that case, I won’t deal enough damage to kill them...” he says and sends another barrage, this time towards five venomclaws heading at us.
“How come? Just aim for their vitals.”
His orbs whistle through the air, and he uses them only as it's probably the most mana-effective and deadly attack he can use currently. Under the barrage, the heads of the monsters explode, but that makes Min-Jae push more with his [Telekinesis] as the heads are more durable.“I’m aiming at their heads already.”
“Did you try any other parts? What did you guys even do here on the floor? Did you not dissect at least a few of them to find their weak spots?”
Just for a moment, he stops looking at the monsters and looks at me instead.
What.
Then he turns back, another barrage sent at them, this time until they die.
In addition to these five, close to two dozen venomclaws now lie all around. Probably a nice amount to get more of them here.
The area in front of us is rocky, as is the rest of the 6th floor, a never-ending stretch of gray country with a few spiky mountains in between. Instead of nebulas in the sky and bright stars, now during the day, there is something akin to a dust cloud covering it entirely. That cloud must be really high in the sky.
Maybe a storm? Maybe set by the system? Who knows. That dust is letting through a very orange light that colors everything into that hue. The temperature is also much higher now.
Something tells me if I were here as a human from before the tutorial, I would die quite quickly just because of the environment.
“Nat.”
I thought of it multiple times, but am I considered human? And if I go further, will I stop being one? Someone smarter might have asked What is to be human?
“Nat!”
“What? I’m thinking.”
“There are thirty of them now.”
I answer even without looking at the monsters, “Thirty-two. Just go all out, and if they get too close, I will kill them. Don’t worry about their pathetic knock-off domain. Oh, and make sure you don’t waste all of your mana. That would be disappointing.”
Min-Jae mumbles something, and I sit on the ground to let my legs rest. Actually, my entire body hurts like hell because of the emblem. But so far, I refuse to look at my stats to check the improvement. Something tells me this kind of stuff works best over weeks and months, and seeing just two or three stats up will piss me off.
Sitting down, I look at the boy in front of me.
Min-Jae used to be much scrawnier, but he is now packing a bit more muscle. He still likes to rock that messy haircut and likes to wear nice clothes - as much as the situation offers - and even now, he sports an outfit he got from the 4th floor. Somehow it even survived the 5th floor, the tournament, and the 6th floor so far.
His movements also feel a bit more dangerous? I don’t know a better way to say it. I know he practices with the others and also physically like everyone else here. He is also using his [Telekinesis] and some trait to be able to move his body better, levitate, and stuff.
Everyone here prefers to be at least a bit versatile, so basics of melee combat are a must, and some way to strengthen the body as well.
His [Gravity Well] messes up with the orbs and the five chunks of metal. Dust and smaller stones around him float into the air under the effect of his concentration, and even his yellow left eye activates.
All of the projectiles shoot ahead at a much higher speed than before, bulldozing through the monsters in front of him with ease. Plenty of them fall dead immediately.
The projectiles move back, taking a few more, and then fly high into the air, where they continue to rain down.
Watching this, I think single-use projectiles would be best for him. With thousands of them, he would be quite dangerous against bigger groups of certain enemies. Right now, he has to grab the orbs and pull them back, extracting them from the corpses of the monsters, from deep underground where they get stuck, and sometimes over quite big distances.
Something like that must be much more mana-intensive than just shooting them and forgetting about them. But he has to recycle for now. I’m also sure Tess already knows about that weakness, as she is similar, so they might come up with something interesting.
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As the monsters get closer, Min-Jae expands his [Gravity Well], and the monsters slow down. Smartly, he doesn’t affect big areas with his skill, just smaller spots, enough to take the monster off balance, break its leg, or make it fall entirely. Just to get enough time to get his orbs or throw a chunk of stone at them.
And the entire time, I have my [Mana Domain] to face the pressure from the monsters. At this number, the pressure is noticeable, but even their combined effort cannot push through my domain, strengthened by my Pride. Not even close to it.
Know your place, trash.
Satisfied, I observe my domain, and then Min-Jae, who plops onto the ground next to me, breathing heavily after dealing with all the monsters. I check his mana reserves, and there is still a decent amount remaining.
“Not bad,” I say.
As always, when getting a compliment, he perks up and nods, straightening his posture.
Damn, he is 16 years old already, so why is he so happy about simple compliments? People are weird.
“Your domain is amazing, Nat. I want my own in the future.”
“Right?” I sit up and look at him. “Lately, I have been experimenting with it a lot. Really a lot. You remember that cowardly guy?”
“Uh? Do you... do you mean Savant?”
“Yeah, so he had a domain with that weird poisoning,” I shoot off excitedly. “I tried to duplicate it by just pumping more mana into my domain, but it isn’t that easy. So I tried to compress my mana before feeding it into my domain, and it also didn’t work that well. Sure, some weaker monsters here on the 6th floor die just from that, but that is quite useless against stronger ones. Using [Infusion] on my domain also works nicely. Kinetic energy to slow people in a bigger field, maybe Whitey was using something similar. Or I can fill it with thermal and cook anything inside of my domain, but that’s quite wasteful when it comes to thermal energy, and I have better ways of killing with it. I also like using the domain on my body, you know, declaring my body my domain. In combination with using my pride effect on my domain, it works really well. It might be even better than my Mantle, even though it uses quite a bit of my mana. You know, making my body my domain - for some reason, it sounds super useful. I bet there will be some assholes trying to disrupt my mana, so this could give them quite a surprise, even if they are much stronger than me. I also found that after using Pride on the domain, its quality feels higher, almost as if the skill semi-evolved or became just a bit higher tier, and… oh, give me a moment.”
I stand up, and fifty or so venomclaws are heading this way. They are not that far from each other, their crappy domains combining and shooting toward us as they try to pressure us, poison us with that aura.
This time I feel it a bit, and with a huff, I feed more mana to my skill until their attack just slides by.
The area around us, outside of the perfect circle of my domain, starts to sizzle a bit, bits of the ground melting as greenish mana corrodes and poisons the place. I observe it just for a moment, and having nothing to learn, I create a single javelin, compress it, and shoot ahead where it stabs into the ground in the middle of the group.
It contains a decent chunk of my mana, so as it explodes, I do a little test. Instead of a barrier, I use my domain to try to fight against the effect of the explosion.
[You have defeated Venomclaw - lvl 103]
[You have defeated Venomclaw - lvl 112]
[You have defeated Venomclaw - lvl 108]
[You have defeated Venomclaw - lvl 105]
[You have defeated Venomclaw - lvl 106]
[You have defeated Venomclaw - lvl 104]
…
[Lvl 258 > Lvl 259]
More mana!
[You have defeated Venomclaw - lvl 107]
[You have defeated Venomclaw - lvl 107]
[You have defeated Venomclaw - lvl 101]
…
My domain blocks the effects that are just raw mana, and it does so quite easily. It just doesn’t allow itself to be overpowered by some remains of a random attack.
The heat, shockwave, and pressure are another thing, and they pierce through. At the last moment, I create a dome-shaped barrier around us.
As Min-Jae takes a step back, his own barrier surrounding him, I take a step closer to my barrier. Did he really think I would let it hit us? Maybe I waited ‘till the last possible moment, but he is too much. Tsk.
As for my barrier, it’s pale blue, and ripples are sent through as the effects of my explosion crash against it.
It cannot even be compared to my early barriers which used to be very rigid. This one is slightly flexible and absorbs some of the attack by allowing itself to be pushed at places. Ripples like stones thrown into calm water are sent through.
It’s pretty.
When all the monsters are all dead, I notice more of them collecting much further and turn to Min-Jae, “This time use just two orbs.”
I think I will always love observing people trying to improve and overcome their weaknesses. I find that during such observations, I tend to come up with a lot of good ideas to apply to my own growth.
So, I like to nudge others, just pointing out their weaknesses and throwing ideas at them. In reaction to that, they often come up with solutions I did not think of on my own.
POV Beyond, 1st floor
“What do you think it is?” a short man with a shaved head squats and pokes a small black orb on the ground.
The woman next to him shrugs her shoulders, “I have a suspicion, but I’m not sure yet.”
Both of them are dressed similarly. Simple uniform-like clothes that are a combination of white and pale blue. It doesn’t seem too formal, just like clothes members of the same group would wear to show their belonging.
“Is it a secret I can’t be told?” the man asks and this time sends a bit of his mana toward the black orb. As he does so, the orb absorbs it even as he tries to stop it from happening. It does seem to fascinate him.
“More like I don’t want to come to premature conclusions. Take it and hurry up. Whitey must be nearby.”
“I could probably take Whitey on. I have long since wanted to test myself against him,” the man grumbles but still takes the orb. For a while, he holds it, an expression of deep concentration on his face.
“Fuck, this thing is scary,” he curses in the end. “Even with void energy and my defenses, I cannot fully stop it from taking my mana.”
“I see, in such a case we will skip the vice guild master and go straight to Nyssa. She will want to know. Can you hold on until then?”
“For a while, yes. I managed to slow it down, and it will take a while to empty my mana reserves, but I’m not sure if we can get it through the arrays and you probably don't want others to see it. Nyssa might have to come to us instead.”
“We will decide what to do closer to the safe zone, Whitey is coming closer already. Damn, if he wasn’t a lurker, I would say he feels pissed off.”
After that, they leave, both moving at incredible speed. The few lurkers that get in their way die nearly instantly under their attacks.
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