"Huff—huff—huff—"
In the empty corridors of the underground labyrinth, the sound of Leon's ragged breathing—which had become heavy at some unknown point—echoed clearly, refusing to subside for a long time.
Covered in wounds and drenched in blood, Leon stood in the center of the pale blue passage, his hand trembling as he gripped his small straight sword. For a moment, he couldn't make a single move; he just stood there in a daze, looking at his surroundings.
The originally large number of Kobolds had completely vanished. All that remained were shards of crystal-clear Magic Stones scattered across the ground, flickering with an eerie luster.
In addition to the Magic Stone shards, there were sharp claws and teeth on the floor, clearly dropped from the bodies of those Kobolds.
Leon stared blankly at the scene for a long while before collapsing into a seated position on the ground, nearly falling flat on his back. Sharp pain radiated from every part of his body, a grim reminder of just how severe his injuries were.
His head also throbbed with a rhythmic, needle-like pain, forcing Leon to press his hands against his temples. It felt as nauseating as a terrible hangover.
"Did I overextend my Mind?"
Leon immediately understood his situation.
To resolve the life-threatening danger he had just faced, he had used magic over a dozen times. On several of those occasions, he had consumed extra Mind to trigger additional attacks. Although his Mind hadn't completely bottomed out—which would have triggered "Mind Down" and sent him into a coma—he was nearly at his limit.
This state was the consequence of pushing his Mind to the brink.
"Fortunately, I didn't trigger Mind Down and lose consciousness. Otherwise, any random monster passing by could have taken my life."
Leon thought with lingering fear, silently warning himself never to be so reckless again.
Exhausting one's stamina merely meant being unable to move, but exhausting one's Mind meant being unable to even perceive danger, leaving one completely at the mercy of others.
The seniors in his Familia had once said that the most important thing to remember when using magic is to leave yourself a margin. One must always calculate their remaining Mind and never fall into a state of Mind Down. For a magic user, pushing oneself to the absolute limit was never a good thing.
"Luckily, all the enemies have been dealt with, so I don't need to use a Spirit Elixir directly."
Leon felt the only Spirit Elixir in his small pouch. After hesitating repeatedly, he decided against using it immediately, opting instead to pull out a bottle of standard Potion and a High Potion.
He first drank the standard Potion to put his stamina into a state of rapid recovery. Then, he uncorked the High Potion and poured the deep-colored liquid into his mouth.
In the next second, something miraculous happened.
The wounds covering Leon's entire body began to heal at a rate visible to the naked eye. His pale complexion also regained its color with incredible speed, returning to a healthy glow.
Before long, Leon's injuries were fully restored. Only the bloodstains on his tattered clothes remained as silent witnesses to the fact that the damage he had just sustained was very real.
"As expected of a High Potion worth tens of thousands of Valis. Although it's not as good as an Elixir that can instantly heal any wound, it takes almost no time at all to treat injuries of this level."
Leon stood up from the ground. As if his previous disheveled state had been an illusion, he began to move his body with a normal expression.
"I didn't expect to encounter a situation on the 4th Floor that required a High Potion. Life is truly unpredictable."
Leon felt somewhat emotional. Generally speaking, Floors 1 through 4 were considered safe zones with essentially no life-threatening dangers. Even a rookie adventurer who had just received a Falna and was barely stronger than an ordinary person would find it difficult to encounter true peril on these four floors.
Here, adventurers rarely even encountered monsters in groups. Even on the 4th Floor, monsters like Goblins or Kobolds usually wandered around in isolation.
In these levels, one would typically encounter at most two or three enemies at a time. Encountering more than five was considered terrible luck, let alone a cluster of ten as Leon had.
What followed was even more absurd—the Dungeon had seemingly cheated, blatantly targeting him and forcing him to face an entire legion of Kobolds. In that last wave, Leon must have taken down at least twenty or thirty of them.
Without magic, given his current status where all his basic abilities were at 0, he would have certainly been swarmed to death.
Thinking of his magic, Leon couldn't help but raise his hand and look at his palm.
"So that was my magic—" he muttered.
Using magic felt quite wondrous. It allowed him to truly feel that he was no longer an ordinary person, but someone who had been granted Grace by a god.
Magic was indeed a supernatural power, a crystallization of miracles. As long as it was used, it could successfully turn the tide in most situations, being far more reliable than charging into a mob of monsters with a single sword.
"No wonder so many people hope to obtain magic."
This kind of power was undoubtedly the best way to distinguish oneself from others.
"Mine seems to be a Super-Short Chant magic, yet it already has the power to turn a losing battle around. I wonder what kind of overwhelming power those Wide-Range Annihilation spells that require Super-Long Chants possess—"
Magic was generally categorized into Super-Short Chant, Short Chant, Long Chant, and Super-Long Chant. The longer the incantation, the stronger the magic's power.
Wide-Range Annihilation magic, as the name implied, consisted of AOE spells with massive attack radii. If such magic fell into the Super-Long Chant category, its power would be unimaginable—it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say it could destroy heaven and earth.
The Vice-Captain of the Loki Familia, the High Elf Riveria, specialized in Wide-Range Annihilation magic. As a member of a natural magic race—and royalty at that—and being one of the fewer than ten Lv. 6s in Orario, her annihilation magic possessed immense power even with a Short Chant. It was enough to completely overturn the outcome of a battle or even a war, providing firepower capable of annihilating enemies of a higher level.
Therefore, Riveria was hailed as Orario's strongest mage. At least in terms of raw firepower, no one in all of Orario was stronger than her.
Leon's [Meteor Dance] was clearly a Super-Short Chant magic. Its incantation was extremely brief and it wasn't a Wide-Range Annihilation type, so its raw power certainly couldn't compare to Riveria's at the same level.
However, a Super-Short Chant had its own advantages: it didn't require teammates for protection or support, and it could be cast at maximum speed, allowing it to be applied in combat at any time or place.
For instance, in the situation just now, if Leon's magic had been the type that required time to concentrate on an incantation, he wouldn't have been able to cast it before being torn to shreds by the Kobold army.
"Although its power can't match spells that require time to chant, this magic can obviously be used frequently. This should also provide a good stimulus for training my 'Magic' stat," Leon thought, clenching his fist.
"Furthermore, my magic's power can be increased by consuming extra Mind. As long as I'm willing to go all out and ignore the consumption, boosting the power might make it rival Long Chant spells that take time to cast."
Plus, with the usage of adding attack counts, maybe it could also be used to expand the attack range?
In Leon's mind, a scene flashed of countless meteors streaking across the sky and falling, completely obliterating the earth. If he could truly pull that off—
"—the potential of this magic could be described as terrifying."
Currently, he was still weak. Not only was he Lv. 1, but his "Magic" stat was a flat 0, so the power was still small. Once his level and Magic stat increased, the power would undergo a startling transformation, turning the vision in his mind into reality.
"A magic with such a promising future... probably not many Elves, even as a natural magic race, could obtain it, right?"
Leon suddenly frowned.
He was just a "plain and ordinary" human. How did he obtain such high-potential magic? He never felt he was exceptionally gifted, especially in this world where human talent was inherently weaker than that of Elves, Beastmen, Dwarves, or Amazons.
In the realm of magic, the Elves were the authorities. Very few humans possessed great magical talent, and few could even use magic at all, let alone obtain such an excellent spell.
He also wasn't like those people with heavy pasts who harbored intense obsessions or desires. If one possessed an extremely strong obsession or wish, that feeling could be unearthed under the stimulation of the Falna, blooming into a power called "Possibility" and ultimately manifesting as related magic or skills.
But he had none of that. Suddenly obtaining such a future-ready magic felt a bit inexplicable.
Was he actually a magical genius? Or—
"Is it because of that skill?"
Leon thought of that undecipherable special skill—[Otherworlder].
"Permanent removal of all ability limits—could these 'limits' also include the inherent talent or potential of a race and individual?"
If racial and individual talent were considered a type of limit, then once that limit was removed by the [Otherworlder] skill, it would be perfectly reasonable for him to obtain high-potential magic that even natural magic races might not get.
[Meteor Dance]—the naming was intriguing. Much like [Otherworlder], it possessed a "Cosmic" theme.
"Star attribute—this kind of magic attribute is also unheard of."
Most magic fell under natural elemental attributes like Earth, Water, Wind, or Fire, or at most, Light, Dark, Ice, or Lightning. A Star attribute was truly unheard of.
"Forget it. If I can't figure it out, I won't think about it."
Leon shook his head, clearing his cluttered thoughts. Being able to obtain excellent magic was a good thing regardless.
Having seen the convenience and applicability of [Meteor Dance], Leon now had a preliminary idea of the path he should take in the future.
With these thoughts, Leon—his injuries healed and his stamina restored—began to clean up the aftermath. He picked up the Magic Stone shards scattered across the ground one by one and put them in his bag; these could all be sold for money.
"With so many Kobolds, some drop items finally appeared."
Leon smiled as he picked up the sharp claws and teeth. Kobold claws and teeth were drop items that could be used to craft weapons, and their selling price was much higher than that of Magic Stone shards.
"I wonder if I can earn back the cost of that High Potion I used," Leon muttered as he picked up the small shield he had tossed aside and re-equipped it to his left hand.
He took out a pocket watch to check the time and then stood before a tunnel entrance. This was the passage leading to the 5th Floor.
"—Should I go down?"
Leon fell into hesitation. If Floors 1 through 4 were basically harmless areas, then starting from the 5th Floor, the situation would change completely.
From the 5th Floor onward, the Dungeon would change its face, drastically increasing the difficulty of exploration. This difficulty included, but was not limited to, a sharp increase in monster spawns, a wider variety of monsters, more troublesome opponents, and even the layout and terrain of the Dungeon becoming complex enough to hinder adventurers.
Floors 1-4 consisted of pale blue walls and featured low-level monsters like Goblins and Kobolds. There weren't many types, their strength was low, and their numbers were generally small. Even on the 4th Floor, rookie adventurers rarely died; it was a very easy area to clear.
As long as one wasn't surrounded by multiple monsters alone or if they were in a party, an adventurer would definitely not lose their life there. Otherwise, adventurers like Leon, who had just debuted without high stats, wouldn't be able to survive.
However, from the 5th Floor on, it was different. Many troublesome monsters appeared, and the spawn intervals were much shorter than on the 4th Floor. One would frequently encounter several monsters pouncing while walking, and retreats were often cut off by monsters crawling out of the walls. Many rookies accustomed to the upper floors ended up as corpses here, losing their chance to return to the surface forever.
Thus, from the 5th Floor, the cruelty and ruthlessness of the Dungeon began to show. It could be said to be the first major obstacle adventurers had to overcome. Entering the 5th Floor required not only a certain level of ability points but also achievements in experience, equipment, and adventurer survival skills.
Considering this, the newcomer Leon definitely shouldn't enter the 5th Floor, and his original plan didn't include doing so.
But now—
"With magic for protection, I should be able to go down and take a look, right?"
Having witnessed the power of [Meteor Dance], Leon felt tempted.
"—I'll just take a peek near the entrance."
Ultimately, Leon couldn't help himself and stepped into the 5th Floor.
-----------------------------------------------
I handpick only the finest and most captivating novels for you. Don't forget to check out my other novels!
p@treon HongMengZi