An Unbound Soul

I spent the next few days delving down to floor seven, using my more conventionally unconventional staff and alternating between eyes and [Mana Perception] to see. I even managed to gain a few skills levels, one each in my weapon style and both of my pool regeneration skills, but I couldn't get too worked up about them; my excitement was reserved for whatever Grover was going to produce this time.

The time for my next visit came around far too slowly, but eventually I found myself back at the target range, Vargalas rubbing his hands together in glee, and Grover handing over something that looked nothing whatsoever like the chain-mail glove I'd given him to modify. There was a rune-covered plate that fit to the back of my hands, with wide clips around my four fingers and an attached bracelet. There seemed to be only four crystals, one mounted on the back of each finger, but the plate and even the bracelet were obviously functional parts of the whole; my [Mana Perception] could see the mana running through them along neat pathways.

Prototype Electro-Thaumic Projector (Quality: 50)

- Enchantment: Comfort (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Durability (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Lightning resistance (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Lightning affinity enhancement (Rank 4)

Yup, there was no way whatsoever that this thing could be compared to the kid's toy I built with Kari and Remous. I was wondering how to wear it, given how tight the bracelet looked, but the comfort enchantment took care of everything, the bracelet apparently expanding just enough to slide over my hand. I'd have thought it stretching like that would damage whatever detailed work went into tracing out the mana pathways, but there was no such problem.

With the device clipped onto my fingers, I aimed at the target and jumped in surprise as a massive arc of lightning leapt towards it. Of course, my sudden uncontrolled hand movements meant that my neat mana pathways were no longer attached to the crystals, causing me to jerk again as the bolt earthed itself through me instead. Fortunately, the shock didn't continue, the device shutting itself off moments after I lost control. That was lucky, because unlike my own rank one crystals I lost a couple of points of health from that shock. Yay for safety features.

"You could have warned me it was going to be so much more powerful than the old model!" I complained, activating [Endurance] again.

"What sort of low opinion do you have of us, that you thought something we carefully built would be as weak as something a kid threw together?" Vargalas replied, somehow managing to smirk despite the corners of his mouth still pointing downwards.

I took my stance and fired for a second time, this time more prepared for the blinding bolt it spat out. I maintained it for a few seconds, after which the weapon cut out on its own again, catching me by surprise. What happened that time? I turned to ask, then decided I should try to do at least some thinking for myself. That bolt was far too big; there was no way the surface ambient mana could sustain it. Sure enough, a second inspection of the device revealed that a region of previously high mana now contained almost nothing, but I could see more trickling back into it. I'd just drained the battery, and now it was recharging.

Switching to a more intelligent question than 'why did it cut out', I asked, "how long does it take to recharge?"

"Here on the surface, a couple of minutes. The higher the ambient mana, the faster it'll recharge," Grover answered. "But don't take it below floor twenty in any dungeon, or the mana will overwhelm it."

"Pssh. There you go, playing safe again," Vargalas interjected. "It'll be fine to floor twenty-five, unless you screwed up when building it."

I played with it a bit longer. I couldn't control the strength of the bolts, but I could use a single crystal instead of all four. With the previous glove, I could only scorch the wooden targets, but with this one, even a single crystal was sufficient to burn through them. Using all four made the targets simply stop existing. Given what the weaker old version did to the low level goblins, surely this must be a viable weapon even against the higher level monsters.

The reduction in crystal count meant I was no longer pushing against the limits of my skill, either, so I'd be able to use this along with my active mana scanning, at least at short range. I'd obviously need a few trial runs first, but if all went well, I would risk floor eight.

With the interesting part taken care of, we moved on to the boring topics of distribution rights and royalties. Even if it was my original idea, they were the ones who had actually designed a viable weapon and then built the thing, so I ended up agreeing to a small cut of any future sales. They didn't want to just buy the design from me outright, which I would have preferred, but I supposed it made sense; even if mana control skills suddenly became more popular, it would take time to raise them to the level required to use something like this, so there was no prospect of a large imminent payoff.

I did at least convince Grover to re-enchant my armour for me by pointing out that losing control of the weapon had injured me, which was a nice bonus. Annoyingly, he couldn't slap rank four stat enchantments on my rings even if he wanted to; apparently stat enchantments of a higher rank than the wearer would have no effect.

Dire Wolf Leather Armour (Quality: 46)

- Enchantment: Comfort (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Durability (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Sharpness (Rank 4)

- Enchantment: Lightning resistance (Rank 4)

Sharpness on armour seemed strange to me, even more so than having it on my not-sharp-at-all staff, but apparently it was a standard one. It could blunt or deform any weapons that struck the armour, acting synergistically with durability. The increased comfort rank was nice, too, the slightly too-small armour immediately feeling less tight and restrictive. Hopefully, it would now last a bit longer before I grew out of it completely. I didn't know how much difference the increased durability would make, but if it meant assassins would have a harder time penetrating it to gut me, I'd be very happy.

With my new weapon in hand, or on hand, or over hand or whatever, I re-entered the dungeon, and gave the first floor boss an unhealthy dose of electricity. The trio of goblins were vaporised. I couldn't help but grin as I rushed through the dungeon, spitting lightning from my hand and melting goblin after goblin. It wasn't until the orc boss of floor five that a monster managed to remain intact after a direct hit, but even then it didn't survive the hit.

I made it down to floor seven without issue before teleporting out. I made a second run, this time using active mana scanning to track the goblins, and trying to zap them through the interference. It was difficult, but after a few more runs, I felt like I had a decent handle on its behaviour and the resulting reduced range. With no problems that I could see, I decided that tomorrow I'd try floor eight.

Making my way through floor eight the next morning, it occurred to me that it may have been better to try a little later in the day, after the assassins' numbers had been whittled down a bit by other parties. The buggers seemed to be everywhere, ambushing me after every room, sometimes two at a time. A couple of them even tried to sneak up while I was collecting the core from a previous kill. Fortunately, they were weak enough to not be a threat, particularly since I could now see their movements clearly enough to parry them.

In any case, it wasn't the mobs that worried me; it was the boss. I stepped into the chamber again, this time with no backup to come save me if things went awry. I probably should have come here with Vyre again, or at least had a backup plan of some sort, at least until I'd beaten the group once. It wasn't for no reason that the System had seen fit to bestow me with the [Self-Destructive] title, and I wouldn't be surprised if I picked up some sort of risk taker trait soon... Despite having promised my parents I wouldn't take risks... Drat. After this fight, I needed to tone things down a bit. It wasn't the first time I've thought that, but this time I meant it. Honestly. Maybe.

Last time it was the goblins' coordination that caused me problems, so I didn't start with the assassins. Before starting up my mana cyclone, I pointed at the general from outside the arena, and unloaded the full three seconds of lightning at him. I was concerned his metal armour would protect him, but I needn't have worried; while I didn't vaporise him, by the end of the three seconds his green skin had turned black, and smoke was curling out of the seams of his armour. He collapsed to the ground, dead. The rest of the goblins staggered as their buffs broke, and I managed to take out two of the three ranged assassins with [Far Reach] before the mob reached me and forced me to defend.

As before, the spells slung by the sages were blown far off course, and hopefully, this time they wouldn't learn to adapt with their general dead. The three surviving assassins had stealthed themselves, and I made sure to keep a close eye on the last remaining archer. I used [Far Step] to get away from the group of heroes and knights, engaging the last ranged assassin at short range. In response, he let go of his bow and stabbed the arrow he was still holding towards my face. I looked downwards, causing it to glance off my helmet, and smashed the goblin's head in with a retaliatory strike. Apparently it wasn't just the influence of the general; these goblins kept making non-standard attacks even without him.

While I was off balance from the archer's unexpected strike, the other two assassins made a pincer attack. I fended off one with my staff, and the other I zapped. Given my poor positioning and that the glove hadn't recharged, neither attack was fatal, but now they were both more off balance than I was, leaving me to bash both of their skulls in before they recovered.

I took my distance from the arena, checking one of the sages with [Analysis] to see how viable it would be to run them out of mana. It seemed the answer was not very; they still had plenty in the tank. This time I'd try to take them out at range, rather than risk another spell to the chest.

The mob of front-line fighters was still too big for me to fight directly, so I picked them off with [Far Reach]. Thanks to their mindless strategy of endlessly charging towards me, I could [Far Step] around the chamber to get away from them whenever they got too close, making them no threat at all. By the time I was done, the glove had recharged, so I dropped my mana cyclone and electrocuted the group of mages. One of them did manage to get a spell off in the brief gap, but another [Far Step] dodged it.

With that, it was all over. The eighth floor boss cleared without me taking a scratch.

ding

Strength increased by 1

Skill [Strength] advanced to level 11

Skill [Dexterity] advanced to level 10

Skill [Greater Mana Finesse] advanced to level 12

Skill [Mana Perception] advanced to level 12

Skill [Greater Mana Control] advanced to level 12

Skill [Weapon Style: Flowing Mist] advanced to level 10

Skill [Extended Mana Pool] advanced to level 3

Class [Body Mage] advanced to level 18

New title acquired: [Magician]

And that was why I liked to fight these bosses without the safety net. The fight maxed out my mana control skills and left me only two levels away from a class change. Although speaking of levels, [Analysis] hadn't ticked upwards yet. I hadn't been using it as much as [Appraisal] because of the higher mana cost, but surely I should have got a level by now? And I'd gained yet another new title, too. I thought those things were supposed to be rare?

[Magician] - You possess a significant amount of mana, showing great staying power while slinging your spells. Mana regeneration boosted by 10%. (Rank 1)

Maybe for hitting a hundred mana then? The extra level to [Extended Mana Pool] had taken me a tad over a hundred and six, albeit only with the aid of my intelligence boosting ring. Not a particularly interesting title, but at least it wasn't another negative one.

I looted the chest and exited the dungeon, before diving right back in and doing the whole thing over again. It wasn't a risk if I could clear it without taking a scratch, right?