Assimilate All Talents

Chapter 236: Emotional Damage

"[Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]! [Grim Flames]!"

A Laughing Skull spewed spell after spell without rest, inundating the hallway with its black flames.

Sol stood at the end of the passage, being the target of the countless black flames, and chanted his own spells in return.

"[Light Spear]! [Light Spear]! [Light Spear]! [Light Spear]!"

Unlike the skull, which only summoned one black flame per cast, each of Sol’s casts created three spears of light, quickly surpassing the number of black flames.

The light spears and black flames collided, creating explosions that shook the entire passage. Though Sol’s spears overwhelmed the black flames, the confrontation between the two was even so far. [Light Spear] was an intermediate light spell, while [Grim Flames] was an advanced dark spell. The black flames were on the weaker side compared to other advanced spells, but they were nonetheless stronger than the light spears, requiring two to three light spears to neutralize one black flame.

As the two opposing elements clashed in a stalemate, someone stealthily moved in the shadows to settle the fight. Amber suddenly appeared 30 meters behind the Laughing Skull and sent a slash that distorted the distance, cutting cleanly through the skull. The fragile skull, not even aware there was another enemy lurking in the shadows, died instantly, unable to create a shield in time.

[You have slain a Lv 102 Laughing Skull! Gained 9,444,166 Exp (320%)]

Receiving the notification, Sol stopped chanting and gave her a thumbs up.

"Nice work!"

Amber, on the other hand, disagreed and called him out.

"Didn’t disable skill. Also a waste of mana."

Sol didn’t deny it. "Yeah, but we’re near the stairs, and I wanted to try out the new skill I got. It really was a ludicrous waste of mana, but I can see it being useful in specific scenarios."

The new skill Sol was talking about was [Loop Casting], a passive skill obtained from the Laughing Skull. It allowed him to maintain the pathway of mana used to cast a spell, enabling him to repeatedly cast it by only chanting the final part of the spell’s incantation and sending more mana through the already established path. He found it useful but ultimately limited, as currently the only advanced level magic he had was the one he recently siphoned from the skull, which only knew three advanced spells. But when he read through the description, he immediately combined it with [Superior Mana Control], which turned it into a variant skill.

With the split skull on the ground, Sol turned to it and used [Siphon] as usual.

[[Superior Mana Control (Variant)] leveled up! (2 -> 3)]

’Oh? Already?’ He was pleasantly surprised and opened the updated description.

"N-no, it’s okay." Sol immediately declined. If this was a taste of what’s to come if he learns true cooking from her, he would rather fight A-Rankers.

Sol unsteadily walked away and left her to prepare whatever meal she had in mind. He made a stone hut and shut himself inside.

With his back to the stone door, he slumped down onto the floor and looked at the roof with a distant gaze.

’What... just happened?’

It took Sol a few minutes to recover from such a brutal surprise attack. In an attempt to distract himself from what occurred, he opened the Necropolis dungeon guide and flipped to the pages related to the floors he was on.

’We have fought Nether Wraiths, Laughing Skulls, and Tomb Hulks. The last enemy we haven’t encountered yet is a Zomest.’

Sol reread the undead’s details again, as he had done multiple times, and, like before, did not find anything new.

’If it’s like the Shadow Amalgamation, I can only hope to encounter it once or twice.’

There was really nothing he could do as he didn’t have the time to search until it appeared, so he could only keep traveling and hope.

Closing the book, Sol turned his attention to the strings that flowed out of his body. He noticed that the newly forming skill branching from [Aggregate] had grown in length and size, already being double the thickness of his normal skills.

’It’s getting there; every second I cut down makes it slightly longer.’

Focusing on this direction had positive effects on the formation of the law technique, and until he hit a wall, he intended to keep shaving time off until he could instantly disable his opponents’ skills.

Leaving the matter of his developing law technique, Sol turned to a line that was the real reason he was looking at the colored skill lines. It was a new talent skill he obtained, [Gigantify]. It allowed him to grow in size similarly to the Tomb Hulk, just not as large as it was an incomplete law technique that let it grow to that degree. With the skill, he could become five times larger, reaching nearly ten meters tall while also greatly increasing his strength and vitality at the cost of his speed.

’When I was siphoning it, I felt bloated all of a sudden. It went away when the assimilation was done, but it might be some kind of warning.’

Because of that feeling, Sol didn’t dare to siphon any other talent skills until he figured out the cause. It could have been just a one off feeling from the nature of the talent skill, which involved growing in mass, but his instincts told him otherwise. To investigate further, he decided to see if the cause could be identified through the skill lines. After many minutes of inspecting and analyzing every aspect of the string and his other siphoned talent strings, he could not find anything out of the ordinary.

Just as he was about to go for another round of inspection, a knock was heard from the stone door. Amber opened the door and said, "Food’s ready."

"Thanks, let’s go eat," Sol smiled as he got up from the ground. He had already forgotten the massive blow he was dealt recently and went to eat whatever delicious meal she had cooked up.