Chapter 30

I turned and walked back toward the entrance to the 19th floor as I drifted into thought. Now that I have accomplished my primary goals for now, I thought about my various other plans. The two that came to mind were the development of a new skill that I had been considering for a while now, and the other was to buckle down and begin my search for the Xenos and get in contact with Oranous and Fels. The ladder plan didn't worry me since I knew I had at least a year to leisurely search for the Xenos and knew that it wouldn't take me nearly as long.

My first plan wasn't pressing either, but it would contribute greatly to my growth. I knew that it should work in theory and, most likely, in practice as well. My whole plan for this new skill was based on the fact that you need some sort of sacrifice to summon a daemon in the world of Tensura. I was wondering if you could apply that idea of sacrifice to other things as well, like evolving skills or empowering items and people. Normally, it would be hard to find a lot of sacrifices, but the dungeon gave me a neverending stream of magic stones to sacrifice in exchange for more power.

I thought about this for a while until I found myself standing before the entrance to the 19th floor. I had a few magic stones in my Spatial Storage from my journey down to this floor, so I walked off to the side of the entrance. I went far enough away to be sure that nobody could interrupt my experiment. Then, I took out a few hundred magic stones and placed them in a pile on the ground. Once they were all out, I called on Regulus's power to fuze the collection of stones into one large clump, then I placed my hand on it. I imagined using the stone as a sacrifice and then drawing its power into my Extra Skill: Magic Sense in order to evolve the skill.

I didn't think this amount of power would be enough to evolve Magic Sense into Universal Sense, but I was fairly certain that it would be enough to get me the skill if there was one to get from this endeavor. I could have attempted this experiment with much fewer magic stones, but I wanted to be certain I was using enough, so I decided to go big in my attempt. It didn't take long until the stone was heating up under my touch, and then I moved away as it began to crack and break apart. Eventually, the stone shattered into a million pieces, causing me to cover my eyes, but I saw that the prices simply dissolved into nothingness in the air before hitting anything.

I immediately felt a flood of energy enter my body and touch something deep within me. I waited as the pressure inside me built and built, like when you blow too much air into a balloon. It was just as I felt discomfort grow inside me that something finally snapped, and the energy surged into Magic Sense. With the influx of energy, I felt the skill undergo a transformation. My senses surged even further away from my body, and the information they were able to absorb soared as I felt Parallel Operation and Thought Acceleration amp up their power to deal with the influx of information. After a moment, when everything settled down, Great Sage spoke in my mind twice.

[Extra Skill: Magic Sense evolved into Extra Skill: Universal Sense]

[Unique Skill: Sacrifice acquired]

Before I even comprehended the messages, the sudden influx of information entered my mind. Once more, I felt stupefied at how little information I had been able to grasp about the world around me before. Not only did my range increase by a wide margin, but I could now also sense heat and sound within the radius of Universal Sense in addition to everything else. Only after I spent a few minutes marveling at my newfound senses did I finally turn my attention back to the messages. I smiled as I pulled up my status screen and looked at my new skill before my eyes opened wide in shock as I realized exactly what sort of power I had gained from a casual experiment.

The four subskills of Sacrifice were Essence Enrichment, Forced Evolution, Temporary Empowerment, and Permanent Empowerment. Essence Enrichment simply enhanced inanimate objects like weapons, armor, or even walls with the power of whatever is sacrificed. It functioned a bit like enchanting, except it just gives a general boost instead of specific magical effects. Then there was Forced Evolution, which was very self-explanatory. It overwhelms the skill with a lot of energy, forcing the skill to evolve. Theoretically, I could get an Ultimate skill with this, but I couldn't imagine how many millions of magic stones it would take to do so.

Temporary Empowerment was the most interesting subskill Sacrifice had. It works like a buff where It can be used on weapons and people to enhance their power significantly, but the greater the boost, the less time it lasts. This could even temporarily push an adventurer to the next level for a while. I figured it would come in handy in case I need a rapid boost in strength during a dire situation in the future. Lastly, Permanent Empowerment is like Essence Enhancement for living beings. It can be used to raise my stats, but unfortunately, the exchange of power into stats is terribly inefficient. However, from now on, I will still use a portion of the magic stones I collect to raise my stats, even though it is less efficient than training and fighting normally.

My desire to collect more magic stones suddenly shot through the roof, so I took off to challenge some monsters on the 19th floor. Since I was close by, it only took me a few minutes to decent down from the 18th floor. As soon as I emerged onto the floor, I looked out in awe at the jungle that seemed to cover the entire floor. Bright, thick trees and foliage were everywhere, making it easy for monsters to hide themselves, but with Universal Sense, everything around me was revealed. Once I arrived on the floor, I moved through the trees to one of the edges of the floor and activated Fatal Attraction.

It didn't take long until Bugbears, Battle Boars, Lizardmen, and Firebirds flocked toward my location. I also watched as they were birthed from the walls and ground of the dungeon around me. I quickly manifested Regulus and prepared myself for the battle. I moved to take out the Firebirds first so that they wouldn't start forest fires when attacking me. While fire wasn't a treat to me, I wasn't enough of a douche to let other people die from something I could easily prevent.

I jumped up and soared through the air to strike down any approaching Firebirds. Theoir scorching aura and fire attacks did nothing to me as I stuck them down with my spear. Regulus also shot them down from the sky with jagged shards of rock that tore through flesh and bone alike with ease. I fell into the crowd of monsters and swung my spear in rapid succession, trying to activate Chain Attack as often as possible. Since I was in a tide of monsters I noticed the strength of each subsequent attack grow stronger until I was ripping though monsters with my massively enhanced attacks.

Since I was training I made sure to let my built up power fade every once in a while so that I could gain it back once more. I twirrled in close amongst the monsters, targeting weak point and building up the power of Chain Attack before backing away. I repeated this process over and over. I also began to use Sacrifice on every other monster and channeled the slain monter's power to perminatly enhance the power of Chain Attack in the hopes of getting it to H rank faster. Of course, that meant I had to sacrifice half of the stones I would have gained, but I didn't mind doing so if it means improving my abilities.

In addition to attacking normally, I sent out pulses of electricity to stun the monsters around me. I also made sure to take a few hits every once in a while to train my endurance. I remained conscious of my movements too, so I dodged and ducked often while spinning my spear in complex patterns before and after attacking. I constantly released the aura of Fatal Attraction at maximum output, so the flow of monsters seemed unending as I focused on striking down each foe in front of me. Eventually, I decided to let Chain Attack build up as much as possible so I spent the last hour of my training getting to the point where I was able to blow monsters apart with just a glancing blow.

In total I had spent a few hours on the 19th floor, so I decided to wrap everything up. I stopped using Fatal Attraction and killed the last of the monsters before collecting a small mountain of magic stones with Regulus's power. Then, I placed everything in my Spatial Storage and prepared to go. I looked around at the site of absolute carnage around me with blood splattered everywhere and trees and bushes alike torn up and shredded for a wide radius around me. Just then, a group of people entered the radius of my senses, so I figured that it was a good time to leave.

I almost began to run, but I remembered Warp Portal and channeled magic power for about a minute before I disappeared in a flash of light. When the light faded I found myself back in my room, standing on my lightly smoking carpet.