Crystal Entities

You know.

I never really had a hobby for collecting pretty things like this, especially not in my previous life.

I guess everything that happened made me want to have a peace of mind.

Hit by a car, reincarnated as a light bulb, got stuck in a cave, and even got scared that crap out of by a monster...

Sometimes I just want to believe that everything that happened was just a dream.

After letting out a mental sigh, I picked off the ground what would be my fifty-eighth flower and placed it into my「Dimensional Storage」. It's already been about half an hour since I started collecting these flowers and there doesn't seem to be an end to them. They're pretty so I won't complain.

The scenery Is still that of a crystal biome that resembles a rough forest and very was pleasant to the eye. My「Mana Sense」suggests to me that the mana density in the air continues to increase as I venture forward, the chances of encountering stronger enemies should be higher than ever now.

It's not long until I encounter my first enemy.

In the distance, I spot what looks like the top half of a person with two floating hands with sharp claws. The being was made entirely from floating groups of rocks and crystals clustered together. As I peer out from behind the giant group of crystals to get a better look, I began to notice that the shape of the monster's rock head resembled a lizard and there was also a glowing blue orb sticking out slightly from its chest.

「Appraisal」

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Name: none

Race: Crystal Wraith

Skills:「Crystal Flame」,「Regeneration」,「Air Claw」,「Enhance Defence」

Race Skills:「Stone Body」,「Float」

Resistances: Medium Physical Resistance, Fire Magic Resistance

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Wah! An inanimate monster!

My first time seeing one!

If I use the rock that it's floating next to as a reference, It size would probably be one and a half meters tall with its torso alone.

I guess my next opponent is decided.

Lowering the brightness of my body, I began to sneak my way around the crystals and stealthily made my way to the crystal wraith. I've never seen an ability like「Crystal Flame」before so I'll have to be careful.

As I came within twenty meters of the crystal wraith, I quietly took out all three of my weapons and hurled the adamantite hammer towards the monster. After absorbing many cores, my「Telekinesis」has seen heavy improvements that would put its previous self to shame. What would have been impossible for it to lift can now be thrown around with high speed and precision, naturally the hammer was no exception.

The hammer travelled in the air at a high speed towards the monster's back. As if sensing the danger, the crystal wraith turned around and opened its mouth before spitting out a ball of sparkly blue fire.

*BOOM!*

The two projectiles impacted each other in mid-air and set the hammer off course as it landed on the ground.

Damn it!

It can do that?!

That's cheating!

Cheating I say!

As if angered by the sneak attack, the crystal wraith charges towards me while lighting up its mouth and shooting fireballs towards my location. The sudden attack startles me and the opportunity to dodge slips out of my hands so I pulled Arondite in front of me to block the attacks.

Surprisingly, as they came into contact with Arondite, instead of impacting and causing an explosion the fireballs simply dispersed into the air without doing any harm.

Huh?

What just happened?

...Oh!

「Anti-Magic」!

The crystal flames are magic so they're countered by my sword!

During the time that the barrage of fireballs had both contacted my sword and crashed into the surroundings, the crystal wraith had closed the distance with immense speed. Shrouding its hands in crystal flames, the wraith swung its claw down towards me. I reacted by swinging Arondite upwards to intercept the incoming danger.

*CLANG!*

The exchange ends in my favour as the crystal flames on the monster's hand are dispersed by「Anti-Magic」and Arondite cuts halfway into the crystal wraith's claw. The fact that the wraith's hand wasn't cut clean off means that the monster also used「Enchance Defence」on their claw during the clash between our weapons.

This is gonna be troublesome...

Thinking about this, I poured mana into the bow which was floating a few meters away from us and fired a streak of mana arrows towards the crystal wraith. Seeing this, the wraith simply raised its freehand and swiped it into the air. Three arcs of wind blades shot out from its claws and collided with the mana arrows, destroying them in the process. During this time, I used「Telekinesis」to pull back the adamantite hammer from the ground and had it slammed into the back of the crystal wraith causing it to lose balance and fall forward. Taking the opportunity, I pulled back Arondite before swinging it down and slashing the right side of the monster's body.

The crystal wraith retreats backwards and spits out another crystal fireball at me which I disperse with a swing of the sword. After clearing all the fireballs, I noticed that the damage on the monster's claw caused by our exchange has disappeared. A group of small rocks and crystals quickly floated off the ground and planted themselves in the crystal wraith's injuries. Over the course of a few seconds, the crystal wraith had easily fixed all the damage to its body.

What the heck!

He's cheating even more. Wheres the ref!?!

Red card!!!

Crap. This guy is really tough.

As I continued my complaints in my mind, the orb in the crystal wraith's chest began to glow and both of its hands became shrouded in crystal flames. The wraith dashed forward and brandished its flaming claws at me in a wild fashion. I dodged to the right to avoid the left claw and stabbed my sword forward towards the monster, knocking aside the right claw in the process.

Seeing that my blade was going towards its orb, the crystal wraith suddenly panicked and inelegantly twisted its body. My sword barely misses the orb and stabs into the chest of the monster. Confused, I pulled my sword out and retreated before the wraith can give me a face full of flames.

Hmm?

It's unusually protective of that orb in its chest...

Suspicious! SUSPICIOUS!!

DESTROY!!!

With the desire to confirm my suspicion, I readied all my weapons and charged towards my enemy at full speed. My sudden burst of aggression startles the wraith as it visibly struggles to destroy my mana arrows with its blades of wind. keeping up the pressure, I closed the gap between us and swung down the hammer as hard as I could towards the glowing orb while also stabbing Arondite towards its stone lizard head.

*BOOM!* *CRACKKK!*

With its hands lit in flames, the wraith prioritised the safety of the orb in its chest and raised up both its hands to block the hammer. The hands of the monster suffered multiple large cracks from the impact of the hammer while its head was completely pierced by my sword. Seeing that the orb in its chest was most likely its weak point, I began to exert more force onto Arondite. Slowly but smoothly, the sword began to cut its way through the wraith's crystal body with its razor-sharp edge and crept closer and closer to the orb. Realising that it was in a bad spot, the crystal wraith suddenly activated its crystal flames once again.

WHAT!?!?

*crackle* *crackle* *BOOM!!*

The crystal flames covered the entire wraith's body before exploding outwards and blasting everything a short distance away. During the explosion, the flames managed to cover and burn me all over. The scorching heat of the flames causes intense pain to scream in my mind, causing me to blank out for a few moments. My influence over my weapons was released, as I was blasted backwards a few meters into the air like a balloon being kicked across the room.

Crap, it hurts.

Gotta pull myself together...

After mentally recovering from the still throbbing pain, I looked up from the ground to observe the situation. All my weapons were scattered over the ground and the head of the adamantite hammer seems to have melted a bit. Although I was in a pretty sorry state because of that attack, the wraith seems to have it worse. Most of its body was gone and all that remained was the orb and the cluster of rocks and crystals it stuck out of laying on the floor. Soon enough, the surrounding rocks and crystals that were small enough began to float towards the orb and reform the wraith's body. The wraith's regeneration was visibly much slower than before but still fast enough to reform completely in a few minutes. By the looks of it, it's not able to float right now and is focusing everything in regenerating its body.

Not that I'll give it a chance though.

The wraith probably thought that the crystal flame explosion would kill me so it put everything into it.

Honestly, if I didn't have Thermal Resistance I probably would have been a goner.

The monster made a gamble and it lost.

Enduring the searing pain all over my body, I floated over to Arondite as fast as I could. If I use「Telekinesis」to influence something over a certain distance the skill will start to consume mana, I'd rather not do that right now since I feel that I don't have much of it left.

Seeing that I was floating over to my sword, the wraith's half reformed head opened its mouth and began shooting crystal fireballs towards my location. The fireballs were less numerous and intense than before but I still only managed to barely dodge them and pick up Arondite to disperse the rest. The wraith continued to fire at me as I held Arondite in front of me as a shield to take advantage of its「Anti-Magic」attribute. I began to pour mana into Arondite.

It hurts.

I feel like my mana is about to run out, but victory was within my grasp so I endured the searing pain on my body. The pain became more and more intense as I poured mana into the sword. Seeing that its efforts to interrupt my attack was useless, the wraith covered its core with its still reforming body and covered itself in crystal flames.

It doesn't matter what you do to protect yourself.

It's over you rock headed bastard.

As soon as the attack was ready, I swung down Arondite and unleashed a blue arc of light which flew towards the crystal wraith.

*BOOM!*

The arc of light sliced right through the wraith's defensive combination of「Enhance Defence」and「Crystal Flame」and cut its whole body clean in half down the middle. The two halves of the wraith fell with a thud onto the ground and shivered before collapsing into a pile of crystal and rocks, revealing the two halves of the orb it was protecting.

It's over.

I won.

Damn it, my body hurts like hell.

I can feel that my body has almost no more mana left...

I really screwed up this time didn't I...

Gotta get the core...

As I floated towards the pile of rubble and shattered crystals, the illuminating light from my body began to flicker weakly.