Chapter 10: Skill Grade-Emperor.

Nader continued to descend floor by floor. Each floor contained different enemies: giant spiders, scorpions, angry wolves, giant monkeys, and so on. But what abounded most were the traps scattered along the walls and floors of the labyrinth.

However, Nader could easily pick it up thanks to his senses, so he hadn't activated any of them.

"But this is boring..." he said, sighing.

He had already gone down fifty floors in a row and so far he hadn't found anything interesting. The monsters in the maze were weak enough that he wondered if the historians were serious about how scary this maze was.

Still, he remained patient as the Great Orcus Labyrinth was speculated to be about a hundred stories deep.

He hoped that the upper floors contained something that could be used to increase his strength.

He shook his head and diverted his thoughts to the being that had followed him intending to kill him.

"I wonder why it no longer follows me..."

If it had been him, he would have chased his enemy to death. He didn't like a thorn that at any moment could hurt him to stay alive.

"Well, better for me... at least I have time to practice another technique."

He shrugged and walked over to the cave wall. There were no monsters on this floor, so he thought this floor was a resting place.

His right hand glowed before a white claw-like blade formed around his hand. With it, he struck the wall in rapid succession before dissolving it again. He thrust his fist into the stone he had cut and pulled it outward, revealing a three-meter square cave.

He then materialized almost transparent threads, and, like spider webs, wove them in all directions of this floor as he imbued them with his senses.

In this way, he would not have to worry while learning his skills, since, with the slightest movement, these threads would alert him to act accordingly.

He entered the small cave he created and closed the entrance with the same stone he had removed, making the place so dark that it would make it difficult for one to see. He then took out a green stone that he had previously kept in his storage and embedded it in the wall of the small cave.

He sat back as with a thought of his own, dozens of scrolls appeared out of nowhere before falling and piling up on the floor in front of him.

These were the scrolls of skills and techniques he had brought from Levana's bookshelf. Every one of these scrolls was of King grade up to Divine grade.

He delved into his thoughts as he wondered what kind of techniques and skills were what he needed most at the moment.

In his previous life, all his skills and techniques were focused on weapon skills and movement techniques.

Right now, he already had a skill from his past life that allowed him to create almost all weapons with his Nothing Energy.

He also already had a movement technique. However, it was not that strong, or at least, not for now, as when he combined it with other techniques, its degree and power would increase.

Likewise, he possessed a medium mastery of almost all weapons from his past life. And of course, he already had a defense skill, which in this case was his innate skill [Heavenly Armor], which until now he had yet to use.

"Now that I think about it, I have almost everything I need to kill my enemies. Though I'll need to increase my mastery in its uses and increase my stats to see it through." He thought as he picked up a scroll that had a dark and ominous aura to it.

[Absorption.

Grade: Emperor.

Description: uses the energy of the Law of Death to decompose the body of a corpse and turn it into a strengthening fertilizer.

* Steals small amounts of statistics from corpses.

* Steal one or more skill information from corpses so that you can train and learn it.

- Absorption is limited to corpses that belonged to a being not much stronger than you.

Secondary Effect: Accumulates impurities in the body of beings who practice this skill].

"Mmm... this seems to be pretty good," he muttered.

What he needed most right now was to increase his stats quickly, as he didn't want his head to be blown off by the enemy sword. That was the main reason why he had brought this ability from Levana's domain as it seemed to him the best option to increase his stats.

As for stealing skill information, even though he didn't need it that much because he had the skill scrolls he brought from Levana's domain along with some skills from his past life, it might prove to be useful.

After all, there were skills that, despite being low grades, turned out to be quite useful. For example, his ability to materialize his energy into almost anything was an [Earth Grade] skill. Even if they were weak, he could fuse them with his [Integrator] skill so it wasn't a waste of time to learn it.

As for the side effect of the skill, Nader blew it out the window. Levana had mentioned that his Nothingness Energy had cleansed all the impurities from his body, giving him a perfect body with no imperfections, which meant that the side effect of this ability would be counteracted by his energy.

Considering all this, he tore the skill scroll in half, intending to learn it.

Instantly, a misty, golden light shot out from the scroll before coming into contact with Nader's forehead. Although his mind was flooded by a wealth of new information, his mind was not overloaded due to his mental defense.

According to the information he received from the scroll, the Law of Death is the main source of origin for this ability to work, so he had no choice but to learn that Law first.

He closed his eyes and began to concentrate. He imagined and relived the moment when the veil of death had covered his soul to take him out of his mortal body.

Thus, he spent a few hours sitting in the same place before the changes in his body showed themselves.

A strange and ominous blackish energy began to surround Nader's figure.

Tufts of his snow-white hair were painted with a dark, dull black color.

The black energy swirled around his furiously before it stagnated and began to be absorbed through the pores of his body. The darkness that painted his hair began to recede as if time was rewinding, leaving his appearance as it was.

Although he was surprised that he could understand the Law of Death in such a short time, he did not open his eyes so as not to lose the state of his concentration.

Of course, the reason he was able to learn the [Law of Death] so quickly was that he had already died to witness the entrails of death itself, which made him familiar with this terrifying Law.

Without paying attention to anything but himself and partly to his threads imbued with his senses, he continued to concentrate to be able to learn the [Absorption] skill.

Thus, seconds, minutes, and hours passed while within him constant changes were occurring.

The dark energy that seemed to want to corrupt anything was wriggling like a worm near his soul as if it wanted to merge with him.

Nader did not stop it, rather, he cooperated with the Law of Death with his senses focused so that the Law could merge with his soul. For as far as he knew from Levana's explanation, the skills and techniques from [King Grade] to [Divine] should be engraved in one's soul so that they could execute them.

After another hour, the Law of Death took a strange shape resembling a black rune that was carved into Nader's soul. The rune was composed of several archaic and opaque symbols surrounded by a circular shape of the same color.

Nader sighed and opened his eyelids, revealing two eyes as dark as the mouth of the abyss. However, it wasn't long before his heterochromatic eyes replaced him again.

[You have learned the Skill.

Absorption(5%)(Low) (Active): This skill uses the energy of the Law of Death to decompose a corpse's body into a strengthening fertilizer.

* Steals small amounts of stats from corpses.

* Depending on your luck, you can steal one or two pieces of information to learn skills from absorbed corpses.

- Absorption is limited to corpses that belonged to a being not much stronger than you.

Secondary Effect: Accumulates impurities in the body of beings who practice this skill (Effect counteracted by race)].

After reading all the information on the screen, he nodded with satisfaction.

He closed the window and let the previous notification replace it because he had not had time to read it before.

[You have learned the Law of Death (25%).

Description: one of the most deadly laws in existence. Contrary to the Law of Life which grants life, death causes all that is alive to perish].

"Huh, doesn't he have additional abilities like The Law of Space and Time?" A slight surprise formed at Nader's stoic expression.

Both The Law of Space and The Law of Time granted him two powerful abilities, which was why he was eager for the abilities that would reward him with some skills.

"...Though I will have more time later to learn more about this law."

Putting his thoughts aside, he stood up and kicked the stone that covered the entrance to his cave. The stone flew forward before crashing into the back wall.

"While I don't know exactly how long it took me to learn the skills, it's safe to assume it was a good few hours." He muttered as he exited the cave.

As he began to walk towards the staircase that should lead to the next floor, he didn't forget to dissolve the threads that were covering the inside of the floor.

------------------------

Nader continued down a few more floors as he killed all the monsters that crossed his path. Their corpses he had kept in his [storage] to absorb later.

Just as he stepped on the staircase leading to the next floor, he stopped his steps abruptly as he focused his senses towards the next cave where he heard sounds of fighting.

After a few seconds, his senses reached where the people were fighting.

His senses had picked up hundreds of beings that had no vital signs, leading him to assume they were undead. This undead was fighting against a group of people inside a barrier that was being continuously beaten by a monster of about ten meters.

"Huh, Shizuku, what are they doing on this floor?". He muttered in surprise as he sensed Shizuku's familiar aura.

He thought they couldn't reach this floor already, as it had only been about 20 hours since they had separated on the bridge. Besides, no one had passed through the fiftieth floor where their senses were.

With a thoughtful expression, he speculated what might have happened before concluding.

"Perhaps it is possible if they had found a secret passage that led to higher floors quickly. Though I highly doubt the captain of the heroes would be stupid enough to take some rookies to fight monsters that even they can't handle."

" However, they most likely would have set off one of the many traps that were scattered on the lower floors." He said as he nodded.

Curious as to what was going on, he started walking towards the entrance to the next floor. When he arrived, he stood in the doorway that connected to a bridge and watched the battle.

-------------------------------

"Shizuku! Pay attention to the battlefield!" shouted Captain Meld, irritated.

"A-ah, sorry," Shizuku apologized.

This was the third time she had been yelled at for not paying proper attention to the battlefield.

This morning, ever since she had heard the news that had come out of the King's mouth, she couldn't keep her mind at ease like she always did.

She simply could not accept what they had said about Nader. Even though she had only known him for a short time, it had been enough for her to grasp the kind of person Nader was.

As for his death? She completely dismissed that possibility. She didn't believe Nader had died.

While she was distracted by her thoughts, a skeleton that had a crimson flame in its eye socket sent a sword attack towards her. But even though she was in her thoughts, she managed to dodge the attack and counterattack with a lunge that threw the skeleton backward.

At that moment, they were fighting over a wide bridge that was about a hundred meters long, linking the staircase from this floor to the end of the room. Underneath the bridge, instead of flowing water, there was a bottomless abyss, dark and gloomy.

The group of heroes, along with their instructors who had previously fallen into a trap, were desperately fighting against the white skeletons that were scattered across the width of the bridge.

But what generated the most fear in their hearts, without a doubt, was the giant monster that was in the center of the bridge.

The monster, which possessed a height of about ten meters, made its four legs propel itself against the bridge before it shot forward as its eyes emitted a bright red light.

"Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" it roared before its armored helmet-like head with two horns slammed into the barrier protecting the students inside.

The Behemoth kept stomping and crashing into the barrier over and over, sending shockwaves making the stone bridge creak ominously. It was only a matter of time before the bridge would break.

"Damn it, Kouki, take the other heroes and lead them towards the ladder!". Captain Meld shouted.

"I refuse! I won't leave them behind! I've decided that we're all going back together!"

Captain Meld grimaced as he heard Kouki's refusal.

Shizuku, who was in a bad mood while defending herself and killing the skeletons, turned her head to Kouki and shouted angrily, "Kouki! You have to listen to the captain and retreat!".

"No, we can't leave-"

"Stupid, stop being selfish for once, damn it! Can't you see you're making the situation worse?! The students need you right now."

Nader, who was watching from the corner of the room, furrowed his eyebrows. Thanks to his senses, he could find out that Shizuku's emotions were quite chaotic, but it wasn't because of the current situation, it was because of something else. This made him wonder what exactly had happened to her.

He knew her much better than Shizuku knew him. He knew her true personality because he had delved into her mind.

As they argued, it wasn't long before the barrier protecting them cracked severely.

For the last time, the Behemoth raised its two front legs, and, with its weight being matched by its monstrous strength, it dropped onto the cracked barrier.

*Booooom!

Followed by the thunderous sound of the impact, the barrier shattered and the shockwave slammed into the bodies of the students and skeletons, ejecting them backward.

Nader thought for a few moments before smiling and walking towards the battlefield.

"This is a good opportunity to escape their radars."