CHAPTER 270

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[Alex Walker POV]

For the next following days, after talking with Thor, I continued doing dungeons. Familiarizing not only with my weapon on a deep fundamental level but with my skills. Before, I had never had the need to train, really train.

Before all of this, my approach to things was always the most simplistic one. Sure, I planned and trained, but my training wasn't really training, and my plans weren't really plans.

I had several skills in my arsenal. Yet, I had never actually familiarized myself with any of them; instead, simply deciding to use whatever was the most powerful thing at any given moment.

And while this approach had worked so far, I knew it was bound to fail, eventually.

It was a glaring weakness of mine, the oversimplification of things. I planned and trained but kept my path dangerously linear.

I had won every fight I had ever been in because I had always been the top dog.

Never really needing more than raw strength and a simple, straightforward strategy to solve my problems.

Power alone was not always the key to victory. Sure, it helped a lot, being powerful, not gonna lie, but brawn without brain would never really amount to much, and the same could be said about brains without brawn.

There were many things I could do with what I had, many applications to my powers. Applications I never even considered. Instead, using my powers in the most basic manner to tackle everything ahead of me.

I had wasted my potential before. But now that I was aware, I would not allow that to happen.

"Skills," I muttered, opening my skill tab as I walked through the seemingly empty dungeon, nearing the boss area.

[Skills]

[Mana Tune - ACTIVE/BUFF - LV 161 =

This buff allows the user to become more sensitive to mana, giving the user the ability to control and manage his mana better. While active, this buff regenerates the target's MP for (1.6% of WIS) per second for an hour.

MP/s without {Serenity} = 112131 MP/s.

MP/s with {Serenity} = 280329 MP/s.

Cooldown = 1 hour.

No cost.]

[Determination - ACTIVE/BUFF - LV 159 =

This buff allows the user to become more sensitive to the life around him and within himself, giving the user the ability to control and manage his HP better. While active, the user regenerates (0.3% of his maximum health every second.) for an hour.

HP/s without {Serenity} = 2367022 HP/s.

HP/s with {Serenity} = 5917557 HP/s.

Cooldown = 1 hour.

No cost.]

[Cosmic Armor - ACTIVE - LV 181 =

This ability gives the user or his target a shield that lasts 5 hours, absorbing a total [(181 * 1% of INT * 0.8% of WIS) / 362] of damage before breaking. The user cannot shield himself or a friendly target after the shield breaks for 30 minutes.

SHIELD amount without {Serenity} = 128224971.

SHIELD amount with {Serenity} = 801476041.

Cooldown = 1 sec.

Cost = 1.5% of total MP.]

Those were the main sustain skills I was leveling. Beyond that, I was also focusing on leveling [Precognition]; after all, the best way to sustain oneself in battle was to avoid all damage altogether.

I was also increasing my weapon skill level.

[Serenity - Weapon Skill - Passive - LV 579 =

Allows the user to freely handle Serenity better. 6369% increase in energy consumption efficiency.

Affinity LV 10 = +50% increase to all weapon buffs.]

As for damaging abilities.

Well, I didn't have anything solid yet to use against Knull. I already had a good enough defense prepared for him in terms of skills, but in the offensive area, I was still lacking.

I was, however, planning to fix that.

Based on my information about him, I knew he was weak against light-based powers and anything that affected his connection to the symbiote hive mind.

With that, I had more than enough to work with.

At least on the light-based part.

I yet had to face a symbiote to see how the hive mind in question operated. So, trying to weaken him through this mental connection was a maybe for the time being.

This wasn't to say I was not gonna explore the possibilities of said weakness, only that exploring said possibilities would not be my main priority for now.

I first wanted to tackle the baser aspect of combat; before indulging any of my already limited time in other less direct strategies to deal with Knull.

"Here we are," I muttered, eyeing my map to confirm where I was. The castle of Tharaliel, The Angel of Light, the boss of this dungeon. According to the dungeon description, he was an archangel on a holy mission to erase all mortal life from the planet.

Not that I really cared about the narrative of the dungeon, to begin with. I was here mainly because of the skills he had a chance to drop on his loot, which were all light-based skills.

Sadly, unlike Abaddon, there was no achievement to unlock his skills, meaning I had to kill him and hope for the best. If I was lucky, I would get what I wanted on the first run; if I wasn't, well, I would be here for a while.

Not that it bothered me.

This dungeon was on my level, and regardless of what Tharaliel dropped on the first run, I would still run it again. Granted, it would be best if I got the skills as soon as possible because that way, I would be able to start leveling them up sooner.

I especially wanted the skills [Holy Rainfall], [Lumen Cordis], and [Lumen Mortem].

Based on the dungeon guide explaining about Tharaliel's abilities, those three skills were a must-have in what I was preparing for. Especially the last one, [Lumen Mortem].

"Well, time to kick some angelic ass!" I declared, kicking the doors of Tharaliel's castle open. Ready to erase his feathery ass for the first time out of many.

"Finally, you have arrived, mortal," I heard a melodic, soothing voice echo across the castle. As a figure came into view with a blinding flash of light, a man, twice as tall as the average human, with four pairs of wings on his back, wearing an armor that seemed to be made entirely out of gold. "I understand you've been looking for me." He smiled, his hand extending towards him in a gesture that reminded me of all paintings, "Come, then. Show me the power of the one that vanquished my armies."

Armies? He had at best two hundred angels around the dungeon. That's not an army; that's a cult, if anything.