Boss room

After killing all the monsters on third floor, we proceeded to descend the narrow staircase until we reached the bottom of the labyrinth.

Unlike the first three floors of the labyrinth, there was no forest on the fourth floor.

The fourth floor appeared to be underground in some kind of cave, and there was a narrow path that led to a massive gate in the end.

This gate oozed with a dangerous aura that made it difficult for those with a weak mentality to approach.

"I'm guessing that's the boss room?" Leo asked the obvious.

And he continued, "What can I expect inside? A massive boss? Or will I be fighting a group of monsters?"

"It depends. You will fight one boss most of the time, but there will be times where you have to fight two— even three bosses at once."

"There's something else you should be aware of before you go inside. Once you enter a boss room, you will not be able to leave until you either defeat the boss and all of the monsters inside or use a teleport artifact, so it's literally do or die."

Leo swallowed nervously after learning about this information.

"Alright, I'm ready to fight the boss." Leo said after taking a moment to prepare himself.

"Actually, can I defeat this boss?" I asked.

Miss Camille and Leo stared at me with widened eyes.

"What happened?" I asked with confusion.

"Y-You don't actually participate in anything like this so we were just shocked."

"It's not like I was not participating, I was merely observing."

"O-Okay then, the boss is all yours..."

As we approached the menacing doors, Leo could feel the ominous aura wrapping around his body, making him feel even more uncomfortable, and it felt like he was being watched.

Once they were before the doors, Leo pushed it open just slightly enough for them to walk through.

The moment I, Leo, and Miss Camille walked through the doors, it slammed shut behind them, startling Leo for a moment.

"T-This is the boss room?" Leo was amazed by the scenery before him.

He had expected the boss room to be similar to boss rooms in video games, which mostly consists of enclosed rooms where there's very little space to run.

However, this boss room before him was the complete opposite.

The room was anything but small, and it was so vast that Leo could not see the end.

"Are you sure this is the boss room? It looks just like the first floor." Leo said in a dumbfounded voice.

"Just wait." Miss Camille said.

Literally seconds after she said those words, we could see the scenery change right before our eyes.

The green trees were withering at such a rapid speed that he could see them turning green to brown within seconds. Once the trees were withered, we could see a big shadow descending from the sky, landing in the middle of the room.

The moment this entity landed in the middle of the room, all of the withered trees began to burn, turning the room into a sea of fire.

I stared at this entity that resembled a butterfly, but it had a pair of flaming wings.

The butterfly was about 10 meters tall, and every time it flapped its wings, fire balls would fly all over the place.

"Are you sure this is an E-Rank labyrinth?! This monster looks incredibly threatening and powerful! And it's freaking huge!" Leo exclaimed a moment later.

"That's a Fiery Butterfly, a D-Rank monster, but it's been enhanced with gargantuan. All boss monsters are stronger than normal monsters because they all have what we call 'modifiers', something that empowers them, making them somewhat unique monsters. Gargantuan is a modifier that increases the monster's size and overall strength. It's one of the more powerful modifiers out there. However, this makes it a lot easier to hit them, so as long as you can avoid its attacks, you will be fine."

"Oswald, are you sure you can defeat this monster? It looks quite strong."

"Only one way to know the answer." I said before rushing towards the boss.

The fiery butterfly waved it's wings and countless fireballs fell towards me.

< You have successfully copied magic affinity : fire affinity >

< Fire affinity has been upgraded to EX+ rank >

"Sword of darkness" I casted.

[Sword of darkness]

[Affinity : Dark/Hell]

[Tier : 7]

[Mana : 110,090]

[Mastery : A]

A dark katana appeared in my hands. The sword released an ominous aura and a feeling of death.

I rushed towards the flying butterfly and slashed my sword.

The sword in my hands disappeared as soon as I landed on the ground.

Behind me, fell down two large wings and many chunks of meat. Every chunk was rotten and the wings were burning with a dark flame.

"Looks like I CAN defeat this boss." I looked toward Leo with a smile.

It took us a few minutes to find the artifact which was actually a fire affinity stone that can be used to create artifacts.

A few more minutes later, the three of us exited the labyrinth and returned to the Wilderness.

After arriving at the academy, I, Leo, and Miss Camille went to the Training Center, where Nina Wraith was already there and waiting. Of course, she had received a call from Miss Camille last night telling her to wait for them at the Training Center.

Once they were inside a private training room, Miss Camille spoke, "Tell us about your plans to resurrect your mother."

Nina remained calm and said, "I'm actually surprised that neither of you had asked me earlier."

And she continued, "Anyways, it's quite simple. I will prepare the magic circle for the resurrection magic, and Leo will use his mana to activate it."

Miss Camille frowned and said, "That's your plan? Where are the details? How do you expect Leo, who only started training magic recently, to have enough mana to activate the magic spell? What about the corpse? Without your mother's corpse, there is nothing to resurrect from!"

"Don't worry, I have my mother's corpse. As for Leo's mana issue… I have this…"

Nina retrieved a crystal ball from her Spatial Ring and showed it to them.

Leo narrowed his eyes at the liquid inside the crystal, as they resembled the ones inside mana cores, but the mana inside the crystal looked more pure.

"This will solve Leo's mana issue. This is a Mana Crystal, and there is about 90,000 mana contained inside. As long as Leo uses this, he will be able to activate the magic spell. However, he still needs about 9,000 mana without the Mana Crystal."

Miss Camille wasn't surprised that Nina had a Mana Crystal since that was her first speculation on her Nina planned on solving Leo's mana issue.

"What kind of artifact is that?" Leo asked a moment later.

"It's not an artifact. It's just a crystal ball filled with mana. They're quite expensive, but people use them when they run out of mana during dangerous situations."

"I see… Anyways, I have managed to achieve my goals quicker than expected, so we can resurrect your mother whenever you want." He then said.

"What?! You have 9,000 mana already?! How is that even possible!? It hasn't even been a week since you claimed to have only 1,000 mana!"

Nina was speechless, and she didn't believe for a second that Leo had managed to increase his mana capacity by 8,000 in less than a week with just pure talents alone, as that was simply impossible.

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

(Chap-ends)

Author here,

Thank you to those who wished me good luck.

My exams would continue for a few weeks.

I am uploading this pre-written chapter. I would try to upload more chapters in the breaks between exams.

Thank you.