New Skill

"Your first dungeon trial will being coming soon. As a courtesy of this training course, today, I, will teach you an essential skill that uses negative energy to fight negative energy."

A group of students were standing in rows on the field while silently paying attention to the middle-aged instructor, a bald, buff man with a black eye patch over one eye.

Standing proudly with hands crossed behind his back, the badges on the old army outfit on the instructor spoke of his achievements in an unknown world, but today he was going to teach them their first negative energy skill for free.

"Remember, this skill will be your bread and butter during all your dungeon explorations! Almost everyone has learned this skill to some extent as it is almost a necessity for survival in many dungeons ..."

"This skill is one of the most basic spell models available to the public, Corrosion. By harnessing the negative energy in our own souls, we can corrode external objects, even ones contaminated with negative energy. Can anyone guess what this spell model is used for?"

After pausing for a moment, the instructor swept over the students with his eyes. Seeing that some students had eyes out of focus while others secretly playing with spells, the instructor's eyes twitched as he picked on a student.

"You, the one with that arrogant face."

Pro, who was hiding in the back, breathed a sigh of relief as he glanced over at the unlucky student. Hey. It's a familiar fella. That arrogant look, that pompous pose, and that attitude that disdains the world, it could only be ...

"Huh? You dare to question this emperor? You can not fathom the power of this emperor-"

Oom! A heavy pressure descended and crushed upon the field of students, causing most of them to ooze sweat.

Pro's legs trembled as he dropped to his knees. A couple of students nearby glanced at him with schadenfreude and sly smirks, causing Pro to cry inside.

"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something another time. Here, I only want to know if your tiny brain can answer my question. Am I clear?"

The instructor's solemn voice boomed on the field as he glared at the tensed students.

Moments later, he relaxed his pressure before fixing his eyes on the unlucky young man, "I want your name, followed by an answer."

The arrogant young man shuddered for a bit before he straightened up once more. His face was tilted up a bit as he stared upwards into space. He waved his sleeves as he placed one hand behind his back.

A smile appeared on his face as he said in a confident tone, "Humph, if that is what you insist, this emperor won't lower himself to argue with you. Remember, this emperor is the immortal being that rules above all. All existence beneath honored this emperor with the title of Emperor Ji Fan. As for the answer to your question. Is it not obvious?"

Pausing for a moment, Ji Fan swept his eyes contemptuously at his fellow students before continuing, "Alchemy of course. This emperor can assure you that dissolving can be used for this. This emperor has dabbled-"

"Wrong!" the instructor coldly cut off Ji Fan's speech as he locked his eyes on another student, "You, the one with the fox tails. Answer."

Ji Fan's face had stiffened as he dully stared into space. He then stared at the instructor in disbelief as if he didn't believe his answer was wrong.

Meanwhile, a mature, voluptuous beauty, with nine fox tails gracefully wrapping her kimono, looked away from the mirror in her hand.

A charming sigh then made some of the surrounding male's bones weak came from her mouth as she muttered, "Dissolving? This empress can dissolve relationships easily with this empress's charm and has no needs for a trifling dissolve spell. All men shall bow before this empress-"

"No!" veins seemed to appear on the bald head of the instructor as he angrily locked his eyes on a gloomy male who had his attention fully focused on the spell in his hand, "You, the one in the gloomy, black robe. Stop playing with your little spells and step up to answer!"

The young man with a cold face looked up from his spells. He silently stared at the instructor with dull eyes before responding in a calm voice, "To clean up dead bodies."

"..."

A moment of silence descended on the field as the instructor seemed to want to spit fire.

Suddenly, the instructor ripped off his eye patch and threw it onto the ground. His finger trembled angrily as it pointed at the group of students.

His frustrated voice boomed, "You bumbling baboons that think you have intellect, but I can tell you that you are just a group of idiotic children! Don't think that everything is a game even if you are immortal! It'll be too late to understand once you start descending!"

Hu. Hu. Hu. After breaking out in a rant, the instructor took deep breathes to calm down. Afterwards, he gently picked up his eye patch and wore it back over his eye.

"It's just a group of children ... fine. Fine. Alright, listen up! Corrosion is a spell model mainly used to corrode terrain in the Negative Zone. Everything is contaminated with negative energy and even more so for the terrain in dungeons. The negative energy has strengthened the terrain to an unknown degree and attempting to break through with brute force or other skills can be inefficient if not impossible. Hence, the corrosion spell was invented."

Ignoring the bunch that wasn't paying attention, the instructor continued as he waved his hands to form the outline of a spell model in the air, "The principle of the corrosion spell is to fight poison with poison. By harnessing the negative energy in your soul body, you can forcibly consume the negative energy in an external object in order to lower its integrity and break them down."

"After you get started, you can corrode terrain with this spell. After practicing it to a higher level, you can even corrode other objects contaminated with negative energy, and even other living organisms once practiced to a high enough level. Following this concept, you may even be able to corrode your own negative energy to stunt your own growth ..."

Seeing that he has gotten some attention after mentioning what the spell could corrode, the instructor had a grin as he continued to lecture, "As for why you need this spell for survival in a dungeon? Well, this is related to the number one rule of survival that has been learned by your predecessors in the millennials they had been here ..."

Pausing for a moment, the instructor proudly grinned as he waved his hand. The spell model in front of him glowed with a bright red light as a bolt of red mist drilled out of it.

The bolt of red mist then struck the nearby empty ground and drilled a large hole in it. Many students, including Pro, had their eyes lit up with excitement.

As the spell model faded away, the instructor continued to explain, "That's right, it's what you think. The number one rule for survival in dungeons is to dig holes!"

"..."

Awkward silence ensued on the field as some excited faces had stiffened up.

"Ha! What is with that look?! Do you think I am joking?! No! This is the truth! It has been proven that those who know how to dig a good hole has a 99% higher survival rate than those who don't! This is no exaggeration! The Negative Zone is dangerous, to an extent that you newbies can't imagine."

"Don't think that your powers in your previous world can help you thrive here. Although you may be able to break through once or twice with luck, once you really encounter the strange things that happens to suppress or counter your source of power, you will be doomed if you haven't purchased any negative spells to deal with the situation. So, that is where this important corrosion spell comes in ..."

The instructor then continued to drone on about the benefits of the corrosion spell and why everyone should learn how to dig holes.

Following this was a detailed lecture on how to access the spiritual realm while concentrating on the outside world at the same time, how to build the spell model in the soul's spiritual sea, how to control negative energy in the spiritual sea to supply the spell model, how to activate the spell model then directing the spell to the external soul body, and the precautions along with the costs of having this spell model.

It was an in-depth course that didn't seem to be possible to be mastered quickly. However, for many of the traversers here that had previous experience, it wasn't a problem. The problem was their willingness to learn.

Many of the students still can't get rid of their arrogance in their personalities as they were used to being high and above others in their previous worlds. Who can force them to hide in holes? Even if they hid, it must be in a majestic palace.

Of course, there are always some who are interested in learning new knowledge, such as the magus sequences. An example would be the gloomy male in a black robe who was already trying to cast the corrosion spell.

Of course, there wasn't any grandiose spell model showing up in mid-air. After all, that was just a demonstration. Most spell models are built within the soul body's spiritual sea and will not be shown in public.

This will not only prevent others from directly copying known spells, it is also a way to prevent others from guessing what spell one would cast next.

After all, you won't want others to know what you will be casting nor when you would be casting or else you will be easily countered.

Excluding the magus sequences and some other studious sequences, there was actually another youth who was excited about getting a new spell.

It was an average looking young man dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. His eyes had a gleam of excitement as he stared at the first spell model that he had came into contact with.

At the same time, he was staring at where the spell model was already fully recorded, on a page of his Negative Chronicles located within his spiritual realm!

"It seems that the Negative Chronicles has more useful functions that I still haven't discovered!"