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Chapter 20: Platforming
🕑 Added 2025-01-11 13:49:13 +0000 UTCJames decided to ignore Komodo’s nail and fire sack.
Komodo nails were simple nails, not unlike wolf’s claws. James thought of using it. However, he had enough weapons already. Sword on his left arm and axe on his right. No matter how good these claws might seem, they were inferior compared to weapon skills. James might need them if he fought barehanded. But he decided against it. The nails will get in the way of him gripping his weapons.
Komodo’s fire sack was useless, too. To properly use it, the user had to first store molten magma inside. That means James had to transform his mouth into Komodo’s mouth, losing his spider fang and weak paralysis. Moreover, the fire sack will occupy an extra slot. James needed to throw away either his spinneret or mana core if he wanted to install the sack.
Throwing away a ropemaker and intermediate water magic for something that can only be used on this floor and is mostly ineffective against local monsters was a no-brainer move.
“Fuck! I knew they would come out!” James spit a curse when his path ended. His magic has grown drastically compared to when he was using goblin’s core. Now, he was able to constantly use his magic to summon an ice armor.
The ice armor was merely a half-done dome, similar to that of a turtle shell on his back. It was crude but functional. When it lets out a hissing sound, James will know that he was attacked from the back. James didn’t need to use it on the front, for his eyes were still at 20/20.
Despite his love for computers, James still had keen eyesight. It was one of the few good traits he had.
And the shield on his back let out a hissing sound, just as he anticipated. Two salamanders encroached on him from the back. They thought they had James cornered, and they were right. What they were wrong, though, was James was the natural enemy of these komodos.
James only had flowing lava and several floating stepping stones for hopping. No path exists to the left and to the right. But they were simple monsters, guided by instinct. They thought James would run forward, hopping the stepping stone like a frightened rabbit.
James used his mind flay to immobilize the two lizards. He then summoned an ice shield before himself to shield him from the incoming lava spit. He then charged forward as several ice spears gathered.
A golden arc shot through one lizard, then curved radically to the right and cleaved another.
“yeah! Two birds with one stone, baby!” James cheered. “I see now how that sahuagin managed to curve its strike like that. It was using a higher level of skill. That one probably had novice mastery in spear as well.”
James rubbed his sahuagin arm. He had lost his right arm due to Sahuagin’s unexpected spear skill. After upgrading his axe mastery to level 10, he finally realized how that sahuagin managed to curve its skill like that.
James might not be the brightest person in the world, but he is a quick learner. When he realized that sahuagin could somehow bend their spear skill, he no longer dodged their skill to the side. He always blocked them with his axe or parried them with his own skill.
He now knew how the sahuagin did that as he now owned similar power with his axe.
“Hmm?” James was waiting for something, but it didn’t happen. “No level-ups?”
[the experience points earned are not enough for level-ups.]
“Well. Time to make the jump, then. Damn, platforming in a hyper-realistic game feels so weird,” James looked at the lava lake before him. He had played games before, but due to his ten-year-old laptops, he had not played games with the latest graphics.
Thanks to his stats, his body soared through the hot molten lava below. He then swiftly jumped to the next one, and then the next one before finally arriving at the other side. The small rock floating on the lava wobbled slightly under his weight, but his movements were fluid and precise, again thanks to his dexterity stats.
“Ouch! Ouch! Hot!!” James chirped as he hopped like a kangaroo. Using his ever-reliable water magic, he doused his slightly burned feet. James could have doused the rock beforehand, cooling it down. However, he didn’t do that. That was the right choice, though; the rock that was floating on the lava was merely 30 centimeters wide, not much larger than a floor tile. If he slipped, he would suffer a more serious burn than merely his foot.
“Finally, no more lava!” James smiled as he ventured into the cave.
His excitement didn’t last long. Unlike the previous dungeon floor, where light always glowed on the dungeon’s wall, the caves here were completely dark. James had slipped and fell on his face when his foot stubbed on a stair.
James was not the sharpest tool in the shed; however, he could learn. James proved quite adept when the situation demanded it. After falling on his face for the third time inside the dark cave, he realized that his right eye could see mana. He then used his magic to gather mana in the air. He didn’t create any spells, merely gathering mana and expelling it from his body.
Blue mana swirled around him, bouncing on the floor, creating a gentle ripple. He could see them. Each bounce of the mana expelled from his body showed him the boundary of the caves.
“I am glad I bought that magic core. How would one navigate a cave like this without mana eyes?” James muttered as he continued exploring the dark cave.
[by using a torch…]
“...” The system answered. Its answer was short, brief, and concise, and the three dots on the notification screen before him seemed to mock James for his foolishness.
“Wait a minute. How did you make a torch anyway? There was no wood on the third floor! Are you expecting me to carry wood all the way from the second floor?” James defended himself. He was not foolish. Merely had different resources. That’s what he believed.
Torches could be made from other materials, such as spears from sahuagin or even a long stone or his longsword. If one knew how, they could wrap some clothes on the tip of the stick and then use fats and oil harvested from monsters to make impromptu torches. However, James was an ordinary office worker. He didn’t have such expertise.
Regardless, he had ways to deal with it. As long as it worked, it’s fine. No need to fix anything that wasn’t broken.
James wandered through the spiraling staircase. Blue mana emanated from him, rippling through the walls. He almost heard the sound of falling water as he watched his mana hop on the wall playfully.
Then, the path branched. Of course, James chose the left path, and it answered him beautifully. Even in a world without color, James knew that his mana had hit a treasure chest. Such a perfect square with a perfect cylinder as a lid couldn’t be mistaken for anything else but a treasure chest.
James opened the chest using his spider’s web from further back. He was cautious. Nothing seemed amiss after he opened it. He whistled as he approached it without abandon.
“AARGH!” James was about to reach inside the chest, only to find a shadow wiggled inside. Had James used a torch or other source of light, that shadow snake would lunge out from the chest and attack whoever intruded on their homes.
Blue mana rippled across its body. Thanks to James’s mana sense, he didn’t need any light. That’s why the snake was unperturbed and merely slithered on the surface of the treasure.
James stabbed it with his longsword, and the creature let out a shrill. An axe then met its head, ending its life.
“Fucking snake scared me to death!” James spat on it. “That was the fucking third time!”
It was the third time James felt he had fallen into a treasure chest’s trap. The first was when a snake leaped out from the chest, the second was when an arrow struck him, and the third was now, when a snake slithered inside. To be fair, James didn’t fall for the third chest’s trap. The snake didn’t notice it was him in the first place, and he even gave a preemptive blow.
So far, a chest’s trap always hits the moment it is opened. James had never considered the possibility of a delayed activation trap lurking inside like this. The idea sent a chill down his spine.
“I was not careful enough. And this thing was fucking poisonous too.” James muttered as he inspected the corpse.
[Available body part:
Shadow snake fang (intermediate life leeching poison)(mouth slot)
]
“What’s a life leeching poison?”
[Life-leeching poison attacked the blood of a life creature, weakening its vitality. If the creature manages to resist the poison, it will recover after a set amount of time.]
“If not?”
[They will die.]
“How strong is this poison? Can I withstand it?”
[Information classified.]
“Do I have to inject myself with its poison before you tell me?”
[No. If a user installs the fang, the information pertaining to its strength will be unlocked. However, the system cannot provide guarantees regarding its effectiveness against enemies you have not yet encountered or are encountering for the first time.]
James sighed, rubbing his temple. He has to weigh whether this will be an upgrade or downgrade compared to the weak paralysis fang he has now. However, it was not a simple upgrade like intermediate paralysis poison. It was a completely new poison. Since it had intermediate in its name, James assumed it was powerful.
“but it’s a gamble,” he muttered.
[Correct,]
“Alright. I will bite. Let’s change my paralysis fang with this life-leeching fang.” James decided to take the risk.
[installing]
Motes of light gathered from my hand and to the snake. In this dark room, those lights were as bright as the stars in the sky, illuminating the dark room. For the first time, James saw color for the first time. Lines of red, blue, yellow, and green flowed on the walls of the caves. Sediments of unknown rock. Colorful.
Yet no one would ever see it in this cave, for darkness like that of Vantablack permeated the room as soon as the body part installation was done. Unlike the acidic taste of paralysis poison, James could feel some kind of cloying sweetness when he licked his new fang.
“Alright. So, how does this poison work?” James asked.
[Similar to Paralysis poison, this poison will only work for two minutes when exposed. When the poison came inside a creature’s body, it would slowly corrode its strength and kill it. The poison will kill an orc in two minutes, a sahuagin in one, and a komodo in seven.]
“Hm? You said the poison could be resisted?”
[You currently haven’t met a live monster that could resist the poison except for shadow snakes, which are completely immune to intermediate life-leeching poison.]
“Yes! I hit the jackpot!” With this poison, His arrow had just gotten a lot stronger. With just a graze, he could kill any creature if he waited long enough.
[By the way, at least a drop of poison needed to enter the body. A graze will not do. Paralysis poison worked the same way.]
“Hm? What if I put two drops? Or three drops?”
[You will merely reset the timer. The timer for intermediate life-leeching poison is 10 minutes. If a creature can survive past that, it will recover gradually within the next three minutes. Similar to weak paralysis that only lasted 5 minutes no matter how much poison entered the body.]
So, to kill stronger monsters, I need to apply the poison at different times, not all at once?”
[That is correct.]
“I see. How game-like.” James muttered. In this world, the effectiveness of poison wasn’t about dosage or concentration; it was about timing.
As long as more than a drop of poison enters the body, the poison will activate fully. However, additional doses will not increase its lethality.
For his previous paralysis poison for example, applying two drops at the same time wouldn’t extend the paralysis effect. If he wanted to extend it, he needed to stagger the application.
James sighed, scratching the back of his head. “So much for science—Well, new worlds, new laws… now, time for the treasure chest!”
