The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 5 - Chapter 22 - Practice and Knowledge (Patreon)

                                                     Wolf

I finish up practicing element nullification a little bit, finally getting a bit better at it after nearly two weeks of having it and practicing regularly. Good enough to finally nullify my own ice element inside of the void element, leaving me with control over the void element left behind.

What I still haven’t been able to do though is get very good at controlling the void element. Because at this point I’m even worse at controlling the void element left behind by element nullification than I was at controlling my ice element when I first got it.

So I really can’t do much with it even if I’ve finally gotten decent at element nullification.

The bright side though is that I can nullify ice element used against me now. Not that it would do much good considering that I have absolute control over ice element in the first place. Much more control than any ice boss would have, especially considering that I’m immune to it.

I glance to the side of the living room of my portable system store on the 214th floor of the beta dungeon to find Sapphire lying on her stomach while reading a book with her head propped up by one arm.

“This enough of a break? Or do you want more time?” I ask her, only for the girl to wave her free arm lethargically as she continues reading. “More time then.”

At some point we started a bit of a routine of having three breaks a day at around mealtimes, just to make sure we don’t end up doing nothing but fighting all the time. And that’s on top of the occasional interview I go to. And the minor work I’ve done for the Empire inside of Diane’s personal viewing room.

Sapphire’s also become a bit of a bookworm, always looking to read anything she can get her hands on from the System Store. Although none of it is educational. Mostly just fantasy novels.

Which I personally find rather nice. Mostly because she’s mellowed out a little bit since starting to read so much. Acting less like a teenager and more mature and responsible.

Something I am very relieved about and hope continues.

With that thought in mind, I focus inwards, deciding to use this extra time to work on the other powerful Knowledge Crystal that I’ve gotten since entering the Beta Dungeon. One that would’ve been incredibly helpful in our fight against the bone dragon boss.

The Health Conversion Knowledge Crystal that lets me convert life energy into stamina. It’s not as helpful as the Stamina Draw Knowledge Crystal in the FP store that will let me convert void energy directly from the void into stamina, but it’s still something that could save my life. Because life energy in general is just akin to a person’s health. Like in a video game. And it restores itself automatically.

So while it is very important, it’s not really as important as stamina in some cases. After all, doesn’t matter if I’m perfectly healthy if I have no stamina left in a battle. All that’ll mean is that I’ll be healthy until they kill me from not being able to defend myself.

Like my fight with the bone dragon where I just about ran out of stamina entirely. In fact, I did if it weren’t for the Blue Moon Armaments.

But this annoying knowledge crystal is difficult to put to practical use. Because while it does give me a small amount of instinctive knowledge on how, along with the theory on what I’m supposed to do, that’s all it gives me. And I have to directly manipulate my life energy to do it.

Which is not easy. Not easy in the slightest.

The only real progress I’ve gotten on that is finding my life energy in the first place. And even that took a lot of focus and over a week of trying, despite the help the instincts driven into me by the knowledge crystal gave.

I still have very little idea how to actually manipulate it. All I know is what to do with it after figuring out how to manipulate it.

Nearly half an hour passes as I try one thing after another until I finally hear Sapphire closing her book, making me open my eyes to find her stretching. She then lets out a short groan and looks at me with a smile while saying, “Now I’m good!”

So I stand up while dismissing my expanded system store, leaving us back in the mini boss area that belonged to the mini boss we’d already killed, along with the exit it was guarding.

The mini boss itself was a rather disturbing creature made solely out of eyeballs and tentacles. Definitely some sort of eldritch abomination.

And it had that same annoying characteristic of eating my element as the others have. Although with this one never seeming to get full, making me resort to physical combat.

I sigh at the thought of dealing with more monsters like that. Because basically everything on this floor theme seems to have that characteristic. And it’s annoying.

That aside, I glance at Sapphire once more to make sure she’s ready before walking up and touching the door, making a flash of light shine out, following which we find ourselves on the next floor. And almost immediately, I feel a tingling sensation on the back of my neck indicating danger, along with the sense of a powerful creature just a couple dozen meters behind us.

Both Sapphire and I jump away from where we’re standing right before a large tentacle smashes into the ground there.

I follow the tentacle with my eyes until I reach the large creature made solely out of tentacles and what looks like mouths floating in the air, the tentacles flinging around all over the place.

_-| Unnamed – Rift Lord – Level 2505 |-_

Great. The very first thing we run into in the floor is the mini boss.

Just. Great.

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