Chapter 184 (Patreon)

Chapter 184

Matt walked up to the cavern and cocked his arm back.

The boss of this ruin was a Tier 7 spider standing at least thirty feet tall, with thick armor covering its body.

With their mid Tier 3 cultivation, the four of them should have been woefully too weak to take the boss down. That would have been the normal outlook on such a boss with their relative cultivation.

With the floor theme, Matt didn’t even hesitate to approach the boss.

As the spider started skittering at him in a charge, followed by hundreds of dog sized lesser spiders, Matt launched his fist.

From his [Cracked Phantom Armor] covered fist, [Fist Blast] launched itself outward like a rocket.

The spell copied both his magical and physical armor’s form for the attack, so it wasn’t just a fist, but it also had the spikes he grew on his hands with the first layer of [Cracked Phantom Armor].

As the skill left his hand, he started channeling his mana into his gravity gauntlets.

Except, instead of the attractive force of gravity appearing at his hand, the force was generated from the fist form of [Fist Blast].

All of the spiderlings were pulled towards the attack as it slammed into the boss.

The [Fist Blast] shattered the bosses armor, and hemolymph flew out a few feet in all directions before being pulled into the gravity well that he kept channeled.

With 100 MPS being fed into the artifact, some bosses in Minkalla might have been able to break free of its pull. The spider, at half the usual tier, stood no chance.

Spiders screeched and cried as they were pulled into the black hole that dug deeper and deeper into the boss's body, but Matt wasn't done yet.

From his left hand, Matt cast [Flamethrower] and mentally directed the stream of fire with [Fire Manipulation]. Like a wave, it spread out and sought any spiders holding on to the ground or walls.

A rush of Genesis Energy flooded into his core, and with a thought, he redirected his cultivation to his new ideal.

Killing the boss and its underlings earned them a boost in strength which sent them to the peak of Tier 4 in an instant. He had already tried to double his mana when he returned to Tier 3, but his Talent didn’t consider Minkalla’s reducing his Tier as legitimate, nor his regaining the cultivation as Tiering up, so his mana pool refused to expand. It was unfortunate, but he was already so lucky with his Talent being unaffected that he couldn’t complain too much.

At least out loud.

He complained internally every time he earned back some of his cultivation. If he had been able to double his mana pool eight more times, he would have been unstoppable inside Minkalla.

Aster laughed on his shoulder. “That was great! I wonder what a spider heart tastes like?”

Jumping down from his shoulder, she moved over to the boss and activated [Heart of Power]. As they learned on the last sub-level, when she reached the peak of Tier 1, the essence added to her cultivation had settled down to her first Tier, making her first Tier even more efficient than the rest of them.

Throughout the decades, she had gotten a dozen or so of permanent advancements to her cultivation as little bits and pieces that let her push past the normal limits of a Tier. But now, those improvements were all condensed to her first Tier.

Sadly, where the advancements landed was completely out of her control, even with Minkalla resetting her cultivation.

She didn't get a permanent boost from the spider boss’s vein-like hearts, but it still gave her a temporary bonus to her abilities, even if she didn’t need them.

Liz sauntered up with the compass, which was in its sphere form, and pointed to the side. “Something beneath us to the right. Want to dig for it?”

Matt shrugged. He didn’t mind, and they were making fantastic time with their pace on this floor due to the overwhelming advantage that his Talent provided, trivializing the weakened monsters.

They had also been using their compass at every opportunity, and their spatial storage was filling up with valuables at an impressive rate. That, combined with Matt’s Talent breaking the floors challenge, meant they had no issues finding and taking anything their compass pointed to.

With Susanne watching their rear, Matt used [Earth Manipulation] to remove the floor where the compass indicated, finding them a fist sized mass of ore that pulsed in a rainbow of colors.

Liz retrieved the ore and whistled. “Milios’ Seven Colored Ore. Now that's expensive.”

Susanne looked at it but shrugged. “What's so special about it? I don't recognize it.”

Matt pointed at it. “It serves as a replacement for practically any metal required to upgrade a growth item. So while it isn’t a perfect panacea, it's beyond expensive. It also makes for some good enchanting materials if you want to use it that way. At Tier 14, I don’t doubt it will sell for a good handful of Tier 17 or 18 mana stones. The stuff is always in high demand for people who can’t find what their weapons and items need to advance.”

After storing the ore, they went and dispelled the first floor ruin reward distortion. They got a handful of skills, but nothing they wanted to immediately use, and a handful of essence stones. They treasured the essence stones in particular,  now that their compass was eating a stone with every attempt to find something.

On the second floor, things changed.

It seemed that Minkalla didn't appreciate Matt abusing his Talent to decimate the monsters, and put them in the middle of a floor of crystal like beings that were resistant to magical attacks.

It almost even worked.

Almost.

Matt countered anti-magic monsters with more magic.

Just not his own.

With a flex of [Create Blood], Liz washed away all the monsters they faced in an ocean of blood.

The golems might be able to resist magical attacks, but they had no such counters to Liz squeezing their crystalline bodies until they cracked.

On a tide of blood, they swept out of the cavern after harvesting anything that survived Liz’s wave.

They were a dozen feet out of the cavern when a [Fireball] and two arrows flashed out at them.

Matt cast [Bulwark], blocking the two arrows while Susanne cut the spell in half with her greatsword.

Matt was about to cast his own return spell when a voice called out, “Mistake! Mistake. We thought you were a monster.”

Pausing with his sword glowing Matt prepared himself for an ambush.

Liz barked out a single commanding word. “Explain.”

A group of four like their own stepped forward slowly with their weapons at the ready, but not charged with any spells.

A warrior to the left was the one to speak. “We saw the blood and thought we were under attack again. We just escaped a ruin that has blood monsters and their attacks drain your energy and don’t stop bleeding easily. An honest mistake, I promise.”

Matt looked at the man and his group and saw that what they said seemed reasonable.

Their arms and legs were covered with gore. Holes were ripped in their armor showing wounds that still seeped blood.

They were too far away to see anything more than that, but it gave credence to their story.

Through their AI, Liz said, “Let's pump them for more information. I want that ruin’s location.”

Matt spoke up. “We found a tick monster that was feeding on the other monsters. We got swept away when it popped, but there were no others like it.”

Before he could say more the archer leaned over and vomited.

“If you could give us some information about where that ruin is so we can avoid it, we’d be grateful.” Putting action to words, he pulled out a number of [Bandage] talismans and waved them. “Two dozen Tier 14 [Bandage] talismans for the information seem fair?”

The leader immediately agreed. “Deal.”

Healing supplies were worth their weight in Tier 50 mana stones in a place like Minkalla, after all. At least for other people.

Most people stocked up with more than they would need, but a lost storage bag or the team taking more injuries than predicted could mean burning through more of your supplies than anticipated.

And with wounds that didn't stop bleeding, but were otherwise not life threatening, using a proper healing potion or spell was wasteful in both supplies and healing cooldown.

Setting the talismans down, Matt and his team of four immediately backed up to give the group more than enough room to grab the talismans without fear that they would be attacked.

The leader inspected the talisman for a minute and used one on himself after the inspection.

When the light blue mana fell over a wound in his leg he sighed and thanked them. “We owe you guys one. The ruin is two caverns that way.” He pointed the way they came and continued, “But there's a split. The left passage leads to a forest with odd blue leaves. If you see that you went the wrong way. Turn back. That forest butts up against the blood area.”

Matt nodded in thanks and the two groups moved past each other, their weapons at the ready. Now they were close, Matt was able to feel their cultivation.

Tier 6’s.

While he could feel that their real cultivation was a higher Tier than most who delved this quickly, that could mean a number of things. They could have slowed down and allowed the next quickest wave to catch up, or this group was stronger than most of their peers, even if at the same Tier, and therefore got more of their cultivation back faster then most. If he knew their real Tier he could make a better guess but Minkalla's reduction in Tier felt real to his sense.

So really, there was no way to know if they were strong or just high Tier.

Even their attack could have been a probe to see if the four of them were easy targets.

In Minkalla, intentions were only as good as actions.

Matt considered attacking them, but in the end, it was a challenge to even come up with a good reason to murder strangers just for their loot and Genesis Energy.

When they were a good distance away they increased their pace to a mile eating jog.

The forest only had one monster type attack them. It was merely a swarm of rats, and the path of destruction they cut through the forest spoke to the strength of the group they had passed.

Even while limited in Tier, the group had done well enough to make an impact, and Matt made a note of the team and their composition, just in case they had to fight them in the future.

Just as the team said, they found a land of blood in the ruin after the forest.

The cavern's pools were filled with blood that bubbled ominously, releasing a stench that clung to Matt’s nose. The blood Liz used still smelled like blood, which wasn’t exactly pleasant, but this stuff reeked.

Activating [Cracked Phantom Armor] solved that problem for him, but Aster and Susanne both suffered.

Liz seemed at home, and with a gesture, the blood on the pool rose up and a tendril of it swirled over to her.

“Something is weird with this blood.” Liz mumbled. “Stand back. Something’s in it, I just need to figure out what.”

The pool of blood left the indentation it sat in, revealing the parasite sitting on the rock.

It was massive, and looked more like a snake than a parasite.

Seeing it, Susanne said, “I think we found what's wrong with the blood. I'd bet everything I own that this thing is infecting the blood with its kids… spawn… eggs. Whatever parasites the size of a snake give birth to. All I know is that it’s gross.”

Saying that, she attacked with a [Mana Slash], killing the Tier 7 monster.

Liz was still busy with the blood. “You're probably right, but I need to do some testing.”

She shot Matt a pleading look.

Sighing, he removed their house after setting it up inside the forest ruin.

Matt still grumbled about having to make a new formation to deep clean them for parasites.

Undirected healing spells wouldn’t do much for the pesky little things most of the time, and he doubted that the ones Minkalla cooked up with the ability to prevent blood clotting would be so easily taken care of.

Liz disappeared into her alchemy room for half a day before exiting.

Matt, Aster, and Susanne took turns sleeping while one of them stood watch. A team passed them by, but they returned not long after discovering the blood ruin's effects.

Liz worked like a machine the whole time, and kept pulling mana from the house's storage.

After eighteen hours, she came out and admitted defeat.

“I can’t make the parasites a part of my blood. I either kill them while attempting to bring them under my control, or they just die when transplanted into my blood. Their deaths are what makes the infected hosts bleed faster, which is interesting, and it also explains why the other group had a hard time stanching their bleeding. You need to thoroughly wash out the wound to remove them, or it takes hours for the bodies to stop leaking the anticoagulant.”

Matt looked at her aghast.

She had put those things into her body? That seemed risky beyond belief.

Seeing all of their looks, Liz waved her hand. “In my blood in a vial. Not my body. I'm sure the latter would work, but I'm not testing that this early in my experiments. Far too risky.”

Matt asked, “What did you do with the blood?”

Liz rolled her eyes. “Burned it in a sealed container. But let's go delve that ruin. I think with enough samples, I can bring this out to the real world and make something useful with them. I just need to domesticate the parasites like they do with rift monsters.”

Susanne pointed at Liz’s baggy eyes. “First, go to sleep. We're all rested and you look dead on your feet.”

Liz didn’t argue and simply went to sleep; taking the three hours she needed to feel fully rested.

With them ready, they started to delve the ruin.

Matt had expected the ruin to be a rough one, but it was far worse than he imagined.

The monsters weren't the parasites. No, they were a side effect.

The monsters were a type of vampire. Or as close as the ruin could make.

They were humanoid creatures with incredible strength and reflexes. Even at Tier 7, they were faster than most peak Tier 8s, and had razor sharp claws and fangs with which they delivered devastating blows.

If that was all, it would haven’t have made the rift a particularly difficult one.

The real problem was the monsters’ healing factor. It was a lesson they learned the hard way.

Matt brought his fist down on the monster's head twice, cracking its skull open and spilling out the brains. He expected that to end the fight, but the monster's hand flew up at him as he turned away, trying to punch through his armor. 

It scrabbled against [Cracked Phantom Armor] uselessly, as it could protect him from Tier 13 and 14 monsters if he was using both layers. A Tier 7 monster didn’t have an iota of a chance of getting through his armor, but he watched in fascinated horror as the humanoid head reformed and inflated while trying to bite his neck.

Catching its jaw in his hand, Matt drove his spiked, gauntleted fists into its chest until he was sure that its heart was destroyed.

Even then, it took a few seconds for the monster to finally die and the Genesis Energy to rush into him.

Susanne was off to the side poking at a pile of vampire bits that kept trying to wiggle at her.

“Take out the heart,” Matt told her.

After Susanne took his advice, the monster stopped moving and started to fade away.

To Matt’s surprise, both of the monsters dropped skill shards.

Picking them up and inspecting them, he hoping for Liz’s sake that the skills were blood types, but he was disappointed. [Claw Strike] and [Chomp] were generally considered beast only skills. They were technically usable by humans, just less effective without natural sharp bits for the spell to build off of.

Aster sauntered over and pawed at the chomp skill. “I want that one. I could use some melee ability in case we get a floor that counters mages again.”

Slipping the skill shard into her collar Matt turned and looked to where Liz was inspecting the vampire she had bound with blood.

“Find something interesting?” He asked as he came up to her side.

Liz nodded several times. “A lot. These guys have an active Concept that's eating my blood to fuel their regeneration. Watch this.”

She cut the vampire in half and incinerated the legs and stump. This stopped the regenerative effect, and Matt promptly changed his tactics for fighting in this ruin.

But when Liz directed a little blood into the vampire's wound, the blood was absorbed and then new flesh started to grow at a visible rate.

In less than ten seconds, the vampire had regrown its lower half.

Liz redid her test , burning the monster's lower half off, then feeding it blood through its mouth. Once more, it regrew its body in seconds.

Susanne, who just walked over, asked, “That seems similar to your Concept right? Rebirth through blood.”

Liz laughed. “A lesser version, but I can't say I’ve ever had to or wanted to test that portion of my Concept. I can feel a resonance between the two though, and it's giving me ideas. Also, the vampires are utterly stuffed with parasites. Like thirty percent of their blood and muscles is the parasite.”

Matt shook his head at that thought.

He really didn’t want that parasite anywhere near himself or Aster. Really, he didn’t want it near any of them, but assumed Liz would be fine.

Susanne asked. “Is there a way to ensure we don't get infected? Or a dewormer?”

Liz snapped her finger and a flame appeared. “Heat. Anything hotter than body temperature will cook em. A hot shower should do you fine, or standing in a low-Tier fire for a while. I actually think they can’t survive a Tier up. A bit of essence or Genesis Energy that hits them instantly kills them. The odd thing is that they still advance with essence, which makes outside essence killing them an oddity that's nagging at me. I think there's something there, but I need to study them more to really dive into it.”

Liz set the bloodsucker on fire, turning it to charcoal in moments.

This one dropped a dagger with a ruby in the hilt.

Picking it up with a rod, Matt looked at for a second before laughing. “I recognize this enchantment. It's the same one on your original spear, Liz. It will keep cuts bleeding longer.”

Catching it, Liz spun it around. “Not bad. Think you can convert it to a spear?”

Matt shook his head. “While I might be able to, I'd literally be tying the knife to a stick. I think it would be better if we made a flying dagger out of it.”

Liz mulled over the idea before accepting. “That's useful. What—”

She was interrupted by Susanne jerking as a pulse of Genesis Energy washed out of her.

They all looked at her in confusion until she looked down. “My armor just became a growth item.”

She laughed as she punched the air, removing the armor from her spatial ring. “Fuck yeah! I was hoping for this.”

Matt threw out his spiritual sense and encased her armor, but paused at the oddity.

The armor was Tier 14, and something inside was actively changing. He could feel the Genesis Energy in Susanne beginning to be absorbed into the item and cycled through on its own. As far as he could tell, none of the energy was being left behind, but it was changing something in the structure of the armor's spirit.

Matt hesitated to put words to the unknown, but it felt like the Genesis Energy was breathing life into the item's spirit. That was the only way he could describe it.

The item’s spirit was in six pieces, like the armor itself, but began fusing along the conjoined runic lines as the Genesis Energy built up inside it. He knew how to link items that needed to be physically separated with runes; it was a finicky enchantment that depended on the items being within a small range. But as he watched, the runes dissolved out of the armor's spirit as if they were smoothed out like sand.

At the same time, the enchantments that had been simple runes he knew inside and out started to morph.

The change wasn’t large, but it was noticeable. It was like the difference between block print and cursive. The words might be the same, but they looked different.

And everything Matt knew about enchanting said that what he was witnessing was impossible.

The shape of a rune needed to be precise. Any small deviation or imperfection in the shape of the rune meant that it wouldn't work. The changes in the item should have broken the runes, but instead they empowered it.

Matt thought things were ending when the Genesis Energy inside Susanne slowed down, but was proven wrong as new runes started to appear in the item's spirit.

Repair and durability runes first appeared, then fused together before seeming to vanish.

Then, a set of runes he didn’t recognize appeared and took their place next to the runes that had once empowered Susanne’s Concept to enhance her body.

After that, all the runes blended into the item's spirit perfectly, making them nearly indistinguishable at a easy glance.

With his AI unable to record, he quickly jotted down the runes he saw the armor create and absorb. He knew it wasn’t one hundred percent, but he hoped his scratchings would be accurate enough to reproduce them later. Or at least give him a starting direction.

Susanne, still being Tier 4, was unable to lift her armor, and was forced to wiggle inside of it while it was on the ground.

Once inside, and with her boots and gauntlets placed on with their help, she activated the armor.

Matt could feel when her armor was fed with her willpower, as it started to radiate power like a beacon in the night.

He was thinking it was a bad thing when Susanne started to get up.

She was like a turtle on its back, but with their help, she managed to stand with armor a full ten Tiers higher then herself.

That was impressive on its own, but when she lost her fight with gravity and balance, she tipped forward and a barrier of mana appeared around her armor in a facsimile of Matt’s own [Cracked Phantom Armor].

“Ok, I'm not strong enough yet to use the armor but I'm excited!”

Her muffled voice came out from the helmet as Aster sniffed her before sitting on her back.

“Can you help me up?” Susanne asked.

Aster yipped, “But you make a great seat right now!”

Matt laughed but scooped his bond off their friend, and while activating [Mage’s Retreat], helped her roll over.

Metal got heavy as it Tiered up, and her standing up at all was an impressive feat that spoke to her armor's powers.

Once she was back in Tier appropriate, standard armor, Susanne laughed. “It's perfect! Strength buff, physical defenses, and magical shielding all in one.”

Hearing her gush, Matt looked at the item that he was hoping was going to turn into a growth item. Neither his mana stone nor his armor were showing any signs of reacting to the Genesis Energy that he’d been cycling through them during their downtime. He was about to ask when Liz did it for him. “Did you feel anything before now? A sign that it was turning?”

Susanne denied it. “Nothing. I was surprised it even happened, since it was in my spatial ring.”

Matt had already thought of that. “Luna said that converting items in a spatial ring was rare but possible. So that doesn’t really change anything. But you really felt nothing? No faster swirling of Genesis Energy, no tug on your Concept, not even a bit of a twinge as essence settled in?”

When Susanne denied it again, Matt sighed and gave it up.

He could only be happy for her, getting the main item she wanted bound to her so soon.

He wanted so many of his things to convert, it wasn't even funny.

His mana converting mana stone, his under armor that increased the effect of his channeled physical buffs, the gravity gauntlets which were quickly becoming a favorite of his arsenal, and the seeker compass they had found in the Fishman rift.

All of them would make for fantastic growth items and he wanted them all. If Luna hadn’t said that spending more time in Minkalla didn’t necessarily guarantee more items converting, he would have planned to sit at the bottom floor for a year or two.

The rest of the ruin was mostly the same, with more and more vampires attacking them at every turn, but with Matt gushing out more mana than they could shake a Tier 50 stick at, it was a total breeze.

And the vampires were good sources of Genesis Energy, so they returned quite a bit of their cultivation.

By the time they found a vampire in full black plate armor sitting on the throne, they were peak Tier 5’s and feeling their power increase.

The boss disabused them of that notion almost immediately.

With long white hair flowing behind it, it created an afterimage as it sliced out at Matt and his [Bulwark].

Matt had spent 1000 mana in the initial cast, and channeled another 1000 MPS to the skill, but the boss’s red and black blade still sliced through it as if it wasn’t there. As his mana shield shattered, he could feel that the blade was imbued with Void mana specifically tuned to… break through unaspected mana in defensive skills.

Minkalla was annoyed at them again, it seemed.

Still, Matt was fast enough to get his unenchanted Tier 6 longsword in between himself and the black armored vampire knight, which was the only reason he was sent flying instead of being sliced in half.

Still, his sword exploded under the impact as the durability rune was overloaded in the single strike.

Liz flowed forward with a stream of blood ready to hammer down on the boss, but it raised its off hand and the blood stopped in its tracks.

Susanne was already rushing forward, but even as the vampire boss battled with Liz in a fight of wills, it had no issues dueling Susanne to a standstill.

Aster growled and ice started to appear as she used [Winter’s Harvest] and Winter's Embrace.

The buffing skill empowered Matt, but more importantly, it created frost on the boss's black armor and slowed its movements a hair.

Getting back to his feet, Matt ran forward and raised his fist while putting all the mana he could into [Cracked Phantom Armor] and its second layer. At the same time, Winter's Embrace started to grow ice on everything, including the boss, trying to sap the energy from them to empower Aster.

The boss, sensing danger, lowered the hand that it was blocking Liz’s attack with, and as the blood hit it, the boss was encased.

Just as Matt realized what it was doing, Liz cried out, “It's eating the blood!”

Aster raced forward, canceling Winter's Embrace while the vampire boss started to absorb Liz’s blood.

From out of the freezing blood, the black longsword slashed out at Susanne, but Matt activated the gravity gauntlets and pulled the attack off-course slightly, giving her time to avoid most of the strike.

Still, a line of red began to leak out of her leg wound and was drawn into the boss's armor.

Liz cried out, “It's trying to draw in all the blood from the entire ruin! I’m holding it back, but this fucker is strong!”

Matt could see what she meant with his spiritual perception. Around them, all the blood raced forward like a wave, only to be stopped like it hit a wall as Liz fought back to prevent it from moving any closer.

As the boss slashed out at Matt, he cast [Fist Blast] and knocked the boss and its blade away.

He even left a small dent on the boss's armor, but the blood from Susanne’s wound flew to the damaged metal, washing it away.

“Take Aster and get back. I’ll handle this guy,” Matt growled out as he downed a bottle of Liz’s strength potion. He then threw all the mana that wasn't defending him into his physical boosting skills, preparing for a strong counterattack.

The boss lashed out with his longsword, but Matt was nowhere close to the blade, putting every drop of mana that he could manage into dodging it. He didn’t trust his armor to be anything more than tissue paper against the item that was apparently designed to bypass his defenses.

The boss was fast.

But Matt was faster.

He sidestepped the attack and darted in, teleporting through the vampire’s defenses and landing a [Fist Blast]-empowered right hook on its chest. He wasn’t able to focus enough to grow any spikes over his knuckles in time, but he still managed to dent the monster's armor.

With no blood around, its healing factor was no better than normal, and Matt could do what he did best.

Trade blows with someone.

Even as he was forced to treat the longsword as an unblockable threat, he had more than enough mana running through his buffing skills and teleportation ring to dodge every last strike. Ducking under a slash, teleporting eight inches to avoid a thrust, landing a counterattack, and slipping away from a chop were all steps in his dance with death. Only his treatment of the sword as an assured armor piercer meant that it was even moderately challenging, which he supposed was the entire point. Not that he minded.

It was where he felt most alive.

In a fight with risks.

Matt dodged to the side, seeing the [Wind Cutter] from Susanne and an [Ice Spear] from Aster coming in at his back with his spiritual sense. Sadly, the boss only lost an arm, and even before the appendage hit the ground, strands of blood were reaching out from the cuts and trying to reattach the limb.

Not everything was bad though. Jumping into grappling range, Matt grabbed the flat of the vampire’s blade and twisted.

The second the void weapon left his grip, the entire fight changed.

The vampire was no longer able to hurt him, and Matt was free to beat it to death without a worry.

However, the vampire was still able to quickly reattach its arm before Matt could get in close. Punching the now reformed armor of the boss, Matt sent it stumbling back and stepped sideways as it tried to go for its fallen blade.

With his change of position, the vampire no longer had a free path, and no matter its speed, it couldn't teleport. Aster was already standing over the blade and covering it in ice, so picking it up was no longer as easy as just escaping Matt’s grasp.

Seeing the fight turning, Matt activated [Flamethrower] and smiled as the boss let loose a screech.

Except, the fire didn’t seem to burn the monster like it had its weaker brethren.

The armor turned red under the heat, but the vampire didn’t go up like dry wood.

Turning off the skill, Matt went back to his melee skills and threw a right hook into the black armor. For a brief moment, he pushed every spare drop of mana he had solely into [Mage’s Retreat] while the punch was in flight.

Metal met magical armor and cracked.

The remaining trace amounts of blood around them were pulled in to heal the boss, but Matt didn’t miss the fact that the boss was slower to heal without the outside source of blood.

His companions didn’t miss it either, and Susanne and Aster threw attack after attack when they had a clear shot, forcing the boss to waste blood healing.

Matt swore he could see the frustration build in the boss's movements as it tried to escape the wall he created with his very presence, struggling to get the blood that Liz was holding hostage.

As it tried to [Dash] past Matt, he teleported and caught the vampire in the face with a [Fist Blast], arresting its momentum with a loud clang.

Performing a second teleport, he appeared next to the boss and started swinging at its less protected flank.

He caught a punch on the side, but let it land to return one of his own.

While the boss’s attack merely skittered off [Cracked Phantom Armor], his fist shattered black armor and finally exposed flesh.

Seeing that he activated [Flamethrower] once more.

This time, the boss screamed in pain and used a spell disrupting skill. Matt had more than enough practice dealing with that style of attack, and the boss was still only a Tier 7.

[Cracked Phantom Armor] and [Flamethrower] didn't even flicker.

As the boss tried to pull away, he held on and let the two of them tumble to the ground.

As they landed, he felt the monster try to bite at his neck and smiled. That was what he was waiting for.

Even a vampire couldn't bite with a full helm on.

Dropping then recasting [Flamethrower] from his head, Matt held the boss close as it tried to pull away and flailed around wildly.

Matt didn’t let go or stop [Flamethrower] until he felt the Genesis Energy pour into him.

Standing up, he was immediately knocked off his feet as the wall of blood Liz was holding back washed over him.

Standing up for a second time, he shook the blood off himself as Susanne and Aster yelled at Liz.

Susanne was more mad at the surprise literal blood bath, while Aster was pissed about her fur.

“Look at what you did to me! I look like a fire fox!.” Aster let loose a mournful cry that would have seemed amusing if Matt couldn't feel her very real indignation at being drenched.

Liz was apologetic and cleaned the two of them up with [Erase Blood], and the utility skill removed all the blood from their hair, skin, clothes, fingernails, eyelids, and even fur.

Of all the skills that Liz had gotten for the tournament, the converted [Erase] was Aster’s favorite, as it meant she had to be stuck with red-stained fur far less than when they only had manual washing and [Cleanse] to rely on.

Matt found the boss drops and laughed. It had dropped its black sword and a skill. If he hadn’t personally thrown the original sword away he would have thought they were the same one. The only difference was that this one was Tier 14, and felt dangerous.

Susanne sloshed over and inspected the sword. “That's a nice blade. A little small for me, but damn it's nice. Void stuff is stupid rare.”

“Take it as a backup. Never know after all, and with it, you might finally have a shot at breaking my defenses when we duel,” Matt teased.

Without any kind of time pressure, Matt found enough time to properly study the skill drop, instead of guiltily throwing it into his spatial ring alongside a swiftly-growing pile of unknown skills. Still, he was quite happy with what he found, namely [Last Flame]. The Tier 14 [Last Flame] was a fairly niche channeled spell that set the area around the caster aflame. If that was all, it would be only a decent skill, but it also made the caster nearly impervious to fire spells, like a pseudo [Fire Body]. It was why the skill had ended up as part of the list he’d made sure to download onto his [AI] before they entered.

He tossed it to Liz and said, “Torch would probably appreciate this.”

Liz caught it, looked at it for a moment, and tossed it back. “It's a good general skill. Think you’d be better off with it than her, though.”

Walking over to the reward distortion, they dispelled it and a massive, crystal blue club fell out, along with a half dozen essence stones and a vial of blood that Liz immediately teased a drop out of and started studying.

While she did that, Matt picked up the club and was surprised at how light it was. It weighed almost nothing.

He was sure that even as a Tier 1 he could swing it around like a willow branch.

Inspecting its runes, he sent mana into it. As he expected, the weight proportionally increased with the mana channeled into it.

Matt stopped channeling mana to it and the club immediately lightened once more.

Susanne, who had been watching, whistled. “That's useful. Or it is if it's durable.”

Matt walked around a corner and tested it by slamming it into the floor with his full power.

The club didn’t even get a scratch on its surface.

“Durable enough. Question is, how heavy does it get?”

As he quickly found out, very.

After he fed about 1,000 mana into the club, the weapon stopped accepting more mana, but by that point it was heavy enough to visibly crack the stone it was sitting on. It acted a bit like a reserve weapon, enabling him to call the mana back when he wanted to, and reducing its weight correspondingly.

Matt wasn’t going to change his entire fighting style around a new weapon, but it was useful. He could swing it and right before impact increase the weight of the weapon to a crazy degree, increasing his damage massively, or just use it as a bit of a mana crystal, not that he needed more of those.

Overall, it was a practical and useful drop.

Considering he couldn't even lift his growth sword, he kept the club out as he walked over to Liz, still inspecting the vial of blood.

“It's not the parasites. At least I don't think it is. The blood feels more like the vampires'.” Liz cocked her head at the vial.

Aster sniffed it and asked, “Would that make you all fangy like them, or more healy like them?”

Liz shrugged. “I have no idea. I would need to do wayyyy more testing to be sure, but I think it would be the second. Minkalla ruin rewards should never be dangerous, so it should act like a natural treasure, like my Blood Iron and your Winter's Embrace.”

After they stored their new items away, Matt threw his new weapon over his shoulder as they descended to the final level of the floor.