Assimilate All Talents

Chapter 111: Crystal Arrow

Sol and Amber carefully approached the exit of the 13th floor, and like before, Sol was able to see the group blocking the exit.

"Sneaking by won’t work. They will just see through our invisibility."

Uncharacteristically, Amber had a suggestion.

"[Terra Spikes]?"

Sol shook his head.

"I’d rather not. Such an attack drains most of my mana in one go and leaves me extremely exhausted. If we get attacked afterwards, I won’t be of much use. At most, I can use [Overpower], but not with full power [Terra Spikes]."

Sol peeked over at the group without getting spotted before continuing.

"On the bright side, there’s only 10 of them in total. Should be doable if we get the drop on them. Who should we target first? Urian?"

Sol thought it would be ideal to take out the strongest opponent first, which in this case he believed to be Urian. From the skill list alone, Sol didn’t know what spells Urian knew, but he did know how versatile light magic was. It was great at healing, defending, supporting, and attacking. Although it lacked in power compared to fire magic, its versatility easily made up for that weakness.

Amber shook her head and pointed at an average-looking adventurer. Sol had seen his status page but didn’t see anything special; their talents were: [Dagger], [Throwing], [Quick]. An average looking adventurer with only common talents.

Sol had no idea why Amber suggested that man first but didn’t immediately dismiss her suggestion as he knew there must be a reason for it.

"Huh? Why him?"

"Belt. Spell bombs."

Sol leaned over and saw the belt full of small spheres, but he had no idea they were spell bombs until she pointed it out. Since Sol was only able to use [Analysis] on people and not their items, he had been unconsciously ignoring them.

Spell Bombs were extremely expensive consumable items that could store a spell inside them. When thrown, the spell would be instantly unleashed without any casting required. Unlike normal spellcasters who can normally only cast one spell at a time, one could simply throw all the spell bombs they had and unleash a devastating attack.

The only downside was that one couldn’t put just any spell inside, as some spells required them to be guided by the caster. That meant most spells stored inside didn’t differentiate friend or foe, attacking whoever was caught inside the radius of the released spell. This was why they were commonly referred to as spell bombs, although the system had a different name for it: spell containers.

"Why does he have so many? I heard they were extremely expensive."

A spell bomb with an intermediate-level spell would cost at the very least 50 gold, while advanced spells were even higher starting at 400 gold. The worst part was they were unable to tell what kind of spells were stored inside until it was too late. The man they were looking at had 4 strapped on his belt and however many more he had in his spatial ring.

’Keeping them on his belt for quick access just to avoid the slight delay in using a storage ring. I don’t think he would hesitate to throw them at us the moment we appear.’

Sol took out his bow and looked at Amber.

"I’ll try to take him out first. You ready?"

Amber nodded and went invisible. Though it would be easily countered by the light spell, it would force Urian to take the time to cast it, effectively making him waste a chance to attack.

Sol was also ready and began to funnel mana into his bow as he used its skill [Mana Arrow]. At 20 mana, it was as strong as a normal arrow, but Sol wanted this first attack to succeed no matter what and continued pouring more mana.

At 50 mana, the light blue arrow became slightly more opaque. It was as strong as an uncommon arrow.

At 100 mana, the arrow turned dark blue and opaque to the point it was hard to see through it. It was strong as a rare arrow.

At 200 mana, it was now fully opaque as the deep dark blue radiated terrifying power. It was as strong as a unique arrow. With this much mana condensed into a single arrow, it was as powerful as the golden arrow used against Sol but without the additional skills the arrow was shot with.

Sol didn’t stop there.

At 300 mana, the arrow became pitch black and solidified into a form of pure crystallized mana. The bow began to creak and groan as it was never meant to handle this much mana at once. Most archers didn’t tend to invest points into wisdom, so the creator of the bow never made the bow with the intention to handle such a quantity of mana. Instead, the bow was made to be efficient, making the most out of the little mana supply archers normally had. This meant that even with only 300 mana, the arrow rivaled the power of an advanced spell in terms of pure power.

Sol stopped inserting mana as he could feel the bow couldn’t handle more. Without turning the corner, Sol used [Seeking Arrow] and locked onto the adventurer’s mana signature. With confidence that this couldn’t be blocked with spells or skills, Sol let the arrow loose.

FWOOM!

Sol could barely follow the arrow the moment it left his bow as it flew at a speed he didn’t think was possible. A dark line was formed from his bow as it turned left towards the adventurers guarding the exit.

The ones standing watch were paying attention to their surroundings, but no matter how prepared they were, they couldn’t be ready for the black crystal arrow.

"Watch-!"

"[Wind-!"

One of the adventurers tried to warn the others while another tried to block the attack, but neither were able to even finish their sentences as the arrow pierced and flew straight through one of the adventurers, obliterating him. The other adventurers turned to look at what became of their friend with pure shock. What they saw was only the lower half of their friend, as the upper half was gone as if completely erased from existence.

The mana arrow did not stop after killing the adventurer and continued straight into the dungeon’s wall. It drilled straight through like paper, and it was impossible to tell when or if it would ever stop.

You have slain a Lv 76 Spectre! Gained 330,000 Exp (220%)

An unlucky Sprecte in another passageway confirmed to Sol, the arrow was still moving at that time.