Starlight Necromancer

Chapter 76 - The Dungeon's Gift

"Okay then, you guys did earn yourselves some gifts. What'd you want?" The man asked, tiredly yawning into his hand, as everyone in the group looked at each other. Kyla was still confused about everything that's been happening here, but she as well knew that they had to figure something out now. She knew a lot about dungeons, so she knew the best way to go about this, "Could you give us what you find the best for each of us?" She asked, and the dungeon's incarnation let out a deep sigh, "Urgh, right."

The man's eyes seemed to flash up with a dim light for a moment as he glanced at everyone standing in front of him, and first stepped up to Kyla, "For you, I'll awaken your mind to a special miracle." He said, quickly waving his hand. A moment later, Kyla became excited looking at what she had been given.

"This is super rare! I've never actually met anyone that had this!" She exclaimed, and Octer looked at her curiously, "So? What is it?"

"It's the 'Cure Rot' miracle!" She replied immediately, "Meaning that we don't have to worry as much anymore in places like this. And... I can probably help victims of this dungeon as well." Kyla explained with a slight smile, looking at the message window floating in front of her eyes.

Next, the dungeon's incarnation stepped up to Octer, "You. You have a clear focus on defense, but I see two possible paths for you. Do you want to go even deeper into defense, or do you want to become more offensive?"

"I..." Octer let out, unsure what he should do, before slowly closing his eyes, "I'm a tank. It's not the path I dreamt of, but it's the one I'm on now. So I'll go all out, and become the best. Give me a defensive ability, please."

With a nod, the incarnation waved his hand, and Octer received his new ability, "Bone Armor? I've never heard of it before."

"It's a quite special skill. Technically, it can be counted as a spell as well. Both mages and warriors can learn it, and it will simply align with the focus of the user. In your case, it will mostly use stamina, but it will also drain some mana, so be aware of that." The man explained quickly, as Octer stared back at him, "W-What? A spell? It's... it's actually a spell?"

"Technically, you could say so." The man replied, while Octer simply stared at the message window excitedly, giddy like a little kid. Meanwhile, the incarnation moved on to Lynol.

"For you, I'm sorry to say that I will not be giving you a new skill. You seem to not rely on your martial skills in the first place, and you are not fit for magic. So instead, I will give you an item. Albeit, an unfinished item. A material, rather." The incarnation walked through the room, over toward the collapsed corpse of the giant frog. He placed his hand on a bone on the frog's hind-leg, its femur, and closed its eyes. A moment later, the rest of the frog's bones seemed to rattle and shake, as if it was about to come back to life.

But instead of that, the bones were all pulled toward the femur and were soon absorbed into it. It seemed quite unreal, but it was clearly some powerful magic. The femur itself grew in size, and soon, not a single bone was left beside said femur, which the man carried over toward Lynol.

"That being that you have slain was the first undead I had created for this dungeon. It has grown to that size over the years, growing in strength. But it has also attained something else, a weird mockery of life. I can, and will have to, create new versions of it, but they will be different to this one. They will be like the other skeletons you faced, disappearing upon death. But not this one. These bones are strong, stronger than the steel of your former sword, and I strengthened them even further. A monster's bones are special, so a skilled craftsman should be able to forge a wonderful new weapon out of this for you." The incarnation explained, and Foster slowly held the bone on both his arms. It was clearly heavy, even too heavy for Lynol himself to properly hold it, but he was clearly happy with what he was given.

His old weapon was destroyed by the frog's slime, making the wooden parts of the mechanism rot away so that it could only fall apart into its smaller metal parts. So he would need a new one anyway. This did seem like a good fit.

"Now, for the last two." The incarnation said, moving on. Foster looked back at him with his brows raised, sort of confused, "Two? But it's just me left?"

"Oh? So you are saying you and that spirit in your hair are the very same?" The man asked with a sigh, as Aster slowly peaked out Foster's hair, looking at the incarnation of this dungeon. The moment that he saw it, the man raised his brows surprised, "A mask spirit? Interesting."

"Mask Spirit? Isn't he a nature spirit?" Foster replied surprised, and the man immediately said, "He is a nature spirit, but that's just an overarching category. More specifically, he's a mask spirit. Depending on their nature, their mask will change and shift during their lifetime, and once they have fully matured, they can draw power from special masks. It seems this one returned to the start of his growth-phase, so I will give you something for when said phase is over."

With a flick of his wrist, the man pulled an object out of mid-air. It was a mask made of bone, in the shape of a skeletal face, "Well, considering that you are this spirit's master, you could probably use the natural powers of this mask spirit to gain certain benefits yourself, but that is something you will have to figure out on your own. I don't know much about the inner workings of their abilities." The man said, handing the mask to Foster, since it was clearly too large for Aster to carry, "Currently it's just a normal, albeit incredibly durable, mask. It has powers in it that can only be drawn out by a mask spirit."

"I see... erm, thanks, I guess?" Foster replied, looking at the mask with a wry smile. It was sort of a weird thing to look at, but that wasn't all. The man wasn't finished yet, after all. He waved his hand in front of Foster, before a message window simply popped up.

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[You have received the martial skill {Bone Breaker}. It has been integrated into your {Martial Necromancy} skill]