Chương 389: Unholy Affinity

Inside the labyrinth, Damion left Elicia and Phil on the twelfth floor. There Elicia would be able to train against Demonic Beasts mostly close to her own level, and he had given her his spatial storage ring to collect her spoils. Phil being there was for peace of mind for Damion, as there was nothing on that floor or among the adventurers entering the labyrinth that could threaten the Blizzard King.

It also meant that if she left early with Phil, he would know when he returned to the floor, since he would not feel the bond between him strengthen when they were on the same floor. Leaving Phil on twelve also had the benefit of letting Damion travel through the catacombs on the fourteenth floor quickly. Since he knew where to go and the quickest way to get there, reaching the B Rank and then the A Rank thirty-first floor in record time was easy.

He focused on only clearing Demonic Beasts from his immediate path, even going so far as simply outrunning creatures that he had no need to fight. This meant Damion only collected 35 D Rank and 15 C Rank carcasses. After reaching the A Rank floors, Damion decided to take a look around the thirty-first floor this time. Before, he had simply meditated in the safe area and aside from the data the auto-mapper collected, he knew very little about the floor.

The forest that made up the majority of the thirty-first floor was a dark place. Damion had been in many forests, in the real world and in various Realm Breaches, but this one was the first that made him feel uneasy. In the safe area he had not noticed it, but just a few steps away from the passageway his skin began to crawl. Damion's eyes darted around, searching for danger amongst the trees, but he saw nothing. Even True Sight did not reveal any threats hiding in the abundant shadows.

Deciding it was better to stay in the safe zone than to risk encountering something he could not handle; he stepped back into it. Just as he did a wisp of light caught his eye. The wisp was only there for a moment, but it was enough for him to register what True Sight showed. C Rank Unholy affinity. Just as fast as the wisp appeared it vanished again, leaving Damion with two possibilities, either the Demonic Beasts on this floor could move faster than he could see, or they could turn invisible.

Back in the safe area, Damion opened up the map of the floor on his tablet. He could see dozens of signals for Demonic Beasts all around the forest. However, looking up from the map, he could not spot a single one. The signals on the map were not moving very quickly, which left Damion with the sole theory that they could indeed turn invisible.

The auto-mapper did not rely on visibility to create its map; it relied on pulses of magic that harmlessly interacted with objects and reported the positions of things back to the artifact. This meant the Demonic Beasts were invisible, but not intangible. As long as the Demonic Beasts were not intangible, he could still attack them, even if he could not see them. Still, if he did so, he would lose the protection of the safe area.

Since he could not see the strength of all the Demonic Beasts in the area, he had no idea if any of them were above his ability to handle. This being an A Rank floor, it meant there were certainly B Rank creatures around, many of which were probably stronger than he was. Deciding it was better just to focus on raising his magic power, Damion sat down and began to meditate. If he wanted to reach A Rank, he needed to focus on raising his magic power.

He made good progress on his last visit, but he still had a long way to go. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. As Damion let Mana Absorption pull mana into his core, he decided to try something. One of the abilities of Mana Absorption was that it would pull more mana from an object he was touching. He had used it as a method of attack before, but never of advancement.

Taking out one of the Ice affinity B Rank cores he had saved for Phil, he held it in his hand and let his passive spell do its work. He knew other mages used cores of their affinity to absorb large amounts of mana to assist in increasing their magic power. He had never done the same because Mana Absorption offered him an easy way to raise his magic power, and he had already been advancing quickly before. However, the jump to A Rank was harder to achieve, after that, the jump to S Rank would be enormous.

As Damion held the core in his hand he pulled up his status menu in the Magic System. He could hardly believe it when he saw his mana continue to rise. It would be great if absorbing a core allowed him to directly raise his magic power, but it did not work that way. However, with his core saturated, Damion began to focus on compressing the mana he was now struggling to contain. An hour passed. Then two.

After four hours went by the Ice affinity core he had gotten from a Snow Lion on the thirtieth floor had been completely absorbed. Even though the core was gone, his own core was still oversaturated with mana and Mana Absorption was still active, allowing him to continue to pull mana in. After twelve hours went by, Damion felt he had reached his limit in compressing the excess mana he had. He needed to rest. Shutting down his passive, took his tent out from his personal spatial storage and crawled in to sleep.

The next morning, Damion awoke refreshed and ready for another round of training. However, when he opened his tent he found he had an unexpected visitor.

"Mage Parivar, I did not expect to see you on the A Rank floors."

"Good morning to you too," the woman said, turning to look at him.

"I would have wondered who was in the tent if I didn't know you were the only other person able to reach this point faster than me."

"I'm surprised you were able to reach here as fast as you did. Most people would get stuck for a while on the mountain floors. Unless they can fly."

"Well, I can't fly as fast as you," she said as she suddenly transformed into an eagle and then shifted back.

"But I can fly and bypass most of the challenges on the lower floors. Since you were kind enough to create maps of the catacombs and Fire Cave, reaching here was not so difficult."

"Are you close to breaking through to A Rank?" Damion asked, trying to hide his surprise when he saw the ease in which she transformed into an animal and back.

"Yes. I was hoping to find a Demonic Beast on this floor to transform into, but there don't seem to be any around."

"There are plenty around. You just can't see them."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know what kind of Demonic Beasts they are, some type of specter or wraith. The few I've managed to catch glimpses of were C Rank and had the Unholy affinity."

"Really? Now that is interesting," Mage Parivar said, stretching.

"Are you going to try and fight one?"

"Without knowing how strong all the others are, no thanks. I was, however, thinking that maybe we should team up and try to reach the higher floors. Mage Teft is further in isn't she? So, she has certainly opened up the passageways to the next floors. We can just slip through and enjoy the benefits of denser mana."

"No thanks," Damion said. He was not sure why Mage Parivar really wanted to team up, but he hardly knew her, and he was not about to put himself into a position where he would be forced to limit his abilities to avoid suspicion.

"I think I have reached my limit on compressing my mana for now. I need to focus on my physical training next. I think I will head back to the B Rank floors for that." Mage Parivar looked a bit sad when Damion declined her invitation but did not say anything. Not wanting to make things more awkward than they were, Damion quickly got up, collected his belongings and headed back through the passage to the B Rank floors.