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Stoneman kept launching various sand blasts at me. Sand ball after sand ball, I dodge them all. But I need to think of a way to kill it. In the game, Stoneman was weak against wind based attacks. So normally in a party you would have someone distracting it, someone debuffing him and lowering his elemental defense further, and finally blasting him with wind attacks.

Of course, the skill pool was limited, so I didn’t bother learning wind attacks. And my usual lightning burst skill chain might collapse the cave on us. Let’s try this.

“[Tempo Assault]!”

I closed the distance between us and thrust my spear. Tempo Assault was a skill. Repeated thrusts in a short amount of time. If someone were to witness this, they probably would see 10 spears thrusting back and forth at the same time. It had that sort of after image effect.

Clang clang clang

Metal repeatedly bashed against it’s rocky body.

Whoouuu!

It let out some sort of cry, I guess it doesn’t like that. His right arm started spinning in place like a big drill. It shoved his drill arm straight at my stomach. Tempo Assault was a strong physical ability but it had a small weakness. According to the skills description, constantly thrusting wears the body down, so it had a 2 second stagger effect. My demon fox necklace can’t cancel out self inflicted status alignments. And those 2 seconds were enough for the golem to land his punch.

Guah!!!

I was sent flying and crashed against the wall. It made quite a big crater.

“Izuna! Are you alright?”

“I’m fine… stay there!”

Truth be told I’m not fine. It hurts! It f̲u̲c̲k̲i̲n̲g̲ hurts so bad! With that attack he inflicted 35k damage on me. It’s the most I took since coming to this world. Pain is real. Even if I survived and have HP to spare, pain is something I’ll still experience. God… I need to think of something. Wait! I think I got it.

I thought of an item in my inventory and it appeared in my hand. A glass vial with a golden liquid. It was the potion Greater Luck Boost. I don’t waste any time and drink it all in one go. My body shined with a gold light for roughly a second. Stoneman once again got near me and like a giant gorilla he raised both his hands in the air and swung them down with a great force.

Please work! Pretty please!!!

“[Swallow Reversal]!”

The moment his hands were about to crush me I took a stance and intercepted his blows with my spear. And in the next moment, I appeared behind him. Various purple blade cuts swarmed all over his body. The final cut made one big shockwave and his body cracked and crumbled into tiny pieces. It worked! I’m so glad it worked.

Swallow Reversal is a counter type skill. If timed right, not only will it cancel your opponents’ attack, but it will also inflict instant death. True endgame raid bosses have 300% resistance to instant death. So no matter how much you debuff them, you can’t instant kill them. Stoneman was different though. Swallow Reversal was implemented later in the game, but the devs never bothered to patch Stoneman to be immune to instant death. That being said, this skill only gave me a 50% chance of killing it. So I used the potion to boost my luck. It was in my favor but… I felt it could have backfired as well.

Ring ring

When the monster was defeated I heard a loud bell ring in my head. It was a sound I was all too familiar with… In that instant I focus to open the menu and there I saw it: “Congratulations, you have leveled up! 135->136”

I was speachless. In Astral Storm Online, the level cap was 135. So there was no way you could level up more. Is this world not restricted to a level cap? And there was more with my new level it seems I unlocked a new unique ability:

• D̲i̲c̲k̲ control: You are now fully able to control your d̲i̲c̲k̲ with your mind. You are able to make it erect in an instant, or make it flask at will.

Oh great… another sex skill. Seriously, what’s up with that cat God? I mean… I’m not saying I won’t have a use for it but… come on! Leveling is supposed to give you a thrill and the satisfaction of achieving great power! I feel so awkward with this instead.

“Izuna-sama… are you okay? You’ve been staring at the floor for quite a while.”

Ugh… oh yeah. I was lost in thoughts and forgot about Iris.

“I’m fine. Let’s get back to your friends. They should be back to normal now.”

And so, this cave adventure should be over.

When I unblocked the hole all 3 are have returned to normal but were unconscious. So I had to drag them all the way to the exit. When we finally came out, both Elenore and Tia screamed like crazy upon seeing the princess and prince. In fact they even thought that I knocked them out. So noisy. However Iris made sure to explain the situation properly.

“Do you guys have some sort of transportation?”

“No. When we reached the base of the mountain we let our horses go because horses can’t climb this place.”

Sigh

Great. We only have 2 Galleons. And a Galleon can only carry 2 people. Guess like I got no choice. At times like this I wished I wasn’t such a goody-two-shoe.

“Fine. Then you take our Galleons. We’ll return on foot.”

“But that is…”

“Look, you guys are in a worse shape than us. And we only need to walk to the nearest village. We’ll find a ride there.”

“O… okay then. I’ll make sure to tell father to properly reward you this time. Thank you so much again!”

And with that the princess and her gang went ahead. Honestly though, as soon as we get off the mountain we probably need to set a camp. I’m really tired.

“Izuna, you are simply amazing! Not only did you save my humble life but you also conquered the cave. After all that, I made up my mind. From now on, wherever you go, I’m coming too. I feel that I could achieve my goal faster if I stay with you!”

Well, I have no reason to turn her down. Specially since her eyes are really useful.

“I have nothing against it, but what exactly is your goal, Tia?”

“It’s a long story. I guess… you deserve to know. But it’s not a happy story.”

“Since we’re walking now we have time. So let’s hear it.”

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