Considering the curated nature of the rift, I doubted I’d get another opportunity to easily kill one of the bosses. Killing the avemon boss had been a fluke, or maybe just a really lucky matchup. Encountering the susorc boss while it was unconscious was definitely a lucky break.

  But I somehow doubted my future boss fights would be as easy. The rift was some kind of Assassin’s challenge, after all.

  Given that, I decided to craft a new weapon before testing myself against my next potential target. I didn’t think any of the weapons I’d crafted thus far would be enough to one-shot the rift bosses, even if they were considered Tier Nine items.

  After testing my newly improved spells, I now suspected the Tier Nine items I’d crafted using ambient mana were weaker than they could be. They might technically be Tier Nine weapons, but I felt strangely confident that I could produce vastly superior items now.

  “What do you think? A set of bone batons that link to make a staff?”

  The combination was still one of my favorites, especially with the enchantments I incorporated. Having a single, highly versatile weapon made far more sense than making several separate weapons to cover the same spread of offensive capabilities.

  “Why use the bones?” Lisa inquired. “The wood from the forest is particularly strong and mana-conducive. It’s also far easier to neutralize mana affinities in wood as opposed to bone.”

  I shrugged and removed one of the long bones from my storage ring. It wasn’t perfectly straight since the large creature’s muscles had naturally affected the shape of the bone, but it was close enough that I could make it work.

  Lisa was right about the mana, though. It would take a lot more effort to create a neutral enchantment base out of the bones than wood would. The other option would be to leave it attuned to Magma, which I was disinclined to do for a modular weapon since every piece would need to be similarly attuned.

  “You’re right,” I conceded. “Wood would probably be better for a modular staff. I could probably make a stand-alone scepter out of one of these, though. Magma can be a very effective element.”

  “I thought you decided to try your hand at assassinating the rest of the bosses,” Lisa said. “That is the purpose of the rift challenge, right?”

  “I mean, presumably. But how much control did the person who set up the rift really have?” I asked thoughtfully. “I’ve made low-level rifts before, but never with such control that I could dictate something specific like that. And the requirement is only that I obtain the core for each boss and place them on the altar. It didn’t say anything specific about assassinating the bosses.”

  “True, but the implication is certainly there. You saw how much easier it was to defeat the last boss when you approached it as an Assassin might.”

  “You make a good point,” I admitted with a sigh. “I still want to make a new weapon and compare it to the ones I made before. If I’m going to get up close and personal with something that can kill me, I want to be armed with the strongest weapons I can get.”

  “Why not just use your personal magic again?”

  “I’ll probably incorporate it as well, now that it’s definitely strong enough to work against the bosses, but I don’t want to use the same approach every time. If I’m going to embrace the whole Assassin thing for this challenge, I might as well try a few different methods.”

  While part of me wanted to just rush ahead and defeat the bosses as quickly as possible, I really didn’t feel like I’d gain anything from the effort.

  With the crazy amount of time dilation being inside the rift provided, I had time to experiment with new things. After more than a quarter of a century in real-time, I doubted a couple of extra days were going to make any difference.

  “That’s a pretty significant increase in power,” I said as I compared the aftermath of the two attacks. The two scepters I’d used were identical in every way aside from the method I’d used to empower the enchantments.

  The first was an existing weapon I’d empowered using mana-gathering formations, with the intent for each enchantment imbued into the reagents directly instead of the mana.

  The second was made from the same materials but was enchanted the normal way, with my intent being infused directly into the mana – my mana, primarily – which then empowered and directed the enchantments.

  As suspected, the second weapon was significantly more powerful than the first. I needed no further tests to feel confident that any weapons I created now would far outshine those I’d crafted using formations.

  I’d still use formations for small munitions, but even then, I was pretty sure I could boost the effectiveness of those items with a bit of focused effort. It would save me from the tedious requirement of directly enchanting each individual bead, which was time better spent on other endeavors.

  I still had a plan for the munitions, though. It was the same one I’d thought of originally.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Since I already planned to vary my approach with each boss, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to reattempt my original plan with the goboles now that I could make more powerful weapons. Only this time, I’d teleport back under stealth and kill the boss while it was dealing with the aftermath of the larger attack.

  Rough plan in place, at least for my next assault, I got to work.

  I toyed with the idea of stringing dozens of talisman beads along the top of the underground cavern and having them drop in two waves – Ice-aligned attacks first, followed by Fire. After giving it a little more thought, I worried that such an overwhelming attack might actually kill the boss outright and potentially destroy the core that I needed to escape.

  Since I couldn’t be sure the rift would spawn another boss for me to kill if one of the boss cores were to be destroyed, I didn’t want to risk potentially trapping myself inside the rift indefinitely. I didn’t think that could happen, but it wasn’t a chance I was willing to take.

  Going back to my original plan of sending two volleys of attacks, I readied myself from my perch halfway up the cavern wall. The village and cavern had returned to their original states several weeks after my initial assault, which roughly corresponded to how long it took for regular goboles to respawn.

  So far, neither of the bosses had respawned, nor had any of their defeated minions. A few of the feathered harpies had been away from the floating islands during my assault against their settlement, but they mostly kept to themselves, not bothering to make war with any of the other factions.

  The susorcs, on the other hand, had reorganized under one of the former boss’s guards and were continuing their normal war-like behavior. Interestingly, the new pseudo-boss was not labeled as a boss by the system, meaning I couldn’t just farm the humanoid boars for the boss cores I needed to escape.

  Pity that.

  I eyed the goboles wandering through the faux village below and waited for the time to be right.

  While the creatures didn’t have any set schedule for when they were active or sleeping, I’d noticed they tended to congregate in the mid-afternoon each day. Though I hadn’t done any reconnaissance on the goboles since my last attack, I doubted their schedule had changed.

  I grinned darkly as three squads of patrols loudly entered the village. Being dragged behind the loudest of the groups was the body of a dead susorc. The injuries made it obvious that the creature had fallen victim to one of the many traps lining the tunnels leading to the underground village.

  The other goboles let out a cheer and started swarming the returning squad. A few managed to claw a bit of bloody meat from the body and shuffle away before the boss let out a growling roar, claiming the kill for itself.

  I smirked as the gobole boss emerged from the largest building and made its way toward the now-frozen squad. None of the goboles moved as the boss approached, allowing it to push its way forward.

  I didn’t wait to see how the drama would play out. Instead, I cast a bubble of Haste, ensuring my newly crafted launcher was within the bubble. Firing as quickly as possible, I unloaded ten rounds of Ice-enchanted munitions before swapping to a set that was Fire-attributed.

  It was a lot more than I’d used the first time, but I wasn’t overly concerned. I didn’t think that amount of damage would be enough to defeat the armored boss, even if I had sent most of the munitions in its direction.

  As I’d done the last time, I teleported to safety while the damage was wrought and waited for the rumbling to end. When I returned to the cavern housing the gobole village, I was a little surprised to see sunlight filtering through a huge hole in the ceiling.

  Such an attack somewhere like Earth would have been world-ending. But in a PT9 rift, the damage was barely capable of serving its purpose. Even so, the rift-made village was completely flattened, and dozens of goboles lay broken and bleeding on the cavern floor.

  The gobole boss was pinned beneath a large slab of stone that had fallen when part of the ceiling collapsed, and I smiled at my amazing string of luck.

  “It’s about time my luck turned around,” I said silently, not wanting to alert the goboles to my presence.

  “You’ve had extraordinary luck this entire time,” Lisa countered. “If you did not, I doubt you would have survived.”

  I rolled my eyes and teleported close to the gobole boss. I’d refreshed Stealth before returning to the cavern, so I was a little surprised when the boss immediately focused on me.

  [Gobole Rift Boss – Mind – Level 90 – Various Alchemical uses/Edible with minor processing]

  That explained it, I supposed.

  I immediately teleported back to the edge of the cavern and reworked my Barrier spell to specifically block Mind mana. I hated dealing with Mind-affinitied creatures.

  Casting Haste first, I teleported to the boss’s location and threw a Space Blade at the creature’s neck. I could feel the Mind attack bouncing off my Barrier, but thankfully, it didn’t break through.

  Unfortunately, the boss managed to somehow dodge my spell at the same time, though it was still pinned beneath the large stone.

  I glanced at my mana and noted it was already close to half-exhausted from the mana-intensive spells I’d been using.

  Stealth was still active, even with the boss being able to see through it. From what I could tell, none of the other goboles were able to pierce the spell, so it was worth maintaining to prevent additional attackers from focusing on me.

  I swapped to my newly-crafted weapon and activated the blade enchantment on the far side, shifting it from a quarterstaff into a naginata.

  Before I could attack, several goboles threw themselves in my direction, attacking with wild abandon even though it was clear they could sense my presence. Seeing strands of mint-colored mana linking the attacking goboles to the boss, I had little doubt about what was happening.

  I was still moving far faster than the goboles, so it was easy enough to disable each one. It still took time – time the boss used to somehow escape from the slab of stone that had been holding it in place.

  I channeled more Time mana into Haste and continued my attack, dodging the random attacks from mind-controlled goboles trying to protect their leader.

  It took nearly a minute of extended fighting to finally wear down the chitin-covered boss. Several of its minions lay dead from the conflict, though most were due to the initial attack instead of further conflict.

  Once the boss was defeated, the rest of the goboles seemed to lose all direction and slowly slumped to the ground.

  Watching the cannibalistic creatures carefully, I collected the remains of the boss and then moved to methodically kill every gobole I could find. Most didn’t even put up a fight. They were either too injured to resist or had received some kind of brain damage from the gobole boss’s attempts at mind control.

  I didn’t feel sorry for the creatures. Something about their nature made such emotions impossible.

  When I finally returned to the stone room that served as my home, I released a deep sigh of contentment.

  “That’s three down. Only two more to go.”