Chapter 67

  Keith walked up the stone steps and emerged from the depths of the dungeon.

  As soon as he appeared, a military official came over and eyed Keith’s missing arm. “Well done! Do you need medical treatment?”

  “I’m fine,” Keith shook his head.

  The official stepped aside and gestured for Keith to follow. “If you don’t mind, we’d like to record your experiences in the dungeon. The more information we know about the challenges, the better. It’ll help to prevent casualties.”

  “No need to explain, I understand,” Keith smiled.

  “Good. This way.”

  The official led Keith into the fortress surrounding the dungeon and into a side room, where a middle-aged scholarly elf sat behind a desk, typing away on their magic tablet.

  “This is Ms. Grey. She’ll take over from here,” the official explained from outside the room. When Keith entered, the official shut the door to give them some privacy.

  “Take a seat, I’ll be with you in a moment,” Ms. Grey said without looking up.

  Doing as suggested, Keith sat down and made himself comfortable.

  Seconds later, Ms. Grey asked, “Name?”

  “Keith Walker,” Keith replied.

  “Huh?” Ms. Grey finally looked up, surprised to hear that name.

  She adopted a more serious expression. “Can you describe what happened in the dungeon?”

  At her request, Keith promptly shared the details of each challenge, as well as his rewards. Ms. Grey silently recorded everything on the magic tablet as he explained. When he got to the last challenge, Ms. Grey interrupted, “Wait, you accepted the third challenge?”

  “Yes, why?” Keith was puzzled.

  Ms. Grey looked at Keith in a new light. “No matter who enters the dungeon, they can do no more than three challenges. Of those who accept the last one, most fail. So far, less than a hundred have succeeded.”

  Here, Ms. Grey was visibly interested, “What did your third challenge entail?”

  “I had to defeat a doppelganger,” Keith answered.

  Ms. Grey’s pupils shrunk. “As expected of the High Commander’s son.”

  “What do you mean?” Keith inquired as he sat up.

  Ms. Grey hesitated briefly before revealing, “Besides you, two people have had to face a doppelganger on their third challenge.”

  “My dad and Ska’dur?” Keith laughed knowingly.

  “Indeed,” Ms. Grey confirmed.

  “What were their rewards?” Keith asked, curious how his compared to theirs.

  “I can’t share that with you,” Ms. Grey answered.

  “Fine,” Keith leaned into his chair. “I’ll just ask them myself.”

  Ms. Grey’s eyebrow twitched.

  A moment later, she said, “Do you mind sharing what reward you acquired for defeating the doppelganger?”

  “A growth-type equipment,” Keith responded, deciding to keep its exact details to himself.

  “I see,” Ms. Grey wasn’t surprised to hear that, which piqued Keith’s interest.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  He stated, “I’m guessing that’s what my dad and Ska’dur got, too.”

  Ms. Grey’s silence confirmed Keith’s guess.

  After answering a few more questions, Keith went through a series of teleportation arrays and arrived back at the Blockade. Upon entering his house, he resumed his daily routine of drinking a dozen or so elixirs, having grown sick of their taste. Thankfully, it wouldn’t be long now until he capped out the stats he could gain from them.

  A few minutes later, Keith sunk into his couch and withdrew the Robes of the Manaborne. He lovingly caressed the fabric as you would a newborn baby.

  How should I level it up? Keith thought.

  There were two ways the Robes of the Manaborne could level.

  He could either sacrifice his own levels or configure it so that whenever he killed a monster, the Robes of the Manaborne would take a portion of the experience for itself. Keith could set it to take anywhere from 1% to 100% of the experience gained.

  Keith was unwilling to sacrifice his hard-earned levels.

  He didn’t want to see his level drop.

  Fortunately, he was at the Blockade.

  There were countless monsters for him to hunt – leveling the Robes of the Manaborne shouldn’t be an issue. With that said, the very next day, Keith hovered above the Blockade, fiddling with the Robes of the Manaborne’s settings. He would let the robes take 100% of all the experience he’d acquire from today’s defense.

  It didn’t take long for the monster horde to arrive.

  As usual, Keith unleashed a massacre, culling the monsters like wheat.

  It was even more so now that he extended his recent understanding in Sword Mastery to Arsenal of the Desert.

  One hundred…

  One thousand…

  Ten thousand…

  Keith quickly lost count of how many monsters he killed.

  From time to time, he checked in on the level and grade of the Robes of the Manaborne.

  Each level it gained sent tingles down his spine, and when rose a grade, he felt unprecedented satisfaction. Keith refrained from checking out the equipment’s new skills and stats. He wanted to wait until the monster horde was over.

  The hours passed quickly.

  As soon as the monster horde ended, Keith rushed home, eager to check out the updated Robes of the Manaborne.

  (Mythic, Growth-type equipment) Robes of the Manaborne – Level 587

  Description: An equipment that takes up the chest and pants slot. By absorbing experience, it can grow in level and grade. Acquires new skills and stats with every grade. Stats, skills, and defenses scale accordingly.

  +1,500 Physical Defense

  +3,000 Spell Defense

  +300 Agility

  +1,200 Intelligence

  +10,000 Health

  +30,000 Mana

  +5% cast speed

  +5% Spell damage

  Skill 1: Tethered Mana. 5% of mana consumed by skills returns to the user.

  Skill 2: Unification of Mana and Mind. Raises mana, fire, wind, earth, and water affinity by 1.

  Skill 3: Spell Ward. When struck by a spell, ignore its damage and effects. 1 minute cooldown.

  Keith struck the air with his fist and whooped in delight.

  The Robes of the Manaborne’s stats were comparable to top-of-the-line mythic grade equipment. Not only that, its skills were unique. The addition of Spell Ward was icing on the cake.

  After celebrating, Keith calculated how much experience the robes had absorbed when he gasped in shock.

  No way! Keith thought, dumbfounded.

  The experience it needed to level from 587 to 588 was exactly how much he required at that level. It was already a pain in the slimeball for Keith to level up. If he wanted to continue leveling the Robes of the Manaborne, his leveling speed would surely slow down even more.

  But of course, he had to!

  It was a potential transcendent grade item, after all.

  Keith would be an idiot to ignore it.

  Sighing, he made himself comfortable on the couch and began meditating to increase his mana recovery rate. He wanted to restore his Mana Cores as soon as possible.

  Meanwhile, Keith’s clone was tucked away in the corner of Frisk’s personal time-accelerated Pocket Dimension, researching Fireball. Since there were no visible arrays for him to study, he had to learn the old-fashioned way, so he recently visited Adventurer Academy.

  With his status as the High Commander’s son, Keith could easily request for the teachers there to tutor him in private sessions, but he chose not to.

  Instead, he met up with a few teachers after classes ended and offered them a lucrative commission to tutor him. The items he gave them came straight from the Blockade and were top-of-the-line. They were more than willing to accept.

  From then on, the teachers Keith hired occasionally came to Frisk’s time-accelerated Pocked Dimension and taught Keith what he wanted to know.

  Heat.

  Transfer of energy.

  Propulsion.

  Combustion.

  Once Keith understood the mechanisms related to explosions, he internalized his new knowledge and applied it to arrays. It didn’t take long for him to reverse-engineer the Fireball skill. After that, he continuously increased the complexity of the Fireball array, raising its speed, compression, and explosiveness.

  As a result, Keith’s Fireball skill level shot through the roof, and at the same time, his understanding of arrays rose significantly. By tonight or tomorrow at the latest, Keith’s Fireball skill would reach level 1,000, making it his second level 1,000 skill.

  Keith had already decided on the next skill to research: Mana Barrier.

  He had high expectations for it, especially since he had an item that could raise it to the celestial grade. Mana Barrier was also one of the first skills he had ever acquired, making him fond of it. Keith didn’t want to abandon it so easily. Hopefully, he could elevate it beyond its initial parameters, transforming it into something he’d use over the years to come.