Chapter 46: Labyrinth(2)
A few minutes later, Leo encountered another Crimson Treant. This time, he approached it from behind with a sword instead of using magic.
However, unlike using magic, he was unable to kill the Crimson Treant with a single hit, leaving only a deep scar in the monster’s body.
When the Crimson Treant realized it was being attacked, it suddenly turned around and casted earth magic.
Leo could see a green magic circle appear in front of the Crimson Treant right before it released a sharp projectile at him.
Seeing this, he used Void Step to dodge the projectile before attacking the Crimson Treant a couple more times with the sword and killing it.
Afterward, he harvested its mana core and tossed it into his Spatial Ring.
“My sword is too weak compared to my magic,” he sighed.
“You know you can make your sword stronger and sharper by infusing it with your mana.” Miss Camille suddenly said.
“Really? How do I do that?”
“Just treat it as though it’s a magic circle and put some mana into it. However, you need to control the amount of mana you infuse because you can easily cause the sword to break if you infuse too much mana into it.”
“Alright, let me try it.”
He proceeded to guide his mana towards the sword before infusing it with mana.
The ordinary-looking sword now emitted a sharp aura that looked like it could cut anything, even metal.
“Wow, this is really cool.”
“Your sword will eventually run out of mana, but you just need to infuse your mana into it again.”
“I understand.”
Leo immediately went to look for another monster.
A couple of minutes later, he found another Crimson Treant. This time, he was able to slice through its entire body with a single sword swing.
“That felt great! I barely felt any resistance when I struck the monster, almost like slicing tofu with a knife!”
Then he realized something, and he asked, “By the way, does this count as using magic?”
“Technically it is considered magic, but most people don’t really consider it as magic since even people who cannot use magic spells can use this technique, so you can use this back in the academy if you want.”
“I see, that’s good to know.”
Leo looked at the Magic System to see if that last kill had counted towards his quest, and to his surprise, it actually did.
“Looks like as long as I kill them with mana that doesn’t exceed Tier 2 magic spells, the system will count it as killing monsters with magic.” He said to her.
“That’s good news,” she said.
The two of them proceeded to explore the rest of the floor while hunting the monsters on it.
“Where do you usually look for artifacts in labyrinths?” Leo asked sometime later when they hadn’t found a single artifact yet.
“It’d be a miracle if you can find an artifact on the first floor of a labyrinth. Most artifacts are on the lowest floor and in the boss room.”
“A boss, huh? I guess it’s only natural for dungeons to have bosses at the end. This is how things usually go in video games, after all.”
Sometime later, they reached the staircase that led to the second floor of the labyrinth.
“Do we go down now? Or should we look around a little more to make sure we didn’t miss anything?” Leo asked.
“There’s no point staying up here. Like I said, you won’t find any artifacts up here. We probably missed a monster or two, but there are more downstairs.” Miss Camille said.
“I understand. Then let’s go to the second floor.” He nodded.
They began descending the staircase shortly after.
The walk down was much quicker this time, lasting only half a minute.
“What the?” Leo’s eyes widened with surprise when he saw the scenery. They were still in a forest, but the trees on this floor had dried up, and the grasses and flowers were withered, almost as though this place had been dead for a long time.
“Such a drastic change from the first and second floor…” He mumbled in a dazed voice.
Miss Camille glanced around and said, “Looks like there will only be another floor or two before we reach the boss room.”
“How can you tell?” He asked.
“You’re looking at it. The more the environment changes, the closer we are to the boss room.”
“I see… What about the monsters? Will they also be different?”
“Yes.” She nodded.
They continued to explore the labyrinth shortly after.
On the second floor of the labyrinths, there were boar-like monsters. Their body and head were covered by brown armor, almost like an armadillo.
One would normally need at least 2,500 magic power to damage these monsters, but Leo could easily make them explode with a single Void Spear, killing them instantly.
About two hours later, they arrived at the third floor of the labyrinth, and just like the second floor, this floor also had drastic changes in the environment.
The trees on this floor were no longer withered— they were completely burnt, almost as though a fire had consumed this place recently.
“Jeez, what happened here?” Leo muttered in a dumbfounded voice as the scent of burnt wood and earth penetrated his nose.
“Let’s quickly explore this floor. This place isn’t good for my lungs,” he said with his hands covering his face.
“The scent is not real; it’s created by the labyrinth. You can protect yourself by covering your body with mana. However, this will slowly chip away your mana.”
“As long as I don’t have to deal with the smell.” Leo said as he proceeded to cover his own body using his mana, immediately blocking the burning smell but not blocking his sense of smell or his ability to breathe.
Once he was prepared, Leo started exploring the third floor of the labyrinth.
On this floor, there were zombie-like monsters, but their bodies were horribly burned and was an eyesore to look at, so Leo struck them as soon as he saw them using Void Spear.