Omni-Mastery

"Meow~"

Shortly after I woke up and had a quick shower, Light also rose from the realm of dreams, letting out a heart-melting yawn.

"Here you go."

Taking out two warm bowls of noodles, I shared a quiet breakfast with Light before I took out my dual spear in preparation for today's 'gate exploration'.

"Alright, let's get going."

After Light jumped into my shoulder, I stepped into the 55th hole with my wings already out. As the first mini-gate in the seventh cycle, its space was supposed to be 7 times the size of the first mini-gate, it was almost as big as the main underground cave at this point.

"Testing time!"

Firmly gripping my dual spears, I started piercing around to test the result of my second training segment!

'Great!'

Although I spent less than half the time that went into my initial training, the results of my second training session were surprising. After having a proper sleep of 8 hours, the mind's great natural ability, 'skill acquisition', had even further consolidated my learnings through the day.

Other than some slight imperfections, I could already raise or suppress my strength by a precise amount after experiencing the strength of my opponent. At my current state, even if I increased my stats, the time that it would take to get used to it would be much lower than usual. My control training could already be said to have been completed.

'Only when it comes to strength, that is.'

Unlike controlling the amount of force that I needed to apply, controlling my speed to match the speed of an opponent was a few steps harder…

Not to mention that the amount of speed your opponent used was harder to measure in itself, knowing how much intent and force you need to input to use a certain level of speed was even harder. Most importantly, in a special gate like this where the moles' claws had an increasing amount of lethality, even I didn't dare to experiment freely with speed, especially when the number of enemies kept increasing.

"You will have to just watch for this."

However, that didn't mean that I planned on giving up on that aspect of my training. Rather, it was just that I would instead lose efficiency if I were to equally spread my focus over two matters.

As such, in the first two stages of my control training, I put most of my focus into strength and force control, lowering speed control to a minimum so that I would at least get basic control by the end of the first two steps.

Naturally, now that I reached this stage, it was just about time to do so. In fact, the main focus of the third and last segment of training was none other than speed control.

Of course, just like the first two segments, I didn't plan to 'only' do speed training, especially considering how dangerous it would be!

"It's time to test a dragon's defense!"

Since my Constitution wasn't strong enough to allow me to go unscathed under the attack of the Whack Mole's lethal claws, it was simply the perfect time to test and practice the use of 'Dragon Scales'! 

Although my 'Dragon Scales' that originated from 'Dragonization' of the intermediate rank couldn't be said to compare to a true dragon's defense, it was still considerably tough. With enough training, mastering the proper use of it would also prove helpful later other than just helping with speed training.

'It's particularly perfect for this type of gate!'

Similar to the Whack Mole's 'Absolute Darkness' and 'Absolute Damage', 'Dragon Scales' also had an absolute attribute of its own!

[ *Effect of 'Dragon Scales': Increases defense's effect to ignore by 25% - Aside from the scales' base defense - ]

The specialty of 'Dragon Scales' simply made it the perfect opponent for the quirky Whack Moles!

Naturally, since I was attempting such a 'dangerous' training, I couldn't allow Light to stay on my shoulder like I did the day before.

'We will still be sharing the EP anyway.'

After giving Light a full ride of the 'bus' yesterday, I no longer planned on dumping everything to him. Since I still wanted to make the most use of the quest, I just settled with splitting the EP in half after finishing every mini-gate.

Despite planning to split it in favor of Light at first, he was the one to shoot it down, knowing that I needed the EP just as much as he did.

'There are still plenty of 'sheeps' to harvest.'

Considering the demon base that was to come after the first floor as well as the 'packs' of Corrupted filling the Fire Domain, we were unlikely to feel short of EP any time soon. Even after all of that, an all-out war was supposed to break out!

'Here goes…'

Only keeping minimum clothes on, I let out the basic form of 'Dragon Scales' that I used to 'parade' in the Dragon Clan, with my whole body covered in one layer of light scales.

Feeling assured, I suddenly dropped my dodging speed in aim to let it reach the optimal form for the attack speed of this mini-gate's moles!

'Uck…'

From the get go, I didn't manage to dodge the attacks of two from the five moles that surrounded me. Even the shiny azure blue scales shattered from the sharpness of the claws!

Nonetheless, just one layer of light scales was still able to defend my body from damage, the amount of pain I felt from losing the scales barely amounted to that I usually felt from shallow skin wounds.

'As expected, it isn't easy.'

Even with the force control that I basically mastered through yesterday's training as a basis, controlling my speed and momentum in a precise manner proved tricky.

'Well, It's not like that's all I got.'

Having already regenerated the scales I lost, I increased my speed slightly more to counter my failure. Moreover, since my basic 'dragon armor' didn't work, I directly upgraded it into 'heavy armor'!

Despite my various complaints about this peculiar gate at the beginning, I couldn't help but reveal a smile as I marched through....