Omni-Mastery

Zing!

Thrusting one of my spears forward, I pulled it back as the system notification rang in my head, barely moving my shoulder to the side.

Swish!

Moving my other spear, black blood scattered as the heart of the mole whose attack just missed exploded!

'It's more or less done.'

Making quick work out of the rest of the Whack Moles in the 99th mini-gate, I moved around as lightly as a feather, managing my speed to the minimum.

Even though it wasn't part of my plan. I managed to gain even more than expected from the third stage of training. Other than gaining control over my speed, I managed to learn the art of evasion!

Different before, where I just splurged with my speed in order to evade, wasting stamina and time, I was now capable of true combat evasion. After all, dodging a hit to deliver another was the real purpose of combat evasion, to begin with!

'It's no longer necessary, but…'

Although I no longer needed my 'Dragon Armor' as an assurance with my current speed control, especially since I mastered the particular evasion tactics needed for the moles, I still kept it on for one specific reason.

'I need to get used to it.'

While Whack Moles behaved like a machine with a specific attack pattern befitting of a game mob, my main enemies, the demons, acted no different than real living beings. No matter how good I was at evading, getting swamped by an army in the middle of a big-scale event like the upcoming war made it impossible to achieve perfect evasion.

As such, I still planned to keep on the armor to get used to its characteristics in battle. This conviction of mine was formed after 'wearing' it on for the whole day, discovering more and more about it.

Unlike skills that were created to make the use of something easier, such as 'Flight of The Wind Dragon', my 'Dragon Scales' was a basic ability that required specific development. The use I have been making of it didn't even account for 10% of its potential!

Starting from a 'light layer' of scales that was nothing but the edge of a scale, the true ability of the scales shined when they were fully formed, the 'Heavy Dragon Armor' had even more defense than heavy metal armor despite weighing almost nothing as part of my similarly 'heavy' bones.

What surprised me even further was that just full scale wasn't the end of it, the scales could be even stacked further, albeit under the cost of my bones.

Other than the first layer that didn't feel much different, even my 'thick' bones started to feel weaker starting from the second layer. At my current constitution, the most I could maintain without sacrificing my mobility was 3 layers.

'It's worth it though.'

Nonetheless, the effect was more than worth the inconvenience, under the triple-layer version which I preferred to call the 'Iron Dragon', I didn't even receive any impact from the moles' attacks! 

Moreover, although it felt incredibly unbalanced at the beginning, feeling empty on the inside while stacked on the outside, after half a day of using it under intensive speed training, it was no longer cumbersome to maintain.

'The timing of this gate is just as peculiar as the gate itself.'

Feeling satisfied with the progress I made, I couldn't help but wonder how such a perfect training gate that best prepared me for 'war' suddenly fell into my lap when I needed it.

However, I wasn't given much time to think as the last group of moles fell under my spear…

[ You have absorbed the blood essence of a 'Whack Mole', purification in progress… ]

[ You have obtained 101,101 EP! ]

[ 'Essence Sharing' has been activated! ]

[ Transferring a total of 88,169 to blood companion 'Light'... ]

[ 66,696 EP has been successfully transferred! ]

[ 'Light' has leveled up! ]

[ 'Light' has reached level 96! ]

[ You have absorbed… ]

[ You have obtained 101,111 EP! ]

[ You have leveled up! ]

[ You have reached level 122! ]

By an even stranger coincidence, I realized that Light only needed a little bit more EP to level up transferring it to him just before my own EP bar grew full!

Once again, it was precisely at the end of the 11th cycle, the mini-gat which held the number of double nines '99'...

That wasn't the end of it either! 

[ You have successfully developed a new ability! ]

[ Body Ability, 'Super Nerve Cells' has been formed! ]

[ You have received the title, 'Adapter'! ]

[ Achievement, 'Evolver', has been recorded! ]

Having already given up on reasoning my way through the pile of coincidence, I just shrugged it off and decided to be happy with what I gained.

Even though I obtained a skill barely two days ago, I obtained an ability this soon after, but it wasn't unbelievable considering my tight schedule throughout these two days.

[ 'Super Nerve Cells'

Description: through desire and effort, you managed to push your body's adaptive ability another step higher.

- Your nerve cells' innate ability to control your body is strengthened.

- Your nerve cells adapt faster to body growth. ]

Despite having no accurate defining parameter, the characteristics of 'Super Nerve Cells' seemed to serve the cause that my training aimed for. Almost as if it was created on purpose…

On the other hand, the title obtained was defined as usual. 

[ 'Adapter'

Title Effect:

- Your body's ability to adapt to conditions increases by 10%. ]

"Meow!"

Regardless of the broken logic that this gate followed, it was simply a treasure trove. Even before I was done with the first floor, I already achieved the target I set for myself before entering. Light was especially happy about his gains as well.

"Let's go out. I will make an even grander BBQ today!"

"Meoooww!"

Although it was the only celebratory meal I could cook, Light was still excited about it nonetheless. Seeing that, I couldn't help but smile in return, Light was really the cutest!

Falling back into the main underground cave, I looked at the ground that no longer looked like a sieve with anticipation.

'One last cycle to go!'