"Power! It's coursing through me!" Eric felt the thrill of leveling up, the fire in his chest cheerfully rising.
At the same time, his right arm lit up again.
An extra surge of power flowed from his right arm to the rest of his bones, heating up at the connection between the arm bone and shoulder.
"What's going on!" Eric, who had just been feeling pretty cool, dropped to one knee, clutching his shoulder.
A dark blue light shone from his shoulder, as if it wanted to pierce through his clothes.
"Haven't I digested the power of this arm yet!" Eric clutched his arm, wanting to tear it off.
Who knows what level the original owner of this arm was. Just one arm, and the energy was so freaking immense.
But the arm was tightly connected to him, glowing with a fluorescent white light, and he couldn't tear it off.
He could only grit his teeth and endure the pain, letting the scorching heat that almost melted his other bones rage through his body.
But this time was definitely milder than the last. It didn't just tear him apart without warning.
Plus, with his much-enhanced constitution, Eric managed to survive the energy assault.
[Ding, Strength +1]
Eric, who had been about to curse after enduring the pain, swallowed his words.
Damn it, what is this, a stick and a date?
Some kind of teasing play?
Eric got up from the ground and made a gripping motion with his right arm.
Thankfully, this arm hadn't gone out of his control.
When the bone arm's energy had assaulted him just now, Eric could feel that only a small part of the power in the bone arm had been consumed.
The remaining energy would probably have to torture him like this many more times to be used up.
And it was because his constitution was so poor that he felt the pain.
If it had been his previous constitution, without any points added, he might have been blown up directly.
But if this happened every time he leveled up, at least his weak point, [Strength], wouldn't be left too far behind by [Spirit].
Just the pain and all...
Let's just consider it a trial of suffering.
He took out a small knife, extracted the magic stones from a few lizardmen, and stuffed them into his waist pouch. He sank the corpses into the ground and continued to explore the lower levels of the maze.
Although he wanted to take down that special variant lizard king, it was better to play it safe for now.
First, collect all the octagonal fire crystals and see if there's a chance on the way back.
Of course, that's assuming he could beat it.
Entering the sixteenth level, the monsters had become fewer and fewer, and he could only hunt some low-level monsters.
Not expecting to level up again, Eric just kept diving deeper.
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Seventeenth level, eighteenth level, nineteenth level.
The time it took to explore grew longer and longer. Even with a map, it still took a lot of time for Eric, who was new to this.
And the monsters were getting stronger and stronger.
It had been a week since he entered the maze, and Eric, who had been constantly rushing, finally reached the twentieth level.
From here, he would quickly go to the marked location on the map in the twenty-first level, collect the target, retreat to the twentieth level, and then head back.
Eric looked at the passage leading to the twenty-first level and mentally prepared himself.
"Haven't run into other adventurers in a while."
At this depth, you basically didn't see other adventurers.
Even if you did, it was mutual distrust.
And there was that Hyena Adventure Team; he had to be careful.
After all, it was an eight-person team, and he didn't know if they were lying in ambush for him on the twenty-first level underground.
No, they probably wouldn't ambush him. They'd wait for him openly.
It's not that the Hyena Team was so righteous; it was their underestimation of him that made them disdainful of ambushing him.
Eric always judged his enemies based on the moral bottom line of a person.
He gripped his staff and walked into the passage, heading for the twenty-first level.
As he went deeper, the air became hotter and hotter, filled with a dry, hot smell and faint sparks.
The light also began to turn more orange-red.
Until he passed through the hot passage and arrived at the twenty-first level.
A dazzling red light shone in from the exit of the passage.
It was like arriving in hell, with lava flowing like rivers across the land.
The pitch-black lava rocks looked like they had been charred.
Yellow-black smoke kept bubbling up from the ground with the boiling lava.
From the twenty-first to the thirtieth level of the underground city, it was a world of lava.
Even though he had seen the description and pictures of this part of the maze, he was still deeply shocked when he saw it for the first time.
He looked around and felt the thrill of being an adventurer.
The feeling of reaching places humans couldn't normally reach, seeing incredible sights and exploring... the sense of exploration deeply intoxicated him.
"Let's explore first."
"But in this place, quagmire won't work, and water magic is pretty much out of the question."
Eric regretfully tapped the pitch-black ground with his staff.
Then, he took out the map and began to plan his route to the nearest octagonal fire crystal collection point.
After planning the route, Eric gripped his staff and couldn't wait to start exploring this lava hell.
As a skeleton with no flesh and blood, he could calmly and happily wander around this lava hell.
"Whoosh!"
A blob of lava suddenly shot out from the lava river towards Eric.
Eric pushed off with his feet and nimbly dodged the lava, looking into the lava river.
"Just as described, hiding in the lava to ambush people."
Eric wasn't surprised as he looked at the lava river.
Then he raised his staff, as if waiting for something.
Sure enough, in a short while, a strange figure walked out from the lava.
It looked like a giant crocodile, only with six claws, and red webbing between the claws.
Molten lava flowed in the grooves of its scales, looking fierce and terrifying.
[Species] Lava Hexapede Crocodile
[Level] Lv19
[Class] Monster Warrior
[Description] A crocodile living in lava, with extremely high fire resistance, able to manipulate lava and fire, a dangerous hunter lurking in the lava.
It didn't beat around the bush with Eric and lunged at him with its mouth open, lava constantly flowing out of its mouth, like a mad dog drooling all over when biting someone.
Eric stepped back to create distance and raised his staff.
"First-tier magic, Earth Spike!"
Sharp spikes rose from the ground, stabbing towards the fire crocodile.
The crocodile used all six feet, darting around like a red phantom, then leaped up and bit at him.
"Couldn't have timed it better!"
Eric gripped his staff, planted his feet, twisted his waist, shoulders, and arm, and swung the staff hard.
[Giant Strength Lv2] activated on its own.
With a loud crack, he struck the crocodile's head hard.
In an instant, the crocodile was sent flying, smashing into the stone wall and bouncing onto the ground, its flesh bursting open to reveal cracked bones.
"Pretty tough," Eric commented.
The crocodile realized it had met its match and hurriedly crawled crookedly towards the lava, trying to escape.
Eric wasn't about to let it go. He wrapped his staff with wind magic, forming a propelling vortex, and with [Giant Strength Lv2], hurled the staff hard.
Then, with a loud bang, the crocodile was nailed to the edge of the lava.
"Roar!" As the crocodile struggled frantically, scalding blood kept oozing from the nailed wound.
Eric calmly raised his hand, aiming at the crocodile from a distance.
"First-tier magic, Wind Stone Spike."
A yellow and blue magic circle opened in his palm, condensing a cone-shaped stone spike and a rotating wind vortex.
When the rotation reached a critical point, the stone spike shot out, instantly flipping open the crocodile's upper jaw and skull.
[Ding, Lava Hexapede Crocodile Lv19 defeated, +550 experience]
Eric happily walked up, pulled out the staff nailed to the crocodile, and dug out the magic stone.
