System Change

Derek gathered the final core from the last fallen Earth Golem. The process took longer because he had to wait for the Multi-Strike skill to come off cooldown, but he also didn’t have to worry about being beheaded by a chain explosion. Plus, he got to level one of his best skills at the same time.

He looked at the remains of the Earth Golems. Only the cores seemed to be useful, once they ran out of power, the remaining stones turned into regular rocks. They wouldn’t work as a material at all. Derek put the core into his storage ring and moved to the dungeon orb.

The next area should be the boss room. I wonder how different the bosses are going to be from the regular mobs. Derek shrugged and placed his hand on the orb, willing it to take him to the next area.

When he opened his eyes, he was in another cabin. It’s always cabins and caves… well, there was that one tomb… He mused. Opening the door, he realized that the environment was a combination of all four previous areas.

Boiling lava flowed in streams that would usually carry water, while actual pools of water littered the ground. Strong winds carried the steam from the lave to his face, and rocks laid scattered along the streams and ponds.

Derek was sure that the rocks were just rocks this time because the boss… or bosses, were already standing. There was a single golem of each previous element. The only difference was that they were each twice as big as the ones before.

I doubt I spend much time in this area. He thought. He would probably struggle to train his skills while fighting four boss monsters at the same time. It would be better for him to power level his skills in the other rooms. At least, until the returns weren’t worth the effort anymore.

Derek cracked his knuckles and walked forward. Soon, the golems noticed him and started making their moves. Each golem tossed out the same skills as their lesser counterparts. Only, the skills were of a higher quality.

The Wind Blades were longer and flew faster, the fire fists caused greater explosions, the thrown stones were much more durable with a thicker coating of the yellowish mana around them, along with the earth walls, and the water jets were both bigger, more powerful, and boiling.

Whatever… Derek shrugged. He didn’t plan on spending too much time on the bosses. Without any bullshitting, he used Void Shift and headed straight for the boss Earth Golem. It was the biggest pain in the ass.

Not only did it block for itself, but it also put walls up in front of his attacks on the other golems. It was obvious that he needed to deal with it first.

Derek pulled himself through a void ripple, appearing in the air directly in front of the giant Earth Golem. He coated his fist in the void and made sure he would have a firm footing once he released Void Shift. Finally, he released the skill, cast Multi-Strike, and launched a fist at the center of the boss golem.

The golem wasn’t even able to get the normal small shield up in front of its core before his attack landed.

Derek kicked off the ground, just avoiding a Wind Blade in the process. Soon, he was in the air, retreating. He watched the Earth Golem closely as he backed away and avoided attacks from the other bosses.

Luckily, his attack, amplified by Multi-Strike, was able to deal enough damage to the golem to take care of it. Unfortunately, there was not enough damage to prevent the core from self-destructing. Derek clicked his tongue. He wanted to farm some level 175 boss cores along with the others, but that would have to wait until Multi-Strike leveled enough to add another hit or two. The boss cores were just too strong at the moment.

Soon, the yellowish energy in the core pulsed rapidly before exploding. And it was an explosion unlike any of the others. Derek thought the chain explosion from the Wind Golem area was bad, but compared to this explosion, it was child’s play.

To his surprise, before the Earth Golem’s core exploded, the other bosses hunkered down into giant boulders. The explosion didn’t have any effect on the three bosses.

The explosion caused the entire area to shake. The ground rumbled, and the earth quaked. A giant fissure formed in the ground and split the land in two. Is it because it was the earth element? Derek wondered.

He climbed into the air to wait out the earthquake. There was no sense risking anything at this point. Soon, the after effects of the explosion died down and the other golems reformed.

Then, to Derek’s shock, the remaining bosses made a b-line to each other. At first, their actions didn’t make sense, but soon, he realized what was happening.

When they approached each other, the aura around them disappeared and the cores popped out. First, the blue water core floated beside the red fire core, then, they slowly combined.

“Oh… fuck that! I am not fighting Voltron today!” Derek quickly entered Void Shift, even though his mana hadn’t recovered from the first time. He pulled himself to the remaining wind core and released the skill.

Currently, Multi-Strike was still on cooldown, so he could only toss out a void covered fist at the core. At the moment, it was defenseless, but Derek was sure that would change very soon. With his Channel Void and Void Sense being higher level than before, he had much better control.

So, without any previous practice, as soon as his right fist hit the core, he moved the void through his body. Transferring it as quickly as he could from his right fist to his left fist, which was already in motion towards the core.

The void arrived on the fist just before it made contact with the core. Then, with minimal mana remaining in his pool, he jumped into the air and launched himself to the cabin. He didn’t want to stick around to watch what happened without any mana in reserve.

His mana pool hit depleted just as he landed beside the cabin. The headache from mana fatigue hit him as he reached for the door. He pulled the door open and took a step just before an earth shattering explosion rang out and a heavy wind hit him in the back and launched him into the back wall of the safe room. The door slammed shut behind him.

If the Earth Core caused an earthquake before, it only made sense that the wind core would create such high winds. However, what he wasn’t expecting was another, even louder, explosion to ring out just after the first.

While the first two explosions with the wind and earth cores were already stupendous, they were nothing compared to the next explosion. The entire safe room shook. If Derek didn’t know any better, he would have thought it was on the verge of collapsing. It’s a safe room… it can’t collapse… right?

Soon, Derek got his answer. Multiple dents formed in the front side of the safe room and door, but nothing got through. Derek breathed a sigh of relief once everything went silent. He cautiously walked up to the door and opened it a crack.

He poked his head out and looked around. His chin nearly hit the ground. The previous conglomeration of water, fire, earth, and wind was no more. In its stead was a scene out of an apocalyptic horror movie.

A massive crater was formed where the three cores had been. No… massive didn’t even begin to explain it. The crater was the size of multiple football fields. In fact, after looking around, the edge of the crater ended just before the safe house.

Lava flowed at the bottom, into water from the now destroyed ponds. Obsidian formed where the water and wind rapidly cooled the lava.

Derek jumped into the crater and examined the material, thinking it would be something magical, like what the Crown Hotel was made out of. Unfortunately, it was a regular, run-of-the-mill obsidian. He grabbed a piece of the glass and it sizzled in his hand. With a little pressure, he crushed it into dust. He thought he had something great, but it turned out to be fool’s gold.

Derek believed he had completed the dungeon. The four notifications waiting for his review had to be kill notifications from the boss. However, he didn’t see the dungeon orb anywhere. He couldn’t receive the rewards until he found it.

Finally, he looked directly up and his eyelid twitched. The orb was floating perfectly in the middle of the area… which would have been fine if the area was like it was before, and not a giant crater. How are people who don’t have flying or floating skill supposed to leave? Eh… I guess there are always ways… I doubt everyone who fights those things makes such a mess. Now I REALLY want to know how Shae fought them.

Derek felt like he was missing something, but he didn’t dwell on it. Instead, it was time to complete his first of many runs of the dungeon.

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