44 Chapter 43
Some of Ren's soldiers expressed that they wanted to go too. Although Ren was powerful enough to clear the dungeon alone, they didn't trust the newcomer, even though Ren himself told them to stop with their doubt. Regardless, after entering the dungeon, it took a while for Leon and Ren to find the first monsters. The slimes were almost like Leon had imagined, semi-translucent and with no clear shape. They had yellow eyes and a hole that mimicked a mouth.
"Be careful, their eyes are different from ours," Ren explained. "It worked as a radar to detect our mana, the range is thirty meters, but once they find the target, they never miss."
"I see… I guess their control level is high then." Leon nodded.
Without ceremony, Leon fired and Earth Bullet right in the middle of the slimes' eyes. It has been a while since he used that skill, but it killed the creatures immediately. Their bodies exploded as if they were a ballon of water.
"… Did you learn that skill by yourself?" Ren asked. "For how long did you have to train to learn how to create and fire such projectile so fast?"
"Yes, and trained for several months," Leon explained. "It was a very time-consuming process, but considering that practicing will increase your power over the same element, it is worth the hassle. The basics are the most difficult things to master, but once you learned the basics, everything else becomes very easy… to some extent."
"I see… how many offensive spells did you learn by yourself?" Ren asked.
"Only a few, since my goal was to return home, not to become a wizard or something," Leon explained. "Eventually, my goal became to defeat the megalodons, so I had to learn a few others. But only from today onward, I will learn more spells. Regardless... how much stronger is the boss compared to the slimes here?"
"I'd say it is around fifteen times stronger"," Ren rubbed his chin. "They're approximately twenty times bigger. The range of their attacks is much bigger as well."
"Do they fly? They jump?" Leon asked.
"… I don't think so," Ren frowned. "But they eat anything that has mana, once they touch something… they literally absorb until only bones are left if they touch a human."
Leon and Ren fought against a few more slimes before reaching the end of the dungeon. Although his katana was always ready, Ren didn't have the chance to use it. Regardless, the dungeon was quite small, and Leon only obtained three coins per slime, so now he could understand why Ren had little influence. He and his soldiers had no opportunities to grow, and since they have to protect the port, they barely had any free time to train their bodies and skills.
At the end of the dungeon, Leon found a purple crystal. That was the link that connected the two worlds, Leon imagined that the right thing to do would destroy it, but Ren and many others had probably tried.
"By the way, don't attack the crystal," Ren said. "If you do it, in the next twenty-four hours, one hundred boss slimes will cross the portal."
"How frequently the bosses usually appear?" Leon asked.
"Once a day, around noon," Ren answered with his arms crossed. "When I met you earlier, I was returning from the battle against the boss."
Leon started to imagine the bosses, the other side of the dungeon was a world of gigantic slimes; it was evident that his Earth Bullet wouldn't be enough to kill them in a single strike. However, Leon was aware that his Magma Spears would be an overkill. There was no way big slimes could be as tenacious as a megalodon; he had to think of an efficient way to kill them. Electricity would be the best option, but he still couldn't control electric attacks all that much.
"If Ice Bullet were stronger, I probably could freeze them… but it is not strong enough. I can evaporate them using and controlling a massive Fire Ball directly, but I will end up using too much mana…"
"It looks like you are thinking of a good way to kill them…" Ren said. "We usually attack them until they divide their bodies and become ordinary slimes, but that only works because we have many soldiers. But if we are going to the other side alone, I think you should kill them in one shot."
Leon nodded, it would be troublesome to kill if he gets attacked by all sides by ordinary slimes. Weak attacks would make one big slime become several small ones, but only Magma Spear and Lightning were strong enough to kill them in a single strike… In the end, Leon decided to smash them completely before they have the chance to divide themselves.
"If we break their cores, will they die?" Leon asked.
"As long as it has mana, the core is indestructible," Ren explained. "But like the skills the core grants, it can only be used once each five seconds. So, the core can only create small slimes every five seconds."
Leon nodded and started to make some steel plates, he had to kill the slimes in less than five seconds, and he knew how to do that by smashing them. It wasn't the most efficient method to attack, but now that Leon mastered Mana Reinforcement, he could save mana between battles. Besides, he now also had the power to make sturdy but thin steel plates.
After half an hour, Leon created two steel armchair and five massive steel plates. Leon had no idea if he could kill the smiles at the pace he wanted so that the armchairs would be used in the worst-case scenario.
"Be careful not to fall; I'm not a good driver," Leon warned.
"O-okay." Ren reluctantly sat in the armchair.