Assimilate All Talents

Chapter 249: Da Rules

The duo approached the Shadow Crawler that was on the verge of death as Sol pondered out loud, "Should I heal it?"

How was the boss going to honor its side of the deal if it died?

Amber shrugged as she didn’t care. What mattered to her was that she won the battle, leaving it a problem for Sol to figure out.

"Hmm... [Life Drop]."

A drop of water penetrated the creature’s body, renewing it with life as its wounds began to close at a moderate speed. Even though he had used the magic on others before and seen faster results, the boss’s much higher vitality made the healing magic less effective.

Seeing this, Sol could only think to himself, ’I really need to get my hands on advanced magic.’

His magic had been falling behind even though it had reached the advanced stage. Unlike martial arts, which were ingrained in his body, magic required learning the spells on top of mastering mana control. Everyone he had siphoned magic skills from knew at most intermediate level spells. The only advanced magic he knew were the three dark spells he had obtained from the Laughing Skulls.

It took a while, but soon the boss woke up from its coma, shooting upright.

"Oh shit! Oh... I’m still alive?" At first, the Shadow Crawler felt a rush of adrenaline from the residual energy of the water spell, but after realizing it was alive, its reaction was rather lukewarm.

Sol rolled his eyes. "Of course you’re still alive. How else would you fulfill your side of the bet?"

"Hmm? That’s not an issue. Oh, I see." Its eyes slightly curved as it caught onto their perspective and added, "I thought you already knew this, but killing me won’t actually end my life. This isn’t my real body, after all."

"Not your real body? Then where is it?"

The boss scoffed, finding the question hilarious. "Hah! As if I would tell you. Regardless, my memories and abilities are split throughout all my clones into what you see before you. Killing me only sends my memories back to my main body, which is then shared with all the other clones."

"So if we kill you, all the other clones will know what happened to you and our bet?"

"Yup," the Shadow Crawler said nonchalantly as it stretched its still sore arms.

"You’re not wrong. As for why, I don’t really know. I’m not the one who wrote them. I assume it’s because too many would bother the dungeons all over the world with requests or find loopholes that would end up ruining the purpose of dungeons."

Sol nodded and added, "Similar to how the dungeon used the loophole of moving undead through the floor to attack us, people would try to find loopholes as well."

The Shadow Crawler chuckled at the comparison. "Haha, right... By the way, I know I lost, but is there truly no way to convince you to return the void root? Mother needs it."

He sighed at the question and shook his head. "No, at least not for the near future. Currently, I have someone after my life, and I need this as a precaution. Maybe when I become a true A-Ranker, but the way my law technique is developing, it’s not an offensive type, so I might still need it then. I’m sorry, but maybe one day."

He felt bad for the pitiful boss that did its best to convince him and even suggested a bet it knew well beforehand it didn’t have that good of a shot at winning.

Hearing his answer, the boss could only accept it. "Then I hope that day comes soon. You’re more than welcome to come slay me again if you need any experience."

Sol chuckled at the oddly grim sentence that only a dungeon boss could say.

"Sure, I’ll see you soon."

The boss didn’t resist or move away as Amber wielded her dagger and swung once, separating its head from its body.

[You have slain a Lv 130 Shadow Crawler! Gained 261,979,625 Exp (460%)]

With the boss slain, the door to the next floor unlocked, allowing the two to leave. But before leaving, Sol silently siphoned the skills off its corpse.

’Don’t mind if I do.’

[Learned [Shadow Manipulation] Lv 7!]

[Learned [Shadow Elementalization] Lv 6!]

[Learned [Shadow Caller] Lv 4!]