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The others’ mana pools were linked to their mana cores, but this was completely contained by his Talent. Even cultivation restricting items didn’t work on him, and it seemed Minkalla wasn’t able to close that loophole.
Matt did take the time and redirect some of his Genesis Energy to different spots in his core.
Before, he had changed his allocation a few times in his cultivation, but he had learned in recent years what he really needed. A mostly even spread between everything, but with peaks built in Senses, Mind, and Strength.
Senses and Mind were in many ways the most important to him, as the faster he could notice what he needed, and thus react to his needs, the better. Strength wasn’t quite as important, and so it didn’t get quite as much extra as his mental faculties. But the more he had, the better his old friend [Mage’s Retreat] would work, so it was built up as well.
Having more essence, or rather Genesis Energy, in that portion of his core only made the spell stronger.
It allowed him to hit harder, move faster. Everything Matt needed to fight above his Tier with his blade mage combat style.
Bringing his blade up to his shoulder, Matt proclaimed, “The Matt transport leaves immediately. All aboard for a speedrun of this floor.”
Aster jumped up onto his shoulder and yipped, “Woohoo!”
17
Matt walked up to the cavern and c****d his arm back.
The boss of this ruin was a Tier 7 spider standing at least thirty feet tall, with thick armor covering its body.
With their mid Tier 3 cultivation, the four of them should have been woefully too weak to take the boss down. That would have been the normal outlook on such a boss with their relative cultivation.
With the floor theme, Matt didn’t even hesitate to approach the boss.
As the spider started skittering at him in a charge, followed by hundreds of dog sized lesser spiders, Matt launched his fist.
From his [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s gauntlet, [Fist Blast] launched itself outward like a rocket.
The spell copied both his magical and physical armor’s form for the attack, so it wasn’t just a fist, but it also had the spikes he grew on his hands with the first layer of [Cracked Phantom Armor].
As the skill left his hand, he started channeling his mana into his gravity gauntlets.
Except, instead of the attractive force of gravity appearing at his hand, the force was generated from the fist form of [Fist Blast].
All of the spiderlings were pulled toward the attack as it slammed into the boss.
The [Fist Blast] slammed into the boss’s armor, and a few drops of hemolymph flew out a few feet in all directions before being pulled into the gravity well that he kept channeled.
With 100 MPS being fed into the artifact, some bosses in Minkalla might have been able to break free of its pull. The spider, at half the usual tier, stood no chance.
Spiders screeched and cried as they were pulled into the black hole that dug deeper and deeper into the boss’s body, but Matt wasn’t done yet.
From his left hand, Matt cast [Flamethrower] and mentally directed the stream of fire with [Fire Manipulation]. Like a wave, it spread out and sought any spiders holding on to the ground or walls.
A rush of Genesis Energy flooded into his core, and with a thought, he redirected his cultivation to his new ideal.
Killing the boss and its underlings earned them a boost in strength which sent them to the peak of Tier 4 in an instant. He had already tried to double his mana when he returned to Tier 3, but his Talent didn’t consider Minkalla’s reducing his Tier as legitimate, nor his regaining the cultivation as Tiering up, so his mana pool refused to expand. It was unfortunate, but he was already so lucky with his Talent being unaffected that he couldn’t complain too much.
At least out loud.
He complained internally every time he earned back some of his cultivation. If he had been able to double his mana pool eight more times, he would have been unstoppable inside Minkalla.
Aster laughed on his shoulder. “That was great! I wonder what a spider heart tastes like?”
Jumping down from his shoulder, she moved over to the boss and activated [Heart of Power]. As they learned on the last sub-level, when she reached the peak of Tier 1, the essence added to her cultivation had settled down to her first Tier, making her first Tier even more efficient than the rest of them.
Throughout the decades, she had gotten a dozen or so of permanent advancements to her cultivations as little bits and pieces that let her push past the normal limits of a Tier. But now, those improvements were all condensed to her first Tier.
Sadly, where the advancements landed was completely out of her control, even with Minkalla resetting her cultivation.
She didn’t get a permanent boost from the spider boss’s vein-like hearts, but it still gave her a temporary bonus to her abilities, even if she didn’t need them.
Liz sauntered up with the compass, which was in its sphere form, and pointed to the side. “Something beneath us to the right. Want to dig for it?”
Matt shrugged. He didn’t mind, and they were making fantastic time with their pace on this floor due to the overwhelming advantage that his Talent provided, trivializing the weakened monsters.
They had also been using their compass at every opportunity, and their spatial storage was filling up with valuables at an impressive rate. That, combined with Matt’s Talent breaking the floors challenge, meant they had no issues finding and taking anything their compass pointed to.
With Susanne watching their rear, Matt used [Earth Manipulation] to remove the floor where the compass indicated, finding them a fist sized mass of ore that pulsed in a rainbow of colors.
Liz retrieved the ore and whistled. “Milios’ Seven Colored Ore. Now that’s expensive.”
Susanne looked at it but shrugged. “What’s so special about it? I don’t recognize it.”
- Writer
