Chapter 43

  The monster didn’t care. Its bloodshot eyes remained locked onto Shouren as it stampeded towards him.

  It’s going to trample me at this rate.

  Shouren racked his brains for a solution, his thoughts whizzing away. He could use Spectral Threads again to halt its movement, but then what? The boulder didn’t kill it.

  Can you help?

  He tried to call out for help from his resident demonic chains. Shouren had a feeling the scalding chains could inflict some serious damage on the rampaging monster.

  No response.

  Such a freeloader. You don’t even pay me rent for living in my body.

  Shouren grumbled as he shifted his attention back to the hippo. With a quick flick of hand, he activated the Spectral Threads spell again. Ropes of ghostly threads spurned around the monster, instantly stopping its momentum. The hippo let out another roar of frustration, its bloody eyes glaring at Shouren, promising brutal retribution once it got free.

  Why can’t I think of any safe strategies?

  Shouren rushed towards the boulder while the hippo remained trapped and sucked it back into his vault. In two seconds, the ghostly threads would be ripped apart.

  Then, without wasting time, he aimed the boulder right above the monster’s head.

  The hippo let out a deep growl born of agony when the boulder smashed into its head, and it took strained breaths as its bloody eyes rolled within its sockets. The ghostly threads snapped, breaking the monster free from captivity. It was still not dead.

  By now, Shouren realized the monster’s scales had some level of protection against blunt force. In the first place, he never expected it to die in that hit.

  Shouren poured 2 units of lumen into his legs for a burst of speed as he dashed at the dizzy monster, and then used another unit of lumen into his right arm, leaving him with only 2 units of lumen in his reserves. Shouren was risking everything on this strike as he wouldn’t be able to activate Spectral Threads for the third time.

  In one smooth movement, he tapped the boulder to return it into his vault and before the monster could calibrate itself, he shoved his right hand straight into the hippo’s jaw.

  Boom.

  An explosion of bloody flesh, scales and bones splattered all over the grass. A bloody boulder covered in monster guts stood still in the center.

  “Eugh…”

  Shouren groaned at the nasty smell penetrating the air and drifting into his nose. The plan only worked because the hippo was concussed from the second boulder strike. If he tried to put his hand inside its mouth while it was fully sober, Shouren wouldn’t have a second hand to write letters with.

  “It’s a chore fighting against monsters without a reliable combat spell card.”

  Shouren took off his bloodstained clothes and replaced them with a fresh pair. He came prepared this time. If he didn’t have his Dimensional Vault card, Shouren wouldn’t have been able to outsmart a lot of these monsters. It was his main advantage against them until he had more reliable card recipes to use.

  It was not the first time Shouren had thought of using his storage card to shove objects inside monsters. When he initially started experimenting with the vault and observed that he could summon items anywhere within the 3 meter radius, Shouren tried forcing items inside trees and other living creatures.

  It didn’t work.

  There was an invisible barrier whenever he tried to summon items inside another object. He tried it on a tree and the item would simply fall beside it. The tree blocked any attempts when its spacial integrity was invaded.

  However, if Shouren manually made a hole inside the tree, he could then summon items inside the hole if he touched the space there. That pocket of space was not under anyone’s dominion. Therefore, he couldn’t directly summon the boulder inside the monster without taking claim over the pocket of space inside it.

  When the hippo was stunned under the blunt impact, Shouren could safely drive his hand into its mouth and claim the small pocket of space there to summon the boulder. If the monster had been sober, it could’ve just snapped its jaw shut over Shouren’s hand, denying him the claim on that space.

  There were unexplained rules regarding the vault and Shouren felt he had only briefly touched the surface of it. It was his only [Rare] card and as a Cardsmith, he knew there was more to that card than what was let on in the system’s description.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Solo dungeon run is indeed the best.”

  Shouren’s hazel eyes glittered with joy as he saw two green cards beside 3 other gray cards floating near the monster’s scattered remains. He didn’t have to share the loot with anyone, it was all his. Shouren picked up the cards with uncontained anticipation and read their descriptions.

  The first two were [Common] class cards which Shouren cheerfully pocketed to his vault. He would lure the demonic chains with them and finally get it to talk more. He then moved to the last gray card of the bunch.

  “It’s similar to the Evasion Boost card I sharded for Rubin a few days ago.”

  Shouren commented as he read the card’s description. He didn’t know how much of a difference a slight boost to his E ranked Intelligence would even do.

  Actually, now that I think about it. Why haven’t my other attributes increased at all? I’ve been running, crawling, and fighting all this time, yet not one of them got upgraded.

  Shouren paused on the spot. Besides his Intelligence ranking up to E grade, the rest of his attributes had remained stagnant. Why?

  Grandma is smarter than me, but her Intelligence attribute has been stuck at F rank forever. Even Rubin’s attributes were all F ranked. I think that’s why Isola wanted to confirm my attribute upgrade using Rubin. Is it that difficult to increase them?

  Shouren scratched his head, perplexed. He didn’t know what the rules were to upgrade the attributes. Was there something else he did that day to rank up his Intelligence to E rank? He did remember that one of his final floor rewards was an option to increase his Attribute to E rank, and considering Rubin had a higher clear rating than him, the older teen should be aware of it.

  Then why were his attributes still in F rank?

  Shouren pushed the attributes issue aside for another time. His goal for today was to hunt two other monsters and start forging cards. He scanned the last two cards.

  “Cinder Lance is pretty straightforward, but I can only use it once with that lumen requirement. So it has to be my first and final attack.”

  Shouren tossed the green spell card into his vault. It was a powerful card, but had a lot of limitations for the present Shouren. However, it was the second card that raised Shouren’s brow in confusion. It was the first time he saw a card without a lumen cost.

  It’s like a life leech card, but for allies. It needs the other party’s permission, meaning it wouldn’t work on monster or enemies. I think Healers like Rubin would really like this card. If they run out of lumen, they have a last resort to share their health pool.

  Shouren was disappointed it wasn’t an actual healing spell card he could use. Link of Vitality was potent, but no monster would willingly give their health to him. And if he was ever injured, this card wouldn’t help.

  I’ll fleece pumpkin-head and trade this card for multiple [Uncommon] class cards.

  Shouren grinned mischievously and carefully stored the card inside his vault.

  “Krggh…”

  A rumbling feline snarl abruptly broke Shouren’s train of thought.

  He snapped his head behind him and his eyes glued to the lithe form of an obsidian leopard.

  Note for next time: don’t linger around a buffet of monster blood, flesh and guts.

  Shouren sighed as he took another card from his vault. This time, the boulder strategy should work.

  Shouren calmly gazed at the monster as he took out a card.

  “Spectral Thre— wait, I don’t have any lumen.”

  Shouren blinked blankly, staring at the card in his hand and then shifting his stare to the leopard.

  “Peace is always an option, my friend.”

  And then, Shouren ran away.

  “That should be my limit for the day.”

  Shouren exhaled, as the glow around his hands faded gradually, leaving behind a shimmering card.

  “5 cards… not bad for a whole day’s work.”

  Shouren collapsed backwards with exhaustion on the fresh path of grass. Earlier in the day, when he was facing against the leopard, Shouren had tried to bolt. However, the leopard’s mate blocked his path of retreat.

  In that moment, his E ranked Intelligence truly shined. Without hesitation, he grabbed a random gray spell card and instantly sharded it. He then flung two of them in the opposite direction before he made his way to the boulder and pile of monster chunks.

  While the leopards raced to the shards, he quickly gathered as much of the hippo’s meat as he could and climbed to the nearest tree. Leopard monsters were known to be excellent climbers, so whenever the pair of monsters attempted to lunge up the trunk, Shouren would summon the boulder above him. He didn’t actually drop it, as then he would lose the leverage. Shouren simply summoned and unsummoned with his hand touching the boulder, to scare the monsters away.

  He used this precious time to gobble as much of the hippo meat as he could muster, his lumen reserves slowly trickling up. Once he had 10 lumen, Shouren smirked and went in for the kill.

  The two monsters together dropped a single [Uncommon] class card, two [Common] class cards and three [Common] spell cards.

  After that encounter, Shouren hid himself away and spent the rest of the day forging Spectral Threads spell cards, taking breaks to recover his lumen whenever he could. It was gross eating that much raw meat, but luckily it didn’t make him sick.

  It was worth the effort.

  [Synchronization: 42%]

  [Synchronization: 43%]

  Shouren beamed with pride as he glanced inside his vault and placed the 5th Spectral Threads spell card on the small stack.

  “Time to head home for the night.”

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