Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster's Power

I hover down to the ground as the artificial sky turns dark, and the pillars of stone mold back into the floor.

A bright Rank Up notification glows in my mind's eye, waiting to be accepted, while my Soul Sword feels the presence of three items drawing me closer to them.

One feeling is far more compelling, so I fly down to hover above Redgrave's still-bright yellow glowing sword, which gives off the heat of a True Core even when its wielder is dead.

A new system panel hovers between my blade and the glowing one on the ground as I descend.

[Consume]

[YES][NO] ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

When I press [YES] and the two artifacts touch, the yellow blade on the floor glows bright white, turning to silky yellow liquid before my eyes, then siphoning into the tip of my own sword.

I expected a dramatic light show and process like when the weapon was crafted, but it all happens extremely fast. The blade in my grasp gives off the feeling that it is still hungry, and a food source like that hardly quelled its appetite.

My Sword feels stronger already, but the ease with which it consumed another living weapon, and the fact that it is still sitting at [Lv. 0], makes me realize I've yet to comprehend the potential of the new weapon in my grasp.

This feeling of awe and wonder only grows as I walk over to the Supreme Grade Firestone densely packed with divine threads and immense power; it, too, is consumed in less than a second.

Even the pile of glowing yellow shards from the fiery hound's collar turns to liquid and is pulled into my blade without any light show or sense of satisfaction.

It's as if the blade was expecting to finally quench its thirst after days in the desert, but all it got was a single drop of water.

Power surges through the now vibrant red sword, but it's desperately craving another battle. The blade's status still reads [Lv. 0] even now, but I can feel that its strength has grown a considerable amount in the last few minutes.

Once the last drop from the collar disappears, the blade goes dormant, falling back to a solid black state; yet I sense the presence of a static connection through my body and mind as it continues watching through my eyes.

I let out a sigh and power down my greater form as the heat in the room dissipates, and Ember flies over, powering down his greater form as well.

We both stand in the center of the massive black room with nothing but the silver demon statue looking down at us.

The same ancient voice reverberates in my mind while silver text flashes before me.

[All Conditions Met. One Soul-Bonded Pair Remaining.]

[Would You Like To Start The Trials?]

[YES][NO]

It shimmers in a metallic silver font, wavering in the air.

When I look away, the text is locked above the statue's head, right in front of its array of nine arms.

Ember reads it too, then grins and looks over to me.

"We can wait as long as we need to before beginning the first trial. The third rank-up isn't always instant. It may take a few minutes if it's a big one. It's best we take the time to rank up now while we still have that luxury."

I nod and sit down on the empty floor, letting go of my soul sword, and it rotates around me in a dormant state without me having to exert any effort whatsoever.

Ember sits down in an identical position about 100 meters away, and I speak up, feeling over 18 million pairs of eyes still watching in shock after the massacre they just witnessed.

"As I said before, this is just the start of today's fight. The opponent I just defeated is likely to be my easiest win. I'm not going to be able to do this without your help. You can hear me, see my actions, even peer into my system notifications, and feel everything I'm feeling. I'm going to take a moment to rest and rank up; the only thing I ask of you is to spread the word. Whether it's for entertainment while watching the show, or you feel obligated to save this world together, tell a family member, send a transmission to a friend outside of the 8 Great Regions or Dark Continent. We'll need every link we can get."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Then, I press [YES] to rank up. Instantly, a familiar white light washes over me.

Mana and divine energy cycle through my body, creating a warm and satisfying sensation all over.

It takes a few minutes, just as Ember said it would.

My calm resting state is broken by the sound of notifications in my mind.

[+10,000 Strength]

[+10,000 Mental Strength]

[+10,000 Speed]

[+10,000 Agility]

[+10,000 Defense]

[New Buff!] [Divine Elemental's Astral Form]

Once I open my eyes again, all of my fatigue is gone, and even the two divine energy wounds on my chest have almost completely healed.

I take a deep breath in and out while standing to my feet and opening my status to see a brand new buff.

My eyes shift over to Ember and I see he's received a new buff as well.

[Divine Dragon's Astral Form]

My eyebrows raise as my voice echoes through the empty room.

"What's an Astral form...? It looks like we both received one..."

He replies while staring up at the silver demonic statue.

"It's far rarer than a Greater Energy Form. I believe you met one while we were inside that purple construct. Rarely does more than one entity per planet receive a form like this. I've had one before... This room will be too confined to show off its full power, but it will certainly help us during these trials if we run into a problem. It will be very straining to use this while we're yellow cores, it won't be worth the fatigue and strain to even test it out..."

I grin, remembering the green serpent, cyan knights, and enormous Dark Blue Giant that I witnessed within that construct, and think of how strong I'd be with a form like that.

Then, my eyes track back down to the skill section of my status, and I see I have enough [PP] to upgrade a mythic-grade skill to the next rank.

I upgrade [Absorption] without much extra thought, and the [Mythic Grade] tag beside it turns to [Divine Grade].

My eyes skim over the section that shows my ability to now upgrade every single one of my current mythic-grade skills to Divine Grade after killing an entity with the same skill. Even my Superior Grade Elemental Skills can all be upgraded to Supreme Grade if I kill anything sharing that skill, no matter the grade.

Another textbox hovers at the bottom of the skill info, right above the [Upgrade] Option.

[Pair Skill For Additional Perks]

It shimmers in white and yellow divine light, while the rest of my status remains blue.

I press it, and the entire info sheet ripples with yellow threads, spreading throughout my status interface and turning the Absorption skill completely yellow.

A new text box where the pairing option sat before now shows up.

—

All new skills upgraded to [Divine Grade] or higher using Absorption will now create unique True Core abilities for the caster.

—

My eyes widen again. In the last few minutes since defeating Redgrave, my strength and abilities have grown an astronomical amount.

The overwhelming power that Demon from the Vermillion Family showed before I entered the tower is far less intimidating, and instead of uncertainty, the only emotion flowing through me as I look up at the silver statue is excitement to begin the trials ahead.

I smirk and grab my sword out from its rotation around me and press [YES] on the silver message in the sky.

The text above ripples and disappears, then new silver lettering forms and the ancient voice speaks again.

[Enter the trial area.]

A portion of the floor glows with silver light, right in front of the demonic statue at the back of the room.

The text fades, and both Ember and I fly forward, activating our Greater Forms with caution to enter the multi-kilometer wide circle before the massive silver Demon.

The circle stops glowing once we stand in the center of it, but a faint silver outline still shimmers, showing the borders as we stand in the middle, looking directly up at the towering silver masterpiece.

It speaks again.

[Rules of the Trials]

[Rule 1. You may leave any time you wish.]

As these words enter my consciousness, a floating silver textbox hovers in front of my eyes, tracking my vision.

[Leave the Trials]

[YES][NO]

I press [NO] and it fades away, but afterward I'm left in silence. The thought of the textbox wanders into my mind again, and it reappears. I press [NO] and it fades just like before, proving its point.

The voice returns.

[Rule 2. Death within the trials is final. Your body, energy, and property are forfeited to the Tower Master.]

This could have been assumed, but my mind wanders back to the time I was in Celia's construct again. Death within that pocket world was not final; entities that died were simply transported out. It seems this construct is different.

[Rule 3. The third and Final Trial will only begin once all participants have cleared the two below, have left the tower, or have died trying.]

This message conveys quite a lot of information, indicating there are three trials in total, and confirming that this third and final trial likely requires all remaining members within the tower present.

The Demon's confidence that we would settle things within the Tower makes far more sense now.

The room falls silent again as the silver text completely dissipates, but the silver energy quickly returns as the three eyes of the demon statue at the back of the room shine bright; though it doesn't completely blind me this time.

The silver light just pulses outward and ripples through both mine and Ember's bodies as if it's performing an appraisal.

The text paired with the voice returns.

[Trial 1: Body]

[Calculating Necessary Difficulty...]

The bright silver text that reads [Body] stays hovering over the Demon's head while all other text fades away.

Then, in the grasp of each of the Demon's hands, silver longswords start to form from left to right.

One by one all nine hands of the Demon form massive silver swords in their grasps.

[Difficulty Calculated: Trial 1: Round 1 of 9 Shall Commence.]

[Objective: Block The Incoming Strike.]

As this text fades, eight of the nine silver blades disappear, but one remains.

The Demon's head doesn't move, but I can feel its three silver glowing eyes staring deep within me.

Then, the kilometer-long arm holding the single massive silver blade comes swinging down toward us.