One With The Abyss

I delved deeper into the dungeon and gathered even more power for myself.

On the 31st floor I pushed my [Shapeshifting] talent to its maximum level; and now, if Abby was to be trusted, all that was left was to evolve it and another abyss gate will open. I don't even know what had pushed it to level 9, it just had as I fought with the monsters on the floor.

The 31st floor boasted another set of undead.

This time they were called ghouls, a fleshy monstrosity that actually created a little bit of fear in me. 

Their skin was a dull grey and covered in this gross slime stuff, I later found was ectoplasm. When straightened out they were about 7ft tall, but always chose to move on all fours like rabid dogs; even though their bodies were extremely humanoid - legs, arms, torso, all the parts as a human's would be, except their arms.

The ghoul's arms were extremely long, going from their shoulders to just above their ankles. Sharp, bloodied claws extended from both their hands and feet, strong enough to cut trees down in a single strike, I knew as I had watched them do it while running away from a group of them.

The worst part however, was their heads. They had no eyes, no ears, no nose: Just a mouth. A mouth full of giant, razor sharp teeth; and multiple rows of them like a shark. Then behind their teeth were long, purple tongues whipped around at me when they had me cornered. And from their unhinging jaws inhuman amounts of drool and slobber poured out onto the floor.

To make matters worse, the entire floor was a spooky forest full of mist and towering trees in the middle of the night. It was terrifying.

I really freaked out when I was first surrounded and burnt them all to a crisp with my fire and lightning, shifting rapidly between the many forms I could take like an indecisive ball of goo; though, looking back, that rapid shifting is likely what caused the level.

By the time I had stopped, all that was left were their slightly charred item drops. Nothing worth taking as of now, but I still rammed it all into my lion bag, just the mana stones were likely to have some great purpose; maybe I could sell them to a dwarf.

"Mana stones work well as fuel for magic items so you could." Abby chimed in, affirming the item's usefulness, "But they are better used in magitech, so you'd make more by selling to a dwarf."

"What's the difference?" I ask as I enter stealth for the first time in a while.

"Between dwarfs and gnomes, or magitech and magic items?" Abby asks, but before I can answer, "Because the first one is kind of racist."

"Shut up, I obviously meant magic items and magitech." I said, transforming into the chimp looking monsters from the 24th floor and climbing the trees.

Abby giggled before she quietly explained. For the most part magic items are items that can produce magical effects; like a sword that can create fire; or a shield that can create a barrier.

Magitech on the other hand is technology powered by mana. Hence, mana stones, as a rock of condensed mana, function well as fuel for these machines.

In terms of the races; dwarfs prefer to craft magic items, pursuing crafts and other hobbies; on the other hand, gnomes are very inventive, creating vast battalions all equipped with powerful magitech.

"They could have won the great war if they had shared it with the other races." Abby said, "But such is the arrogance of the powerful."

As she was talking I was slowly sneaking up on a ghoul, a solitary ghoul.

My stealth had reached 6/6 as I hid from large packs of the monsters; seemingly despite their lacking features, they have keen senses.

I jumped down onto the beast quickly absorbing its talent and killing it without a sound, all using [Thread Dominion] to do so silently.

The ghoul did have a somewhat decent ability, namely a better regeneration ability:

[Healing Factor (7/7)]

[Body can heal from any injury within moments. All wounds and energy will naturally recover over time]

Now not only were my wounds healing, but so was my energy.

The ability on its own was slower than what the trolls possessed, but when combined it gained the speed of a troll's regeneration and it regenerated my abyssal energy without the need for me to meditate; though I would still need to in order to cultivate.

The body of the ghoul was incredibly useful, it was both fast and powerful; and despite lacking any eyes or ears I could still navigate with ease; though [Soul Sense] likely helped.

The boss was a fearsome beast as well:

[Ghoul Lord]

[A superior mutation of the Ghoul race. Faster, stronger, smarter. This creature beats its lessers in every category. A true sadist, may your death be swift and painless, though it will not]

I was really beginning to wonder who wrote these messages, this one specifically seemed really out to get me; though I could understand its fear. This monster was much more intimidating than the regular ghouls.

I could instantly tell it was different. Firstly it stood on its hind legs, like a human; boasting a tall 8.5 ft in height. Its arms extended down to its ankles like its cousins but unlike them its flesh was pitch black. This time it only had claws on the end of its fingers and they were much sharper than any other ghouls. Really the only thing that indicated this monstrosity was a ghoul was its head.

It had the same featureless head as the others, bearing only a large gaping mouth full of rows of razor sharp teeth and a long prehensile tongue.

I struggled to move as I saw it, that instinctual fear that I had felt seeing the first ghoul. Seeing my reaction it let out a disgusting noise that could only have been a laugh, taking pleasure in my suffering.

Then it vanished, it was only by throwing myself sideways that I was able to avoid its massive claws ripping a chunk out of my waist. Seeing me on the floor it let out that same laugh, bringing its claws to its mouth and licking the blood from them as it had managed to scratch me.

The fight went on for a while, the ghoul's speed being its greatest asset; so I turned it against him. 

Earth shifted to throw off its balance and wires obstructed its path; every time it could not pull off an attack it let out a horrid scream in anger. Truly my most disgusting boss fight.

The fight came to a close as I managed to copy its talent:

[Acceleration control (7/7)]

[Instantly accelerate and decelerate at will]

With this I could match its speed. It took a moment to get used to it, even having copied its experience with the talent. 

I also learnt I could, like with the limbs I grew, copy talents using my threads. As I trapped it with threads I managed to copy the talent and not 5 minutes later the fight was won. [Acceleration Control] was a real gem, likely very few speed talents could beat something as powerful as this.

Of course if I accelerated too fast, my body would be unable to stand it, but that kind of speed would not be necessary against most opponents.

So, I continued onto the 32nd floor; and I continued the battle against grey monsters.

32 was yet another forest, though much less spooky. I didn't even find any enemies for a while, I soon learnt why.

Out of nowhere I felt a stinging pain in my stomach; I had been stabbed, by a little grey man.

It was a goblin, a grey goblin covered in red tribal tattoos. Luckily I was fast enough to grab and kill the goblin, but not before appraising it and copying the talent.

It was something called a Blood Goblin, which is weird as I would have expected a BLOOD goblin to be red, not grey. Anyway, they seemed to specialise in assassination, as their talents would tell you:

[Assassin (7/7)]

[Completely hide yourself to strike when needed]

"Ah. Another stealth talent." I said as I squeezed the monster's neck bones into paste, "I don't really use these, but thanks anyway."

I fused the talent and wondered why my [Soul Sense] had not picked up on this guy.

"Is it because my talent level is too low?" I wondered aloud, "Well, this is the perfect place to improve."

And so that's what I did.

Like on the troll floor I practised until I could easily sense the little creeps who kept trying to kill me; resulting in [Soul Sense (7/7)]. It was only when I reached the same level in my sensing ability was I able to sense the goblins clearly. As such I needed to break through a couple times.

I also levelled twice in [Thread Dominion] as I had to use it to capture any approaching goblins while I tried sensing them; also I practised learning to make clothes with it. There is not a lot to do while practising sensory abilities.

I learnt that since I could control the properties of the thread, I could also change the colours. I soon abandoned my dungeon provided clothes inside the lion bag as not only were mine just as comfortable they were also both highly durable - due to being made from my talent - and much more in my style. 

By the time I was able to make something of similar quality to the dungeon clothes, and in the blink of an eye as they ended up ripped under my shapeshifting, I got a title:

[You have become an expert in weaving thread: <+Expert Seamstress Title>]

[Expert Seamstress]

[Proof you are an expert at weaving. Increase ability to create things out of thread]

"I really love this new world." I laughed, finally making my way to the boss room.

I had been on this floor a full day, I think. Though comparatively I had been in the dungeon for much longer.

It had to have been about a year already, maybe even more; it was hard to keep track.

I quickly killed the boss, it was merely a 'Blood Goblin Chief', boasting both incredible power and stealth. I was glad to get another strength enhancement but it was a little underwhelming compared to the ghoul lord.

I didn't even allow it to make a move as I instantly accelerated towards it and killed it using a sword made from my soul weapon.

From testing I could tell that [Acceleration Control]'s primary weakness was direction. I could only accelerate or decelerate in one direction.

It also forced me to accelerate my entire body, not just parts. Meaning it only functioned as a movement ability; still it was very useful.

On the next floor I practised my magic, hoping to deviate the last of the basic elements; I had left light and dark, knowing they would be more complicated.

The enemy I faced were perfect for this as they were large, strong and incredibly durable: Cyclops.

Abby told me that intelligent cyclops were members of the titan faction due to their size, despite more closely resembling the faefolk faction like ogres and trolls. 

But as she said, they were giants. 10 metres tall with one giant, red eye on their heads. They had large, yellowed teeth and only nostrils where their nose should've been; each of them carried an immensely large club that caused the ground to shatter into pieces with every hit, if it wasn't already damaged from the quaking steps they took.

Killing them was a real effort as not only was their skin hard as metal, they also had a decent healing ability. Thankfully, they were as slow as their sizes would lead you to believe, meaning dodging them was easy, especially with the ghoul lord's talent.

The cyclops floor was a giant wasteland full of rubble and sand, meaning I could see for miles in every direction; easily spotting the next cyclops to kill. I had to use [Assassin] to hide myself though, as having hundreds of cyclops converge on me would be hard to deal with, even with my increased strength.

The talent I got from them was [Reinforced Body]; essentially this power was just a means of supporting a larger body, but in my hands, it offered a significant boost to my strength. As I added it my aura stirred and flared up for a moment; it would soon awaken, I could feel it.

Back to my magic, I practised trying to make what I knew they could become in any way possible; and eventually there was a breakthrough, though not the one I was expecting.

While striking a cyclops with earth magic I tried to destabilise the structure, and something did change; the rocks became finer, but not sand, it was gravel. IT didn't do much against the thick skin of the cyclops, but I had only used tiny quantities. What if I make it bigger? I had thought.

So, I did. I recalled exactly how I had made it, finding that I hadn't destabilised the mana, but broken it down. Then, I launched it.

Bits of gravel crashed into the monster, lacerating it in massive cuts and scrapes; bits of broken up rock getting stuck inside and heightening the pain felt by the cyclops. I continued, creating an entire storm of gravel until I heard the large body of the cyclops crashing down to the ground. As I stopped the attack, opening up the scene to see what I had done, I witnessed the remains of a cyclops, cut to pieces such that it was barely recognisable. A truly formidable power.

"Ah... Gravel magic, the hidden step between earth and sand." Abby laughed, not caring about the act of cruelty I had committed, though neither did I, "Most people skip it, but it can offer capabilities that neither sand nor earth provide. It may be useful, good job."

I smiled and thanked her, looking over the process of creating gravel; thinking about what Abby had said: 'the hidden step'.

It was then I realised I had been doing this all wrong, I shouldn't make the structure fluid, but break it down entirely after it has formed!

The 3rd try after coming to this theory produced exactly what I had wanted, sand, granting me a breakthrough into (7/7) of [Elementalist]. I could now freely manipulate and produce sand, and god was it deadly; it had both the fluidity and cutting power of water, but the rough abrasive texture of earth; and with enough sand it could function similarly to earth's defensive abilities. Cyclops after cyclops fell to my magic with this, between the deep cuts and having them being filled with sand; they died so much faster than regular earth magic.

Having achieved sand magic I put my ambitions of deviating all 4 basic elements on hold and went to kill the boss.

It was another cyclops, obviously, but it had a different skin colour. The others were a sort of bronze colour, almost exactly like the alloy. This one was more grey, like metal:

[Steel Cyclops]

[Powerful variant of normal cyclops. A body of impenetrable steel stands tall above any other]

"This is gonna be a pain..." I sigh, the regular cyclops were already tough enough and now this one was made of metal. Bullshit.

"It'll be fine, you'll still win." Abby chided, I knew that of course. My growth was exponential, every monster I faced granted a new power and so every enemy that followed became just a bit easier.

I accelerated forward, taking advantage of the cyclops' naturally slow bodies; and first tried punching. My soul weapon was enhanced with the muscles of many beasts. Yeti's, troll's, the ghoul lord's, cyclops' and even the drake's muscles augmented the punch I threw. And it... Worked?

It was hard to tell.

The boss flew backwards and there was a massive dent on its body, but it didn't look like it was in pain. It simply got back up and charged at me. I released the transformation as such excessive use was wasteful, but when needed I would augment my strength.

Cutting attacks were useless. Pretty much all of my magic was useless as well; even lighting only slightly melted its body - something about conductivity I think - so I was a bit stumped on how to proceed. Though I did get a new talent:

[Corpus Metalli (9/9)]

[Changes the form of the true body into an elemental core: Metal. Projected body is now a manifestation of mana that can be freely shaped and controlled; made of metal elemental mana]

When the talent was copied my body was in immense pain but I could ignore it and found myself in the same situation as my old teacher, except with metal instead of plants. I quickly fused the talent with [Shapeshifting] and felt pain again as I became 'human' again, but now I could shift into metal as well as monsters; I hadn't expected that.

"You should have." Abby said, "I mean what did you think would happen when you met an elemental?"

That did make sense, but it was not important right now as that momentary distraction got me punched into the barrier surrounding the arena. Thankfully, I had covered myself in drake scales so the damage was minimal; though I did wonder why drake scales were stronger than metal, by an unreasonable amount really. Though I could still see myself regularly using this transformation.

In the end, I just had to keep beating the cyclops down until the metal was so warped it could no longer get back up. Then it took around 30 minutes of hitting its head to really kill it; it was a real chore.

Not a hard fight, but a long one.

Even using body strengthening, which I barely used at this point, hardly sped up the process.

As I made my way down the stairs, fixing my ruined clothes, I wondered why I couldn't fuse the talent to my mage one. It seemed like it would fit right in, but I guess not. And so I went deeper into the dungeon.

34 was full of goat monsters, but not the fun demonic kind, the basic kind.

It was a floor full of goats and sheep that would charge at me with giant elongated horns. Upon death they would drop either their horns or some wool; a weird floor.

The boss was a giant goat, with long extending branches growing from its head. It repeatedly charged at me as I gradually cut through it with [Thread Dominion]. Not a hard floor at all and I got 3 talents: [Strong Skull] which improved the strength of the front of my head, for headbuts, it went into [Abyssal Soul]; then there was [Wooly], which allowed me to grow wool, useless and fused with [Thread Dominion]; and finally [Horn Growth] from the boss, which allowed me to grow giant wooden horns, this went to [Shapeshifting].

"I hardly ever just get 'new' talents." I grumbled, every talent kind of just fit into another, if I didn't know better, I would have thought whoever came up with this just didn't want to remember hundreds of abilities that would likely never be used.

"Again with you saying random nonsense." Abby muttered, before actually answering, "It's a good thing; it means you have superior talents. Ultimately, every talent falls into a category, and within those categories there are talents just better than all the others, like shapeshifting."

I sigh, knowing she's right and look over the next floor: Rocks.

Stony floor, covered in stone piles; not stone piles, golems.

35 was full of golems. It was a fairly easy floor, but only 1 talent was gained: [Corpus Petrae], same as the metal one, but now with rocks. Supposedly, the golems had a different talent but my abyssal system translated it over to me in a way my body could handle; hence [Corpus Petrae].

Even the boss had it so I only gained that one talent.

On the floor I couldn't use earth magic as it made the golem's stronger, as such I practised my wind magic again. I tried looking for another angle as I blew the golems to pieces and shattered their cores; not shattering their cores would allow them to reform.

I tried many different ways, but just couldn't figure it out. So, after blasting the boss, a 'Giant Golem' to pieces, I left the floor and headed deeper.

36 was another beast-type floor. Full of monsters called 'Razor Monkeys', essentially a large monkey with razor sharp, metallic claws extending from their hands. Other than that they used wind magic to travel and attack, sending bursts of air in the shapes of blades and as propulsion to fly.

It was another easy floor as I could take control over the flow of wind around me; I hoped to use it as a means to improve my wind magic and learn sound magic, but even the boss was not enough to do so. Unfortunately, there were no wind magic talents to improve me; only a couple speed boosts for [Abyssal Soul].

37 was the most 'different' floor so far. The door let me out, before closing, on a desert island in the middle of the ocean.

"Where the hell do I go from here?" I yelled out, even with my enhanced eyes I couldn't see land in any direction at all.

"Maybe it's the water?" Abby posed, it made sense, but how would I breath down there?

Well, whatever. That was the last thought before jumping into the giant ocean in front of me. It was a glorious sight to behold, glowing coral and massive amounts of sea-life. I quickly killed a fish, it was just a regular fish so I didn't bother taking a talent from it. But now I had the gills of a fish, even if they took my energy to use; thankfully my regeneration was able to keep it up.

The floor was full of different kinds of fish, though it was a while before I found one that was a monster. Well, find is probably the wrong word.

I dodged a monster as it approached, a very large shark. It gave a teeth sharpening talent that was put into my body enhancing talent and then I killed it. It looked to be a lesser monster on this floor.

Killing it allowed me to move faster than I had already since I could now take on the shark's form to swim - the fish form would have caused me to be swallowed whole.

I figured the next floor would be deeper in the ocean. For a while more sharks came to attack me, somehow realising that I was not one of them despite me making my way down there; however, after a while a monster known as 'gillmen' showed up.

It looked like the classic monster from 'creature of the black lagoon' and was much stronger than the sharks that had been attacking me up until now. It was incredibly fast in the water and had sharp claws to slash at me with. 

The difficulty was still bearable though and so I managed to kill them and acquired a swimming speed increase.

The next layer of the ocean floor was guarded by 'sharkmen', a half-human, half-shark creature that could move even faster than the gillman; they attacked by charging and biting with their incredibly sharp teeth.

They were much harder to kill; but again I managed and got the [Blood Detection], it was a level 6 talent and was used to improve my [Soul Sense] talent despite not having anything in common besides being a sensory skill. 

I chose to make use of their form to traverse the ocean floor further due to their incredible speed and soon found myself arriving at the boss room.

Inside was a giant mermaid, incredibly beautiful, such that I completely lost my will to fight; until I realised what was happening.

[Siren]

[Cruel subspecies of mermaid. These sadistic monsters enjoy luring others into the deep and devouring them alive]

The attraction I felt vanished... Until I looked back at her. She noticed and beckoned me over, by sheer will I managed to prevent that.

In order to beat her I blocked out my senses, I closed my eyes and removed my hearing abilities; it was a quick fight from there. So fast that it shouldn't have been so deep; though I doubted many could resist her charms to fight her at all anyway. Her talent was a useful one; and I gained some insights into sound magic by blocking off my hearing.

[Charm (5/5)]

[Become irresistible to others. Able to actively charm others and pull them under your control]

I was thankful it was not passive, and even more thankful as I fused it into another talent: [Queen's Authority] becoming [Royal Authority]. 

The talent lost most of its direct control abilities, but it did allow me to better be a leader without the need to directly give birth; and I would have a much easier time controlling anyone who came under me.

38 and 39 had simple monsters to fight. 38 had another kind of troll, these being blue; and 39 had a monster similar to a tiger, but also slightly resembled a house cat from Earth.

On both of these floors, the talents from bosses and mobs were body enhancements, being either agility or strength. What really mattered was what happened during the 39th boss fight.

I learnt how to use sound magic!

Instead of directly causing an effect on mana, I had to use the mana to create an effect on the surrounding environment; I thought this was far more advanced than the other 3 deviations, but in the end I had gotten it.

By hyper-energising wind mana it would vibrate intensely and despite mana being only energy, it caused the air around it to also vibrate: Therefore, sound magic.

It was hard to control at first, but I soon found that I could not only create loud noise, but also silence all noise all together. The magic had very little external damaging capabilities, but it absolutely tore up the internals of anything it hit. 

So, while not being best for direct combat; I could surely use it to ruin the chances of my enemy beating me. Removing sound from or overloading their eardrums before blasting them with lightning would surely guarantee my victory. Though I did find that with the right mana control it could be resisted.

In these past 9 floors I had made significant progress to my power; with every step I took deeper into this dungeon, I became so much stronger that soon the entire continent... No, the entire world would shake under my might.