Dungeon Diver: Stealing a Monster's Power

Chapter 191

I take a deep breath of fresh air as I look out into the pale green dungeon and open up my link with Ember.

"It's time we head back to the 10th floor."

"Understood."

Ember flaps his wings and glides down to the nearest pillar of smooth white stone below us.

With a careful step, I hop off his back and land on the square 3-meter wide platform high up in the clouds. I open my item storage and Ember flies inside.

I down at my arms and chest.

My armor is still completely destroyed. My shirt is ripped and the black line from the Greater Demon's Core is exposed on my left arm.

I attempt to heal the armor with my self regeneration skill like I normally would, but things go a bit differently than they did last time.

The dim white glow of mana begins to shine, but I get the odd urge to push further with a new depth of mana control that I haven't quite felt before...

The white glow begins to turn into tinted red. MP seeps out of my body at an alarming rate as the armor is healed, I can audibly hear a buzzing sound coming from the heavy metal gear.

Then, a sharp pain in my head and chest stops me from pushing further.

I grit my teeth and drop to one knee on the hard stone surface below me, letting out a gasp and deactivating all my skills.

I'm still way too worm out to be trying anything fancy...

I take the now completely restored armor set off and throw it into my item storage before standing up straight again.

Looking down, I still see the Demon's Black mark on my arm under my torn shirt. I reach into storage to grab a fresh long-sleeve as well as the new pair of magic lenses that Bri gave me during our last meeting.

I throw the shirt on and activate the new lenses of illusion. I'll only be wearing these in public, they'll always come off during battle or training from now on. Burning through that last pair was such a waste.

Now that my appearance problem is out of the way, I'll need to think of an alibi... I'll head back to the 10th-floor Inn, but telling people that I defeated the 20th-floor boss is a bad idea.

I take a deep breath, then close my eyes.

"Dungeon Walker."

The moment my transport skill is activated, severe pain surges through my head making it hard to visualize where I'm teleporting to.

Everything in my mind is foggy, but I lock onto a familiar point deep in the 10th-floor dungeon and let myself blip through.

I fall to the rocky floor at the base of the mountain I trained at earlier in my labyrinth climb. I spent a few days throwing attacks at this rock wall, I know it well.

It seems like in a tired state, tempting to familiar regions is much easier than places I've only been once.

I catch myself with both hands and fall to my knees, but look to my left and right before hitting the ground.

"No one else is here, that's a good sign."

I let out a sigh as my headache and chest pain slowly fades away and the sharp pain that travels all the way now my spine becomes much less irritating.

I get to my feet and begin slowly walking towards the Inn thinking through how exactly I'll explain my current weakened state and progress to anyone that asks.

It takes me nearly an hour to make it to the backside of the poorly built Inn. I can already hear hunters training and selling goods on the small stone path in front of it.