Strength: 613 (F)

Stamina: 597 (F)

Agility: 573 (F)

Perception: 643 (F)

Potential: 3887

Racial Limit (D)

After clearing the outer city of all stone men, his overall stats increased by a huge margin, but he was still far off from reaching rank E.

He has now spent 3 months inside the dungeon, and there was only about 4 months left before the merge, urgency suddenly had hit him, and he pushed himself even further in hi training, he needed to gain as much strength possible.

digging out the last monster core from a stone carca.s.s that was near him, link rested for 30 minutes, then started walking towards the inner part of the city.

while the stone men there were slightly stronger, he had become stronger himself.

he was confident enough that he could clear it as well all by himself.

in fact, he had to do it as fast as possible, his resources are running out, and he can't afford to stay so weak, so he had do train down here for a while, possibly clearing the whole city from the stone men, then going back up to the sands, so he can hunt living prey for food.

But he still he had no idea for how long he had to stay here, for that G.o.d d.a.m.ned tomb guardian didn't tell him anything except for him to survive.

so, with his katana in his hands, he walked steadily to the inner city, preparing to go on a killing spree

....

days pa.s.sed and link never stopped his hunting, he killed one stone man after the other, polis.h.i.+ng his blades skills, and getting closer and closer to the center of the city.

eventually, after he cleared the whole city from the stone men, link made it to the royal palace at the center., his senses were screaming danger, making him come to the decision that he wasn't strong enough to explore it.

Not to mention

he only had 1-day amount of the food left in his bag, so he couldn't explore the gigantic castle right now.

His strength wasn't sufficient and he didn't have enough food.

"That only leaves me with one choice, I just hope that thing had left already."

Link turned around and started to walk toward the stairs he had come from.

.....

Met once again by the scorching sun, link couldn't help but narrow his eyes, he had gotten used to the buried city's dark environment over the past month, so once he came up to the sun, he felt uncomfortable once again.

But that didn't stop him at all, as he set off spreading his sense around, after a while his senses picked up on 4 signs of life that he ran towards with Dark Bane ready in his palms.

They were 4 lizardmen eating one of their own, Link didn't care and straight in started butchering them like chickens, one slash, one kill.

These creatures that had once required him to put all his efforts in to kill them, had become such easy targets for him now.

Happy at how easy he could deal with them now, Link was about to get straight into dismantling them, but as if the desert was telling him not to become complacent.

Something started to dig out from a patch of sand right in front of him.

Link jumped back, and readied himself once again for battle, and soon enough, the monster showed itself.

A 3 meters tall scorpion with a black pattern on its pack, was chewing on the game that it had just stolen while glaring at Link with menace.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d you got the whole desert full of prey, and you chose to steal mine" Link started cursing out at the scorpion, and swore that he would skin it alive.

The scorpion, as if understanding that Link was cursing it, became enraged, and started approaching him with its pincers opening and closing, and its tail coiling back.

Unflinching, Link, sprinted at it, dodging the two incoming pincers, and parrying the poisoned tail.

But his momentum didn't decrease, as he rushed at the scorpion's mouth, and the latter opened its spikey mouth, ready to bite its enemy's head off.

But link, unlike what the scorpion expected, ducked down at the last moment, slid to below the scorpion, and with Dark Bane held in a reverse grip, in his hands, stabbed at the scorpions stomach, the momentum kept him going, and the sharp Dark Bane, opened up the monsters stomach from its head till its back.

"GRAAAAAA"

The scorpion screamed in pain, before it fell weakly on the ground with regret in its eyes.

Link watched on with cold eyes, as he readied his katana once again, and acted as if he had dropped his guard while approaching the scorpion.

Through his sharp senses he could feel its faint breaths, it was acting as if it had already died.

'Two can play that game'

Suddenly Link slashed cutting off the scorpion's tail from behind, then jumping over the back of the now screeching scorpion, before finally pinning down the monster with his katana inside of its head.

"What a tricky a.s.shole, even eating one of my games before dying"

Link kept kicking at the creature's dead body, pouring out the frustration that had acc.u.mulated over these weeks.

After calming down a bit, he got into dismantling the creatures, as his stomach roared.

He once again cursed at the scorpion's body nearby, because it wasn't eatable.

.....

Soon 3 months pa.s.sed, and link was once again standing before the royal palace, the sense of danger was still stinging his back, but much lighter than before.

" Asteria"

[Link Oaks.h.i.+eld]

Strength: 1000 (E)

Stamina: 1000 (E)

Agility: 1000 (E)

Perception: 1000 (E)

Mana: 150 (G)

Potential: 2389

Racial Limit (D)

Skills:

Mana Coat (G)

"It's a shame I can't train my mana anymore " Link said with bitterness, after much effort he has finally been able sense mana, but the amount he started was pathetically small, so had to go through the pain of training it in the most inefficient and old fas.h.i.+oned way.

Depleting it, waiting for it to regenerate, rinse and repeat.

He couldn't utilize any of techniques he knew that helped grow mana, because of a certain Item he wanted to get, that would go to waste if he trained his mana, and gave it a property.

He also gained the Skill Mana Coat that helped him deplete his mana, its effect was that it coated the blade of his katana with mana, sharpening it even further giving it the property of the mana used, his mana right now is neutral, so he didn't have any extra effect.

It was a very basic Reinforcement skill, that almost every kid knew.

But it was useful regardless.

….

Link walked into the royal castle with steady steps.

What he found was

emptiness, the palace was oddly empty, he didn't find a single stone man like he was expecting to.

He kept on exploring, but except for some useless furniture nothing of interest has caught his eyes.

but there was one place haven't been to yet, it was the throne room.

His senses were telling him that the real deal was waiting for him there.

whatever was inside, surely is unlike everything he had faced so far.

he slowly opened the door to the throne room and walked inside carefully and fully on guard, he raised his head only to see a stone man looking right back at him, the moment they had eye contact, my body unconsciously s.h.i.+vered.

He was the real deal alright.

He flashed me the creepiest smile I've ever seen and said.

"You finally made it young man"