Cosmic Peak

[Dungeon Quest, Lost Ancient accepted.]

[As you are mortal-5 Lifeform, the dungeon difficulty has been adjusted.]

[You can choose the dungeon's difficulty to be increased as well. Higher difficulties will produce stronger monsters and better rewards.]

[Please choose the difficulty.]

->Walk in the park (Even Mortal-4 Lifeform can complete.)

->Little Struggles (Any Mortal-5 Lifeform can complete with a bit of struggle.)

->Deadly Steps (A Mortal-5 can complete but will be very hard and full of high struggles. A wrong step can cause death.)

->Futile Struggle (A mortal-5 can only die with this difficulty except for some exceptional individuals with full-proof preparation. Only choose this if you are confident in yourself and have trust in your power. If you don't have any equipments and support items, then you may leave now; even if you have reached the extreme mortal limit with 200 in CONT, you will die with two hits from any monster without support from equipments and items.)

Aren was surprised as he got this panel once he touched the door of the temple. However, he didn't need to think much to choose the difficulty level.

Naturally, he chose Futile Struggle difficulty level because he had enough support of items, and with his flexible flying method, he was capable of easily evading attacks or defending with his newfound defensive capabilities from armor and shield.

Most importantly, he had the support of two powerful Artifacts that he bought from Ghost Demon Ship.

After he picked up the difficulty, the door of the ancient temple opened, and Aren got another panel regarding quest details.

[Lost Ancient]-Futile Strugger Difficulty

<Objective>

->1. Kill ten Ancient Monsters.

->2. Find and destroy four power nucleus.

->3. Destroy the Ruin Bringer Weapon.

<Reward>

->100,000 path and normal exp.

->A skill box containing a random skill related to the dungeon. (A-SS)

->An ancient key with unknown use.

->A Skill Fusion Stone.

->A box containing a random grade force level 2 spirit stone.

<Note>

->You will get a chance to leave the dungeon after completing each objective.

->However, you will not receive any rewards if you fail to complete even one objective. You must achieve all three objectives to get the rewards.

"Oh...," Aren was surprised when he read the <Note> part, "I guess it should be the thing of Futile-Struggle difficulty. Hmm...even if I struggled to complete two objectives but decided to leave after that, my struggles to complete those two objectives would be nulled as I wouldn't receive any rewards."

Futile struggle indeed.

...

After entering the temple, Aren arrived at a large hall with a giant statue at the end. There was a path leading further right below the statue.

The giant statue depicted a humanoid being with a wooden mask and a spear in his hand, sitting on a stone platform. The statue was very lifelike and colorful, so Aren almost thought it was real and got cautious until he got its information through his Astral-X eyes that it was just a statue.

"No monster spawning here?" Aren murmured as he waited for a few seconds and didn't move further.

However, since no one spawned, Aren moved towards the statue as the path to the next place below the statue.

*DHOOM...DHOOM*

Suddenly, A loud drum sound reverberated out of nowhere, and the path below the statue was blocked with a stone tablet.

*Roar!!...Roar!!...*

The ground trembled as three creepy monsters with dark green hide, sharp teeth, and glowing red eyes appeared in front of Aren. Those creatures walked on four legs, but its front two legs had deadly claws that glowed with a dark green sheen.

They were 3 meters long and 1.5 meters tall.

*Swoooosh...*

A powerful gust of wind exploded from the three monsters as black wind power surrounded them, and they dashed towards Aren at a fast speed.

However, Aren narrowed his eyes as he dodged them by flying upward, and without wasting any time, he took out all of his gears.

[Ancient Creature, Pranturm.]

-Lifeform: Special

-Health: [45,000/45,000]

-Attack: Phy. [6,900], Cursed Wind [7500]

-Defense: Phy. [2000], Energy [1340], Soul [300]

-Skills: <Toxic Wind Claws>, <Wind Bullets>

-Abilities: <Cursed Wind>, <Wind Rumble>

*Roar!!...*

Two creatures flew towards Aren despite not having wings as some kind of black wind surrounded them, while the third creature roared and swiped its claws towards Aren, releasing two black wind claws the size of two meters long.

Aren first dodged the claw attacks and started flying around in a chaotic manner while keeping an eye on the battlefield and manipulating his weapons to attack.

He activated his abilities, <Icy Enchant> and <Demonic Flame: Zarkhel> before attacking the two monsters with <Demonic Grasp> seeds through [Slinger] gear from his hand.

The seeds shot towards the two creatures following him and trapped them for a moment. However, they still flew and didn't fall down. Although their speed was slowed down because of [Icy Enchant] and their flying speed reduced cause of vines. They also received damage from [Demonic Flame: Zarkhel] that burned on the vines.

Naturally, Aren followed with his [Destruto] and [Lech] attacks right after that.

*Crackle!...BOOM...*

[-7740]-Destructo basic attack

[-13,000]-Sound wave attack of Lech.

*Crackle!...BOOM...*

Aren continued using basic attacks while flying around.

He didn't forget about the monster that was staying on the ground and releasing long-range attacks. For it, he used [Ring of Fire, Pyrin] and released fireballs towards the monster below. Each fireball consumed 250 spirit energy.

-5410

Aren released three fireballs, but the creature dodged two of them. However, Aren was surprised by the damage of the fireball.

'Could it be because of the increased Fire Elemental Mastery?' Aren speculated. Currently, he has a total of 30 Fire Elemental Mastery. 15 from the gear itself and another 15 from Armalist Cloak buff.

While flying and attacking the two creatures following him with [Destruco] and [Lech], Aren also occasionally attacked the creature staying below with fireballs from [Pyrin] gear.

Their health slowly decreased while Aren was perfectly fine. He focused on the battle and easily dodged their attacks with his extremely flexible flying by manipulating his [Weimbus] gear.

Suddenly, he got an idea as he consumed 100 soul energy and 100 Mutant Magic energy. Since he used 100 soul energy to invoke the mutant magic, its potency naturally increased by many folds. Afterward, he used that power through [Pyrin] and then released fireball.

*Swooooosh...*

This new fireball was red with orange sparks, and its speed was extremely fast as well.

However, Aren was surprised that this fireball consumed 500 spirit energy rather than 250, 'maybe to increase its potential capacity?'

It flew even faster than a bullet and hit the creature's head.

*BOOOOOOOM...*

-21,740

A large explosion occurred while the creature's head was blasted in a mesh. However, the creature's body was still moving, and it continued to attack randomly.

'Nice...'

Afterward, Aren also slowly finished off the two monsters.

[An Ancient creature killed, 7400 exp gained.]x3

"Hmmm, not too difficult," Aren spoke softly as he didn't feel too much challenge and started walking towards the path.

After he walked through the short passage, he arrived in another hall that had four paths on four sides and there was a statue in the middle of the large hall.

This time, four creatures spawned around the statue. However, these creatures were different.

Seeing their stats, Aren raised his eyebrows as they were more powerful than the three creatures in the previous hall.