The inside of the dungeon was pitch dark. There was no tree or open sky above. After all, it was said to be a cave. There was a murky feeling inside it and Elior could not see a thing.
But he was not worried. With a thought, a few dozen strands of mana were released from his body in the surroundings of a five-metre radius. If something moved close to him, he would know immediately as it would disrupt the mana flow.
It was a simple skill of mana application called mana sense, but profoundly effective.
No monster came as he walked for a while. Bored, he could only make loud noises with his foot on the ground in the hope the lizards would take the bait and come to eat him.
Elior was ready with two daggers in his arm and heard the lizards advance towards him. There were four, maybe five, that came towards him together. The lezards were quite large—the ones coming at him were one to two metres long, and were not bipedal, but they could jump a lot with their swift speed. They were naturally had no fur as a cold-blooded creatures.
He infused mana into his daggers and threw himself at the lizards. Technically, lizards were the ones that threw themselves at him. He welcomed them not in an open hand, but in the reverse-gripped daggers in arms.
With the mana sense in play, he could clearly sense their advancement instantly. His right arm jerked below with a slash dealing a blow. In the returning slash, he claimed the life of his first target.
[You have killed the Underground Lahar Lizards LVL 14.]
[You have gained 312 karma points.]
These lizards were not as tall as the Killer Ants he had faced in the dungeon class, but they were profoundly swift compared with ants and more predatory. But Elior was swifter and the predator here.
He killed his second target and then the third easily when he sensed a lot of the lizards coming towards him. He intentionally was quite loud when he killed the lizards. He could not see them all, but the number would very well be a few dozen.
Elior squinted his nose and coated with a mana defence all over his body, and continued the battle immediately.
Hack. Kill. Hack. Kill.
[You have killed the Underground Lahar Lizards LVL 17.]
[You have gained 442 karma points.]
[You have killed the Underground Lahar Lizards LVL 15.]
[You have gained 342 karma points.]
[You have . . .]
[Congratulations! You have reached level 15.]
[You have gained 1 free attribute point.]
A dozen of translucent notifications came, until Elior silenced it again with a mental command and got himself invested in the slaughter. Now only the important notification will come.
Elior had not killed all the lizards he was dealing with yet, when a loud noise approached from a far corner.
"It appeared the ones of the first order roused," he thought out loud. He looked at the few that were still remaining surrounding him. He smiled at them in a sadistic way and said, "Sorry kiddos, I have no time to waste now."
Elior turned agiler than before. His arms moved all over the place, swinging the dagger. He had been saving his mana for most of the time and had not yet used the [Abstraction of Void] any way in the battle. With only his skills that he was doing the killing.
Finishing the small one, he gave a satisfied grin. All the training he had done with the suit on was not for nothing. He had more control over his body now and had more endurance. He had levelled thrice, killing the fifty-something low-grade lizards, and it only took him over a couple of minutes.
The lizards that have reached first order in their advancement were twice the size of the ones he had killed now and they were swifter, too. Six of them came together at him, baring the savage teeth.
Now was the time to use his ability. Elior imagined the void inside and all the emotions left him, leaving only the coldness and scorn.
One of the bigger lizards jumped at him in a bolt. Elior only swiped his once, and the knife did not even have a contract with the head of the lizards, yet it laid dead on the ground staking his clothes.
What happened was simple. Elior used his dagger as a direction tool to give guide the spatial distortion and screw the head of the damn lizard. And he did not even burst it entirely, like when he had burst Renal's arm into almost nothingness. The dead lizard had only a slight wound in its brain, but fetal enough to kill it.
Even though the blood was filthy and tainted his clothes, even his face, Elior had not hindered. There were five, just as savage things were approaching him. And maybe more were in their way.
Elior slit one's neck in a similar fashion, only using the energy that was needed. Elior was killing them in such a fashion for two certain reasons.
First, the prominent reason was that the [Abstraction of Void] takes too much mana in its usage. Even though he only used it twice just now, it took one-tenth of his mana already, and adding the other usage of mana, he only has about one-third of his mana left.
The second reason was a little masochistic. While killing the lizards with such precision, he was training his instinct and body, too. It did take more of his mental intensity, but that he has in abundance.
Now only one-third of his mana left, and if he used his spatial distortion a few times, it would run out, too. Even so, there was the boss monster.
"Guess, I have to finish these four swiftly with the least amount of mana," Elior thought and hacked his dagger, killing them with the motto, 'Save energy, save the planet.'
Three of them came at him together, two from the front and one from the side. He swiped his daggers in the opposite direction to each other horizontally and blood oozed out from the soon-to-be-dead creatures.
The lizards struggled on the ground for a second and died before giving karma to Elior.
Elior moved to the one on the side when his mind rang. Another one of the lizards appeared behind him, stealthy or, he did not notice, and was about to eat his leg.
His legs moved instinctively, with a jerk, space distorted just when the lizard was about to swallow his food. Its jaw blasted off, with a good portion of the head as it blasted off a few metres away. If he was even a fraction of a section late, his leg would have been gone.
He jerked his head swiftly towards the only one left and at the very moment; it hit him violently on the chest, lunging in. He had tried to distort spatial waves even at the time, but failed as there was on mana left. The last shot he took instinctively to save his leg took all of it.
Elior flew three metres away and dropped into the corpses of lizards. He finally caught a breath and saw the lizards approach. With a jerk of his arm, he threw away the dagger, and it hit right at one of its eyes. Even though the dagger did not kill it, it bought enough time for him to stand up.
Even with no mana killing, the thing did not prove to be hard as it was the only one remaining.
He left the spot immediately before more of the lizards could come. He checked his level to find he had reached level 19 only a level away from his Class advancement. He would only need a few more monsters to get his first class
________________________________
Thanks, everyone for donating power stones and golden tickets. The bonus chapters will be awarded in the following week.