**Skill Up** Vitality Absorbtion Level 2

1 Vitality awarded.

Finally!

This was his third rotation absorbing vitality. About once an hour when he was getting low on air he would go back up to a pod to refill Oxygen Repository. Afterwards, he’d head back down and bolt his hair back into the walls and resume the drain.

While the environment wasn’t exactly relaxing, after a few hours inside of the boss without anything bad happening, the danger of the situation had kinda worn off.

At this point, it was more like a tedious mining quest in an MMO.

Go to location. Mine material. Rest. Reset.

It’s not that he wanted something to happen, he mostly just wanted it to be over. Even the euphoric wellness feeling was kinda losing its luster after doing nothing else for so long.

It might have been less monotonous if he could be doing anything else while sitting there besides shifting his feet. Even though the sense of danger had worn off, he was still aware of it and was not about to let his guard down, no matter how boring it was. And dear god was it boring.

But his patience was finally being rewarded. A free point in vitality; extra health, and more survivability. Not bad for a few hours of sitting around, if he didn’t count all the prep time.

Absorb (200) points of vitality to increase Skill Level.

Quickly checking the skill again he was saddened to see that while the amount of vitality needed to level went up, the reward did not. While he didn’t expect the reward to go up every level he still hoped it might.

Hopefully the amount of vitality he needed to absorb scaled linearly and didn’t double every time. Otherwise, the skill would provide him very little benefit in the long run.

Checking in with Lucy, he found that he had about twenty minutes left before he had to go up for air. While he hadn’t wanted to do anything too distracting during his downtime, he did use some of it to try and figure out the limitations of the skill.

The first thing he learned was how long it took to drain a single point of vitality. His maximum drain speed seemed to be one in just a little over a minute and a half. Without a stopwatch, he couldn’t exactly be sure, but he suspected it was about one-hundred seconds, but that might just be his mind looking for a nice round number.

Going along with that maximum drain speed, he found that he only needed ten connection points. Any more seemed to do nothing, while having less made it take longer. Nine connection points made it take almost two minutes and eight took a little over two minutes.

He didn’t want to test further than that because it would just mean more time he had to spend inside the boss. But if each connection was draining the same amount, then he estimated that using just one would make draining a single point of vitality take around seventeen minutes.

More testing would have to be done in a safer place. Plus who knows how leveling up would affect its drain speed.

“Are you sure he’s not dead? It’s been half a day.” Ava asked as she preened her feathers.

“You know he is not.” Kai sympathized with his avian companion, he wasn’t enjoying just sitting there either.

“Can I just go then? If it hasn’t killed him yet, it won’t. Look at the thing, it's almost dead already.”

A click of annoyance was his response to her. She would not leave. No matter how much she complained and whined, Kai knew deep down she was just like him.

She did have a point about the plant though. The blood-red stalk had darkened to an almost brown color with black patches that seemed to be oozing yellow liquid. Many of the purple leaves on its head had already fallen off.

The four long vines it used as arms were spread out, slowly waving through the air. Their color had darkened as the day went on as well. With how methodically they moved, Kai was certain they were searching for the invisible threat that was slowly killing it.

The little spider on his shoulder bounced slightly and let out a quiet squeal of joy. From what he understood, to pass the long hours, Jack had taken to telling her stories of his past adventures through dungeons.

Kai was unsure about the legitimacy of these tales, seeing how Jack had only been in two dungeons, but there seemed to be an endless amount of stories. Either way, they calmed the nervous spider so Kai did not want to point this out until after the boss was taken care of.

A change in movement caught his attention. The vines stopped their search of the air and were drawn in towards its main body.

Its lowered vitality appeared to be affecting its speed dramatically. One of his great uncle’s complaints about his unbalanced attributes was that his relatively low vitality made it so his body would be damaged if he moved at higher speeds.

Each vine wrapped around a different pod attached to its stalk. Once it had a firm hold they each twisted, breaking the pod off. They then placed the pods on the ground and pressed down on them until they broke apart.

If there was an animal in the pod, it would smash it, whether or not it had a vine attached to it.

If the pod was empty, the vine would grab another pod and repeat the process.

Kai quickly described what was happening to Lucy so she could relay it to Jack.

Lucy responded by repeating a message from Jack. “How much time until it removes all of the pods?”

“Tell him if its pace does not quicken, around thirty minutes.”

“Damn, ok. well, I just made it back to its stomach. I am going to just continue draining it. Let me know when it runs out of pods, thanks.” Lucy’s repeating of his message was filled with her own feeling of anxiety.

He placed his hand on the spider’s back to calm her.

“So did the chick beg us to come save him yet?” Ava asked in a tone of smug satisfaction.

“He did not. He just wants to know when it runs out of pods.”

“Oh… Well if he is too stupid to not ask for help when he needs it, don’t expect me to do anything.” She went back to cleaning her now puffed-out feathers.

Kai made sure to keep his enjoyment of her uncaring facade to himself.

Ok, just fifteen more vitality until level three. It should only take him around twenty-five minutes to drain that much. A half-hour was plenty of time.

Honestly, he was surprised it took the boss this long to start looking for him inside of the pods. But since it didn’t even seem to notice something was wrong until he had drained over two hundred vitality, maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised.

Without the ability to go to the pods for air, this was definitely his last round of absorption. Best case scenario, the boss just dies before he runs out of air.

At this point, it would suck to have Kai and Ava interfere. While he was pretty sure all the vitality he’d absorbed would count for over seventy percent contribution, it wasn’t guaranteed.

What if the boss had a total of six hundred vitality and what he’s done so far was less than half?

What if draining an attribute didn’t count as much as dealing actual damage?

Unfortunately, there was no way to really know until he actually killed something. He really didn’t want to lose out on a level up of The Long Game. Not with all the time he had put into this.

What happens if he gets low on air and the thing still wasn’t dead?

He could always crawl up and try to deal some damage to the inner stalk with his scimitar. But there isn’t too much room up there to maneuver, so he might not be able to do much.

Maybe he could escape out of one of the doors leading to the pods. If there aren't any left by then, it could lead straight outside. Kai said the boss was moving much slower right now, he could have a chance at beating it head-on. At the very least he should be able to dodge it long enough to find out. If that fails he’d just call in his backup.

A little over twenty minutes later, Jack received the skill up notification.

**Skill Up** Vitality Absorbtion Level 3

1 Vitality awarded.

With over forty minutes until he would need to escape, Jack continued to drain as much vitality as he could.

“Tell him the last pod has been removed.” Kai watched as the boss tore apart the last of its leafy pods. Inside was an imperfect drone that it then smashed into a bloody pulp.

Its four vine arms laid on the ground and its head drooped so much that it was basically staring directly at the ground. It looked like it had admitted defeat to its unknown enemy.

Since it was facing the ground, Kai didn’t notice at first that it had opened its mouth, because of that he couldn’t respond as the boss suddenly sent one of its tentacle vines into its mouth and down the inner stalk.

Jack just barely received an alert from Lucy as one of the boss’s large vines burst through the tunnel above him. Before he could do anything, it had wrapped around him and pulled him up. His hair was ripped out of the walls, pulling large chunks of plant-flesh with it.

The vine wrapped around him was very soft, almost squishy like a rotting vegetable, but its grip on him was still strong. He didn’t even have a chance to try to escape before he was pulled completely out of the plant.

The vine didn’t lose any momentum as it went directly towards the ground.

As the ground rushed up to meet him, Jack had a sudden idea.

Ava shot off past Kai just as he sent a warning to Jack through Lucy. Kai, who was faster on foot in these short distances, sprinted forward.

Neither of them were able to make it close enough to do anything as the vine emerged from the Corpse Titan’s mouth, holding Jack.

They could only watch in horror as Jack was slammed into the ground.

The vine, which had rotted from the inside out, turned to mush as soon as it impacted the ground.

Instead of meeting a similar fate, Jack seemed to bounce off of the ground and launch fifty feet into the air, barely missing the head of the boss.

Ava was almost to Jack as his speed was slowing down at the apex of his flight. Kai expected to see panic or fear on the young man’s face, but instead, he saw a look of determination.

Kai had seen that look many times, it was the look of someone who would overcome. “Ava, wait! Let him try to finish this by himself.”

“What do you mean let him finish this? He almost died!” She shrieked through his mind.

“Look at him! This is his fight. We must trust that if he needs our help he will ask.” He hoped this was the right decision. He truly wanted to see if Jack could soar.

Just before colliding with the earth, Jack activated Impact Rejection. All the momentum he had going down shot him back up.

He whizzed past the head of the boss and into the air.

The way that vine practically exploded shocked him. Those vines had been just as tough as the stalk when Kai fought it.

As he flew through the air, his back and legs were parallel to the ground.

He glanced over his shoulder at the drooping flower. It was a reddish-brown color with these black spots all over it, reminding him of a rotting pepper. The three other vines had been resting on the ground but they were lifting up now.

The massive head looked to be pulling the stalk down at an extreme angle. Maybe after losing so much vitality, the stalk doesn’t even have enough rigidity left to hold up the head. If the stalk was just as soft and weak as the vine was, he should be able to easily cut through it.

As he neared the peak of his flight, he grinned. All he would have to do is avoid getting hit by those vines while he quickly cut off its head, then boom; dead boss.

Glancing at his stamina, over half of it was gone thanks to impact rejection, but that should be enough.

First things first, he was going to be falling back down in a second and he needed to land on the stalk for this to work.

Thinking quickly, he pulled out the pistol of protection. Pointing the barrel at himself, he stretched his arms towards the ground. Just before he fired, he placed a hand over the barrel.

The shield appeared just under him with the solid side facing up creating a floating platform. His momentum brought him another few feet up and then he fell into his barrier-turned-platform.

The vines rose above the head of the boss.

The highest point of the stalk was currently around twenty-five feet in the air and he was currently about twice that height. He’d fallen greater distances than that on accident and been fine; got to love impact resistance.

He pulled out his scimitar and held his pistol in his left hand. With a deep breath, he jumped off the platform towards the stalk. He narrowly avoided the three rising vines and with a squish, landed on the stalk.

He wasted no time hacking into the stalk. It had about the same resistance as thick styrofoam, while not easy to cut through, it was doable.

Keeping one eye on the vines, he saw one of them start descending quickly towards him. Deciding to try and use its own attack against it, he waited until the last second and jumped to another part of the stalk using Hydraulic Leap. The vine missed him by only a foot and slammed into the stalk.

The top half of the vine burst apart much like the first one.

The stalk heavily dipped and swayed from the impact of the vine. Jack was nearly thrown off by the movement. He was able to stay on it by stabbing his sword into the stalk and holding on for dear life.

Jack saw the entire area that got hit turn black like a giant bruise. He hopped back over and continued his cutting, making it almost an eighth of the way through before the next vine dropped down.

Jack was about to jump away when his foot sank into the mushy flesh of the plant. Since he couldn’t dodge, he used the last barrier in his pistol, shooting at the descending vine to block the attack.

Much like the other two, the force of the impact tore the vine apart.

Jack tried to get his foot unstuck but the entire area was losing its structure, causing his other foot to sink into the mush.

With the barrier still above him, protecting him from the last vine, he decided to go for broke. Using Hydraulic Strikes without concern for his stamina, he hacked through the remaining solid parts of the stalk.

Still keeping an eye on the last vine he watched in terror as it prepared a side sweeping attack. Without the ability to move away, he just continued attacking, hoping he killed it before the thing could swing.

Just as the vine rushed towards him, he heard a snapping noise as the stalk broke in two. Along with the noise, he got a notification. His celebration was short-lived as the vine, already mid-attack, crashed into him.

Your party has slain a Blooming Corpse Titan Level: 30

Your contribution 100%

You are awarded 288 Experience.