I opened the door to the sixth floor and was once again greeted by a large open space.

This time, however, instead of a room it was a large cavern.

Judging by my experience in the last floor, large open spaces were bad news.

Carefully, I observed the edges of the caverns for any doors that could release hordes of monsters again.

Thankfully there were none.

Honestly, I’m a little apprehensive, all that is in this cave is a large pile of rocks.

Who knows where some enemy is lurking?

Out of the corner of my eye I notice a slight movement on the rock pile.

My gaze snaps back to the rock pile and I watch closely.

Suddenly I notice the rock pile expand slightly and then contract.

For a moment I’m shocked.

What great camouflage!

As I continue to watch, my eyes begin to unravel the optical illusion.

A mass of randomly placed boulders slowly forms into the shape of a giant sleeping lizard.

The beast looked similar in nature to a giant Gila monster, except its skin was composed of large, interlocking boulder slices.

Right away I could tell that this was not an easy opponent.

Because of the sheer mass and the nature of the opponent none of my magic would able to harm it significantly.

However, instead of discouragement a different feeling began to well up inside me.

Excitement.

Truth be told, the enemies from the monster-house room on the last floor were just too easy individually.

The spells I created simply overpowered them, no skill required.

This fight will test how well I can utilize my new skills.

I looked toward the beast, bloodlust filling my gaze.

My muscles tightened in anticipation of sudden movement.

Mana began circulating between my cells without reserve and body strengthening was activated.

Using my full strength I pushed off the ground shattering the weak stone beneath my feet.

The rush of acceleration blew back my hair and I closed the distance between myself and the beast in seconds with my face covered with a fiendish grin.

Forming a meter long furnace blade in my hand, I slash at the skin of the monster.

A loud grinding noise fills the air and I quickly jump back as the monster becomes aware of my presence and becomes enraged.

Upon the spot I slashed on the beast’s hide there was a short glowing red scar, but as it cooled I could tell that it was only a scratch.

The beast whips out with its tail aiming to send me flying.

Using a quick gust of air I push myself slightly out of harm’s way and counterattack, using the momentum of the beast’s tail to drive it into my furnace blade.

Once again the creature was only left with a glowing scar and I realize that the furnace blade is a poor match up against it.

The creature’s body doesn’t just look like rock, it is actually made out of rock!

The vibrating air of the furnace blade, while sharp, doesn’t have the penetrating power to cut stone very well.

Even worse, the heat attribute actually causes molten rock to seal up any cuts that the vibrating air inflicts.

If I replace the heat attribute with the solid attribute and fire sand through the blade, it will get rid of the healing problem and increase the cutting power against stone.

I notice that after our initial engagement, the lizard began scoping me out just as I was scoping it out.

It seems to be fairly intelligent.

My eyes met the lizard’s and by some unspoken agreement, we both moved.

The lizard quickly spun around dragging its tail across the ground.

A cloud of dust is knocked up and the room becomes hazy.

Suddenly, a giant rocky foot with jagged obsidian claws comes hurtling out of the dust.

Quickly, I launch into the air, hurtling toward the cave ceiling.

Enhancing my mental perception, I flip over so my feet hit the ceiling.

Pushing off again from the ceiling, I launch toward the lizard with the second type blade outstretched.

Slashing into his flank I attempt to jump away, but the beast’s tail is too fast and manages to land a glancing blow, sending me flying.

I skid across the ground and quickly get to my feet.

My living steel mail protects me from the worst of it, but my arms and legs are fairly scraped up.

My biggest weakness in my body’s innate defense, it’s not much stronger than the average human.

From that exchange I can tell, the lizard had great reaction speed and instantaneous attack.

For now the best course of attack is to deal fast, glancing blows without stopping or slowing down.

I use the surfaces of the cave to launch myself back and forth, from wall to wall, slashing at the lizard as I go by.

I land a blow on the creature’s flank, carving out a deep gouge.

A moment later, another blow is struck against a leg.

Next I strike the upper neck.

Then the tail.

Every time I fly past and strike a blow the lizard attempts to hit me with its tail, striking out with astonishing speed.

But every time the tail misses.

Despite how fast the strike of the massive rocky tail is I am just slightly faster and I manage to evade the blow each time, feeling only the wave of air pressure the large mass lets off as it swings by.

The wounds begin piling up on the surface of the lizard’s body and it seems to attack more desperately.

Then, I manage to land a blow on the snout of the beast.

It roars in pain and becomes enraged, flailing its tail about with abandon.

I momentarily stop my assault as the lizard goes berserk because I am unable to predict where the tail will strike.

Soon the tail lashing peters out as the lizard calms down and realizes that it is unable to hit me with its tail.

Coming from the gash I inflicted on the lizard’s nose is a small stream of blood.

It seems that before that last attack I was simply destroying the beast’s rocky armor.

There’s no way of telling how thick the rocky armor on its main body is but it seems that its weak points are the eyes and the nose.

However, now that I’ve wounded it, it will likely be more careful in protecting its face.

I resumed my assault, attempting to get close enough to strike at the lizard’s face.

But the lizard does something unexpected.

Instead of striking with its tail the lizard tears a chunk of rock from the cave floor and throws it at me.

Quickly, I cease my assault and retreat from the flying mass.

Again and again, my advance is cut off by the flying boulders.

Unable to approach the lizard, I am forced to rethink my strategy.

“I have to seal the lizard’s movements somehow, the only way for me to get close enough to kill it is if its legs are no longer able to move.”

Suddenly, I have an idea.

Forming the image of what I want to do in my head, I release my magic and invoke Mantle Tsunami.

The ground beneath the giant lizard grows red-hot and liquefies into magma.

The heavy lizard begins to sink into the magma, displacing it upwards.

Once its legs are completely submerged in the magma I release the magic and cause the magma to cool.

The lizard is now buried up to its belly in rock and what’s more the rock of the cave floor has fused with the rock armor of the beast making it impossible for the lizard to free itself.

Having learned my lesson from the rock throwing I approach carefully, apprehensive of any tricks the lizard might pull.

A minute later, I was glad I did.

Just as I was nearing the lizard it opened its mouth and a stream of finger-sized obsidian shards came flying out.

“Damn!” I cursed. “Now there is no way for me to get close enough to attack his face.”

“Close range is out of the question, I will just have to use a long range attack.”

My two long range attacks are Erosion Vortex and Hydrogen Detonation.

However, on a beast the size of the lizard those two attacks are not very effective.

Erosion vortex is mainly for crowd control and slight over time damage, it is absolutely useless against this lizard.

Hydrogen detonation has high damage, but is imprecise, at best it will simply knock off some of the beast’s armor.

I need a spell that is long range, does high damage, and is focused.

As I thought about my next move the lizard was struggling to escape from the encased rock.

I began to hear small cracking sounds coming from the ground surrounding the beast.

“It seems like the lizard won’t be held down forever, I have to finish it off.”

Suddenly, I had a breakthrough.

“Hahaha! This is perfect!” I shouted and laughed maniacally.

(Meanwhile, Christy and Lyria were doubting his sanity.)

I released a large amount of mana into the surroundings and began to attract hydrogen and oxygen, forming the base for a Hydrogen Detonation.

A blue orb formed in the air beside me.

However, instead of proceeding to the next step and detonating the orb I began to cool and compress the orb.

The orb began to shrink until it formed a blue metallic spear that released a chilling air.

When oxygen and hydrogen are cooled and pressurized enough, they form metallic solids.

I use magic to levitate the spear and aim it for the lizard’s eye.

I launch the spear forward at blinding speed.

It penetrates through the eye and enters the brain.

Once inside the lizard it is released from my magic and instantaneously becomes depressurized.

First the solid hydrogen and oxygen revert to gaseous state expanding quickly and destroying the lizard's brain.

But it isn’t over.

*BDOOOOOOMMM!*

The rapidly expanding gasses ignite and explode tearing apart the lizard’s head from the inside out, sending tiny bits of flesh and rocky armor flying thought the cave.

Having predicted this outcome I had hidden behind a pile of rocks to escape the shrapnel.

After the destruction was over I came out from behind the rocks to survey the damage.

In the place where the Lizard had been stuck previously all that was left was the lower body and half of the lizard’s torso.

The lizard’s head and neck could be found scattered across the room as small pebbles and bits of charred flesh.

I sat down, exhausted from the long fight and pulled out a mana crystal the size of a fist and began to absorb the mana from it.

“I used so much mana in that fight, it can’t be helped, but it really sucks that I have to recover by using a mana crystal, I don’t have too many of them with me.”

Having recovered from the battle I got up and began walking to the exit on the other side of the cave.