BOOM!

A massive explosion happened in the boss room before a bright flash shot out of a dust cloud and landed halfway across the room.

Logan stood there huffing. His body was excluding lightning as he was now using a lot of power to enhance his body. This was causing him to feel the stress on his body and his air intake wasn’t handling.

Feeling the strain, he removed the lightning from his lungs and used wind clad and started to supply wind mana to supply sufficient oxygen to his muscles and more importantly his brain.

Using Lightning Accelerator for so long was a big load and he needed the blood and oxygen to handle this.

In the clearing dust cloud, the Ogre appeared. The heavy metal club in his hand had several deep gashes from the impacts against Arashi and there were several wounds. That said, his body was glowing and they were releasing steam as they closed.

The powerful regeneration ability was a big factor as to why it was so hard to beat it. Logan clearly felt pressed because of the power and quantity of the mana that the Ogre possessed. Despite both of them having powerful regeneration, Logan, through Arashi’s green lightning that flowed through his body already after taking several big hits, lacked mana quality. His body was definitely E rank just like the Ogre but it was clear as day that the ogre, at the very least, had sufficient quantities of mana to match the purity and compression of an E rank and support his power.

Even the elite monster he had met along the way here never had such a massive quantity showing that monsters didn’t train, instead they achieved evolution through quantity.

Ogres didn’t come out of nowhere, they were the byproduct of a hobgoblin undergoing a massive evolution caused by the quantity of mana reaching.

There are some theories of how this works but the most believed one is that the change happens when the mana pool and the body itself combine to contain mana. Basically, a hobgoblin completely overloaded his mana pool and mana channels until mana leaked into his body causing sudden spontaneous growth.

This is where the massive quantity of mana came from and it gave them stupidly high levels of regeneration with mana flowing through their muscles naturally.

It was a similar thing for Trolls who were a secondary evolution of hobgoblins who lived in deep rugged mountains but they live in much more mana rich environments and their bodies contained more than two thirds of their mana instead of containing it in the mana pool.

Until now, not a single wild goblin trained by a human with human mana development techniques have been able to evolve hobgoblins into either of those races without being some variation. Only by getting a newborn of each race would it be possible to possess them.

He quickly pulled out a mana regeneration, healing and stamina pill to support himself.

“No wonder the parties I met thought I was strange for going solo. Ogres really do need parties unless you have complete advantage.” He muttered but he didn’t care.

Logan crossed eyes with it and it roared but as it rushed forward with wide strides, Logan’s eyes moved down at the heart. All creatures contained the monster core at the heart because right at that point, the mana pool also existed there and supposedly the monster core has the ability to be trained into a mana pool.

His body suddenly erupted with lightning and Arashi formed the lightning blade but it released a lot of power as they put their all into it.

He took his sword art form and burst forward. The Ogre felt danger and instantly swung despite only being half way but it was the right choice as Logan appeared in front of him already swinging.

“RISING THUNDER!” he roared and swung from below upwards. The energy expanded and made contact.

Where the lightning touched, a deep red cut was left and it crossed the entire club chopping it in half.

His eyes were focused but the next moment, blood began to come from his eyes and nose as he took a step forward and appeared already swinging down connected with the right shoulder and ripping through towards the left and cleaving the monster core.

The light from the ogre’s eyes vanished while Logan dropped and landed on his feet but began to cough and breathed heavily before spitting some blood.

He whipped what had pooled near his eyes as his mana slowly calmed down and the lightning clad dispersed.

His face turned pale instantly as he felt short of breath and had to continue supplying wind mana until his heart started to calm down.

At the same time, at the center of the room, light flashed from the ceiling and mana gathered until it formed into a white and gold treasure chest.

The location the ogre had died, all that was left was a split monster core, the cut ogre club and one of the ogre’s horns.

He didn’t instantly get it, he was hard pressed to move and just barely ate another healing pill. Overloaded lightning clad was a real stress for him despite the intense power from the speed he could achieve from it.

After several minutes he finally gathered the strength to pick the stuff off the floor and walk weakly to the chest.

He opened it and at once, a bright light burst out and connected to the ceiling before it burst into nodes and gathered in front of him into a glowing magical orb.

“Huh… what is this?” he muttered as he looked at it, tired.

He reached out and touched it and instantly the magic bond between him and Storm suddenly branched and connected to that orb but instead of staying out, it followed the link and rushed into his body and settled right into the mana pool.

“What!? What was that and why do I feel it inside me?!” He shouted and tried to make it come out and shockingly, it appeared right after.

He was shocked and felt the connection. He also felt a drain of mana when it was outside his body meaning it was feeding off of him. When he pulled it back, he saw the drain was gone suggesting the orb leaked and likely couldn’t survive long.

He didn’t know what it was but he knew the city beyond the massive gates in the boss room likely had people to explain it for him.

He looked back at the chest and saw a pile of gold coins. He took out one of the magic pouches he had and poured it in. The bag was basically his gold pouch and when he finally had time, he would start piling them into plates to take up less space.

Next, he found two books and at the very bottom was a key chain with a few keys.

Three were rusty iron but there was a gold key among them.

He felt it looked strange so he took it and stored it in a separate pouch. He felt like it might be some special item. Sadly he lacked any means to identify their use.

The books, however, were extremely good. They were magic tomes each containing a spell and injecting mana into it would instantly infuse that knowledge into the user but the book would burn up.

There was no way to copy it however because the book was sealed shut and opening it forcefully revealed only black pages, it has already been proven.

The only thing you can go off of is the name on the cover.

“So the spells are… huh? Human transformation (monster skill)? Did it consider Storm as a fighter and reward him?” He muttered. He looked at the other, “Wind Wings (Innate skill).” He muttered and frowned.

It was clear that to some extent, these are magic tomes dedicated to each person. After thinking a while he put away the wings tome but called Storm in his full size and gave him the book and told him how to use it.

Putting his paw on it, mana flowed into it and it began to glow a bronze light which grew stronger until it burst and gathered into Storm’s head.

It hissed in pain for a few moments before he opened his eyes and his body began to glow.

It shrank a lot but it rose on two legs while the body shape morphed to match a human’s but it was barely a meter tall. The huge tail remained though and he took the form of a human but it wasn’t perfect.

The form was only humanoid, in other words, standing before Logan was a lizardman child with green scales and on his back were two crystal spikes on both his shoulders instead of the entire back.

The head was still lizard like as were the legs but the hands grew five fingers and a thumb and had the dexterity of a human for sure.

"I have master’s form now.” He spoke and smiled, revealing the rows of fangs.

Logan smiled and patted his head, “Yeah but it isn’t a perfect form but I bet we can improve it later with training.” he said.

Storm nodded but storm pointed to his tail, “This is too bulky.” He said.

“True… you can make it shrink just like using the way you shrink your body but just move the matter through your body.” He explained. He pat his body and took the inventory before taking out the books on shrinking monsters and showed him how that worked without using shrinking itself.

Storm closed his eyes and his body began to glow and the bulky tail began to thin first as the mass reduced to half its size before pulling in. All the while, Storm began to grow taller until he was 130 cm tall and looked like a young teen while the tail looked proportionally correct and he looked like a normal lizardman.

The only thing that he needed was clothing because he was buck naked.

That said when pointed out, Storm didn’t think much as magic runes began to shine and he shrank his body in that same proportion to just barely 30 cm of height.

“So you like the small size more.” Logan said laughing and let him climb on his hand before letting him onto his shoulder before he finally walked to the gate. Touching it, they opened on their own and as soon as they did, he was instantly struck with a lot of sound from a bustling city. The area in front was about 10 meters of tunnel but he could hear the sounds already and walking through, the gates closed.

After a few steps, they finally crossed the tunnel and before them stretched a wide city filled with humans but even more were countless humanoid monsters.

What was really shocking were the countless monster breed he had battled but after gaining sentience, they became less monstrous.

An example are Werecats, humanoid cat monsters with just the format of a human but all the savagery of a monster feline. There were large groups of them with slightly more arranged format to walk upright instead of the savage four legged walking poster the wild ones used and their face was less like a cat and more like a human.

The scary ones were the E rank minotaur that casually walked around armored with plated armor and a massive battleaxe.

“Wow!” Storm said next to his ear.

He was lost in this place so he walked in and found someone stopped on the sides, “Excuse me. I just arrived here for the first time and I was wondering if there is some information or maybe an adventurers guild to obtain some maps of the city.” He said.

“Huh? Just beat it, where is your party?” he asked.

"I came alone with only my battle beast.” He said pointing to the shrunken Storm

“Which boss did you get?” He asked.

“Which?” Logan replied confused.

“Yeah, there are around 100 and their strength varies sort of like a test. Party strength also affects the bosses power. Really strong groups might even call out elite E rank bosses.” He said.

“Oh, I fought an ogre with a spiked metal club and magic tribal tattoos. He had faint green skin.” Logan said.

“Huh! You beat him alone?!” the man said shocked.

“Was he strong?” Logan asked.

The man looked surprised and looked at his roughed up condition including the traces of whipped blood on Logan’s face. He realized that he wasn’t faking, “Yes… the one you soloed was actually a named monster. He is Kumarot, an ogre War chief who generally lives on the 35th floor. His soul is rarely called down into an instance as a Floor boss. There is actually a bounty for anyone who can kill his real body.” the man said.

“Is his real body stronger than the floor boss?” Logan asked.

“Yeah, his power was limited to E rank but the real thing is already a D rank elite and is actually a roaming boss on the upper five floors of the level. No small number of adventurers have died personally by his hand.” he said.

Logan frowned when he heard that but kept it in mind.

“Are there any adventurer guilds here?” He asked.

The man nodded and pointed down the street. “Ten blocks down, take a right and go three streets. You will reach the adventurer plaza which consists of many things specialized for human adventurers. If you got any special rewards from Kumarot, you can also identify it there and even trade it in.” He explained.

“Really! That is great.” Logan said and thanked the man before walking off.

The plaza was actually a lot more impressive than one would expect. A massive mage tower, several visible high quality smithies and high class hotels and inns.

Logan headed into the guild and connected his map tool to the nexus and put in his ID.

Shockingly, it connected to a kind of system in the dungeon and information on the first boss he killed appeared including the location of the original.

He soon found a map and marveled at the immense size of it and the huge population of several tens of thousands just from sentient monsters.

After he was done uploading that, he headed to the receptionist, “Excuse me, is there anyone who can help me identify boss monster drops? I got some items I am unsure of.” Logan said.

“Oh, that would be the counter over there.” She pointed to a counter that was ignored and had a beautiful woman wearing glasses reading a book.

He thanked her and walked over.

As soon as he reached it the woman raised her eyes. “Oh, a solo dungeon runner.” She said.

“Huh? How did you know?” He asked.

She smiled and touched the glasses, “This is a special commission glasses which reacts to the adventurers ID. Every dungeon run you go through is recorded by the Nexus here. The ones here are unique as they connect to Helix’s own special mana channels in the dungeon. The ID acts as a beacon and we can gauge minor things such as party members that were with you, how many people were in the boss room and so on.” She said.

“Right, I have some items to identify.” He said and reached but she stopped him.

“Follow me.” she said and opened the register opening and then a door behind the register. There was a room with many anti-spying magic all over.

After locking the door she sat down and he sat down in front. He took out the skill book and the keys.

Her eyes opened wide when she saw it. Similar to the adventurer, she asked about the boss and he also took out the items he obtained.

“My, how lucky. Alright, let’s go over it one by one. The club is made of black iron, a magic metal that contains a lot of mana inside but you sure did a number on it. Your skill and sword must be good to chop that in half and leave such a clean surface.” She said.

He didn’t reply so she continued.

“The ogre horn is a special item and even a rare drop of very high value to monsters. Ogre horns concentrate a lot of mana and this is extremely useful to normally low potential breeds.” she said, looking at Storm.

"I assume that seeing as it has a human form, he got the spell book ‘Human transformation (Monster skill)’” She asked.

“Yeah.” Logan said.

“Makes sense, it is a rare skill but as long as there are less than 3 people in a party and they have battle beasts, there is a 20% chance of appearing. What breed is he?” She asked.

“An Alpha variant of Crystalback Lightning Lizard from Eshen’s Thunder forest.” he said.

“Oh, that breed was pretty popular a year ago when it appeared. The discovery that their scales could crystalize into mana crystals was quite amazing. Even more impressive is that they would lay an egg in the middle of that mana stone node to make it have a much higher potential and is also amazing. If left for years on end without the egg hatching, it might be possible that D or C ranks appear and match up to thunder drakes.” She said.

“Yeah but that is assuming the fact that thunder forest remains. The dungeon placed there to drain the chaotic mana will definitely shrink the span of the forest back to normal and they will return to the normal breeding quantities.” He said.

“Yes but the dungeons are affected by natural environmental differences. That is likely to become a lightning rich dungeon and they could develop in there.” she said.

Logan just shrugged.

“Alright, anyways, the horn is quite useful because it contains a special medical effect that when eaten by creatures weaker than itself, mana fills the body and muscles while the body is forced to find a valve and grows a horn forming a second mana node to contain mana.” She explained, “To monster tamers, this is quite good. If you get a hobgoblin and feed it this, it is likely to evolve into an ogre or other strong bodied breeds.” She said.

“Yeah but I am not a tamer. I am still unsure but it is a good method to strengthen Storm to quickly match my strength.” He said.

She nodded and agreed with that assumption.

“At the very least, his body will contain mana equal to an E rank if he ate it but I do not know what the effect on his biology will be. I can feel that you train him with the same mana development technique as you but it naturally doesn’t account for the mana in the body.” She said.

“If the body and mana channels are connected and mana flows freely, just grinding the mana into a compressed and purer state, it is enough as it will slowly flow and take the place.” He said.

“That is a lot of mana to change.” She said.

That much was true but it didn’t matter. “What of the keys?” He asked.

“This is why I said you are lucky. These are called Redemption keys, they are a very novelty item rarely appearing and when it appears, they generally appear in one or twos generally as rusty ones like these but maybe because you won a solo against such a powerful floor boss without relying on your battle beast, you were rewarded with this gold one.” She said.

“Is there a difference?” He asked.

“Naturally, the rusty iron is literally a lottery box and when you redeem it at the city's chest center, you can get anything from a Legend sword from an unfortunate sob who died in Helix to a box with half a dozen gold coins.” She said. “This is the rusty iron, above that is iron and the lowest reward is 50 gold plates. Then we have the Silver box which has the lowest value is 10 gold bars. The greatest known gold box reward has been the egg to a dragon spawned by the dungeon. That said, everything depends on luck in this.” she said.

“Wow, isn’t this really…” he paused.

“Broken? You mean to say that receiving this chance so early, not really. This is a reward by Helix based on your current strength compared to the boss. There are 100 special monsters with names between the 21st and 40th floor who are floor bosses. The weakest is on the 21st floor and isn’t even a single creature. Instead it is an elite hobgoblin and his clan’s 50 strongest members. In the case that a D rank or even C rank was going through their first time, their reward was likely to be much weaker but you soloed a boss generally fought by parties so you got corresponding rewards. If you are lucky, as you were on the initial reward, you will also get stronger with each chest you unlock.” she said.

Logan nodded, “How do you get more redemption keys?” He asked.

“Hunting special monsters, doing quests directly from Helix, something you can search for through the Nexus, maybe from someone who has it and wishes to trade it.” She said, giving several examples.

“And the tome?” Logan asked.

This time she leaned in and passed her finger over it and a silver light shined.

“How lucky, the human transformation, from the looks of your lizard, was bronze ranked. This is silver rank which is a rank higher. The quality of the skill can’t be compared. You lizard can be called a lizardman in that form but if he had the silver rank version, he would have a human face and wouldn’t need to redistribute his mass as he is doing now. It would be perfectly proportioned. If you can get the gold version, he will have a perfect human form and even more, he will not have restrictions in human form like he has now where he can’t use all his power.” She said.

“Okay but what is Wind Wings?” he asked.

“The bronze level is a spell that lets you hover and decrease the speed in the fall. Silver rank is a proper flight spell but as you can guess, it isn’t as good for combat, it is better for travel because it lacks nimbleness, you can train that nimbleness though like most innate skills. Skill and experience can make it as good as a gold rank. Naturally gold rank is good for both flight and combat and can match your peak speed you have on land and is nimble if you take some time to adapt to the speed.” She said.

“Are magic tomes common?” He asked.

“Bronze ones aren’t that hard to come by. In fact, if you come up with 5 bronze tomes of the same kind, you can purchase a special service from the mage tower here which combines them into a silver book. The same applies for silver into gold.” She said.

Logan nodded and she smiled, “Innate skill magic tones, however, are more rare because magic spells can be copied into physical books but innate skills need to undergo many tests to figure out how to activate it and passing it on is difficult.” She said.

Logan nodded and honestly understood the pains of this.

"I already have two innate skills each complimenting the other. I honestly want the researched spell of both.” Logan said.

“Oh?” She muttered.

“Do you know if there is a spell that uses lightning magic to enhance the brain, nerves and heart? That one I achieved first and later I achieved lightning clad which covers the rest of my body.” She said.

“Lightning to buff the heart, nerves and brain… I believe there is a spell like that. It enhances the brain functions allowing kinetic vision correct?” She asked.

He nodded.

“Right, I believe the spell is Brain Overclock, what do you call it?” She asked.

“Lightning accelerator until now. It is like it removes limiters making my body move faster and thanks to lightning clad I actually can keep up with my brain.” he said.

“Oh, that is a good name. Both spells are quite rare and expensive though. How advanced is each skill? How far can you take them?” She asked.

He explained them lightly and she nodded.

“My my, you have the Gold versions. If it was bronze, lightning clad would work only on the weapon or on your skin, silver worked on the muscles but gold works on almost all the body except vital organs like the brain, nerves and heart where disruption of the natural flow could be fatal. Having both is a true boon.” She said surprised. “It is unlikely that without something very rare of equal grading, you might not get the spell version of these skills.” she said.

"I see, too bad.” Logan said.

“Well, that seems to be everything.” She said.

“Ah, wait there is one more.” Logan said and raised his hand and an orb appeared.

Her jaw dropped and she looked at it. “My, now aren’t you a lucky one, or is it unlucky.” She said.

“Do you know what this is?” He asked.

“Yes, it is very desired by mages because using this requires very high mana control to properly develop. They commonly call it a magic doll because they use it purely to exercise their mana control instead of properly growing it. In fact this is the raw form of a dungeon monster without a monster core. The steps to developing it are simple but still very hard to do. You need at least a D rank mana development technique and channel mana into this orb as if you are developing your body. If your control is bad, like it is doing now, the mana will leak and you won’t get far. The first step is to make the mana pool to seal the leak before taking the core body inside and stretching it while building the ten extremities mana channels first before doing a second cycle and building the secondary channels and a third building the capillaries. When it finally does that without leaking mana, this will assume it’s true form based purely on it’s master. The proper name for this is a Spirit animal Wisp and when it finally develops a basic mana body like a dungeon monster, it is a Spirit animal. The power of these creatures and their level of development depends exclusively on the quality of development of their mana and they live inside their masters mana pool even after fully developing. They are your spirit animal.” she explained.

“Is it that hard?” He asked, storing it so that the mana would stop leaking.

“Quite, that said, the abilities they possess depend on your affinities, their form and how strong they are.” she said.

Logan frowned so she stood up and went to one of the walls which opened to a book case and she pulled the shelf making it turn like it was on a wheel and after a bit she returned with a book about them.

He looked, “You are thinking about if it is worth developing, this is the best known example. The spirit fox of the 4th daughter of the Great Empire’s emperor. She obtained one from the dungeon of the empire and due to her immense magical talent and ability, she developed the true form despite only being F rank. It formed a Firefox initially. As she grew up and grew more powerful the quality of mana naturally transmitted to the spirit and it grew bigger and when she reached D rank the fox was already adult sized and suddenly formed three magical tails. Along with that it also gained many mystical abilities beyond just the spiritual flame it possessed. When she reached C rank as she is now, the fox grew a new tail and gained the ability to assume a human child’s form as well as gaining mimicry magic letting her disguise herself within reason as her size could not change for the bigger.” She explained.

“Wow… but that is in the case of a magical talent, I have neither the education and teachers to school me like that.” He said.

“True, the spirit can be used just like mages use them. They exercise their mana control to use the least amount of mana to contain the leaks without breaking concentration and control. They do this within a room with a great deal of noise and distractions to exercise both patience and control. This has a direct effect on their mana consumption, magic control and even makes spells more stable. Spells that release a lot of excess power would be perfectly controlled and contained causing the power to amplify as it doesn’t leak.” She said.

Logan instantly thought of the wind slash and understood what she meant. To him it was a way to make up the magic training he lacked.

“Is this the last one?” She asked.

“Ah, yes. That was it. Just a question, how expensive are low end inns and where can I find some so that I can rest and recover.” He asked.

She smiled and pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote some names for him.

“If you get anything interesting, come let me have a look. Good luck in your redemption.” she said and waved. He took the items and stored them up and with her guiding him out, he left the guild and decided that he needed to rest first and put all the magic bags inside the inventory before going to look at some of the low end inns including those suggested. That said he was cautious of them because the woman knew his items so besides taking a look he went on to find a humble inn with great food run by a sentient monster that had several strong monster guards.

He paid in gold coin for a night’s stay and in the room, he ate some pills to heal and fell over exhausted. He just stayed awake to wait for dinner but after that he activated some protection magic built into the room, alongside the lock system and collapsed into the bed.