Sunred, Corrupted Body Mage - Lv. 25

As soon as I analyzed him, the hulking giant turned around and stared directly at me.

What the?

Is he looking at me?

How did he find me?

I didn't make any noise and I'm hiding at the section's entrance which is at least thirty to forty meters away and I also activated my Stealth skill.

He shouldn't be able to sense me outside of his magic sense radius so how did he?

And why does he still have a body when everyone else I saw is a bare-bones skeleton?

Although corrupted and a little decomposed the giant still has his full body that looks similar to Hulk's except for the green color.

He has been dead like others for such a long time, how did he get to keep his body this long with just first stage decomposition?

Does it have something to do with his magic specialty?

And also he has a name doesn't that mean he is an elite monster?

As I'm thinking about how I was found out and how he still has a body, the giant didn't immediately attack me with any long-range spells but started activating some kind of spells as various inscriptions started glowing on his body.

It seems like he is using some kind of spells to buff himself.

Wait a second, isn't body magic some kind of physical enhancement magic?

Then what he is doing now should be fully enhancing his body before the fight.

Fuck

As soon as I realize my mistake, I was about to Blink next to him to try and disrupt him from activating any more of his body enhancements. Before I can even act on my thought, the giant seems to be done with his enhancement, as he started charging towards me.

That was my second mistake of the day, dumbly waiting there, thinking that as he is a mage he should be firings projectiles at me any second now, giving him precious seconds to activate body enhancements which made his body glow with various inscriptions.

Watching an eight feet tall hulking, decomposing giant glowing with different body enhancement spells running towards me, I feel like someone above is playing a joke on me but no, this is my mistake. I should have guessed what his magical affinity means in regards to magic. I shouldn't have given him those few seconds to activate the body enhancements.

That doesn't matter now and I can't run away and hide, as it seems he has some way of detecting me from how I was found out before.

If I Blink out of here and on the off chance that he follows me out of this section, that kind of disturbance may be noticed by other monsters like him, if there are any in the other sections increasing my problems. I'll have to face him in this section.

This is why I wanted to scout the whole place first. To check how many powerful monsters there are and then come up with a plan to deal with them accordingly. But I was found out by the first one.

Luckily the section is big enough to fight in, that is if I can keep up with him. I Blink into the section towards the giant so that our outburst doesn't get out of this section. After blinking around fifteen meters in, I wait for him. At this distance, I should be able to fight with him without worrying about other sections. And if it looks like I'm going to lose, I can just bail out by rapidly blinking down the stairs.

From what I saw, the skeletons seem to have difficulty with stairs. I can use that to my advantage. Observing him for a few seconds while he is charging towards me and gauging his speed, I think I can keep up with him.

I should consider myself lucky that his body isn't hundred percent here. That must be the reason why his charge is so ungainly and I can keep up with his speed with the help of my Perception. If he had his complete body before decomposition, I don't think I stand any chance of fighting him.

Looking at his body, I should be more careful about his strength than speed. I'm pretty sure I can't take any of his blows head-on. I should be mostly focused on dodging and then counter-attacking. I could use the method I've used while fighting those corrupted imperial archers.

Focusing on a single limb and concentrate my attacks on it until it directly affects its combat. But that would be a waste. A single attack from him should be able to severely injure me and on the off chance, if the attack lands on any of my vitals, it may kill me.

Where can I find such a good combat partner who can keep me on my toes?

Even if I break a few bones during the fight, the experience gained by fighting such a foe is more valuable. It's not like I can't regenerate with the help of a few Atulica leaves and if my life is in danger, I can always Blink away to safety.

As long as my life isn't in jeopardy, I should utilize the chance to its utmost. While I'm still thinking about how to efficiently use him, the smell reached me first, that nauseating smell of rot and decay.

As I've been fighting skeletons until now, there wasn't much on them to smell. And that's why I haven't thought about the smell but now that I'm experiencing it, I'm glad that most of the dead I've faced around here are skeletons.

As I'm reeling from the horrible smell, the giant was already on me swinging his fist towards my face. The moment his fist was about to smash my face into a pulp, I moved to the side and swung my sword at him. That didn't do much damage, at most a few scrapes.

It seems a defense or damage reduction enhancement is one of those active enhancements on his body.

Although his attacks were ungainly at first, they became more cohesive the longer the fight went. It looks like combat instincts from his former life are slowly taking over. Although I can follow his moves with the help of my increased Perception, reacting to them was harder than imagined.

I wasn't able to gain any advantage over him due to the difference in our close combat experience. I was a soldier from a world where close combat is a last resort. If I compare my experience in close combat to his vast experience as a body mage employed by the most powerful Empire of his era, mine is almost nil.

He was able to predict my movements in response to his attacks and started countering them. The flow of the battle was favoring him more and more as the fight dragged on. The most I can do is to dodge, parry, or block his moves but mostly dodge and parry.

Even my dodges changed from moving as little as possible to once again lunging away from his attacks. The first time I blocked his attack, I was thrown ten meters back and my arms were numb from the shock. I had to Blink to the other end of the section to gain some time to regain the feeling in my arms.

After that, I only blocked attacks when there was no other choice. As the duration of the fight increased, my stamina was being consumed rapidly. When it was into the lower double digits, I had to take a risk as I won't be able to continue the fight after a while.

I rapidly blinked towards the stairs and down them to the next floor. After that, I activated Stealth and moved away from the stairs into one of the classrooms before my mana ran out. Reaching the classroom I ate a Yaire leaf to regain my stamina and start meditating to regain my mana.

After all my pools are fulls, I slowly move up the stairs as I need to check whether my retreat caused an even bigger problem. After reaching up, I look around but there isn't anyone outside the sections.

Good, it seems the body mage wasn't able to follow me down.

If he couldn't follow me down then how did he find me the first time?

Hmm.

Now that I think about it, he didn't find me immediately after I reached the section, he only found me after I used Appraisal on him.

Could that be the reason?

To confirm my theory, I move towards the first section which has a giant undead in it. After reaching the section's entrance, I look inside to see that the giant is moving around in the back. I stood there for almost a minute observing him but he didn't detect me.

He just moved around from one corner to the other on the far side of the section. After confirming my theory, I moved to other sections to scout them. All the other sections have one skeleton in each of them. In fear of detection, I didn't analyze any of them and left the way I came.

Okay, it seems the giant was able to detect me when I analyzed him.

How?

It looks like I won't be getting an answer to that anytime soon so I write that question in the book on the page with the other unanswered questions and plan my next steps.

Hmm.

I can kill them easily by blinking next to them and attack using Spatial Slash and blinking away and then repeat the process again and again but that's a waste.

That body mage clearly has more experience in close combat than me which I can learn a lot from if I take the risk. Maybe others can help me similarly and I can always kill them if I think it's becoming too dangerous or there isn't much to learn from the fight.

That decides it. More training.

I faced the undead giant daily for the next month.

My day consisted of waking up, doing my daily training, eating something, and going to Mage Tower to face the body mage. Although he had only part of the combat instincts from when he was alive that was enough to keep me on my toes for a month.

There were many times I came close to dying in this duration, although I have to thank Blink for saving my ass every time. The most serious one was when I was trying to block his attack and the Uncommon grade longsword I was using shattered unable to bear the giant's strength.

The incoming fist fractured my shoulder blade and the broken blade of the longsword dug into my right lung. I was lucky, if the blade had lodged a little to the left then it would have punctured my heart and I'm not sure if eating Atulica leaves can bring me back from that kind of damage.

I had to Blink away rapidly and rest for three whole days for my body to repair the injured lung and the fractured shoulder blade. Luckily, it was only a fracture, I wouldn't know what I would have done if it was broken.

After that I always kept an eye on my sword, checking them to see if there are any problems with it and today was the day, I plan on killing the giant and move on to the next.

I've learned as much as I can from him, the rest will come from experience which he can't provide anymore. I already know most of what he can do and predict his movements so there is no use in prolonging the fight.

Unlike the last month where I faced him head-on, this time I blinked directly behind his back while he was unaware and unenhanced and used Spatial Slash on his right elbow.

The attack wasn't able to slice his hand clean below the elbow. But it was able to damage the muscle around the elbow and reach the bone. That should be enough to make the fight a little easier.

From what I've learned in the last month, the giant has five types of body-enhancing spells. Each one corresponds to Strength, Speed, Stamina, Defense, and Regeneration and he uses all of them at the beginning of the fight to buff himself although he doesn't need stamina enhancement as an undead.

From this one can see that it's still a mindless undead. Even then some part of the combat instincts from his previous life is able to showcase themselves during the fight.

As soon as I attacked him, he turned around roared into my face and used his right arm to try and smash me into pulp. I dodged it easily.

His first few moves are easy to dodge but as he keeps going, the combat instincts slowly overtake the fight and it becomes harder and harder to dodge. That was the part that made me spend a month fighting against the giant.

At first, when the fight reached this stage I had to dodge each attack by lunging around and wasting precious time to counterattack. But slowly as the days passed, I got used to the movements and my reflexes improved along with it. Now I just sidestep most of them and counterattack at every given chance.

He repeated a few patterns of attacks over and over as if it's some kind of martial art. It took two weeks to reach that conclusion and for the next two weeks to observe it closely to break his flow and also to see if I can gain a skill for it but sadly I didn't.

I was already used to his patterns by now and was able to dodge the incoming attacks and then counterattack him whenever I got the chance. The only problem was as this guy is a body mage he was well rather hard to kill.

He was regaining his health at regular intervals and his body was as hard as metal due to the body reinforcing spells he used. I started to focus my attacks on his right elbow joint and when that particular hand was cut clean through below elbow during one of my Spatial Slash attacks which I used whenever my mana was about to fill up, I started focusing on the other hand.

After that, the rest of the fight became a breeze. The giant was down for good in a few minutes.

You have defeated Sunred, Corrupted Body Mage

Your race has gained a level

Meditation reaches level 7

Longsword Mastery reaches level 7

Spatial Mana Manipulation reaches level 8

Corruption Resistance reaches level 4

The fight was easier than imagined. Now that it's dead, I should look around to if there is anything valuable. As for the Attribute Points, I leave them alone for now.

Name : Janus Arthridge

Race : Human

Level : 7

Bloodline : N / A

Class : N / A

Level : 10

Health : 190 / 190

Stamina : 200 / 200

Mana : 290 / 290

Attributes

Strength : 10

Dexterity : 30

Vitality : 19

Endurance : 20

Resilience : 19

Perception : 30

Intelligence : 10

Control : 10

Wisdom : 29

Willpower : 10

Attribute Points : 7

Skills

Appraisal Lv.2

Stealth Lv.3

Meditation Lv.7

Space Mana Manipulation Lv.8

Blink Lv.1

Spatial Slash Lv.1

Longsword Mastery Lv.7

Corruption Resistance Lv.4

Spatial Storage Lv. 1

Spatial Shield Lv.1

Skill Slots : 0

Perks

Otherworlder

Summoned Being

Polyglot