In the end, I decided to go for [Aura dash] the implications of being able to chain the skill into itself was too tantalizing to pass up. Furthermore, the system’s wording left enough room for interpretation, which I hoped would turn out for the better.

After mentally reaffirming my choice, my status screen updated, showing my new skill in the list.

Now, for the moment of truth… Was it possible to dash upward or not?

I breathed in, breathed out and jumped. My feet left the ground no quicker than they usually did, filling me with momentary dread. The ball in my gut was quickly washed away, however, when I continued to go up. Gravity had yet to take hold of me and allowed me to keep going.

I continued to soar, until I managed to touch the ceiling of the giant tunnel, halting my momentum and reinstating gravity. The fall took a full three seconds, so when I finally hit the ground I bent my knees with the impact on instinct. Not that a fall from that height could have hurt me, though. Taking stock of the situation, I realised that the skill had taken a minuscule amount of neutral dark mana, that had aimlessly been resting in my core, to activate.

The ‘dash’ part had certainly taken effect, but I still had to test the second half of the skill description. I attempted to activate the skill a second time without entering a ‘mana-overloaded’ state, but as expected, it refused to.

In fact, it took another ten seconds before the skill did as asked, carrying me straight ahead rather than up, this time. It had to be said, this new and improved movement skill carried me much further and got me there much faster than Aura step had, which was already an improvement. More importantly, there weren’t any visual cues that could warn my opponent of what I was doing, whereas previously I had needed to create very visible footholds to get around.

I wasn’t going to lie, that particular issue had been rather limiting, practically forcing me to face my enemies head-on, as they would see all of my movement coming a second in advance.

Now that the skill activated and launched me when I so much as considered the idea, that cue had disappeared. Upon my second round of practice, I realised that the skill had some cosmetic features as well. Whenever I dashed, some black smoke would cover me until the dash had ended. It didn’t impair my vision at all, but might be helpful in overwhelming inexperienced opponents.

My final part of the checklist involved the cooldown of the skill. It mentioned that as long as I fulfilled the mana-overflow state, it would not have one at all. Period.

Testing this part made me the most excited, so I had kept it for last. Deciding to get it over with, I called for my core to start absorbing mana from my surroundings and to push it into my channels. The tunnels were filled with the aspect that fuelled me, so it didn’t take long for the little marble at the centre of my chest to open like a damn, flooding my body. [Dark form], the ever-helpful skill that it was, took to regulating the mana and spreading it evenly throughout my veins, leaving no spot untouched.

Soon enough, my blood vessels turned grey, then black. Nearly there…

Finally, the embankment that was my skin gave way to the flood of mana, which burst out like a herd of raging bulls. Instantly, my aura grabbed hold of it and kept it in place, before turning the black tufts of smoke into physical manifestations. This stat, which I had become so used to over the past few months, still fascinated me whenever I took the time to look. But that wasn’t why I was here…

I activated the first dash, launching me into the air at an angle. I hadn’t even needed to jump, the skill doing all the work and absorbing a tiny amount of overloaded mana as fuel. Then, right as the dash ended and I was about to fall back down, I followed up with another. This launched me even higher and kept me going down the tunnel. I started to use the skill more and more, looking for anything I had missed. But nope! The skill continued to work fine!

When I accidentally activated the skill before my current dash had even ended and nearly doubled my momentum, I knew I hadn’t struck gold, but platinum.

By the end of my experimentation, I was flying. Actually flying. Shooting through the tunnel in one fluid motion by dashing multiple times a second to adjust my momentum continuously. I was quickly running out of my mana, my core not producing enough to keep up, but I couldn’t help it! This feeling of freedom was invigorating!

Distracted as I was, I didn’t notice my carry-along supply of overloaded mana run out, the last of the black tufts dissipating. I only understood my mistake fully when I faceplanted into the tunnel wall at full speed, which left me almost as bad off as the armadillo had…

Half an hour later, my broken bones had healed and I had spent some of that time exploring more of the dungeon with my flight. It turned out that flight was sustainable, if only barely. As long as I dashed right as the one before it was about to end, my core could keep up with the expense. Good thing too, because the tunnels were proving to be far less populated than I had initially thought, forcing me to fly for ages before I finally reached the first ‘crossroad’, so to speak.

Looking around the rotund cavern that the garbador had dug at the end of the entrance tunnel, I was reminded of the badger holes back home. Hundreds of badgers lived in and around the forest and village, digging large holes for a dozen of them to sleep in at a time. Did armadillos live similarly?

I certainly hoped not, since I wasn’t confident in fighting multiple of the cockroaches at once. The chamber itself, which was sized appropriately for the massive garbador, had another five exits, each of them leading to another oversized tunnel. Only the lack of shaking earth assured me that I was alone and gave me the confidence to explore, but there wasn’t much to see.

Apart from six flattened piles of loose rubble, the cavern was thoroughly empty. Even the piles seemed unimpressive. Sleeping spots, maybe? I had to admit my grudging respect for the creatures, if they were capable of sleeping like that.

Finding nothing, I was about to fly down one of the side tunnels when the cave began to shake. The familiar rumble of an approaching monster greeted my ears, giving me enough time to plan.

When the creature rolled into the cavern about a minute later, it didn’t see. For a matter of fact, I didn’t smell me either, as I had searched my bag for the smelliest, most pungent pills I could find. I had then spread the decoys around the room, hoping to fully overwhelm the creature.

I realised that hadn’t worked when the garbador worked itself up into a rage and started smashing the smeared spots with practiced precision. Did it think that an entire group of intruders had appeared? Realizing that time was limited, I flew over to it. I had to dash under the massive claw that was aiming for a pill spot to get to its belly. Maybe I didn’t smell as strongly as the pills did, because the armadillo didn’t react until I had pierced its leathery belly with my broken sword, its pointy end still holding enough of an edge to deal with the skin.

Leaving the curse mark was another thing that I knew to do at the first opportunity, its sickly green light glowing from under the grey leather. I stabbed it again and again, as fast as I could, escalating the curse more and more. Just when I was about to repeat the same strategy from before, expecting the garbador to curl up in an attempt to crush me, I saw something from the corner of my eye.

A rogue claw came flying in from my periphery, nearly turning me to paste. At the last second my dash activated, throwing me to the side from a still position. I retreated by flying under its armpit and circling around to its back, unable to see but very much able to hear the wet squelch as the garbador’s claw dug into its own flesh.

What kind of decisiveness did a creature need to possess to go to such lengths?!

I continued my path to the front of the creature and watched as it rampaged, rolling over to every pill spot I had left. When it had flattened them all and uncurled itself, I saw its gaping wound in full view. Its stomach had been turned into a red mess, the creature dead set on killing or being killed. My curse mark was still there though, having dug its way in too deep for the creature to cut out. Now that its skin had been shredded, I didn’t need to get in close to kill the monster either. Some sword arcs would do the trick…

A few minutes later, my assumption was proven correct. All I had to do to kill the armadillo was stay up high and take the occasional swing when the monster left itself open. It was still going for the pills, because while the pills themselves were destroyed, the creature lacked the finesse necessary to remove the smells. Its non-existent eyesight didn’t help either.

It took a little while before the garbador finally died, because I wasn’t advancing the curse mark as quickly as before. That didn’t matter, though. As long as no second garbador showed up, it was destined to die. Either to the curse or to its own wounds.

When it finally toppled over and the system notification came in, I realised that level 100 wasn’t far away at this point.

Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Hollow essence Knight] level 86!