Dungeon of Niflheim

Once he descended the stairs Frost appeared on the second floor, the décor and environment was the exact same throughout the monster lair, covered in ice. The temperature grew several degrees colder after every floor and after the 3rd floor it was possible to discover some ice aspected herbs, many adventurers entered for these herbs as their goal.

Once again Frost released his pseudo aura and blood lust to deter the monsters of this floor, none of them were worthy of his time. He charged through the second floor in the same way as the first. Every floor of this monster lair was split into three sections with the first and second floor being equivalent to the medium rooms in the dungeon, in some areas even larger. The bottom two floors however were far more expansive, each section being twice or even thrice as big.

The second floor’s boss was an ice flan, another E-rank monster that Frost was familiar with. It attacked with ice bolts, firing at range. Its summoning speed and bolt size was higher than that of the ice slime variant he saw earlier, but still it wasn’t a threat to him.

He was tempted to summon another ice golem to take care of it but quickly realised that would be a poor choice. Ice flans are incredibly resistant to blunt attacks given their jelly like bodies. Given that his ice golems came unarmed that was their only means of attack. He could be here for hours without making any progress if he relied on the golem.

Magic as well had its limitations, at least in regards to Frost given that he only knew ice magic. Like him ice flans had resistance to ice magic, his ice bolts would not penetrate too far into its gelatine body even with their size. He could always quickly end this battle with his glaive but that would defeat the purpose of training. He went with magic even though it would be an uphill battle.

“[Ice bolt]” with adept skill Frost once again channelled his mana, summoning three ice bolts from their respective magic crests. They were all around 1 metre in length, solid and very sharp. They hovered above his shoulders in wait, aimed towards the nucleus that could be seen floating within the flan’s body. Nuclei such as those from flans and high ranking slimes were quite desired in the artificing world but keeping them in good condition was rather difficult. The flan’s internal mucous was another material desired from these monsters, it worked wonders on repairing damaged weapons, turned into ink for spell books and even in some cases was edible if the right chef was involved. Retrieving these items however was difficult, you couldn’t exactly store freezing cold slime in your backpack without any containers. Adventurers without spatial rings would have to really focus on one type of monster to hunt on the trips, too much specialty equipment to focus on a broad range.

If they were looking for pelts, they’d need skinning equipment, preserving liquids, blood cleaners not to mention weapons that reduced damage to the pelts i.e., blunt weapons. In case of meat, they’d need containers to store the useful meat and isolate the smell as well as ice to preserve it during transport. For flans and slimes, they’d need specialty containers to collect the majority of liquid. Capturing monsters such as frost mares or even wolves would require bait, traps, and tons of other supplies. For those without spatial rings or very small ones really had to pick their targets otherwise they’d end up with nothing.

Frost obviously didn’t have that issue; he wasn’t on the hunt for anything specific material wise and he had not just one large spaced spatial ring but two with him on this excursion.

.....

With a gargled sound the ice flan summoned three ice bolts above its head before firing them at Frost. The movement of its jelly like body revealed its aggression even though it couldn’t talk. This would be a battle between ice magic.

Frost’s ice bolts launched themselves a moment later, don! Don! The six ice bolts collided in the air against each other sending fragments of ice shooting across the room. The bolts were quite evenly matched much to Frost’s displeasure, the crushed bolts falling to the ground and dissipating back into mana particles.

Frost frowned with irritation not expecting his bolts to be so easily destroyed, it hurt his pride a little. He didn’t have a magic crystal within him or a magic staff to enhance his magic but still he thought that they’d be stronger than those summoned by an E-rank monster, even if ice bolts were its specialty.

The flan didn’t seem to care about the dungeon core’s pride summoning another three bolts above its jiggling mass. The flan was roughly 150cms tall and over a metre wide making it quite imposing despite its slow agility. Frost could successfully summon four ice bolts with equal strength and occasionally a fragment of a fifth but since his pride was a hurt, he stuck to using three.

Don! Don! Once again, the six ice bolts smashed into one another and once again all were shattered to pieces, though Frost’s were slightly more intact this time. He funnelled extra mana into the crests to produce a denser ice bolt, but it wasn’t that simple.

Magic crests were quite fragile things, simply supplying more power into them could destroy them instead of improving their output. To improve mastery of the spell large reserves of mana was not as important as constructing a solid and accurate crest. Frost’s crests were sufficient but certainly could be improved, this was the perfect opportunity. For the last few weeks, he’d been ardently trying to improve the number of ice bolts he could summon instead of solidifying the ones he already could. For the ice flan the ice bolt spell was its bread and butter, it knew no other magic.

Frost and the ice flan continued to fire bolt after bolt against one another with neither moving from their original position, truly a battle of magic.

Don! Don! Don! Don!

Bolts after bolts struck against one another with no end in sight. Frost re-summoned his bolts three at a time, refining them each time, creating a more solid ice bolt. After every round his bolts would gain ground, whether that be retaining some force after striking against the ice flan’s, or striking faster and smoother, exploding closer to the ice flan than Frost, he was improving and quickly.

He could easily finish this fight quickly by moving as he fired, aiming at the flan rather than its ice bolts but why waste the experience. The ice flan however was not too happy being treated as target practise, its gelatine body rippling and shaking violently as it summoned its ice bolts again and again. Eventually it started to summon a fourth ice bolt to shoot at Frost which he responded in kind, but its fourth ice bolt was not nearly as solid as Frost’s.

Don! Don! Don! Where the first three bolts smashed into one another as usual and crashed to the floor the fourth bolt smashed right on through, piercing through the air with a sharp howl before penetrating the ice flan’s jiggling body but it failed to cause any damage. The nucleus was no larger than a fist, hard to strike with an ice bolt that struggled to penetrate more than 10cm thanks to the thing’s ice resistance. If he wanted to kill it with an ice bolt, it needed more power, speed, sharpness, and it needed to aimed well. Though the flan wasn’t moving across the ground every jiggle and ripple slightly displaced the nucleus around making for an even harder target.

Frost knew this but still he chose to continue with his fervent use of [ice bolt], planning to practice with this boss monster until he was interrupted by another party of adventurers.

Frost and the ice flan continued to use four ice bolts against one another, but Frost improved where ice flan stagnated. Its reserves for mana and talent was far below Frost’s.

Frost’s bolts continued to improve, with the fourth one repeatedly smashing through the flan’s and accurately penetrating its body, delving a centimetre deeper after every round.

10 minutes later all of Frost’s bolts easily smashed through the flan’s and pierced its body making the thing look like a jelly hedgehog.

“Time to end this,” now that his bolts were denser and stronger than the ice flan’s there was nothing left it could teach him. He moved for the first time in this fight, summoning the ice bolts as he charged, closing the distance and their flight time. The flan didn’t even have the time to summon another volley before Frost’s bolts reached its body in a line, each one empowering the last like hammers on a nail.

Tink! The first bolt supported by the other three pierced the flan’s nucleus, shattering it and killing the flan almost instantly. A moment later it devolved into a puddle of gloop leaving a broken core in the middle. Frost nodded in respect for his fallen foe before stepping around the puddle and descending the stairs to the 3rd floor where the more powerful opponents lay.