Chapter 641 Dungeon City Grimsgil
?'Long activation time and a distance limit.
I guess these are the banes for lacking affinity with the law in question.'
Such were Evan's thoughts as he watched Kolvar spread out his aura across the entire 400km distance they needed to travel, infusing a tiny bit of his consciousness to mark spots where he would stopover.
After that, he then stepped into the gate with Evan and the rest following him not long after.
When they emerged on the other side, however, Evan couldn't help but notice their group had a few more additions in the form of Kara, Dandeyr and Selah, as well as some others who were hiding in the shadows.
He wasn't surprised about the shadow guards though, expecting that David, Malaya and Kara would have such guards following them at all times.
It was similar to Laurene and her maids who also happened to be her bodyguards as well.
Kolvar didn't mind the extra additions, quickly creating the next spatial gate which they used to shorten another fifty kilometres of distance.
Despite the cons, the Spatial Gates still had a lot of pros as they turned a trip that would have taken an hour and a half using a bullet train, to a ten-minute one.
Of course, Evan and the others present were all strong and fast enough to run such a distance in less than 30 minutes, but that'd come at the cost of expending their stamina.
Anyway, they arrived at the marked coordinates, landing right a bit of a distance from the entrance to a dungeon in a Dungeon City called Grimsgil.
The group's appearance would have naturally caused quite a stir because of their identities, however, to their surprise, the adventurers and mercenaries moved around causally without sparing them a glance.
It was as if their existence didn't register in adventurers' perceptions.
As for the reason why, it didn't take them long to figure it out as they saw Evan confidently making his way towards the Dungeon's entrance while weaving through the sea of people.
"This…it's just like that dragon…"
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtPride spoke up, noting this phenomenon to be similar to an ability of the dragon they recently fought, and Evan affirmed her words with his reply.
"I did devour said dragon's heart, so…"
He indirectly confirmed that he gained some of Faldo's skills; like the one he was currently using: Lethe.
As they entered the dungeon, Eliza questioned what exactly it was that they were to be doing in the dungeon, but Evan only gave strange cryptic answers without letting her know the real reason.
Eliza sent a cursory glance at David but the lion beastman only shook his head, signifying that even he wasn't aware of why Evan brought them over.
He scanned through his memories but there was nothing about Grmsgil or the location that stood out in his memories.
"Just say it already."
"That'd ruin the sur-?"
Evan's words stopped midway and in that same moment, a monster that was sneaking up on him was suddenly impaled by a spear of golden light.
Sensing it wasn't dead, the boy glanced at it from the corner of his eyes, and immediately, five more golden ice spears skewered the monster's body from all directions.
Naturally, it was as dead as could be.
Now then, leaving aside how none of them noticed him deactivating Lehte, they were sure that the boy had just used a skill, yet none of them sensed a skill activation.
This was a bit surprising as they wondered just what kind of concealment he possessed, while David and the two Deadly Sin siblings were calm as if they already knew of this beforehand.
Noticing this, Kolvar quickly guessed it was in relation to the boy's Hero abilities.
"As I was saying, it'd ruin the surprise if I told you."
They continued making their way through the first floor with Evan taking the lead, checking the markings on the pillars they came across and inspecting the ground as if he was mapping their location.
Eventually, they arrived at a small clearing, with a monster immediately jumping out of the shadows and straight towards Eliza.
The girl didn't even bother activating a skill, intending to smack it away with her bare hands, but Malaya's voice rang out a moment before she could do that.
"I would not advise you to do that."
Eliza didn't know why, but she trusted the woman's words and pulled back her hand, leaning her body backwards to avoid the monster's lunge.
She then created a spear of green ice and threw it right into the back of the monster's head, killing it in a single strike before asking the reason for Malaya's earlier words.
Her answer, however, came from Kara who had quite a displeased look on her face.
"The monsters of this dungeon inflict very nasty debuffs.
Upon direct contact, there's a 50% chance for you to temporarily lose any one of your skills. Even Unique Skills are no exception."
"Wait…what?"
"It's exactly as she says.
If it wasn't for Lacertilia's dungeons, then this would have been the most difficult In the country."
Malaya concurred with her sister's words, a grave expression on her face as she spoke. From the way the two sisters reacted, one didn't need to be a genius to know they'd had bad experiences here in the past.
"All the monsters in the dungeon, even the weakest level 50 monster can inflict this 'Skill Sealing' debuff.
This place is very disadvantageous for those who fight with their fists as this Dungeon is one where you need to have as little contact with the monsters as physically possible."
"That's how things are on a normal floor, it gets worse the deeper you go though.
Upon entering every 'Even' Boss room, you randomly have one of your skills sealed, regardless of whether you touched a monster on the floor or not.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmRegardless of if it's a Series skill or not."
Hearing more about this dungeon, Eliza silently created a barrier around the group to protect them from the monkey-
type monsters that were jumping about.
Each floor of the dungeon had a Floor Boss, and every even floor (2,4,6,8), one lost access to a random skill in their arsenal.
"If you're unlucky, you could lose all your skills…"
"It's only temporary, you know?"
Evan felt he needed to remind Eliza about the temporal nature of this Skill Sealing when he saw the way she reacted to the information.
"Depending on how many skills you lose, it takes somewhere around a few minutes to some days for you to get them back."
Malaya chipped in, clearly speaking from personal experience before David asked her what floor she reached.
"I stopped at 50. The me at the time could not go any further without my skills."
At that time, Malaya had already lost access to all her skills and had to rely on only her combat techniques to progress in the dungeon.
Floor 50, however, was where she drew the line and returned to the surface.
But this gave another reason why the dungeon was considered very difficult. Unless one had more than 25 skills like Evan, they would have lost access to all their skills by the time they reached Floor 50.
This was the Dungeon's true challenge; exploring and clearing the floors with just one's combat techniques and magic alone.
The number of people willing to fight level 300 monsters without their skills was far and between when compared to the gross adventurer population.
Evan pulled up the system archive and checked the dungeon's information, seeing a description of the dungeon and an explanation of the 'Skill Sealing Effect'.
Skills all had runes in the souls of their users, so taking away one's skill without causing them soul damage was something that was quite impossible 99% of the time.