The Black Necromancer

Leon lit up when he heard that there was a strong opponent to be found. Most of the crocodiles he had sent out were Mid B rank, so they would most likely not hold up against the Peak B rank crocodile that they had stumbled upon.

Quickly, he rushed to the monster. This could very well be the strongest monster on the floor, and that meant the entrance to the next floor would be close by.

When he arrived, he could finally lay his eyes on the massive crocodile. It was three times as large as the normal Great Crocodiles that were fighting against it, and by virtue of its superior physical strength, it was easily able to push the others around without putting in much effort. The giant beast had five large gems of different colors on its back, and had two pairs of eyes.

"I'll take care of this one!" Leon told his summons to stand by as he rushed forward. Platforms of ice were formed underneath his feet as he moved, allowing him to keep a steady pace without missing a beat.

The crocodile summons were not able to pull back in time, so he just cancelled their summon, giving him plenty time to strike at the frozen back of the crocodile. It had frozen up in shock for a moment because of the sudden disappearance of its targets, and that tiny window of opportunity had been enough for Leon to strike at its back while its guard was down.

"GRAAAAH!" The crocodile let out a pained growl as a cascade of blood gushed out from the large slash on its back. Its tail whipped out, trying to slap Leon away, but Leon was already ahead of it, having made his way to the side where he could easily dodge the tail and drawn another arc on the exposed side of the crocodile's belly.

But even though he had inflicted these wounds on the large monster, Leon was not really happy. The skin and flesh of the crocodile was very tough. And thick. Even with the copious amounts of blood pouring through the wounds, he knew that it was far from enough to bring down this beast.

'So close!' Leon thought to himself and he sent himself hurtling to the side to dodge and angry claw swipe. His sword moved in an upward motion, and after straining a bit against the strength of the giant crocodile, he was able to slice off several of its claws, dragging his sword along the length of its forelimb.

'Just one more level!' He gritted his teeth in grim determination. Purple fire flared within his skull, giving him an ominous look. His sword blazed with blue light as the reinforcement skill came active, covering the sword in a sheen of blue mana.

Whoosh!

A wave of sharp mana burst out of Leon's sword and sliced through the left hind leg of the giant crocodile. With quick and precise movements, Leon found himself on the other side of the crocodile. On the way, his sword drew a neat line along the belly of the crocodile, which soon began to bleed a great amount of blood, staining the water around them dark red.

[Your Skill, <Apprentice Weapon Mastery>, has leveled up to <Intermediate Weapon Mastery>!]

[You can now choose two additional weapon mastery types!]

[You have gained the ability to use Weapon Aura!]

A burst of notifications followed the burst of purple mana the blast out from Leon's sword as he stabbed it into the chest of the Great Crocodile. The mana directly blew a path out through the back of the crocodile, instantly ending its life.

"Ha..." Leon let out a sigh as he pulled out his sword, letting the corpse of the crocodile drop to the side.

[Level 50 Great Crocodile Paragon killed.]

Leon was bombarded with a host of notifications which he took a moment to study, before breaking out in a grin.

"Haha, finally!" He clenched his fist. He had been lingering at the last level of his weapon mastery skill for a while now. He was glad to finally be able to reach the next grade, which would give him the chance to choose two new weapon types to learn.

One thing that Leon loved about this skill was that if he picked a new weapon, his mastery with that weapon would also be raised to the Intermediate grade at once, which helped save a lot of time.

"Master, that was amazing!" Leon was pulled out of his deliberations by Nero's cheerful praise. The knightly summon had put away his weapons and thrown his arms above his head and he praised Leon's performance against the crocodile.

"Hehe, thank you." Leon did not mind the praise. In fact, now that he thought about it, he had taken out the crocodile quite quickly. Less than a minutes was all it took for him to take down the Peak B rank monster. It gave him the feeling that he had not even given it the chance to use all of its abilities.

'Oh well, can't be helped.' He shrugged and turned to look at the corpse of the monster. That final blast had sent its core flying, but already, Gold was returning with the large, head sized core in his hands.

With a wave of his hands, Leon used his magic to turn the monster into a summon, stowing away the five gems on its back within his spatial ring.

Now, he finally turned to address the other notification that had popped up after his weapon mastery skill had been upgraded.

[You have gained the ability to use Weapon Aura!]

Weapon Aura. This was something that Leon had heard of, and seen a few times during Divinity's Bout. In fact, Jet had also used this a few times before, but Leon had not paid much attention to it.

Weapon Aura was basically a manifestation of mana around the weapon that one was using. It was somewhat like the Weapon Enhancement skill, but was more geared toward dealing damage.

While anyone could wrap mana around their sword, that was a crude and unrefined method, while the Weapon Aura that one was naturally able to use when reaching the Intermediate grade for a weapon mastery skill was much more refined.