Assimilate All Talents

Sol woke up not knowing how many hours had passed. He took out a watch from his spatial ring and looked at the time.

‘I slept for 10 hours?!’

Maybe it wouldn’t have been as surprising if it were a normal person, but Sol is anything but. His high vitality allowed him to function for much longer, and its recovery speed was also much higher. Out of habit, Sol still slept every day, but at most it would be 6 hours.

‘That skill took way more energy than I thought…’

Sol got up and looked around to see Amber sitting by the stone table eating dried jerky. Sol didn’t know where she got the jerky from as he didn’t recall her ever storing food in her ring.

Sol moved over and took a seat as well, and he apologized to Amber, “Sorry, I overslept. I can make lunch right now if you want.”

Amber nodded with more vigor than usual. Sol felt bad because he was the one who cooked all their meals, but he didn’t know why she didn’t wake him up.

Sol began to take out cooking utensils as he continued to speak, “Next time just wake me up. It’s my bad for oversleeping… Huh? I could swear there was more salted fish… Well, there is still more than enough for lunch, but we might have to hurry to the 10th floor, we are going through food faster than I thought.”

Little did Sol know that Amber took his ring while he was sleeping to attempt cooking for herself. She did her best to replicate how Sol cooked, but she lacked the intuition one needed to know how strong the flame should be and how long to cook the fish. The results ended up either too raw or fully burnt. It confounded Amber how Sol managed to make it look so easy, especially because she recalled him mentioning that he didn't have any type of cooking skill.

After wasting 4 fish, Amber gave up and cleaned up the mess. Although Amber wasn’t good at cooking, she knew how to hide her tracks; the only thing that couldn’t be replaced or cleaned were the missing fish, which were currently stored inside her spatial ring.

Amber watched intently as Sol cooked, as if trying to figure out what sort of magic he was using to cook food. Sadly, there was only one spell involved, and that was the one he used to start the fire; everything else was personal experience from his orphanage and living alone.

The two ate their meals and packed up the camp. It took no time at all as there was almost nothing to pack. Sol didn’t even take out his tent yesterday as he was too exhausted by that time, so he only had to store his sleeping bag and cooking utensils.

Soon the two began heading out of the safe area in the entrance of the floor, with Sol feeling a bit regretful.

‘I never got to try out [Reinterpret], if it’s anything like [Aggregate], it will likely take a lot of time and energy to use it. Best wait until we get to the next floor.’

Having to put his other new talent skill on the backburner for now, he shifted his focus on completing these floors as soon as possible. Sol wanted to try out his new active skill [Overpower] to get a feel of its power before using it in a real life or death situation and losing control.

He wasn’t worried about the skill being on cooldown while navigating the 5th floor, as he doubted the rise in difficulty would be enough to make him need it.

…

Two Awakened Gladiators stared Sol down with their rotten eyes before raising their axes and charging towards him. Sol and Amber had already defeated the other enemies, so only these two were left.

Sol’s muscles tightened as they began to squeeze every ounce of power out of them. His mind felt clearer than ever as he could see and feel every single detail in front of him.

These were the signs of [Overpower].

Sol stored his sword and shield in his spatial ring and used [Ground Shrink] to appear next to the undead almost instantaneously. Time felt slower to Sol as he felt he was able to run circles around the undead before they could even react.

With his bare fists, Sol launched four punches total in less than a second. He didn’t use any skill to enhance his attack, and with his raw stats, obliterated the heads of both undead.

You have slain a Lv 65 Awakened Gladiator! Gained 96,000 Exp (160%)

You have slain a Lv 65 Awakened Gladiator! Gained 96,000 Exp (160%)

[Overpower] leveled up! (1 -> 2)

[Gargantuan Strength] leveled up! (1 -> 2)

[Overpower] Lv 2: Temporarily increase strength, agility, and intelligence by 140%. Duration: 40 seconds. Cooldown: 3.5 hours.

Sol had used [Siphon] on the Awakened Gladiator’s [Blinding Fury] skill, but he didn’t regain the skill, but the experience went towards the combined skill. Unlike lower floor versions of the enemy, they have higher skill levels, and the [Rage] skill evolved into its superior version.

In theory, that meant the skill should level up faster, but this was the 36th Awakened Gladiator he defeated and siphoned the skill from. From this, Sol could gather that all combined skills would level more slowly but could also gain skill experience from multiple skills, which should hopefully even out.

Looking at the updated description of the skill, Sol was shocked, ‘A 20% increase per level. So at MAX level it will be 300%? Oh my gods…’

At 120%, this skill was already incredibly strong, but it could become much stronger. It made Sol wonder if there were other skills as strong as this one.

‘Maybe, high level skills are mostly kept a secret except for the famous ones.’

Sol grinned at the thought of siphoning those powerful skills and combining them to reach even greater heights.

‘Although we have been fighting B-Rank enemies now. On the 21st floor, pseudo A-Rank enemies will appear, and they have really powerful skills.’

Sol was by no means a battle junky who lived for the thrill of battle, but he enjoyed the feeling of gaining new skills. It could be because he lived most of his life never having any with the exception of two skills he gained after years of effort, and now he was able to obtain any skill he wanted.

The idea of gaining these powerful skills motivated Sol to move faster in hopes of getting to the real A-Rank section of the dungeon. The two, in turn, began to clear undead groups faster as they hurried to the 10th floor.