I sighed and quickly brainstormed an original idea on how to do a mimic check – just in case Jeoff was still watching – but couldn’t come up with anything at the moment. So instead, I decided to use this opportunity to test something else.
I reached into my backpack and reluctantly pulled out the Truth-seeing goggles once more before putting them on. Then I turned on the green spiderweb vision and did my best to ignore how uncomfortable it made me feel.
Just like before, the spiderwebs were all over the place, but were especially concentrated around me.
Interesting thing to note, the spiderwebs weren’t any more concentrated around the chest than anywhere else.
Just on a whim, I decided to switch off the spiderweb vision and instead turned on Ether vision. As expected the chest lit up, albeit not as much as my own body. But even I was nothing compared to the fucking death water pool that nearly flashbanged me with how bright it was.
“...Okay, guess what, chat? The Ether-draining liquid has a lot of Ether in it. Who would have thought?”
That aside, I swapped back to spiderweb vision and got ready to do what I had been planning to do initially.
I took a dramatic stance, looked at the chest, and then fired off Rend.
To say that it was unnerving would be an understatement. Rather than a ball of spiderwebs shooting out that I had been expecting, it was more like I’d fired off this bubble of… something that made the spiderwebs around its path light up and violently twist on themselves before fading again.
This projectile hit the chest and dispersed, eventually leaving the mass of cobwebs just as they had been before… Or, actually, they might have shifted a bit, but I didn’t think it mattered that much.
“...Well, that confirms that the spiderwebs are Intra, I guess,” I mumbled and then raised my voice to say the next sentence. “Good news, chat! My scouter says that the chest has no brain, so it’s probably not a mimic! Loot time!”
I put the goggles back into my backpack and skipped over to the chest, but before I could open it, chat stopped me and reminded me of one of the reasons why I’d wanted to return to this dungeon.
Namely, stocking up on death water again. Sure, my gun was broken right now, but once I found out how to fix it, that death water would be very handy.
I frowned and looked back at the pool in thought.
“Okay, I guess I should grab some of it but… How? I don’t have my bucket…”
And unfortunately, if I wanted more death water, I had to get it now, since the dungeon would presumably kick me out again after I looted the chest.
KaiEbikoOfficial:the towel?
KaiEbikoOfficial:or the cloak?
I perked up at the suggestions but then frowned again. I wasn’t sure if either of these would work, but if they did, it would be incredibly awkward to use, wouldn’t it?
And also, the Hydroveil needed me to use Tempor to do the water absorbing thing, which I still had no idea how to directly manipulate.
Jeofffff:bruh why not just use hydrokinesis
I blinked, resisted the urge to facepalm, and then walked to the edge of the death water pool.
I tugged on my senses and used hydrokinesis…
It felt much ‘heavier’ than regular water, but it was indeed possible. I could move the death water with my hydrokinesis. And if I could do that, absorbing it into and releasing it from the towel or the veil shouldn’t be as awkward anymore. Well, assuming it was possible in the first place.
Jeofffff:could have done that back in the city too
Jeofffff:instead of leaving that chest
I sighed as I brought out the towel and spread it out on the ground before me.
“Why didn’t you tell me back then, Jeoff? ”
Jeofffff:wasn’t online
Now I just felt like an idiot. I had skipped a loot chest for no reason.
Well, whatever. Lesson learned.
That aside, I first had to test whether the towel could even absorb this, so I picked up a small blob of the death water and gently placed it onto the towel.
The blob disappeared as if going through a portal.
With a smile on my face, I flexed my hydrokinesis muscles and proceeded to lift the death water out of the pool and into the towel in a consistent stream while ignoring the chat to concentrate on the task as much as I could. I did not want to splash myself with it, after all.
I wasn’t sure how much of it I wanted, exactly, so I just kept going for a good while until suddenly…
It splashed on me and I scrambled to back away from it.
I shook away the droplets clinging to my arm and then cradled the arm to my chest. Then I stared at the puddle of death water covering the towel.
SpoOo0oOon:oh no it’s full!
The towel didn’t have infinite space. It was just so much that I’d never had to worry about it.
But after absorbing all that water in the third floor twice without being emptied, it was bound to reach its cap soon.
“...I should have wrung it out when I could. Dammit.”
Well, I had absorbed enough death water for the time being, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.
With a bit of a mental shove, I grabbed the residual death water and threw it back into the pool before gingerly grabbing the towel and putting it back into my backpack.
“Okay, all stocked up! Let’s see what loot we got, chat!”
With no other distractions, I finally approached the big chest and heaved it open.
It revealed a ticket, a slab of shark meat, a pile of sharp feathers, a necklace seemingly made out of shark teeth, and…
“Holy shit,” I automatically exclaimed as I looked at the giant gun in front of me.
Or rather than a gun, it was more like a cannon. Its muzzle was square shaped and separated into smaller circular holes. Three rows and three columns.
Even before appraising, I already had an inkling to what this could be.
Multi-rocket launcher
A launcher capable of rapidly shooting missiles when supplied with Ether.
Jeofffff:oh shiiiiiit
KaiEbikoOfficial:omfg
I guess one of the rewards was always one of the shark’s weapons? The first one was the plasma ball launcher, and now I had the damn rocket launcher.
“Well now…” I murmured and grabbed the bigass gun. It was freaking heavy but I somehow managed.
Naturally, I couldn’t resist testing it right away, so I pointed the thing at the other side of the room, poked around it with Ether to find the proper channels, and then pulled the trigger.
There was a swoosh, then another, and then another. They came faster and faster as my Ether materialized into rockets inside the launcher and flew out of the big gun toward the far wall in a wild trajectory.
The recoil almost made me fall on my back, but I managed to brace myself against the chest and stopped firing just before it became too much.
A series of explosions echoed through the indoor pool and I watched in amazement as the rockets tore through the far wall.
…Of course, once the smoke dispersed, there wasn’t a single scratch on the wall, but dungeon walls were cheating.
“...Okay, chat! I got a new gun!”
That was not to say that I was giving up on trying to fix my old gun. Rather, just how powerful would it be if I could fuse them? Could I then fire rockets that exploded into plasma? Or into shards of crystals?
I sighed, suddenly feeling tired.
Damn, I was actually running low on Ether. Had the rocket launcher really used that much?
Then again, I had just cleared almost the entire dungeon in one go… and had dealt with the secret boss.
Yeah, I needed a break. Good thing, I had a superpillow now.
“Alright, next!” I finally exclaimed and put the bigass gun into my backpack before turning to the one thing in the chest that was new – the necklace.
War shark tooth necklace
A necklace made out of war shark teeth. Channeling Intra through it creates an intimidating aura around you.
[INNATE] skill: Armor Break – Imbue an object or a part of your body with the ability to tear through almost anything by using Tempor. Tougher targets require more Tempor.
“Oooh! That’s so good!” I said as I grabbed the necklace and studied it. “Wait, isn’t that innate skill something similar to what the archer had?”
Jeofffff:maybe she had the necklace
“But I didn’t see it on her… and she never used the intimidation aura thing either…”
“Well, whatever! This thing is super useful anyway!” I concluded and put it around my neck.
The only things left in the chest were the slab of meat and more of the shark feathers – which I put into my backpack without much fanfare – as well as a ticket. I already had an inkling to what the ticket did from its purple background and the yellow ‘2%!’ written on it.
Small Tempor expansion ticket
A system consumable that increases your total Tempor reserves and regeneration by 2% when consumed.
“More Tempor! Nice!” I said and put it into my backpack–
I couldn’t put it into my backpack.
“What the heck? Why can’t I…” I stopped, pulled out the towel out and then tried putting the ticket in.
It slid in without a problem.
“Seriously? Is my backpack full…?” I huffed. “I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later…”
But what were the chances that I would run into the limit of both the towel and the backpack back to back?
I shook my head, pulled out the Tempor ticket, put the towel back, and instead of leaving it for later like the big ticket from the secret boss, I simply used the Tempor ticket to expand my Tempor reserves, and as a result expanded my backpack.
As soon as I stepped away from the chest, I felt the familiar sensation of space warping around me and an uncomfortable moment later, I was in front of the dungeon that was now all blurry and inaccessible.
Approaching the barrier and trying to Appraise it gave me the same system pop-up as before… with one key difference.
D-rank Tempor dungeon: Water park Octoslide
(Time left: 19d, 23h 58m, 51s)
“Wait, what? Nineteen days to reset now?” I asked incredulously.
Jeofffff:oof it gets longer everytime
I groaned and rubbed my face.
“Dammit, if I’d known that, I would stock up on death water more… Oh, well…”
If this pattern held, then it would mean that the reset time got ten times longer every time you cleared the dungeon.
It felt unreasonable… but then again, this dungeon had by far the best loot out of any other dungeon I had visited. So I guess it was balanced by limiting access, since the crater dungeon didn’t seem to need to reset the same way.
Right now, I had to get back to the city dungeon, since I was still tight on time.
“Okay! Anyway! Dungeon finished, chat! Time to go back and get some revenge on the city dungeon!” I declared with a grin.
I couldn’t wait to blast the ogre dude with my new rocket launcher.