"I gotta be having the best luck in the world!"
Just as Adam lamented his bad luck, a blurred object shot out and arrived in front of his nose in the blink of an eye.
Taken by surprise, Adam swung his sword and directed the snake's head away from him.
The impact sent him flying into the wall, and his long steel sword shattered into pieces.
Clang!!
Adam grunted in pain, eyes widened in shock. "What the hell?!"
The snake didn't pursue immediately, seemingly surprised by his counterattack. Instead, it glared at him while coiling itself up at a distance.
[Giant Basilic Cobra—C Rank lvl 12]
'No wonder my sword broke.'
The snake was a C-rank monster comparable to Magus.
Fortunately, it looked like a newly evolved monster, so he wasn't entirely in a desperate situation.
The gap between an Adept and a 1-star Magus wasn't that big.
'But it's still Magus level.'
Adam swallowed nervously and studied the basilisk snake cautiously.
Its blue scales glistened like oil, covering its entire body like thick armor with no gaps to speak of. Sword strikes and spells would be useless against its defenses.
The basilisk finished its analysis and lunged at Adam once more. Its speed was frightening, to say the least.
Adam narrowed his eyes. 'It's coming!'
Thanks to his Danger Senses skill, he could now clearly see the attack, which was something he couldn't even properly decipher in the beginning.
Adam swiftly sidestepped and let the attack brush past him, launching a [Mana Bolt] at the same time.
However, it simply bounced off the cobra's scales.
A [Fireball] followed, with the same result.
The basilisk retaliated with its spiked tail, and Adam dodged just in time.
The spikes still grazed his arm, sending a jolt of pain through him.
"These spikes are like steel," Adam thought, gritting his teeth.
The basilisk's eyes glowed with a fierce azure light, and Adam's Danger Senses skill sent alarms ringing like never before.
Instinctively, he raised his [Mana Shield] to its absolute limit, using half of his mana.
The basilisk's gaze swept across the shield, and Adam felt a strange, creeping sensation.
The shield began to petrify, its surface turning to stone, leaving him unharmed.
Seeing its attack fail, the basilisk lunged forward, destroying the shield and ramming into Adam.
Adam felt like he was hit by a train, and a few ribs cracked under the impact.
However, he managed to hold onto the spikes on its back.
The basilisk tried to shake him off, slamming into the pillars and destroying them, but Adam quickly reinforced his body with mana and held firm.
He also noticed a few bloody hole scars on its skin that he hadn't seen before.
'It must be the arrows! This monster must have used its body to cross the passage, triggering a barrage of arrows that managed to scratch it.'
Adam's thoughts raced. He had a few metal arrowhead heads he had collected along the way, but they were too small to cause fatal injuries, let alone kill it.
The basilisk slammed into a pillar, pinning Adam beneath its massive body.
Adam cried out in pain, ribs broken.
'This isn't a time to hesitate!'
He used Visionary to create a sword made of mana-absorbing metal and shoved it into the Cobra's eye.
The snake cried in pain and recoiled, shaking its head. Adam still clung to the spike, as he wasn't done.
He created a grenade and shoved it into the bloody hole he created in the snake's eye before jumping down.
"Let's see how you'll deal with that."
The grenade wasn't simple. Upon explosion, it would release enough special metal shards of mana to detonate its brain.
Five seconds later, its eyes exploded.
The snake thrashed, its body convulsing in agony as the grenade exploded inside its head.
Adam watched from a safe distance as it collapsed on the ground.
He waited for a few moments, ensuring the beast was truly dead, before collapsing against the pillar, breathing hard.
"That sucks!"
Not only was he forced to waste 30 spirit points, but he was in so much pain that he wanted to just pass out.
If he wasn't so short on spirit points, he would really create a skill to numb his pain senses.
After resting for a while, he dragged himself toward the carcass and kicked it to vent his frustration before extracting the essence core.
It was no different from the E-rank ones except for being bigger.
Adam wasted no time and absorbed it.
The stat panel flickered +5 spirit points.
Wow. He was surprised that a single core gave him this much feedback and wondered if he should hunt more of them.
He shook his head with a wry smile. What was he thinking? The battle losses were simply too great for him to bear again.
Hm, but soon, he was surprised to see stone fall on his hand after the core shattered.
A runic symbol stretched across its surface.
"This...a runes stone."
Rune stone were only dropped after killing C rank monster or above, and it contained their special skill.
Unfortunately, he had no idea how to use it as Mark only briefly mentioned it, not expecting an Adept could actually kill a Magus rank monster.
"I should check those two rooms… hopefully get something good."
His pouch was buried in the rubble, and he had no time to search for it. He would be ejected out of the dungeon in a few minutes.
Limping towards the two side rooms, he entered the first room, and his eyes widened as he took in the sight.
The room was wide and looked like a laboratory. Golem heads lined the shelves, their stone and metal bodies torn apart.
"Was this a golem factory?" Adam wondered, his curiosity piqued.
He walked around the room, inspecting the golem parts. There were a few complete golems, but they were too big for him to take out of the dungeon.
Adam's eyes landed on a shattered disk and a few books scattered on the ground. He picked them up, flipping through their pages.
The text was written in a language he couldn't understand, but the diagrams of golems seemed to be instructions.
"Ah, this must be a manual about how to make golems," Adam thought, his eyes lighting up with interest.
He carefully gathered the books, hoping to study them further when he had the chance.
With only a few minutes left before the dungeon ejected him, Adam decided to check the second room. Maybe he'd get lucky and find something valuable.
He entered the second room, his eyes scanning the space. It was smaller than the first room, with a few cauldrons and crates scattered around.
A giant runic circle filled the floor. Adam's heart skipped a beat as he saw the liquid inside one of the cauldrons.
"That's…Essence Pond!"
Essence ponds weren't naturally formed. Only by extracting the energy from thousands of essence cores and compressing and purifying it over time did it create.
Just a small sealed vial of this liquid could be sold for unimaginable resources. And this pool… even at a glance, Adam could tell it held at least one cubic meter.
"This would be enough to support me until I evolve into Magus and even further."
His chest tightened with exhilaration, and his palms trembled.