While Artorias suffered a crippling injury, a satisfied grin was plastered across Ulric's face as he felt waves of energy drilling into his body.
As his scythe siphoned both mana and vitality, the gaping hole blasted through his chest closed and healed at a rapid pace.
But that wasn't what excited him most. He could feel the mana being broken down, restructured, and refined before flowing into his body as aether.
A far better outcome than he could have ever anticipated.
His measly reserves of thirteen drops skyrocketed at an absurd pace.
Twenty drops of aether... thirty... forty... fifty...
It only stabilized when it reached around fifty-seven before finally slowing down.
"Fifty-seven, huh?" Ulric mumbled beneath his breath as a glint of disbelief flashed across his eyes.
The massive leap was astounding.
If before he had estimated it would take a few years to break through to C-rank, now that timeline had been cut down by a large margin. Perhaps a little over a year?
