(you should read the previous chapter again. as I made some mistakes in it.)
[Chaos purification] was the skill which Eric made from Chaos fire .
it concentrated torrent of Chaos fire at singles place, and then releases all the concentrated Chaos fire in one blast.
Eric made this skill as he realised that he didn't have any way to fight in close combat. he didn't learn any kind of martial art either all he had was pure strength and basic level of swordsmanship that could only be useful in some cases. So Eric made this skill which could deal some serious damage.
To perfect this skill it took Eric two days. As it took only one day to get control over his strength and agility.
The rest of the two days were used in mana control and improving this skill. although the name sounded cheesy but the effect was true to its name.
The only drawback was Eric needed 5 seconds to concentrate enough Chaos fire. but with enough practice Eric would be able to shorten the casting time .
**
Eric used this skill on the stone hound back, as the hound was busy dealing with [poisonous gas] Eric got enough time to concentrate Chaos fire .
As soon as Eric charged the skill enough he released it on the hounds body. Purple light filled Eric's view, as a large chunk of Eric's mana was gone. Before Eric realised he was falling, stabilizing his body in midair Eric landed safely on the ground. When Eric looked around to see where the hound went. he saw the front part of the hound burning as for the latter part, it was missing.
Did the back part disappear because of Chaos purification? That is the only explanation for the missing part. Although a large part of my mana is gone, I would have been at a disadvantage if the fight had dragged on.
Eric understood his weakness very well so, although Eric's attack power was higher than hound, but if fight got dragged on Eric would have run out of mana since he was low rank compared to stone hound. and mana he was getting from the burning grey stones was not enough.
"Whatever, I will recover the mana spent in fights soon enough."
Soon the prompt which Eric was waiting for appeared.
[ You gained a medium amount of mana ]
[You gained the ability of petrification]
After seeing the prompt, Eric recovered the mana he lost from the fight with stone hound and his mana capacity also increased.
information about the new ability surged into his mind.
[Petrification: you can cover your body with grey stones for better defence.
Damage reduction- most of the damage from physical attack is reduced.
Physical damage enhancement: if the attack is weaker than the upper limit of defence,it increases the defence by factor of two(one time only)]
Seeing the last part, Eric was glad that he didn't use his physical power in battle.
Just when Eric was about to use petrification.
He sensed some disturbance from mana in the surroundings. He would not have noticed this change if he was not using mana control passively.
Eric moved to the direction where this disturbance was coming from.
He walked around for five minutes as he came upon a black portal.
"It looks like a dungeon portal, but why is it black."
Dungeons were a small independent dimension. The dungeon portal was the entrance to this small dimension. Normally dungeons are filled with monsters and random treasures , that's why they were instantly monopolized by either great family or powerful guilds.
'Looks like there are no guards here or protective measures to guard the dungeon from others.
So this must be a newly materialised dungeon portal.'
Eric came to conclusions, as this portal appeared in his family territory, Eric decided to tell Maverick to inform the family.
Just when Eric was about to move away from the portal, his pupil dilated as Eric saw , as soon as he moved away from the portal a dagger pierced his heart.
Eric came back to his senses as he saw the prompt in his mind.
[Precognition was in effect]
It took two seconds for Eric to understand what was happening, and as soon as he understood he dived right into the dungeon portal.
'If I had moved away from the dungeon I would have died. '
Despite seeing his own death, Eric took the situation calmly or rather he was waiting for the person who ran dagger through his heart.
But seconds later, when Eric saw the person responsible for this he was shocked to the core.
"Maverick!!?"
Eric blurted out, as he saw Maverick looking at him from outside the dungeon while holding the black dagger.
From the looks of it he couldn't enter the dungeon.
Eric already knew that this dungeon was different from others, as normal dungeons had blue colour and deeper the colour means higher the rank of dungeon.
As for the black dungeon. Eric had never heard of them, that's why when he found the dungeon the idea of entering never came to his mind.
"Maverick you fucking bastard!! just you wait. I'll kill you when I come back."
After cursing for two minutes straight and venting his anger. Eric surveyed the area around him, he was in a dark place, so dark that he couldn't even see his own hand.
Eric created fireballs, as a fire ball lit up the room. Eric saw that he was in a very big cave from what he could see he guessed that the cave's height must be at least 30 to 35 meters.
Eric began to move forward, as his fire illuminated the cave.
Eric didn't make much noise inside the cave. He thought about a way to get out of here.
'I need to get out of here as fast as possible. But there are only two ways to get out of the dungeon, those are either to die or to kill the dungeon master. And since Maverick couldn't enter, this dungeon at most is C rank. If it were any higher then Maverick could have entered the dungeon. and since I entered it should be D or E rank dungeon.'
Awakeners can only enter the dungeon which is their rank or one rank lower.
Like B rank awakeners can only enter B rank and C rank dungeons. Their mana was too much to enter a low rank dungeon, and too insufficient to enter a higher rank dungeon.
As Eric was moving care fully in the cave, he heard the voice form above.
Eric looked at the ceiling of the cave but the light of the fire did not reach there, so instead of enlarging the fire ball Eric threw it at the ceiling. There he saw the whole ceiling was covered with bats, which were twice the size of a normal bat.
'Ok, let's leave steady and quietly'
Eric thought as he summoned another fired another fire ball. And took another step ahead, but then "CRACK- "as if the whole dungeon was mocking him Eric stepped on the sharp piece of wood. Eric turned his head upwards, he didn't need to see what happened as he could hear every bet in the dungeon have woken up.
Without any delay Eric used [petrification]
To cover himself with grey rocks. From afar Eric looked like he was covered in grey scales.
At the moment Eric thoughts were "it's better to be prepared then be dead"
Although Eric knew that it was a low rank dungeon and monster in it would also be low rank. He still chose to be cautious.
As Eric expected, the moment the bats noticed him, they launched a joint attack on him.
Eric moved his hands toward the ceiling as he released torrents of fire towards the up coming bats.
A large portion of the bats were eradicated by this attack. From this Eric confirmed that the rank of these bats were probably E rank lower.
Seeing their kind slaughtered so easily, the rest of the bats flew away in different directions.
As Eric paid attention to the prompts which were mostly about mana gain one about gaining ability.
[ You gained ability echolocation ]
Un suprised by the skill he got as this was the most common ability of bats.
(echolocation is the ability in which bats send out sound waves and find their way in darkness by listening to echos.)
Eric used [echolocation] and started moving once again with careful steps.
Although these bats were weak, Eric didn't want to waste his time in eradicating them, as even the mana they gave was less than he anticipated.
After half an hour of walking, Eric sensed upon a place where he could picture, what appears to be giant bat with big round ears. It was even slightly larger than a stone hound.