Danmachi: Scavenger

The next day, Rex went into the Dungeon at 4 am with a few weapons he had taken from the 18th floor. He decided to continue hunting monsters in the Cave Labyrinth to get his stats to their max, and of course test the new abilities he had scavenged.

He decided to test out Heptathlos the moment he stepped onto the 13th floor. Since it had a 12-hour cooldown, he hoped to use it a second time by 5 p.m. before finishing his 12 hour shift. After flicking the blood of a Hellhound off his sword and absorbing its magic stone, Rex stood straight and stretched. 

'I wonder how this will look,' he thought as he held his sword in front of him with one arm, pointing it at an imaginary opponent. With a deep breath, he uttered, "Heptathlos."

As the words left his lips… nothing happened. No aura, no change in his physical appearance, no indication that the skill had activated. But he knew the skill had been activated, just no physical indication.

'... Boring,' he thought. Even Strong Body gave his eyes a red ring, and that was a skill he got from a silverback. 'Let's not waste time.' He only had seven seconds.

He took a step forward and swung his sword diagonally. During the attack, Rex didn't feel any surge of power—no speed or raw strength increase—but he noticed that the impact of his slash was undeniably stronger. He couldn't explain it.

"The skill only increases 'damage dealt' and nothing else, which doesn't really make sense scientifically but this is a magical world." He mumbled as he stepped forward again, this time swinging horizontally, the attack carrying even greater force.

The third strike was a downward slash, the fourth an upward strike, and the fifth another vertical. He continued his attacks while stepping forward with each attack, moving towards a massive stalagmite. This structure stretched so high it almost touched the ceiling, being one of the tallest stalagmite that doesn't connect to a stalactite from the ceiling, with its base thick enough that it would take over five men with their arms spread wide to encircle it. 

With each attack, the force grew stronger than the last, the sixth being a wide horizontal sweeping arc that sent a small gust of air slamming into the thick stalagmite. Then, he lunged forward, his sword held in his right hand, and finished the seventh sequence with a thrust aimed at a massive stalagmite. The blade moved forward without any visible indication of increased power—

*BOOM*

The moment the tip of his sword touched the wide base of the stalagmite, there was a loud, resounding blast that echoed through the cavern as the force of the attack caused the base to explode as if struck by a cannonball. Massive chunks of the stalagmite flew backward with speed almost equivalent to a shot arrow, the dusts blasting backwards with the debris.

"... Damn…" Rex muttered, his wide eyes staring at the destruction, still posed in his thrusting stance.

At the other end of his sword tip was a gaping hole that went through the thick stalagmite's base, large enough for him to crawl through. Now the upper part of the stalagmite was only being held up by two thin lines that acted as the edge of the cylinder that went through the stalagmite.

He didn't even use his full strength for that attack and he was able to do more damage than his strongest physical attack with Strong Body activated. Especially with a sword thrust.

He pulled back his sword. 'I mean, it is a six times increase—'

*Crack*

Spiderweb-like fractures spread rapidly through the remaining base of the stalagmite, some snaking upward toward its peak. The cracks multiplied, branching out like lightning across the stone surface. For a moment, the stalagmite stood still, as if defying gravity, but then it began to groan.

Rex immediately turned around and dashed away, picking up his bag along the way as chunks of rock began to break away from the stalagmite, tumbling to the ground with thunderous crashes. 

Behind him, the massive structure tilted, its weight no longer supported by the shattered base, then the stalagmite collapsed. Dust and debris filled the air as the towering column of stone crumbled, crashing to the ground in a chaotic avalanche of rock. 

The ground shook beneath Rex's feet, the dust rushing from behind him and quickly engulfing him. While falling, the stalagmite had slammed into a stalactite hanging from the ceiling and into another stalagmite, which caused them to collapse. This created a chain reaction, the ground rumbling like an earthquake as more stalagmite and stalactite began to fall.

Rex was already in the next room, whistling as he walked away like he wasn't the cause of the destruction in the room. It took a while for the rumbling and crash to die down, and by then Rex was two rooms over, yet he could still faintly hear it.

"If I got exp from kills instead of having to absorb the monster's magic stone I would have gotten a fuck ton from that." He mumbled, looking in the direction of the last room. He was sure he had killed at least a hundred monsters from that domino effect… 

'Scavenger, adventures died due to the destruction.' The thought was rated as low quality, so no adventurer had died from the chain reaction, which was a good thing. 'Surprising.' He thought as he turned to the horde of forty or so Level 1 and 2 monsters charging toward him, drawn by the sound two rooms over. 

"Now," he muttered. "Let's test the magic." He summoned his status screen for the chant—no way he had memorized that wall of text.

Leaning forward, he dashed towards the horde while chanting with mental compartmentalization. "O steel baptized in the anvil's hymn, blade bound by oath of blood and iron—hearken!" His blade flashed, bisecting two Almiraj mid-leap.

"Though hammers once sang through your spine, though kings' ashes whisper of your forge-born frailty…" He lunged beneath an orc's wild punch then performed a wide horizontal arc, the blade bisecting the monster at its torso.

 "…I carve my name into your marrow—the coming god of armaments!" He didn't pause as the remaining creatures closed in—bad bats, hellhounds, silverback—he continued cutting them down while chanting. 

"Cast off thy smith's cradle, shatter the chains of your mortal tempering!" His mind was slowly being trained. 

"By scars of a thousand battles, by crowns ground to dust beneath your tread—awaken!" At that word, blue wisps started floating up from along the sword's blade, dissolving like dying stars.

"Let your gleam sunder the void, let your edge drink the marrow of eternity!" A Silverback charged with a roar, arm raised for an overhead smash. 

With a forward step, Rex thrust his sword through its gaping maw, the tip erupting from the back of its skull in a spray of gore. He then slashed to the right, wrenching the blade free from the side of the beast's mouth, and deflecting a tomahawk hurled by a shrieking Almiraj.

"Rise, great weapon, and grant me your truest might!" A Hellhound lunged, but Rex pivoted to the left. With his spin, his blade arced out in a silver-blue crescent, splitting the creature's side open, muscle and viscera spilling as it collapsed.

"We are the final echo of the forge that tempered time itself." Blue energy now swirled around him, illuminating the immediate area around him. 

"Shine fierce, shine fleeting, and leave naught but echoes of our creed!" He backflipped, putting distance between himself and the remnants of the pack, the energy following him.

"Berakh—!" He raised the sword overhead, both hands gripping the hilt as the wisps coalesced into a vortex. 

"—HaKele!" The aura surged into the blade, compressing into a razor-thin sheath of blue energy—darkest at the edges, blazing brightest at its core. Twilight stars flickered within the blue, winking in and out like dying embers.

"Hehe~" He felt like he was one with the blade, like it was an extension of himself. He knew where the tip of the blade was even with his eyes closed, he knew every curve of the blade, its sharpness, everything.

His amber eyes, ringed with crimson, flicked from the blade above him to the twenty-five remaining monsters that were frozen mid-charge. Then he slowly lowered his new energy sword, its movement leaving a slight blue trail. Holding the sword with only his right hand, he extended it out to the side like a single wing, the glow of the sword casting a shadow to one half of his grinning face. 

Then he dashed forward, the sword flashing blue as monsters disintegrated. 

Limbs and torsos fell with the perfect blue arcs of his sword, severed with machine-like precision. There was no effort, no resistance—just the clean snick of steel parting flesh like a hot knife through butter. It was as if he was just slashing air, and in about two seconds, over twenty bodies collapsed.

"OoooOO!" A lone Silverback turned and fled in fear, its heavy footfalls carrying it forward. 

"Dread it, Run From it," Rex uttered, holding the sword at his left side with both hands, its tip grazing the ground behind him. "Destiny arrives all the same!"

With a roar, Rex swung the blade in a sweeping semicircular arc from left to right. The stored magic erupted from the blade as a razor-thin crescent of blue energy soundlessly slicing outward at breakneck speed. It expanded with every meter crossed, its width expanding as it moved outwards. 

The Silverback, still mid-stride, didn't even have time to react. The crescent passed through its spine without slowing, the beast's momentum carrying it three more strides before its upper half slid free, bisected at the ribs. Its legs collapsed as its torso thudded to the stone, the cut surface smooth as glass.

The crescent energy blade continued outwards, illuminating the dark dungeon like a bolt of lightning. It flashed through all stalagmites in its path as if they weren't even there, cleaving through columns of connecting stalagmites and stalactites. With a flash, a distant pack of unsuspecting Hellhounds froze in motion, their skulls halved with surgical precision

Half a kilometer away, a solo adventure ducked under an orc's just as there was a blue flash. They then looked up to see blood flowing from the orc's abdomen then its upper body fell to the ground, severed at the ribs. 

'???' They stared at the bicepted monster in confusion.

Finally, after nearly a kilometer, the crescent dissipated with a soft wisp. The stalagmites that had been sliced remained standing, bearing no visible damage—save for the faint, almost imperceptible line where the blade had passed. 

"HAHAHAHA!" Rex laughed like a madman, his voice echoing through the cavern as he stared ahead. "That was the shit!" The chant, the aura, the appearance, the release of energy—everything about this magic was amazing.

But there is no free lunch in this world.

The sword in his hand was a cheap, mass-produced blade used by Level 1 or 2 adventurers and using Berakh HaKele on it had drained nearly 50% of his total Mind. He is a level 2 with currently triple S in magic and also had triple S in magic at level one. 

'Yet it took 50% to buff a normal sword?' He was confused. Sure, the magic had boosted the sword's capabilities far beyond his 800,000-valis Third-Class long sword, pushing it closer to a Second-Class weapon in performance. 'But damn, the cost was steep.'

If a normal level 2 had this magic, they would barely be able to buff one of these cheap swords before they ran out of mind. 'If I used this magic on a Third-Class sword, would it burn through all my Mind?' 

He was sure it would, but at that point, the sword should rival a First-Class weapon. Not only that, the aura blade he had released earlier would be far stronger—strong enough to one-shot a Level 4 adventurer. That was the power of magic. The ultimate cheat code of this world.

"I guess it's balanced out by its mind consumption and absurdly long chant time." he mumbled, glancing down at the battered sword. 

Even when he'd recited the chant as fast as he could, it had still taken him forty seconds to finish. Of course, he'd been reading it off his status screen. Once he memorized it, he could probably shave off a few seconds.

As for the sword… it was in rough shape. The edges were chipped, cracks spiderwebbed along the blade, and patches of rust were now on its surface. It was still usable, but barely. He doubted it would survive another use of his magic.

'Hmm…'

He pulled out a basic Mind potion, downing it in one gulp. The cool liquid flooded his system, replenishing most of his Mind. Then, just to test the limits, he activated Berakh HaKele on the sword again.

The magic took hold, the blade shimmering with blue light then he tossed it to the ground far away before hiding behind a boulder and staring at the glowing sword. After a few seconds, the sword shattered into a bunch of sparkling blue fragments. The shards floated around the area like fireflies before dissolving into the air, along with the remaining Mind stored in the blade.

"That's trash," Rex muttered, unimpressed. "At least it could've exploded into a bomb or something. Tossing it would've been fun." He could just imagine himself screaming 'Gáe Bolg!' as he tossed a spear that exploded on impact.

Leaving his hiding place, Rex returned to his bag and took out a Third-Class longsword he had scavenged from the 18th floor. "Alright," he said as he pulled out yet another mind potion. "Let's keep playing with this magic."

[Author's Note: Didn't post this chapter because it didn't feel completed. Hope it was worth the wait.

Also, while going through the older chapter, I noticed I changed the name of one skill multiple times. The skill I talking about is: [Silver Back's Roar (Skill/Active): Roar to greatly increase your strength, endurance, and agility, while slightly reducing magic.].

I have changed the name twice: Powerful Body that appears whenever I show his status and Strong Body, the name It's called in the story by the narrator. I don't even know how I made this mistake, but these three skills are one skill, Silver Back's Roar. I am going to keep calling it Strong Body (kaioken) because strong body sounds better, so just keep that in mind.

Thanks for reading~]