BXBX NOVEL Chapter 119 Harder to Hide 3
[Criteria met – 3200/3200 Skeletons]
[Criteria met – 6400/6400 Skeletons]
[Criteria met – 12800/12800 Skeletons]
[Criteria met – 25600/25600 Skeletons]
[Criteria met – 51200/51200 Skeletons]
…
[Criteria met – 100,000/100,000 Skeletons]
[Criteria met – 500,000/500,000 Skeletons]
The number of skeletons being consumed was astronomical. An hour had passed, and finally Jay’s gauntlet was complete.
There was even some armour which was starting to travel up towards his elbow, though it simply looked like an extension of the gauntlet.
The gathering process had become exponential too, as the ring of bones which floated around him got much larger. From afar, it looked like a deathly hurricane, a storm which could threaten to blow away anything that would dare to stand before it – however, they were just gently floating bones.
No damage would be done if someone stood in it.
Above him now floated the remaining skeletons from within the pit. Jay recognised that it was well over half a million, as he had just used that many to evolve the gauntlet – but it wasn’t enough to hit the next evolution.
Still, having over half a million skeletons was just ridiculous, he wondered if he would ever need all of them.
Since the skeletons had run out and its evolution fuel had run out, he analysed it finally.
<[Necrotic Gauntlet]>
67% Full
<[Skills]>
[Uncaring Rip]
– Only useable in gauntlet form.
– Rip out a random bone from the living
– Scales with level. Higher level = more vital bone acquired
– 0.001% chance to execute
– 2 hour cooldown
[Pitiful Mortal]
– Only useable in gauntlet form
– Swat away a pitiful spell as if it were a bug
– Skeletons within storage take the damage instead
– 10 second cooldown.
<[Functions]>
[Transplant]
– Bones are automatically extracted from the surroundings and added to the ring
– Bones are extracted from the ring, floating around the wielder.
[Amputation] (Gauntlet form)
– Only the desired amount of bones are extracted. Do not float.
– Bones can be extracted from the surroundings and added to the ring.
[Living Blueprints]
– Can store pre-assembled parts
[Shift] (Gauntlet)
– The ring changes form, storing the bones in a different form
– No mana cost
<[Description]>
[Bone storage]
“Wow, uncaring rip? Pitiful mortal?”
Suddenly, as soon as he said ‘pitiful mortal’, Jay’s hand automatically sprung up in front of him.
“Wow… so it does it for me?” he smiled, looking at his gauntlet. It seemed that Jay wouldn’t even have to look at an incoming spell to swat it away.
Not to mention the fear factor that would be induced in someone who had their spell swatted away while they were called ‘pitiful mortal’ – That is if they made it through the skeletons to even launch a spell at Jay anyway.
After absorbing nearly nine hundred thousand skeletons, he received these two completely overpowered skills – obviously this was meant to be gained much later when he was an extremely high level.
Excited about the skills, he didn’t even notice the new function – living blueprints.
Jay had probably not even killed one thousand creatures yet, and this gauntlet was clearly meant for a powerful creature which did; It was way beyond Jay’s level.
Not including the skeletons, he had maybe not even killed one hundred creatures himself.
What he possessed now was probably even beyond the levels of everyone he knew too.
The gauntlet itself had a lot of jagged edges and points, particularly at the finger joints. If someone tried to rip it off his hand, they would have their own hands completely shredded. Each finger ended in a sharp tip, almost like claws.
On the inside however, it felt almost like he was wearing nothing.
The gauntlet felt light, barely noticeable; it wasn’t muggy or hot either, so his hands wouldn’t get sweaty. It was almost like it wasn’t there.
“Amazing…” he turned his hand around and gazed at it.
There was an engraving on the palm, but it was hard to make out what it was. It looked like hundreds of thousands of tiny circles.
“But now, how am I going to hide it?” he pursed his lips.
Would people believe he found such a finely crafted gothic knight’s gauntlet in some low level dungeon?
“Hmm… all I can say is that I found it here… I have no choice. Technically I did find it here I guess, so it’s not really a lie?” he smiled mischievously “Oh well, lying is kinda fun anyway.”
While walking back to Anya though, a part of him felt wrong for thinking that lying was fun. Was it the immortal book perhaps, influencing his thoughts? He wasn’t sure. It did seem to be somehow changing both his mind and his heart. Previously, he had no problem with lying.
“Hmm, well, It’s not a lie anyway so whatever.” he shrugged with a nod.
Jay walked back to Anya, holding his shield with his gauntlet hand so that she wouldn’t be able to see it.
“Back already?” Anya slightly smiled.
“Yep. Are you ready?”
“Ready as ever.” she said, standing up with her crossbow. Both of them were in a better mood now that much of the smell had gone – or perhaps they had been here long enough to get used to it.
“Then let’s go.” Jay said as he grabbed his chair, excited to just finish the pyramid already.
The quicker he conquered it, the faster he would be able to find a different dungeon and try out his new gauntlet skills.
He really wanted to try the uncaring rip skill on some unwary monster, wanting to see the damage that having a bone ripped out would cause.
“Eugh,” Jay suddenly shuddered
For some reason he imagined it happening to himself. Perhaps the immortal book wasn’t the only thing influencing his mind.
There was nothing else in the room after all the skeletons had disappeared. It was just a pit after all, so Jay and Anya walked up the ramp, then back through the passageway.
“Did you find anything else in here when you had a look?” Jay asked.
“Yes. Some more rings.”
“No gauntlets?” Jay smiled mischievously.
“What? No. Just the normal helvetian rings?”
“Heh, never mind… you wouldn’t get it…” he shook his head, “remember half of those are mine.”
“Of course.” Anya only raised a brow, wondering what he was on about.
Jay continued, “Good job with the search, we can split the loot after we leave.”
“Sounds good.” she nodded.
Before walking back up the stairs to the main entrance, Jay was going to try one more thing.
He walked towards the two large storage tanks.
“What are you doing?” Anya said.
“Just get ready to run.” Jay said as he pulled out a tooth.
“Run?”
The tooth was vibrating and floating in Jay’s hand now.
“Yeah, run.” he said casually as he then sent off the tooth flying towards the one of the cylinders filled with the purple fluid and began running to the stairs.
Anya’s eyes bulged, realising what he did.
*BOOOM!~*
The tooth exploded against the massive glass storage tank, shattering the outside and causing cracks to course through it.
“JAY!” she screamed as she started running.
“Hahaha” Jay smiled as the tank cracked more and a small torrent of the purple liquid began gushing out.
*Crack!~ Boom~ Whoosh~*
Suddenly a large chunk of glass broke away. The storage tank couldn’t take it any the whole thing ruptured, the fluid made a wave through the chamber.
A wave of purple glowing liquid began pushing through the whole room, quickly approaching them – however they had reached the stairs in time.
The skeletons were already at the top of the stairs, much faster than their living counterparts.
After scurrying to the top and taking a moment to breathe, Anya looked at Jay with a mix of anger and concern.
“Jay, why? Just.. why?” Anya looked worried.
“I dunno, I thought it would be fun….” he smiled and shrugged “And it was.”
Anya only shook her head, she couldn’t think of anything to say.
Jay ignored her and turned around, watching the whole floor of the room being covered with the purple glowing ooze.
“…I did warn you to run anyway.” he said, still smiling as he gazed at the beautiful destruction.
The room looked quite magical after all of it was coated in the glowing purple liquid – at least until the remainder of the grotesque lifeform which was previously in the tank floated by anyway.
Jay’s face scrunched a little seeing it, “Eugh, shall we leave?”
“Y… yeah.” Anya was similarly taking in the view, though she hadn’t noticed the long-dead abomination corpse.
Just after Anya turned and continued up the stairs, Jay held his hand out to the grotesque floating corpse.
“Amputation?” he whispered to himself.
… Nothing happened.
“Dammit… maybe I did it wrong?” he thought.
Unfortunately, it was too late now. The corpse had continued to float by and was too far away.
Jay pursed his lips, following Anya up the stairs.
They both headed through the metal door and began walking up the passage again.
“We need to be stealthy again,” Jay whispered, “those deep sounds were coming from up here and that creature could be anywhere. Be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”
Anya nodded, her expression serious as she became professional again.