Stage three. 3 out of 3.

These floating islands were staying in the air with the help of mana crystals, which were located below the island. They were large, about three meters wide and 10 meters long, which made them look like stalactites*.

(*Stalactites are spike-like formations that hang from the ceiling of caves, hot springs, or mines. Also sometimes bridges.)

I felt a large amount of mana behind me, and I jumped towards the closest island, but it was just a bit too far to reach it with one jump. I stretched out my right arm - Blood - and grabbed onto a ledge with the teeth.

At the same time, I looked back and saw a wave of mana crash against the island I was on a second ago.

The island swung violently from the impact of the hit, and a large portion of mana was knocked out from the crystals. The crystals didn't have enough mana to support the weight of the island anymore, and the island started to descend.

As it reached a certain depth, it disintegrated into the abyss below.

"Haha, we're up against quite an annoying enemy." I didn't expect this much from a boss just one floor above.

"Nearly dying on the first attack.. this is quite bad." Blood sighed, though he didn't sound that annoyed.

"Then why are you smiling?" I challenged him with a simple question.

"The same reason you're doing it." He pointed at the grin on my face.

"Fair enough." I got ready for the next attack.

I felt a strong wave of mana once again. Having teleported to the closest island, I sent out all four manipulators at the sphere. In an instant, they reached it and started slashing away. Suddenly, another wave of mana appeared, but this time it was weaker.

It hit the manipulators and knocked the mana out of them. They started falling, so I had to put them into my inventory. I tried summoning them back in, but it looks like it will take them a bit of time to refill up on mana again.

"Shit, we can't use the manipulators anymore." I need to find a new way to close the distance between me and the sphere, so I could attack it.

A new wave of mana flew at us, and we teleported to the next island. I heard a crashing sound, and, sure enough, the island behind us also went down.

"Blood, pull the sphere closer to us!" I aimed my right hand at the boss and Blood cast [gravisphere].

I felt some of my blood move from my body and turn into a sphere, which started pulled everything towards us. The island we were on also got affected, and, after a large chunk of it got ripped out, it became lighter and it shot up towards the ceiling.

"This wasn't supposed to happen!" I Shouted as we jumped from the remains of the island towards the next one.

"Well, that failed. What now?" I asked.

We've got a few more options. I don't want to use potions if possible since I spent two weeks stocking up on them, so we'll try everything else first. Potions are the last resort.

"If we can't pull it up to us, let's just push ourselves towards it." Blood said confidently.

"Huh? What do you mea-"

"[gravisphere], [reverse polarity]!" I was interrupted by the goat's shout.

I angled my hand towards the island, launching us into the air.

Blood turned off [gravisphere].

I stretched my right arm towards the sphere bit it with my hand. Contracting my arm back, we were pulled towards the sphere, and at the same time, I hit it with a supercharged punch.

"[devastating attack]!" I was hyped, just like Blood, which is why we shouted the names of our abilities out.

We didn't have to do that, just felt like it. The sphere cracked and emitted a huge wave of mana.

"It's gonna knock us off. Quick, create a blade!" I was barely holding onto the sphere.

Some of my blood, which was used to make [gravisphere] now morphed into the shape of a super-thin blade. The blade extended forwards.

"Nice, the blade went all the way through." Once we cut the hole, an even bigger wave of mana was flung at us, and I wasn't able to hold on for any longer, even with my 2k strength.

I jumped from the sphere with as much force as I could, so that we could reach the next island with the momentum. That created another crack in the sphere, which cause another wave of mana to be hurled at us.

Having landed on the island, I felt dizzy.

"Each wave took a third of my max mana away. The only reason I'm still conscious is Passive regen." It helped me get just enough mana not to get knocked out.

"So, one more hit and we're screwed." Blood analyzed the situation.

"Precisely." Also, if I didn't have abnormal status resistance, I would have lost more mana with each wave.

All spells are considered as abnormal statuses when they are cast on you, and I'm not sure why that is, but I don't need the reason. It works, and that's all that matters, thought S+ is not good enough to completely negate the effect.

I need to evolve it after this fight, using one of my {evolution cards}.

"It's time for potions, then." I looked through my 17 potions.

Ah, I've got the perfect combination.

{Damage increase potion}, {Pure damage potion}, and {Strength increase potion}.

I explained the plan to Blood, while the sphere was still recovering from the damage.

~~~

"Get ready." I waited until the boss shot another wave, and teleported to an island closest to the sphere. That uses 100 mana, and all I have left is this:

Mana: 21/75900

The moment we TP'd to the island, Blood used [gravisphere][reverse polarity], and, having angled my hand downwards, I jumped at the same time. Those two forces combined let us shoot towards the boss at an insane speed.

"Just.. about.. Now!" I timed the next step.

"[gravisphere]!" Blood turned [reverse polatiry] off and I turned him towards the boss, which pulled the boss towards us.

[devastating attack]

*boom*

A sound, like a nuclear bomb, went off.

Shards of glass-like material flew everywhere, and we were flung away by the explosion. The explosive power of the punch created a shockwave that messed with my brain, turning me unconscious for few seconds.

I regained my sight and pulled out the manipulators, which had finally filled up with mana again. Grabbing two of them, I reduced the momentum at which I was flying, since I was inevitably going to hit an island on my way.

Having finally stopped midair, I flew us towards the nearest island to take a seat.

"Welp, that was fun." I took a deep breath, pleased with the fight.

"Yep. It was a blast." Blood was, apparently, also a fan of dad jokes*.

(*A dad joke is an unoriginal or unfunny joke.*)

"Heh, okay. Well, what do you think about this strat? We had seven damage multipliers to go with this one attack." I was proud of this one-punch strategy.

"It was stupid. Like, probably one of the dumbest things you could have come up with. Why even take the risk, when you could have used an {instant regeneration potion}, and then just teleport to the sphere and keep attacking until it's down?" That makes sense. We had a lot of damage, and the sphere wasn't the strongest boss - health-wise - we've fought.

"That's all you have to say?" No matter how right he was, I'm disappointed.

"What? No. It was fun as hell." Blood smiled.

Good. Well, with that out of the way, what's next? I thought about it for a bit and remembered something important.

~~~

We came back to where the boss was blown to pieces, and a few surprises greeted us there. First, the shards of the sphere, which flew everywhere when we killed the boss, were now all gathered in one pile.

It was probably considered as boss loot, so it made sense. When I put them into my inventory, I saw something else.

"Finally, an actual reward from a boss battle. Aside from Experience." I looked at the object.

It was a bracelet. I put it on my left hand and a status display popped up. It can't be just that.

I looked through the status, to see if anything was different, and I found a few extra features, like automatic stat point distribution, and a health/mana/stamina display that popped up whenever I wanted to see how much I had.

Having played around with it for a while longer, I figured out the full purpose. It was just a highly convenient status display. I could also make it have the appearance of a guild card, with my own values written on it so that I could hide my stats and other information if necessary.

I'll need to do a bit more testing to see exactly how it works, but for now, I have more important matters to discuss.

"Do you know what the buzzing noise is all about? It's so loud my ears hurt." I complained.