[7]The True Monster

Kai watched in abstract horror as he was brought to one of the rooms in the villa, where he found a lot more than the skill books he was promised. Kai immediately turned back around, only to find that Sheila had followed behind him shortly after, which was perfect.

"Sheila, which ones of those skill books are mine? They're covering the bed and at a glance, they all look useable to me."

Sheila just looked at him with a knowing smile, before shaking her head and then articulating what she was thinking.

"I promised you seven Druid skills and five spacial skills, but what about the general skills that any mage can learn? Kai, I don't think I have stressed this enough. You are my father's only hope to live past a month from now. In fact, I said that I would give you five spacial magic skills, but I'm probably going to give you a few more if I can find some that I think will be useful to you. After all, spacial mages are nowhere near as rare as druids in this country. Just go learn all of the skills frantically and put on the gear. We're going to take you on nonstop dungeon runs all through the next days. Did you know that certain types of healers can refresh your mental state and stamina with magic? Don't expect to sleep anytime soon."

Sheila sounded playful and light when she first started speaking, but her tone gradually became stern as she spoke. For the first time, it really hit Kai that Sheila's dad was actually dying somehow and Kai was her absolute last straw. Suddenly, he felt cold sweat as he realized that this girl in front of him would probably blame him if he failed her and let her father die.

Kai could only nod silently at Sheila's gloomy atmosphere and walk back into the room. When the door closed, he clenched his teeth and turned his attention to the skill books on the bed. Kai started by counting them, and he was dumfounded at the sheer number. There were thirty two of these skill books in total, and every single one was related to mages or the druid class. Kai reached his hand forward...

***

In a dark cave lit by torches, a group of thirty people ran at speeds exceeding the pace of cars, flashing past goblins of various sizes and leaving only screams in their wake. Not long after, Sheila and Kai were seen running after the cohort of awakeners followed by eight more people, with Kai always slashing the crippled monsters they passed with a sword.

"Come on slowpoke, you're not killing fast enough!"

Sheila's clear bell like voice gave Kai visible shivers by now, and he hurredly flicked out several invisible blade waves from his fingers and blinked forward madly to the next spot without even checking whether he was successful in the attack. One of the team members stayed behind for a moment to make sure that there were no survivors, and only moved forward after seeing nothing but corpses and blade shaped holes in the cave behind them.

A dozen monsters, a hundred monsters, and a thousand monsters after that were directly crippled and then killed by Kai as he passed through. After several hours of running while Kai's state was being constantly refreshed by a healer, Kai came to the boss room, where he found the full team waiting for him with impatient expressions.

"What are you guys staring at me like that for? I'm not slacking off."

Kai rolled his eyes and rushed into the untouched boss room. This had become a common occurrance to him by now. Kai would be led by a team to directly slaughter monsters in mass batches, and the dungeon bosses were used as whetstones for Kai's improvement. After all, if Kai couldn't handle himself against a mere lower level boss, how was he supposed to solo clear a level sixty dungeon? Sheila had entered the boss room behind him with a somewhat cold face. To anyone that knew her for more than a week, it was obvious that she was just putting on a cheap act, but her sharp rebukes and merciless critiques from behind Kai always gave the people around the impression of a nagging mother. This dungeon run was no exception to the rule.

Kai stopped about forty feet across from the goblin shaman. He had to be prepared to lose his life and determined to take the shaman's life at all costs if he wanted to win.

Before the shaman began to properly react to Kai's presence, he began to frantically cast spells.

'Wild Shape.'

Kai's bare feet began to visibly deform, and his pants seemed to stretch and contort as they seemed to magically change form with the lower half of Kai's body. Kai's feet became furry and elongated as they morphed to match the feet of a wolf. Similarly, Kai's leg joints also now bent backwards instead of forwards, with fur seeming to pop out from the ankle areas of Kai's custom clothing.

Kai erupted with a physical speed that seemed to be explosively fast compared to the previous speed that he used to run through the dungeon earlier. In the blink of an eye, Kai was slashing downward towards the shaman with all of his force.

'Mana coating!'

Even at level twelve, Kai's mana was still not high enough to make effective use of his new skills, so he only activated his lower level skill, mana coating to attack. After all, the Vortex blade that Kai was spamming earlier wasn't actually done under Kai's own strength. In fact, one of the mage team members was actually constantly using the mage skill "Mana Transferring" on Kai constantly. That was the secret to Kai one shotting monsters high above his level and why he was constantly being checked for his accuracy. After all, Kai couldn't dare to be inefficient since every shot needed to count after multiple high level mages took turns being his batteries.

Unfortunately, a level forty boss was not an easy opponent to the current Kai right now. When it felt danger, the shaman directly put up a mana shield.

Clang!

Kai's mana empowered sword directly bounced off of the goblin shaman's spherical barrier. Kai jumped backwards, but it was obvious which side was faster. The goblin shaman's staff began to glow with a red light that was similar to its slightly red tinged transparent barrier. In an instant, as Kai had touched the ground, a red beam fired directly to Kai, even taking a slight curve as he attempted to dodge. The onlooker watched with amused expressions at Kai's seemingly tough struggle, and just when the beam was about to touch Kai's chest, he vanished from the spot, accidentally making the beam of light rush straight to the cave's entrance and hit one of the crowd. Unfortunately for the shaman, that slowing effect that the shaman's curse spell originally intended to cause was directly cancelled by the resistance of the team member.

Seeing the fact that Kai had begun to use his spacial mastery, everyone watching from was now confident in Kai's victory. After all, this kid was the true monster.