Transmigrated as a Ghost

'Finally!'

With carefully precision Marcus disable the last trip wire blocking his path and slipped by the others onto the floor beyond.

After much trial and error, he had gotten his trap disarming skill up to level five and the trip wires had become much easier to deal with.

It was like he had an instinctual feel for how to disable them and on his six hundredth thirty fourth attempt he had made it to the end of the hall without activating a single trap.

This was the condition for clearing this area. As even when he made one mistake, at the end of the hall he would find an invisible and impassible wall before being warped back to the start.

It was an unforgiving trail, but the results could not be denied.

Marcus had gotten the skill up from level one to five in a short amount of time, and now had a far keener understanding of traps.

Now in the future should he ever need to disarm any he would have far greater success.

However, when he walked around the bend in the hallway, he found waiting for him more traps of different design.

'I hate this place. I understand it wants to force me to learn more skills, but I really hate it.'

Unfortunately, there was nothing else for him to do but get started. And so, he began the lengthy process of disarming even more traps. Many that now had magical components as well.

…

'To think there was even a skill for this.' Marcus thought as he shook his head

The majority of his obstacles now had been magical traps, and in his many attempts to somehow deactivate them he had acquired a new skill called glyph tuning.

This skill allowed him to change up the parameters of a set magical trap so long as certain conditions were met. With the main one being that the level of trap was at or below his skill level.

It was around this time that Marcus received a message from Roxene stating that she had reached the end of her path and was now waiting in another central chamber where they would all complete one final challenge together.

'Guess I need to pick up the pace.' Marcus thought as he looked at the trap hall in front of him.

Moving with greater haste he activated more and more traps at first, but his skill level also started going up and he began blowing through the area.

Finally, around a day after he had received Roxene's first message, he heard from her again that Mrazivý had joined her and that he was the last to clear his path.

'I am almost there. I can see the end, I just have a few dozen more traps to disarm. I should be there by the end of the day if all goes well.' Marcus responded to Roxene's prodding.

With great care Marcus made sure to disarm every trap before him. Not wanting to make a mistake that would have him sent back to the beginning to start all over again.

'That should be the last one.' Marcus thought as he disabled a particularly difficult magical trap that would have hit him with a death magic spell. Which would have spelled the end for anyone not immune to such a thing like he was.

Yet as he was about to take the last step to clear the area, his trap sense skill went off in his head and he abruptly stopped.

At first he wondered if he had failed somehow, but he was certain he had made it so that the magic trap would not detect him.

But as he looked closely, he found that there was a devious trick left right here at the end.

Within the magic trap only faintly visible after the first trap was disabled, was a tripwire.

'This dungeon really does have poor taste.' Marcus thought as he went to disable this true final trap.

Luckily it was not overly difficult to disarm, and its danger came only from the fact that it had been completely unnoticeable until the magic trap that had been laid over it was also disarmed.

Having eliminated the last obstacle in his way Marcus checked around once more just to make sure that there was nothing else that would impede him, and when he was satisfied, he stepped over onto the edge of the hallway and in front of the exit door.

'Whew, no extra special trap at the end to screw me over. And I have to say while it was brutal and tedious, I did come out with some rewards.' Marcus thought as he checked the skills on his status page.

His trap sensing skill had now reached level seven, while trap disarming and glyph tuning had reached level six.

Certainly, none of these skills may have been necessary in day-to-day life, but when they were needed, they would be incredibly impactful.

'Now I just need to face whatever this final challenge is with Mrazivý and Roxene.' Marcus thought as he pulled the door open.

He had already made sure that it was unlocked and not trapped, and as expected it opened with ease.

On the other side he saw Roxene and Mrazivý playing some sort of card game with intense focus.

When Marcus arrived though, they both shot their heads up and disregarded what they had been doing.

Mrazivý was the quickest of the two and appeared in front of Marcus with speed he had never seen before.

In a flash she had wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him an impassioned kiss in light of their reunion.

"I was starting to get worried when Roxene informed me that you were having to deal with all manner of traps, but I am glad to see you made it back in one piece." She said with a bright smile.

At this Marcus grimaced, as he had certainly not gotten through in one piece.

In fact, he had learned in quite the unsettling manner that even if his head was severed that he could still survive so long as he bombarded himself with his spirit healing specter power. This did also leave him with the disturbing spectacle of watching his then headless body disintegrate as he formed an entirely new one.

"Well while I may look fine now, it was certainly not an easy experience. In hindsight, I am very grateful that neither of you went down that path."

Marcus then explained how dangerous and difficult it was to go down the skill path that was littered with traps that would have been fatal to most.

Of course, he made sure to omit the most alarming injures he incurred, like him losing his head, or more aptly his body for a few minutes.

"What about the two of you? What did you have to go through?" Marcus asked once he was finished relaying what he had gone through.

To start off Roxene enthusiastically retold of her great battles against powerful foes that had brought her to new heights.

"Good job, you have leveled up two times which is pretty difficult for you. I guess this dungeon really does try to cater to each of us specifically." Marcus said before turning to Mrazivý who was beaming to tell of her own experience.

"For me I had to run across a track in a certain amount of time and if I failed, I would be sent back to the start line. I was also not allowed to use my unique skill for some reason, but that became apparent as I kept going and slowly got faster. In the end I finally achieved a new skill I have never even heard of." Mrazivý said with a proud smile.

Hearing this Marcus imagine that it was this skill that had allowed Mrazivý to move so quickly over to him even without using her unique skill.

"It is called warp step and it essentially allows me to almost teleport myself with how fast I move. I am not exactly sure how its properties work, but there is no wind resistance, so it works differently than speed burst. Though it does take an obscene amount of mana to use."

After Mrazivý had finished explaining about her new skill and how she got it after endlessly trying to reach the goal, Marcus opened up his status and went to the skill purchase page.

'Ah there it is. How much-'

Looking at the skill Marcus went to check how much it would cost to buy and his mind practically stopped working when he saw it.

This was undoubtedly one of the most expensive skills he had ever seen to purchase for just a level one skill.

'Two hundred sixteen skill points. That is nearly as much as silent cast was when I checked on it out of curiosity. Plus, your speed burst skill needs to be at least at level six to obtain it. Just how powerful is this skill?'

Looking between his status screen and Mrazivý, Marcus had started to wish he had chosen the speed path.

While Roxene had gained a couple of levels those were not important to him as such a powerful skill. And even though he had made out with some good skills of his own, they did not actually help with his combat prowess.

"I suppose we have spent enough time reminiscing about each of our challenges. I believe it is time that we move on and deal with whatever this final challenge for all of us is." Marcus said as he cast his gaze to the large double doors on the other side of the room