Undying Warlord

The Minotaur leader was not yet dead.

In fact, Dilan barely destroyed one of its eyeballs while the other eye was barely injured.

It was not severely damaged but its vision was now slightly restricted.

As for the other wounds, they were not as deep as first imagined.

The Minotaur had not been on par with Dilan during the last few minutes.

However, this was mostly due to the difference in their equipment, or to be precise, the advantage Dilan gained from wielding the Blazing Serpentine Blade.

Wielding the Blazing Serpentine Blade properly was extremely difficult but Dilan was capable of doing so.

Thus, he could continue inflicting minor injuries on the Minotaur leader, so as to wear it out and force it to succumb to its fate.

But even after forty seconds had passed the Minotaur leader was still alive.

While attacking the leader head-on, Dilan had also issued attacks on the side to cause lethal injuries to the remaining Silver Tier-1 Minotaurs circling them.

They were no problem for Dilan to handle, not with his Agility exceeding 100 Units.

Only 20 seconds were left before he could finish getting to know his flaws, and figure out how to fix them and how to improve.

His biggest flaw was the quite obvious fact that he relied too much on stats. Fixing this was quite difficult because it was a bit difficult to find opponents with higher stats than him.

And even if he found them, they would be extremely dangerous, meaning that his life would be in danger.

But fighting in a suicidal and reckless way was not something Dilan was afraid of. That was also why he used the last 20 seconds to fight the Minotaur head-on, and not to evade its attacks before using the serpent form of the Blazing Serpentine Blade to fight.

Clashing with the Minotaur head-on, Dilan was quickly pushed back. The Minotaur might have grown weak owing to the various injuries it had sustained but its Strength stat was still at 100 Units which was much higher than Dilan's.

He was forced to retreat, nearly cleaved in half, and killed, just like that. [Ture Weapon Specialist] might be powerful but all the experiences and memories he gained from it hadn't seeped into his body.

That was at least how Dilan looked at the situation as he knew what he had to do but his body took a fraction of a moment too long to make the complex set of movements his brain wanted him to do.

It made things much clearer for him and his movements became smoother the more time passed.

He escaped death by hair's breadth several times, which would be terrifying and fear-inducing under normal circumstances.

However, instead of being afraid, Dilan smiled brightly. His eyes were gleaming, as they were analyzing his every move and picking up flaws while simultaneously the movements of his opponents.

By now, Dilan had figured out the Minotaur leader's rather simple attack pattern.

Through this, it was possible for Dilan to launch a counterattack after he deflected a sequence of more than five slashes and strikes.

The Blazing Serpentine Blade was still unscathed, but Dilan's arm but a numbing pain was spreading through it because of the impact he had to endure from every attack he had blocked.

Nonetheless, it was possible for him to issue a fully empowered counterattack.

He didn't use any abilities other than the already activated [Thunder Step] and [Second Acceleration] as he emerged next to the Minotaur Leader.

Its sword stuck the ground while its free arm was right next to Dilan.

As it was unable to twist its arm to attack him with the free arm, Dilan pushed his body up in the air. He inserted a large amount of mana in the Blazing Serpentine Blade that was shrouded in a thick layer of compressed flames.

This consumed a major chunk of his inserted Mana but Dilan wanted that to happen as the compressed blazing flames increased the lethality of his attack.

A fiery red flash whizzed past the Minotaur leader's head while Dilan was in the air. With a seemingly simple yet accurate slash he had cut through the Minotaur's neck, and neatly sliced through the thick muscles, arteries, and veins.

The smell of charred flesh filled the air as the Blazing Serpentine Blade set ablaze the injury he had just inflicted.

However, that was not all as the blazing flames began to burn into the wound, while simultaneously burning the monster's head.

Seconds passed in which Dilan distanced himself from the Minotaur leader, who was roaring out in unbearable pain.

He had killed the remaining Silver Tier-1 Minotaurs and waited for the death of the Gold Tier-1 minotaur, who had been an extremely tough opponent to defeat.

Dilan didn't rely solely on his abilities and the enhancement he received from his abilities but he still figured that there was a lot for him to learn.

'I still have a lot to learn and to understand…'

Despite his grueling battle, Dilan was not physically tired after the fight. However, his mental strength had drained quite a bit. He collected the Essence crystals of all monsters but didn't absorb them yet.

He wanted to see if he could get a good deal with the Essence crystals, instead of earning one or two status points.

While collecting the Essence crystals, Dilan ignored the messages which he received.

Thus, he didn't even see that an entirely new, yet somewhat familiar emblem had appeared in his Log of the Ancient.

A Symbol with a black circle that surrounded the head of a Minotaur could be seen in his Log of the Ancient, appearing out of nowhere.

Meanwhile, the Symbol that had led Dilan to the Sacred Shop had already disappeared but that was something that was obvious to happen.

[Pagoda of Time has been conquered. The 15th Floor has been cleared successfully. 100 Dungeon Points will be granted.

[<Solo> raid of Pagoda of Time has ended, 15 Floors have been cleared. 15 new records has been set up.]

[Pagoda of Time has been conquered with a new record on each floor. In total, the participant managed to set 8 'Grandiose', 6 'Excellent', and 1 'Good' records. 2800 Dungeon points will be granted.]

[Because the participant was the first one to encounter the Pagoda of Time, Dungeon points will be doubled. 5800 Dungeon Points have been added to the participant's balance.]

The notifications were quite helpful. A mechanical voice in his mind read the notification out loud, which was how Dilan noticed that the voice was different from the one he had heard a few times before.

'Is my mind playing tricks with me or does it feel like the notifications are different than usual?' Dilan was not sure if he was just imagining things or if he noticed something impressive.

In the end, he merely shrugged his shoulders before averting his focus to something else.

He opened the Log of the Ancient, saw the Minotaur symbol, pressed on it and saw a shop similar to the Sacred Shop.

[Dungeon Shop]

[Permission to one Basic Dungeon Shop has been granted. <Taurus the Mighty>]

The shop's name was quite weird, but Dilan didn't give it much thought.

He simply believed that the Pagoda of Time was created by someone who adored Minotaurs. Even if there was more behind it, there was no reason for Dilan to start researching anything.

With the points at his disposal, he could purchase quite a bit. Each Dungeon Point was more valuable than the Sacred Points they had previously received from sacrificing monster corpses.

That meant he could purchase lots of things with the points he procured.

But instead of wasting them, Dilan chose to save them up, potentially to purchase something of exceptional use when he would have the time to research the shop's goods.

However, for now, there was no time because Dilan wanted to leave the Pagoda of Time.

The others had to get to know that the Pagoda of Time existed. It was an exceptional place that was worth entering and honing one's combat skills.

What Dilan didn't expect was to see that it was already in the middle of the night when he left the Pagoda of time.

From the looks of it, midnight had already passed as well.

This was…wrong!

"Why is it already dark? The moon is up? But it should be afternoon right now…"

Dilan was pretty sure that his sense of time was not wrong. He could also roughly gauge the time he had required to clear each of the Floors. Adding them together in addition to a few minutes here and there, it should be early evening at the latest.

"I was only four or five hours in the Pagoda of Time…and I entered it around lunchtime. How is it possible for the day to be over already?? Why does it look like the moon is already going under? Is it the next morning? HOW?"

Dilan was visibly confused but standing around wouldn't help him either.

That was why he left the Pagoda while noticing its exact position. The current situation was quite weird but Dilan was still pretty sure that the Pagoda of Time was exceptional and he had made good use of his time.

His team and other survivors could get their hands on high-quality Essence crystals, excellent training partners, great treasures, and Dungeon Points.

Others might not get as many Dungeon Points as Dilan received, even less because it would be quite hard to break his record but that was more than fine. The <Duo>, or <Group> mode for the Pagoda of Time raid should still have their records a bit easy enough to break.

Yvonne and the others were strong enough to surpass their limits and set new records.

'The Pagoda of Time is quite useful. But it is weird that time passed so fast…wait!? Time…Pagoda of Time…Time passed so fast…fast…accelerated…or slowed down?!'

At that moment, Dilan believed that he figured out what exactly the Pagoda of Time demanded in exchange for providing the opportunity to kill thousands of powerful monsters, earn numerous treasures, and so on.

"What…if the Pagoda of Time does not only note down your combat skills but that the time inside it runs slower as well? One hour in the pagoda is three hours outside…"

"Is it possible for the Pagoda to take time as payment for entering it? Something like that?"

Dilan was quite shocked. In his opinion, the Pagoda of Time took away three times the time he had actually been inside it, meaning that the time inside it passed four times slower than on the outside world.

One hour inside the Pagoda of Time roughly translated into three to four hours in the real world!