Unlimited Power - The Arcane Path

After making a mental note of trying to replicate the metal the choppers were made of, Leon moved forward. Fortunately, that was a dungeon that didn't have many bifurcations. So, Leon only had to explore the place for a few hours before he could find the boss room. He could have reached much sooner if he had used some potions, but he didn't it.

Although the mechanical spiders made Leon recall real spiders, the boss of that dungeon didn't make Leon remember anything. It was a robot, but it didn't have the shape of an animal, it was not humanoid either. That thing had several blades on the top of its body as if that were the blades of a chopper. It also had a rectangular shape being four meters tall and one and a half wide. There were nor arms or legs. In its place, Leon saw several silver guns, and he quite sure those guns wouldn't shot ordinary bullets… but what grabbed Leon's attention was a hole in the center of that robot. Leon couldn't see anything inside that hole, it was dark for some reason, even though the entire dungeon was well-lit…

"That looks like a problem." Leon murmured.

"It certainly looks," Hammath said. "It is the first time I have seen the boss of this dungeon…"

Before he even turned around, Leon facepalmed… Hammath and Ava were supposed to be around twenty years old, but it looked like their mentality was of someone who was eleven or twelve. It kind of makes sense, considering that people could live more thanks to mana. Still, that was hard to accept since Hammath had the built of the terminator…Truth to be told, Leon felt their presence, but he didn't want to believe that those two would approach that much even after his warnings.

"You guys already did what you wanted to do, right?" Leon asked. "Now, get out of here before I give your grandfather one reason to hunt me."

"Can't we watch you fight?" Hammath asked.

"Do you think I'm here to have some fun?" Leon asked. "I don't know even know if I can take down that thing, and you want to let you watch?"

"If you give me a shield, we can make ourselves useful," Hammath said. "A few arrows also would help Ava in causing some damage."

A vein started to throb in Leon's forehead… it looked like he was arguing with an unreasonable brat. Still, that wasn't a half-bad idea. If someone could draw the monster's attention now and then, he would have many more chances to attack, but that also was too risky. Mostly because Hammath and Ava could die and Gurr would blame Leon, but also because Hammath was being too friendly and surviving a battle against a powerful enemy would only make him more troublesome.

"If you let us help, we will tell you the location of the next nearest dungeon," Hammath said.

"Why do you guys want to fight that thing so badly?" Leon asked.

"Because we want to get stronger," Hammath explained. "It can't be helped, but our people already accepted that we would live the rest of our lives here. I can understand the feelings of those like my grandfather, who has been fighting for so long, but I cannot accept this lifestyle forever, and I have to try at least to make things better."

"Here we go again…" Ava sighed.

"You say that Ava, but I know that you are already sick of this place," Hammath said. "Though you are most sick of the water since it tastes weird and the food since you are a glutton."

"Shut up." Ava looked away.

Leon sighed… even though those two had the appearances of people who have been fighting for so long, in some aspects, they were just children. By the look of things, they never went to the surface, so they dreamed about living in the city above. Leon was aware that kids have difficulty accepting certain things that adults accept as a matter of fact, but Leon could relate to that. In fact, he was fully aware that he was a 'you don't know until you try' person. Still, it was too risky to fight alongside them against an enemy of unknown skills.

"This kind of thing wouldn't be a problem if I could analyze my enemies… the problem is, Analysis only works on things I touch, and I definitely can't touch a living boss."

Leon wondered if calling that thing a living boss made any sense… anyway, Leon, now more than never, felt like he needed to learn the updated version of Analysis. Still, he didn't notice any changes even after concentrating a massive amount of mana in his eyes. Just that wasn't enough.

"What are you doing?" Avan frowned when she noticed that Leon was moving his eyes suspiciously.

Leon ignored her and focused on the task ahead. According to the experiences he had so far, he was pretty sure there was a trigger to learn that kind of skill. He wouldn't have to practice two weeks to learn that, so he wasn't in a hurry.

In any case, the skill Leon was looking for was supposed to be extremely convenient. But considering his past experiences and the things Leon learned recently, he knew that not everything could be so convenient. So, that skill probably had some serious demerits. As long as Leon discover those, he would discover the things he had to do in order to activate the skill.

Leon had to try several different things before he could finally learn the skill. Unfortunately, the result wasn't like he had expected.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Appraisal.

Cost: 10 mana

You obtained 01 status points.

Ava

To activate the skill, Leon had to concentrate mana on his brain and eyes at the same time. But it looked like the level of the skill determined how much information he could obtain from a target, and he could only use Appraisal on things that were within the range of Mana Dominion.