Academy Dungeon, second layer.
"Hey, why has your expression been so gross since a moment ago?"
Victoria pierced a monster's core with a precise Flame Spear, watched it disperse into points of light, and bent down to pick up a dropped Basic Gem.
She turned her head, looked at Greg's face with its weird smile, and couldn't help but frown.
"You wouldn't understand."
Greg crossed his arms over his chest, a thoroughly smug smile resting on his face:
"I successfully prevented a tragedy, so I have every right to enjoy the fruits of my victory right now."
In his imagination, Vivian and Lilith were likely sitting in some cozy teahouse in the academy at this very moment, enjoying exquisite pastries while catching up on long-overdue sisterly conversations.
This meant the two must have completely put their conflict behind them and reestablished their bond.
And with Lilith supporting her, Vivian wouldn't be taken advantage of by the Demon King Cult at some point in Act Three.
This was nothing short of a perfect ending where everyone wins!
"Ah, well, a person like you whose inner world is as flat as her chest could never understand me."
Greg sighed, speaking in a tone that sounded lonely at the top.
Victoria looked down at her chest, then raised her head, anger flaring in her gray eyes:
"Hmph, what are you babbling about back there? Those monsters have spawned, and it's first come, first served!"
With that, she turned around and charged straight into the group of monsters ahead, her hand flashing with magical light, looking ready to go on a killing spree.
"Hey, don't be so full of yourself, watch out for another disaster!" Greg called out as he hurriedly gave chase.
Although Victoria's current strength made soloing elite monsters on the second layer child's play, getting mobbed was still very dangerous.
Besides, Greg didn't plan on giving all the monsters to Victoria this time.
Because during the previous raid, he had realized that aside from dark-attribute magic as his trump card, he lacked far too many offensive means.
This placed him in extremely disadvantageous positions under certain circumstances.
So he intended to grind some monsters before the exchange meeting, hoping to pick up a few basic elemental attack abilities to diversify his offensive toolkit.
Furthermore, he also planned to test out a theory.
Greg pulled a polyhedral transparent gem out of his pocket.
The gem was roughly thumb-sized, its facets cut smooth as glass, refracting brilliant light in the dim dungeon illumination.
This was the high-grade Diffusion Gem dropped after killing Thirsting Maw.
When the gem had first dropped, he had gotten a headache over how to split it, given that they had defeated the Floor Boss together.
In the end, Vivian had yielded the gem directly to him, saying, "You need it more than I do."
Seeing that, Greg naturally didn't feign politeness and accepted it directly, since he truly needed the gem to test his idea.
The effect of the Diffusion Gem was: it could disperse the effect of an original spell outward, trading raw power for a vastly increased area of coverage.
Put simply, it converted a single laser beam into a sheet of light.
And according to Greg's theory, the Diffusion Gem ought to work on his dark-attribute magic as well.
If he used World-Devouring Black Flame in tandem with the Diffusion Gem, he should be able to turn a single-target skill into an area-of-effect skill that hit multiple targets simultaneously.
If this truly worked, it would tremendously boost his crowd-clearing efficiency and battlefield dominance when necessary.
To verify his hypothesis, Greg shouted at Victoria, who was battling up ahead:
"Dear Junior Sister, do me a favor and lend me your magic conduit."
Victoria didn't even look back, replying as she fought: "Don't you have your own? Everyone gets issued one upon enrollment!"
"Nope. All that stuff in my room was tossed out as trash long ago," Greg replied with complete confidence.
"You're clearly the trash that ought to be thrown out most."
After tossing out her merciless insult, Victoria unclipped her magic conduit from her waist and threw it backward without turning around.
Greg caught it cleanly.
It was a standard-issue academy magic conduit, featuring two sockets on its shaft.
He carefully placed his high-grade Diffusion Gem into one of the sockets.
Then, Greg raised his palm and cast World-Devouring Black Flame, causing a cluster of black fire to ignite silently above his palm.
Unlike ordinary fire, this flame possessed no temperature at all; it was like a doorway leading into nothingness, causing the surrounding air to warp.
"To show my appreciation, watch me put on a show for you."
He raised the magic conduit, aimed it at the group of monsters near Victoria, and activated the effect of the Diffusion Gem.
A black beam of light spread outward from the tip of the magic conduit, turning into a fan-shaped light screen that engulfed the cluster of monsters.
The moment the black light struck the monsters, eerie black flames instantly burst into life across their bodies.
After struggling together for a brief moment, they all collapsed to the ground, drained of all vitality, showing no signs of life.
At the same time, a series of system prompts chimed in Greg's mind:
[Killed Lava Beetle. Acquired Skill: Earthfire Blast LV1. Effect: Gathers mana to form a molten sphere on the ground, triggering an explosion and burning effect upon activation.]
[Killed Lava Beetle. Acquired Skill: Earthfire Blast, proficiency increased to LV2.]
[Killed Lava Beetle. Acquired Skill: Earthfire Blast, proficiency increased to LV3.]
[Killed Water Hunter Spider. Acquired Skill: Wave Current LV1. Effect: Gathers a high-pressure water wave, creating a powerful impact and soaking effect upon hit.]
[Killed Water Hunter Spider. Acquired Skill: Wave Current, proficiency increased to LV2.]
[Killed Cave Troll. Acquired Skill: Earth Pierce LV1. Effect: Thrusts earth-and-stone spikes from the ground, causing piercing and terrain-destruction effects upon hit.]
[Killed Cave Troll. Acquired Skill: Earth Pierce, proficiency increased to LV2.]
[Killed Cave Troll. Acquired Skill: Earth Pierce, proficiency increased to LV3.]
Increasing his Luck stat really paid off!
He had acquired three basic elemental offensive skills all at once, and their proficiency levels had even leveled up a bit!
This perfectly filled the void in his elemental attack options.
"And the gem really can be used in combination with this dark-attribute magic."
Greg nodded with satisfaction.
Although the damage had diminished considerably compared to when he fought Thirsting Maw due to the dispersion, this proved his hypothesis—the method was viable.
So the issue of reduced power was easy enough to fix.
He only needed to add the high-grade Fission Gem dropped when he defeated Lady Eight-Legs back then, combined with the new type of magic conduit with maxed-out conduction efficiency that Alice and the others were working on, to completely solve this problem and gain a devastating new trump card!
The only slight shame was...
Greg popped the Diffusion Gem out of the magic conduit and scrutinized its surface.
A fine crack had appeared on its mirror-smooth surface, resembling crackle glaze on porcelain, extending from the edge all the way to the center.
Gems had a limited number of uses.
Basic Gems shattered into dust and lost their power completely after a single use. Though high-grade gems could be used multiple times, their charges were limited in the end as well.
Therefore, now that the test was successful, this trump card had to be saved for the most critical moment.
"Greg, you bastard! Repaying kindness with enmity and stealing my prey!"
Victoria's shout came from the battlefield ahead.
She stood amidst a pile of newly fallen monster corpses, hands on her hips, anger blazing in her gray eyes.
She had spent ages painstakingly fighting these monsters, only for Greg to sweep them up in a single move—how could she not be furious?
"Hehehe."
Greg let out a villainous laugh:
"This is the first lesson Senior Brother is teaching you—never hand your belongings to a scumbag!"
He tossed the magic conduit back to Victoria and officially joined the hunt.
The clamor of their battle soon echoed across the entire second layer.
Not far behind them, a jet-black cat perched atop a protruding rock, its vertical amber pupils quietly watching Greg's retreating back.
Nightmare licked her paw and gave a gentle shake of her head: "Though he resisted so much at first, isn't he completely immersed in it now?"
Afterward, she shifted her gaze to Victoria.
The gray-haired girl was locked in combat with an elite monster, her movements agile and her spellcasting proficient, looking nothing like a freshman who had just enrolled.
"And this girl..."
Nightmare's vertical pupils narrowed slightly:
"When I saw her last time, although I felt a slight sense of incongruity, it was extremely faint and almost negligible. But now, I feel as though that incongruity has increased slightly. Is it just my imagination? Or... is there truly something wrong with her?"
Just as Nightmare was lost in thought, she suddenly felt a strange surge of energy.
It was a flood of faith, signifying that the number of her believers had grown once again at this very moment.
Though she didn't know which new faces had joined the church worshipping her, the gathering power of faith was continuously nourishing her shattered Godhood and restoring her damaged Authority.
She could feel her strength returning a little more.
It had reached the point where... she could grant Greg a Divine Protection.
Rate on N.U.
