Epic of Caterpillar

58 Undead Corruption

Crina floated around while we ate our breakfast, yelling with anger.

"Hurry up already! Weren\'t you going to do my request?! Hey! Stop eating! Why do you mortals always eat? And Brontes! You don\'t need to eat either!"

I just tried to ignore Crina while I sipped on my tea. However, Brontes tried to explain to Crina why she eats.

"But sister Crina, I like to eat. It\'s very yummy and makes me happy. It also makes my body grow stronger. My body is not fully ethereal like you, I\'m not a High Spirit"

It seems that the big difference between Spirit Classes is if they are ethereal or corporeal. Corporeal is most of the living beings in this world, made of mass, any type of mass, flesh, slime, minerals, plants, etc.

While Ethereal are beings composed entirely of elements or pure magic. Crina is a pure ethereal being, while Brontes is both corporeal and ethereal. This is why she can recover even from lost limbs so easily just by absorbing magic from the environment.

Well, it\'s not like Crina can\'t eat things, as she ate a lot yesterday. It seems that she can absorb the energy on these foods and digest it with her water body, similar to slimes, but not really. It\'s weird… Brontes needs constant food to maintain the energy on her semi corporeal body, she can replenish some from the magic on the environment but it\'s usually not enough.

Most of Meiji spirits are semi corporeal. Only two of them were purely ethereal, being Hypnos and Aether. These two also result to be the strongest. I wonder if they were revered in the past.

On the way towards the fourth floor, I decided to drink an [Antidote] and a [Strengthening Potion] from the rewards of the previous two bosses. Antidotes can cure most weak ailments like Poison, Paralysis, and Sleep, they tasted like a very sweet honey with some herbal hints. On the other hand, Strengthening Potions buff your Strength stat by +20 for 30 minutes, it tasted like a very spicy liquor.

[You learned the following Skills]

[Antidote Secretion]

[Antidote Flesh]

[Muscle Reinforcement]

My special blessing ended up making the buff effect of the Strengthening Potion a passive effect and permanently reinforced my muscles. While it absorbed the healing properties of the Antidote and gave my flesh such properties. Alongside my Poison Immunity, I have a very high resistance to Paralyze and Sleep.

My wives and Gaby ended up doing the same, obtaining the skills. Meanwhile, Crina watched us with a surprised face while saying "Geeeehh".

"H-How can you do that?"

I glanced at Crina with a confused look.

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"That! You just absorbed the essence of the items into your own body! How did you even do that? You are a mortal! Only the strongest of spirits were even able to do such things!"

I still don\'t have much trust in this spirit. I should keep my mouth shut for now and pretend to no understand.

"I don\'t get what you\'re saying. Anyways, you already got me tired with your pointless ramblings. Let\'s keep going"

When my wives and Gaby saw my response, they also played dumb. They are very smart girls.

"H-Hey! Don\'t ignore me! Wait a second! Don\'t leave me behind! Fueeeehh!"

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What I noticed from the fourth floor is that alongside all the previous floor monsters, there were more things than just slimes. Now there were two new types of non-slime beings. These were Red Cyclops Frogs and Ferocious River Lizardman. These lizardmen seemed to have very basic intelligence and weren\'t as complex as the surface species. They only carried very ragged clothes and weapons made out of bones and stones. They tried to attack us the moment they saw us.

Red Cyclops Frogs are big frogs of around 3 meters tall, they have a big spherical eye on the center of their faces and their skin is completely red. They attack with their powerful muscular tongues and can shoot boiling water.

I really wanted to taste this new type of meat, so I joined the hunt myself, annihilating most of the living beings on the entire floor in less than an hour. The Lizardmen seemed to have a small cave where they protected their women and children. The moment I saw the small Lizardmen kids and their mothers trembling in fear, I decided to leave them alone. However, I had no mercy against the warriors that tried to take me on. I drank their blood and ate their souls, however, some sneaky souls managed to run away.

After drinking this new type of blood, my blood finally evolved.

[Your blood has successfully evolved: Ancient Aquarian Merfolk Bloodline > Ancient Lizardman Tribe Bloodline]

[You gained +10 Blood Strength]

[Ancient Lizardman Tribe special Class tree has been successfully unlocked!]

I thought about enslaving them and adding them to my Kingdom so they can enjoy better living conditions, but it wasn\'t the time for that, maybe when I get back. The Lizardman looked me with surprise as I left their hideout intact.

Sometimes I wonder if I\'m really doing the right thing, I should just kill them and make myself stronger, right? But when I saw my wives looking at me with happy faces, I understood that I did the right thing.

However, Crina seemed to not like my decision.

"Eeeh? Why didn\'t you kill those pests? They are just using my precious shrine as a place to live and leech on our magic! You should have killed them!"

Once again, everyone ignored Crina.

"H-Hey! Where are you going? Wait for me!"

Even Nereid wasn\'t as annoying. No. Now that I think about it, they are equally as annoying.

[You gained 263280 EXP] [The rest of your servants gained some EXP]

[You gained two levels!] [LEVEL 38/70 EXP 48940/180000]

[Your servants gained tons of levels!]

We went to a small open room and I cooked the meat into a delicious hot pot. I added the leftover Walking Mushroom alongside veggies and spices. A delicious fragrance of seafood and mushrooms began to emerge.

The Red Cyclops Frog meat was very tender and creamy, almost melting on my mouth. It tasted like chicken for the most part, but had a distinctive seafood flavor on it, alongside a small spiciness. The Lizardman meat was way harder, but every time I munched on it, delicious juices would enter my mouth. These Lizardman seem to survive by accumulating grease on their bodies, this is why their meat was so juicy.

[You obtained the following Titles]

[Merciless Amphibian Killer]

[Merciless Lizardmen Killer]

[You and your servants learned the following Skills]

[Menacing Eye]

[Enhanced Muscular Tongue]

[River Lizardman Physique]

[River Lizardman Scale Formation]

[Piercing Thrust]

Not so many skills, however, the food was delicious. My wives enjoyed the comforting meal and everyone asked for seconds. Crina ended up joining at the end and enjoyed the food too.

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When we entered the fourth-floor boss room, we found out it was the big boss of all the River Lizardman. It was a massive Lizardman of around 30 meters tall, it had muscular legs and arms but a big belly and was sitting on a throne. I noticed that most of the room was filled with food. He probably takes it all from the weaker Lizardman. His weapon of choice was a big aquamarine-colored Axe.

Although it was rather fatty, it moved around the room with masterful techniques. It was a rather tough nut to crack. That, until my wives, went serious. Brontes decided to slap the Lizardman on the face with her Red Thunder enhanced Club. Blowing its entire face into minced meat, killing the boss instantly.

[You gained 205700 EXP] [The rest of your servants gained tons of EXP]

[You gained one level!] [LEVEL 39/70 EXP 74640/190000]

[Your servants gained tons of levels!]

[Everyone on your party have received a [Reward Gift (Rare++)] x2 and [Speed Enhancing Potion Pack (3)] on your Item Box]

Brontes looked over the big mess that she made and began to clean the blood over her body.

"S-Sorry… I did a big mess…"

All of us ended up being covered on the Lizardman Emperor\'s brains and blood, so I had to clean everyone with my [Hydraulic Manipulation].

Due to my recent skill fusions, I obtained a strange abnormal status named [Insatiable Appetite], so I used this as an excuse to cook the Lizardman Emperor and we ate once again a bit hot pot. I also fried some of its meat into delicious crunchy slices. Crina was already accustomed to this as she watched us from the back.

The Lizardman Emperor meat was even more greasy and juicy than before, it even reminded me of Earth\'s bacon from time to time. Its body was rather massive so we ended up storing a lot of this delicious meat. I also managed to consume his soul and got a small buff on my Soul Stats.

[You gained +20 to every Soul Stat]

[You gained +5% Soul Mutation]

[You and the rest of your servants learned the following Skills]

[River Lizardman Emperor Mighty Muscles]

[River Lizardman Emperor Aquamarine Scales Creation]

[High All Water Resistance]

[Mighty Triple Slash]

[You learned the following Skill]

[Forbidden Summoning Magic: River Lizardman]

"Ah! Another summoning magic?"

The Lizardman summoned were quite strong, as strong as the ones we encountered earlier. And they also had the potential to evolve and become stronger on their own, however, they didn\'t have any intelligence and seemed to act like undead most of the time. They also lacked a soul and their meat tasted like paper, without any nutrition. I didn\'t get any skill from them either.

Before leaving the boss room, we made sure to take anything that the Lizardman Emperor had around. I even took his big throne. He had several chests full of gold and gems, and there was a big pile of monsters and Lizardman bones around. He probably ate its own kind.

We ended up obtaining around thirteen thousand human gold, around 12 Spirit Gems and 3 [Rare+] magic weapons.

On the way towards the fifth floor, I opened the two Reward Gifts and got a weird Item on my first gift, it seemed to be a golden ticket with a rainbow luster every time I moved it.

[Dungeon Monster Gacha Ticket (Unique and above increased): Exchange this ticket in any dungeon that you possess for a chance on getting a random monster for your dungeon with increased rates for [Unique] monsters and above]

So that\'s was what it was… I should give this to Zehe, she liked a lot the dungeon management.

The second item was a strange pin with the face of the Lizardman Emperor, the pin had a cute Lizardman Emperor face winking at me. It was rather hilarious.

[River Lizardman Emperor Lucky Pin (Rare++): The Cute River Lizardman Emperor will help you on your travels with this stylish and hilarious pin!]

[Effect: Grants +5 Luck]

Although the Luck stat was tempting, I would never wear such a ridiculous thing. The rest of my wives didn\'t like it either so I ended up gifting it to Gaby, who found it extremely cute.

"Ooooh! Thank you for the gift, Master! Hehehe! How does it look?"

"I-It looks beautiful in you, Gaby. Very fitting…"

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When we finally reached the fifth floor, we were greeted by an immense number of monsters. There were so many that they could barely move around. Most of the monsters making this floor were Undead River Lizardman and River Lizardman Skeleton. There was a stronger variant that was covered on a slime reinforcing its power named Slimy Lizardman Lich.

I had to use various of my Blast related skills to make some space for us. Using [Red Beam of Annihilation] and [Divine Punishment], I ended up blasting around hundreds of the smallest ones until the floor finally became more peaceful.

[You gained 278560 EXP] [The rest of your servants gained tons of EXP]

[You gained one level!] [LEVEL 40/70 EXP 163200/202000]

[Your servants gained tons of levels!]

Crina began to inspect the monsters.

"Hmm… There are too many undead, it shouldn\'t even be possible for the undead to be born here, this is supposed to be a holy place… Perhaps, the corrosive magic essence made this place rot faster than I anticipated"

Suddenly, Crina began to tremble. She had a bad feeling about all of this.

"K-Kireina! Please let\'s hurry to the boss\'s room! There must be something wrong!"

"I also felt it, let\'s go"

We quickly rushed through the dungeon rooms as we slew the immense hordes of undead coming our way, it was as if it would never end.

When we reached the boss\'s room, my wives and Gaby decided to keep the undead at check while I kill the boss.

As Crina rushed at my side, I used all my strength to open the door.

BOOM!

We were meet with an interesting sight, however, Crina seemed to begin panicking in fear.

This floor boss was an immense Undead Slime made of countless bones, it possessed several cores of various sizes and colors, and on its center, one colorful aquamarine-colored core shined brightly. It was the one with the strongest magic.

"I-Impossible! This monster has successfully unsealed one of the spirits, and decided to use it as its core! Kireina! That spirit is in grave danger, if the monster keeps feeding on her power, she will quickly dissipate into nothingness!"

While Crina was shouting like a maniac, I was already reading my powers. I quickly activated my [Four-Armed Crimson Wyvern Magic Reflecting Armor] as my body was covered on a thick layer of red-colored silver armor, I also gained two new pairs of arms and two wyvern heads at each of my shoulders. I also summoned my three weapons, Demon Sword Ollathir, Wind Bow Mercedes and Flaming Axe Vulcan.

After noticing such a strong presence, the massive Undead Slime became aware of us and quickly regained its original form, compressing itself into an almost perfect spherical ball. It used magic to order the bones inside of it to combine, forming six large bone arms. Without a second of delay, it rushed towards me while enhancing its bones arms with a powerful magic spell.

Crina shouted telling me to avoid the incoming attack.

"Gyaaah! Dodge! Quick!"

"There is no point in dodging"

BOOOM!

The powerful attack from the Undead Slime was suddenly stopped by both my sword and axe, using them on a cross position. The boss began to question why such a powerful and concentrated blow didn\'t even generate a hole on the dungeon floor.

I let out of a powerful intimidating aura. Which made the whole Slime body tremble as it quickly tried to take out his skeleton hand from my weapons. To his surprise, the whole arm was stuck tightly on my weapons by a powerful slimy fluid.

Feeling its impending doom, the Slime detached its whole skeleton arm as it flew at a good distance and began to cast countless magic circles, throwing a myriad of magic spells, most of them being of Shadow and Dark element.

，

Flash! Flash! Flash!

I decided to test the magic reflection capabilities of my Wyvern Armor as I stood up and received all of the magic attacks. Several explosions filled the room with smoke.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Just as I thought, with each magic attack, a thin, transparent coating reflected most of the magic damage dealt to my armor.

The Undead Slime realized that my presence never faded as it began to shot more magic attacks, and even detached its other bone arms as it commanded them to attack me with all their might.

While reflecting the rain of spells, I intercepted the five skeleton arms with my weapons, masterfully using the techniques learned from my previous foes. Slashing a skeleton arm in half, shattering another with my axe and making some explode with powerful wind arrows.

Although this boss was very powerful due to the spirit that was feeding it magic power, if I compared it to beings like Herbell or the Undead King, it would fall very short.

When I finished testing my skills around, I decided to end the fight with [Divine Punishment]. I saw as the Undead Slime struggled in pain while a powerful holy light slowly disintegrated its body. This holy light didn\'t damage its cores and the spirit, as it only targets Undead or monsters and spirits aren\'t certainly monsters. Holy magic has always been very interesting.

[You gained 214270 EXP] [The rest of your servants gained tons of EXP]

[You gained one level!] [LEVEL 41/70 EXP 176270/214000]

[Your servants gained tons of levels!]

[Everyone on your party have received a [Reward Gift (Unique)] x2 and [Defense Enhancing Potion Pack (3)] on your Item Box]

Crina looked with amusement as the thing that she feared so much quickly died at my hands.

"K-Kireina… Just how strong you are…?"

I pointed at the aquamarine-colored core that contained the spirit.

"Weren\'t you worried about that?"

Crina saw as her precious companion tried to break free from the crystalline core.

"Awawawa! L-Let me help you!"

The spirit inside the core seemed to still have some energy left, as I helped it slowly feeding it my MP. The spirit seemed to be a small sapphire, when it regained enough magic, it took a similar form to Crina, looking like a small girl made of sapphire.

The new spirit name was Saphirae, it had a calmer personality and wasn\'t as annoying as Crina. When my wives and Gaby finished killing all the undead outside, we made a quick meal using the ingredients that I already had on my Item Box. I wasn\'t going to cook some bones and cores.

However, while waiting for the meal to be ready, I slowly dissolved and consumed the bones of the Undead alongside the slime of the Slime Lizardman Lich because the slime that made the boss was completely vaporized. I also ate its cores, well, most of them, there were over one hundred. All of them exuding with strong magical power. Zehe told me that they could be used to make strong weapons and armor.

[You learned the following Skills]

[Slime Lizardman Lich Core]

[Undead Slime Emperor Core]

[Undead Bone Manipulation and Combination]

[Unseal]

[Spirit Sealing]

[Absorption]

I obtained a lot of weird skills from these beings, especially the boss. It seems that it used [Unseal] to easily unseal the spirit, and then immediately used [Spirit Sealing] to seal it again inside its body. Afterward, it used [Absorption] to absorb its magic and easily replenish itself with almost infinite MP.

Crina told me that if this boss has been left alone for some more time, it would have grown out of proportion and easily take over the whole dungeon, probably taking even more spirits to become even stronger.

Also, Saphirae and Crina doesn\'t seem to be friends at all, probably being born at different times, they never had the opportunity to meet each other in the past. Sephirae also told us that she didn\'t remember how the monster unsealed her. But that one day she woke up inside it. She\'s probably suffering from temporal amnesia due to the severe damage that she took from the monster sucking her magic.

Because spirits are Ethereal beings, if one absorbs too much of their power, they may begin to lose their own memories and even emotions, this is due to their entire body being made of magic, they can only store their emotions and memories inside their whole bodies as they lack a flesh brain.

I can already see that the next bosses will probably have more spirits inside them, reinforcing their power.

After having a quick meal to recover Stamina, we proceeded towards the next floor.

On the way down, I decided to open my two [Unique] Reward Gifts. The first gift gave me a [Undead Slime Dark Adamantine Ring], it gave me some extra stats and the skill [Forbidden Summoning Magic: Undead Slime]. The second gift gave me weird [Unique+] Potion… It was named [Affection Potion]. If I give it to anyone, it will increase their Affection towards me. I don\'t really like the manipulative nature of this item, although I\'m quite manipulative myself…

I decided to just drink it alongside the other Potions I had. It had a weird liquor flavor with an alluring womanly fragrance.

[You leaned the following Skills]

[Affection Enhancement]

[Skin Reinforcement]

[Enhanced Speed]

Wait a minute, [Affection Enhancement]? This is dangerous…

[Affection Enhancement: Enhances the affection that others have towards you. Cannot create a sudden affection if the subject previously hates you or holds a grudge against you. After reaching a certain value, affection cannot increase by the use of this Skill]

[Cost: 190 MP]

Even when I found this skill incredibly dangerous, I couldn\'t contain myself from using it, as I silently chanted its activation and used it on Sapphirae. I tried to camouflage the spell with my Illusion magic.

Suddenly, a pink aura covered Sapphirae\'s whole body, as she began to blush a lot while looking at me. When I glanced her back, she immediately moved her face elsewhere in a shy manner.

"Haaah… It actually worked… No way… With this skill, I\'m really the Realm Menace of Lust…"

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We quickly reached the sixth floor and we were greeted by the previous Undead Lizardman alongside a new type of monster. They were named Slime Bone Tarantulas. These strange beings were spiders made of different kinds of bones while covered on a sticky Undead Slime. They had a crimson orb on the center of their body, probably being their main core. There was even a Slime Bone Tarantula Empress and a Slime Lizardman Lich Emperor. Both were quite strong, but Gaby and Brontes quickly took care of them as we approached the boss room.

[You gained 195470 EXP] [The rest of your servants gained tons of EXP]

[You gained one level!] [LEVEL 42/70 EXP 157740/230000]

[Your servants gained tons of levels!]

On the way towards the boss room, I quickly consumed some corpses of the monsters, barely obtaining any skill. I probably already got anything of importance from these guys.

[You gained the following Skills]

[Slime Undead Tarantula Empress Crimson Core]

[Enhanced Undead Senses]

[Paranormal Perception]

This floor boss a powerful Titan made of countless bones and covered in Slimes; it didn\'t have an actual shape as it keeps changing to whatever it felt fit on battle. Gaby and Brontes fought it for a while as the monster showed incredible amounts of intelligence, quickly learning their attack patterns. In the end, Nesiphae, Zehe, and Rimuru stepped in and finished the abomination with a powerful combination spell, creating a powerful rainbow beam.

[You gained 221190 EXP] [The rest of your servants gained tons of EXP]

[You gained one level!] [LEVEL 43/70 EXP 148930/248000]

[Your servants gained tons of levels!]

[Everyone on your party have received a [Reward Gift (Unique)] x2 and [Resistance Enhancing Potion Pack (3)] on your Item Box]

We decided to pass the rest of the night in the boss room as we slowly began to make dinner.

Using my powerful [Cooking] skill, I took a big piece of the Lizardman Emperor and chopped it in small pieces until making it minced meat. Then I made small spherical balls, seasoned them, covered them in flour made with grains from the forest, and deep-fried them in oil.

A delicious smell of fried meat began to fill the room and even the spirits started to droll. Sapphirae was being very close to me due to what I just did some hours ago, and I began to worry that she would become obsessed with me. I wish I could revert this, I didn\'t intend to make her like this. Well, it\'s not like I don\'t like her cuteness and timid nature, she could be a little sister, I suppose.

While waiting for the food to get ready, I slowly digested the boss bones and slime with my body fluids.

[You learned the following Skills]

[Slime Titan Lich Arcane Core]

[Undead Tenacity]

[Forbidden Summoning Magic: Weak Ghosts]

Another summoning magic, this one let me summon various types of very weak ghosts. The cheapest ghost looks like a small face made of mist. And the ones that take the most MP looks like an amalgamation of different faces together, I could see some potential on it. I decided to eat the two that I summoned to see if I get some skills. And I did, I think I\'ve never eaten an actual ghost before. It wasn\'t quite the same as a soul. It seems that ghosts are something different than a normal soul.

[You learned the following Skills]

[Ghostly Cry]

[Deadly Glare]

[Ghost Language]

Ghostly Cry and Deadly Glare seem to be intimidation skills, with the last one having a chance to instantly kill its target, although very low. Spirit Language lets me talk with ghosts; the system doesn\'t translate their language so this is convenient.

After having a nice dinner with my family, I decided to open my Reward Gifts before sleeping. The first gift was a [Unique+] Class [EXP Potion], it gives 50000 EXP and a small buff that increases my EXP gained by 20% for the next 24 hours. The second gift gave me a [Unique] Class [Reinforcing Raddish], this weird item can permanently increase the potential growth of any summoned monster. I decided to save it for now.

Tomorrow we will rush the last bosses and finally conquer this dungeon, I can\'t wait. I hope the final boss doesn\'t disappoint me. Before going to sleep, I decided to use 12 Subclass Skill Points and bought the [Daily Synthesis +6] bonus, now I can fuse up to 25 times per day. This is my current limit for now until I reclass back to another Alchemist subclass.

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*I will post the skill fusions tomorrow.