Mimic Awakening

Chapter 25: More Info

On the 7th floor of the dungeon, a single gryphon is staring at the big chuck of ice before him. What is contained in the ice is the dead body of a muscular male human in heavy armor.

As per his order, Claire conjures a magic circle beneath the ice before it slowly absorbs the whole thing. It is now stored in the storage room of Claire’s secret villa somewhere in the Kingdom of Roheazul.

(And it’s done. He is now safely stored in a secured place.)

(That’s really convenient.)

(We still have some time left before the dungeon boss respawns. What are you going to do, Azrael?)

(Wait, how much time has passed since then? I probably have lost my sense of time after being exposed to darkness.)

(Actually, we are still halfway before the dungeon boss spawns.)

(I see.)

If his perception is still right, that time is roughly equivalent to thirty minutes. It means that this world’s shadowturn is probably around an Earth’s hour. He thinks that the similarities might be coincidences. But regardless of what, he does not have to rack his brain every time to calculate this world’s time into the units he is familiar with.

(For the time being, I would like to hunt for more monsters, preferably on the lower floors.)

(If you want to, I can teleport you to those floors, as I can you spatial magic again.)

Claire has regained her abilities back the moment she entered Azrael’s soul space. The mindscape is an entirely different realm that is beyond the jurisdiction of the physical world. For that reason, Ingrid’s awakened ability cannot reach its target in that plane and the connection was severed.

(You can teleport, huh? As expected of the Great Sorceress. Were your attackers sealed the ones who sealed it?)

(None other than them. If they didn’t, I would have gone back to the surface in an instant.)

(You really are a big deal. To think that someone would want you dead.)

(It is very much politically inclined, but I actually don’t care about it.)

(Politics means the existence of nations... Looks like I have so many things to learn. Anyways, I want to hunt on the 10th floor. Will you transport me there.) freёwebnovel.com

(Very well.)

A second later, a large magic circle appears on the floor before it vanishes alongside the gryphon.

◆◇◆

The moment Azrael lands on the tenth floor, he starts tracking some powerful monsters such as greater dragons, greater drakes, and greater wyverns and hunts them down with ease. As someone who defeated an archdragon, everything in this dungeon is no more than a fooder.

Claire teaches him what kind of monsters he encounters. He learns what their abilities are as well as their weak points. He actually learns that the monsters he has consumes have abilities that he does not know like a gryphon’s ability to compress air slashes using their talons.

He also stumbles upon a colossus golem and takes it down as well. It might have respawned after defeating one earlier.

Several minutes later, Claire reminds him that a shadowturn has passed since he defeated the archdragon. If Azrael was right, he theorizes that a shadowturn is equal to an hour on Earth.

When he asks how many shadowturns there are in a day, Claire tells him that a day is composed of twenty-four shadow turns. Azrael finds it suspiciously similar to that of Earth’s. He also considers that pure coincidences as Claire said that their counting system is based on finger bones excluding the thumb, which is twelve.

Azrael also asks her many things regarding this world. Although Claire thinks they are so basic it considers common knowledge, she still answers his inquiries with pleasure.

In this world, a year is composed of three hundred four local days and divided by eight months with each month made out of thirty eight days. Apparently, the month changes every new moon.

For the units of time in a day, a day takes twenty-four shadowturns. According to Claire, a shadowturn is not also the respawn time of a dungeon boss, but it is also the duration of how long a standard magic spell lasts in the physical world.

Magic spells sometimes need to conjure physically like water, ice, and earth magic. If left unattended, the spells will disappear after a shadowturn. A shadowturn is made up of twenty-four breathspan.

Then, it takes thirty spellturns to complete a breathspan. If Azrael’s calculations were right, a spellturn, which is how long an average spell is cast, is equivalent to five seconds, so a breathspan is one hundred fifty seconds long.

But those new terms are too much for Azrael, so he rather sticks with Earth’s time units.

BOOOM!!!

A huge explosion occurs inside the dungeon boss room. In the chamber are two fire archdragons of the same size. The difference between these two legendary monsters is that while the other one appears to be normal, its opponent is rather headless.

The moment the archdragon rises from its spawn magic circle, Azrael immediately fires his newly acquired attack at it. Azrael just defeated the archdragon once again with one of its own signature attacks, the ancient dragon blast.

Thud.

(You one shot it again. This time, without my assistance.) Claire compliments.

(My raw power almost doubled compared to the last time I was here after all. Plus, this form gives me more affinity with dragon-type abilities.)

(I see. That is quite an observation right there.)

Mages with adept affinity with a fire element can cast a fire fire magic spell rather than a water mage. Claire fully understands how human magic works, but she does not expect that wild magic also applies the same concept. She smiles internally as her curiosity on Azrael grows.

(Well, we will have to wait another hour to fight the boss again. So there is no really a reward or something for defeating it, huh?)

(Fufu. I don’t know where you got that from but that is not how dungeons work. Like I said before, the only thing you can get is the carcass of the boss.)

(I guess you are right. For now, let me feast on this one.)

(Eat well.)

Azrael then drags the archdragon’s body outside the chamber for the respawn counter to start before he proceeds his meal.

◆◇◆◇◆◇

A few days have passed since Azrael started farming the archdragon’s magic cores. During the respawn counter, he and Claire hunt some powerful monsters on the tenth floor, which helps him improve little by little.

Out of all the archdragon magic cores he acquired, Azrael only ate twenty of them and stored the others in either Claire’s Dimensional Storage or teleported them to a physical storage room. He feels like he is satisfied with how much power he gained so far, so he thinks of hoarding some extremely powerful and valuable deep purple archdragon magic cores for future uses.

According to Claire, magic cores are needed for crafting magic items and devices. From Azrael’s understanding, magic cores are basically the rechargeable batteries for those articles.

While the size of the magic core dictates the capacity, the mana recovery speed is based on the color. The recovery speed only applies to the extracted magic core as the ones in the living bodies have different recovery speeds individually.

For example, if Azrael were to use Claire’s purple magic core in a magic item, its mana recovery is not so different from an extracted magic core of the same size despite the massive difference in capacity. But if Claire was still alive, she could recover her mana faster than anyone in the kingdom.

In terms of capacity, an archdragon’s magic core is one of the biggest magic cores out there. With its deep purple hue, it has the fastest mana recovery of all known magic cores. A single archdragon magic core is more than enough to supply power to a city’s protective barrier.

Currently, no nation is in possession of an archdragon magic core as it is a thing in the legends. Almost every capital on the continent is actually being protected by a barrier powered by greater dragon cores. From what he learns from Claire, those magic cores have actually been given by the ancient heroes who once united the continent.

After getting stronger, Azrael has Claire teach him how to use magic spells himself. Utilizing the human vocal cords that he gained from devouring Claire, he manages to cast some low level magic spells through incantations.

Claire thinks that silent casting is not available for Azrael right now, but she sees potential on him and predicts that he would be able to do it in the future. Seeing how fast he picks up the basics, she is afraid that he can do more than silent casting as well.

At the moment, the best thing he can do is something called speed casting, a casting method that shortens the incantation, which is the standard for amateur mages. The number of spells he can cast is only a handful, so Azrael has a lot of things to learn from Claire.

(Your wild magic might be powerful, Azrael, but your human magic isn’t that strong enough to kill the monsters on this floor.)

"Yeah, right." He speaks with his human voice in his griffin form. "Casting human magic requires a lot of effort. Conjuring magic circles, enchanting, visualization. It’s so inconvenient unlike wild magic."

(Sigh. Looks like you need a proper environment to practice. How about moving to the floors above?)

"My magic’s firepower is rather weak, so practicing with weaker monsters would be a good idea. I assume that you can teleport us there, yes?"

(Verily.)