Chapter 28：Overconfidence (1/2)
After realizing such a significant thing, Arthur wondered if he was worthy. He always wondered if someone else fell into that space where Jizo was, would they be in his stead? Would they be better, help others, or have higher ambitions? He didn't know, nor did it matter. He was the one holding the legacy now. What he did was up to him, and he could always think about the complicated stuff Jizo told him later when the time came.
Since he couldn't fuse the rune into his body, he decided to fuse it into his leathered armor. Although it was low-level, Arthur looked at the new artifact he created with a complicated gaze. It was… too easy. He shook his head and decided to not mull over it. He decided to experiment one more thing before he started hunting.
Arthur used two mana cores to create a permanent rune of [Force-II] and as he expected, the rune was more powerful than last time. If he kept adding materials, he would probably reach the boundaries of [Force-III]. Just like earlier, he couldn't use the rune on himself. Thus, he decided to use it on his sword. With the sword's sharp edge as the origin, Arthur directed the rune's force forward. That way, he could activate the rune by supplying mana into the sword and achieve a greater strike than normal.
With his new gear, Arthur felt more confident than before in his hunting. He decided to head deeper into the tunnels if the monsters stopped giving him stats points.
With his new gear, hunting became far easier than before. He used his Protection-I rune when he was attacked, and used the Force-II rune when he attacked the monsters. This way, his strength almost doubled. The power of his strike was the same, but the impact was a lot more if he struck with the rune. If he used Poison Strike too…
Making the Force-II rune on his sword proved to be an extremely wise choice. When he used Poison Strike before, monsters could dodge the corroding poison since it was so slow. However, with Force-II rune acting as some sort of 'water gun' his Poison Strike became more like a poison bullet.
After killing the third pair of monsters for the day, Arthur no longer received any points from them. No matter how much he absorbed, he still gained nothing. He decided to hunt deeper for other species of the goblin ants to gain other stats points.
As he was heading deeper, he avoided the monsters he came across. He didn't want to waste time with them as they weren't useful to him anymore except for their mana cores. He would get back for them later after he hunts the other species, though.
After a while, Arthur detected a different lifeforce in his detection rune. It was more powerful than the previous monsters, but not that much different. He peered into the tunnel the monster was in and saw a giant goblin ant, almost double the size of the two previous species. Its shells also looked harder and it had two scythes-like front legs that looked like weapons. As he was examining the monster, the monster suddenly turned toward his direction. Its eyes looked at his location and Arthur noticed a violet gem in its forehead.
”Kekekeke!” With a screech-like scream, the monster darted toward Arthur's location. Arthur had no idea how it managed to sense him but he retreated and positioned himself in front of the tunnel and waited. When the monster showed its head, Arthur began firing the accelerated poison strikes. Three of the four bullets-like strikes struck their target and one missed.
The monster screeched even loudly but continued to rush forward. Arthur was sure of it now, the monster's scythe-like legs and its shell were a proof this species specialized in combat. Arthur wasn't afraid and he clenched his sword hard, as he supplied even more mana to the rune on it. He then used a Protection rune on himself and activated the one on his armor, creating a double barrier with each one of them having the same amount as his strength. He was confident.