Chapter 99

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nKairos narrowed his eyes as he watched the mana figure in front of him move by slowly inching closer towards him. He didn’t really notice it before, but the sense of finesse had disappeared.

nFor whatever reason, it seemed like the figure was extremely proficient at the techniques themselves, but was unable to chain them together properly.

nKairos imagined that if in their several clashes, the figure followed up with a strike like it did before, he would be in far more trouble.

nHowever, that didn’t seem to be the case. Instead, the figure would awkwardly pause after each time.

nWhile he was thinking, the figure suddenly shifted its stance, raising its sword up and shifting the weight of its foot.

nKairos narrowed his eyes, before abruptly bringing his spear up, but not in the trajectory that the figure was swinging.

nThat was when the figure’s swing suddenly shifted, twisting strangely.

nHowever, it ended up hitting his spear.

nKairos backed up after blocking, to which the figure simply stared awkwardly. If the figure was actually a master, it would’ve just continued with its original strike since he had been wide open to the feint.

nAs he stared at the figure, he gradually came to a conclusion about what the figure was.

nKairos’ thinking shifted vastly. The person wasn’t actually some sort of conscious entity. Rather, it was a set of disjointed techniques.

nIt seemed that the dungeon had somehow picked up on the moves of someone that was actually proficient with the sword. As for how, there were too many possibilities that Kairos could think of.

nRegardless, it seemed that the dungeon was experimenting with using those techniques, trying to see how to use them properly.

nThe corner of Kairos’ lip turned up suddenly.

nHe realized that this was actually a great opportunity.

nKairos was a relatively normal high schooler if you didn’t consider his ability to peek into the future and his tendency to break arms.

nAnd… several other things.

nRegardless, he wasn’t the type of person that understood proper technique. In nearly every fight he has had, his moves were purely out of intuition. Though they were usually effective enough, they were also rather crude.

nIt wasn’t as though he never had any fights with professionals. In fact, he has had quite a plentiful amount. However, the problem with professionals was that Kairos had to take them very seriously, even taking into account his future vision.

nThere was hardly a split second he could lose his concentration.

nAs such, while he had directly experienced their techniques, he also had no clue what they had done.

nOn the other hand, while this blue figure had the technique itself perfectly executed, it had no idea when to execute it or what purpose they were supposed to be used for.

nIn other words, Kairos would have plenty of time to observe the actual execution of the technique.

nWith those thoughts in mind, Kairos rushed forth towards the blue figure but abruptly stopped before getting too close.

nThe figure took a long stride forward before bringing its sword down rapidly.

nWhich missed entirely.

nKairos tried to note the movements of the figure, but it didn’t seem like anything too special. Despite seeing it twice as well, he tried to remember all of the movements, but wasn’t able to catch them in their entirety.

nKairos wanted to see it again and thus tried to back up before rushing in once more.

nHowever, this time the figure pulled back before lunging forth with the sword like it was a spear.

nThis was easily dodged once more.

nKairos furrowed his brows, trying to catch the movement from earlier, but his memory wasn’t so good that he could remember absolutely everything with just one demonstration.

nHe attempted to repeat the same actions to get the figure to repeat the technique, but once again, the figure attempted to use a completely different one.

nKairos clicked his tongue.

nAfter a few more attempts, Kairos eventually realized that the figure had almost never repeated any technique whatsoever. After thinking about it a little longer, he realized that for every attack he had dodged, the figure would never try the same one again.

nAs for the ones he had blocked, while the figure would try them, it wouldn’t do so many times. In fact, he hadn’t seen it do the same technique more than three times in general.

nKairos came to realize that this dungeon seemed to care more about results more than anything. That would be its first goal before anything else.

nIn other words… if he were to get hit, the figure would probably do it again.

nKairos’ thoughts began to divert into strange territory. He imagined that he should let himself get hit.

nIt was thought that was quite different from what people would usually think.

nThough, considering he had used his future vision to feel the pain of stabbing himself with a knife before, it wasn’t too outlandish.

nKairos had the intention of letting himself get hit with the next strike, but at the last second, he suddenly dodged out of the way.

nAnother consideration had popped into his mind. He could only let himself get hit so many times before it would become quite dangerous. Though he had the green orbs, that didn’t change the fact there was a limited amount of injury he could take.

nAs such, he couldn’t just take injuries willy-nilly.

nIf he had picked a technique that was extremely difficult to follow, then he wouldn’t be able to learn it quickly enough in order to learn how to execute it himself.

nKairos hesitated for a moment before extending his future vision to two seconds. Although his increased willpower reduced his stress considerably, it didn’t change the fact Kairos felt it was very taxing on his mind.

nFrom there, he began examining all of the techniques that the figure would throw at him.

nThe figure did a swing that caused its grip to suddenly shift, causing it to change from an overhead attack to a sweeping attack. Kairos dodged it, deeming it to be too difficult to learn.

nThen, the figure performed a swing that appeared to start from down low before suddenly going upwards. However, it was actually a sweep. Kairos dodged this one too, as he caught the fingers of the figure moving in a particular fashion.

nThough he wasn’t sure, he frankly did not think he could learn a technique that required his fingers to shift in a certain way to learn.

nThe figure continued to do several more techniques, all of which Kairos felt were either too advanced or simply not that useful in general.

nBut eventually, there was one that caught his eye.

nThe figure swung its sword forth while holding the handle in a reverse grip. It made it seem as though the sword was going to slash, as though it was getting ready to fling in that direction.

nHowever, the hand that was shifting directions suddenly stopped, before reversing and shooting toward him like a dagger.

nKairos could’ve actually dodged this rather easily, just by standing still.

nHowever, he instead decided to pretend he was trying to get away from the slash and brought his arm up.

nA sharp bang resounded followed by a quiet dripping sound.

nThe sword had pierced into Kairos’ forearm but was stopped by his bone. His blood began dripping down onto the ground, while the figure paused momentarily, seemingly shocked.

nKairos backed up, while the figure immediately performed the same strike in an attempt to hit him once more, but he had already gotten too far away.

nThe figure then rushed forth, moving its arms in a way that obviously showed it wanted to do the same thing again.

nKairos narrowed his eyes as he stopped extending his future vision.

nIt definitely hurt to get slashed by the sword. And also the fact his palms were still scarred meant his previous actions with the spear also hurt.

nHowever, he couldn’t even really focus on them.

nBecause there was a debilitating headache that he was experiencing, which was far greater than any pain he had experienced.

nThough Kairos had gone through various painful experiences, the worst part of them was actually the surprise factor. It wasn’t that they hurt less than his headaches, but the pain would eventually dull and go away.

nInstead, it was the constant pain on his mind that felt so much more taxing. Like he was being slowly tortured.

nHowever, that could finally be put to rest.

nKairos’ eyes widened slightly as he brought his arm forth once more.

nA slash resounded, soon followed by a splatter.

nHe had gotten hit once more. Quite a bit of his blood had splashed, landing on the floor. Though there was no mess made as it rapidly disappeared the moment it touched the ground.

nKairos could feel adrenaline coursing through his body with greater strength.

nAnd it didn’t feel too bad.

nRegardless, he didn’t forget his original purpose, which was to learn the techniques. Thus that was exactly what he did.

nKairos watched the figure’s initial position carefully. He didn’t just take into consideration how it held the sword, but also the positioning of its legs to know how it shifted its weight and bent its knees.

nThough, he did it all one at a time, focusing intently on the movement of a specific part and learning it first.

nKairos had used the same arm to defend himself, taking more and more injuries that caused his bleeding to gradually speed up. It would’ve actually stopped if just a bit more time was given to heal, but he didn’t seem to be concerned about that.

nInstead, he slowly began learning.

nThe grip he needed.

nAt what point he should cancel the momentum.

nHow to shift his body weight to prepare for the next attack.

nAnd the muscles that suddenly tensed to make a thrust.

nCaught up in the learning process, Kairos had taken far more injuries, almost making it look like his arm had been torn up by a wild animal repeatedly.

nHis breathing had become heavy, and he was even panting.

nYet, his eyes were shining brightly, filled with confidence.

nBefore the figure could move, Kairos suddenly took a step forward while his spear was held behind him. It suddenly shot forth, prompting the figure to bring its sword up to block.

nYet, right when the spear was about to hit the sword, it suddenly stopped.

nThen, Kairos twisted his body, before thrusting it forth and piercing the figure’s heart.

nThough there was no tactile sensation of stabbing a person, Kairos still felt that he had done the technique more or less correctly.

nThough, it felt like he was practicing on a block of water.

nNonetheless, Kairos was about to pull back and was getting prepared to stop holding back to finish this thing off. Yet, he stopped himself.

nBecause the figure gave him a look before disappearing all on its own.

nDungeon Currency Transfer – 1 added

nKairos took a deep breath before covering his arm. His muscles were torn pretty badly, while his bone was visible at most locations. Though he used his hand to cover the wound, it essentially did nothing as the injury was too big to stop the bleeding.

nKairos closed his eyes, trying to ignore the slightly lightheaded sensation he felt.

nThough he thought that he might be able to minimize his injuries by using only his arm to block, he quickly found his thinking to be rather naive.

nIt had become quite hard to move his arm, considering the very muscles needed to move it were slashed apart.

nNot to mention, his excessive use of his extended future vision had effects stronger than he anticipated. Once the adrenaline from the fight had completely disappeared, he found himself in quite a bit of pain.

nThough he learned a new way of attacking, it wasn’t done in the best way.

nHowever, Kairos had no plans of stopping.

nIf anything, he considered it to be a success. Though, it could be optimized slightly…

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