Chapter 22
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After showering my dear Partner with some affection, we decided to continue through this damn dungeon! It has been a nice ride, and thankfully, the next floors were cheap and easy.
“Ah! Right, I forgot, the new partner… I am just happy with only you, but I guess we really need a new party member… Or many more… It would honestly be a headache to find them EXP to level up, though…” I sighed.
“Exupe…”
“Well, I am abbreviating it, but it is said as ‘Experience Points’,” I said.
“Expewience Point…”
“Yeah, just like that! You’re learning pretty fast, aren’t you?”
I quickly took out the bones I stored in my inventory. I didn’t want to use smelly meat to make some flesh zombie or something because I don’t know if that could even be possible with butchered meat that was mushed all over. I piled up the bones of the Manticore, which were solid and sturdy, alongside those of the Lizards we fought. There weren’t any other bones than these guys, as the other creatures were boneless. The bugs had carapaces, but that’s technically not bones.
“Should I raise them separately?” I pondered to myself.
As the dungeon goes deeper, monsters become stronger, so these weak level 1 skeletons wouldn’t amount to anything against a group of slimes and wouldn’t even be able to safely leech for EXP because for that they need to land at least one hit.
And before that even happens, they will get eaten in an instant. After all, they’re all delicious bones, so the monsters around here would gladly give them a try in order to get some calcium running through their body.
Due to that, I decided to use the entire pile of bones to raise a single individual, hoping that adding more bones would make a difference… I considered giving it flesh, but I couldn’t help thinking that the flesh would be left behind… Well, I don’t lose anything putting some over it. I also added some slime cores, the basilisk’s eyes, and a bit of the manticore’s black fur, which was absolutely gorgeous.
Let’s see what kind of weird thing comes out of this mix-up of materials…
“[Fake Life]!”
FLASH!
I used [Fake Life] with the intention of making a single being with the items before me. And as phantasmal energies began to be absorbed from the environment, it slowly formed a phantasmal soul, which infused itself into the pile of items.
Suddenly, a wondrous sight shone before our eyes. The bones began to pile up and rearrange themselves into a figure resembling the manticore, but way stronger and much bigger. The flesh, which was a mixture of all the fleshy creatures we killed, began to move around like a slime before sticking to the bones. The black pelt of the manticore stretched itself and covered the entire body as the basilisk eyes inserted themselves into the empty eye sockets… The Slime Cores mixed inside of the empty body it had, filling it with colorful mana.
And it was done.
Ding!
[You’ve Raised a [Undead Black Cat Chimera]!]
Black Cat?!
And it looked… like a cat, yeah, but enormous. More like a panther! It took some of the shape of the manticore, which was more lion-like, but its ears were more like a house cats’ ears, and it had a thin black tail instead of a snake. And from within it, I could feel a strong aura radiating outwards… It looked at us with the Basilisk eyes it had, flashing with eeriness.
“A cat…”
“Cat?”
“Meow!”
The giant black cat sat down and glanced at us before meowing. Uwah, it’s actually cute…
“I’m gonna name you Kuro! Nice to meet you.”
“Meow!”
Ding!
[You’ve named your servant [Kuro]!]
Now let’s check Kuro’s stats!
…
[Name: [Kuro]
[Race: [Undead Black Cat Chimera]
[Level: [1/15]
[Rank: [F+]
[Status: [Happy]
[HP: [95/95]
[MP: [72/72]
[Attack: [86]
[Defense: [75]
[Magic: [82]
[Agility: [85]
Characteristic Skills:
[Undead: Lv–]
[Chimera: Lv–]
[Dark Element: Lv–]
[Artificial Elemental Cores: Lv–]
[Fiend Language: Lv1]
[Shapeshift: Lv1]
[Self-Regeneration: Lv1]
[Flesh Consumption: Lv1]
Resistance Skills:
[Status Effect Immunity: Lv–]
[Physical Damage Resistance: Lv1]
Normal Skills:
[Life Drain: Lv1]
[Cursed Black Flare Breath: Lv1]
[Shadow Claws: Lv1]
[Fireball: Lv1]
[Water Bullet: Lv1]
[Thunder Shock: Lv1]
Title Skills:
[Servant of the Dark Witch: Lv–]
…
I don’t know what gender it is, but I will call it boy for now because the manticore was a male. First of all, the stats are pretty good! Kuro started right away as an F+ Rank Monster, meaning that it had higher stats from the get-go, but it needs more levels to evolve. But, some exciting news is that it also came with more skills than I expected!
[Shapeshift] seems to help him become smaller or bigger, with a max height of plus one meter, but he can reduce his size with much more ease. And the limit is about the size of an actual cat… Very cute.
He also comes with the [Artificial Elemental Cores] Skill, which helps him use other elemental magic without having its original affinity. Although this seems limited and doesn’t have much potential, but at least it works.
He has many attacking methods, being [Cursed Black Flare Breath: Lv1], [Shadow Claws: Lv1], [Fireball: Lv1], [Water Bullet: Lv1], and [Thunder Shock: Lv1]! I remember that breath that almost killed us back then… [Shadow Claws] seem pretty good as well.
However, what surprised me is that he didn’t come with an evil eye of petrification… does he need something to trigger its power? Or maybe he could get it after evolving… I hope, or I just wasted some precious materials.
“Meow!”
Kuro received our caressing as we touched his fluffy hair. After that, he let us ride on him. By materializing legs and sitting on his back, Kuro can carry me around. Partner sat down in front of me and then let me grab her shoulders. And just like that, Kuro rushed downstairs as we began to slaughter the monsters we encountered along the way.
We found some more slimes, but not as many, a few beetles, and another illusion lizard, which Partner killed by jumping over its head and impaling it with her spear. The monster’s EXP wasn’t as good now that we required so much to level up… but it was better than nothing! I grabbed the drops, but we didn’t find anything worthwhile, and Kuro couldn’t equip the items. But at least he leveled up a bit.
After a breeze, we reached the last floor…
[You gained 1156 EXP]
[EXP: [1156/1800]
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