The group faced the salamanders on the fourteenth floor while giving their all. Still, their hearts were filled with uneasiness when they wondered how things would be on the next one. In case, they stopped to rest once they reached the entrance to the next level and as usual, Billy went to practice his magic while the others were resting.
"I am starting to feel bad about this... I feel like a slacker," Icarus said.
"Billy is an anomaly among us... you can't compare yourself with him when it comes to training," Meryl said. "Besides, you can use time skip whenever you want to train, right?"
"Yeah, but it is really a problem to use it..." Icarus said and then sighed. "Besides, lately, I have been feeling like we rely too much on our innate skills.".
"Anyone would feel that way while looking at Billy," Meryl said. "His situation is different from ours, his innate skills weren't that much convenient during a fight, so he learned other ways to improve himself."
Icarus and Lucyna nodded. That was true, but they still felt that in any other situation, Billy still would have followed the same path. In any case, Icarus' feeling of shame only increased once the pause ended, and then they reached the next floor. As one would expect, five lava salamanders appeared in front of them, but Billy fired some dark bullets toward them, and in the next moment, they turned into ice statues.
While the others opened their eyes widely in surprise, Billy went to gather the cores of the monsters with a smile of satisfaction on his face. His idea and training worked well... perhaps too well. His idea was to combine gravity with ice magic... at some point, Billy understood that creating constructs with gravity alone would be an ordeal, but what will happen if combines it with other magic attributes? That was the result...
To make that work, Billy couldn't just make gravity pull everything... to reach his goal, he had to push things as well. After many failures, Billy managed to create a magic bullet with ice and gravity that doesn't do anything, until it enters in contact with another source of mana. Both sources of mana had their own properties, but they canceled each other when combined perfectly and that bullet was the result... a spell that made the magic and properties of both attributes to help each other. The cold improved thanks to the push of the gravity... and the ice controlled the force of the gravity by staying nearby.
"Not that I am complaining, but... you are starting to make us look bad," Icarus said while he was helping Billy.
"I couldn't possibly believe that such words would be the same as a complaint..." Billy said. "In a football match, would you ask the adversary to stop scoring after the third goal?"
"We are on the same team, though," Icarus replied.
"If the striker of your team scored five times, would you stop him out of jealousy?" Billy asked.
"I wouldn't know, I always was the goalkeeper," Icarus said.
"Then how about this: screw you and come up with your own examples to make yourself understand that you are being stupid," Billy said.
If anything, Billy was thankful to them despite his words. Despite everything, they made him realize that he shouldn't count on them no matter what... that was his way of thinking before, but that changed a little after working with them for so long. Still, Billy confirmed once more that counting on them was a waste of time, that was why he was more eager than ever to get stronger.
While in the next fights those three were taking their time to deal with the lava salamanders, Billy was wiping out three of them instantly with his new spell. Since the system didn't name it and Billy couldn't feel the spell getting stronger, he decided to call those... Absolute Ice Bullet.
You have learned the skill Absolute Ice Bullet.
It causes your total magic multiplied by a percentage that will be equal to Gravity Manipulation and Water Transformation. The damage caused will increase by two percent with each level up.
Cost: 250 mana
No wonder the spell caused so much damage... At the very least, the spell could cause fifteen thousand points of damage instantly and without counting the nature of the enemy when it comes to magic. In any case, the growth of the skill also would help a lot with each level up, so Billy was really looking forward to using it.
Thanks to the Absolute Ice Bullets, Billy didn't face any difficulties on that floor. Although he was using a bit more mana than usual, he could recover more by absorbing the extra in the environment with the extra time while he waited for the others to end the battle. Still, despite that, they had to walk for twenty hours to reach the entrance of the next level which was another massively deep hole.
"What are the chances of the next floor being one of the deepest ones?" Icarus asked.
"I am pretty sure it is none..." Lucyna replied. "The environment will change drastically, so that is why a single hole is separating the floors... This massive hole can't be compared to the other areas between floors."
"Regardless, I don't think that this dungeon can go on that much deeper, otherwise, it would be impossible for the people of this world to clear it," Meryl said. "The next sector will probably be the last... Prepare yourselves because we will them soon enough."
Billy wanted to say that she was right and wrong. Naturally, few people would be able to reach that far. Staying in such a sector for a single hot was already a feat in itself. However, their presenses changed many things in that world... they couldn't just consider that the challenge was way beyond the ordinary inhabitants of that world because they were already a part of it... in any case, they jumped in together toward the end of that hole.
