Chapter 59 – Approaching The Heart.

Within a seemingly empty corridor, a small rock tumbled down from the ceiling. It collided with a motionless suit of bronze armor that had crumbled to the ground. A faint clang echoed through this tunnel and soon the place returned to silence. For a moment, nothing stirred, and the corridor remained shrouded in a dim, eerie stillness.

Then, with a slow creak, the armor began to move. Its form which consisted of bronze plates started to gradually shift to iron. The metal creaked as the coloring shifted to the new grayish tone. Every joint and every plate started creaking as it continued to change into a new twilight iron metal. The change taking place was rapid but still took around a full minute for it to fully encompass the whole body of the armor. Soon after, a glow appeared on the visor and the monster creaked to life.

“I’m back…”

Rusty felt as if he was waking up from a long dream as one of his digits twitched. His body, though not changing in form all too much, had gone through a massive change. The bronze that he had been born with was no more, replaced by a thick mass of twilight armor. He attempted to stand up but quickly felt that his body was balanced differently, the two metals clearly having a different weight to them.

“This might take a while to get used to…”

Rusty stood slowly, feeling the weight of his new body settle into place. Bronze was heavier than iron but this new body had thicker plating. He moved his limbs around, adjusting to the different balance and heft. The new iron shell was actually slightly heavier, and he knew it would offer him more protection in the battles to come.

The corridor was silent, and Rusty took a moment to gather his bearings. He had just gone through a new evolution and spent months inside of the Soul Forge. His current location was before the Dungeon Heart chamber, in which he wished to alter his fate. However, first he needed to check his new status screen to see what he had turned into.

“All of my stats have risen, but I’m only an E rank…”

There were some good things about his advancement but also some bad ones. His durability had broken into the D rank, but he was still only an E rank monster, not even rated as high as the boss he had defeated. In the past, he had skipped the middle evolution and directly achieved the F-Plus rank, but this time around it seemed like he would need to work more to enter a higher tier of being.

“I wonder if that scary-looking form was an E-Plus rank? Maybe I should have gone with it… but then I probably wouldn’t have been as good at crafting.”

Rusty pondered if he had really made the right decision in going with the middle armor option. It looked the simplest of all of them but was also the most balanced option. His guides told him that sometimes it was better not to rush things, and going through more evolutionary options would allow him to gain more skills.

“Did I learn any new skills?”

Usually, after going through an evolution, he received some type of skill. This time around, it was the same, but he didn’t get a new one. Instead, it was something he had previously seen before.

“Isn’t that the skill Gleam had? Does this mean that I can cast spells now?”

Just like with any other skill, once it was given to him, the information on how to use it was integrated with his being. It granted him the ability to sense mana and was probably responsible for the glow that his visor was producing. Once the skill was active, he was able to see tiny pale blue dots in the vicinity; it was mana.

“But… I don’t have the Mana Manipulation skill.”

While he was granted this skill, Gleam had more than just mana sense. Without a skill that could turn this mana into spells, it couldn’t be used for battle or anything else. At most, it would let him identify places with high amounts of mana or enchanted items, as they had a higher concentration of it.

Rusty’s glowing visor flickered as he tried to get used to this skill. The first thing he noticed was a strange trail of mana particles. He saw them increase in size and quantity the further down the corridor he looked. They eventually became a mist of magical energy, which made sense since the dragon heart he was after was supposed to be there.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The walls were different; they seemed to be pulsating with power like some type of organic veins. His visor stopped glowing, and the skill was suppressed. It was a passive skill that usually stayed on constantly, but luckily, it could be halted to restore his previous vision. The mana pollution was quite intense here, making other things hard to see.

“Now what…”

His body was undamaged, and the adventurers were not here with him. The plan was always to confront the Dungeon Heart and free himself from the voice. His new Twilight Armor body was more robust and seemed to be able to resist the voice. Before he evolved, he could still hear its whispers from this location. However, before advancing, he needed to see how his other forms would react to this world.

Before confronting his final foe, he decided to test his two new forms. The transition between them was somewhat of a problem. He needed to go into his inventory and place each part into his stash tab. Then he had to replace every piece of his current main equipment individually. This also meant that his old equipment would be stuck in his stash tab, making it difficult to switch out later on.

“Wait… what is this option?”

Before he even started with the exchange, he noticed something. There was a strange new tab that hadn’t been there before. It was not a word he was familiar with, but he pressed it instinctively.