Chapter 199: Deja Vu

Reinera POV

“You know that this one is most likely a mimic as well right?” Reinera asked with a knowing tone.

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I can sense its mana. It’s almost for sure a mimic,” she said in a disbelieving tone, she couldn’t believe that he was going to insist on trying another chest after what happened earlier.

There is no way he can’t sense exactly what I am seeing. I have just seen Julius overwhelm the entire rift so far.

Overwhelm might have even been an understatement. The way he demolished one of the minor bosses was more like a slaughter. It was a really strong one too, its Concept was a top-tier decay or death aspected one. Her own Concept of Light wasn’t able to hold it off, it needed more development before it stood at that level.

However, that wasn’t the case for Julius’s Concept or Concepts. He was able to overwhelm it and then the boy went on to destroy the undead knight so thoroughly that there was barely a piece of bone left. That pretty much established Julius’s power in her eyes.

He had everything a fighter could want. He had potent fire skills for long-range attacks, kinetic energy for close combat, a healing skill that was pretty much cheating, and numerous other abilities that she could barely start to guess.

But why is he being so dumb? There is no doubt in her mind that this thing was a mimic.

Yet, there she stood as the boy walked toward the chest with a naive smile. She didn’t feel that worried for him, she had already seen him regenerate an arm like a lizard regrowing its tail. Still, it couldn’t be fun to lose an arm. The pain must be excruciating.

Even thinking about the miasma she had experienced made her wince at the sheer memory of the pain. Losing an arm must be way worse. And yet…

“At least don’t touch it with your arm,” she told him.

“Sorry, what’s that?” He asked, already reaching toward the chest with his right arm.

Why did I even bother?

She closed her eyes as she heard the chest open. She heard a sound that resembled a lumberjack chopping down a tree and then a cursing Julius.

“Son of a bitch!” He yelled out toward the chest which was surprisingly a mimic.

The events that followed were like deja vu. Julius started to smack around the chest with his one arm and threatened the mimic. She was a little less surprised to see the mimic effectively cowed this time around but was still skeptical of the whole thing.

Who had ever heard of someone threatening and extorting mimics?

Although, to his credit, the items they got were way nicer than any other chest they spotted. Along the way, Julius had found several other chests, but they all held pretty boring items. Most were weapons that were of questionable quality, likely from dead delvers from the past.

However, this was the second time the mimics gave him really nice items. Like the small buckler that was attached to her arm. This little shield had enabled her to deal with the undead monsters with much more ease. It was able to take much more force than its small size would indicate.

Perhaps, he is on to something, she admitted to herself with a frown.

***

Julius POV

He made sure that the mimic gave him some good items before leaving it alone. Unlike the necklace he got last time, he had a good idea of what these items would do.

One of them was a dagger that had a very complex-looking enchantment etched onto its surface. He was able to tell that it was sharpness-related because of his Concept.

The other item was a ring. A very plain-looking iron ring. He put it on experimentally and was surprised to find out that it was able to deploy a remote barrier upon activation. The information to know how to do so was put into his brain the moment he placed it on his finger.

It wasn’t that useful to him, but it was still a cool new toy.

Once his curiosity was sated and he had enjoyed his new treasures, he gave the exit another glance. As he was doing so he finally pulled up the notifications he received during the rift that he had been ignoring.

[Armaments of the Arcane lvl 5 -> lvl 6]

[Sage of Savagery lvl 6 -> lvl 7]

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

[Phoenix Renewal lvl 1 -> lvl 3]

[Soul Tempering lvl 5 -> lvl 6]

[Empowerment of Will lvl 17 -> lvl 18]

[Flash Step lvl 6 -> lvl 9]

[Barrier of Severance lvl 14 -> lvl 15]

He had gained quite a lot from the short time he had spent here. He suspected that a lot of it was residual gains from keeping the suppression device on, rather than actual progress from the rift, but it was still nice to see.

However, he hasn’t been putting too much importance on skill-level gains recently. After he had gained his third epic skill and now that he had three Concepts, he didn’t think there was much left for him to do at Tier 2.

With the acquisition of [Soul Tempering], he had become a little more aware of his soul and how much he could handle. The skill was telling him that there wasn’t much more he could fit into his soul at Tier 2. He would need to advance to Tier 3 if he wanted to get any more epic skills or Concepts.

That was a little bit disappointing, he had two skills, [Spatial Perception] and [Kinetic Augmentation] that were close to evolving. However, they both needed other Concepts or rather he wanted other Concepts to evolve them with.

Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be possible at his current tier. Even these level gains he just got were quite stuffing. It was like eating another plate of food after he was already full.