218 2 bosses 1 chapter
After handling some of the quests at hand, Yunan returned to the 41st floor to deal with the boss still burrowed under the sands.
The boss had a bit of every monster on this floor, it had 3 scorpion tails, each stinger dripping with venom, its body was two joined entities, a scorpion with menacing pincers and on its back was a 4 armed humanoid upper body, two of its arms had scissor-like pincers while the other two held earth spears made of compressed sand. As soon as Yunan got within range of the spear throwing the upper body rained the earth spears on him, while the lower half sped up and tried to catch Yunan in its large pincers.
Upon failing this action it backed off and used its stingers to keep Yunan at bay while the upper body kept throwing spears with increased accuracy with each spear. Yunan only dodged at first, he wanted to see all the boss had to offer but other than sand shift a specialised spell similar to the earth shift, it had no hidden cards, it could dive in the sand and try to ambush Yunan in a cloud of smoke and dust.
Yunan saw all he needed and ended up using his wings to rip off the head of the humanoid upper body before diving on the lower half with ten tentacles turned into meat skewers that pinned the boss to the sand and destroyed its internal organs, Yunan used mana shield to keep the stingers from his back while he used his hand to keep the pincers under control.
After the death of the boss, Yunan opened the chest and within it was a book about interstellar travel labeled " A hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" it was a fable with nuggets of wisdom and guidance to navigate the stars and all the random possibilities that may have become reality in the endless reaches of the universe. Yunan had no idea why would he need something about interstellar travel, however, he still kept it in the library after reading it, he kept it besides the book named Apotheosis.
Yunan didn't advance to the 42nd floor because he felt like he did not gain enough from this one yet, and so he took his time hunting and eating scorpions, increasing the level of toxicology skill and gaining a few more things to sell to the guild, after a full 6 months in the desert of the 41st floor Yunan gained 3 changes from eating scorpions.
Yunan has gained two skills, one is pincer grip, it allows him to use his hands more effectively when gripping and using grappling techniques, the second is a toxin gland that was added by his toxicology, the gland stores and creates any form of toxic chemicals Yunan had come to contact with, it also had the ability to synthesise new toxins based on the current information it has and the requirements of Yunan effectively enhancing the toxic body skill. Lastly, Yunan could turn his tail and tentacles into stingers to become more efficient in the transfer of toxins at better precision.
After gaining the last piece of strength, Yunan headed for the 42nd floor, the denizens of this floor were all night creatures, a fox-like monster with large ears slim bodies and wide jaws, they were blessed with wind and sand magic and were extremely fast and sneaky creatures, desert foxes or fennecs is what the Black Fate choose for their name. These creatures would eat smaller beasts like mice, scorpions and moths. The scorpion beasts are much smaller than their monster counterparts much less toxic and very docile compared to their brethren from the 41st floor.
The fennecs were the main monsters besides the cleaning scorpions and they were extremely territorial, Yunan only had to step inside the borders to be assaulted with full power, it only served to help Yunan make a shorter work of each area and its monsters. With these Yunan used his short swords to deal with them, he was currently allowing the genie to absorb 70% of the mana in his core to store and operate the house, and he did not want to waste any mana.
This method of training was something only Yunan and those around him can do without any risk, to drain mana from their cores to increase their natural mana capacity and mana regeneration, was a very exhausting thing to do everyday, however, with the aid of the genie there would be very little to no side effects from the constant mana drainage and thus safely growing stronger by doing nothing, therefore, since mana use was not of need inside the house he told the genie to drain all the mana from the Debauchery family, effectively helping them train in return for the mana they were not using.
Having switched his routine from daytime to night-time, Yunan was getting more harassment for changing his lifestyle especially when it went against the schedule of everyone else, but what else could he do, he needs to finish the floor quickly and go to the next one sooner than he thought.
Fighting the boss was a bit more trouble than it was worth, the large fennec could use a storm of wind blades to protect itself and that in and of itself stirred up a cloud of dust that later became a sandstorm, so visibility was out of the question and the erosion the sand had on the armour made Yunan call it back and endure the fight with his own skin leading to a rather fearsome looking wounds that were more painful than harmful.
Sand was a very strong corrosive when paired with strong wind, it would relentlessly hit its target with same force millions of times each second, that is why sand erosion was an endless threat to all lands near a desert. Sand could erode a boulder in a matter of days of continuous exposure, the same would take endless years for water and rain, although skin was too supple to be destroyed by an ordinary sandstorm, what the boss provoked was something that could peel off skin and flay a man in minutes. Luckily Yunan had gained a major boost to his defensive power and at worst only patches of skin were sanded off from his arms and chest and face, still, the boss dropped like all the bosses before it and it turned into Yuan's food and fuel for greater heights.