From Player To Npc

Shingi had prepared some special cloaks for the party, with the help of Little Phoenix, to deal with the heat of the desert.

They used some mana dust embedded with Ice Man from Mizuneko and made some special Enchantment design on those cloaks that would produce some cool air to keep the user's temperature at an acceptable level.

The user should use his or her Mana or Mana Gems to power up the cloak, but it wasn't using too much mana, and some of their mana gems were recharging slightly faster in the Tower than outside of it. This depended on the theme of the floor.

For example, in the forest areas, the Earth and Air were faster to recharge, as also Light were slightly faster at day circle and Dark Mana Gems slightly shorter during night circle. But the recharge rate boost at neither of those was over five percent.

Fire and Light Mana Gems would recharge faster at the dessert, and since this one got designed to be always daytime, the Dark Mana Gems weren't getting a boost.

Earth wasn't getting boosted because of the severe challenges of plant life to grow, as Earth was one with nature, and even if the dust of the desert got made of Earth Mana, some considered it as 'dead' mana as its power was way lower than expected.

There was some slight boost on Air Mana Gems too, but not to a high degree.

This helped to strengthen his staff as two of the Elemental Mana Gems of his staff got strengthened. There were three separate Mana Gems, but they were smaller than normal ones to fit and stay balanced.

They had to face the natural obstacles, like sudden whirlwinds, sandpits, and of course, the heat. Some monsters were gigantic mutant moles, centipedes, or swarms of beetles. There are also some human Spirits creating golem sand-like bodies for themselves; they were called Sand Bandits.

They could deal with the heat with the cloaks, and the monsters weren't too hard to deal with, but most escaped by getting underground or flying away. 

They focused on looking for clues for the stairs, which were underground. The Boss would guard it, so finding the Boss was the same as finding the door.

Shingi's ECHOLOCATION Spell was working better in this environment, as it boosted his Earth Spells a bit, and he had taught it to Little Phoenix so they could cover more ground. This allowed them not to get ambushed by most monsters and also looking clues for the stairs.

The Boss was a Sand Bandit, but this one could control some monsters as a Tamer could and use some Air Magic to affect the weather and cause whirlwinds to make the battle harder.

It would typically take days to find the Boss, but with Shingi's experience, Skills, and Spells, they discovered its secret underground base within a couple of hours.

Instead of getting right in, Shingi and the rest started drawing out monsters around the base as the Boss would summon them during the battle and would even strengthen them so it would make things harder.

The moles were easy to deal with as their natural defense was too low, and their claws were easy to avoid, as their attacks weren't too precise. The swarm of beetles was annoying, as they would try to surround them and bite them, and some would deal some fire damage. Mizuneko's Ice dealt them some severe injury even if his Element was getting weakened a bit, but it was enough to deal with them.

The centipedes had developed an exoskeleton to strengthen their defense, and their mandibles were further boosted with Earth mana that they gathered with their antennas. Some could also use Earth-based magic, mainly to manipulate the surrounding ground to help in digging or in battle by creating pits, spikes. Some rare ones developed a special type of mana; Gravity Mana.

Shingi knew of the existence of Gravity Mana, but monsters of higher floors unlocked it.

This was probably one change of letting the monsters alive for so long.

This reminded him of a way that Little Phoenix could develop as Earth, and Dark element combination could lead to Gravity Mana. But combining two Elements, with one of them being either Light or Dark Element, was ten times harder than any other combination.

He explained to Little Phoenix what he knew, but it would take some time to merge the two and make the new special mana. It was one of the top combinations of a Dual Element Mana Pool and was as strong as having a base Triple Element Mana Pool.

She knew that unlocking the third Element wasn't possible for her as she wasn't as skilled as Shingi. That's why she felt it was the only way to go.

They dealt with the last creature outside the base and waited for a bit outside to restore their MP and SP. Fortunately, their HP didn't get affected as much.

Shingi summoned some of his Golems, made them open the way, and got attacked by Sand Bandits but couldn't pass their natural defense.

He noticed deeper in the room the Sand Bandits' leader and the stairs, which this time they were going down instead of up. The Boss started creating more Sand Bandits. Since he couldn't summon any of the other monsters since they killed them, he created artificial earth-made creatures of similar appearance and abilities but somewhat weaker.

Of course, he couldn't make them have Gravity Mana as it hadn't developed it.

Wild Tycoon and An were in the front, dealing with the summoned monsters, while the rest supported Shingi to fight the Boss.

Mizuneko could control the Air mana of the boss, created whirlwinds to weaken them enough for Shingi to destroy them with his sword or Little Phoenix with her Spells.

Despite that, the Boss was strong in close combat, using double scimitars as its choice of weapons.

The boss was unnaturally fast for one of its level, be close to the speed of Shingi's natural speed. Shingi could beat it easily by using HASTE, but it was another excellent chance to train himself and the party.

The Boss had a substantial amount of mana itself and could use the 'dead' mana of the dust of the desert to replenish its mana, making it have almost unlimited mana. Also, since it has a Spirit in a Golem-like form, it didn't have any SP, although its body was slowly deteriorating from fighting for a long time.

He kept summoning new minions, but Wild Tycoon had gotten familiar enough with them and kept their amount to a manageable rate.

The battle lasted for a few minutes until Shingi finally put an end to it.

Or that was the plan.

Shingi was almost ready to deal the final blow when the Boss got surrounded by an Earth Cocoon.

This was a rare occurrence that Shingi never thought they would encounter that early. The boss was evolving.

Evolving happened when a monster had earned enough proficiency with its abilities and would allow it to reach a higher state.

He had to stop the Evolution as an Evolved monster was a troublesome one to deal with even if it was lower level than them.

He right away enabled his Breaking Limit State and cast HASTE to get as many attacks on the cocoon as he could. He also used his Light Fire Mana Blade, as it was the more vigorous attack he had.

Still, its attacks were just doing minor scratches at the cocoon, and they were even healing at a fast rate as it got fed by the Tower's strange energy.

The Evolution varied in duration, as the longer it lasted, the stronger it would be.

Since the Boss didn't use its power while in the cocoon, no new monsters appeared, so Wild Tycoon and An joined him in dealing damage to the cocoon.

Hineko's attack wasn't strong enough to affect it, and Mizuneko's Ice Element also wasn't affecting it. Little Phoenix's Earth mana was useless, but her Dark mana-based attack had some effect, but the effect got weaker as time passed.

Shingi noticed the cocoon was absolving part of the Dark Mana Little Phoenix used, which wasn't a good sign, so she tried to manipulate any Dark Mana away from the cocoon.

Thirty minutes passed, and they had only made some cracks to it, but none had gone all the way in.

HASTE had ended some time ago, which lessened their damage output a bit, but fortunately, since An was around.

She was considered blood-related to Shingi, so the passive aura of his Angel's Boon was active and gave him SP Regeneration Aura helping to fight the side effects of HASTE faster.

An's golden eyes couldn't find any weak points to the cocoon, so they just tried to go out with everything they had, but it wasn't affecting them to a large degree.

He even used the active effect of his Beliss' Blessing to strengthen his Mana Blade as much as possible.

They tried to focus on a specific spot as if they broke through, it would end the evolution, and the monster would be in a weakened state.

Wild Tycoon significantly impacted it with her greataxe, as he had her weapon in the combined form to deal more damage, and the crack she hit started spreading like the cocoon was from glass, and she hit a weak point.

Or so it seemed, as in reality, she hadn't destroyed the cocoon, but the evolution was over.

An explosion of dark and green energy happened and pushed everyone back. It also made their bodies feel heavier, which was a sign of something Shingi was afraid of.

The boss had Gravity Mana now.

Its body got developed, being thinner than before, but Shingi's senses and experience told him that its mana skills and speed increased.

It didn't have its scimitar anymore, but it raised its hand as a dozen Earth scimitars formed behind it.

It pointed forward as a pair of scimitars headed to each of its enemies. Shingi, Hineko, An, and Wild Tycoon could handle them, but Little Pheonix and Mizuneko couldn't.

The Boss raised its other arm, and everyone started feeling the gravity changing but was affecting only them.

Shingi helped Little Phoenix dealing with the blades, while An helped to deal with the ones of Mizuneko and Wild Tycoon's.

Wild Tycoon could deal with the blades, but she was more suited to fighting the boss, so they had to free her.

Fortunately, the Boss didn't summon more blades than twelve but replenished the ones they destroyed. It was typical of monsters to use an ability depending on the enemies they faced, so they created two blades for each of them.

This time Shingi cast HASTE on Wild Tycoon, and she also used her ACCELERATION to keep up with the Boss' speed.

Still, the Boss was a little faster, but its defense wasn't that high, so a few hits Wild Tycoon dealt significant damage, but it healed itself as the cocoon did by using the Tower's strange energy.

At this rate, they would lose.