Kanos's stomach growled so loudly it echoed in the stone corridor.
Kanos leaned weakly against a cracked pillar. His breathing was heavy and ragged. He had just crawled through a corridor of ancient temple ruins on God knows what floor. This place was incredibly dark, dusty, and smelled like an old tomb that hadn't been opened in hundreds of years.
'I need real food,' Kanos thought.
The water from that damn stone fruit he drank a while ago wasn't cutting it anymore. His body needed calories.
Kanos summoned his system panel to check his overall physical condition. He needed to know exactly how close he was to his own death limit. The transparent blue screen with golden edges popped up in front of his face.
[ NAME: KANOS ]
[ LEVEL: 15 ]
[ CLASS: ILLUSTRAMANCY ]
[ HP: 350/350 ]
[ MANA: 85/600 ]
[ STRENGTH: 28 ]
[ AGILITY: 25 ]
[ ENDURANCE: 24 ]
[ SKILLS: ART TO REALITY (TIER 2), STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS (PASSIVE) ]
[ PHYSICAL STATUS: STAGE TWO STARVATION, MANA REGENERATION HALTED ]
Kanos cursed softly in his mind. That eighty five in the mana row made his head spin. Earlier he was forced to draw a small iron bridge to cross a chasm on the thirteenth floor, then make a steel crowbar to break through a stone wall blocking the path.
His mana should have been slowly refilling on its own like yesterday, but the Stage Two Starvation status meant his body had zero energy left for mana regeneration.
Suddenly, the stone floor beneath his shoes trembled.
THUD. THUD.
The sound of super heavy footsteps made dust fall from the ceiling. Kanos reflexively closed his system panel and peeked from behind the stone pillar he was leaning on.
He narrowed his eyes, staring at the end of the dark corridor ahead. There was a giant shadow slowly walking closer. It wasn't a monster of flesh and blood. It was a pile of ancient bricks, chunks of temple pillars, and rusted iron fused together to form a giant headless knight. Its right hand was dragging a stone pillar the size of a telephone pole used as a sword.
A red screen blinked in Kanos's eyes.
[ RUIN GOLEM KNIGHT (LEVEL 50) ]
'Tank. Heavy armor type,' Kanos's brain immediately assessed the situation. 'Normal sharp objects or stabs won't pierce solid stone. If I get hit even once, my bones will instantly turn to mush.'
Kanos glanced back at the memory of his remaining mana. Eighty five points.
'I need to make a nail launching cannon like the crossbow yesterday to shatter that stone. But a complex machine like that needs at least three hundred mana for the spring power. If I force myself to draw right now, my remaining life will be sucked dry as a replacement.'
The golem stopped walking. Its body, just a pile of rocks, suddenly spun fast, aiming right at the pillar where Kanos was hiding. The monster raised its stone pillar high and slammed it directly into Kanos's hiding spot.
CRASH!
The thick pillar shattered into pieces like a cracker. Kanos jumped, throwing his body to the side, rolling wildly across the corridor floor. His back hit the ruined wall so hard he coughed up dust.
The golem walked closer. It pulled its stone pillar back up, ready to crush Kanos flat against the ground.
Kanos didn't have time to panic. His left hand hurriedly reached into his cargo pocket. His fingers touched the small black stone he picked up from the gargoyle bat carcass this morning. The monster core.
Kanos pulled the black stone out into the open air. It was still emitting thick smoke.
'If blood makes objects solid and drains my own life... let's see what this pure energy source can do.'
Kanos pressed the black stone against the stone wall next to him, then smashed it hard using the butt of his ice axe handle.
SHATTER!
The monster core stone broke. Instead of leaking liquid or powder, the stone exploded, releasing incredibly thick black smoke. The smoke swirled in the air in front of Kanos. It wasn't blown by the wind. It looked exactly like a living shadow.
Kanos raised his left index finger, instantly dipping it into the clump of black smoke. The smoke clung to his finger like ink with absolutely zero weight.
The giant golem swung its stone pillar straight down, aiming right for Kanos's head.
Kanos dragged his finger through the air with insane speed. He didn't draw a sword or a cannon. He drew a network of wires. Hundreds of overlapping curved wires with sharp thorny ends. He drew a barbed wire net.
The black strokes in the air lit up. But it wasn't the usual white or blue light. The glow was a dark purple.
The system panel in front of Kanos's eyes blinked wildly with golden text.
[ PURE ENERGY MEDIUM DETECTED ]
[ MANA COST FULLY DIVERTED TO MONSTER CORE ]
The air in the corridor seemed to scream. Kanos's black smoke exploded instantly, taking the form of dozens of barbed wire chains made of solid black shadow. The wires shot out wildly like venomous snakes, immediately wrapping around the stone pillar the golem was swinging and halting its attack mid-air.
CLANG!
The stone pillar stopped completely just a hand's span from Kanos's face. It was tied dead by Kanos's shadow wires which had anchored firmly into the corridor walls and floor. The golem struggled roughly, trying to pull its weapon back, but Kanos's barbed wires didn't snap at all.
Kanos stared in shock. His head wasn't spinning. His nose wasn't bleeding. His mana panel only dropped by one point!
'Crazy. This is pure energy. I don't have to pay anything using my own body!' Kanos thought in excitement. A manic smile slowly appeared on his dirty face.
Kanos pulled another circular line in the air using the remaining billowing black smoke. His eyes instantly activated the Structural Analysis skill. He saw the blue grid pattern on the golem's body. Its weak points were clearly visible. The monster's knee and elbow joints were only held together by magic energy. There was no protective stone behind them.
Kanos pictured his barbed wires wrapping around those joints and pulling forcefully in opposite directions like a chainsaw.
Dozens of new shadow wires shot out from the empty air. Their sharp ends immediately wrapped around both of the golem's stone knees. The barbed wires spun and ground against the stone joints with a sickening scraping sound.
Kanos clenched his left fist tightly, pulling his arm back as if giving the command to yank the wires.
CRACK!
The golem's knees shattered into gravel. The multi-ton giant body instantly collapsed to its knees on the cave floor with a loud boom. The monster roared silently, trying to punch Kanos with its free left hand.
Kanos didn't take a single step back. He pulled one last thick line from the thinning black smoke in front of him.
A giant spike spear made of dense shadow shot down rapidly from above. It stabbed right into the dead center of the golem's chest. The shadow spear shattered the stone core giving life to the monster in a single strike.
The golem froze solid. A second later, its entire body crumbled into a pile of ordinary bricks and broken pillars. Completely destroyed.
Golden screens blinked slowly in Kanos's eyes.
[ ENEMY DEFEATED: RUIN GOLEM KNIGHT (LEVEL 50) ]
[ EXP GAINED ]
Kanos dropped down, sitting cross-legged on the dirt. He was still panting, but his eyes stared wildly at the pile of rubble in front of him.
The remnants of his shadow wires slowly began to fade. They turned back into ordinary black dust and vanished, blending into the dark air.
'Ink from blood or charcoal is solid,' Kanos's brain quickly began to analyze the phenomenon just now. 'It makes static objects. Real weapons. But it directly drains my life and mana.'
Kanos looked at his left palm which was still clean. Not a single drop of blood had come out of his nose even though he had just created hundreds of barbed wires and a giant spear.
'But the smoke from a monster core... this is different. This is energy manipulation. Flexible, sharp, deadly. And most importantly, it's free because it sucks energy from the monster itself.'
Kanos chuckled softly. His laugh echoed in the dark corridor. His hunger suddenly didn't feel as bad as before. He had just found a way to cheat the system in a world that had rigged his life from the very beginning.
'From now on, I'm harvesting every monster core I can find in this hell.'