Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

It seemed that none of the adventurers had noticed his presence since he was high up in the sky and was restraining all his aura.

He had invested quite a bit of time in remodelling the floors of his dungeon and making it more appealing to the adventurers. Seeing that his hard work had paid off, Simon flew off satisfied. His destination was the western region of the Ghastly Winding Forest where the strongest level monsters resided.

Coming out of the dungeon, he had only one goal in mind and that was to increase his level. What better way to accomplish that than to hunt monsters in the western part teeming with strong level ones?

Although Simon was going there to hunt monsters, he wasn't foolish enough to dive inside the territory of the seven kings, lest he angered them. The way he was now, he would simply be squashed like an ant without being able to make any ripples.

The Seven Kings were the true rulers of the Ghastly Winding Forest and strength wise they were on par with Aldebaran, the Ancient Titan Treant. Experiencing that kind of strength first hand, there was no way he wanted to incur the ire of one, not before he had the strength to defend against them.

At some point, before the seven years time limit was up, he would have to fight with them to claim this domain for himself; however, right now it was still too early.

Simon zipped through the sky, utilising the full strength of his [High-Speed Flight] skill. His wide wings flapped and the force of air brushed past his body rustling his pitch-black hair. With the increase of his level, the mana he could freely pour into his wings had increased and his speed had more than doubled.

After a few hours of non-stop flight, he arrived at his destination. The place was far away from the Ancient Treants Territory and the trees around here were sparse and coal-black in colour. Even the environment here was quite desolate and dark.

The wind brought along a chilling sensation and corpses of monsters littered the ground here and there. This place was none other than the area where Irene had fought with the high orcs.

Simon had dived a little deeper in search of strong monsters and wanted to experiment his powers on the high orcs. He patiently waited for some time and before long, groups of stout bipedal creatures that had a boar-like snout, fangs protruding from their mouth and a sturdy looking build appeared in front of him.

Each of them carried weapons made out of bones and hides of other monsters that they hunted and carried around as their prized possession. Simon did not even have to use analysis to know that they were high orcs.

However, unlike the ones he had met previously, the ones before him looked more dreadful and their levels should also be higher than theirs. Each of the high orcs surrounding him, in terms of strength were on par with the high orc leader that Irene had fought with previously.

That is to say, the high orcs in front of him should be above level 230. When he used Analysis on them to gauge out their levels, Simon found out that he had underestimated them a little. Far from being level 230, all of them were above level 250 and there were even some who had reached level 280.

Currently, a group of twenty high orcs had surrounded him from all corners and snarled at him threateningly. They had a keen nose that could easily smell the scent of an outsider from miles away and an unimaginable level of coordination that made them quite a difficult opponent to tackle.

The leader orc spoke something garbled before swinging its club around with its stout arm. Although Simon did not understand what they were saying even with his [language Comprehension] skill, the meaning behind the leader orcs action was quite clear and that was to charge.

As if saying that his guess was correct, the three high orcs holding a makeshift shield out of bones, came charging at him.  The skill they used was [High-Orc Charge] and the momentum at which they came ramming at him was like that of a truck.

The ground trembled as they moved, however, even before they reached their target, the person had disappeared from their line of sight.

The leader orc snored looking all around before finally pointing his club at Simon who was high up in the sky. Just when it was about to give another order, a flame spear with the speed of an arrow came smashing towards its face.

"Gughii"

BOOM'¦ The leader orcs sound was drowned by the explosion and all the high orcs hurriedly looked towards their leader. The flame spear that had hit the high orcs was the product of Simon's improvement in Flame Magic Mastery.

With the mana inside him now following a fixed path, it became much easier for him to conjure magic. Even the power each of his magic displayed, was on a whole new realm than before.

The Leader high orcs did not expect a magic to come flying at him this fast and was unable to take appropriate actions. While the high orcs were in a state of shock, Simon himself was in a similar state.

Never did he expect that the result of his training to acquire the [Mana Lines] skill would be this effective. He had not even acquired the [Mana Lines] yet but he could already see some obvious changes in his strength.

The intermediate tier flame magic [Flame Spears] that used to take him a second or two to conjure, did not even take him a second to release now. Not only that, the power behind it had also increased marginally. He felt like a completely different person before and after his training.

All of these results had only increased his expectation to obtain the [Mana Lines] sooner.

Whoosh'¦ after the flames engulfing the high orc died down, a charred figure with minor burnt wounds came into view. Its body was continuously releasing smoke and half of its face was completely scorched. The high orc leader was staring daggers at him but other than that, it was completely fine.

Simon arched his brows seeing how tanky the leader of the high orcs was "I guess their race's high defence isn't something to sneeze at. Well in the first place I never thought one flame spear is going to do the trick".

While he was caught up in his thoughts, the morale of the high orcs surrounding him increased by a notch. It seemed that their leader coming out of the enemy's attack with just minor injuries had boosted their confidence.

To them, battle scars were something they saw as a sign of warrior and the more one had, the more recognition they got in their tribe.

"Geeegaaaahhh" the high orcs roared lifting their weapons before surrounding Simon in all directions once again.  One orc after another charged at him and swung their clubs brutally, trying to smash him into pulp.

BANG'¦ BANG'¦ BANG'¦ each swing was counterattacked or deflected by him and none of their attacks was even able to graze him. After fighting with Laris, Simon was now aware of how important feints were and how to make maximum use of your enemies opening.

The battle with the twenty high orcs above level 250 showed how he had grown since then. Although he still had many openings in his attacks and he could hardly be called a first-class warrior, his close combat was slowly but surely being perfected.

Just when Simon utilising the opening in his enemy's attack dealt a devastating stab with his conjured flame spear and nearly finished him off an high orc with one more attack, his instinct screamed at him and he immediately stopped his connecting attack.

BOOOM'¦ something huge with a terrifying momentum and bringing along a gust of wind, grazed past his body and smashed onto the ground immediately forming a huge crater. Just the aftershock alone displayed how much strength was imbued onto the object to create such a terrifying shock wave.

The thing that grazed past him was none other than a club. "Gugha" the leader orc garbled before flashing its fangs in a wide smile.

Moments before Simon could finish one of the high orcs, the orc leader saw this chance and quickly flung its club at him with all his strength. It had used its kin as a bait to bring him down together.

Fortunately, listening to his instinct, Simon was able to dodge it at the nick of time. The club that was releasing a faint eerie aura, didn't even suffer any damage even after such a rough use which goes to say that the material used to make the club was from no ordinary monsters. Even with his high defence, he did not dare to take the force behind the club lightly.

"Hehehahaha...."

"Gugha?!" the orc leader was surprised to find that his target had started laughing all of a sudden. It was not only him but all of the high orcs were the same. Their surprise soon turned into anger as they found Simon's laughter extremely unpleasant. From their perspective, they were the ones in control of the battle and not the other way round.

Simon did not bother to control his laugh and burst out loud, he was not bothered that the high orcs would find it annoying and offensive.

It wasn't like he was trying to make them mad or change the tempo of this battle with his laughter.. It was simply that he couldn't control it, whenever he thought about how satisfying the victory would taste against opponents like them, he couldn't help being exhilarated.