Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

The moment the flower blossomed, a sweet purple fragrance drifted over making Simon intoxicated to it. Fortunately, he was on his guard and hurriedly able to get out of its intoxication. Using a novice tier wind magic, he dissipated the intoxicating fragrance.

"So this is one of its skills [Sweet Scent] that it uses to attract preys towards it".

Seeing that its sweet scent failed to lure its prey towards it, the carnivorous desertivine next used the numerous needles on its body to spray Simon with it.

Simon used his flight skill to dodge left and right, he took out his crimson blade and deflected those needles that he couldn't dodge in time.

Each of the needles was so sharp that it raised goosebumps on his body. Other than that, the tip of the needle was also laced with something acidic that melted the ground and produced a burning sound.

[Needle Spray] and [Acid Spray] each of these skills would be disastrous and extremely painful if they hit him.

The Carnivorous Desertivine spun like a top and sprayed a few more rounds of those needles. By now the ground all around him was decorated with those needles. Nevertheless, the plant as if saying it was nothing, grew more of it in the blink of an eye.

Deciding that it was too risky to approach the plant with the threat of that needle spray coming at him at any time, Simon decided to see if he can fight it from a long distance. He conjured a few flame spears and threw them towards the cactus.

Though the desertivine tried to dodge it, Simon whose flame magic was only a few steps away from reaching the advanced tier, controlled it skillfully. The flame spears dug deep into the body of the Carnivorous desertvine resulting in an unexpected frenzied writhing from the plant.

Although it did not wail, from its action Simon was able to tell that his flame magic was working. But just like the elder treants he had met in the ancient treant territory back in the Ghastly Winding Forest, the carnivorous desertivine was able to regenerate from all the damage it suffered through the help of [Root] and [Hyper Regeneration] skill.

[Hyper Regeneration] was the higher tier of [Super Regeneration] while [Root] was a race specific skill that allows plant-type monsters to borrow the energy from the mystical veins beneath. As long as it borrows the energy from the mystical veins it would be a troublesome enemy to defeat.

Simon was reminded of how all his attacks were useless against those treants who were able to recover swiftly from that damage. Even Irene's advanced tier Permafrost magic and Bloodthorn demonic warhorse's dark magic were only able to delay their regeneration for a while.

Though unlike the elder treants, these desertivines did not have those super steel-like defences, they were a troublesome opponent on their own.

"Seems like if I want to defeat them I will have to the amalgamation magic of Electro and Flame and eradicate them from the roots".

As long as their [Root] ability was active, using the [Hyper Regenerative] ability of theirs they would be able to heal through any damage.

Though that may be the case, he was also not the same he was back then when he was fighting the Elder treants. His level was higher and his magic stronger. In fact, his electro magic had even increased up a tier and became intermediate tier Lightning magic.

However, Simon did not believe that he would be able to use the amalgamation magic of Lightning and Flame handily. Amalgamating magic of two intermediate tier magic was different than doing the same with novice tier magic. The difficulty, the risk and the power needed to achieve something like that was on a whole new league.

If it was so easy to amalgamate two intermediate tier attributes, there wouldn't be so few people in the world capable of using amalgamation magic. And from the 'Battle of the Finest' Simon was also able to understand that amalgamation magic can take different forms based on the insights and understanding of the elements.

Even if there were multiple people casting the magic with the same elements based on their understanding of the magic, they would be able to create a somewhat different magic. The magic created cannot be said unique but at the least, it displays the person's understanding of that magic.

For example, Connor Lantz from the Crimson Demolition Guild had mastery over Flame and Wind magic with flame magic being his prime focus. He was able to create an amalgamation magic that bolstered the prowess of his flame magic instead of one element complementing the other like Simon does.

In this way, it also goes to show how different the insights of Simon and Connor were when it came to the understanding of the same elements. Anyways, just because he was able to achieve an amalgamation between flame and electro before, didn't mean that he can do the same with lightning magic this time.

Simon could use his old Flame and electro combination to defeat the Carnivorous desertivine but he who knew the importance of strength wasn't satisfied keeping one of his newly evolved and strongest magic unused.

"Since this is the perfect opportunity, let me try it on you" Simon said getting out of the range of the plant. Only after he opened up a few dozen meters distance between them and saw that it had gone back to its hibernating state, did he sigh in relief and sat down.

To create a new amalgamation magic of Flame and lightning was easier said than done especially when the latter was a magic he got hold of not long ago. Though it was difficult, it was not impossible and Simon had just the perfect item for it.

Taking out an oval shaped white stone from his inventory, he grinned. The unremarkable looking thing in his hand was none other than the Serenity Stone. Before going out on this trip with Adalinda, Simon had made many preparations.

Naturally, most of them pertained to keeping his dungeon but some of them also included him. He dived inside the Serenity pond and took a couple of serenity stones that had newly formed before departing.

There was no need to even mention the usefulness of the serenity stone and how rare entering self-transient state was. keeping the serenity stone on the ground, Simon first tried to feel the magic more closely.

He conjured flame magic in his left hand and lightning magic in his right and slowly brought it closer. The element on his left hand was giving him a feeling of wild and rampant, flames that wanted to devour and burn everything while the element on his right was like a fierce beast arrogant and powerful who wants to dominate everything.

When these two elements with vastly different natures came together, it wasn't hard to imagine them repelling each other. The feeling of resistance while combining them was so intense that Simon had his whole body perspiring.

Nevertheless, he kept going on and supplied them with his mana trying to achieve any reaction when suddenly they created an explosion sending him reeling back.

COUGH…COUGH… Simon coughed out a mouthful of blood, the explosion from the two elements negating each other had sent his whole mana in a state of turmoil. He sat cross-legged, calmed his mana and contemplated.

He sat like that for a while before reigniting flame and lightning on his left and right simultaneously once again. He tried bringing them closer but just like his first attempt they exploded resulting in another failure.

Simon kept on trying to combine the two elements again and again. Every time he failed, he would take some time to recover, contemplate and start it all over again. Seconds became minutes and minutes turned into hours.

<strong>BOOOM…</strong> flames crackling with lightning burst apart resulting in a huge explosion. From amidst the explosion, a tattered body with burnt marks everywhere was sent flying until it rolled on the ground for a couple of times before stopping.

Who else could the person be other than Simon? Currently, he had a painful yet excited expression on his face. After his repeated failures, he was finally able to prompt some reaction from the two elements.

At a glance, this attempt too seemed like a failure; however, Simon who tried to combine these two elements clearly felt their struggle to negate lessen a little. Although the negation had reduced by just a little, he was still happy that he was progressing.

It was true that achieving an amalgamation of Flames and lightning seemed a little vague at this rate; nevertheless, it was not a dream. It must be said that creating an amalgamation magic of two intermediate tier elements, even if it was a person closer to level 500 they have would find it very difficult.

Simon on the other hand had not even breached level 400 but had mastery over not only two, but three intermediate tier magic and was now even attempting to create a new amalgamation magic using his two most destructive elements.

If Vouves, the Royal Court Magician of the Sanguine Empire who was renowned across these regions as a powerful ranker and magician, saw this scene, his whole perception of genius, would turn upside down.

While it was true that some races including the demon noble had more affinity with magic, this level of mastery was uncanny and was downright abnormal.

The reason for Simon achieving so much so fast was because he was applying some of his previous world's knowledge here. He was by no means an unparalleled genius, in fact, Irene had also once told that Simon was not any genius but just a hardworking person who did not know when to give up.