Second Draft - Reincarnated Into a Game in Impossible Mode

The dark cave scene gradually disappeared and was replaced by an open space with light illuminating every corner. The light source came from a gap, somewhere in the middle of what could be called a room, enormous and incredibly high.

'Perhaps the light in this place is coming in from outside.'

Ryoshu was standing on a fairly spacious rock ledge compared to the narrowness of the cave from earlier. He felt like just walking from one end of this ledge to the other would take at least 10 minutes.

He couldn't help but marvel at the magnificent scene of this cave. Even in the game, it wasn't as insanely wide as this.

But one thing remained unchanged. Ryoshu looked down from the rock ledge. This ledge, in contrast to the length and width of the cave, was quite modest. It was only about as high as ten grown adults standing on top of each other.

'But if I accidentally fall from up here, it would be enough to break a leg...'

And in the middle of the open ground below, emanated a massive energy source that he had never faced before. Just the fact that Ryoshu was breathing normally was already an impressive achievement when in front of him now was the thing that had killed him countless times in the past.

Every nerve in his head was now taut as a bowstring. The instinct of a primate was telling every part of his body to leave this place as quickly as possible.

But somehow he was still standing here. Was it courage or stupidity?

Ryoshu looked straight at it without averting his eyes once. It was the thing he was looking for - the Boss of the Challenge of Bravery.

The boss, as he had mentioned many times before, was a Lightning Slime of C-rank. The gap between ranks E and D compared to ranks D and C was almost like the difference between heaven and earth.

Although the boss was also a Lightning Slime, unlike normal Slimes, it couldn't die from its own explosion. Therefore, if Ryoshu used an elemental reaction, that C-rank explosion would be the thing that would dig his grave.

And there were more special things about it. First, its size was enormous. Second, both its physical attack and Lightning Magic were extremely powerful. But most frightening was that it could launch wide-area attacks covering almost the entire territory.

That was why the game was dubbed the hardest among hardcore games, as the bosses were absurdly strong but not impossible.

Seeing it up close in this virtual reality version made it much more terrifying. It was about four meters tall and its width was more than a dozen times that of the small F-rank slimes.

'After defeating it, I can finally go home...'

Ryoshu had been looking forward to this moment for a long time. But of course, not for the boss fight but for something else:

'I miss human civilization so much.'

Now Ryoshu had the height advantage, so as long as he stayed up here, he could avoid many of its close-range techniques.

First, he chose a good spot to perform what he called sniping. Ryoshu planned to follow the old steps to fully utilize all stats with the cumulative effects of the Hunter's Instinct function from the equipment he had just received.

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The less preparation time for an attack, the higher the Damage. 

Maximum: 1 second will multiply base Damage by 2. 

Minimum: 10 seconds will multiply base Damage by 1.1

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He tried to aim for a time as close to 1 second as possible, so he used the Time Bullet skill to make it as precise as possible.

But that was just an idea because Ryoshu realized a flaw in his new plan.

'Damn, the Charged Attack skill doesn't go well with these gloves...'

Because the longer the preparation, the more the Charged Attack skill could demonstrate its full power. Meanwhile, the gloves required less preparation time to be stronger, with a maximum of 1 second.

But if he only charged for 1 second, he would only get 0.5% of Attack Power and Critical Rate, not as effective as charging for the full 20 seconds.

'Quite an annoying problem... Now I can only choose one of two things, either Damage or Attack Power.'

Between automatically doubling damage to the opponent and increasing attack by 10% along with a 10% Critical Rate that could increase damage by half.

'If my Attack Power were higher, would it be more worthwhile? Or... somewhere in between?'

Ryoshu began to calculate which timing would be most reasonable.

'Like if I charge for about 10 seconds, I'll still maintain the minimum effect of the Hunter's Instinct function. But I'll only get an additional 5% Attack Power...'

But certainly, in the long run, the Charged Attack skill would be better for Bosses, while the gloves would help him easily handle simpler monsters.

Suddenly Ryoshu's view shook.

The next moment, when he realized it, he had already felt the wind blowing against his face.

Ryoshu was in free fall. But this time he was falling very fast down to the boss's battlefield. However, he didn't know what had caused this.

Ryoshu quickly turned around. A Slime was stuck to him like a leech. At first, he had ignored them to save time, but now it seemed like it would turn all his plans to dust.

Ryoshu's face turned pale at this deadly surprise.

Just when everything seemed bad enough already. But no, that Slime was also an electric type that he had once been very excited to see.

Now Ryoshu just wanted to stay as far away from it as possible.

He flung it off his body.

Fumiya followed his thoughts and tensed up. It aimed directly at that Slime without any hesitation.

Then Ryoshu put in one of his last arrows.

But this time Ryoshu couldn't use Time Bullet because then he would lose an opportunity to save himself from the boss.

He released his hand from the arrow. The arrow drew an absolute straight line to where that charging Slime was.

But it was too late.

It had already accumulated enough electrical energy to kill an elephant. The energy glowed like a movie reel from the 80s.

A lightning bolt immediately flew towards him at divine speed. The lightning followed a winding path.

And when it was close to him, time slowed down, but not because of the Time Bullet skill. It was the effect of Death Sense.

Ryoshu quickly absorbed Mana from around him as an instinct and created something in the shape of a shield, but this time he transformed the pure Mana flow into fire-type Mana.

But because he was still very new to the concept of Mana and almost everything related to Mana, Ryoshu was still quite clumsy with it. However, due to much practice, he had become more familiar. And thanks to his proficiency, the blue shield quickly changed to the bright red of fire.

The arrow flew so fast it seemed like it was tearing through the air, and when it had gone halfway, it met its opponent. The lightning passed through the arrow without touching it.

And right after that, a loud explosion echoed throughout the room.

Of course, the boss had known from the beginning when he entered inside because of its sensitive Mana perception. But it was the sound, or rather the sound waves of the explosion, that made it more alert.

Around it, electricity had charged up its entire body.

That arrow had pierced through the core of the E-rank Slime, so it immediately evaporated, leaving slime as a mark.

Meanwhile, Ryoshu was affected by the explosion and had been pushed another ten meters in the air. Smoke from the explosion rushed into his face as if slapping him.

He felt quite disoriented because the scenery changed too frequently. His body couldn't control itself normally. A small part of this was because the lightning from earlier had hit him directly.

No matter how strong his body was, if he didn't land properly from this fall, forget about the boss, gravity itself would send him to heaven immediately.

Ryoshu tried to rotate his body. Because the stupidest thing he could do would be to land on the most vulnerable part of the human body, which is the head and neck.

Better to let his legs or arms break than have his head smash directly into the ground... that was probably something he had learned from his own life experience, not from any game.

Ryoshu held his two legs firmly out to prepare for landing. Then he extended his arms in front of him, but not too wide, just enough so he could support himself comfortably.

During that time, Fumiya transformed from a bow shape into a pile of sand and rushed down toward his feet. It turned into a cushion quite similar to his bed sheet.

Ryoshu immediately took it out of the ring and dropped it right away.

Thud.

As soon as Ryoshu's feet felt a pain, he immediately pulled himself in and rolled on the bed sheet in a complete circle.

Although the pressure on his legs was still very great, at least he hadn't broken his precious legs to continue fighting.

'Now comes the real challenge.' - Ryoshu raised his vigilance while withdrawing the bed sheet.

Although he hadn't had time to rest much, Ryoshu had to immediately stand up. Fumiya simultaneously quickly transformed back into a bow in his hand.

He tried to observe very carefully the whereabouts of that C-rank Slime. Ryoshu looked at that grayish-white smoke without taking his eyes off it for a moment. But the smoke from the explosion was still very thick, so he couldn't find it anywhere.

Ryoshu still tried to stay calm, but in his heart now it was like a level 8 storm about to happen. The pain from the electric shock, the fall, and the previous wounds accumulated. And now it came back to avenge him once more.

He realized he was losing his composure a bit, so first he turned off his Mana core so it wouldn't see him first. Sweat poured down from his mask chin as if he were vomiting... or perhaps that was actually the case.

Ryoshu's vestibular system was spinning like a top. His world view was turned from top to bottom, from left to right and vice versa. The directions constantly switched positions.

After the smoke cleared a bit, he began his observation even though he was still quite dizzy. Somehow the boss had vanished into thin air.

'It's definitely not dead because the System hasn't notified me... but where is it?!'

Ryoshu didn't remember the boss having any invisibility-like skills, so he felt quite confused. But his eyes kept searching for some sign.

Just one unusual sign and he would have to avoid it.

At all costs.

Ryoshu couldn't be hit... not even once.

His nerves were stretched taut like a string about to break.

And just a moment later, the air around was almost choked down. Ryoshu suddenly looked up. A mass of slime was falling down at a speed faster than an out-of-control truck.

'But... how did it know my position... or can it sense even the smallest sound waves!'

His breathing and heartbeat were the most obvious explanation.

Death Sense began to work strongly. But that seemed not enough because its shadow was getting bigger and not slowing down at all.

'Time Bullet.'

Time that was already slow now slowed down even more. This was perhaps the first time he had used two similar skills overlapping like this.

In just a moment, Ryoshu had accumulated a huge amount of Mana into his legs.

'It's your turn to sacrifice again, sorry, after this I'll let you rest properly.'

Ryoshu took a powerful leap away from that spot.

Very quickly, the distance between the boss and him had widened.

BOOM.

The boss's landing made the entire room shake as if there was an earthquake. But by some miracle, he was still standing steadily, if you subtract the legs that were shaking like a dryer, it could probably be considered steady.

One thing to know is that if Mana is used to increase physical strength, rather than supporting it, the action of pumping Mana into his body like that is more like pushing it beyond the body's limits rather than simply enhancement.

That's why with just one jump of over twenty meters in about 2 seconds, the condition was already so bad, the second use would certainly be worse.

However, Ryoshu was confident that the next section would only involve dodging techniques because he had remembered all its attack patterns.

Around the boss appeared small lightning bolts like earlier. But this time he counted nearly a hundred at least.

'Bullseye!'

Ryoshu took a deep breath and prepared his mental strength.

Zap.

The first lightning bolt was released, and that was also the warning signal for him.

Ryoshu quickly ran fast horizontally relative to the boss. Then he just kept his head down and ran while getting closer and closer to the boss.

'In the game it wasn't this tiring... I should have trained my physical fitness more...'

He was so tired that he couldn't say anything, and all that could come out of his mouth now was his own panting breath.

The closer Ryoshu got, the more he felt that sound getting closer to his behind, so he had to increase his running speed while his legs were already exhausted.

After a while when it had finished those deadly lightning bolts, it then accumulated a lot of electricity into its body again.

He had stopped running at some point and had collapsed to the ground.

'How long has it been since I had to be this fast and tired?'

But Ryoshu knew all too well that this was just the beginning of this "training" trip. He took out a bottle with a bright green liquid with a bit of purple inside.

This was one of the rare medicine bottles that could be used in the Temple that had increased difficulty. Simply because it didn't directly increase stats but instead increased the speed of stat growth.

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[Main Stat Growth Potion] (D-) 

Description: Created by an anonymous alchemist. 

-Promotes Growth 

The drinker will receive a 100% increase in training speed for the "Main Stat" for 5 hours.

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'There are some quite good items to speed up training, but using it now is probably one of the most effective ways...' - He gulped, looking quite disgusted at the color of this strange liquid.

The Slime was still absorbing a towering amount of Mana. It was recovering its strength to prepare for the next wide-area attacks.

Seeing this, Ryoshu drank the entire bottle of medicine.

His head began to spin as if the earth itself was spinning. Opening his eyes, he began to see hallucinations appearing around. Waving his hand in front of him to observe, Ryoshu saw at least 3 arms appearing at the same time with three skin colors with different outlines.

"Did I just drink a growth potion for real?!" - He tried to calm down and prepare for the boss's next attack.