In the end, Luke confirmed that his physical abilities got better in the second fight, and he began to wonder why he was absorbing the shadows... Was that the goal of the last enemy, or was it just the nature of that place? In any case, after facing the two shadows, he absorbed and got stronger again. Still, it didn’t take long until four more shadows appeared while spewing nonsense. That wasn’t surprising, but it was a bit annoying...

"At this rate, I will be overwhelmed..." Luke thought. "Come to think of it, that book had the power to repel mana, but mana doesn’t exist here, so..."

When Luke checked the book, he noticed that he could open it, but only the first page had something written on it. It was a language that Luke couldn’t understand, but he could feel the mana coming from the words. When he touched it, he felt the mana moving to his body.

LV 02 - 33%

HP: 10/10

MP: 14/14

SP: 08/10

STR: 04

SPE: 04

INT: 06

END: 04

RES: 06

FOC: 01

Free points: 05

Gold Coins: 11

Active Skills: Weapon Augmentation Lv 01

Spells:

Passive:

Things suddenly got weirder when Luke was able to see his status again... but he was way... way weaker than before. He probably had about the same strength as when he checked his own parameters for the first time.

"What is going on... did this book store my skills and parameters for me to recover them in this dimension?" Luke thought.

Regardless, thanks to the fact that he was able to sense and use mana again, Luke realized that he now had two forces inside him. Mana, which was a lot calmer, and the purple energy made of shadows that were pretty wild and made Luke feel like he was getting madder whenever he absorbed the shadows. There wasn’t much that Luke could do to stop that, though, and he also felt that to solve the issue, he had to absorb the darkness of that dimension.

"I can’t use Projection yet, so I have to make it do with what I have..." Luke assumed a fighting stance when the four shadows jumped toward him.

Even though he had almost zero mana, Luke had become pretty good at using it thanks to his complex training, so he still could do a lot with enemies of that level with his current mana pool. He also had stamina, and he could use that as well, even without the skills... he just needed his knowledge. In the end, Luke used all that to enhance his next punch and then completely crushed one of the shadows and smashed two others that were close to the impact. The final one landed back on the platform they came from, but then Luke finished it off with a dropkick.

While his body absorbed the shadows, Luke didn’t receive any notifications, but he felt more power coming from the book. Instead of one, two more pages had things written in there when he checked it. Naturally, Luke absorbed the mana and recovered a bit more of his power. He wondered for how long he would have to do that... considering that he was pretty sure that such a place had a boss or something like that. Such a being wouldn’t let Luke recover his powers and would crush him as fast as possible.

"Something about this smells... But I just need to recover my strength and then prepare for everything," Luke thought while furrowing his eyebrows.

Once Luke recovered Spark Ball, he began to eliminate the shadows faster, but then he realized that while they weren’t getting as tough as fast as him, they were getting tough, and the real problem was their crazy numbers that were duplicated in every single round. Luke wondered if Aivern had experienced that when he tried to solve the problem, but it was hard to tell... Someone who lived so long like him should have sorted out his feelings a long time ago, and based on how many times tried to save the universe, he should have been able to come up with some strategies, and yet... he failed every single time. Luke wasn’t planning to give in to despair like him, but he was going to learn why that asshole became like that.

It didn’t take long for Luke to have a hard time facing the shadows... They just had to become about ten percent tougher each, and their numbers reach the thousand mark. It was only natural that it would become like that since Luke couldn’t move around well. He could use his mana to fly after understanding how the spell worked, but his magic and his mana weren’t strong now. As if things weren’t bad enough, he was getting angrier by the minute... Even though nothing had happened yet.

"I suppose this is the price of getting the power of the shadows..." Luke thought while clenching his teeth. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"You... Pe... In... Han..."

Luke blinked several times when he heard that... Did he finally lose the plot? He could sweat that he had heard many voices inside his head muttering something. He was certain that the shadows were dead, but...

"I have to calm down and collect my thoughts... The best way to do that is by meditating," Luke thought. "If this is an after effect of the shadows, I have to dealt with it."

Luke had enough mana to open a small hole in his dimension, and then he took out his shop relic. Once he did that, he began to move away from the shadows while jumping between the platforms and transforming his mana into coins. Once he had enough, he bought a random crossbow and then sat on the ground before he began to meditate. Once the enemies got close enough, Luke bombarded them with the crossbow. Bolts on the heads destroyed them completely. Still, while the shadows were dissipating, they still moved to Luke’s body.