Just like how I was able to increase my stamina through strenuous activities, it was the same application for ichor power. Through strenuous activities like meditating and circulating large quantities of mana through my body or the innate pressure built up into each step, I was able to push this stat past its limits.
As the world around me crumbled, I stepped up onto the podium of marble supporting towering obsidian pillars. It looked to be more of a temple than a palace as the very front was completely open, the only thing preventing too much natural light from getting in being the gargantuan blocks of obsidian.
[You have completed the first half of the Hidden Quest: Stairs of ???]
I was confused as to what this meant. I had never experienced a quest where there was a first and second half and the fact that this was with a hidden quest made it even more difficult to understand. Yet, when a cold voice beckoned for my presence beyond the darkness of the temple's guts, I knew just what I had to do.
"Come inside, my child. I must speak to you about something," Its slimy and greasy tone called for me. I would have immediately declined and ignored such a request if it wasn't for the fact that a massive amount of pressure poured out from in between each pillar, causing the atmosphere to instantly swirl with humidity.
Bzzzzzt
『Status』[Error] n0veluSb.c0m
[Name: [Error] [Error] ]
[Race: [Error] [Error] ]
[Class: [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] ]
[Sub-Class: [Error] [Error] [Error] ]
[Level: 0/100] (0/250) XP Needed
[HP: 500/500 | IP: 200000] - Non Human
[Strength: [Error] - Non Human
[Defense: [Error] - Non Human
[Magic: [Error] - Non Human
[Speed: [Error] - Non Human
[Mana Heart: [Error] [Error] ]
[Skills: [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error]
[Tarot Power: [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error]
[Life Manipulation: [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error]
[Five Destroying Martial Skills of The Blood Prince: [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error]
[Commander of The Sangria-Eyed King's Armory: [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error]
[Prince of Manipulation: [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error]
[Passive Skills: [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error]
[Rune Path: [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error]
[Equipment: [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error] [Error]
...
Somehow, my very own status filled with error bars flickered in front of me. I did nothing yet it popped up right in my face, threatening me with its glowing red tint. Obviously, it was meant to call me in.
It was humid. So fucking humid. It was like I was in the middle of a jungle just by being in this heavily ventilated temple. It was dark. So very dark. It was like the abyss had lined the inside of this place, absorbing and taking in any ounce of outside light that it could swallow up whole.
"Don't be afraid, my child. I won't hurt you..." A voice slithered into my ear and out the other.
I barely had any time to react as the tip of a massive snake stretched around me and whipped me deep into the abyss. It was dark until the heavy and continuous clouds above the pantheon somehow moved for the first time in three hundred years.
Light rushed in, desperate to fill up every corner it could get to. It brushed the halls and swept the polished marble floor until it tickled the back of my head and ended at the feet of a single man dressed in baggy black robes. Two women were by his side, their pupils rectangular like goats while the single man had pupils like that of a reptile.
They were threatening and thin. It felt as if any sudden movement would cause him to snap out towards me and unhinge a jaw filled with nothing but two piercing fangs dripping with venom. It was horrifying, but I felt no need to be intimidated... I was long past that point.
"Or... maybe don't be afraid. You look like you're tense but your heartbeat is steady. It's slow. Way too slow... almost like you're constantly dying, hanging onto the border between life and death... you can't trick me."
"I was never trying to trick you," I replied calmly, my eyes unwavering to the point that it was impossible for me to blink. "Your tail would have squeezed me to death if I didn't apply a little bit of resistance..."
The scaly green tail wrapping me slowly let me down, allowing me to ease the rest of my tensed body. I could finally relax as I talked to this man, so I cracked my back and lay my eyes on his dark silhouette. The two women next to him were as threatening or even more than this snake bastard, yet... that's for now.
"Congratulations... that's all I have for you. You're pretty quick... to have completed my stairs like that. If you would like, I can grant you wishes beyond your wildest dreams. Monetary power, political power, spiritual power..." The man smiled, the two long fangs hidden beneath those shadowed-out lips of his revealed themselves cautiously. "... the church can be on your side. I've created my own religion and it's said that they're more powerful than the government I carefully crafted... or would you like something more? Systematical power... correct? Skills, passives, stats, titles... I know what your kind wants."
