Talent System: I Instantly Master My Opponents Skills
Chapter 54: The Wrong Path

Chapter 54: The Wrong Path

Jason walked past the corpse of the spider, though he felt calmer when it was dead he still hated their kind.

The glow of the rocks in the wall only intensified as he continued, but he still didn’t bother himself with it, he was eager to find the next sub-boss and kill it, then he would obtain the next heart.

A water-like substance had started to drip down from the cavern ceiling, it sparkled in the blue light like liquid sapphire.

As he went deeper, the amount of drops dripping from the ceiling only began to intensify.

"Another one." Jason muttered to himself.

He saw another one of those kind of monsters under the arachnid class in the cavern, this one didn’t seem much different from the other one.

The thin, long legs were still the same and it still crept him out.

Jason moved forward, his grip on the katana increasing as he swung down vertically.

Traces of blood became evident, one side of the monster’s head slid from the other. The blood acted to reduce friction as the two halves fell apart.

The spider was still alive, its two seperate, disconnected body twitched in pain but the monster couldn’t do anything about it.

The human it found was just too cruel.

Without waiting anymore, Jason continued on his way. He didn’t have the courage to pluck the heart out of the spider.

Frankly, only the Giant Arachnid Spider was the only spider he was comfortable with, its legs weren’t thin and had a lot of bulk to them. He was also prepared for it, he knew about the existence of the Giant Arachnid Spider before he met the sub-boss.

Jason suddenly felt a peculiar pull forward, it was almost as if something was calling him.

"As if, its not like I’m the kind of person that sees a cave and thinks adventure is calling." Jason laughed out loud at the thought.

His laugh reverberated and the sound he made bounced off the walls of the cave.

The path before him seemed to stretch out for what seemed like an eternity’s long voyage, he couldn’t feel himself getting closer to the end.

"It feels like I’ve been walking for a long time." Jason said to himself.

He barely encountered any monsters, and the monsters he encountered were barely in the range of 2 and at the highest he faced four at a time.

He didn’t dare to pick out the heart of the spiders, he already had enough hearts, it didn’t sit well with him to add more to his collection if they weren’t the sub-bosses heart, or even the heart of the boss itself.

Jason had already gathered eight hearts after killing fifty goblins, – he accidentally squashed the heart of some of the goblins he killed – thirty hobgoblins and a sub-boss. He didn’t have to force himself to pick out a spare heart when first place was already in his grasp.

The thoughts left and came, Jason felt like he was trapped in an eternal cycle of walking.

’Is this an illusion?’ He asked himself in his heart after walking for what felt like hours.

He was starting to feel fatigue catching up to him.

"No." He looked forward but could only see the winding route of the dungeon.

"I’ll go back, when I’ve rested I’ll start again."

With those thoughts Jason went in the opposite direction, he was no longer bothered about killing the sub-boss.

All he wanted was a little shut-eye to recover his stamina and then try again.

The only reason he did not nap here was because he was afraid the spiders would try to kill him while he slept.

Jason had believed that it would take hours to reach where he came from.

"What the fuck?!... Now, this surely has to be an illusion."

But it only took some minutes.

Only some damn minutes.

He had expected hours, even thinking that he would get bored of walking and switch to running a marathon before he arrived.

"Aren’t I supposed to have stage 3 early mental strength? How could I fall into an illusion?" Jason pondered aloud.

But no matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t see how that was an illusion.

’There isn’t anything like illusion magic, yet.’

’But they’re treasures that can put someone in an illusion!’

The possibility of a cavern in a dungeon possessing a treasure that could put someone in an illusion was straight up fantasy!

’Then again, I did get reincarnated into a fantasy world. That being said, anything is possible.’

Jason couldn’t settle for that answer.

If it was a rank 0 dungeon that had a treasure that caused illusion it would be understandable. And even if they had a treasure that could do such things, it was impossible to think that a simple rank 4 dungeon could put him – with such a mental stat – inside an illusion.

"How did this even happen?" He asked himself.

Jason replayed everything he had done since he had entered the cavern in his mind.

"Oh." He laughed when the answer finally came to him.

What would make him walk forever, yet he barely made any progress? It obviously had to do with the paths he took!

He glanced forward.

There were three sections: Left, Forward, and Right.

Last time he took left.

The situation was simple; from the three paths, if he took the wrong one he wasn’t going to make any progress as he would be stuck in a loop.

He would be able to kill monsters and obtain hearts if he wanted, but he wouldn’t make any progress if he wanted to make it to the boss.

Only by taking the right path would he finally start to make some progress.

The only way to figure out which path was the right path was by using the good old trial and error method.

"But then again, that’s just a speculation." Jason got up.

Just because there were three paths and the path he took didn’t end for him, that could also be because the path to the boss could just be unnaturally long.

By going through all the paths he would also be able to check if his thoughts were correct, if this was actually a loop or if the path was just long.

But he would only do that when he wasn’t tired.

Physically, he was exhausted.

Mentally, he was exhausted.

By mana, he had none.

All these pointed that he needed to recover his strength, and that could only be done by resting.

Jason groaned.

"Rocks don’t really make for good beds." Jason groaned as he tried to adjust his position.

Sand on the beach also didn’t make good beds, it was only because he was exhausted that he managed to make do with the grains of sand.

He had fallen asleep as soon as he fell down.

The others who had been trapped in the dungeon were also exhausted when they returned, that was the only reason they were able to sleep soundly.

Jason snuggled on the ground, even though it was uneven he would have to make do.

It would only be a while until he slept, woke up and went through the next path.