The Sovereign Necromancer and the Dominator Necromancer (2)

Jin-soo stroked Leo's head.

"Nyaaaang!"

Beast-type monsters came swarming in from every side. Nothing. What Jin-soo was searching for was a boss monster far stronger than the ordinary kind, but bosses were rare enough that finding one was anything but easy.

Keep hunting, and one ought to turn up eventually.

He and Shin Sua pressed on, shifting ground as they hunted.

"Gwoooorgh!"

More than an hour of hard hunting later, a boss monster finally showed itself.

A Giant Thorn Boar. The thing he had found was a hulking brute, its whole ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠body bristling with spines as sharp as a porcupine's quills. Worked into a frenzy, it thundered straight at him — and died without a struggle, its life cut short by a casual swing of Baekcheonsingeom.

As expected. Skill Nullification really is as broken as they say. The Giant Thorn Boar was a creature of formidable defense. Razor spines and tough hide covered it from end to end, and between its high durability stat and its host of defensive skills, ending it in a single blow should have been all but impossible. Not that any of it means a thing once those defensive skills are nullified.

Jin-soo used Army Summons on the Giant Thorn Boar.

The activation failed. It was the level. He understood the cause the instant it failed. The Giant Thorn Boar's Po — the lingering physical spirit the skill needed in order to manifest — simply could not be realized by a level 2 Army Summons.

Jin-soo locked the skill at level 622 and used it again.

A sharp rush of power answered him, and the skill took hold as if there had never been any question. With a heavy thud, a Giant Thorn Boar wrought of pitch-black darkness revealed itself before him.

Jin-soo swapped his status window from the Dark affinity to the Holy, then fixed Army Summons at level 622 through the skill level lock. As expected. It works.

This time a Giant Thorn Boar with a pure-white body was born. Nice. One boss monster slain, two summons gained. Let's wrap up the test first.

He switched his status window once more and returned to the Dark affinity, then summoned the Giant Thorn Boar and five beast-type monsters again.

"Leo."

"Nyaaaang!"

At Jin-soo's call, monsters converged from every direction. Fight.

He gave the order to the Giant Thorn Boar summon.

"Squeeee!"

The summon thundered toward the monsters and crashed into them.

"Skreee!"

"Graaaah!"

Jin-soo hunted at a measured pace, watching the Giant Thorn Boar summon all the while. Strong. Its foundation had been a boss monster, and the skill level had risen to 622. The result was only natural. Stronger than it was before it became a summon. A level 2 summon had been weaker than the original. A level 622 summon, sure enough, was not.

At this rate, it's about twice as strong as it was alive. You lot, go too.

He directed the five beast-type summons he had resurrected after their destruction.

"Grrrrng!"

"Roooargh!"

The five fought valiantly as well. Those ones look at least four times stronger. They and the Giant Thorn Boar summon shared the same level, but not the same strength. Set against the boar's overwhelming performance, the five put on only a reasonably strong showing.

The stronger the original, the stronger the summon. Just as I thought. It was the same principle as the Dragon Tooth Soldiers, which grew more powerful the higher the pedigree of the dragon-type teeth used as material. What grew further past its original, though, was those five. The Giant Thorn Boar summon had roughly doubled, while the five beast-type monsters had grown about fourfold. He could guess the reason well enough.

There has to be a ceiling on final growth, set by the original. Dragon Tooth Soldiers forged from White Drake teeth had grown steadily stronger as the summon skill's level rose, but they could not keep growing forever. Sooner or later, they'll hit their limit. No matter how extraordinary the feats heaped upon them, the inborn limit of being White Drake teeth could not be overcome.

The Dragon Tooth Soldiers based on lizardman teeth had already reached that ceiling. Jin-soo had kept raising the level of Dragon Tooth Soldier Summon through his blessings, and still those soldiers grew no stronger. All that increased was the number he could summon. The five beast-type monsters were no different. This is as far as they go.

The Giant Thorn Boar summon, however, was another matter. There's still room for it to grow stronger.

He felt a fresh pang of regret for the White Drake he had hunted on Floor 50. If I'd already gained a second class back then, and mastered the Dominator Necromancer and Sovereign Necromancer advancement books, I could have commanded that White Drake as a summon. But that had been impossible from the very start. No use regretting what's already passed.

What mattered was everything from here on. Out-of-Spec Monsters appeared on Floor 100 as well. Not that this one is an insect-type. The problem was that even Jin-soo had no idea when the thing would show itself. Before the regression, it never appeared even once after I reached Floor 100.

He had only heard of it from NPCs and other Players — that a few years before he arrived on Floor 100, an Out-of-Spec Monster had appeared and razed several cities completely. If it can punch through the safe zones laid over the cities, it's an absurdly powerful one. A tier above the White Drake, without question.

Time to hunt a little harder. For the moment, that was the only conclusion. He needed to grow his blessings further and gather points as well. But there was a more decisive reason.

I have to hunt diligently and thin out the monster population. Only then would the System judge Floor 100 to be saturated with Players and deploy an Out-of-Spec Monster. It's only a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hypothesis. Having spent a long time in the Tower before his regression, Jin-soo believed that hypothesis came close to the truth. And it's only a matter of hunting a bit harder at something I have to do anyway.

Besides, if he wanted to secure a good number of useful summons like the Giant Thorn Boar, he had to keep moving.

Jin-soo and Shin Sua resumed their forced march, pouring everything into the hunt except the hours they spent eating and sleeping. When the hunting demanded it, they even forsook the comforts of city life and endured sleeping in the open.

The results, however, were thoroughly unimpressive.

The blessings are growing far too slowly. Locked at level 2, his level was climbing at a frantic pace. But unless a level-up was the 222,222nd, or the 2,222,222nd, it did little to help his blessings grow. The same held for achievements and titles.

So unless it's on the order of an Impossible Feat, it doesn't even register? From where Jin-soo stood, it was nothing short of regrettable. At least increasing my summons has shown some results. That's a relief.

Including the Giant Thorn Boar, he had managed to turn six boss monsters in all into summons. The disappointing part is that the Summon Contract skill came up empty twice in a row.

Once the cooldown returned after his contract with Kkami, he had challenged it with ambition, determined that this time he would draw a combat-type summon. The contract itself failed. No summon had answered the Summon Contract skill at all — twice in a row, no less. For Jin-soo, it was a genuine shame.

Anything at all would have been a help. Leo drew monsters in with his wide-area taunt roar, and Kkami flew the skies, rendering distinguished service in pinpointing where the bosses lurked. At least my stats have climbed to 1,122. How much more time he would have to invest to push his class skills, common skills, and item levels to 722, and to hope for a new blessing, even Jin-soo could not say.

Then Kkami shared its vision with him.

Found one. Kkami had discovered the boss monster that would become his seventh summon. There are quite a few of them. The boss he had found this time was no solitary hunter. It moved with a pack.

"Let's go."

"Yeah."

Jin-soo and Shin Sua headed for where Kkami waited.

"Grrrrng!"

"Kyaaaang!"

The monsters at the place Kkami's guidance had led them to were lycanthropes — nearly a hundred of them, massed in a pack.

That one's the boss. One individual was plain at a glance, silver-furred and vastly larger than any ordinary lycanthrope. Go.

Jin-soo gave the attack order to his Shadow Summons and his Army Summons, then unleashed a magic attack skill.

A tremendous boom split the air as red fire washed over the lycanthrope pack.

"Awooooo!"

"Graaaah!"

"Arooo!"

Struck first, the pack exploded with rage and came charging at Jin-soo and Shin Sua at a terrifying speed. What met them, however, were Jin-soo's summons.

The Shadow Knight slammed its shield into them and brought its sword down, and lycanthropes crumpled with shattered bones and severed limbs. The Shadow Warrior showed monstrous strength, cutting down three or four with every swing of its greatsword.

"Yipe!"

"Kyaaang!"

The Shadow Assassin darted through the press, ending lives in single lethal strikes. The Shadow Archer loosed a blistering volley, every arrow finding its mark. The Shadow Mage poured out spells, and the Shadow Healer poured out curses.

Through the lycanthrope pack, now a complete melee, the Army Summons charged. At their head the Giant Thorn Boar barreled forward like a tank and trampled lycanthropes underfoot, and the other five summons fell in behind it and joined the assault.

Ones based on boss monsters are definitely worth fielding. The ordinary lycanthropes weren't even a match.

"Grrrrr!"

Then the boss itself, the silver-furred lycanthrope, moved. It seized the Giant Thorn Boar's tusks in both clawed arms and stopped the charge cold — then, with appalling brute strength, tore the boar's mouth apart.

Strong. Jin-soo's eyes gleamed. It had ripped apart, in a single blow, a Giant Thorn Boar that had grown at least twice as strong upon becoming a summon? The boar had unquestionably been a boss monster itself. Yet the silver-furred lycanthrope had torn it apart the way one killed an ordinary monster, not a boss.

I didn't think I'd be confirming the boss Giant Thorn Boar's resummon count this soon. The destroyed Giant Thorn Boar's Po was permanently consumed. No difference. Despite the gap between an ordinary monster and a boss, the amount of Po consumed was much the same. A little disappointing. He had hoped that, a boss monster's hun and po being special, less would be spent when it was destroyed. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

While Jin-soo was taking the measure of the Giant Thorn Boar's permanently consumed Po, the Army Summons made from the other boss monsters likewise failed to withstand the silver-furred lycanthrope. In an instant, every one of them was annihilated.

This isn't the level of an ordinary boss. For a moment, he even suspected it might be an Out-of-Spec Monster. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I can confirm that myself.

Jin-soo brought the fallen summons back, then sent a hail of arrows at the silver-furred lycanthrope. Shafts hissed and thudded home. The beast covered its vitals with both arms and charged him in a furious rush.

Its durability stat is absurd.

Jin-soo smiled as the magic took shape. Flames roared up, and a massive explosion detonated — yet the silver-furred lycanthrope burst straight through and closed the distance between them.

The curses took hold. Jin-soo swapped the gear from his inventory, then charged the silver-furred lycanthrope, swinging Baekcheonsingeom and the Blood-Sucking Sword as pure-white aura and blood-red aura erupted from the blades with fierce force.