Chapter 220 - Alchemist

After the break, I decided that it was time to move on. Glacien was sleeping on the floor, but readily got up when she sensed my intentions. 

“Time to get that alchemist class and then be able to produce energy drinks left and right.”

“Awoo, awooo!”

Glacien looked eager for the next fight. She probably was going to obtain a new class too here given that the previous boss chamber was able to grant her a power up. Speaking of the ice phoenix, perhaps I should pick a flying animal the next time to tame. Given how Glacien was growing, a flying animal would be able to grow that much as well and then I would be able to ride it and have the ability to fight in the sky. Most enemies would be unable to fight back against us.

Having a bird like pet and one like a feline type would make the complete set for an archer for me to have, but I didn’t see many types of flying animals that it would be cool to have alongside me.

I also thought that I should cancel tame at least once with Glacien and see what happens. Even back home, I had complicated feelings about people who had pets, even more so the type that kept them in cages. It felt really odd that birds would have to leave like that when they could chirp so well that it was almost music…

While I was thinking about that, we reached the boss chamber and then found the place covered in boulders that got in the way of our vision. The air was clean, unlike the rest of the labyrinth, so we didn’t have to worry about poison slowly causing trouble.

I was hoping to hear the sound of chains given that the monster was a Minotaur, but this one was sealed here… it began to move and made the ground shake a bit. Before long, we saw the creature emerging behind one of the boulders around.

“I knew it…. Still, what weird message is that the labyrinth is passing us with this?”

The Minotaur boss was far more than the typical horned brute the legends spoke of. It was a chimera, a grotesque amalgamation of human and beast. Its towering frame stood at least four times the height of an average man, a muscled juggernaut sculpted from nightmares. Its torso bore the humanoid shape of a warrior, rippling with strength, but its legs were those of a massive bull, hooved and impossibly powerful.

Its arms were a grotesque hybrid of human and beast, bulging with unnatural sinew and tipped with claws instead of fingers. The creature’s face was where the horror truly solidified, partially human, yet dominated by the monstrous features of a bull-like beast. Wickedly sharp horns jutted out from its skull, framing glowing, hateful eyes. Its mouth was lined with jagged teeth, more fitting for a predator than a grazing animal, and it exuded a guttural roar that sent tremors through the ground.

Every inch of its form seemed engineered to inspire fear, and the way it moved, with an unnatural, terrifying brute strength, made it clear that this was no ordinary beast. The Minotaur chimera was a monstrosity born from the melding of man and beast.

“I wonder if this kind of thing came from a rift or… it has a tragic backstory as the same as the Minotaur from Greece.”

That didn’t matter since the beast roared and then changed toward me. Glacien still took her place in front of me to block the beast, but the monster was simply too large for her to defeat alone, with only my magic as support.

I grabbed my bow, expecting that I wouldn’t have to pull too much strain in my left arm. In the next moment, the beast jumped and then slammed down both arms to smash us, but both of us jumped to the side and avoided the attack.

The larger fists of the monster made the room shake and then pebbles flew in all directions, obscuring my vision. Still, I knew where the beast was and still unleashed an arrow at the monster using twenty percent of my attack.

The Minotaur raised its left arm and blocked the attack… the arrow barely pierced its skin. Still, the shocking effect began to work and then the beast was paralyzed for a moment, which Glacien used as the chance to slash her claws at the monster’s neck.

Her frost claws cut the neck of the monster, but they only made a bit of blood fall from the wound. My arrow fell from the srm of the monster and no longer shocked the beast. The creature turned around to face Glacien…

‘What about thirty percent then?’

I had to find the right amount of strength soon… mana drain worked with physical damage caused, and the previous attack didn’t cause any of it, so I just wasted most of my mana.

The beast exposed it’s back to me, imagining that I didn’t have enough power to hurt it, but soon regretted when the next arrow pierced its back… only a bit, but it was enough to paralyze it with the shock effect for a second. A second that Glacien used to jump and then target the eyes of the monster…

Although the beast was paralyzed, the shock and damage caused were just a bit above before and the monster was able to move its head to the side… Glacien claws only slashed the cheeks of the monster.

“Grrrr…”

“Sorry, girl… I am a work in progress.”

It was time for forty percent… I felt like a moron doing that. Like I was a villain mocking the hero by slowly increasing my attack power. The next thing I would do was use 120 percent or some shit, like it was possible.

The monster turned around to look at both of us in annoyance. The monster was tough and strong, but it wasn’t very agile and dexterous. Naturally, a boss of this level would have a lot of limitations.

The monster charged after raising both of its thick arms to protect its head… it wasn’t stupid, it decided to smash us while protecting itself. I almost fell bad for the beast since that wasn’t a bad idea. It would be easy to dispose of it with some decay arrows, but right now, I wanted to test the limits of my left arm.

When I was about to unleash the arrow, I felt a sharp pain in the wound… that made my aim move a bit to the side and the arrow barely scraped the arm of the monster.

“Crap…”

We jumped to the side again, but the beast was waiting for that and soon swung both of its large arms to the side to hit us… we only escaped because I used Demon’s Snare out of reflex.

“Attack freely, girl.”

I activated Beast’s Fury and then Glacien began to torment the weakened monster… I had found the limits of my arm and the bow and I found them lacking. Just three arrows made me feel some pain and I couldn’t risk delaying the closing of the wound.

I could feel my mana being restored… I knew that the boss could be considered an abomination, but I didn’t think that it would actually be an undead or abyssal creature. It made sense that it was undead, since it probably had the dead parts of a human and a bull monster.

Still, Glacien attacks only caused minor wounds on the monster. The creature closed its eyes to avoid losing them and even its eyelids were that hard to damage.

“Go for the eyebrows, girl.”

Beast Fury enraged Glacien too, but she still understood my order and began to slash apart the monster in that area… It didn’t take long for the monster to have its face covered in blood and then the Demon’s Snare disappeared.

When the monster was free, it was barely able to keep its eyes open. It tried to clean then, but more blood came out.

“Hhhhhhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The monster roared in anger as it looked at both of us, but it also knew that charging mindlessly would be its end… this made me wonder, if this thing was created by the labyrinth and they could spawn monsters left and right, how did the labyrinths get all the data to create those kinds of creatures? Actually, did it create them or brought them from some unknown place? Some monsters showed a high level of intelligence like this one, despite their conditions.

“... All right, time to end this.”

I didn’t want to think too much about the monsters that I was hunting. It would give me some troublesome ideas about their very existence and I didn’t need that kind of trouble in my life.

At this point in the fight, two against one was unfair, and the boss was so wounded that anything else now would be simply bullying. With that in mind, I moved the sleeve from my left arm and then pulled the bowstring of my hand crossbow.

That still put some strain on my left arm, but with a single bolt being there, the pressure would be weaker… in the end, I fired a decay bolt enchanted by the power of wind… it pierced through the head of the monster without resistance.

You received 3500 experience points.

You completed a trial. Please choose between the classes: Dark Paladin, Pyromancer, and Alchemist.

You obtained the Alchemist class.

You improved the Mana Regeneration parameter.

You unlocked the Aptitude: Chemical Mastery.

You unlocked the skill: Explosive Flask.

You unlocked the skill: Restorative Brew.

Chemical Mastery: Gain experience points based on the quality of the potion created.

Active Skills - Explosive Flask: Throw a flask that shatters on impact, dealing area-of-effect damage equal to your magical and physical power and causing a lingering fire effect. Cost: 20 mana.

Restorative Brew: Your potions can restore five percent more health and mana to a target.

For a change, the system didn’t try to screw me over, so I sighed in relief, it looked like Glacien got a new class too, so we finally achieved our goal and could leave this hellhole. For a short while, I absorbed the knowledge of the class and understood how to create the explosive flask… I could use all sorts of materials, I just had to make them go haywire with my mana.

‘Well, time to go now.’