A Novel Concept - A death a day, MC will live anyway! Chapter 247: The Floor is Lava—Cheater Edition

New Title!

[Lava Summoner - Silver] - A volcanic plu of about twenty-five kiloters, over five cubic kiloters of ejected material, and the energy of fifty thousand A-bombs; that's the terror of a Plinian eruption. Your work.

The floor is lava. And the walls. The ceiling too. You will lose, but will you die?

Sub-Energy Affinity 2% (Your affinity with all sub-concepts of Energy increases by 2%)

Most mythologies place paradise in the skies and hell in the earth's depths. At this mont, Priam understood why.

The pressure in the magma chamber was titanic. After stoking it with Pyro, Priam had provided an escape route through the tunnel he had dug. The superheated gasses caused a terrible explosion, which he survived only by rging with his Fire Unity.

Seeing the unparalleled energy released by the eruption, Priam beca worried for his partner.

Esmée!

A split second later, drops of magma, semi-lted rocks, and vapors replaced the flas. Without fire, there was no Unity.

Priam reappeared abruptly in the path of an infernal avalanche that drowned his guilt. The shock of being yanked from his fusion with the Fire Concept gave way to fear as the eruption pinned him against the tunnel's ceiling with the force of a titan. The viscous magma struck him with unbelievable violence, breaking his bones like twigs.

Lvl Up: [Sun Steel Body] lvl 11

CONST 6

TA (Endurance) 3

Coughing blood that vaporized instantly, Priam scread as the eruption dragged him toward the exit, scraping his body against the tunnel walls. A mix of molten rock and incandescent gasses poured into his open mouth, scorching his body from the inside.

Lvl Up: [Fire Champion Physique] lvl 8

VIT 3

CONST 3

TA (Endurance) 3

Fuck!

Caught between the hard rock and the pyroclastic surge, pelted by molten stones propelled at half the speed of sound, and with his esophagus burning, Priam knew his chances of survival were slim. An eruption could last months or even years, and his resurrection would place him back at the site of his death. A sure way to die permanently. Worse, if the flow carried him to a water area, the magma would cool, trapping him in a rock casing.

It’s at this mont I know I fucked up!

Furious at his dumb decision to closely observe the explosion, Priam activated his scales, boosting his friction resistance. The fiery storm and the viscous liquid began to flow around him.

Lvl Up: [Smooth Scales] lvl 28

AGI 3

Far from reassured, Priam focused on survival. Half his attention communed with Pyro, trying to find a way to calm the volcano's fury locally. The other half concentrated on [Kinetic Control] to lower the magma's temperature threatening to incinerate him and pin him against the tunnel wall.

Lvl Up: [Fire Champion Physique] lvl 9

VIT 3

CONST 3

TA (Endurance) 3

Less than a second later, Priam abandoned the first part of his experint, feeling the liquid stone solidify around him. He was creating his own tomb.

Refusing to succumb to the panic clouding his thoughts, Priam sought a solution. Despite his draconic scales and Fire Champion physique, the magma easily burned his flesh. Feeling his skin char and be carried away by the river of lava, he instinctively activated his kinetic skill on his own body. Slowing the thermal agitation of his molecules, he tried to maintain a viable temperature for his cells.

Around him, hell unleashed superheated solids, liquids, and gasses. The cataclysm sought to obliterate all opposition, and the young Homo Elysian stood in its path.

Because I was stupid enough to try tanking an eruption!

Accepting his mistake, Priam set his anger aside and fought to survive. His body was falling apart. His hair and scalp had vanished, and when his eyelids turned to charcoal, he winced as his eyes lted. To prevent lava from entering his skull through his eye sockets, Priam cooled the liquid, ending up with two obsidian eyes.

Lvl Up: [Fire Champion Physique] lvl 10

VIT 3

CONST 3

TA (Endurance) 3

While only [Kinetic Control] kept him alive by preventing heat from gaining a hold on him, Priam felt his ridians overheating. Absorbing such an incredible amount of heat was untenable, neither in the long term nor the short term. Without his ideal and epic resistance, his pathways would have already failed.

Lvl Up: [Adaptive Golden ridians] lvl 9

TA (Focus) 3

TA (Endurance) 6

It took Priam only a fraction of a second to make a decision. His primary goal was survival; everything else was bullshit. The part of his split vivacity controlling his kinetic skill chose to sacrifice his unnecessary body parts. His legs and arms were discarded, left to the rcy of the furnace that devoured them in seconds. The sensation was atrocious, but ever since the Tutorial, he had been ready to make the necessary sacrifices to survive.

There was a reason he was the First.

Gritting his teeth, Priam let his limbs disappear without resistance and felt relief as his ridians could once again absorb so of the thermal energy that was carbonizing his body.

However, even that wasn't enough. Priam was dying slowly, and the only way out was to adapt; it was ti to invest his rit points.

Trees of rit

[Tribulation Wyvern Heart - Gold] - Tier 5: Locked. Requires a Legendary Title.

…

[Three-headed Hydra - Silver] - Tier 3: The poison in your blood now causes accelerated aging.

[Life is Hard; I’m harder - Gold] - Tier 0: Your resistances are even more effective.

[Mist Sage - Silver] - Tier 5: Locked. Requires a Legendary Title.

[Bloodless - Bronze] - Tier 1: Aether flows through your veins, elevating your body. LOCKED - Requires epic-grade temperance.

[Ace - Legendary] - Tier 2: Talented Candidate: Choose one of your Talents from the list and evolve it.

List: Aether Citizen, Prosse, Chira, Spectral Familiarity.

[Soul Scarred - Gold] - Tier 0: Just like your body, your soul is now capable of regenerating to so extent.

[Breathless - Silver] - Tier 1: Second Breath, Second Wind: restores your body to its most exceptional form possible.

[Lava Summoner - Silver] - Tier 0: Gaïa’s Wrath. You can awaken any Plinian-class volcano once a week.

10 Unused rit Points.

Eyeing the rit of [Breathless] for a bit, Priam still preferred another rit.

[Life is Hard; I’m Harder - Gold] - Tier 0: Your resistances are even more effective. ACQUIRED

[Life is Hard; I’m Harder - Gold] - Tier 1: You can develop resistances normally inaccessible to your race.

9 Unused rit Points.

The change was imdiate, and if he could have, Priam would have sighed in relief. The second tier of constitution allowed him to feel his resistances spreading their wings, gaining the equivalent of half a level of rarity.

As the terror of the flas beca more bearable, a half-lted rock struck Priam on the shoulder, breaking his collarbone. A second and then a third were kinetically deflected by his add-on, which detected them through his Domain.

Pinned to the tunnel wall, subrged by an infernal river reminiscent of the Phlegethon, struck by high-velocity rocks, compressed by the magma flow, and eroded by burning winds, Priam gritted his teeth and waited. If a Tier 0 could survive a plunge into the heart of a volcano, it was him.

Lvl Up: [Fire Champion Physique] lvl 11

VIT 3

CONST 3

TA (Endurance) 3

Stay alive and adapt. I refuse to die, I refuse to lose, I refuse to let this be my end. I REFUSE!

Priam never gave up. Never.

Lvl Up: [Fire Champion Physique] lvl 14, 15, 16, 17

VIT 12

CONST 12

TA (Endurance) 12

Lvl Up: [Smooth Scales] lvl 30, 31, 32, 33, 34

AGI 15

Lvl Up: [Asphyxia Resistance] lvl 28, 29

VIT 4

TA (Endurance) 2

Lvl Up: [Poison Body] lvl 24, 25, 26

CONST 3

VIT 3

TA (Endurance) 3

An hour later, Priam seized his mont. His body had partially adapted to the eruption. Though far from impervious, he could now endure it—under certain conditions.

For the past thirty minutes, the explosion had gradually subsided. A period of calm was approaching, but Pyro whispered that more eruptions would follow. The calm before the storm.

It was ti to escape.

Taking advantage of a lull in the volcanic cycle, Priam regenerated his body and let himself be swept away by the pyroclastic flow. In less than a second, he left the tunnel and found himself in a massive cavern that hadn’t been there when he began digging hours earlier. Here, the conditions were much more bearable; from twelve hundred degrees Celsius, the temperature had dropped to less than a thousand.

For a mont, Priam had to fight the urge to laugh and cry. He had succeeded, he had survived! Happy and proud, he allowed himself a few seconds of joy before refocusing. He had a trophy to obtain.

Using Pyro's help, Priam surveyed his surroundings. The lava had cooled upon contact with water, but the pressure from the magma propelled by the volcano constantly shattered the igneous rock. Pressurized lava pushed away the water, swelling into an underwater pocket akin to a geological blister full of magma. Guided by his Concept, Priam navigated through this environnt. A few hundred ters to his right, a fractured tetrahedron lay against the seabed.

The draconic lair had survived the eruption.

Despite his smooth scales, Priam struggled to swim through the magma—colder and thus more viscous—but eventually reached the four-sided polyhedron. It was large enough to contain a small building. Inside, the seventh Terror was likely waiting out the cataclysm in safety.

A surge of satisfaction rose in Priam. During their first encounter, he had fled for his life. Today, the roles were reversed. Trembling with fatigue and anticipation, he summoned Prosse and drove it deep into one of the pyramid’s cracks. The blade's tip lodged in the draconic stone, and Priam channeled a portion of the colossal kinetic energy he had accumulated.

Using the spear as a lever, he pried open the lair, which exploded with a sound like the end of the world. A large quantity of objects was released, most burning instantly. Priam ignored them, focused on his adversary.

The seventh Terror erged in all its hideousness, screaming in pain.

The giant lobster that served as its mother must have mated with Cthulhu, but that wasn’t the only explanation for its nightmarish appearance: the embodint of ugliness was horrifically burned. The volcanic explosion had not only fractured its lair but also scarred the creature. Most of its tentacles were gone, and the remaining ones were cauterized.

Disoriented by the flas, poisoned by toxic gasses, and drowned by molten rock, the seventh Terror of the oceans convulsed as it turned towards Priam.

Ti for Round 2!