Death Mage with an SS-Rank Talent-Chapter 118

Two weeks ago...

After deciding to restart diving into dungeons, Aaron would dive into the dungeons as much as he could, as long as there were no classes that were useful to him.

He dived into D-rank dungeons for experience, while E-rank dungeons for loot.

He has E-rank dungeon entry coupons that he got as rewards from the first competition. He made use of them in this way, as EXP gained even with a 100x perk would not be enough to improve much anyway.

Moreover, if he brings D-rank loot at this point, that might cause some trouble for him, but he was more afraid for his parents, who are not even combat professionals. If they were combat professionals, he might not have to be living in such fear.

They would have the strength to defeat the enemies, escape if they can’t defeat the attackers or survive until help arrives.

They are both cooks, and that too, not high-ranking cooks. At least if they were, the family would have amassed a lot of wealth, which could have been used to protect his parents.

None of these were the cases. So, until he was strong and wealthy enough, he needed to develop in a low-key manner. He only needs to show his strength when absolutely needed. In other times, he was nothing but a measly student of the Dusk Academy, nothing more.

A month after the first-year tournament, there was another tournament, where the competition was between students of two years.

Students from first and second years would fight each other, while students from third and fourth years would fight each other. Of course, the matches could be with the same year too, but never against a student from the other set.

There would be two sets of winners, making the rewards fewer. Since there were few rewards, Aaron didn’t participate in the tournament. There was no need to show his strength for such meagre rewards.

Showing his strength would only attract unwanted attention, which would be bad for him and his family. Only when the benefits outweigh the risk would he be interested in showing his strength.

Otherwise, there was no need.

Though he didn’t participate, he watched a few matches to understand the fighting styles of others. Everyone has their own style of fighting.

Though they might not be useful to him, they could help him understand and improve his own fighting style by implementing some elements that he hadn’t thought of before.

This was the reason why there was the Spectator Stand, not just to cheer and throw curses at the fighters when they win or lose the match.

Though most wouldn’t learn anything but waste their time, there are a few who would watch the matches to enlighten themselves. Aaron was one of them.

There are many Necromancers who fought in the matches.

Necromancers use the undead army of every kind. Their army would include skeletons, ghosts, spectres and even zombies. If there are other types of undead, they would use them too.

Unlike Aaron, who is a Death Mage and a few of his skills are like curses and Death Attacks, Necromancers have no such skills, unless they learn by getting some skill books.

So, normally, they would have more types of undead that Death Mages like Aaron. They had to depend solely on the undead, and their fighting tactics would be better than his half-baked undead army.

This competition gave him a lot to learn about fighting.

There are many things that he did wrong before, but after watching so many matches, he learned a lot, both pros and cons of using an undead army.

The pro of an undead army was that the army would be huge for a few to contend with. As long as the awakener has mana, they can summon new undead to replace the destroyed undead soldiers.

Using such crushing tactics, awakeners with an undead army are almost invincible in lower ranks. Though Death awakeners failed to reach rank-7, when facing so many undead, even Rank-7 and Rank-8 awakeners have to scram.

This is why they were feared, even if they were of lower ranks.

If they break into Rank-7 or higher ranks, there is almost no one in the world who can stop them. Of course, that doesn’t mean Death class professionals are unbeatable.

Light is their greatest weakness.

Lightning and Fire come next.

Swamps are everyone’s weakness, even undead. If the undead get stuck, the professional has to unsummon them and doing so would give a chance for others to attack and defeat them.

Summoners are usually weaker when compared to the summons. With so many undead, Death professionals wouldn’t improve their personal prowess as much as others.

As said, there are both pros and cons of having an undead army. Learning about them would give him better chances at survival in the future.

Though he missed out on the rewards that could have been his if he had participated, what he gained was a gain in his dictionary.

Not only was he able to absorb others’ fighting styles, which he can use to improve his own fighting style, thereby improving his survival rate, but he also avoided getting into the eyes of the unwanted.

Too much attention on him would be a disaster.

---

Other than watching the matches he wanted, or going to necessary classes, Aaron went dungeon diving. He used the reward tokens for the E-rank dungeon to enter Loot Dungeons. The loot collected from them was submitted to the resource center when Zara was present.

He could have done it when others were there too, but he felt comfortable with someone whom he already knew.

"Zara, when does your shift end?" Aaron asked Zara who was counting the loot.

"Hmm, in an hour", she answered absent-mindedly.

"How about we get lunch together after your shift?" Aaron asked a bit nervously.

He has no experience in this field. Whatever he does comes from the novels that he read, but those are too cheesy for him to utter. So, he asked her directly.

If she says Yes, then it is good. If she says No, then that would be her bad luck. There is nothing to do about it.

She is, after all, not the only girl in the academy. Though she constituted one-third of the girls that he knew in the academy, that doesn’t mean he can’t get other girls later on.

Zara was surprised when she heard those words, and got stuck with a surprised expression.

Aaron at first thought that she was going to reject the offer, but when he saw her stuck expression, he shook her body, which woke her up.

"Wait, did you really ask me out for lunch?" Zara asked in a surprised voice.

"Yes", Aaron replied, "It’s okay if you don’t want to go".

"No, no, no, I want to go", Zara replied in a hurry, fearing that the chance would be gone if she didn’t reply then.

Aaron smiled and said, "Okay, I will pick you up after the shift".

Zara nodded as she continued to count the loot. Once the count was done and was paid for the loot, Aaron left the resource center, returning to his house.