I Reincarnated into a Game Filled with Mods – Chapter 160

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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One of the walls collapsed, and monsters came pouring out from the inside. They were all low-level mobs that could be seen in the early areas. It was as if they were urging me to test the rune’s performance.

Unless you had a rune removal magic, your rune slots were usually full by the time you got here, so you couldn’t test it out even if you wanted to.

I changed Wingless Nightmare’s attribute. The blade emitted a blue light. Since black magic was also magic, it would naturally receive the attribute amplification effect of Wingless Nightmare.

I held the weapon in my right hand again. And then, I slightly bent the fingers of my left hand, and prepared to use the black magic I had just learned from Nix.

When I focused my mind, I felt the unique sensation of mana draining away, and also the sensation of my HP decreasing. It felt similar to when I used the special ability of the bloodstained sword.

The higher the rank of the black magic, the more HP it consumed, and since it absorbed a fixed amount of HP, a low-level character with a stat of 1 would be brought to the brink of death with just one spell.

But from now on, I didn’t have to care about HP costs. Because I had obtained the Vampiric Urge rune.

After preparing, black flames that had the same color as Nix’s pupils started to blaze on the palm of my left hand. It was a strange flame that seemed to absorb light rather than emit it.

“Hehe, you’re doing well.”

Nix, who had seen me like that, smiled foolishly.

I ignored Nix’s words and brought my left hand to the area right above Wingless Nightmare’s crossguard. And then, I pushed it upwards as if I was drawing the sword from its sheath.

With a whoosh sound, the flames that had appeared on my hand transferred to Wingless Nightmare. The black flames shimmered, creating a heat haze.

The monsters that were visible through the heat haze looked distorted.

This was the ‘Blazing Black Flame’ enchantment, which was one of the final builds for a melee character in Darkest Light Mod.

I held Wingless Nightmare, which was engulfed in black flames, with both hands. The flames weren’t hot at all, probably because it was a magic that I had cast.

The monsters slowly walked towards me. Although they looked like that, they were actually strengthened to match the location of the Rune Dungeon, so I would probably have to hit them 2 or 3 times with normal attacks to kill them.

I approached the monster that was closest to me. It cried out a strange roar and charged towards me.

—*Thwack!*

A cheerful sound was heard, and the monster’s right arm, which had been swung towards me, was knocked backwards. I had no intention of giving it time to recover from the stagger. I swung my sword.

When Wingless Nightmare grazed the monster’s chest horizontally, black flames blazed up from where the blade had passed through, burning the flesh and eating away at the inside.

A follow-up attack followed. The blade drew a path from the lower left to the upper right, and accurately grazed the monster’s head. Its legs swayed greatly.

‘As expected.’

The moment the monster was about to collapse backwards, a bright red dot appeared in the middle of its chest. I didn’t know why, but it was a UI that was exactly the same as the one in the game. It was probably a dot that only I could see.

I grabbed the monster’s head as my body led me to, and plunged Wingless Nightmare into its throat right before the red dot disappeared.

Then, I felt the same sensation of my HP recovering as when I drank an HP potion when my HP was low. It meant that the Vampiric Urge rune had activated properly.

I pulled out the sword that I had stabbed into its neck and threw the corpse aside. The monster’s corpse was soon engulfed in black flames and turned into a pile of ashes.

“Wow……”

Nix, who was behind me, clapped her hands and exclaimed in admiration. I felt embarrassed for a moment and thought that I should tell her not to do that, but I decided to just leave her be, since she might get dejected if I did.

I rushed towards the next monster. Just like before, I deflected the right arm that it was swinging at me and quickly swung my sword and landed two normal attacks.

This time as well, a bright red dot appeared in the middle of its body. Just like I had done with the first one, I grabbed its head with one hand and stabbed my sword into its neck. I felt the same sensation as if I had drunk an HP potion again.

I pulled out Wingless Nightmare and looked for the next target. There was probably one of those monsters that did ranged attacks here.

‘Ah, there it is.’

I saw a monster that was preparing to shoot an arrow from not too far away, and I prepared to cast another black magic spell.

Just in case, I used the magic that I had first learned from Nix, just to practice.

When I finished preparing the spell in my mind, my left hand suddenly felt heavy as if a weight had been attached to it, and then it became light again after a while. I stretched out my left hand forward.

—*Thud!*

The arrow turned into a handful of black something as soon as it touched my left hand. The black something was immediately sucked into my left hand. After confirming that the absorption was complete, I pulled my left arm and bent my elbow.

It was a success.

If I didn’t have the Vampiric Urge rune, I would have probably died from my HP being completely depleted the moment I used the Blazing Black Flame and this magic. But I was still alive and well.

‘I can’t reduce the delay, can I?’

I glanced down at my left hand.

I had already practiced this magic for three days, but the pre-delay and post-delay of this magic wouldn’t reduce at all. I tried to see if I could cancel the action in the middle, but it didn’t work.

“Wow……!”

I heard an even louder clapping sound than before. I pressed down on the embarrassment that was coming over me.

I killed two more mobs to recover my HP, and then cleanly ignored the rest and backed away. Nix was looking at me with eyes that were shining more than usual.

“The rest is up to you, Nix.”

“Hehe, okay.”

Nix, without any hesitation, created a large black fireball on the palm of her hand, and then waved her hand to send it flying. The black fireball hit the heads of the remaining monsters.

The mobs that had been hit head-on by the black flame evaporated without a trace.

“Good job.”

I stroked Nix’s head. Nix smiled brightly. I also smiled with satisfaction. That was the end of the test for the Vampiric Urge.

The ‘Vampiric Urge’ rune, as its name suggested, was a rune that allowed you to recover HP when you killed an enemy.

When you equipped it and depleted an enemy’s HP, a red dot would appear for a short time, and if you attacked the target with a dot, a finishing move would activate and you would recover HP.

There were dozens of types of finishing moves. Since each type of mob had its own unique finishing move, the number had increased greatly.

Even the bosses, with the exception of those that were created using palette swaps, each had their own unique finishing move. That was also one of the elements that encouraged multiple playthroughs.

‘It wasn’t really that useful though.’

Although it sounded like an essential rune just by listening to the description, the adoption rate of Vampiric Urge in actual combat was extremely low. At best, it was used by old players who had nothing else to do and were playing for fun.

That was because the amount of HP that was recovered was fixed no matter what enemy you killed, and even that fixed amount was only 50.

Even if you had a strength stat of 30, your HP would be over 1500, so what would you use the measly 50 HP recovery for? Especially for a knight who had a past life that was geared towards newbies, getting a strength stat of 30 was really easy.

‘But it’s different now.’

The initial HP of a character with the ‘abandoned one’ path, which had a stat of 1, was only 100.

But because of that, they were also the character who could make the best use of the 50 HP recovery from Vampiric Urge. No matter how much HP they had lost, they could recover to full HP by killing just two enemies.

That was the final build for a melee character in Darkest Light Mod, using the Vampiric Urge rune and the Blazing Black Flame enchantment. It was a combination that had both stability and damage.

For reference, it was a build that was possible even in the vanilla game.

Instead of trying to walk a tightrope with a character with a strength stat of 1, it would be much better to get more stats and be able to take a few hits, so there was no reason to do it.

In Darkest Light Mod, no matter how much you increased your HP stat, you would almost always get one-shot, so there was no need to get those stats, and that’s why such a bizarre build was created.

‘I only need to get one more rune now.’

If I obtained one more rune, I would be able to eliminate the mana that was consumed when using black magic, and it would be possible to create a completely infinite engine.

If that happened, I wouldn’t need any potions or anything in mob fights.

There were HP recovery potions everywhere, so why would I need to do that?

It was a tactic that wouldn’t be possible in boss fights where you couldn’t recover HP by killing enemies, but you could just use Solar Eclipse or Lunar Eclipse, or an elemental enchantment in those situations.

“Hihheheheheehehe……”

I stopped thinking when I heard a strange laughter. I looked down. Nix was starting to become limp, probably because I had been stroking her head while I was thinking about the future.

I removed my hand from her head. Nix, who was about to melt, regained her senses.

“Y-you’re amazing. You’re really, really amazing.”

Nix, the moment she regained her senses, praised me wildly with an eerie glint in her eyes. Her enormous breasts shook wildly.

“Amazing? In what way?”

“That magic. The one you used just now. How can you use it so well? Hehe. Even I, who created that magic, can’t use it properly. I tried to use it but I got beaten up really badly and gave up.”

“Ah, you’re talking about ‘Ashes to Ashes’?”

“Yes. Hehe.”

What Nix was talking about was a magic called ‘Ashes to Ashes’. It was the magic that I had used to block the arrow.

As long as it was a projectile, it would absorb it regardless of its type, and then amplify the power of the next black magic you used by up to 50% depending on the projectile’s damage.

Just like Blazing Black Flame, enchantment-type magic would also increase the damage that it inflicted on the weapon, and if you used a really powerful attack magic, it was common to see the number of digits of the damage change with just one amplification.

Since it absorbed any projectile attack and amplified its power, it was without a doubt a cheat magic.

If you could use it properly, that is.

‘I don’t even remember how many hours I spent practicing that.’

That was a magic that had a ridiculously difficult timing.

The pre-delay was ridiculously long, and the post-delay was ridiculously long, and you wouldn’t be given super armor or an invincible state during that time, and even the time you could absorb projectiles was ridiculously short.

Someone who had data mined it found out that the duration of the projectile absorption was only 0.35 seconds.

That meant that you had to bring your hand to touch the projectile within that 0.35 second window.

At least the hitbox was quite large, but it was wide from left to right, not in front and back, so even if you were just a little late or early, you would often find yourself clutching your head and saying, ‘‘Is that not working?’.

And even on top of all that, the range was limited to the front, so you couldn’t even block projectiles that were coming from the side or from behind, so there was a reason why it wasn’t used properly.

‘Well, if you get used to it, it’s one of the best cheat skills.’

Of course, I was an exception.

Just like any other skill that was good if you used it properly, the old players who could match the absorption timing even with their feet were using it as a basic skill. I was one of those old players.

The pre-delay and post-delay were a little annoying, but I had already memorized what attacks to use it against and when to use it, so there was no reason not to use it.

I could use the rune to recover the HP that was consumed now.

“It’s easy. You just need to practice.”

“I couldn’t do it even when I practiced, hehehe……”

Nix fidgeted with her fingers in front of her chest.

She wasn’t wrong.

You just needed to practice a lot. Even if you practiced while dying in the game, it would still take you dozens of hours to get to where I was now, so in this world, it would probably take decades.

“Now we just need to go back to the city, right?”

“That’s right. The teleportation coordinates are set to the front of the Rune Dungeon for now, and I’m sorry, but it seems that you’ll have to wait by yourself this time. I’ll go and bring the others back soon.”

“Hehe, it’s okay. You can take your time. I’m used to waiting alone.”

As if she had memorized the coordinates because she had been there before, a black magic circle enveloped Nix and me before I could even take out the map.

Along with a familiar sensation of floating, my feet lifted into the air.

‘I hope nothing bad happens.’

It had only been a few hours since I had come here, so it couldn’t be possible for something bad to have happened in that short amount of time.

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