Angie had her new ring already on her finger and was eager to try out the difference it made to her attacks. Instead of using her new sling-based attack skill, she simply began swinging her sling, going for a regular attack.

  The marbles, metal ball bearings, and whatever else she launched were always fast, and could get faster up to a certain point if she swung more. Now with the ring on her finger, just completing a couple of revolutions and then letting the marble fly. With just that scant second of preparation, the item was sent speeding off at a speed exceeding what she had once been capable of without using triple that amount of time.

  There were versions of yokai that had corporeal forms, and those that were more spirit-based in nature. Attacking those with physical forms was not hard. However, it was the ghostly apparitions that caused them issues, as physical attacks did nothing to them. It was against these that their energy skills came into play, as these special attacks were able to injure even these entities.

  They still weren’t as good as the attacks that the Japanese cultivators were using, which seemed specialized in nature against the yokai, but they worked.

  In this case, the glass marble dug into the monster's abdomen and shattered with so much force that it didn’t turn to shards so much as glass dust. A bruised dent appeared on its side where Angie had broken several of its ribs, followed by dozens of scratches that began to weep a dark, oily fluid.

  Angie clicked her tongue and grabbed a metal ball bearing. It was heavier than the marble and far more solid than the glass ball. The next item up from the bearings were pieces of bone, which she didn’t like to use unless needed. She could buy marbles and ball bearings, and rocks could be found everywhere, but the pieces of bone were something that she had to make herself.

  Thankfully, that had recently gotten easier since some of the dungeons had begun leaving parts of the monsters behind for them as materials.

  The monster, which had stumbled back, screeching in pain, bared its sharp, blackened teeth at them and flung its arms to the side. Sharp nails extended from its fingers, forming claws as it rushed toward them. The long tongue flicked out of its mouth as it extended its neck forward by nearly five feet.

  This time, Angie had even less time to swing her sling, but the increased weight of the metal bearing helped her increase the speed during that short time.

  With a snarl, the thing took the blow head-on, not realizing that Angie had swapped out her ammunition or not understanding the difference it would make. In this case, that meant it hardened its chest muscles, but otherwise it didn’t bother to move. A mistake on its part, as the metal ball bearing dug into its flexed muscles and threw the beast back against the wall of the room, where it slowly slid to the floor.

  She hadn’t swung the sling enough times to truly get the bearing up to a decent speed. The rokurokubi was still alive as a result, but it had suffered a decent amount of damage first from her attack and then from the impact with the wall.

  Lindsay let out a low, impressed whistle. “Wow. Is that due to the effects of the engagement ring Nate gave you?”

  “The what? That I did? Is that why you two were giggling earlier?” Nate asked in exasperation.

  Angie burst into laughter at the expression on his face. “Oh man, Nate, you had no idea. It was great. You just gave me a ring like it was nothing.” She chuckled and wiped her eyes. “Ah, I needed that. No worries though, we know why you gave it to me. Just be more careful in the future.”

  While they were talking, they kept their eyes on the monster, watching as it tried to haul itself up off the floor.

  “What is your sync level with the ring at?” Nate asked the girl, not looking at her, as he was still embarrassed from his earlier mistake. His face was completely red at the moment.

  “Uh,” She paused to bring the menu on her Sub-DCD. “It looks like I’m currently at forty-two percent, wait, no, forty-three point one.” She tilted her head. “Huh, okay, so I’m guessing the sync automatically adjusts as you use it. When I first put it on, I started at forty percent, and after those two attacks, my sync rate is jumping up a fair bit.”

  Nate held his crossbow at the ready but nodded towards her. “Well, might as well use this one for target practice for as long as you can then.”

  Angie nodded and promptly proceeded to grab one of her glass marbles. If she was going to use it for target practice, then that is exactly what she was going to do. The marbles wouldn’t do any real damage to it, but they would help her to sync with the ring.

  Nate had believed that she would be able to reach a full synchronization with the ring or get close enough to it. Now, they were about to see if that was the case or not.

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  Every attack she launched was quick, with barely any time being taken to charge them up. A few swings to gather speed, and then they were sent off. Each attack caused her synchro-rate to jump by a small amount.

  They weren’t particularly damaging at first, but they were punishing.

  Each glass marble exploded into a cloud of pulverized glass dust. However, the hits began to push it back and bruise its skin. The force that accompanied each impact grew with the sync rate. It wasn’t a linear increase but instead followed its own rules.

  By the time her sync rate hit forty-four percent, a single swing was enough to produce a whip-like crack as it left the leather pocket.

  The poor rokurokubi was almost in tears as it was slowly battered down and lost the will to live.

  The others just stood behind Angie as she swung her sling countless times. The amount that the synchronization rate increased became ever smaller. By the time she stopped playing with the monster, the ring was at forty-seven-point-five percent.

  Now that she was done messing around, Angie selected a piece of bone and slipped it into the leather pocket of the sling. She was going to finish this monster off with her new energy attack skill.

  With a crack of air, the piece of bone broke the sound barrier, punched into the monster, and then exploded.

  The new ammunition probably would have exited out its back, had it been given the chance. That wasn’t the case, and instead, its back was blown completely away. It was killed instantly as a gaping wound opened where its spine had been only seconds before.

  Angie’s attack skill was similar to Nate’s higher-level ‘Point Break’ attack skill. They weren’t the same, as hers didn’t have the defensive breaking abilities that his did. To be effective, her attack needed to first enter the target's body or at least access their qi through another manner, such as blood. The attack used her energy as the initial charge and then depended on the energy of another being to fully bloom and activate.

  It was how most long-range attacks worked, and hers was no different.

  Once the attack touched blood or entered the body, it would absorb the qi of whoever it entered, making the original attack more powerful and then activating. All of this would happen within a second of the attack hitting their body. Any more time and they would have had time to react against what it was doing.

  Aura jumped ahead of them and quickly inspected the dead creature before the dungeon could absorb its remains. “Definitely a killing blow. Half its rear is gone, along with a hole extending up roughly eight inches. How much energy did that take?”

  Angie was looking a bit peakish, but she had been using her sling constantly for the last several minutes. She took a moment to gather her breath before replying. “Most of the energy came from the rokurokubi, so not too much. I could probably use it ten or twelve times at the moment.”

  That was a decent number of times for a skill that was already that powerful at their current level. Granted, part of the reason it was that strong was because of the ring Nate had given her. The sync-rate of which had risen yet again after that attack. It now stood at forty-eight-point-two.

  “Well, at least we know that we can take out the regular ones. Let’s see if we can handle the more incorporeal ones,” Lindsay suggested. “After that, we can worry about meeting with the local cultivators.”

  So far, only Angie had been the one attacking the monsters; now they were all getting involved. With a clear destination in mind, they began working on their group tactics. These monsters in particular were great adversaries for practicing their abilities on and getting used to using them around each other in battle.

  Lindsay’s large, shining halberd cleaved through the extended neck of their third monster. Mira was clawing at its eyes. One of Nate’s crossbow bolts was pierced through its foot, nailing it to the ground.

  The second one they had all taken together. This one had been mostly Lindsay’s, with a minor assist from Nate to make up for the main weakness of her weapon. She could have done it herself with the darts she carried as her secondary weapons, but switching back to the halberd quickly enough if something went wrong would have been a problem.

  In this case, they learned just how well suited the long axe-head of Lindsay’s weapon was for slicing through humanoid necks.

  Unfortunately, the next rokurokubi was destined to be much harder than the first three. It was one of the specter versions. A ghostly being that couldn’t be hurt by physical attacks. The dungeon had been struggling with them, especially.

  One by one, Nate ran through his attack skills. His ‘Qi Blast’ and ‘Point Break’ energy attack skills worked against them, though they were minimally effective. It was his third skill that proved to be the real winner. It was an interesting little skill, wherein the arrow, or bolt in this case, was made entirely of qi. It was called ‘Chanced Affinity Arrow’ and was a particularly odd skill that Nate hadn’t used a lot.

  Most of his skills had two effects, and this one was no different. There was the primary effect, and then the secondary. The primary was that the arrow had a chance to take on the wielder’s affinity during an attack. The secondary caused the arrow to have a better chance of hitting a weak point.

  He disliked using an attack that not only felt like he was rolling the dice every time but also used a large amount of qi.

  When he tried it this time though, he discovered its worth. As an attack made up of qi, it was already able to hurt the ghostly being. However, once it took on the space affinity of his current cultivation method, it became something else entirely. It tore a hole through the being and left it screaming in pain as it slowly dissipated. Whatever tether had been holding it together had been destroyed with that one attack.

  Nothing appeared when it vanished, to their annoyance. It happened sometimes, but this time they had a feeling that it was because the monster had possessed no physical form, which the dungeon had been able to absorb. There had been the energy, which it could have used to create a rainbow orb, but the dungeon had been greedy.

  Nate breathed in and glanced at his crossbow with renewed interest.

  “Well, you all have had your turns,” Aura said, brushing past each of them to get to the front of the group. “Now it’s my turn. Then it looks like we’ll have reached the closest group of these odd cultivators.” Her five tails swished excitedly before temporarily fanning out like a peacock and then lying down. She was excited to test her strength against these things.

  The dungeons they generally went to had dimensional zones on the lower end of power. Still, that didn’t mean it wasn’t interesting to try out different monsters.

  Thank you to all the people who have taken the time to rate the story and to my latest Patrons! I have other stories up on my Patreon, including my current WIPs. Which are now Created G.H.O.S.T. System(My Cyberpunk story), WetWorks2, plus The Restaurateur and His Daughter and DungeonFall. :)

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