Constantine laid out the contents of his Subspace methodically.
The Litch's chamber had been more generous than he'd had time to appreciate during the actual fight, and seeing everything together now made the full picture clear. Most of it was material—Ghost Iron Fragments, Litch Bone Dust, four different categories of rare ore he recognized from Eccel Accel's crafting index, and six Gem pouches ranging from standard to deep-grade. The cumulative volume had been eating into his available Subspace faster than he'd realized.
He sorted by category first. Materials to one side, equipment to another.
The equipment column was the interesting part.
Three SR items arranged themselves in front of him—a pair of gloves radiating faint cold energy, a circlet with clear spectral properties, and a long robe sewn from something he didn't immediately recognize. He checked each in turn.
[Phantom Gloves (SR)]
{Enhances the channeling of spectral and soul-based attacks. Reduces ability cooldown for Wraith-class users.}
[Specter's Circlet (SR)]
{Enhances Presence Suppression and Detection Resistance. Clarity of awareness remains undiminished while Intangibility is active.}
[Shroud of the Hollow (SR)]
{Woven from the condensed essence of a high-ranking Litch. Provides substantial energy resistance to the wearer and increases the effective radius of aura-based Skills.}
All three were Wraith-compatible. He equipped them without deliberating.
At the center of the remaining pile sat something denser than the surrounding materials—a crystallized point of compressed energy, still radiating the same pale cold light that had distinguished the Litch's core before he destroyed it.
[Skill Crystal: Soul Shatter]
Obtained from: Litch (Boss)
{The user releases a concentrated burst of spiritual force that penetrates all conventional resistance layers. Effective against targets with high physical or magical resistance. Cooldown scales with output.}
He read it twice.
'A penetrating attack that ignores resistance frameworks entirely.'
He had spent the entire Litch encounter working around the problem of dual-layered resistance, ultimately winning only by targeting the Phylactery directly. A Skill that made resistance irrelevant as a category was the precise answer to every problem the Litch had represented—packaged into something he could carry forward.
He absorbed it without hesitation.
[Skill Acquired: Soul Shatter]
Then came the SSR.
He found it near the bottom of the pile—a staff, slender and dark-jointed, with a focal crystal at the tip containing a light source that responded to his proximity by brightening perceptibly.
[Phantom Staff (SSR)]
{A conduit forged from the crystallized essence of a Litch's Phylactery. Amplifies all spiritual and soul-based ability output by a fixed multiplier. Wraith-class exclusive. Intangibility is fully maintained while wielding this weapon.}
The last line was what mattered most.
Every weapon he had previously owned required solidifying to use, which created windows where his intangibility was unavailable. A weapon that maintained his phased state while in use eliminated that trade-off entirely.
He gripped the staff and went intangible.
It phased with him seamlessly.
'This changes the entire dynamic.'
He turned to the material pile and ran the count. The ores, crafting fragments, and Gem pouches collectively represented significant Subspace usage, and none of it was immediately convertible into anything useful without the Forge—which remained off the table. He listed the materials in the System Shop's sell function, and the return surprised him.
Deep-grade ores commanded substantially higher base values than standard dungeon materials, and Litch Bone Dust sold at a premium he hadn't anticipated. When the transaction settled, his System Points had climbed from 50 to several hundred, which gave him real purchasing flexibility for the first time in a while.
[System Notice]
{Great taste, Host! The Shop appreciates your continued patronage! :)}
He ignored this and navigated directly to the Skills tab.
Soul Shatter covered high-resistance targets, but its cooldown made it unsuitable for sustained engagement against standard enemies. He also needed something to replace the passive awareness that Dungeon Echo had provided, since he was now on unfamiliar floors with no reliable detection layer outside of combat range.
He found both solutions near the middle of the Utility and Combat sections respectively.
[Spirit Drain (Skill)]
{The user siphons the life force of nearby enemies, converting it to personal energy. Deals sustained damage at close range and restores the user's Level durability incrementally. Effect and radius scale with user Level. Cost: 300 Points}
[Hollow Sense (Skill)]
{Extends the user's spatial awareness through physical matter, detecting all presences within a fixed radius regardless of concealment Skills or environmental interference. Radius and sensitivity scale with Level. Cost: 250 Points}
He purchased both.
[Skill Acquired: Spirit Drain]
[Skill Acquired: Hollow Sense]
Hollow Sense activated immediately, and the result was markedly different from Shadow Trace. It wasn't focused on a specific target—it was omnidirectional and constant, a permanent awareness of everything within its radius regardless of positioning or obstruction. He could already perceive three presences moving through a corridor sixty meters east without consciously directing any attention toward them.
He left the alcove.
The sixth floor's enemies clustered rather than isolated, which expanded engagement range quickly once the first target registered hostile intent, but their individual durability was lower than anything from the Skeleton floors. Spirit Drain sustained him through longer exchanges while Hollow Sense prevented the ambushes that had cost him Levels on every previous floor. Soul Shatter cleared the encounters where resistance made the other options insufficient.
[You Have Leveled Up!]
[You Have Leveled Up!]
[You Have Leveled Up!]
Hours later, moving through the eastern chamber network, he checked his Status Window and found Level 10 waiting for him.
The difference in his frame was physical rather than notional. At twice his base strength, the Phantom Staff's amplification was now tangible in Soul Shatter's output, and Spirit Drain's recovery rate had increased enough to make it a meaningful factor in sustained combat rather than a supplementary one.
He rested inside a stretch of solid wall, suspended in the stone, and let the situation sit quietly in his mind.
Level 10.
Former Level 100.
Ninety Levels standing between him and the threshold where he could finally shed this form and return to something that could exist in the same world as other people.
He exhaled slowly.
'It's going to be a while.'