Infinite Potential System

The upgrade was incredibly tempting since it was only a hundred Potential Points, but William didn't have a true need to do so right now.

The experience reminded him of shopping in his old world during a big sale. When he had a lot of money and everything was cheap, he would indulge in more and more random items that he didn't necessarily need. Next thing he knew, and William was completely broke!

He didn't plan to do the same here, where Potential Points were easy to earn but went just as quickly. He still had to save up a thousand Points to appraise the stats of the Abyssal Weapon Shifter, and only had six hundred Potential Points currently.

Not only that, but he was already nine hundred points below his safety threshold of 1500 PP!

He shook his head and refocused on the fight.

The golden lion had finally closed its mouth, enduring the pain to prevent more poison-tipped arrows from tearing him apart from the inside. From what William could tell, it didn't have any form of poison resistance, nor did it have natural regenerative abilities.

It seems this fight isn't as impossible as I thought. William was relieved to have finally gained an advantage.

The next problem was getting the lion to open its mouth again. He did everything he could, but the lion wouldn't budge. Even so, he wasn't worried given that its speed was less than half of what it was before.

He used the Nature's Exile Spell to create many thick pillars of wood and earth that restricted the golden lion's movement, but one claw strike was enough to slice the pillars to pieces. It seemed the lion's attack power had only reduced slightly, and the problem was still with the sharpness of its claws.

William changed the material of the Earth Element to iron, further reinforcing its defense until it was able to withstand the lion's attacks. Its claws caused sparks to fly once it breached the wooden shell, but that was the end of it. The lion's claws could only dig a few centimeters into the iron core, meaning it would take at least eight strikes to tear through just one pillar.

William was glad he had upgraded the Earth Affinity to S-Rank. The process of transforming the material was incredibly difficult, but as his Earth Affinity improved it became much easier, allowing him to do so even when in battle as long as he was given enough time.

With its movement restricted, the golden lion could no longer move carelessly. William controlled the now Iron Exile to expand further, sealing the lion's movements just like he did with Medusa. Iron-reinforced wood wrapped around the lion's front and back legs, holding its claws in place so it couldn't damage the spell any further.

It opened its mouth to bite at the wood, but the Bow Puppet launched another arrow into its mouth, reminding it why it had closed it in the first place. The golden lion suffered silently, shaking its body left and right in an attempt to escape its restrictions to no avail.

William restored the arm of the weaponless Puppet while the lion exhausted itself, then fixed any Arrays that were damaged on the other Puppets during the fight. He kept a small amount of focus on the Bow Puppet, ready to fire off another arrow if given the chance, but the lion had learned its lesson.

He felt somewhat bad for the lion, but this was how it had to be. The lion could only blame itself for having such ridiculous defense, this was the only way for William to beat it. Even if he could strangle it to death, William wasn't going to risk getting close to a Magical Beast that might have the ability to break his Forcefield in a single hit.

It kind of reminds me of that mythological creature now that I think about it. What was it called again?

-The Nemean Lion.

Oh? Aren't you mad at me? William smirked.

-Request requires 1 million Potential Points. Yes/No?

-Oh wait, you're poor. Request denied.

"F*ck!"

At that moment, the Nemean Lion suddenly turned into particles of Mana, floating into the ceiling while William was teleported to the 103rd floor.

This trend continued for a few days, William battling with various mythological creatures that had strange abilities. Instead of their power increasing with each floor, it seemed like their abilities were specifically designed to counter certain types of individuals.

Sometimes there would be a twelve-headed hydra that spat out a different elemental spell with each head, with powerful regenerative abilities. Other times William would be chased down by an Egyptian Sphinx that spoke in riddles and devoured every attack that came its way.

During the Sphinx fight, William was sad to lose his Glaive Puppet, which was eaten whole the moment it tried to stab the Magical Beast. He had plenty of Puppets to replace the lost one, but he couldn't easily replace the Glaive weapon without forging a new one.

During many fights, the usual method to win was to stall it with Array Puppets and shoot poison-tipped arrows to exhaust the Magical Beast, but the Sphinx was much harder.

The only positive was that the Magical Beast was very slow, so William was able to distract it with two Array Puppets that stood on either side of the Sphinx, attacking it from behind every time it turned to face the other.

Using these hit-and-run tactics, William eventually finished it off, clearing the 136th floor. Each time he encountered a simple Magical Beast, William would take the time to rest, but eventually he just decided to spend 325 Potential Points to upgrade his Sleep Resistance Talent to A-Rank.

It was an expensive purchase and would only prevent him from falling asleep and not reduce any fatigue, but William felt it was well worth it since he could now stay up for a week straight without sleep. With S-Rank Stamina, William would take much longer to fatigue anyway.

Something he noticed later on was that the Tier 3 Saturation Pill was already starting to expire, even though it wasn't supposed to do so for 6 months. William inspected his knowledge base within the Alchemy Talent to find the answer, but it seemed that even the B-Rank Alchemy Talent didn't have the answer.

He asked the System, which revealed to him at a cost of two Potential Points that the Saturation Pill would store extra Calories in his body that would be digested as he burned them.

The reason why his pill was already wearing off was due to enduring the white lights with his Regeneration Talent previously, combined with the constant fighting. Not only did running around all the time require a lot of Calories, but so did using his mental energy to control multiple improved Array Puppets at the same time.

A few days later, just as William cleared the 147th floor, his Gravitas Ruins Ticket began to buzz inside his Space Ring, which he didn't notice for a few hours until he needed to retrieve an item.

The moment he touched the Ticket, it stopped buzzing, but William decided to inspect it anyway. On the front of the Ticket were a few red letters that weren't there before.

30 DAYS REMAINING