CHAPTER 293: GOOD OLD FASHIONED TRAINING

When Damon logged in again, he saw that both Ellora and Kaelthorn were still busy searching the place. Damon raised a brow curiously. Ellora searching for him was okay, but the other guy was also being a little too keen.

Damon went into stealth and sneaked up right behind Kaelthorn before shouting loudly in his ears. "Are you hoping to find something good and pocket it when I am not looking?"

Kaelthorn let out a startled growl, almost tripping over a loose stone as he spun around, hand flying to the hilt of his sword. "Bloody hells! You—" He paused when he saw Damon grinning mischievously, arms folded with an amused expression.

"I was checking for traps," Kaelthorn said flatly, trying to recover his dignity. "Wouldn’t want you walking into something dangerous."

Damon snorted. "Sure. And I totally believe you after all of that backstabbing."

Ellora walked over with a smirk. "Don’t worry, my Lord. I kept an eye on him the entire time. He did find a ring a while back, but I confiscated it immediately."

"Oh? Show me." Damon became curious.

Unfortunately, the ring Ellora handed over was just another NPC item. Not really the best one when it came to stats, but it was of a high level nonetheless. "Well, I guess something is better than nothing."

Kaelthorn grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "tyranny," but he didn’t push the matter. Instead, he crossed his arms and leaned against a cracked pillar, eyes sweeping the surroundings with practiced calm.

"There is nothing left in this dump. You have already picked clean every little thing. Unless there’s some hidden mechanism or sealed vault nearby, we might be wasting our time."

Damon would be lying if he said he did not agree with the bastard. There really seemed to be nothing in the place. "Alright. Let’s just leave." He mumbled and started to walk when he suddenly noticed a weird crack on the wall.

Hmm? Damon paused. His well-honed scraping senses were tingling. He walked closer to take a look. Both Ellora and Kaelthorn looked curiously. They watched and watched as Damon casually took out a unique rock from the crack.

Just a small piece of rock that did not look like it was anything special. But the moment Damon took it, a system notification popped up in front of him.

[Ding! You have obtained a Philosopher’s stone variant]

"I knew it!" Damon grinned. He immediately checked out the stats of the small rock.

[Philosopher’s Stone Variant]

Grade: Relic

Type: Alchemy Catalyst

Description: A failed attempt at creating a heaven-defying artifact. This variant of the Philosopher’s Stone can enhance alchemy by 300% for one reaction.

Damon first looked at the 300% and became very excited, but the next second, he saw the limitation that it could only be used one time. "It’s still good, I guess." He shrugged and tossed it inside before finally leaving the place.

There was a lot he needed to do, and there was no point hanging around here any longer. He walked out of the dungeon, and Ellora and Kaelthorn followed him. "Where to next, my lord?" Ellora became ready to draw the teleportation circle.

"No need. We will be heading straight back to the Blood Hall. I am assuming Riven is already back there as well?"

Ellora answered with disdain at the mention of the idiot’s name. "As soon as he became conscious, he ran out of the dungeon. He must have gone there."

Damon sighed. "It’s fine. Let him be."

Damon then activated the brand-new teleportation skill he had thanks to his new status as the Blood Hall’s lord. The next second, he appeared inside the main chamber of the Blood Hall right along with Ellora and Kaelthorn.

"You both can do whatever you want. I have some personal stuff to take care of." Dismissing the two of them, Damon then walked over to Varnyx. "I need to use the training room. Can you prepare a 1:20 time dilation room for me?"

"My lord, might I suggest lowering the time dilation?" Varnyx immediately looked concerned. "A 1:20 time dilation would be too high for someone of your evolution stage." He chose his words carefully.

"It’s fine." Damon chuckled. Usually, the main concern when using time dilation is the mental strength.

One needed to be able to handle the extended period of time inside the time dilation training room, but Damon already knew he could handle this much. In fact, he was pretty sure he could handle more. Unfortunately, this is the limit of what was available in the blood hall, so he couldn’t ask for more.

Varnyx bowed his head reluctantly. "As you command, my lord. I shall make the arrangements."

Within minutes, Damon stepped into the training room. As the door sealed behind him with a low hiss and the runes on the floor began to glow, the atmosphere changed. Time around him slowed to a crawl. He had just stepped into a pocket of hyper-speed training.

Twenty hours in here would be equivalent to a single hour on the outside. Varnyx had set up the array for the next 6 hours, which meant Damon would be continuously spending 120 hours in this place in isolation. The mana concentration was also cranked up to the highest caliber.

This made the environment extremely stimulating. It was also impossible to exit the place before the set time ran out. Unless one was prepared for it, there is a high chance that one could die from sheer mental exhaustion.

Damon closed his eyes for a second, breathing in the thick mana-infused air.

The Blood Hall had spared no effort in enhancing this chamber. The walls pulsed with runes designed to isolate external interference. Rows of crystal obelisks silently floated around the edges, maintaining spatial integrity.

There was a training puppet at the far end of the room, which had the ability to absorb attacks even from a B rank expert and display results. It was really the perfect place to train.

Blood Hall was not really special in this aspect. Most of the class halls had such places where players could train. Normally, it costs an arm and a leg, but Damon was able to use it freely, considering his current status. A small bonus.

Damon quickly focused and pulled up his status screen, mainly his list of skills. Immediately, he felt dizzy. So many skills. So many different elements.

He stared at the skill panel, eyes scanning through dozens of names and effects across multiple categories: bloodline, vampiric, elemental, weapon mastery, mage, general, shadow, and crafting. The screen felt more like a grimoire than a stat sheet, and Damon couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh.

"Alright," he muttered. "Time to sort this mess out."

He started organizing the skills into different "build cores." One for shadow burst damage, one for vampiric sustain, one for elemental fusion magic, one for raw physical brutality, and so on. He slowly and patiently made a first list of all possibilities and combinations.

Naturally, he did not plan to achieve everything in a single setting. This was going to be a work in progress, but he at least wanted to get started with it before once again engaging with any opponent.

Leveling up and powering up could only help so much. Ultimately, if a player did not know how to use his arsenal of skills properly, he was bound to fail. Damon was well aware of it.

All his playful and goofy demeanor completely disappeared as he became serious and sat down, and analyzed all the skills he had gathered down to the last one.

He spent the first few hours simply reading. Not meditating, not training, just reading through every single skill. He jotted mental notes, cross-referenced internal cooldowns, activation costs, hidden synergy effects, and more. With how diverse his abilities were, everything was super messy.

Heck, this was the first time he was seeing many of the skills for the first time, especially the ones he had obtained in the purification raid.

"Holy shit!" Damon gasped as he realized just how many of the holy and divine skills he had stolen.

He had [Holy Breath] to resurrect someone, [Holy Blessing] to buff, [Holy Judgment] to smite enemies, and [Holy Grace] to heal. These were just the basic skills. Now, there were a lot more hidden boosting skills he had stolen, which were the actual game changers.

There was the [Sacrament of Wrath], which made all the healing skills temporarily turn into searing radiance, dealing holy damage instead of healing. More importantly, this was a domain skill and was not just limited to him.

If Damon used a skill like this appropriately, he could create widespread chaos on the battlefield. No doubt.

Soon, the first ten hours slipped by, and Damon was still examining many skills, slowly going through one after the other. But this was his limit, so he decided to switch things up with some practising.

Damon started with the skills he was most unfamiliar with, the holy and divine skills. He repeatedly cast [Holy heal] and [Holy Blessing] on the puppet to get a feel for things. At the same time, he took note of what passive skills were getting activated when to catch things he might have missed before.

The training was pretty much boring and monotonous, but Damon loved doing this kind of thing. In his last life, unlike his current bloodline, skill proficiency was all he had to improve himself. This was nothing new for him. He went all out and dove right into the hard part of the training.

Time once again slipped by, and at the end of 50 hours, Damon unexpectedly received a system notification.