In the silence of the aftermath that followed from Nian's explosive arrows, the giant skeleton stood at a standstill at the center of the giant room. It stood there unmoving, like it turned back into a stone statue just as before they entered.

The giant then dropped to its knees, with loud creaks and cracks echoing throughout the dungeon room as its bleach-white bones crumbled to pieces. The giant then slammed into the stone ground with a hard crunch followed after by a small tremor, its black robe the only thing hiding the inevitable triumph of the girls.

They did it. The skeletons around followed after, crumbling back to bony remains with a crack and crunch as all the rusty swords dropped against the stone ground, letting out clanks of echo. Tens of souls then rose from the bodies like smoke, coalescing to many green orbs suspended in the air all for Mat to take. The only soul that didn't materialize was the giant skeleton's, but that was already a given since it was strong- very strong.

The girls were right. If Mat had fought alongside them he'd only have gotten in their way. He didn't know how their teamplay worked and how their dynamics and coordination fit one another. He could have ruined that.

Mat then shook his head, turning his attention back to the souls. He held out his hand like a pope blessing the people. Green tendrils of light all seeped out from the floating orbs and flowed to his hand like streams of floating water. He then brought his hand to his chest, absorbing all the souls into his body. He felt a swirling breeze turn to springtide inside him, overcome by the many amounts of soul absorbed all at once. He didn't know if it was healthy to take so many souls like this, but it really felt good not to.

A sudden pulse inside him then broke free, sending him tumbling down to the ground. "What was that?"

Mat looked over himself, finding his skin glowing black gray. It was as if his skin turned to iron. "What's going on?"

[Guide]

Body is ready to progress to the next rank.

Mat didn't feel pain. The only thing he felt was discomfort and unease, the feeling similar to having swallowed a solid ball of candy by accident.

The iron glow of his body then vanished after a short while.

"Look at you- iron already?" Nian said from the distance, heading towards him while Ruan and Youmu were investigating the giant skeleton's corpse at the center.

She headed for the bag near the giant double doors before rummaging inside them like she was looking for some few things. After a short while, she grabbed a packed book, a chalk, and a leather pouch before heading towards Mat.

"I can do the ritual now if you like."

"You sure?" Mat turned back to the giant monster corpse at the center of the room. It felt weird to do this now out of all times, but he was too excited to turn down Nian's offer. "What about that guy?"

"It's dead." Nian placed the things on the floor. "Ruan and Youmu are doing checks because it's an anomaly, but for the most part its body should vanish along with the rest of the skeletons on the ground- sooner or later. That'll be the time when the double doors open."

Mat then nodded, with Nian doing the necessary preparations for a ritual. First she took her book and skipped to certain pages, flipping all the way as she then brought up the chalk and started drawing a slew of symbols and diagrams on the stone floor, all manifesting into one giant magic circle. The way her eyes moved back and forth between the book and the magic circle suggested she was pretty new at this.

"This is safe, right?"

"Totally." Nian beamed him a smile before laying the leather pouch into the circle. It jingled coins inside. These were probably the essences needed for the ritual to work.

"There's a lot of ways that could go wrong when you don't follow the manual right, but I think I got the hang of it."

"You think?" Mat rolled his eyes in disbelief, though he too was eager to see what ranking up would do to him and his body. Maybe he'd earn a new skill or something just like it. Most of all, he was now one step closer to Nian and Ruan's rank- bronze- though they both did say they too were near the edge of ranking up to silver. He needed to catch up. He wanted to catch up. And ranking up was a step closer to that.

Nian then told Mat to step inside the magic circle and sit. Mat followed. Nian then told him to strip naked. Mat didn't follow.

"What?" Mat cleared himself of any misunderstanding, giving Nian a weird look.

"I told you, take off your clothes." Nian closed the book in her hands and shoved it aside before covering her eyes with her hands. "See? I can't see anything. Just trust me."

Mat sighed, sliding off his clothes before throwing them to the side. He could feel the cold air biting against his raw skin along with the awkwardness that came with his body's naked state, though if this was a part of the ritual he couldn't do anything about it.

Nian then chanted a series of words and sentences in a foreign language, causing the magic circle on the floor to take on a faint black gray glow. Out from the magic circle then rose a cylindrical invisible barrier like a glass rose from the ground around Mat- trapping him inside.

"Oh right, this is going to hurt a bit. And by a bit I mean a lot." Nian's voice was fuzzy through the barrier, but the word 'hurt' was all Mat needed to hear before realizing it wasn't going to end well.

His knees then collapsed to the ground as if they were noodles, his entire body weak like he was sapped of every ounce of energy. Pain like his body was skewered by thousands of needles drowned him, with black liquid starting to pour out of every pore on his skin like sweat. He puked out black vomit, with his nose, eyes, and ears leaking out the same liquid that was eeking out of him from everywhere.

It felt like hell. No part of his body was left untouched by the searing pain, with every fiber of his being screaming out for it to stop. Then, it all came to a standstill, with the pain put to brakes and the cylindrical barrier around fading into nothingness.

A giant symbol then shone above him like a halo, glinting black gray like iron before fading to empty air.