SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 565: What It Witnesses, It Claims

The silver-marked corridor was much shorter than the trapped one, and there was almost no sound inside it.

Leon still advanced with care.

An empty-looking hallway in the Tower meant nothing. He spread his perception ahead of him with every step, checking for hidden wires, pressure tiles, and any sign that space had been altered.

There was nothing.

The corridor ran straight and narrow. Only the walls drew his attention.

Their texture changed as he moved deeper. The dark stone slowly lost its rough grain and became smooth, then smoother still, until a faint shine spread across the surface. After another dozen steps, Leon noticed a distorted bronze-gold figure moving beside him.

His reflection.

By the time he reached the next room, both sides of the passage had turned into mirrors.

The chamber beyond had eight sides. Each wall consisted of one unbroken panel of dark glass. The floor carried the same black polish, reflecting everything so clearly that it looked as though another room hung upside down under Leon’s feet.

He remained at the entrance and examined the eight versions of himself surrounding the chamber.

They didn’t all move correctly.

Most followed him, but some reacted a fraction of a second late. Two reflections to his right moved before he did.

One of them lifted its head and looked across the room before Leon had decided to turn that way. When Leon followed its gaze, the reflection was already looking back at him.

He kept his face neutral and gave no sign that he had noticed.

A translucent barrier sealed off the far side of the chamber. Beyond it floated a silver-black crystal shaped like a fragment from a shattered mirror. Whenever light touched it, the beam bent and returned from the wrong direction.

Leon could judge its grade without crossing the room.

Epic.

The urge to take it came immediately.

Later. There is always a guardian.

He stepped into the chamber and kept watching the mirrors.

The delayed reflections slipped farther behind. The ones moving early continued to lead him. One showed Leon already standing in the middle of the room, arms loose at his sides.

A moment later, Leon reached that exact position.

Every reflection vanished.

All eight mirror walls became completely black.

Leon’s hand shifted toward his sword as the largest panel began to ripple like water after a stone had struck it.

A figure walked out.

Its body was humanoid and formed from polished dark silver. It matched Leon’s height closely, but there were no features on its face or hands.

Then its head began to change.

The brow appeared first. A nose followed, then a mouth and jaw. The creature was recreating Leon’s face, though it didn’t get the details quite right. One eye sat higher than the other, and the mouth was stretched slightly too far.

It looked enough like him to feel wrong.

Messages appeared in the air between them.

[Optional Trial: Covetous Reflection]

[Defeat the guardian to claim the treasure.]

[Warning: What it witnesses, it may claim.]

Leon read the final line a second time.

The Tower had warned him what kind of threat he faced, but it had left the rules vague. He would have to work them out during the fight.

The dormant reinforcement inside the Reflection sat around Ethereal Initiate level, a rank Leon could already handle before his recent growth. Whatever made this guardian meaningful would come from the ability the Tower had warned him about, not from its starting power.

The Reflection didn’t move.

”Fine. We’ll start small.”

Leon lifted his empty hand and created a basic fire attack. He kept the technique intentionally weak, forming a compact burst of flame that barely required any concentration.

The fire crossed the room and struck the guardian in the chest.

Flames scattered over the silver surface without leaving so much as a mark.

The Reflection raised one hand.

A matching flame appeared in its palm.

Leon focused on the copy. Its shape and color were almost identical, though the energy inside it was lower. When the creature fired, the attack seemed to carry about two-thirds of the force Leon had used.

He compressed a short section of space and shifted three feet to the left. The flame passed through the place where he had been and exploded against the mirror behind him.

The Reflection followed him with its uneven eyes.

It raised its hand once more.

The space beside it folded.

Leon sensed the attempt immediately because of how rough it was. The creature forced the surrounding space into place instead of controlling it through understanding. Even so, it had reproduced the basic form of Leon’s displacement.

The Reflection disappeared and returned several feet away.

Another imitation of his flame had already begun forming in its hand.

Leon’s expression hardened.

What it witnesses, it may claim.

The guardian had seen each active technique once and copied both.

That did not mean it could recreate everything Leon possessed. Its fire was weaker than his, and its spatial movement lacked the precision Void Dominion gave him. It seemed able to reproduce the structure of an ability without inheriting the foundation that supported it.

But that conclusion rested on only two examples.

Leon wasn’t going to reveal his entire arsenal just to test the theory.

Leximancy, Elemental Surge, Raijin, the deeper applications of Void Dominion, and his strongest elemental combinations remained unused. Even if one of them could end the trial immediately, showing a copying guardian the structure of his best abilities before he understood its limits would be foolish.

A second element might give the Reflection another kind of attack. A stronger use of space could teach it a more dangerous movement technique. Every ability he exposed might become another weapon aimed back at him.

The Reflection displaced itself without warning.

It appeared on Leon’s right and released its copied flame at close range.

Leon drew his sword as he turned. The attack struck the flat of the blade, split around it, and washed across his conscious armor.

Heat rolled over the bronze-gold surface.

A silver bar pushed out from the Reflection’s forearm. It lengthened until it formed the rough shape of a sword.

The guardian attacked before the flames had cleared.

Leon met the crude blade with his own.

Metal struck metal with a sharp crash.

The Reflection pressed closer, its flawed copy of Leon’s face directly before him. Its eyes followed the placement of his feet, the turn of his shoulders, and every adjustment of his sword.

The creature wasn’t merely taking his abilities.

It was learning how he fought.