The meeting point for the quest was outside the door to the first floor of the dungeon. There were a wide array of tamed monsters, such as some form of dog, some cat looking things, some monkeys, and other animals like the ones on earth.
Astella, the guildmaster, walked up to the top of the group, and made an announcement.
"Hello, Rank F's. We are here to start a quest, suitable for your level. We shall be venturing into the first floor of the dungeon, accompanied by something you wouldn't expect. A dungeon worm. Caine, please send James up here."
Caine put his arm to the ground, as James slithered down his arm, and then approached where Astella was. She placed her arm down, and whispered to him to wrap around it. He did so, and she lifted up her hand, as James went up with her. A man with a lot of questions, who was also quite rude, Quinn Blake, put up his hand, indicating that he would like to speak. "Yes, Quinn?"
"Why should we bring a weak worm with us? You make it sound like he is stronger than all of us combined! Worms should stay down with the G ranks, while we surpass them!"
"Wait-", was the only word Astella could say, before stuff happened.
Quinn's words angered James, so he thought of the special words. 'Za Warudo!'. The time stop effect could be heard, only to James. The world around him lost its colour, signifying that it couldn't move. Only James was in this world of stopped time. While walking along to brutally injure Quinn, he had a cheery thought.
'You know, I like saying za warudo. It sets an example, and it's also just fun.'
He slithered his way up Quinn's leg, before stopping at his neck. He then pulled his sword out of his inventory, without checking his stats. He was too focused on making a point. He held the sword in his mouth, and pointed its blade across Quinn's neck, making a slight cut. He kept it there, as he forced time to resume.
To everybody, he was suddenly gone, as he appeared on Quinn's shoulders, while Quinn felt cold metal along his neck. He looked to his right, and just saw the grinning smile of James. He yelled, and fell backwards, as James jumped off. He fell to the ground, hurting himself a little.
[6/10 HP]
Astella then speaks up. "As you can see, it's a special worm, so I would recommend not to insult it. It can kill you in less than a second."
While Astella was talking, James slithered up to Caine, and crawled up along his arm. Quinn was lying on the floor, going back through what just happened, with a terrified look on his face.
"Now, we are going to enter the dungeon. It's too late to run back and grab anything, so you're stuck with what you have now."
Astella opened the door to the dungeon, which, at least this entrance, was made of large oak planks, held together with metal hinges, bolts, and a hint of recurring magic, so that it wouldn't
break easily.
The group of about 80 people walked through the door, with all their pets following behind them. They got down onto the floor, and walked through another door, coincidentally being the one that James first walked through.
They looked around, yet saw no monsters. James went to check out his status, just to see if he could heal himself, which he found had decided to start to work over time.
[Name: James Doyle]
[Level: 1/10]
[Race: Worm (Lower)]
[Height: 1.2 meters]
[HP: 8/10]
[MP: 100/100]
[Group: Forminca]
[Titles: JDShadow, The Luckiest Dead Man]
[Status]
Strength: 3 (+1,050 [100 Throwing Knives + 1 sword])
Defence: 3
Speed: 3
Charisma: -2
Luck: 5
[Skills]
Time Stop Lv. 1
[Species Skill]
Endless Inventory + Stomach[Name: James Doyle]
[Level: 1/10]
[Race: Worm (Lower)]
[Height: 1.2 meters]
[HP: 8/10]
[MP: 100/100]
[Group: Forminca]
[Titles: JDShadow, The Luckiest Dead Man]
[Status]
Strength: 3 (+1,050 [100 Throwing Knives + 1 sword])
Defence: 3
Speed: 3
Charisma: -2
Luck: 5
[Skills]
Time Stop Lv. 1
[Species Skill]
Endless Inventory + Stomach
Wait. A thousand and fifty boost to strength!? What's that's about!?
Well, it turns out, that due to all of his throwing knives, which each gave a boost of 10 extra strength, he got a boost of a thousand. He also got a fifty extra boost, due to his sword. This was just insane. He didn't even notice the power boost. He decided to keep it hidden, for he thought that this wouldn't be the best time to spring the fact that he could talk to a large group of people, as only two knew as of now.
They were walking around the dungeon, and an ant appeared. The ant was about a meter long, so it's size was no joke. James went about killing it, by stopping time, by thinking of the words, those oh so special words. 'Za Warudo'. The time stop noise played once again, its sound never to grow boring. He threw one of the throwing knives, so he could kill it. He also wanted to see how they returned to him. Would they just fly back at his, or return to his inventory instantly?
The knife stopped in mid-air, for it had no momentum in stopped time, except for the momentum given by James. He let time reusme, and the knife went speeding towards the ant, impaling in directly in the forehead, breaking through its hard exoskeleton, and killing it.
[You have killed: Lv. 5 Armoured Ant (Lower)]
[You have gained: 60 EXP]
[You have reached: Level Six]
[You have been awarded: 6 Skill Points]
[New Value: SP]
Woah! From killing one single armoured ant, he gained that many experience points?! He was also curious as to what 'SP' could be used for, so he tapped on it.
[SP]
[SP can be used to buy new or forcefully upgrade owned skills.]
[Purchasable Skill Types: Worm, Time]
Ah, so it's something that let's you upgrade existing skills, huh? It also lets you purchase new ones.
The knife that James had thrown started to rise up from the corpse of the ant, and it started to fly about, before placing itself infront of James, like a little pet of his own. He picked it up, and placed it into his inventory.
He, unbeknownst to everybody else, scrolled through his skill menu, as a little thing popped up.
[Buy new skill?]
[Upgrade skill?]
This was quite interesting. He decided to check the new skills, and went into the section titled 'Time'. He was presented with an array of options.
[Erase Time]
[Fast Forward Time]
[Rewind Time]
[Skip Time]
[Slow Down Time]
Each of these abilities did what their names suggested. They erased time, which was confusing. They also fast forwarded time, like a speed up, and slowed down time. They could also skip time, or travel to the future, or rewind time, to travel back to the past. It would be difficult to choose the best ones, because he also wanted to choose an ability for himself. A worm ability.
He decided that it would be useless to slow down time. He could already stop it, so why would he need to simply slow it down? He also decided against speeding up time, for it would just make enemies faster. He decided to only choose one, after checking its ability.
[Erase Time]
[Everybody around you keeps doing what they were originally doing, while being unaware of it. This will give you the opportunity to plan ahead, and put yourself in a better position to attack.]
He decided to purchase this skill, but not to use it yet. He wanted to test it out in an actual combat scenario. He left the 'Time' section, and went to the 'Worm' section.
[Skill Absorb]
[Increased Bio Points]
[Increased Eating Speed]
[Light Skin Armour]
[Tough Skin]
All of these seemed useful, but he only picked 4, because he wanted to upgrade his Time Stop. He picked Skill Transfer, Increased Bio Points, Light Skin Armour, and Tough Skin. This would give him much more defence, as it would act like a passive.
He left the menu, and pressed 'upgrade skill?'. He pressed on 'Time Stop Lv. 1', and saw what it would upgrade into.
[Time Stop Lv. 2]
[Stop time, for what feels like ten minutes. To activate it, think, or say, the words, 'Za Warudo'. Doing it any other way will cut its effectiveness by half.]
Oh, so now it would be mandatory to say 'Za Warudo', for it to fully work? Well, what did he expect? He had been only using that phrase. He bought the upgrade, and now his menu looked like this.
[Name: James Doyle]
[Level: 6/10]
[Race: Worm (Lower)]
[Height: 1.2 meters]
[HP: 9/10]
[MP: 100/100]
[SP: 0]
[BP: 0]
[Group: Forminca]
[Titles: JDShadow, The Luckiest Dead Man]
[Status]
Strength: 3 (+1,050 [100 Throwing Knives + 1 sword])
Defence: 33
Speed: 3
Charisma: -2
Luck: 5
[Skills]
Time Stop Lv. 2, Erase Time Lv. 1, Increased Bio Points Lv. 1, Skill Absorb, Tough Skin Lv. 1, Light Skin Armour Lv. 1
[Species Skill]
Endless Inventory + Stomach
So, the armour skills directly increase his defence. It also seemed that skill absorb had no level. It intrigued him, but then he realised that he should eat the carcass of that ant right now, so he could get the Bio Points.
It wasn't a pretty sight, if anyone could see it. He stopped time, and walked up to the dead ant. He started to bite into it, as it dropped into his ∞ stomach. He then started to eat it all, and once he was done, he got a notification.
[New Species Eaten: Armoured Ant]
[Extra Bio Points: 1]
[Bio Points Aquired From Eating: 10]
Ah, so eating monsters is what gives Bio Points. James wondered what would happen if he ate a human. He also got another notification from the system.
[Light Skin Armour gained by eating Armoured Ant]
[Light Skin armour increased to level 2]
[Defence: 48]
Oh, so the ant had light skin armour aswell? This meant that if he ate another ant with level two skin armour, he would upgrade his armour to level 3!
This was starting to get easier to understand, as James slowly learned more about how the system and this world, worked.
He was curious as to what Erase Time did, but he didn't have any opportunity to properly test it. He was also unsure as to what it actually did, but he would be able to test that later.
He climbed back up to Caine's shoulder, and he unstopped time. The ant was simply gone, and James was on his shoulder.
They started to continue to explore the dungeon, and this is where some interesting things would happen.