------------------------------------
[Chapter Size: 3772 Words]
----------------------------------
Sheathing me sword after killing the other two, I picked up the magic stones fallen on the ground, storing them in the inventory and looked at the daily quest on the system screen.
[Daily Quest, defeat 200 monsters (184/200)]
"I only needed to defeat 16 more monsters to complete the daily quest, can't wait to see what the rewards are." I was excited thinking about the reward from the Daily Quest.
After picking up all the magic stones, I headed towards the next room, thinking about how getting a skill or magic related to picking up the magic stones automatically would immensely help me, instead of me picking it up by hand every time, as only on the first six floor, the monsters turn to ash and drop the magic stones, after the sixth floor, the monsters does not turn to ash, an adventurer has to manually cut the corpse of the monster and take out the magic stones, which will be a hassle if you defeat a large number of monsters at a single time.
This is the main reason a party or a supporter is recommended for the sixth floor and below, as it would take time to extract magic stones from all the dead monsters and other monsters may spawn or attack them while they are taking the magic stones from the monster's bodies. Hence a supporter is usually the one who extracts the magic stones from the dead monsters while the adventurer guard the supporters.
So it would be really good if I can get a skill which helps there, then I would not need to hire a supporter and no need to split the earnings from the magic stones also.
It would slow me down a lot if I have to extract the magic stones from the monsters manually by myself otherwise.
...
*thwack*
The dungeon lizards were surprisingly easy to defeat, at least when they were on their own, the lizard would leap down thinking that it was ambushing me only for me to point my sword in its way, it would be easily skewered as it could not change its direction when in the air.
It was a little more difficult when the lizards were in groups of two or more as they would become alert after seeing me kill one of them and wait till either goblins or kobolds were attacking me and then strike me.
The one I had just skewered was the same, it was waiting for me the two goblins and two kobolds to attack me and had jumped me when the monsters were attacking me from either side, so I had to ignore the goblins attack, defeat the kobold first, skewer the lizard and then kick the goblin, stabbing it with my sword later.
There was another pop-up once I killed the last goblin, saying the daily quest was done.
Moving to a small empty room which I had just come across a few minutes before, I opened the system to check the rewards.
-------------------------
---QUEST-------
Daily Quest, Defeat 200 monsters ( 200/200) ✓ Completed.
Rewards are,
1) A random magic,
2) A random skill,
3) A random item.
***10% of it being useful, as it is the first draw the probability has been adjusted to 100%.
Would you like to receive the reward now? Or later?
-----------------------------
"Receive now"
Finally I was getting my own magic, I was filled with excitement to see which skill, magic I will get, but it saying random also gave a little ptsd as I still remembered the eventful day in my last life.
------------------------
Generating your rewards-
Your rewards are as follows,
Skill: Acceleration [A]
Magic: Float Magic. [A]
Item: A wooden sword.
----------------------------
I clicked on each of them to know about them in more detail.
First was the skill acceleration.
[Acceleration (Accel).
• Can speed up the user based on the amount of magic/ stamina used up.
• As skill proficiency increases, can take turn and curves while moving faster.
• Please set the amount of mana or stamina to be used by default by the skill> ]
Without setting the limit I moved to the other two first.
[ Magic: Float.
• A downgraded variation of the grand flight magic, allows the users to float up to to a meter on the ground.
• The upward floating limit is fixed to a limit of 1 meter from the ground.
• Cost 50 mana / second ]
'Wow, so with my current magic, I can float or fly above ground for at most a minute, and exactly 58 seconds. Damn' Letting out a sigh I moved to the next one.
[Item: A wooden sword.
• A first generation sword made from a core branch of the world tree, can absorb magic can shoot out compressed air as a flying ranged attack based on the amount of magic fed to it.
• The more the magic fed into it, the more stronger the slash]
'Damn, another good one, so I can slash at monsters from far away after using my map to locate it instead of going to melee the monsters.
I was feeling overjoyed, all three rewards were good and were useful to me right now.
I selected accel* again and selected the default stamina limit to 100 and then thinking of trying it, just turned and lifted my feet of the ground and the next thing,
*BAM!!!* -15 Hp
I was stuck to the wall, my ears ringing and vision going round in circles and promptly fell down.
It took me a few minutes to regain my balance, the first thing I did after that was set the default stamina amount for the skill to 15.
I tried to use the skill once more, this time able to barely control it, spatial sense helping me immensely by identifying the objects near me in a complete 360 view around me.
Then next was the float magic, this was easier but I had to adjust to the effect of gravity on my body being changed, but that too was just for a second due to the gamer body skill kicking in and my body immediately getting adapted to the changed gravity.
Another thought I had was, trying to combine the accel and float magic, or if I even can do that.
Hence while floating I thought to activate accel skill, which almost created another impression of me on the light blue walls of the dungeon, I was saved because of a last minute turn.
The Accel skill did not have any hamper while I was flying in the sky and could increase my speed while moving through the air in a straight line.
Because, while on ground I had to move my legs to move forward, but while floating in the air all I had to do was thinking about it, so the float + acceleration combo was truly dangerous.
But after everything was done, I was still happy, as my speed, if I could properly control both skills, I would be more faster than a genuine Level 4 Adventurer and if I increased my proficiency in these, my speed would at least match or be over a Level 5 just as a Level 1, which can act as a trump card during any dangers.
The next thing was the wooden sword made from the branch of the world tree, which was really out of the this world, because as far as I know there are only holy trees in this world and no world tree.
Also, I was not sure how but for a sword made from wood, it still had a sharp edge on one side of the blade, hmm maybe some magic? Not sure.
Anyway I needed to test this sword both with and without magic, it would be a great plus if this sword can really create sword slashes with strong power, as then using my spatial sense, I can easily defeat a group of 10 to 15 monsters without a sweat.
After swinging the wooden sword to get a grip of it, I placed the sword which I was already using into my inventory and equipped the wooden sword, I had also gotten the sheath for it along with the sword.
...
After checking all the rewards and trying the accel skill a few more times, I left the small room in search of some monsters to fight against.
*Grrrrrrr* *YIP* *YIP*
The lucky enemies to appear were a armed kobold, followed by four more kobolds.
I took the basic sword drawing stance and faced the approaching monsters, then immediately used accel, all I felt was that the kobold's slowed down, and the wooden sword was like using a knife to cut through butter, it easily went through the kobold's, even slicing straight through it's magic stone and also left a sword mark on the far wall behind the kobold.
If it was before, I at least had to block the kobold's attack, watch out for their sneak attacks while fighting them, but now, it was like they were standing there foolishly allowing me to slice them without even putting up a fight.
It was almost like the difference between a trained person and an untrained person. It was damn easy.
*swish*
Next feeding mana to the wooden sword, the sword glowed for a moment, then as I swung it towards the incoming kobolds, a compressed air slash flew out from my sword completely tearing through the kobold, leaving a chipped magic stone on the ground.
The kobold the slash flew towards had no chance to even put up a defense or even dodge the attack, the air slash was that fast.
*swish* *swish*
Similarly I sent two more flying slashes of air at the other kobold, one slash for each one, easily taking care of them.
I checked my status to see my mana consumption from using the skill.
-----------------------------------------
• MP: 1450 / 2600
[A/N: 20 seconds of flight magic practice earlier and 50 points into each flying slash]
----------------------------------
"Excluding the earlier consumption of magic for my earlier practice of float magic, each slash cost about 50 MP and they were able to easily destroy these Kobolds with extra energy to spare." I was very happy with my new skills.
After picking up the other four kobold's magic stone and crushing the first sliced one, I once again picked a random direction and set out to completely map out this floor also.
Completely lighting up the map was like an almost addiction, just imagine, when one plays a game, the map in the game shows an unexplored area ahead, won't there be the curiosity to find out what is there and if there is any treasure? Or a rare boss? Or a NPC which leads on a secret mission?
Thinking about my chances of finding an NPC who would never be there, I did not forget that I am still in the dungeon and need to be careful of monsters spawning nearby.
...
Once again, I found myself in front of another set of stairs leading downwards to the fifth floor.
I was not able to level up after completely exploring the entire floor. I still needed 100 exp more to level up to level 5.
I still wanted to explore more but decided to go back to the surface as it was more than 12 hours due to me exploring the four entire floors without missing any corners and also taking breaks in between.
But even after exploring and mapping out the entire four floor's, I did not come across any Jack Bird, whose guaranteed drop item was said to be worth at least a million valis, maybe someone had already come across it and there was a cooldown time before another one spawns ?
...
After just going down the stairs and placing one leg on the fifth floor's opening room, I went back up the stairs.
The walls on the fifth floor were light green in color as compared to the first four floors which were light blue in color.
Anyway now for the rewards of the unique quest. Let's see what are the rewards for it.
[ Unique Quest: Reach the 5 floor in this expedition. ✓ Completed
Rewards:
1) A one time power-up to Level 40 [A Level - 4 falna adventurer] [Time duration: 24 hours]
2) A one time power-up to Level 70 [A Level - 7 falna adventurer] [Time duration: 12 hours] ]
"wow, lets f***ing goo" I blurted out in my excitement.
I could only do my best to close my wide open mouth, these two are almost like the best trump cards for the current me, especially the Level- 70 power up, which means I am the strongest, except Freya Familia's Ottar, who recently leveled up to become Level 7. It has a time limit too, it's simply great. Any fight at max may take a few hours but this one has a time limit of 12 hours and the other one is 24 hours, even better.
"Would I be able to take down Ottar if I launched a successful sneak attack?"
Something worth to be thought about very seriously.
I began retracing my steps backwards towards the surface from the fourth floor and kept a small goal of reaching Level 5 before reaching the surface.
...
As per the small goal I had set earlier to reach Level 5, I had leveled up to Level 5 before I was even halfway through floor 3, there was a monster party near the stairs of the fourth floor, which gave me the required exp, making me reach Level 5 ahead of my goal.
Another disheartening thing about me reaching Level 5 was that the exp required to reach Level 6 had doubled to 1000. How much time will it require to farm for 1000 exp. No choice but to go on an all night grind the next time.
...
It was already night outside by the time I reached the entrance of the dungeon, bright lights lit up near the opening of the dungeon and adventurer's going out of the dungeon, some others still going into the dungeon.
As soon as I stepped on the surface outside the dungeon, a muted 'ding' went off in my mind. But ignoring that, I made way to the guild counter in the Tower of Babel to exchange the magic stones and drop items from the first floor only.
"Please exchange these to magic stones" i was standing at a guild counter in the Tower of Babel itself, this was set-up to help the adventurers avoid carrying large numbers of magic stones over a fourth of Orario to exchange them at the guild headquarters.
I think my luck finally turned because they said that two of the drop item were rare mutated goblin fangs worth double it's price, the total coming to almost 10000 valis. The mutated goblin fangs were about 6000 valis of the total. It was already a huge amount for a first time expedition in the dungeon.
And this was just the drops and magic stones from the first floor, not the others.
...
After leaving the guild counter, I immediately put a single large Valis coin into my pocket and from there into my inventory, and headed home.
As soon as I left the Tower of Babel, the streets came into view, the same streets which were filled with people in the morning were now empty, except for one or two lone people or the groups of adventurers making their way back from their dungeon expeditions. Even the shops facing the main read were closed.
The reason for this was none other than the Evilus, a group of radical Familia's led by Gods claiming to be evil. Although the Loki and the Freya Familia had defeated the Apate and Alecto Familia's, the main leaders of the Evilus, the Evilus was still rampant in Orario.
The Astraea Familia along with others defeated Zald and Alfia, remnants of the Zeus and Hera Familia respectively who also caused great chaos in Orario.
[A/N: Zald was soloed by Ottar and he did not fight against the Astraea Familia...]
Zald and Alfia after their familia's exile from Orario went missing and were seen with the god Erebus and caused great chaos, prompting the Astraea Familia to fight against them, the result being Zald and Alfia dying and the god Erebus being sent back to heaven by Astraea.
But there were still more Familia's part of Evilus who bolstered by these two events back to back, and random cases now and them making normal people unable to step out at night.
Stopping my wandering thoughts about Evilus, I reached my home safely, which was around an hour or two hours from the dungeon, in the opposite direction of the Stardust Garden, the home of the Astraea Familia, they are something similar to the police of Orario, the justice keepers of Orario along with the Ganesha Familia, the actual security of Orario, they both are the first to get involved if anything unwanted happens in Orario.
The Evilus no matter how strong would not directly be active in the area where the bigger familia's are located, like the Astraea, Freya or the Loki Familia, and would instead be active around the Daedalus Street, where there is no law and order or in other areas in the shade of the night.
...
Unlocking the door and turning on the lights, I went and lay down on the sofa, without even removing the armor I was wearing and just stored my swords into my inventory.
*grrrr*
Feeling my hungry stomach making noises, I stood up, removed my armor and used the meat of a bird almost similar to chicken, which I had bought yesterday, and made a bowl of noodles, adding the now slices up chunks of meat into it.
After another 15- 20 minutes, this world's version of spicy chicken noodles was ready.
*slurp* *slurp*
Completely slurping down the bowl of noodles without letting it cool down.
I sat down on the sofa once more after washing the dishes and placing them back in their positions and waiting for the dinner I just had to be digested, I brought up the system once more, to check the notification I had gotten while I was leaving the dungeon.
--------------------
---Ding----
Skill Trait Maker successfully activated, due to first time activation of skill, a 100% chance of getting unique skills
Generating Traits....
Success.....
Skill: Anomaly (False) obtained...
Skill: Miracle Maker obtained...
-----------------------
When I clicked on the skill names, a new screen popped up explaining the skill in detail.
-------------------------
• Anomaly (False) [P]: No rules hold sway over you. / Not bound by any rules, can do anything you want
---
• Miracle Maker: If you wish for something with enough desperation, it may come true. / Sometimes in life, miracles do occur. Skill is both passive and active.
---------------------------
Both skills had two parts explanation or it as if like they can be activated in two different cases.
Also, while I was not sure about the passive skill anomaly, and about the rules it mentioned, but the miracle maker skill was enough to me feel as if all my hard work for the entire day today was worth it, after all, this is almost like a broken skill which can elevate me into a cheat level character over time.
"HAHAHAHAHA" After staring at the miracle maker skill like an idiot and laughing for a few minutes straight, I still had a huge grin still on my face.
I closed the system screen, got up from the sofa, and climbing up the stairs, I went to a spare bedroom on the second floor, which was repurposed by my sister, as a library before she left.
'After all no matter how strong I am, or what broken skills I have, I needed to know more information about Orario and the world at large. Especially now that I have a task of conquering the dungeon and defeating the One-Eyed Black Dragon, I need to know more details about the dungeon and monster and anything related to it.'
I nodded to myself at my thoughts.
...
After searching around in the library which I had rarely looked at for some time, I did not find any books about the dungeon or about monsters or anything even remotely related to them, I found another interesting book which explained about the Dungeon City Orario in detail.
The reason for me picking this book was simple, after my memories from earth had awakened today I found out that although it had been about 16 years and I had been born and brought up here.
I knew nothing in detail about the city known as Orario.
All I knew was it had a dungeon, had the most number of gods in Gekai, and also that the strongest of the adventures were in Orario and some knowledge about adventurers and the dungeon from the basic adventurer class which I had been made to forcibly sign up to.
After both the memories merged, there were a lot more questions in my head?
What is the dungeon?
Why did the gods come down to Gekai?
Why provide falna?
And many more.
And so I had to go through the books or get information and get to know in more detail about my doubts.
After taking the book and going to my room with the mindset of reading the entire book before seeping, I sadly fell asleep just after going through a few pages.
The open page of the book showing the reason for the gods coming down to Gekai.
'The gods, unchanging and eternal, became bored of the monotonous life in Tenkai, and in search of excitement sealed their divine powers "the arcanum" and came down to the mortal world "Gekai" to experience the excitement and pleasures of the mortal world.'
And at the bottom of the page, in a small finer, writing was,
'But also be wary of the gods, for they are eternal and unchanging, they only seek excitement, we mortal are nothing but means to provide them with their excitement, especially to the myriad of gods/ goddesses present in Orario, all except a few of them seek nothing but their own excitement.'
'And, next about the Dungeon City also known as Orario, a place where fearless, lawless adventurers set out in droves in search of fame, riches and fortune in a place full of misfortunes known as the Dungeon.'
-------------------------------
----Status-------------
Level: 5
HP: 2000/2000
MP: 3000/3000
CON: 20
SPI: 30
Status points: 4
---Skills---------
• Acceleration [/Accel]
• Trait Maker
• Anomaly [False]
• Miracle Maker
---Magic---------
• Float Magic
-----------------------------