Blue-colored gemstones lined the ceiling and lit up the surrounding area as I stepped off the stairs and onto the first floor of the dungeon.
It was cool and dim, with a tiny bit of humidity in the air. The walls and floor were rocky and uneven. In front of me, a long wide hallway leads straight ahead into the darkness at the end.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I felt the Qi inside me churn and gather as my body got ready for whatever I encountered. After a few seconds, I let my breath go, opened my eyes, and began walking.
The dungeon was quiet, the only sound being my boots grinding against the stone floor and my calm breathing. There was no other sound, no other movement. The only thing that was similar to the surface was the Qi that swirled around me. But even that was weird.
The Qi down here was chaotic. It moved in erratic patterns, there didn't seem to be a source for any of it. The dungeon's Qi was a mixture of everything. Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Gold, Black, White, and Silver all flowed around me. It rushed back and forth, in and out of the walls, ceiling, and floor.
I continued down the hallway, quietly marveling at the whirling of colors around me all the while each breath I took saturated my body with Qi that I would later have to separate.
The dungeon was full of Qi, so much so that I worried about what would have happened had I come here before I tempered my organs.
I briefly considered what would happen if a normal person were to come here. The chaotic Qi would slowly prick at their skin, it would feel both cold and warm, and every step would weigh on them more and more.
It wouldn't kill them, or even outright hurt them. But it would slowly drain their strength until they couldn't do anything but sit down and wait.
"Entering the dungeon without a falna is suicide, huh," I muttered Rose's words of worry and gave a mental apology to her for dismissing her so easily. It wasn't just the monsters, the very environment was against you.
That might explain why falna seems naturally resistant to Qi. It was a defense mechanism designed to prevent adventurers from becoming worn down in the dungeon. It still didn't explain how the adventurers were alive or how they got stronger.
I'll have to see an adventurer in action to figure that out. And probably increase my sense and control of Qi. Food for thought, though I do wonder what made the Qi in this place so chaotic in the first place.
Luckily, as it stands now, it had no negative effect on me. If anything, the Qi would be a boon for me. I'd only have to be careful when I was ready to break through again. I do not want to know what a tribulation in the dungeon would look like.
The dungeon interrupted my thoughts as its walls began to rumble.
At first, I thought it was an earthquake. The walls began to groan, cracks bloomed across them as the stone began to splinter and shatter. I thought I was about to die due to a cave-in but instead of the ceiling collapsing, the walls spat out little green monsters.
Goblins. Five of them.
All looking at me with furious expressions.
The first monster I had fought when I came to this world almost a year ago. Now, the first monster I fight in the dungeon.
What a coincidence.
The goblins let out a roar and charged.
My body moved without any thought and met them.
I threw a kick and shot the front goblin into the wall before bringing my foot back and the same to the second.
The third one got close enough for me to just punch its head straight down where it met the floor with a crack. I smashed its neck with my foot for good measure but didn't stop moving.
The fourth and fifth ones lunged but I just caught them by the throats before smashing their skulls together.
One of the skulls shattered while the other one cracked just a bit. Kinda like smashing two eggs together.
I finished off the one whose skull didn't shatter by throwing it into the wall. The crack rang out before silence descended again in the dungeon.
I wasn't out of breath, I didn't have a scratch on me, hell I didn't even think about what I was doing before my body just did it.
It took me a solid thirty seconds to come to terms with just how easily I killed them. They were supposed to be tougher than the surface goblins but I didn't feel much of a difference.
Well, that wasn't true. Their bodies were tougher, as I discovered when I went to rip out their magic stones, but it didn't help them all that much.
My physical abilities have increased a lot more than I thought. That combined with my increased skill in fighting things from a year ago simply made them not a threat.
I felt disappointment begin to creep up in my chest. This was it? Was this what I traveled for and pinned my hopes on? How weak.
The magic stones were slightly bigger than the surface ones. But they weren't big enough to give a big boost to my cultivation like when I first ingested the beast cores.
Hell, I'm not even sure eating them would be better than just sitting in the dungeon and meditating.
Hmm, maybe I'll find some stronger monsters if I keep walking.
I mean, if the dungeon is the place where familias send their adventurers to go and get stronger, then it would make sense that the early bit would be geared towards newbies.
I need to go deeper if I want a challenge.
With that thought in mind, I jumped up from my kneeling position after collecting the last goblin core and continued.
As I went on my way, I discovered one of the upsides, or downsides depending on the circumstances I guess, of the dungeon. It had a constant stream of monsters for me to fight.
I estimated it's been about ten minutes since I entered the dungeon, and I've run into about four groups of goblins since I got down here. Each group had three to five goblins in them, so I was never left alone for long.
A steady supply of monster stones made their way into my storage ring as I continued to explore before I came across a staircase. One that went down.
Perfect.
And so I descended, a small smile on my face as I thought I would get a challenge. When I got down and saw it was similar to the first floor I felt my smile drop and it completely faded when I saw goblins again.
I quickly dispatched them and continued on my way after harvesting their stones. The only change from the first floor was that the goblins were in slightly bigger groups and the floor itself was a little bigger than the first.
I found the stairs again and went down, the third floor welcomed my sight with a dim blue glow and rocky surroundings. I ran into the usual goblins but this time I ran into Kobolds too.
The kobolds were dispatched just as easily as the goblins were, though they were noticeably tougher than the ones on the surface considering I couldn't put my foot through them like I could with the surface ones.
Still didn't help them all that much as I broke their bones with a single hit. Not a threat at all.
Another round of exploring and I found the stairs again. I stepped down, the fourth floor greeted me with the ceiling still glowing blue, and the same rocky floor and walls.
More Kobolds and Goblins greeted me, the group sizes had gone back down a bit but now I was cycling meeting them like the dungeon wanted me to fight both equally.
I finished dispatching another horde of Kobolds, the last one disappearing into smoke and ash when I heard the sound of something cramping against the stone above me.
I looked up and found a big brown lizard clinging to the ceiling as it crept up behind me. Seeing that I saw it, the big lizard decided to drop down and pounce on me.
I rolled to the left, feeling the hair stand up on the back of my neck as the lizard's claw swiped where my head would have been a little while ago.
The lizard was about the size of a dog, with suckers on the back and stomach that let it cling to the walls. It had small brown scales and some sharp claws that I didn't want to test getting hit by.
The lizard recovered and launched itself at me, claws extended and mouth ready to rip me into pieces.
I felt my breathing pick up, either from excitement, fear, or the sheer adrenaline rush at the thought of fighting a new monster, as I dodged out of the way and just watched what I was going to call the dungeon lizard.
I saw the way its muscles tensed, the way its body shifted to balance itself after a failed charge.
I simply observed, letting my muscles tense as I saw it begin to move. The subtle shift in its hind legs gave its lunge away.
It didn't notice my leg was already underneath its jaw when it jumped. I felt my foot hit the scales; the skin indented and scales broke, doing nothing to protect it as I followed through.
CRACK
Its head violently snapped up as the rest of its body followed suit, collapsing into a heap of limp limbs.
I stayed still for a moment, my heartbeat slowing down, my breathing stabilizing as the rush of finding something new was replaced by the disappointment in how easy it was to take the lizard down.
It required a little more effort than the kobolds and goblins, but that was mostly due to unfamiliarity than anything else. If I fought another one, I don't see it being that much of a challenge.
Hell, even the lizard's magic stone was only slightly bigger than the others I got in the dungeon. I don't want to dismiss what could be a dangerous monster, but I can't see it being a threat in a straight fight, only if it ambushed me.
And an ambush would only happen if I stopped paying attention or got distracted by something else. So, a small threat, unlike the goblins and kobolds which are no threat.
Still, progress is progress. I am getting deeper and ever so slowly the monsters seem to be rising in difficulty so off we go.
My exploration of the fourth floor was much the same as the others, I ran into a few groups of goblins, kobolds, and now dungeon lizards trying to ambush me, but I didn't get a single scratch on me from the melee.
I had been down here for a couple of hours at this point, I think. It's hard to tell when there's no sunlight, or moonlight, or clocks.
Hmm, note to self, get a watch to keep track of time. It'd make figuring this out a lot easier. Yet, despite having seen combat pretty consistently for the past couple of hours or so, I was hardly tired.
There was some fatigue setting in, but it was more akin to feeling tired after some minor physical activity. Not the kind of fatigue I expected to feel after a few hours of fighting monsters.
As such, I kept going and descended down to the fifth floor.
What greeted my sight was the same rocky terrain but instead of a blue glow, the walls now glowed green. How exciting.
I wasn't expecting much of a difference, but I was quickly proven wrong when I noticed the rate at which I was encountering monsters had increased.
Not only was I running into them more frequently, but when I did run into groups, they were growing bigger. At least five monsters with up to ten in some of the bigger ones. They were a mix of goblins, kobolds, and lizards.
I also noticed that the monsters were getting harder to kill. It took more effort to break their bones and rip open their skin. Not enough to matter, but it was notable.
Still, the supply of magic stones continued into my ring and the monsters kept dying. All was good and well until the dungeon decided to give me a new monster.
I was regaining my bearing after the latest combat encounter I had before the walls emitted their tell-tale rumbling before cracking and letting out a new monster.
It was a humanoid, about five feet tall, and its entire body was black, like a shadow. That was the only way I could describe it, it was a living shadow. It had one eye in the middle of its head, spiky bits on its shoulders and arms, and its hands were three sharp claws.
The thing didn't have a mouth, though that didn't stop it from unleashing a sound that offended my eardrums as it lunged toward my throat.
I took a sharp breath in and stomped the ground to jump back only to have to scramble out of the way as the shadow followed up on its attack with a claw swipe.
Whoosh
The air rushed by my head as I narrowly avoided its attack. I backed up and kept watching it as it tried to hit me.
I focused on dodging, waiting for the opening. I needed to get familiar with its moves, like I have with the goblins and kobolds.
Its strikes grew faster and more frantic as it kept trying and failing to hit me. I felt its claws graze my shoulder before I saw an opening.
I stuck out and grabbed the thing's arm before bringing it away and jamming my elbow into the thing's torso.
It buckled and became off balance, letting me reach out with my other hand and grasp its eye.
It tried to swing at me but I had already ripped out its eye. It let out one last screech before it disappeared into smoke and ash.
I was left alone, slightly out of breath and lightly scratched as I looked down at the magic stone in my hand. It was larger than anything I had gotten up until this point, about the size of my thumb.
As for the injury I got? It hardly broke the skin, owing to the shadow not getting a full hit in because of my dodge. All in all, it was a pretty good fight.
I felt my heart begin to cool as a smile made its way onto my face. I was getting closer, the monsters were getting harder and the stones were getting bigger.
The next shadow fight went a lot better than the first. The first time had taken me off guard just because of how fast it was compared to everything else I'd been dealing with, but it was manageable now that I knew what to expect.
I pretty much ended the fight the same way, a grasp at its eye/magic stone and a quick yank. Getting to the magic stone was a bit of a challenge, especially since the shadow could hurt me, but that challenge was solved with some grappling techniques.
Once I got it pinned or grappled on one of its arms, it was not long for this world.
With that solid strategy in place, the shadows I encountered fell without issue, though the light cut I got on my shoulder was a reminder that these things were dangerous. A step above the lizards.
Of course, the dungeon didn't let me stay comfortable for long before throwing another monster at me.
I just rounded a corner when I heard the sound of the walls cracking and got into a combat stance.
What came out was two shadows and something that I couldn't make out before it hopped around a corner.
Whoosh
A shadow's claw interrupted my thoughts. I quickly ducked under it before giving the shadow a retaliatory punch in the gut.
The shadow bucked but I couldn't capitalize on it because it's buddy slashed at me.
I jumped back to dodge before kicking that one's chest, sending it off balance and landing on its back.
The first one charged, I sidestepped and grabbed its arm, yanked it back and down before plunging my fingers into its face and yanking out its eye.
It let out a final scream before disappearing into smoke and ash.
I quickly threw the magic stone I was now holding into my storage ring and turned to face the next shadow.
The shadow didn't even get up before it lunged at my torso. Its claws glistened in the dim light of the dungeon, its body a raging mass of spiky black.
I made to dodge, the gentle hum of excitement coursing through me as the fight continued. Just as I was about to avoid the claws, I heard the sound of something cutting through the air.
I quickly shifted my feet, avoiding the thing that slammed into the wall next to my head. I couldn't avoid the shadow's claws however as they slashed my left side.
Pain shot through my body as my breath hitched a bit from the force. I gritted my teeth and threw a punch at the shadow.
My fist met the back of its head, making it collapse in a heap on the floor. However, I couldn't deliver the finishing blow before I heard that sound again.
I was off balance, forcing me to roll out of the way as something hit the wall again before it disappeared the way it came.
I got up off the ground and looked at where the thing had come from. I was expecting another shadow or perhaps a new monster.
I was not expecting the new monster to look like a frog.
It was a large frog, about three feet tall and it had one big eye in the middle of its head, but other than that it was literally just a frog.
I was so flabbergasted by the sight I almost missed the shadow attacking.
Almost.
A flurry of slashes came at me, forcing me to focus on dodging but I never let the frog out of my peripherals.
That proved to be the right decision as while I was entangled with the shadow the frog opened its mouth and shot out its tongue.
Of course the frog monster attacks with a tongue. How else would it attack?
My hands lashed out and grasped the shadow's arms before dragging it in front of me to block the frog's tongue.
The tongue hit the shadow with a meaty slap and any amusement I had was quickly lost when I saw it cave the shadow's chest in and crumple in a heap.
Okay, frog boy packs a punch. Let's not get hit by it.
I grasped the shadow's head and pulled out its eye quickly, finishing it off before I turned my heels and quickly sprinted at the frog.
I had to do side steps to avoid another tongue lash before I lept up and elbow-dropped the thing in the eye.
The monster let out a squeak of pain before I gave a final punch to its head and it went limp.
All hail obvious weak points. Video game training hasn't let me down yet.
I had to dig around for a bit before I found the frog's magic stone. It was about the same size as the shadow's stone though it was more blue while the shadow's was more black.
I put it away and checked my injuries. The shadow was able to get a good hit of me, but the slash marks were light. About two inches in length but they didn't go deep.
The pain had already faded to a dull ache in the back of my mind, and a few punches and kicks proved that it didn't affect my movement at all.
Determining that the injuries I had were still acceptable, I continued exploring the floor. I was ambushed a few minutes later, this time by two lizards, two shadows, and a frog.
Despite the advantage in numbers the monster had, the fight went much better. Now that I knew what to expect from the frogs, the tongue attack was dodged or used to my advantage.
I will give it to the frogs, they were surprisingly good at restricting my movement. Constantly having to keep it in my peripherals, always being ready to dodge at a moment's notice, made me hesitate to commit to certain attacks.
The hesitation was then capitalized on by the shadows, who were proving to be surprisingly intelligent, all while the lizards above waited.
Still, despite all of that, I outmatched them.
I grabbed a shadow and threw it up where it knocked a lizard off the ceiling. The other shadow tried to slash at me while the remaining lizard jumped down from above.
The whooshing sound of a tongue cut through the air, blocking any attempts to dodge. Alright then, no dodging.
I struck out and caught the lizard's front legs. I leaned back to dodge its snap at my neck before swinging it around and slamming it down on the shadow charging me, just as the frog's tongue impacted the wall next to me.
I reached forward and grasped the tongue before the frog could retract it. It was slimy and gross but I didn't let it slip as I planted my feet and heaved like I was pulling a rope.
The frog was light enough that I easily pulled it airborne, not leaving it any chance to dodge my kick. My foot met the underside of its belly before it was sent rocking up toward the ceiling.
It hit with a smack before it and a few of the green crystals that provided light fell in a heap.
With that taken care of, I quickly dispatched the rest of the monsters, a task easily done since I'm pretty sure all of them had various forms of head trauma.
The result of the melee was my nerves and senses being pushed to their limits, my body constantly needing to perform at full throttle and find my budding martial arts style full of holes.
It was perfect.
My senses were getting sharper the longer I was down here. My body was getting tired but also absorbing more Qi for me to separate later. My martial arts style was getting tested again and again, allowing me to practice flowing between the forms and smoothing everything out.
The magic stones weren't all that big, but the number of them that I was getting was making up for that. The fifth floor was great.
But it could be better.
I was getting used to the monsters, and they weren't all that hard to kill in terms of toughness. They were more dangerous because of tactics, but now that I had a handle on them, they were slowly dropping in difficulty.
Which means, it was time to head to the next floor.
The sixth floor was much the same as the fifth. The color of the gemstones was still green, and the surroundings were still rocky.
Keeping in theme with the other floors, the dungeon decided to introduce some new monsters. Couldn't let things get dull now could we?
I was dealing with the usual affair of shadows and frogs when something launched itself at me from nowhere.
I had long since grown used to dodging out of the way so the thing missed. At first, I thought another frog had joined but that was disproven when the creature rebounded off the wall and jumped toward me again.
I quickly kicked it out of the air, feeling something snap beneath me before it went limp. I looked down and saw a rabbit, with a horn on top of its head.
A unicorn rabbit?
The magic stone was about the same size as a lizard's, smaller than a frog or shadow, but bigger than a goblin.
The rabbit quickly proved itself to be even more annoying than a frog as they could just run into a wall before coming back at me again. The frog had the decency to reset its tongue after each attack, the rabbit just hopped around like it ingested eight cups of espresso.
Still, it was more fragile than the other monsters at this point, usually going down with one hit so that balanced it out.
The other new monster that joined the roster was a big purple moth that liked to hang out on the ceiling and just let some dust float down.
I'll be honest, I have no idea what it did. It never joined the melee of the monsters, it didn't really move, and the dust was easily dodged. Also, when I did get it on me, nothing happened.
So yeah, weird. It usually just hung out above the groups of monsters and since it was a bit too high for me to reach, I just let it be.
Speaking of the groups, they had grown to a minimum of six monsters with some of them having up to twelve. There was also a noticeable uptick in how often I encountered the bigger groups.
All in all, the sixth floor was perfect in terms of monster group frequency and size. The only problem was the monsters themselves were slowly becoming less of a threat the more I got to fight them.
I did have a few scraps and scratches, but they were mostly from the beginning when I got taken off guard with the new monsters getting introduced.
My breathing was starting to get lightly labored just because of how long I'd been at this but nothing unmanageable.
I could go deeper. I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to find the floor that gave me a challenge, like the hobgoblin. These were just scratching the surface, I needed something to push me to my limit.
So, pushing my tiredness aside, I kept going. Eventually, I explored all of the sixth floors, got a huge sum of magic stones, and my way to the staircase leading down.
The seventh floor was cast in the familiar light green glow along with the rocky terrain. I was a little disappointed since I figured a change in scenery means stronger monsters, but hopefully, the dungeon throws a new type at me.
I stepped onto the rocky terrain, a calmness filling me as I kept a lookout for any monsters. My stomach chose that exact time to remind me I hadn't eaten in a couple of hours.
Seeing as the dungeon wasn't throwing any monsters at me, I decided to have a quick snack. I need to get more food though, my supplies were kind of low after the journey to get here.
I kept walking as I ate, not trusting the dungeon to spawn monsters on me if I stood still for that long.
I did run into a few monsters, shadows, rabbits, frogs, and some moths but not in large groups so I was able to finish eating quickly.
True to form, I did encounter a new monster. It was a giant ant about the size of a dog. It rushed at me when I was about to take my last bite of the apple I had.
"Hmm!" I let out a grunt as I dodge though the apple did drop onto the ground. It rolled a few times till it ended up under the ant, only for the ant to crush it as it ran toward me again.
The ant's mandibles clicked together while its legs produced a skittering sound when it charged. I sidestepped it then kicked it right in its stomach.
It felt like I kicked a milk carton as something gave and the ant went flying away while I shook my foot to get rid of any ant juice. The ant landed with a thud down the corridor and curled into a ball before letting out a high-pitched sound.
I wanted to go put it out of its misery, but the dungeon chose that time to spawn a few shadows on top of me. I jumped back to dodge a claw swipe before grabbing the offending arm and twisting it.
The shadow's arm broke like dry spaghetti, let me pull it in and rip out its eye. The other two jumped around and flanked my sides, each timing their slash so I couldn't doge to either side.
I reached out and grasped both of the shadow's arms before pulling each toward me. The shadows slammed into each other before I reached out and plucked both of their eyes at the same time.
Once that was done I made my over to the still alive ant and looked at it. My kick seems to have made its abdomen explode, though the fact that it didn't die from that showed how tough it was.
The exoskeleton of the ant was red and made of panels that interlocked with each other at the joints while the main segments were one solid plate.
My kick had deformed the solid plate a bit and made the ant's insides burst out through the joints due to the pressure building up. The insides in question were slowly leaking out as the ant just let out a screeching sound.
My little investigation done, I gave the ant's head a quick stomp and put it out of its misery. Digging around a bit, I found its magic stone in the head and watched as the ant turned to smoke and ash.
Still, ants are supposed to live in colonies, so where's the rest of them? Hmm, maybe the dungeon just spawned the lone ant. I mean, it's not like the dungeon has to follow real animal behaviors right…
Rumble
I had just thought those words when the walls, ceiling, and floor began to violently shake. If the dungeon spawning monsters before was like a level four earthquake, this was like a level ten.
I tried to keep my balance but eventually had to use the walls for support as the shaking continued. I was ready to dodge, hoping that whatever the dungeon spawned wouldn't be where my arm was but the walls around me didn't crack.
After about a minute, the rumble subsided and I could finally regain my balance. The surroundings were still devoid of monsters.
I was confused but then I heard it.
Skitter
Skitter
Skitter, Skitter Skitter Skitter….
Skittering noises were emulating from the corridor in front of me. And what emerged from around a corner were ants. A lot of ants.
I got into a combat stance as my thoughts quickly settled and focused on the task at hand.
Alright, one man versus thirty ants. Who would win?
Yeah, I'll win.
======================
This chapter kinda fought me. I wasn't sure if I got the balancing right for the dungeon.
There are a few things to consider, one is that Leon has no idea what to expect which results in him getting taken off guard and getting injured in situations where he otherwise wouldn't. Another is that it is currently nighttime, meaning pretty much no one else is on the upper floors. Leon is taking the full brunt of what the dungeon can throw at him since no one else is around to dilute the monsters.
These two combine to make it a lot more difficult for Leon than it should be on paper. He currently is high level one to low level two depending on the stats, skills, magic, etc.
I think I showed that with just how easily he is killing the monsters after he understands what he is dealing with, but I feel like the balance is just a bit off.
Let me know how it felt. Too strong, too weak, just right. Leon is still gonna go down deeper this dive, he is kinda on a high and hasn't realized just how fast the dungeon ramps up in difficulty.
Anyway, till next time friends. Peace.