There was a chirp as the palm reader activated to Ian’s biometrics. He watched in surprise when the door slid into the wall instead of opening inwards or outwards. The situation was so surreal that he jumped when the door quickly shut after his back crossed the threshold.
Just inside the dorm was a small entrance chamber. The left wall had multiple racks firmly attached obviously designed to hold different kinds of weapons, while the right had an armor stand and a place for his boots. The fact that there was already a spear and sword on the first wall and what appeared to be a brand-new set of leather armor on the stand caused his brows to furrow.
“Did I somehow get into the wrong room?” he muttered.
Stepping past the entrance area, he found himself in a dorm room larger than the studio apartment he had been living in. There was an entertainment center across from a couple of couches leaving a large area for him to entertain guests. On the other side, he had a queen-sized bed near a desk with one of the AO’s computer terminals. Next to the desk was a refrigerator and a door opening to a private bathroom.
He smiled as he pulled a duffel bag out of his item storage. There were brand new pillows and bedding still in their packaging on his bed, but he pulled out his old ones and piled them on top. As he went to put the rest of his stuff on the desk, he found a note on the keyboard.
Zero,
I got you everything I thought you might need to get started. You have bedding, toiletries, and full access to all the AO’s research and video libraries. I asked my father, and he said that he’s always seen you wear a short sword and spear, so I got you new ones made of essence-infused steel. They should help you for the next few hundred or so levels with proper care. The armor will also provide better protection than what you were wearing last time I saw you, so please switch before you head into a dungeon again. It’s a common design that is lightly enchanted to adjust to your body parameters, so don’t worry if it seems a little large as you are putting it on. It’s designed that way.
Good luck out there, and call me if you need anything!
Claire
P.S. I stocked your fridge with snacks. The cafeteria has set serving hours for warm meals, but they have sandwiches and stuff at all hours if you feel like grabbing something.
Ian smiled at Claire’s thoughtfulness as he put the note back down on the desk. The room was so much more than he thought it would be. He slowly moved around the room, taking a closer look at his new home. He found the mattress to be higher quality than anything he had ever slept on before, and the sofa was infinitely better than the folding chair he had been using for a seat at his last apartment—a chair that was folded and leaning against the side of his new desk.
He found the desk had one of the security panels Claire had shown him earlier. The light was currently blue, showing that his room was secure, and the computer had automatically logged in under his name when he put his hand on the scanner.
“Fancy,” he mumbled as the AO’s home screen popped up with many different applications and folders already sorted and labeled.
He selected one called ‘Dungeon Knowledge’, which opened to a menu with all the names of the different local dungeons. Randomly clicking one in the list, he was greeted with pretty much all the information an adventurer would need to prepare for the dungeon. It had a monster index, the loot tables for each monster, and even their base stat ranges to boot. There were even sections that gave strategic overviews on the best ways to approach floors and fight the dungeon’s denizens based on party composition.
He continued looking through them for a few moments before he pressed the logout button and stood back up.
Checking his new phone, he saw it was nearly ten in the morning. He quickly finished pulling the last few items out of his item storage and went to the entrance to switch his gear out for the ones Claire had gotten him. The auto-sizing feature on his armor was decidedly less than pleasant, as he found it over-tightened before it loosened up to ensure the correct fit. Each time it did, he was afraid it would keep getting tighter. Just because he understood it was essentially magic didn’t mean he had to trust it.
Placing his weapons into his storage, he walked out of his new dorm room. Luckily, the metro station was just a couple of minutes’ walk from the main building, so he set off on an adventure.
*~*~*
Ian was once again surprised by how friendly the other adventurers had been when he had waited in line. The dungeon was much more crowded today than it had been on Sunday, and it had taken him nearly a quarter of an hour to get checked in. However, it wasn’t time he considered to be wasted.
He had learned quite a bit from the others who were in line. The most important thing was that most adventurers wouldn’t go any deeper than the second floor of the Turen Crevasse. While the dungeon had four floors, the monsters deeper inside were harder to deal with than some of the other dungeons in the area. The other two popular newbie dungeons had a minimum entrance level of 40 and had a max monster level of 110. Instead of killing the monsters here, the teams tended to prefer mass slaughtering the mid-level monsters in the first couple of levels of that one on their path to level 100. Apparently, many of them were immobile, making them an easy leveling source for whoever found them.
Most adventurers didn’t have a way to make decent money early on, so they didn’t have the income to purchase mana-infused steel until they were already rankers. Without ready access to good weapons, the armored monsters in the last two levels of the Turen Crevasse were rarely farmed. With his extra gear and the stats of someone over twice his level, Ian decided to work his way down to the bottom two floors.
He had run into three groups on his way down to the second floor. Each one of the larger caverns above was being cleaned out as the monsters respawned. The monsters never just reappeared out of thin air. Instead, Ian got to see a few of the earth imps literally dig themselves out of a solid stone wall before the wall closed itself back up. He didn’t get involved with the fight, as the party had already claimed the area, but it made him uncomfortable to know the rock could heal itself as if the dungeon itself was alive.
“Nah man,” said the leader of the party camping in the cavern with one of the entrances to the second floor. “We’ve been here since around seven this morning and haven’t seen anyone head down, so it should be all yours. The groups that do the second floor usually don’t show up until after lunch.”
Ian nodded at the younger man’s explanation, “Good deal. I’m going to head down there and see if I can get a jump on them. I’m hoping to kill my way through, so I’ll leave the caverns open for those crews to use.”
The leader of the group nodded before one of his teammates spoke up, “Are you headed down there after the scorpion venom?”
“Scorpion venom?”
“Oh, I just figured if you are over level 100, you were probably here to collect the scorpion venom to coat your weapons with. My big bro comes here sometimes to collect it to use on his weapons, and he is nearly level 220. Says it still works pretty well in the dungeons he runs.”
“Huh, I’ll have to look into that,” Ian replied. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll get going and get out of your way. I think I see cracks forming on that wall behind you.”
The group waved as before they got into position to attack the monsters that were getting ready to emerge. Ian just smiled as he walked down the slope to the second floor.
He pulled out his spear as he got to the bottom of the winding ramp and was quickly greeted by an old friend. He slowly advanced as the dog-sized mole rat came racing out of the stone tunnel on the opposite side of the cavern. It growled at him before quickly trying to close the distance between them. When it leaped to cover the last few feet, Ian caught the creature in the chest with his spear again.
Unlike the needle-pointed head on his previous spear, designed for slimes, his new spear had a six-inch angular point with two small wings about an inch behind the blade to prevent the spear from penetrating too deeply or even going straight through. The essence-infused steel easily sank up to the wings, causing him to almost lose his balance as the full force of the creature’s momentum transferred to the spear. Ian braced himself and slung the creature to the right, causing the blade to slide out as the body fell to the ground. Blood pumped for a few seconds before it stilled.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Congratulations! You have earned 1 level. You have achieved level 38. You have been awarded 20 skill points!
Ian smiled at the notification. He had killed nearly twenty of the mole rats last time he was in the dungeon. It wasn’t until the very last few that he had stopped gaining at least one level per kill. Most adventurers ran the dungeon with a party and fought a single enemy like this in a team of four to six. The experience points were spread out among all of the members, with a small bonus going to each. With his multiplier, he was earning a dozen times the experience per kill that a normal adventurer would earn in a six-person party.
“It really does feel like cheating,” Ian mused as he looted the monster he had just killed. “I’m sitting here earning experience like a level 38 when I have the stats of someone over 100. Other than surprise, I barely feel any remaining ache from the impact of my spear stopping the creature, and it was probably half my weight.”
The excited thoughts running through his mind were addictive. After years of being weak with no identifiable growth, he was easily dispatching monsters that would have torn him apart just a couple of days ago. He knew he wasn’t completely safe from the mobs—nobody ever truly was—but he had the ability to handle this dungeon. He just needed to keep himself reigned in and take it slow and steady.
He centered himself and began to move forward towards the opening the mole rat had come from. The sound of nails scraping against stone let him know there was more experience to collect on the path to the third floor.
Nearly an hour and a half later, Ian was standing over the dead and dying mole rat creatures while looking over at the ramp leading down to the third floor. Stepping forward, he drove his spear into the creature’s chest and twisted.
Congratulations! You have earned 1 level. You have achieved level 47. You have been awarded 20 skill points!
The last group had been tricky. If he hadn’t had those years of practice with the spear, he wouldn’t have been able to prevent the last creature from biting his leg. It had flanked him when he had stabbed the second one in the shoulder, but he had managed to smack it in the head with the haft hard enough to stun the creature. Even though he had stopped the bite, he had gotten scratched by the second one before he could turn back to finish it off.
The creature’s claws had slid off the leather armor and ended up catching him in one of the gaps in his armor on the back of his calf. It wasn’t enough to slow him down, but the stinging was enough to take the edge off his elation and remind him of his mortality.
“Shit, I think I lost myself in how this all feels,” Ian said as an involuntary shudder rolled through him at the thought of what a real wound would feel like.
Luckily, the wound had stopped bleeding quickly as it hadn’t been very deep. His higher endurance had helped prevent quite a bit of the physical damage from the attack, but it wasn’t as simple as comparing numbers. Damage and health were an incredibly complex issue with an infinite number of scenarios and variables.
Many of the min-max video gamers had tried to develop a system to help quantify how damage was calculated. As a general rule of thumb, higher stats do more damage. It was also obvious that armor and weapons made of better materials provide better outcomes than their lower-tier counterparts. Which coincides with people who have real world experience and expertise performing better with their weapons than those with no training.
The gamers had wanted to showcase to the greater universe that Earth could provide something the other groups out there had never accomplished. It took decades for members of the theory craft communities to finally give up, and the state had been obvious from the beginning; health points simply cannot be quantified in real life the same way they could in video games. Instead of being the magnum opus for Earth’s video gaming community, it spawned millions of memes that were still floating around decades later.
Thinking back on one of his favorites, Ian looked at his spear, “I could have saved thousands of hours I spent practicing if all I had to do was roll a couple of six-sided dice.”
He chuckled at his memory of tabletop games he played with his friends in high school as he looted the monsters and walked down the ramp to enter the third floor for the first time.
As he took in the new floor, he found the walls were darker stone than the previous one, but crystal formations in the ceiling and walls provided a comfortable amount of light throughout the giant cavern. It was easily the size of one of the old stadiums that had been used for football before dungeon dives sucked the money out of the old sports industries. Spread throughout the cavern were large stone pillars, a dozen feet thick, preventing him from having a clear view of the area.
Before he could get lost in thought, the sound of chittering came from behind the pillar closest to him. Deciding to play it safe, he looked around to make sure he didn’t see any dangers before slowly moving forward. Instead of getting right up next to the pillar, he stood ten yards away as he slowly rounded it towards the noise. As he finally got a view of the back side, he found two scorpions next to the pillar. They were two feet long with two small hand-sized pincers and a tail held above them that ended in a stinger. They also glowed a sickly greenish white that made them easy to pick out against the darker stone. Ian could see the glowing purple venom beading up on the end of the stingers as they slowly swung back and forth.
He stood motionless, staring at the two arachnids, and they both seemed to be watching him. After a few seconds, one of the scorpions took a few tentative steps forward, each chitinous leg making a click as it hit the solid stone. As soon as it was halfway between Ian and its counterpart, Ian struck out on instinct, fueled by a large dose of internal terror.
His spear sank in right next to one of its eyes, with the wings of the blade putting enough pressure to push the scorpion to the floor. Ian nearly screamed as the tail lashed forward and hit the haft of his weapon. There was never an instant in his life that he was happier for a spear’s reach than that single moment. He was trying to remain calm as it was trying to snap at him with its pincers while multiple strikes from its tail came forward.
He pulled back and jabbed the creature two more times before a clicking sound caused him to look up and find the second scorpion had nearly closed the distance.
“Oh, hell no!” Ian said as his brain screamed out in terror.
He jabbed the first creature one last time before jumping back towards the entrance to give himself additional space to deal with the new threat. He lunged as soon as it moved past its heavily wounded counterpart. His first strike caught it on the left side of its body, and it was able to start swiveling towards him. The creepy legs, pincers, and stinger made his inner voice scream as he tried to keep his fear in check.
He swiveled with the creature and jabbed again to get a better position to push the creature down. He now had his back to the first one and was terrified that—
Congratulations! You have earned 2 levels. You have achieved level 49. You have been awarded 40 skill points!
“Oh, thank fucking God!” Ian hissed as the first one died.
He didn’t immediately start jabbing the second one. Instead, he held it pinned to the floor to give himself a second to look around the cavern and make sure no more were about to sneak up on him. He didn’t hear anything other than the one thrashing in front of him and triple-checked that he couldn’t see any more of the glowing creatures.
Heaving a sigh of relief, he waited and timed his next strike right after the creature’s tail hit the spear. He applied enough pressure to the strike that he heard the cracking of the creature’s carapace as the wings caught the chitin. Within ten seconds, he was greeted with another notification informing him he had hit level 50.
Ian let out an involuntary shudder as he looked down at the dead creature. He was more of a ‘purify it with fire’ kind of guy when it came to spiders and other creatures with too many legs. He had been fascinated by scorpions when he was little, but he had never seen a living scorpion before now. His inner voice was telling him that scorpions may not be something he was going to be able to handle on an emotional level. He could see the way down on the other side of the room, but there were a dozen different pillars and hiding spots between here and there that these little monsters could be using to ambush him.
Letting out another shudder, he stabbed the scorpion one more time to ensure it was actually dead before he reached down to loot it. He quickly walked over to do the same to the first one he had killed, and was happy to watch the dungeon absorb the bodies. He was also happy to see the 14 extra small essence stones and the two vials of scorpion venom he had received.
“It’s a decent haul, I just wish they weren’t so terror-inducing,” Ian muttered before a thought hit him. “I wonder how close these are to real scorpions?”
He pulled out one of the vials of scorpion venom and grabbed his spear. He was surprised to see a new notification in his mind.
Notice! Would you like to use a Vial of Scorpion Venom on the Essence Reinforced Steel Spear? The effect will last for one hour or upon leaving the dungeon.
With a thought of confirmation, the vial in his hand transformed into purple shards of light before erupting from his hand and flying directly over to the head of his spear. The light spun a few circles before sinking into the spearhead, causing it to glow with a new purple tint that seemed to drip off the spear.
Ian just smiled as he turned to the next closest pillar. He followed the same steps he had taken with the first one, but he only found a single scorpion behind this pillar. Ensuring he wasn’t going to be jumped from behind, he moved forward slowly until the scorpion began to charge him. As it came towards him, he felt the same sense of terror growing in the back of his mind as he had with the first two. Managing to shake off the growing sense of dread, he struck out at the scorpion and pinned it to the ground. He held it for a second before he pulled his spear out and jumped back.
Unlike with the first two, the scorpion didn’t continue chasing him. Instead, it began thrashing on the ground and curling in upon itself. Like normal scorpions, they were only immune to their own venom. The venom from other scorpions, even of the same species, would at least harm it.
He carefully moved forward until he was in range and stabbed the scorpion a few more times in rapid succession.
Congratulations! You have earned 1 level. You have achieved level 51. You have been awarded 20 skill points!
After watching how the scorpion writhed in pain, Ian quickly opened up his available skills and purchased the uncommon skill Poison Resistance.
Poison Resistance 1/5 (Passive): Decreases the effect of common and uncommon poisons by 10%. Reduces the poisoned status duration of common and uncommon poisons by 75%.
Ian knew it was impulsive, but it was a skill he had planned to get sometime in the future anyway...probably. Some poisons caused status effects like paralysis, and they were a death sentence for any solo adventurer. It was a sound investment, and anyone who couldn't understand that just needed to visit the cavern he was standing in.
“Alright, now that we have a weapon and some protection, let’s see if I can overcome my fear of these nasty, creepy crawlies.”
