Remarkable! You have located a Dungeon! As the first denizen of the (Human) Tutorial to locate and enter a Dungeon you have earned the Title Dungeon Explorer!

Dungeon Explorer- +2 All Stats, +5 Luck, 25% bonus Exp for defeating Dungeon Born Monsters, increase to odds of receiving higher tiered loot from Dungeons.

Warning! You have entered the Sandstone Palace Dungeon. This Dungeon is rated level 10+. As a level 0 entity, this is a fools errand. Please proceed to the nearest exit, as entrance into this Dungeon is not only perilous, but promises to swiftly end your existence. Proceed with caution.

Remarkable! (HIDDEN QUEST) located! Conquer The Sandstone Palace Dungeon!

Alan pulled up his Quests tab to view his newly aquired Quest.

***DYNAMIC QUEST***

1/15- Survive your first day in the Tutorial.

Completion Reward: Varies depending on completion total and mettle demonstrated in the face of adversity.

***HIDDEN QUEST***

(Conquer the Sandstone Palace Dungeon)

1/4- Defeat every Dungeon Born Monster located on the Dungeons first floor. (0/100) Completion Reward: 250 (Iron Grade) Lotus coins, 5 (E-Stage) Mana Crystals.

Even understanding that he was in way over his head, Alan had to admit, if only to himself, that some of those rewards sounded pretty interesting. Unfortunately he had no idea what he should actually expect within a Dungeon, aside from what little information had been listed. Floor Bosses, a Core boss, Hells it required Alan to defeat one hundred enemies on the first floor alone. Hoping someone in charge happened to be paying attention to his desperate situation, Alan retreated back through the barrier and called out for assistance.

"Umm System? Skarg? Tutorial Administration?Anyone? What am I supposed to do here? This Dungeon seems out of my league, any help, or advice would be greatly appreciated right about now."

A brief moment of nervous silence passed, followed by Skarg's voice suddenly entering his mind.

"Wait!" Alan practically screamed out into the air, "I didn't find this place, it trapped me! I was in the desert and a giant sand-hand scooped my ass up and pulled me underground! The only exits I've found down here are one that collapsed under who knows how many thousands of feet of sand, and the other that leads into the Dungeon."

On the brink of a full on meltdown, and completely unable to help himself, Alan cast another [Healing fog] which immediately helped, but in no way solved his current predicament. Alan was impatiently pacing back and forth at the entrance of the Dungeon when Skarg's reply finally came.

Any others deposited within the boundaries of the desert have either perished, or left the area entirely.

Your third and not only final option, but the one least likely to end in success, is to clear the Dungeon, floor by floor, defeating all Floor Bosses as well as the Core Boss. This would allow you to claim or destroy the Dungeon Core, and provide an exit, or simply teleport you back to the surface. As you are currently level 0 with no discernable skills or abilities, the success rate of this option has been deemed at less than .1%.

Technically I can offer a fourth and final option, suicide.

I have witnessed three suicides thus far, and I must say, you Humans sure are creative! I look forward to watching more, so option four is definitely my preference if you were wondering. As there is nothing further to discuss, I am now logging off. Good luck>

Alone, and left with four wholly unsavory options, Alan paced back and forth outside of the unsettling barrier, trying to pick the best poison.

Digging myself out and waiting just seem like the same thing, Alan realized. If I attempt to dig myself out, chances are I'm going to end up causing another collapse, and I'll be buried like my skeletal savior over there, or I'll simply dig until running out of food and starve. If I wait for help, I'll end up starving regardless. Then when I'm running out of food, I might determine digging out was the better option, or even attempting to clear the Dungeon, but by that point I'd probably be out of food anyway. Alan straightened his spine with resolve.

I have absolutely no interest nor intentions of killing myself, so that leaves me with my only real option. Taking my chances, no matter how small they may be, and attempting to conquer the dungeon. I've already been in and out of the dungeon barrier once, so I can simply leave when things get desperate. Heal up, formulate a plan, make another attempt. Maybe I'm doomed to fail no matter what choice I make, but at least this way I'm doing SOMETHING. But before I do anything else, I need to test out my new spells, figure out how accurate these system descriptions are. I have to admit, the description of [Healing fog] was pretty much spot on.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Once he'd made up his mind, Alan began by returning to the pillared entrance chamber, and calling up a [Fireball]. Almost immediately a softball sized globe of orange fire appeared three feet in front of his chest, accompanied by a minor reduction to his current Mana pool. His new title alone provided more Mp than this Spell used, so the drain on his reserves was negligible at a measley 10Mp.

Concentrating on the massive pile of sand in the center of the room and feeling the steady heat radiating from the ball of flame, Alan released his [Fireball]. As soon as he relaxed his hold on the Spell, it flew off in a straight line towards the destination he had already predetermined, becoming smaller and smaller the further it traveled. Reaching the limits of its capabilities at fifteen feet away from him, the now grape-sized ball of fire flickered once, and simply fell to the ground, soon sputtering out in the sand.

The entire process from casting the spell, selecting a target, sending it roaring on its way to its destination and its arrival at the Spell's current limit of fifteen feet away took a total of 5 seconds. Alan counted. He even felt as the 1 minute cooldown began to count down.

Next, Alan cast [Water Jet] which as it turned out, was actually very similar to his [Fireball] spell. The water materialized as a twisting, spinning globe hovering three feet in front of his chest . Upon release, the volleyball sized globe unleashed a high pressure water stream that roared off towards the mountain of sand directly in front of him, rapidly draining the globe of liquid in front of him in the process. Upon reaching its limits of 15 feet away, the water stream lost all power, and hit the ground, where it was greedily consumed by the sand.

Alan's next choice was [Stone Skin]. While casting this spell he could feel the Mana gathering around his body similar to a translucent cocoon. Once it wrapped fully around his entire body, he felt a Pushing sensation as the Mana entered into his pores and began to rapidly transform Alan's skin into a mottled grey stone-like situation. Which not only increased his physical defense but also temporarily gave him a slight Hp and Stamina boost. As well as making his every movement feel as if he'd somehow found himself fully submerged underwater.

While still under the effects of [Stone Skin] Alan made the choice to cast [Banish Darkness] which once again wrapped him up in a cocoon of Mana. This time the Mana building up around his figure was much more dense, to the point it felt like he was being smothered. However, instead of entering his pores, the covering of Mana formed into somewhere near a hundred marble-sized orbs of light.

Slowly spinning, the orbs began hovering around him and formed an equator around his waistline. Their patient revolutions cast sinister looking shadows which freely danced upon the walls and floor around him. Yet somehow none of it seemed able to affect his vision in the slightest.

Wanting to see how far he could push himself now, rather than finding out in battle, Alan cast [Lightning Strike] while he remained under the effects of both [Stone Skin] and [Banish Darkness]. This Spell summoned a small, wispy storm cloud to a location of his choosing within fifteen feet of where he stood. As soon as the cloud formed, a bolt of lightning the thickness of one of Alan's fingers dropped soundlessly to the sand. The impact formed a crater of molten sand two feet around, that quickly cooled into a shallow bowl of glittering glass that still produced small puffs of smoke.

He was feeling a bit light-headed after casting multiple spells back to back. Alan took a quick break to allow his Mp Regen to kick in, which also allowed him some spare time for a snack and some water. Removing a few pieces of Jerky and his canteen from the inventory within his Storage Ring, he plopped down on the top step, and rested his back against the large entryway.

Staring at the yellow portal, and watching as the green crackles of energy slowly pulsed and then vanished once more, Alan tried his best to choke down the salty, dried meat. Frequent drinks of water helped to wash it down, and he once again felt amazed by the cool, refreshing water that endlessly poured from within his canteen.

His snack finished, and Mp once again at full capacity, Alan decided it's time to test his final Spell, [Wind Blade]. This one was a bit different as it had multiple uses. The first cast was used to try the projectile version of the Spell. This type formed a crystal clear four foot long, razor sharp boomerang-shaped blade. Made of extremely dense air, it hovered in place three feet in front of him.

Once released, the blade of air emitted a burst of wind in all directions before swiftly soaring off in Alan's chosen direction. Almost immediately the nearly clear boomerang began to shrink, and lose its solidity. By the time it hit the fifteen foot limit, it was already nothing more than a gust of wind that dispersed quietly into the atmosphere.

As soon as the [Wind blade] dispersed, Alan called up another one, only instead of sending it flying into the distance he instructed it to hover two feet above the floor, just inside the entrance of the stairwell. Envisioning several possible uses for this form of the Spell, it seemed unfortunate that any use of the trap form came with a constant Mana drain of 3 Mp per second.

Alan immediately understood he would need to either level this Spell significantly, or vastly increase his Mana pool. As it were, he barely possessed enough Mana to maintain the Spell for a single minute while in its trap form.

Spell testing complete, Alan now had a much higher trust for the System descriptions of his Spells. Apparently the terrible descriptions he'd been receiving came from an issue with his [Examine] Skill.

Fed up with terrible descriptions, Alan resolved himself to use [Examine] as much as possible in an attempt to get the Level up to the point where he would hopefully be able to recover more than just the most basic of information.

With a plan beginning to form, Alan stood up and brushed the sand and grit from his leather armor. Finding that he was still far too nervous to move forward, he paced around the marble columned room several more times. Trying to build up the necessary confidence to attempt clearing the Dungeon's first floor. In the midst his laps, a random flash on his PSA made him stop short.

Remarkable! Due to your penchant to wander around aimlessly, you have acquired the (Basic) Skill [Walking]!

(B)[Walking] Lvl 1- This Passive Skill provides a miniscule boost to your walking speed and a miniscule reduction to Stamina consumed by walking.

Boost to walking speed and reduction to stamina consumption increase with Skill Level.

After minimizing his PSA, Alan returned to the mountainous sand pile that was his first glimpse into his underground prison. Once he arrived at his chosen destination, Alan dug out a relatively comfortable chair and settled into it while glaring ahead at the quartzite archway that had led to to his current dilemma. The Sandstone Palace Dungeon.

Just the thought of having to enter the Dungeon again made Alan's stomach churn. Worries of traps were bad enough, but the apparent need to defeat Boss monsters and their hundreds of minions seemed like an insurmountable challenge at this point. Thankfully he'd found some Spells, albeit they were mostly (Basic) Tiered Spells.

If I'm being honest with myself, Alan considered, I'm better off attempting this Dungeon sooner rather than later. Who knows what I'm going to find in there, or how long it's going to take. While I do have pounds of this trail mix and disgusting jerky, I can already feel my body beginning to consume more energy than ever before. I'm getting hungry far more frequently, and I'm going to need to replenish that energy somehow, so while I still have food, it's time to get a move on.

Gently slapping his cheeks a couple times to ensure he was fully alert, Alan climbed to his feet, sprinted full speed to the stone arch, and came to an abrupt stop at the entryway. Jittery and nervous, Alan performed a set of ten jumping jacks, followed by calling up a [Healing fog]. But at the last second, Alan aborted the spell mid-cast, resolving himself to deal with his tangled up knot of stress and nerves on his own, and save his only healing spell for a time he actually needed it. It wasn't the best of ideas to advance into the dungeon with his only healing Spell already on cooldown after all.

Berating himself for almost making such an obvious mistake, Alan cautiously approached the crackling wall of light. Not willing to give himself a chance to second guess his decision, he stepped through the dungeon barrier with only minimal hesitation.