I sprinted through floor two, ignoring any monsters I passed. They couldn't catch up to me, and those in front of me couldn't stop me. With the increased momentum from my weighted limbs, I could simply step on them. Bursting snakes weren't pretty, but that's why my armour was self-cleaning.

The first floor had ended up taking only an hour and a half, despite me having to sprint around the outside, dodging trees and roots. Without needing to worry about monsters or coordination between teammates, my speed was impressive. I could even throw in the occasional [Far Step] when the irregular trees left enough of a gap for it to be worthwhile.

I'd considered using [Far Step] to leap up the wall and kick my way forward from it above the treetops, but I didn't fancy my chances of bursting through the canopy in one piece, nor had I any idea how I was supposed to land. Not to mention the angles involved weren't conducive to moving along the wall. I needed a wall-running skill of some sort.

Floor two was quickly eaten by my rapid strides, with floor three sharing its fate swiftly after. Floor four, with its springy enemies, needed a little more care, but in general they weren't good enough at aiming to hit me. The bullet serpents of floor five were, but given that they splattered themselves even against my old armour, they stood no hope of penetrating my new. In all, it took only seven hours to reach the antechamber, enough that I had no problems defeating the boss before setting up my bed.

... By which I meant a normal bedroll, rather than my actual bed. When it came down to it, I was far too self-conscious to pull out a full bed in front of the few delving parties that were harvesting steel.

"Sleeping here today? Where's your partner?" asked Michael, who was here with his party again. "And why are you wearing a beastkin helmet?"

"I'm on my own this time; I'm making an attempt at earning the [Proficient Delver] title. And it's to fit my ears into, obviously."

"You're what?" he exclaimed, instantly forgetting about my helmet. "You're trying to clear the entire dungeon solo?"

"Yup, that's what I need to do. I've already soloed the hydra once, so I know I can. I just need to work my way down in one go."

"But you're... what... fifteen?"

"Yes, I am aware I'm young. I'm still rank three, and it gets really repetitive having to repeat this to everyone."

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"It's fine," I interrupted. "It's just been a long day. This isn't the best dungeon for running solo, with safe spaces so far apart."

Then again, Dawnhold was equally short on safe spaces. On floors where monsters remained in their rooms, the entrance and boss antechambers were mostly safe, but it was still theoretically possible for a disturbed monster to end up there. The only totally safe way to rest would be to kill a boss and then sleep in their room, which wouldn't be fair to other delvers. Luckily, it was short enough to run the full thing in half a day, so the issue never arose.

A theoretical 'master delver' title that required me to solo the great dungeon in a single run would be all sorts of unfun...

Michael wandered off, and the fake clearing was fairly sizeable, but three parties of delvers still made a lot of noise. I'd had fourteen years to get used to Dad's snoring, but no experience of trying to sleep through a boisterous dice game, weapon maintenance, loud conversation and whatever else they were doing. That was something I'd failed to factor into my plans. They had to sleep at some point, even if they did so one party at a time, but there was no sign of them bunking down yet. I should have brought ear-plugs.

Maybe I could make some? Given the behaviour of corpusclite, it would be perfect for shoving into my ears without risking it getting stuck there. It was a simple matter to take out a blob of the stuff I'd stored away and cut a couple of smaller blobs off it with my enchanted short sword and [Armour Break]. Remove helmet, insert gloop into ears and replace helmet to hold it in. Perfect.

Except that there were now a trio of mages standing over me with their lips moving.

"I can't hear a thing," I pointed out. "Is it important?"

They looked at each other, then shook their heads and wandered off. Presumably not, then. They couldn't possibly have been stuck down here for long enough that they hadn't heard of the new coolness of mana control skills, but they probably hadn't seen corpusclite before. Maybe they hadn't heard of affinity materials at all, in which case any mana sense skills they had would have just shown them something very interesting.

I lay down on my bedroll, threw a wolf hide over myself and settled in to sleep, waking up a few hours later refreshed and ready to go, although it did take me longer than it should have to remember why I was deaf. Thankfully, I could [Item Box] the plugs straight out of my ears without even needing to remove my helmet.

One of the three parties were sleeping, while one was sitting around and the other in the boss chamber. So now they were quiet. Well, whatever. I stored my bedroll and continued on my journey downwards, the next five floors taking a little longer, but not enough that I was dangerously tired on reaching the next antechamber. Like last time, the place was occupied without being crowded, although this time whoever was here was in the boss chamber, leaving the antechamber empty. Would I need to explain myself over again?

Hopefully not; when the portal cleared and a group of eight stepped out, I recognised them as the party I'd bumped into on the surface during my first trip to Serpent Isle. The dogkin who'd questioned my ears squinted suspiciously at my helmet, so I gave him a grin and a wave.

"I simultaneously want to ask, but don't want to hear the answer," he muttered.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Do you want to fight the boss?" asked the human who seemed to be their team leader. I'd never got his name last time, had I? A quick [Appraisal] revealed him to be Alex.

I took stock of my condition and decided I could manage without needing to rest first. It wasn't as if I intended the fight to involve, well, fighting. "Yes, please. Shouldn't take long."

He looked around, and failed to spot anyone else, leading to the obvious question. "On your own? When we last met, you said something about a party."

"Yes, we cleared the dungeon together already," I said, making an effort not to sigh. It was a perfectly sensible question, and it wasn't his fault that everyone I met kept asking it. "Now I'm doing it alone to earn [Proficient Delver]."

"Oh, wow. Impressive. Go ahead then."

At least he accepted it without complaint. I stepped into the boss chamber, lifted my left arm and subjected the anaconda emperor to a seriously unhealthy dose of magical lightning. With my odour suppression masking the stench of burnt meat, I grabbed an uncut diamond from the chest and stepped back out of the portal, the entire battle over in under a minute.

"What? That was impossibly fast!" complained the dogkin.

"If he thinks he can solo the entire dungeon, he's hardly going to have a problem with the boss on this floor," pointed out one of their mages.

"Well, yes, but there's a difference between an easy win and barely spending ten seconds in the room."

"Dunno if you've seen those lightning glove weapons for sale, but a new, more powerful model just came out," I explained. "Not that I couldn't have beat it without, but it would have taken a more sensible amount of time."

"I'm not sure if I should be glad the job is getting easier or annoyed at all the effort I needed to put in when new delvers can just buy overpowered equipment."

"No reason not to do both, although it's not like everyone can use this weapon. It's uncontrollable without [Expert Mana Control] or better, preferably with a finesse skill if you want to hit small targets."

"Maybe, but anyone can pick up mythril rings that boost attributes or provide resistances now. It used to be that someone was thankful for rank two comfort and durability on their armour and a sharpness enchantment on a steel weapon, but now everyone's running around with weapons made from mana materials and so much jewellery that they clink when they walk. Not that I don't have a few rings on under this armour myself, but it's still weird how fast things are changing."

And they'd be changing quickly for a long while yet. We started producing mythril under Erryn's watch, and she didn't mind, but things had progressed even further since then. What would she think of the institute leaning on knowledge from Earth?

"Speaking of which, what's with your armour? What's all that pink stuff?" chimed in another of their team.

"It's another new mana material, an alloy of steel and body affinity mana. It's flexible, but strong enough to stop a bite from an anaconda emperor."

"See!" exclaimed the dogkin. "That's exactly what I mean. So now we could have someone at rank one walk in here and be immune to the anaconda emperor. Also, where can I get armour like that?"

I grinned a little, but he wasn't exaggerating as badly as it sounded. That was pretty much Hassok's plan for the Emerald Caverns, after all; manufacturing weapons and armour that non-combatants could use to take down monsters on the level of the hydra. The only difference was that they wouldn't be rank one, and would have the weight of attributes behind them, even without combat classes and skills.

"Affinity materials aren't widespread yet, so it'll be a while before you can buy it. This set was custom made at the Dawnhold institute."

"Bah. Pity."

Deciding they'd talked enough, the group of eight resumed their farming of the boss and resulting precious gems, while I took out my bedroll and curled up under my dire-wolf hide to sleep.

The next five floors took longer, taking more than a day before I reached the floor fifteen silver-mining camp, and by the time I got there, there was no way I was fighting the brood-mother and its spawn without sleeping first. Without even stopping to greet Caleb, I set up my bedroll along the edge with another sleeping group and was once again out like a light.

"You look like you needed that nap," commented Caleb when I woke up, some four and a half hours later. What would that be in Earth time? Twelve hours? Wow, calling that a 'nap' was underselling it. I really must have been shattered. And the next stretch was going to be even harder. Maybe I should rest up here for longer before I tackled it.

"I'm making a run for [Proficient Delver]," I explained. "Which means these rooms are the only safe place to rest, and I had to do five floors in one go."

"That's not too bad," he commented, before slapping himself in the face. "Ah, I'm forgetting. You're lacking a scout. You must have needed to take the long way around."

"Yup," I agreed, not pointing out that our scout wasn't capable of navigating directly either.

"Well, I wish you luck. I assume you want to fight this boss before moving on?"

"Yup, although I'll rest up here for a bit longer before attempting the final five floors."

The boss once again fell under a torrent of lightning. I may not have had Cluma's [Orb of Darkness] or [Darklight], but too much light was every bit as effective as none at all, and the prismatic serpents didn't stand a chance.

"That was quick," commented a dozen different delvers as I stepped back out, requiring me to explain the lightning glove all over again.

If I ate at their improvised tavern, would it count as not acting solo? Deciding it was best not to risk it, I settled down for another hour of sleep before once again setting off.

The mambas of floors sixteen and seventeen weren't too bad; I could slay them with my sword-staff easily enough. I ignored the cores, not wanting to take any more time than needed until my next rest spot, and rushed onwards. The anaconda kings of floor eighteen were worse, being too bulky and enduring to slay with single blows. Instead, I ignored them, storing all my weapons in [Item Box] and sprinting through the floor with [Dexterity] and [Minor Speed] active. Sometimes I needed to run around them, but they were too slow to catch me, and I cleared the floor in my three-hour target.

Nineteen was back to mambas, but their upgraded stats made one-hit kills tough again. Nevertheless, I had to slay them, because their improved speed risked me being overwhelmed if I tried to flee.

Floor twenty was a nightmare. Unable to outrun monsters, I needed to fight my way through, but the anaconda emperors were tough. Using lightning could kill one easily enough, but would attract two more, not to mention the way it would start every brood-mother in the area spawning. I ended up taking hits, but my new armour held and no fangs reached my skin.

That got me to the floor twenty antechamber, which was thankfully completely deserted. For the first time in the delve, I took out my real bed, sinking into the soft mattress and falling asleep within seconds.

ding

I stirred in my bed, wondering briefly why my ceiling was so leafy and why a chime had woken me up, before remembering I was at the bottom of a dungeon. And the ding came from the System. Why was it dinging at me while I was trying to sleep?

Administrative notification: Foreign soul detected at coordinates -47.806, -1.252, β

Administrative notification: Foreign soul detected at coordinates -47.806, -1.252, β

Administrative notification: Foreign soul detected at coordinates -47.806, -1.252, β

25 further administrative notifications follow.

Because someone on Earth had decided that right now was the perfect timing to follow through on their promise to open a new portal. Given the difference in coordinates, either they'd carried out their suggestion to find a deserted island, or else this was someone different.