“So, I say we turn in for the day.” Janik commented, looking worn and ragged like he hadn’t slept in days and just completed a marathon.

Dia shared his worn-out expression, sitting down on one of the properly sized boulders in the large room. All three of them had flashlights of their own, having gotten one for survival and practical reasons.

Sam checked his phone. It was midday when they started grinding this place. After they got used to it, it took them under an hour to clear it. It was now well past midnight. They had cleared the first Dungeon of the second Floor 15 times, explaining their tiredness. Not only did Sam level twice, Elara levelled four times, hitting level 20, and Dia levelled twice as well. Janik passed level 20, and gained his level 20 skill; [ Duelist’s Defence ], a passive ability that gives him Defence depending on a few factors. He needs to use no weapons or a ‘duelist weapon’, if he is then he gains either a flat 5 Defense of +20% on top of what he already has; whichever is highest. Given his current Defence of 46, this bumped it to a total of 55.

Sam had talked with Elara and brought up where to put her points, she wanted him to decide and it wasn’t until pressed that she still felt like hunting, stalking, playing to her instincts. Though keeping to increase Vitality made her Venom amazing, it didn’t do much for everything else, they agreed to level her Vitality to 20 and then start putting points into Dexterity. Once she hit level 20, she also gained a skill as well; [ Stalker’s Strike ], a passive skill that, if she attacks from not being directly seen or perceived, increases the chance to hit dramatically.

On top of this, since they ran it 15 times, they each got 15 times the reward. The Aether Crystals were free money, but the most substantial of free money was the cores from everything gathered. They had to sell multiple times during the runs due to the sheer amount of them, but after this was split 50/50 netted them $637 500 each. Which was on top of the Aether Crystals they got from just completing the Dungeon.

Then came the Random Boxes.

Each of them ended up with 15x of them.

Sam wasn’t sure if his focus on trying to give Janik a better chance of good loot helped or not, but he was the lucky one between them this round!

Sam’s 15 boxes netted him 28 crystals and one health potion. Janik’s boxes gave him 22 crystals, a mana potion but also a piece of armour in the 14th box!

The chest piece looked almost like it was made of stone, rough and earthen in appearance, though it was a bit heavy it was surprisingly comfortable according to Janik.

[ Earthguard Shell - Low C Rank

Defence: 50

-Increased resistance against knockback.

-Slow health regeneration when standing still on rock or earth.

-+5 Defence when on natural ground. ]

“Yeah, I agree.” Sam nodded. He might not be the same kind of tired as Janik and Dia, as he didn’t use his body that much, but he had been awake for quite a time, the last few runs were much more sluggish than before, so it was probably safer to just retire for the day.

There wasn’t much talking on the way back to the village, the blood prices of a room costing $500 per night felt fine at the moment, paying for a room each they didn’t do anything besides crash. The whole way back was a blur.

Waking up the next day he felt surprisingly amazing. Though he was hungry and felt a great need for access to a toilet, he had grown fond of waking up with Dia wrapped around him as she did.

She woke as soon as he tried to move, and with her awake he could get dressed and handle the pressing toilet situation, she did the same and still didn’t seem like she trusted the toilet. He assumed it was still somewhat new to her which was the problem.

They got dressed before leaving the rented, overpriced room to get something to eat, the duo found Janik sitting there, already with empty plates next to him, reading something on his phone connected to a power bank.

“Jeez, you’re up early.” Sam commented tiredly as he walked over to Janik.

“Well... When you have 17 kids you kind of get used to waking early.” As he replied that, Sam noticed a dead expression in his eyes.

Based on their earlier interactions on the topic, it was clear he didn’t dislike them in the slightest, but the man looked tired...

“Ah.. well... eeh...” Sam desperately tried to find a topic to speak about, to change the subject to something positive. “At least you finally got some neat gear?”

Janik’s smile returned, having a strong hint of satisfaction. “Yes, finally. But I’ll be honest and say that I would love a new sword...” Turning his phone around to face Sam, he was showing the TAC shop within the app. “I’m trying to find something that’s within my budget, based on the haul last night, and what I got for the other armour I had... I also have to consider putting away enough for the kids to be good...” He seemed conflicted.

“There’s also the fact that I almost feel that I shouldn’t get half of the money... I mean... You did like 70% of the work, Dia handled the cores, I just distracted them and took a few hits...”

“And... is that a problem?” Sam countered. “I’m fine with it.”

Leaning back in the chair he was sitting in, Janik let out a deep sigh as he changed his focus from his phone to Sam. “I’m not going to give this back, so don’t worry about it. If I choose not to use it, I think I’ve set us up for the next year and a half, if not two years if we’re good on it. This is amazing but... If I instead use $500 000 on two swords, if I swing with both I’ll go from 84 damage to 420, that’s a stupid increase... But is that worth a year of funding for the kids?”

Sam could understand his dilemma. Janik was smart enough to know that becoming a better Hunter would let him make more money, but at the same time, if he died that money wasn’t usable anymore. So it was a risk vs reward kind of thing.

Sam had nobody who relied on him in the same way, and this kind of damage increase would surpass Sam with one sword, and he’d have two.

“Hell, I could take out the Dungeon boss with one attack... But...” He sat back forward and looked at his phone with pain in his eyes.

Sam knew he had been using those two starter swords since the start of his career.

“Well, the solution is easy. You’re fine with using things you get from dungeons, and as long as we don’t have a problem with what we’re running, there’s no problem, right? Bank what you get from things so the kids are good, and we’ll see what happens. After all, my hax might help you.” Sam smiled proudly as if he knew this was going to be fine, even though this was something he hadn’t even understood yet.

Janik chuckled. “I suppose that’s a way to do it, but I’ll admit it doesn’t feel entirely fine.”

“Consider me repaying you for all the help at the start? I don’t think I’d do this well without it.” Sam felt honest in his statement, having someone who believed in and nurtured you from the very start was surprisingly important. “Also, I don’t really care about how we split it, I like having you with me, I feel you’re still helping so don’t worry about it, take your share and let’s go shopping.” Sam smiled, he didn’t know if this was going to make the situation better or worse, but he felt like speaking his mind at least.

Janik used a few seconds to process it before he replied, his smile slowly returning as he did, in the end, looking like himself again. “That’s good to hear because I really do want to upgrade...” His expression softened, almost like a weight was lifted off his shoulders.

Sam assumed it could be tied to his earlier comment about being left behind. And it could also be similarly related to the sudden substantial sum he got in his hands, Sam had the same problem a while ago. But right now he wanted to upgrade as well, he was still swinging around a lot of shit daggers, they could be vastly upgraded!

“Let’s head back to TAC, take a look, and get some over-gearing.” Sam smiled as he turned around, planning to leave, though he was stopped by Dia pulling at his arm.

“Sa.. No... Food!” Speaking in single words without a proper sentence still worked fine, she got her point out and Sam was still very happy about it.

“Ah.. yes... Got a head of myself there...” Forcing an embarrassed smile he changed gears to get some food first.

Giving Dia the phone with the language app, Sam spoke with Janik until they were ready to go. Somewhat planning what to do from here, they felt that it made sense to first go get properly geared, Janik still wanted to set some of the money off, which was entirely his choice, but he looked like he felt better about it.

Sam intended to sink almost all of it into getting better gear, hearing the potential damage Janik was going to get from his upgrade made him a bit self-conscious about still flinging around the shit-tier daggers.

“Perhaps I’ll do the same, getting some better weapons is probably going to make things even easier as well.” Sam smiled, feeling surprisingly nice about it.

“Yeah, as long as you keep me around, I’m fine doing this. I said so before and I’ll say it again, the way you don’t have to use any meaningful resource as you do what you do, is straight-up bonkers.” Janik looked back at himself now, and he still had a good point. Ranged attacks tended to have some form of cost to weigh up the safety from staying at range, Sam didn’t have that problem.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

They talked a bit more before heading back to TAC, the portal on this Floor was just outside the village, so getting there wasn’t an issue and they found themselves back on Earth shortly thereafter.

Sam intended to let Dia continue her word training on the way, but as soon as they landed on Earth her worry returned. She didn’t seem to like the city's architecture, tall and wide concrete buildings still made her uncertain. Grabbing Sam’s arm, tail and ears lowering and all in all making herself small, she didn’t have the focus to spare on the language app.

Dia’s expression changed as they entered the TAC building, being inside, even though still vastly concrete and furniture, it just seemed to make her more at ease. Perhaps this could change when time went but for now, they were here somewhat temporarily. Shopping for what they needed before going back to Aetheria would not only get them back into it, but it would also get Dia back to her comfort zone.

Walking over to one of the booths, Janik and Sam started browsing after what they wanted, though Janik seemed to have already somewhat picked out what he wanted, since he was waiting for Sam anyway he took the time to look a bit more.

There were a lot of daggers there, and though he could go for another weapon like the Moonblade, swords had a similar damage per dollar, it seemed, but different weapons had different scaling for damage. This means that to get 20 damage on a one-handed sword, it would count as a High-end E-rank sword, but similar damage on a dagger was a High-end D-rank weapon, which changed the cost slightly. Sam considered that swords might be better, but with the Clustered attack it didn’t matter, and the way math and chance worked, the more attacks he had, the more chance for critical hits he had, but also more chance to miss. One math problem was that if a dagger landed a critical hit, it would do less total damage than a sword doing the same. So he ended up quite conflicted.

With his upgraded Spirit, each Psyhand could lift 620gram/1.36lbs, so he was getting to a point where he could almost wield light swords in one hand, he still needed two hands for the short sword but that was only barely. However, the more he thought about it the more he liked the idea of continuing as he has so far, the extra weight wasn’t a thing to consider as long as the daggers fit in, he liked being able to split up damage between targets and having the options, it’s also somewhat become his style, so it’s what made sense in his mind. On that logic he decided to sell the short sword, he needed two hands to use it as it was just too heavy for one hand, this also meant that giving each hand a dagger increased the damage per hand.

Looking through the available daggers, he found a lot of ones with perks, but there weren’t any that felt right. There were some stealth-focused ones, doing extra damage when attacking from stealth, but currently, this was happening less during their grinds, and there were some that could negate the sound of the attack so would be great for sneak attacks; but only for that specific hit so it didn’t affect his entire swarm.

The only dagger with perks he felt like getting was a copy of the Bleeding Edge dagger he already had, double the chance to apply bleed was not a bad idea, however, the number of times that had triggered didn’t feel like it made up for the double value of the dagger. So it felt better just going for two non-trait daggers.

In the end, he got himself seven 20-damage daggers, costing $100 000 each. He used the normal 5-damage daggers to fill out the remaining Psyhands, and kept the extra in his backpack in case he levelled up more or needed backups later. This let him fill all his 30 Psyhands with weapons but also meant that he was carrying 8.4kg/18.5lbs of active weapons on his body, not considering the stuff in his backpack. Good thing the Player Strength he had made this fine.

For Dia, he found a skill that was within budget, surprisingly. It ate up most of his remaining money.

They met up at the desks where purchases were handed out, having a substantial amount of money deducted from their accounts before they got the stupidly expensive gear they bought.

Janik ended up with the two non-trait swords, just going for sheer damage. According to his info, if he lands with both swords and not counting for Defence or Critical hits, he could do 420 damage now. Sam’s full volley only hit 320, but given the other bonuses he had, he didn’t feel bad about it, one more level and his Spt would hit an even number again, giving him another Energy, which in turn gives him two more Psyhands and thus two more weapons. This exponential increase in progress made him somewhat giddy.

“So, you’re not getting Dia anything?” Janik asked as he casually waved his hand towards her.

“Oh, I did, I found a skill for her.” He countered. “It should increase her damage at least a tiny bit.” He smiled.

“Ah, that makes sense. Those tend to be relatively cheap, most people don’t care about their non-weapon damage, after all.”

It didn’t take long before this came out as well, a crystal was placed on the desk which Sam gave to Dia.

She took it with both hands and looked at him with questioning eyes.

“Use it.” Sam tried, not sure if that would register. He didn’t know any words in her language that could work. He knew ‘food’ but... that didn’t sound right.

She just looked at him just as confused as before, making Sam turn to Janik. “How do you use those things?”

“Oh, just have her break it, they are surprisingly fragile when used in the right way, though dropping them won’t break them.” Janik replied as he was making sure his new scabbards were fastened properly and not in the way of his movements.

Turning back to Dia, Sam mimicked crushing something in his hand before motioning for her.

She looked at the gem, then back to Sam before looking at the gem again. She squeezed both her hands around it which had the crystal shatter. A pulse of light escaped her hands as the crystal seemingly aerosolized, all the floating particles floated into her body before fading away into nothing. As the light entered her body she tried to swat it away and almost scratch it out of her skin. Sam calmly stopped her hands, a chuckling smile seemed to calm her down. He didn’t consider that she wouldn’t know what this was.

[ Beastfolk Dia has unlocked the skill [ Hardened Knuckles ]! ]

[ Hardened Knuckles

Increases the Unarmed Base Damage by 20% ]

This might not seem like much, but it was one of the few of its kind in the shop. The others with higher percentages were vastly more expensive, and with the low damage values of unarmed attacks, even though this was applied to the base before attribute calculations kicked in... If Sam were to use this, his damage wouldn’t even change. The Base Weapon Damage of an untrained fist, was 2, at least in Sam’s case. And 20% out of 2 wouldn’t even bring it up one notch. Assuming that others might have higher, perhaps 5, this would increase it by 1, which could end up decent if you went heavy that way, but for weapon users, it was not always worth the money.

However, Dia’s fists, feet and teeth had higher damage values, the lowest of which was her punch having a base damage of 10. And it seemed this worked on all unarmed damage, adding the same 20% to her bite, claws and kicks. Since this was added as if a dagger went from 5 to 6 before stats, it increased her damage a little as well!

Dia’s expression changed to a wide happy smile towards Sam. She was a bit worried and uncertain when the light particles entered her skin, but it seemed like she knew what had happened now.

“I feel powerful!” Janik smiled. “In all my time as a Player, this is the first time I have managed to upgrade my gear this much.” He looked eager, like a kid on his birthday.

His swords looked surprisingly mundane, not far from what Sam would define as an officer’s sword. They were one-edged straight blades, and he looked extremely eager to test them out.

Not something Sam could fault him for, his damage had only increased by 118 from the expected flat damage before, so an increase of just under 60%. Janik’s increase was a bit more substantial with a total increase of around 400%, which was dramatic. This was the power of having damage calculated from your stats.

“I suppose it’s back to the second Floor, then?” Sam asked rhetorically. He was ready to check out other Dungeons, wanting to continue levelling and advancing. There was also the question about the Ascendant thing, he needed to find out how to take advantage of that somehow.

Janik nodded, still seeming eager. “Yep, I think we can do the same dungeon once more, just to test things out, get a feel for everything in an environment we know, before we go to the next one.”

Sam had to agree, it made a lot of sense to at least take one test with the new stuff before they continued into the new stuff. It was probably also a good idea to let Dia do some fighting as well, hew knew Janik would want to give this a few tests so it was off back to the Dungeon!

They headed back towards the tower, but before they could leave TAC there was a loud alarm echoing through the building, the phones of everyone inside started making alert sounds at the same time as well.

Taking out their phones there was a broadcasted alert.

[ All Players report to TAC, there has been a Tower Break. ]