“What do you think it’s for?”

Red sounded intrigued, obviously pleased by finding a magical item. The key was obviously special, but they wanted to make sure it wasn’t trapped. Mash looked at more than just the item, focusing more on his surroundings. Mash walked around the entire room, doublechecking the mana to look for any traps.

“I don’t know, but if I had to guess it opens something, and I can’t find any traps.”

Mash replied sarcastically as he returned to the pedestal. Jill gave them a thumbs up as she walked back as well. She had been checking for traps as well and seemed to have found nothing of note. Red didn’t seem amused by his joke, and just gave him a dry look. Luke though responded seriously.

“I think it might be a way out. It could also be a way in deeper. I’ve seen dungeon keys like this in books before, and this looks very similar. I think it functions like a gate, so once it opens we will only have a short amount of time to use it. I think we should wait until we get to the center before using it since it could just as easily get us more lost.”

Luke spoke with a surprising degree of confidence. They had no reason to doubt him and decided to save the item for once they were at the center of the labyrinth. Mash made sure to check the pedestal again for traps. Once in the clear, Red placed the item into her storage space. Her storage space was larger, and she had plenty of room to place the key inside without touching anything else.

“A way back! How certain are you?”

Jill sounded overjoyed as she prodded Luke for more information. It was her biggest concern, and if Luke was certain that would solve her immediate problems. Luke shrugged his shoulders and responded slowly.

“Um, maybe sixty percent. There is definitely a chance, but I can’t make any guarantees. I’m sorry.”

“No… it’s not your fault. I just got excited.”

The conversation died, no one wanting to add more to it. Instead, they took a short break and allocated their stats. They gained a few levels killing the monsters earlier and needed to use their free stats. Though they gained a few stats from fighting, it was insignificant compared to his number of free stats. He gained six levels fighting those things. Despite the fights being relatively simple after the first, there was still a significant amount of danger each time a creature exploded. The monsters also must have been a relatively high level for them all to have gained so many levels.

Mash looked over his status and found that he made bigger improvements than he expected. His endurance got to the 60 mark without allocating any free stats. His other stats made smaller improvements, and everything seemed to be higher. His free stats mainly went into improving his intelligence again, as it didn’t get any improvements during the fights. The rest went into his wisdom and strength to bring it up to standard since they had fallen behind.

Name: Mash Class: Wood-Forged Pseudo-Monk

Level: 26

Health: 550 / 550

Energy: 1400 /1400

Fortitude: 51 → 55

Endurance: 57 → 60

Strength: 40 → 50

Agility: 52 → 55

Intelligence: 70 → 80

Wisdom: 50 → 60

Charisma: 25 → 27

Free Stats: 0

Skills: Persist, Mana-wood Creation, Artificial Meditation, Mana Sphere, Monks False Core

Mana Sphere (Passive): Your eyes just weren’t enough. Sense the changes in the mana around you.

Current Range: 8 feet → 9 feet

As per usual, he spent a little time adjusting to his new sphere range. Any growths in perception would be difficult to deal with, and it took him a second to understand the new limits of his vision. It wasn’t a new sense to him, but it was so large now that it covered ground well beyond his reach. The other stat improvements left noticeable effects on his movements, from things like his concentration to his sense of balance. It took a few seconds for his body to adjust, and he did some light stretches to get a better feel for his movements.

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After everyone had finished their level ups, they did one final check around the room before deciding which path to take. The room now had three possible directions for them to go. This time the paths were noticeably different. Each path had symbols engraved into the wood surrounding the path. The one to the right was identified by three wavy lines that were layered on top one another. It reminded Mash of a kid’s depiction of the wind. The path that led backwards had known detailed engravings instead of only having the usual multi colored streaks. The last path, that headed towards the left, was covered in what looked like a scarecrow that was burning.

Between the two, the wind seemed like a better match up for the group. While they managed against the fire previously, their best form of protection came from Mash’s wood or Jill’s blood, neither of which was effective against the heat. Hopefully, their defensives would be better served against the wind. With the decision made, they went deeper into the labyrinth.

The first thing Mash noticed upon entering was the slight differences in the walls. The previous walls had colored streaks in them, much like his own skin. However, these walls were covered in black streaks that made the wood feel very different from his own. He didn’t think he would be able to stop traps the same way as before, but with the new range of his sphere was more likely to foresee any traps. The darker colors did give this path a much more ominous feeling though.

It didn’t take long for them to run into new monsters. They did not remind them of winds, but instead of the snake they had seen earlier. There were much smaller snakes floating around in the air before them. Each was still several feet long, but its head was at most a foot around. They were pitch black and seemed like crude imitations of the previous creature. These monsters had forked wings that flapped lightly to keep the creatures afloat. They were shrouded in light veil of darkness too, but it didn’t emanate even a fraction of the pressure that he felt earlier.

He didn’t let himself get overconfident; the previous monsters had seemed fairly weak until they exploded. He didn’t think these would do the same but took no risks. He formed a simple shield while handing javelins to Jill and Luke. They threw the first round at the closest group of snakes. The group itself had almost ten snakes within it, and Mash had counted well over fifty snakes in total.

The javelins hit their targets, but only one had been a fatal blow. When the javelin had pierced the head of the snake, it fell to the ground quickly and didn’t make any further movements. The other javelin pierced the body of one of the creatures but did not stop it. They reacted immediately and dove towards the group. The remaining snakes following behind. Mash opted to keep the shield for now and formed a short spear in his opposite hand.

He thrust his spear towards the group as they approached, holding his shield up to push against any that got past. As the spear reached the group, he grew out spikes from them, like the traps from earlier. He didn’t worry about his accuracy, opting instead to just cover as much area as he could. It was effective and the weapon quickly grew heavy with the corpses of the monsters.

He dropped the spear, taking the opportunity to glance at his friends before the next pack arrived. They were doing fine, Luke having the most trouble avoiding hits, although he didn’t seem to care. He shrugged off the damage, healing the wounds quickly as he swatted the snakes likes bugs. His tail did grow back, which meant that his skill was not dependent on his actual body. Red had formed her usual sword and armor and was having no trouble slicing through the group. Jill struggled to kill more than two at a time but took almost no hits. They would do fine.

The next group of snakes was almost upon them, and Mash raised his shield in defense. He started creating the spear as he watched the monsters. There were more now than he had seen earlier. Either they were getting reinforcements, or there was a trick that he was missing. He didn’t have much time to contemplate it, as he felt a snake press against his shield. The moment he did, he repeated his trick and had the shield grow out spikes to impale the snakes. It grew heavy quickly and he needed to drop it, but there were still more snakes.

After dropping his shield, he followed up with another thrust of his spear. He managed to kill a snake with the motion but got bit on that arm by its neighbor. Darkness stretched out from the wound, and he realized that it was slowing his movements. It seemed to pull his arms against whatever he was trying. It was like they tied ropes the arm. It was clearly a type of venom.

He scanned the surroundings again. While killing the remainder of the snakes with another spike growth, he tried to find the source of the snakes. He saw it at the edge of his vision, a snake coming out of one of the black streaks on the wall. Jill would be able to get the closest, and Red would have the control to attack such a narrow target.

“The wall!”

Mash yelled the words hoping that either Red or Jill would hear and react. Jill noticed and managed to teleport over to the streak on the wall. The rest of them had to fight more snakes now that Jill was trying to deal with the source.

Mash got overwhelmed quickly, the venom slowing his body's movement drastically by now. He got bit several times, by the snakes and could feel his body slow down. He decided to take a more defensive stance, and let his armor grow into a full set of heavy armor. He didn’t stop there though and made the armor grow spikes like he did previously. He grew it unnecessarily large, and several spikes had penetrated more than one of the snakes.

The bites themselves didn’t hurt much. Without any significant sources of pain, he didn’t feel compelled to stop or slow down. He managed to maintain his concentration and quickly separated himself from his armor. It would leave him vulnerable, but only for a moment. While separating from the armor, he formed another spear and shield. Using it to attack whatever snakes were left. There were only a few left now, and the four of them had managed to deal with the remaining snakes.

He looked towards Jill and saw her holding the corpse of another snake. This one seemed slightly different from the others.

“I think this thing was creating them somehow. I saw it happen once, it looked like it acted as a gate for the snakes.”

Jill spoke uncertainly as she explained her hypothesis. When Mash got close enough for a more thorough examination, he realized that she was mostly correct. Within his mana sense he got a similar feeling to when the labyrinth was shifted earlier. It must have been some kind of special mana. This snake acted to connect two places and allow them to easily add more snakes to a location. He nodded along to her words.

“I think she’s right, the mana lines up with a type of spatial magic. Whatever the thing is, I think it would probably sell well for its mana rarity.”

Mash clarified the importance of the corpse. Jill’s excitement was obvious. Red was annoyed but made space in her storage space to accommodate the snake corpse. The skin of the snake was a dark beautiful shade of black. He would have liked to take more corpses, but they wanted to save space for the end of the dungeon. They were close to the end, and Mash was close to his next job advancement now. From all the snakes he just fought he gained another two levels. Only two more left until his next class advancement.