A new batch of monsters!
The little Dungeon gave little thought to his new creations. They were just a batch of slimes, after all, only meant to fill his daily quota. But then suddenly, something strange happened.
The connection to one of the little slimes broke. The little Dungeon was confused. This had never happened before. All of its creations were supposed to be under its control. How could something that it created leave its own control?
The little Dungeon hurriedly scanned the area in which it had created the slimes and counted. 1.. 2… 3… 4… just 4. Yep, one of the slimes had disappeared. It checked its quota numbers again.
[5/5 Complete]
Strangely, the system said it had completed its quota. But there were only 4 little slimes. It counted the monsters inside that room again. 4 again… Maybe it had to use something with eyes instead of just using its senses. So it sent a skeleton.
But the skeleton found nothing. The skeleton’s hollow eyes darted left and right, only finding 4 slimes. But then the Dungeon realized the skeleton’s eyes weren’t real. It figuratively facepalmed and sent the only monster with real eyes, it's boss monster, the ghoul.
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When the party of 4 entered the dungeon, they were immediately met with the gaze of a giant zombie. An invisible barrier enveloped the entrance behind them, and a ring ran clearly within the minds of the party of 4. One man, two girls, and one boy stared in shock and horror at the giant Ghoul standing before them. It was the Dungeon's boss monster, estimated to be a C grade boss.
The leader of the party, a young man in his mid-twenties, hurriedly dropped his backpack and readied his bow. "Paralyzing shot!" he shouted. The notched arrow was enveloped in yellow light as it shot towards the Boss monster.
The arrow shot towards the ghoul, which didn't seem to be paying any attention to the invading party at that moment. It easily struck the ghoul's torso, locking it in place for a few seconds.
Hope seemed to flash through the young man's face as he began to notch another arrow, with the Explosive Arrow skill at the ready. The monsters in the room finally began to react. The Ghoul attempted to move while the skeleton at the side charged forward, its bones crackling wildly. It raised its sword in preparation for a telegraphed swing.
"Guys! Take care of that skeleton for me! I know you can do it!" The leader shouted. He decided he couldn't waste any mana on the skeleton. He needed to use his remaining few mana to take care of the large Ghoul, or else every one of them would definitely die.
The children who stood at the side seemed to break out from their stupor and moved to intercept the charging skeleton. The boy and one of the girls drew their bows, and the other girl drew brandished her sword. The sword-bearing girl raised her sword to block the skeleton. However, the skeleton's sword was not blocked by her sword. Her grip and stance weakly fell and the sword-bearing girl was cut down.
"Rosie!" The young man shouted in horror and instantly switched his aim towards the skeleton, quickly firing an Explosive Arrow at the skeleton, instantly destroying its body. He looked towards Rosie and sighed in a brief moment of relief when he saw that she didn't turn into motes of light.
But since losing his concentration, the Ghoul, no longer obstructed by the explosions which blew it back, crouched on all fours like a tiger and pounced towards the young man. The young man hurriedly rolled to the side, dodging away, but the Ghoul had already reached their side.
The young man notched another arrow while hurriedly kiting away. He fired the arrow before charging it to full when he saw the Ghoul had recovered from its great leap, but it didn't stop it. The Ghoul furiously roared and dashed to the young man, closing the distance before he could charge another Explosive Arrow.
The Ghoul swiped with its giant claws, forcing the young man to block with his bow. The moment he was forced to do so, the battle was decided. After a few more swipes, the young man was backed into a wall and died with another great swipe. His body started to turn into little motes of light and dispersed into the air.
The archer girl had already thrown her bow away, unable to watch the gruesome sight of her teacher getting killed, while the boy gallantly stood in front of her, knees shaking in extreme terror. The Ghoul, as if knowing its definite success, did not use its leap skill again, but instead slowly walked towards the standing boy and girl archers. The Ghoul looked terrifying, especially as fresh blood dripped from its claws, leaving a messy red trail behind it.
The boy's eyes seemed to glint in fury when he saw this. "Don't play with me!" he shouted in anger, shooting his notched arrow. He didn't have an archery skill, and could only shoot a normal arrow. The arrow flew through the air, aimed straight at the Ghoul's eye. The boy's eyes seemed to light up when he saw the Ghoul didn't seem to make any attempt to dodge.
But it was just a hopeless thought. The Ghoul slightly strained its neck, causing the arrow to harmlessly fly past the Ghoul. At this point, the Ghoul had already reached the boy and the girl, and with two more swipes, they died, their bodies slowly turning into brief motes of light. Now, all the remained was the extremely injured girl.
But then, one of the small slimes approached and stop between the Ghoul and the girl. Confused, the Dungeon tried to command it to move aside, but it realized it couldn't. It then realized this was the slime that had broken out of his control. The Dungeon counted the slimes to confirm. 1... 2... 3... 4... and this one. 5 slimes. The Dungeon then used its sense to count. 4 small slimes. Yep, this slime had somehow escaped its control.
The Dungeon harrumphed and ordered its Ghoul to attack. To rip both the irregular slime and the girl to shreds.
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But then, its connection to the Ghoul broke. The Dungeon screamed in anguish, as its boss monster separated from it. It was like the feeling of the boss monster dying, but it didn't actually die. The Dungeon could still feel the Ghoul's presence, just that it couldn't control it anymore. The Dungeon's core then slowly revealed itself, as if its boss monster had actually died. The Ghoul, as if having a mind of its own, approached the Dungeon's core, and smashed it, ending the Dungeon's life.
The other monsters, as if in a trance, began to trickle out of the Dungeon, and into the outside world. The Ghoul was a bit different, as it tended to the remaining girl's injuries before leaving. The irregular slime remained and began to cultivate besides the unconscious girl, waiting for her to awake.
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I had awoken to an uncomfortable feeling in my soul. It was proking and prodding, trying to find an opening in my soul defense to try to take control of it. I harrumphed and cut the connection before it could do anything else. This weak little attack could barely scratch the surface of my soul.
[Connection to Master Severed]
Strange words seemed to float in front of me, explaining something. It didn't have any language but spoke directly into my soul. I hurriedly checked my soul once again and found a faint trace of divine qi that seemed to connect me to the world itself. I closely examined it, trying to figure out what I should do with this thing, but then a Divine Sense began sweeping through the room. I quickly hid my soul, unsure if this person's divine sense threatening or not.
It was then that I realized what my body had become. I was a strange blobby blob of a green jello-like substance. My soul slightly trembled, almost causing me to reveal myself to the sweeping divine sense. What kind of body was this? I had no eyes, no nose. Just a viscous green blob as a body, and a small crystal that seemed to house my soul and a dantian at the same time. I stopped examining my body as the divine swept over me again.
When the divine sense no longer focused on my general location, I slowly peeked out with my own divine sense, examining my current situation. I was a blob, sitting next to 4 other blobs of similar green viscous substances. I slowly moved away from them, as the other divine sense seemed to have been focusing on those green blobs the most. I then started to examine my own body, trying to see just how exactly it worked.
But it didn't make any sense. I felt extremely weak, but the amount of power needed to attain such a strange body, and have it live, would have surely been a lot. In fact, I seemed to have needed a divine sense to even move at all. I examined the 4 other blobs. They actually had a faint trace of divine sense, through a connection to something, the same connection that had prodded me when I awoke.
And the divine sense was the same divine sense that had been sweeping through the room. I came up with a quick hypothesis. The owner of this divine sense would control the blobs through the connection, and it would have done the same with my body, except my soul was within this blob, which prevented the connection from controlling anything.
A skeleton then entered the room, and the same divine sense began scanning everything again. I quickly hid and decided to inspect my own soul now. The strange trace of divine qi that connected me to the world itself was now at the forefront of my mind.
The divine qi seemed to be constantly sending and receiving information from the world. The information represented everything in my surroundings. It measured my body's strength, my soul's strength, and gave me information about everything around me. However, the information was scrambled and unreadable.
583b251503f3997af074794cd2db51b3b5473599f9542ac6f3524fc30a83f949edd23f212110d6b7142f1dbcf2b780aa99dcb8e9a45e2b6a1d8f14926059372dfde96cd7995b70036375b8b985861a94e97c246d5838041f16ce1faf11fd068a12d1ac1f2926b7127eb721c091936605d90ae7302ea7e6fd5ea8220c5bf7ea16b445bef951b78cfdd36383582e377b03cb32ae5eb9b17ebdd67365f4bff2f6c42f4df8e714539f1bb53fbbf607a099e41bdc795c9d521845465c01bf4e09fa5c3375b79c3170783e07cdb3899ba2d8dcfbbe666e30b09dcd7825714a70bb3706¹
I also realized there was an interface to translate the data so I could actually read it.
> Name: Lang Jintao
>
> Race: Slime
>
> Level: 1
>
> Title:
>
>
>
> Strength: 1
>
> Dexterity: 1
>
> Constitution: 1
>
> Magic Power: 0
>
> Magic Control: 1
>
> Mana Pool: 10
>
> Wisdom: 0
>
> Perception: 1
>
> Willpower: 0
>
> Unallocated Stat Points: 1
>
> Skills:
>
>
It represented the current state of my body and soul. Although it couldn't seem to accurately measure my perception. When I slowly exposed my divine sense, my perception changed.
Perception: UNDEF
When I did so, I realized there was a new creature inside the room that was directly staring at me. Its skin was green and brown, rotten to an extent. It had long claws that were currently extended forward about to touch my gooey body. Behind it was the owner of the divine sense that had been sweeping back and forth. It was a stone, hiding in a small folded space, whose entrance seemed to be linked to this undead creature. Seeing it up close, I realized the divine sense's owner's soul was really weak. It didn't actually cultivate the divine sense itself, making its usage extremely clumsy and full of flaws to me.
The undead's outstretched claw that was about to probe into my body was interrupted by an arrow. It struck the undead's torso, containing a faint trace of lightning qi, and paralyzed the undead. A fight broke out. 2 young girls, 1 young boy, and 1 slightly older young man vs the skeleton and the Ghoul.
The young man focused his arrows on the undead, keeping it in place, while the skeleton was left to charge towards the group. But with a single mistake, one of the young girls was cut down, which caused her to fall unconscious under the extreme injury. The young man immediately turned to shot the skeleton and protect the other two girls. However, this loss of concentration gave enough time for the undead to execute a strange movement technique, allowing it to pounce right next to the young man, causing him to lose his range advantage.
The undead's movements were swift and deadly. The young man was killed, and then the standing boy and girl were killed. They turned into motes of pure qi and were absorbed into the folded space.
But just as the undead was about to kill the wounded unconscious girl, I stepped forward, making the undead pause its attack.
I had sworn to not get involved in any mortal affairs. I ignored my mortal friends. I left my mortal family to themselves. I even left the mortal master that I had sworn that pact to. But I couldn't help but think back to the Goddess's words. I needed to have a following to ascend. The souls of the world could determine an ascendent's success to ascension. Perhaps I could start here.
Just before the undead continued its attack to kill me as well, I spread out my divine sense, easily overpowering the stone's divine sense. I cut its connection to the undead creature, which caused the folded space to open, exposing the stone. I then used that same connection to control the undead creature, crushing the stone.
After I crushed it, something seemed to pull the undead creature. It wanted to leave the area, and kill more humans. I quickly hid the living girl with my divine sense and commanded the undead creature to treat the girl's wounds, before letting it go do what it was going to do outside the area with the other monsters.
Once all the bloodthirsty monsters left, I figuratively sat down and began to rest my over-exerted soul. Now that I knew what I had to do, my every being itched to restart my path to immortality.