The swordsman got up, a pained look on his face.
The core could guess why but even then, surely as a swordsman he should have been used to the pain.
The human sighted and went further in the floor. He was glancing around as he did.
The Specter Trees prepared the illusions and the False Fruits jumped onto the invader. Who was more surprised by this than he should have been since False Fruits were not resource-intensive to make so every dungeon should have them, or at least most had.
Even successfully ambushed he didn’t lose but he didn’t win easily either.
It was clear that although the Fale Fruits weren’t strong the illusions the Specter Trees provided made up for that weakness.
The human eventually caught on that some things didn’t add up and figured out that what he was seeing wasn’t real but before that, the monsters were doing pretty great.
Then when he was still exhausted from the fight the Nature Deer finally came, attracted to the seemingly defenseless prey.
The Nature Deer, unlike its animal counterpart, was strictly a carnivore and also incredibly costly.
The Core thought it was a scam until it saw how effective the Deer was at hunting on the fourth floor.
It will gladly put its evolution on its lower floors when it gets them.
The swordsman didn’t notice the monster, its camouflage was too good for his senses.
He started staring at his ring in a daze, an action that the core didn’t understand as he was still in a hostile environment.
The Nature Deer didn’t need to understand as it only saw a key moment where its meal was distracted and took it.
It used its magic to lengthen and strengthen the grass around the invader and then made it entangle his feet while also putting extra pressure on the bandaged wound.
That got the human to awaken from his trance, yet he didn’t even get a chance to look down before the deer was ramming into his torso.
He tried to slice the monster, but the deer’s teeth quickly met his arm and although his arm wasn’t crushed, he still couldn’t move it around enough to get a good angle.
The Specter Trees, which were not cut down or even neutralized, started creating illusions again. Making the fight even more unpleasant for the sword user.
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The human tried to take a step back, somehow not noticing or maybe forgetting the grass tying his legs together, and fell.
The Core watched with satisfaction as the Nature Deer leaned down quickly to bite down on his throat.
Since the enchanted fabric wasn’t torn even a little bit torn it didn’t go through but the fear in the humans' eyes was proof enough that with enough time it likely would.
A time that the enchanted grass that tied his limbs to the ground was happy to provide.
The Core, confident in its victory, glanced back to the lined human who was still waiting on the first floor.
The weaker human didn’t even bother to pick the loot up, which made the dungeon feel indignant.
It returned to look at the dying human, who was still struggling instead of accepting his fate.
Thankfully the time it took for the strongest monster on the fourth floor to tear his throat wasn’t that long.
[ 1/10 sentients killed]
The joy the core felt at that message couldn’t be explained.
Then it noticed the swordsman's soul.
It didn’t have a God’s protection. That meant that the swordsman didn’t dedicate his life to any God and therefore didn’t have a system. Only insane people did that, and the core didn’t know how to react.
After a moment of thought it decided to take advantage and before the soul got too unstable it looked into his memories.
The swordsman- or rather Shi Huijun lived a life of prosperity. Coming from a wealthy family he didn’t lack anything except for talent.
He joined the Raging Winter Sect, which existed nearby.
Then he received a mission to check on the village that lived next to the cursed forest.
He went and met the Village head, Sun Zixiu, who explained the situation to him and asked him to train the warriors in the village.
He also met Jiang Hongyong, the lined human who was suffering under the effects of the curse from spending too much time in the forest.
They went together to discover who killed the human, Ren Chenliang, as they suspected it to be related to the curse.
Huijun was hesitant at first because he saw how much of a bad fighter Hongyong is but since he didn’t know as much of the forest as the other one did, he relented.
During the journey, Huijun sensed the shard of the core and upon seeing it following them around without attacking or with a Spirit Core decided it must be related to the curse somehow.
They decided to follow the bird and run if the situation called for it.
When he saw the cave, he ordered Hongyong to stay behind until he decided it was safe enough. Which is why they argued when Hongyong disobeyed him.
Then he descended and died on the fourth floor as he was unwilling to retreat when he thought that the solution to the curse was so close.
Anything else the Core couldn’t discover as the soul ended up being too complicated for a complete dissection.
A frustrating thing but one it needed to deal with, nonetheless. Thankfully it finally could understand the language.
It looked back to Hongyong to find him walking in circles around the floor. Muttering to himself about how Huijun overreacted.
The Dungeon decided to check if Hongyong also had no system, as that would be problematic.
It did that by spawning a Mute Bat near the human, if he had a God’s protection, even the weakest one, the action couldn’t have been done.
The Mute Bat spawned successfully.