Congratulations, For defeating Earthan Wolf, Level 1, 5 XP has been awarded. (x10)

Warning: for defeating a monster more than 10 levels below your current level, a 75% XP penalty has been applied

Congratulations, For defeating Earthan Wolf, Level 2, 15 XP has been awarded. (x2)

Warning: for defeating a monster more than 10 levels below your current level, a 75% XP penalty has been applied

Congratulations, For defeating Alpha Earthan Wolf, Level 3, 23 XP has been awarded.

Warning: for defeating a monster more than 10 levels below your current level, a 75% XP penalty has been applied

Congratulations, You have reached Level 16. Two skill points have been awarded.

I watched my combat log scroll by as I looted the monsters and searched for any hidden reward caches. Not the greatest hall, with five wolf pelts, three wolf meat, and a handful of claws and teeth. No coins, though, which wasn’t a surprise since they only dropped when the level gap was less than 10. It was such a common fact of life for an Adventurer that the instructor for my introduction class pointed out that coins would only drop if there were no XP penalties. The XP penalties only worsened as the gap grew at the 20 level. A 95 percent penalty was applied, and after 25, no experience was given. It was well-known that the System had these penalties in place to disincentivize people from farming lower-level monsters.

However, the same could be said for the other way around. If you defeated a monster more than 10 times your level, you got a 25 percent bonus, and again, at 20, the bonus was 35 percent. However, just like the penalties, no bonus was given if the gap was 25 levels or more. Something most adventurers grumbled about constantly, but they also knew it was the system’s way of disincentivizing people from being idiots and seeking out challenges that were too much for them. Of course, there were exceptions. If one found themselves in over their head through no fault of their own and survived, then the System would reward the unfortunate soul with experience appropriate to the danger faced.

Not finding anything of value around the room, I make my way over to the tunnel leading to the next one. Carefully making my way down the tunnel, scanning for traps, I thought, if that was the first room on this level, I wonder what the boss room or the other rooms on this floor will be like.

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Gem chimes in, which had me raising a mental eyebrow at her.

I thought

Gem agreed

I say before Detect Taps identifies a spike trap a few meters away, a pressure plate embedded in the floor and disguised to look like the rest of the stone that made up the tunnel, its trigger. It was a simple trap: step on the pressure plate, and multiple barbed-tipped metal spikes shot up from the floor, squiring you. Not a pleasant way to go, but it was effective. However, its simplicity was also its greatest weakness. To avoid the trap, you had to step around the pressure plate, and the trap wouldn’t activate.

Making my way down the rest of the tunnel, there are no more traps, and it opens into another room filled with copious amounts of cobwebs. Three guesses what monster lives here, and the first two don’t count, I thought with a mental chuckle. Pulling my sword from its sheath, I transform it into a bow and nock an arrow, this one not coated in any poison. I ease into the room, scanning the ceiling, and sure enough, 20 Level 1 Spiders scurry along a web stretched across the ceiling with a Level 2 Spider Queen at its center. None of the spiders have seen me yet, so I line my shot up on the queen and take a deep breath. Releasing the arrow as I exhale, it flies true and embeds itself into the queen, killing it.

Having sensed their queen's death, the other spiders turn toward the attacker, ready to avenge her. I didn’t give them enough time. Readying another fireball, I lob it into the air, catching the web on fire and the spiders with it. Only five escaped the inferno, dropping to the floor with a hiss. Transforming my bow back into a sword, it took little work to finish off the rest of the spiders.

Congratulations, For defeating Spider, Level 1, 2 XP has been awarded. (x20)

Warning: for defeating a monster more than 10 levels below your current level, a 75% XP penalty has been applied

Congratulations, For defeating Spider Queen, Level 2, 9 XP has been awarded.

Warning: for defeating a monster more than 10 levels below your current level, a 75% XP penalty has been applied

Well, that was fun, I thought, watching the fire clear out the web covering the room. Like the first room, looting the spiders didn’t give all that great a hall with low-quality spider silk dropping from the queen and a handful of venom sacs and legs from the other spiders. As the fire fizzled out, the tunnel to the next room was revealed behind a thick layer of webbing. Taking a moment to make sure there were no hidden caches in the room; after all, it would have been so easy to hide something with all the webbing around, I moved to the next room.