After a good night’s rest, the gang went back inside the dungeon.

“They didn’t drop anything?” James was a bit disappointed, he expected some loot from the monsters.

“It’s a sentient dungeon, it won’t feed us loot. I doubt it will even send other basic monsters after us. The next monster we’ll see will probably be a lot more dangerous, keep your shield activated and never turn it off.” Helios said with a serious look on his face. “Be on your guard, you never know when a spear will come flying at your head.”

“While I was thinking about what new spells I could create. I realized probing the floor with a stick was a stupid idea. So check this thing out.” James extended his finger, and a small mana bubble began forming on the ground. The bubble was growing bigger and bigger, until it became half as tall as James himself.

Then, James controlled the mana, giving it shape. It was like working with clay, James sculpted the bubble until it had legs. He then molded it until it had the shape of a humanoid, but without a face.

[Skill unlocked: Mana Golem]

“Wow, impressive, people usually only learn how to create minions after their first awakening, and even among awakenings, few use minions. Do you perhaps want to become a summoner?” Lunaris asked.

“Nope, I prefer feeling my power in my own two hands, I definitely don’t want to be a summoner or necromancer or anything like that.” Helios nodded approvingly. ”But I’ve been thinking about how useful it would be to have a little guy like this walking ahead of us, doing the dirty work like setting off the traps.”

“How did you learn to create something like this though? I've seen plenty of minions, but I don't remember ever seeing anything like this.” Lunaris kept staring at the little golem, it seemed so frail and innocent.

“Actually, I didn’t learn it anywhere. Even though it’s very weak and it’s not useful at all in combat, I'm proud of it because I made it all by myself. It was an improvisation, I combined various concepts I learned from the books we picked out together, and then I just let my imagination run wild.” James grinned proudly.

Helios and Lunaris were impressed, James’s [Jack of all trades, master of none] skill was definitely very useful. In just a few weeks he was able to not only learn dozens of spells, but to also understand their underlying concepts so well that he could then use those concepts to make his own spells. Truly outstanding!

“But remember-“ Helios tried to say something, but James interrupted him.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re right, the [master of none] part is already biting me in the ass. I need to learn one or two powerful skills and really try to master them. During the night I've actually contemplated some other spells too, you'll see.” James grinned again.

James’s arsenal of dozens of skills was useful and impressive, but he wouldn’t hold a candle to a mage who specialized in just one thing and blasted him to death before he could use half his arsenal.

Perhaps, if his custom spells weren't up to snuff, Mana Drain could be the skill he mastered first. His first trump card, at least for a while. He had issues with mana, and that would be a good stopgap till his mana pool reached the levels he desired.

James was getting sick with contemplating these things yet again though, he preferred having epiphanies in the heat of battle rather than planning things out. So he decided to start delving deeper into the dungeon.

The Mana Golem consumed a tiny amount of mana each second, but James could control it freely.

Being as prudent as he was, James made the mana golem walk over every inch of a room before he dared step inside it. What the golem saw was immediately transmitted to James’s brain.

They kept going from room to room, but they didn’t see so much as a single trap anymore.

“This is eerie. I almost wish there were traps, the fact that there are none is making me feel uneasy.” James stated while trying to remember all the types of traps he had ever read about or had seen in a movie.

They kept advancing through the rooms slowly, but nothing was happening.

That’s when Lunaris noticed something.

“Guys, wait. Haven’t we already been through this room?”

“They all look pretty much the same. We were only going forward, how would it be possible for us to go through the same room again?” James said, slightly in denial, even though he had a feeling Lunaris was right.

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“You might be onto something though, we’ve been at it for at least an hour, and even though we were going forward at a fairly slow speed, we should’ve encountered something by now.” James was quite confused.

“It’s possible the dungeon is much more advanced than we thought. The level 30 monsters could have been just bait, making us feel somewhat safe so that we’d advance without suspecting powerful magic at play.” Helios stated.

“So what do you think happened? Mind magic, were our eyes deceived or something?” James asked.

“Not likely, if we were hit with mind magic without suspecting it, we wouldn't be questioning our current situation at this very moment, we'd still be confused.” Lunaris answered. “It’s still advanced magic though, probably a form of space magic. Every few rooms either the dungeon itself shifted, or we were teleported around.”

“What is its goal though? Why not try to kill us, why is it just playing around?”

“Since it’s smart, it may be trying to observe us, trying to see our what our powers are. And our weaknesses.” Helios theorized.

“Do you think it can see us?” James looked around, feeling quite uncomfortable knowing that a murderous dungeon core could be observing him right now.

“Aye, if it’s sufficiently powerful it could be sensing us at all times. Perhaps it could even understand what we’re saying, so we should probably be quieter.” Helios then put a finger to his lips, indicating that any plans they make should perhaps be made through whispers.

James started contemplating their situation. By just walking forward, they’d be doing what the dungeon wants them to do.

He had to think outside the box. That was easier said than done though. They didn't know space magic, what could they even do? They couldn't go forward, they tried going backwards and it was just an endless loop.

Suddenly, he had a silly idea.

James looked at Lunaris and Helios and winked. They both nodded, they knew that it was better to not discuss the plan, that could just give the dungeon a chance to foil it.

Before the dungeon could react, James infused as much mana as he could into his hands. He then lunged at the left wall of the room as if he were jumping into a swimming pool. That made a huge dent in the wall, and then he started pushing, engaging every ounce of strength present in his body.

By also attuning himself mentally with the earth element, he could sense his surroundings much better. As he was pushing through the earth, the resistance got weaker and weaker till it felt like pushing through butter.

He was digging a tunnel through the dungeon! Completely circumventing the actual layout of the dungeon, he created his own path. He continued pushing, digging horizontally through the earth.

Outside the dungeon's rooms, he could clearly feel the mana fluctuations. He dug for what felt like thousands of feet. Pushing forward through the earth for that long required so much mana that he had to chug down a mana potion eventually.

He kept pushing in the direction of the strongest mana fluctuation until he felt resistance. That’s when he infused his hands with as much mana as he could and he gave another strong push, breaking down another wall.

With Lunaris and Helios right behind him, they all entered a new room.

The plan had worked, this new room was entirely different from the rest of the dungeon. It was huge, at least ten times the size of an average room.

The dungeon core wasn’t there, but the levels of mana were much higher in this region. It was close. The mana levels were so high that the every wall had veins of ore protruding, the ore glowing with from its richness in mana.

“Brace yourselves.” Helios said with an ugly expression.

The dungeon must have disliked the intrusion, because the whole room started shaking. It didn’t even take five seconds before huge demons were flooding the room, so tall that they could barely fit through one of the room's two doors.

“Level 60!” James exclaimed in shock. A thirty level difference, one wrong move and they were dead.

“The level difference is too high! James, be careful!” Lunaris shouted, concerned that the guys would recklessly jump into the fray.

James was shocked initially, but he quickly regained his composure. So what if they were 30 levels higher, he was almost used to that by now. He didn’t want to turn tail and run at the first sight of danger. If he did that, he might as well give up on any hopes of attaining great power or helping this world.

His mind was really getting used to these kinds of situations, feeling your blood pumping from the danger was quite a thrill.

Helios must’ve thought the same thing. Despite his initial ugly expression, he immediately activated his storage ring and pulled out a huge, golden shield that was even taller than him. It was so heavy that the floor cracked, but Helios moved it around like it weighed nothing.

He then lunged at the demons, bashing them with his shield and pushing them backwards.

There were ten demons in total but Helios wasn’t letting any of them pass.

He didn’t even try to damage the demons, his goal was to push them backwards through the door. The impact from the shield was so strong that the demons were being herded around like sheep, he actually managed to get them out of the room.

While Helios’s stats were greatly reduced from the dampening, his strength was still spectacular, and he seemed to have some strong skills specializing in shields.

“Helios, your level is synced to James’s, one hit and you’re dead!” Lunaris reminded the reckless meathead of his current mortality.

“Aye, that’s what makes it fun.” Helios smiled.

Inspired by his friend’s courage, James quickly jumped into the fray as well, but first he cast earth magic reinforced with Darkness to block the other door, preventing the demons from flooding from two directions.

Their chances would greatly increase if there was only one point of entry, so he kept conjuring earth walls to definitively block the other door.

Helios was very strong, but the demons were pushing back, any second now they would make it back into the room.

“Incoming!” Helios shouted.

With the other door taken care of, James turned around. It was time to prove he was a real man by fighting these demons whose mere size made his skin crawl. Just looking at them sent a chill down his spine. But that was the whole point of coming here. He had to get used to fighting while severely outmatched.

The demons were snarling and howling, the sights and the sounds were straight out of a horror movie. The level difference just made them all the more intimidating.

But James stood tall. Fear was beginning to feel like excitement to him. All he could think about was how thrilling it would feel to try out the spells he thought of on these snarling giants.