Jonathan quickly reached the ground, finding himself behind the main bulk of the dungeon. There was a small entrance back here as well, sheltered by a small lip of stone. There were no guards here, and the back of the dungeon was completely sealed off from the outside world by the hill.
Jonathan sent one look backwards, and then stepped into the dungeon. The entrance was covered in an inky black light, and Jonathan couldn't see inside. He walked through that light for a moment, and then found himself standing on a damp cave floor, without any exit in sight. The entrance had simply vanished. A System message appeared in front of him, and he quickly read it.
You have entered the Desolation Caves, a dungeon of the Infinite Hells.
This dungeon is an adaptive dungeon, meaning that it will change its difficulty to match the average level of challengers. As you are the only challenger, this dungeon will be matched to your level.
Error. This challenger is significantly stronger than their level suggests. Calculating new difficulty level.
The average level of this dungeon has been set to level 60.
The notification blinked out, quickly replaced with another one.
This dungeon manifests as a large cave system, with a great expanse of tunnels all leading towards the final boss fight, which is in the center. Monsters within this dungeon will adjust to the average level, rather than simply being at the level indicated. As a result, they can range from level 50 to all the way to level 70. The boss itself will be even stronger. For being a solo challenger, you will gain extra rewards for completing this dungeon. Good luck.
The notification vanished, and Jonathan found himself all alone, standing at the very beginning of the cave complex. He sighed, and got to work. Walking down the cave, he soon found himself in a strange landscape of moss and trickling rivulets of water, which all seemed to be sloping downhill, towards a deeper part of the cave. Compared to the ashen wastes outside, this was like paradise.
Jonathan quickly encountered the first monster, which was a strange mix between a dog and a pile of moss, which sprang out at him from behind a corner. Despite its appearance, it was quite fast, and if not for Jonathan’s above average stats, it would have caught him. Then again, it was those same above average stats that had led to him fighting this strong of a monster in the first place.
The creature passed by his cheek with inches to spare, and he lashed out with his fist, punching the monster into the wall. It was soft to the touch, and felt quite alien in texture. It bounced off the wall, and launched itself straight back towards Jonathan, its mossy fangs bared. He quickly summoned mana to his hands, and punched forwards, atomizing its head in an instant, the moss unable to stand up to mana. It seemed that these monsters were resistant to physical attacks, but weak to magical ones. Seeing as he combined both, Jonathan would be all set for this dungeon crawl.In addition, he had just gained a considerable amount of essence from that kill. If everything in here was that essence rich, he would be coming out here quite powerful indeed.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Over the next twenty minutes, he encountered a few more of the moss monsters, which he had discovered were called Corrupted Terran Wolves. Not Terran as relating to the planet Earth, but rather towards their affinity towards plants and the ground itself. He found that they spawned out of large plants that were hidden in crevices in the wall, which created a hair raising state in which he never knew where they were coming from. In one case, one even came from above him, which had led to a large gash down the side of his face.
Jonathan had been on guard after that, and as he heard a small twitch in the side of the cave wall, he spun around and lashed out with his fist, burning a hole in the monster lurking there with his mana. The creature died almost immediately, and he leveled up once, healing the wound on the side of his head. He had not come across any significant difficulty as of now, and he was content to save the stat points for the boss, after he had seen how it fought. The best part about saving stat points was that it allowed for one to adapt to any challenging encounter that they came across. For example, if the boss was fast but physically weak, he could simply add points to Dexterity and Strength. He could react to anything that he came across in that way, and he would have quite the stock by the time that he reached the boss.
The caves gradually began to grow wider as time went on, and the frequency at which the monsters came increased as well. For the first time, Jonathan was fighting multiple of the Terran Wolves at once, which required quite a bit more tactical use than he had expected. The monsters, while in a group of two, were able to temporarily exchange damaged parts of the bodies, grafting it onto the other one. In this way, they would basically be able to fight as one concrete unit, meaning that they would be more aggressive than normal. Jonathan dealt with all of them handily however, netting himself another level after about 10 more of the creatures. By that point, he was starting to wonder if the cave was ever going to end. It was clearly larger on the inside of the dungeon than on the outside.
Jonathan rounded a bend in the tunnel, and suddenly found himself standing in front of what looked to be a massive cavern, about the size of a small town. Large lights hung on the underside of the cavern ceiling, illuminating it in a faint blue light, which was more than enough to see by for his enhanced eyesight.
He quickly ducked back behind the cave wall as he heard rustling coming from a nearby clump of moss. The moss in the cavern reached heights of almost ten feet, and it was more akin to a bush than any sort of moss that Jonathan could recognize. Far off on the other side of the cavern was something that looked like a small village, where a fire crackled in the center. Shapes darted across the ground, shapes that were oddly humanoid in appearance. Seeing as they appeared quite large from even this distance, they were not small fry either.
Jonathan cautiously made his way into the cavern a few minutes later, after satisfying himself of its safety. There was nothing lying in wait for him there, and he rapidly made his way through the moss. Strange statues dotted the ground around him, and they depicted an odd species of monster that looked like a goblin, but with wise, almost human looking features. The statues were pitted and barely recognizable, save for the faces, which were veiled in expressions of utter regret. Jonathan could sense that there was a deeper meaning behind the statues,but he could not figure out what it was. In any case, they were nothing more than a distraction.