On the seventh floor was the first time that I ran into a first-rank opponent, but it was a wolf instead of a beetle. It’s still died to my mace like all the creatures down here. To save time I placed the entire wolf corpse into my adventurer's backpack.

Having finally gotten a proper adventurer's backpack I was feeling a lot better about the Thorn Rose Company coming here. Now that I have found the dungeon, I’m not so annoyed about them interrupting my hunt. With this adventurer's backpack, I can bring back a lot more than I previously could.

When I got down to the eighth floor, I found it flooded. There was about an inch of water on the floor. This made hearing moving monsters easier, but it also covered up some traps, so I was extra careful while moving.

This was the first floor where I only ran into beetles. It seems that either the beetles were eating everything else, or something was wrong with this floor’s monster creation. The rooms here were a lot bigger and for some reason, the monster population was extremely high so sometimes I have had to backtrack so I wouldn’t be overrun.

I am guessing that this floor is the reason why there are so many beetles above ground. After everything started to calm down, I found myself wishing for a shower. I was a bit glad that it was so dark here so I couldn’t see how the colour of the water must have changed with so many dead beetle corpses in the water.

The mace also has a big problem of making a large mess if I hit something too hard. Usually, I can control my strength to an appropriate level with an enemy but here they just came too fast for me to notice between first-rank and lower-rank beetles.

The little bit of happiness I got from the last floor was now broken so I just continue down trying to get this over with. The next floor at least had a more normal amount of beetles but they were stronger. I actually had to start using tactics and more movement so they couldn’t attack me all at once.

They still died with one strike, but I actually had to try now. At the end of the tenth floor, the first thing I noticed was the corners of the entrance to the boss room were missing large chunks. Looking inside it seems that the boss has been trying to get out.

The beetle boss looked like the other beetles, but its body was the size of a beetle van. The moment it saw me I had to dodge immediately. After my dodge roll, I looked back at the spot where I was to see acid aggressively trying to eat the rock.

There was a moment of pause after that. I used it to contemplate how I wanted to fight this boss while the boss itself was surprised that someone was able to dodge its attack. It didn't seem to like that and start to spit more while advancing towards me.

For me, he was advancing too slowly. The boss doesn’t seem to be running out of acid and if this continues I won’t be able to fight properly and will probably lose my new boots. I needed distractions and for that, I used my ability, call of the ancestors.

I guided them to flank the boss on both sides. My plan worked better than I expected. The boss was quite confused, so I didn’t waste the opportunity and advanced and even used my core energy for a strike against its head.

To my surprise it didn't kill the boss instead only made it turn its attention back to me. I did see a tiny crack on its armoured head. This wasn’t going to be an easy fight. I once again miscalculated. I should have also given my ghosts blunt weapons instead they had long spears. I had to jump up onto its body as it also seemed to have a close-range acid spray. This, however, allowed me to make a second attack expanding the crack a bit more.

The strike didn’t stun the boss as much as I had hoped and before I could jump off it demonstrated that he had quite a lot of agility. It dived headfirst towards the floor, but it was able to bend its body enough that it landed on its back. If I hadn’t used the boss’s body as a launching platform for my jump away from it, it would have certainly crushed me to death.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

My ghosts rushed in hoping that its underside was less armored, but the spear tips just slid off. The boss once again demonstrated that it could move incredibly well as it just flipped itself upright. The ghosts to the left side of it were crushed. For a moment I wondered if this boss was supposed to have some weaker monsters supporting it. If that was the case, it would have been quite a hard fight.

While the boss seemed to be quite manoeuvrable it seems that it wasn't too used to flipping itself, so I was once again able to make a devastating attack against its head which now had a proper crack in it. My ghosts once again split into two groups and the fight continued. It took four more hits and almost half of my core energy before I was able to kill it. Dismantling and storing this boss took longer than the rest of the delve combined.

I had hoped that its monster core had an acid elemental seed, but I wasn’t that lucky. My mood was once again better after this fight as I now had the proper material to upgrade my subdermal armour.

I was able to get so much armour from this boss that I could probably make a few shields and full armour suits out of it but shaping this material would be hard. I would need to test how strong it would be if I cut it into small pieces.

Level up first homesteader

first homesteader now level 20

strength +36

dexterity +36

vitality +36

endurance +24

empathy +24

intelligence +24

wisdom +24

free points gained +30

perk is gained ability fresh soil

Looking at my notifications I found a pleasant surprise. My first homesteader class has levelled up. It was now level 20, giving me more stat points than normal and an ability. Fresh soil sounded like a useful ability to have as a farmer, but I will need to test its full capabilities. I looked at my stat points feeling good about the numbers going up.

strength: 1705

dexterity: 1482

vitality: 1396

endurance: 324

empathy: 305

intelligence: 307

energy storage: 972

perception: 417

constitution: 429

presence: 217

wisdom: 192

(luck: 2)

The next floor was easy compared to the last, but it still had a decent amount of strong opponents. I was now a bit more careful about my core energy usage so fighting through the floor took a bit longer but eventually, I made it to the end. I was glad that there was no way down from this floor and only the core room remained unexplored. I prepared myself for a difficult fight as I didn’t know if the dungeon guard was still alive or not.

The dungeon guardian, the last line of defence for the dungeon, was dead in the corner of the core room. There were no signs of fighting that I could see. It seems that it just laid down and died. It felt like I was inside the burial chamber here to steal the last of the treasures. I approached the cracked dungeon core that was still floating in the centre of the room. Even now energy was flowing into it and out of it like it was being controlled at a higher level than I ever have. Looks like it just comes naturally to them.

I readied for what comes next. In one of my hands, I gathered energy, in the other I held a knife. With a burst of movement, I buried my knife deep into the core and then twisted it, breaking it apart. It sound like 1000 glass bottles were being broken and energy started to move violently around me. My defences were strong enough, so I didn't have to worry about it.

The two halves of the dungeon core fell to the ground, but I wasn’t concentrating on them. Still floating where the dungeon core used to be were dungeon seeds that just looked like complicated balls of energy. While the dungeon core was bigger than my hand the seeds were the size of my fingernails. There were five of them and I could only see them with my energy vision.

I quickly moved the energy in my hand to encompass the seeds as they had already started to slowly drift away. It took about 15 minutes until the seeds absorbed enough of my energy for a solid outer layer to form. Now I could pick them up and place them into a bag.

By this time the energy movement in the room stopped and it was quietly seeping away. In about a day or two, the dungeon would completely collapse and only the ruin of the entrance would remain. I didn’t forget to grab the broken pieces of the dungeon core.

I ran back to the surface. During the time I had to fight the few last floors, new monsters had appeared on the upper floors. They were easily killed and some even ran but I did not chase them down.

When I was out the first thing that I did was run a few miles to the river so I could wash myself off. I looked disgusting like I was covered in snot from some giant that had sneezed on me. This definitely went into the top ten grossest things I’ve ever felt.