25 years ago.

I watched a TV show at night. Not sure what time it was but sure it was late; really late. The show was quite good and interesting as long as I remembered. My father went somewhere when I was watching. I didn’t know where he was so I was worried.

“Where are you going?” I said while yawning.

“I am going to solve some problems. Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon so why don’t you just go to bed.” He smiled at me; the brightest smile I could ever imagine in my entire life.

“Dad, there might be a ghost kidnapping you,” I said with anxiety.

“Haha. There won’t be. They can’t get me as I will “get them.” He laughed at me. Not only confidence appeared but also anger did.

I now still don’t get it; the word my father told me before.

‘I will get them’. It still a mystery to me but I find out one day. I’m sure about it!

*****

I am very excited about my first journey. It might be risky and dangerous, but won’t it be a thrilling experience?

I take a look at my clothes again; make sure everything was fine.

“Just need to calm down and relax. Everything will be alright. They won’t notice that I’m a dungeon lord I guess.” I try to encourage myself. I don’t know whether I’m strong or not. I may be killed easily when they know the truth.

But whatever the situation is, I have to risk my life once for information. If not, I will lower my survival chance and end up my life in a strange place without any acquaintances.

I keep on moving until I find the source of light – The sunlight. I squint; cover my eyes with a hand. I can’t help but walk straight toward the beginning of the cave.

The closer I am to the cave entrance, the brighter the light is, and the more I squint.

Finally, I’m out of the cave - my lovely dungeon.

I can feel it: the fresh air, the smell of grass, dirt, and wood. The blue sky with marvelous flying structures gives me crazy thoughts. My cave’s surroundings are empty give me a feeling of a huge space devastated by a vortex; There aren’t any trees, flowers, grass, and even bugs.

Maybe the existence of me has destroyed the surroundings recently, or an unknown thing had done this. I’m not sure but ignore it; I have no reason to take care of this cause it’s not dangerous I guess.

The most important thing which I notice is an erratic high content of the element. Using the ‘Eternal Eyes’, I know it is the wood element.

Well, I guess this is lucky because I can get this element for a new skill. Getting element gives me the ability to heal myself and the other as element ‘Wood’ is the symbol of growth. You may want to know why I knew this. Well, I used to be a game programmer, so I knew it, that’s it.

But there will be a risk too. Element and mana are different. Mana is a source of life. It is like blood, flowing inside of your body and rebuilding all of your body including organs.

But element eats up all your mana inside of your body. That’s why if there are elements, there won’t be any mana.

Because of that, it is very dangerous to take the element from outside. So I have to prepare first before I do this.

I start to make some barriers – The gathering element, The Protection, and the one pushing element out of my body.

The gathering element barrier basically gathers the element to my place.

The protective barrier is simply put mana inside the ground, so the element will be lured into the ground.

The pushing one [I love to call it. J] will activate when the element inside my body is too much, it will push more than 50% of my mana out of my body and lure them into the ground. With that, I can save my life if things get worse.

I also put some tiny crystal in case I don’t have enough mana to lure element.

I start to sit down and relax. Just like before, I will start to feel the mana, but it’ll be the element this time. The element starts to pierce through my barrier; leaving a green trail.

I focus all my senses to make sure everything is fine. Because of that, I can smell it – The smell of nature, trees, grass, and even bugs. It is so peaceful that I just want to lie down and relax.

And the most important is coming: The element is coming inside my body and start to eat my mana. I have thought about this but it is worse now. My mana is decreasing down so fast that I have to quickly use the mana from the crystal. I also activate my barrier and hope for everything is aright.

After a while, repeating this processing several times, I do have a great result: 45% of the element has been consumed and I have a new ability.

Basic Elementalist (Wood) (Level: 1/10) (Rarity: Epic):

* Give you the ability to control Wood *Not nature*.

* Give you the ability to turn your body part into the wood.

* Increase 50% more damage when using Wood element

* Summon ‘wood element (Low)’ for 500 MP.

“Well, this seems to be good.” I think with a smile on my face.

I extremely admire myself as a programmer. “It is not really that bad as a programmer. Well, everything will have its advantages.” I think.

I stand up and clean all the stuff because it is noon now. In total, I have used 8 crystals but it is worth. Anyways it is time to head towards the forest and have the first meeting. I don’t know what creature I may meet: A wolf, a bear, or even a human.

After thinking for a while, I go into the forest.

I do everything to get more skills: run, jump, climb, crawl, and even dig. I think people will call me an idiot when they see this. I use the new ability to turn my arm into the wood. I can shrink and stretch my arm, giving me a very weird experience. Believe me, it is really weird.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

And all my efforts have been paid off. I gained an ability: Parkour – A important skill for an assassin like me.

30 minutes passed and nothing changed as long as I remember. But I have found a bear. A mutated one, I think so. It is huge and it has 4 arms I guess. Its skin is shining and looks like lightning. If I have to guess its name, it should be ‘Lightning mutated bear’.

But I don’t care its name; it is meaningless to know its name. I need to know its stat.

I start to use the eternal eye. My eye begins to change into the ‘dragon eye’ – because of its appearance.

*Showing stat*

Name: War Bear

level 9/25

Title: None

Class: Beast

Rarity: Ex Common (1 star/1 star)

Variable Stat:

Health: 348.4 HP

Mana point: 339 MP

Strength: 26.4

Vitality: 32.2

Magic power: 33.9

Agility: 29.4

???

???

Invariable Stat:

Intelligence: 2.035/10

Persistence: 3.172/10

Luck: 1.698/10

Charm: 1.14/10

Skill:

- Slash (Common)

- Growl (Common)

Special Skill: Anger (Ex Common)

Talent: None

Potential: 121.9/250

“Ah! What? That’s it. So weak!” I say unbelievably.

I thought it would be a legend or something is very powerful. BUT, this is disappointing. I think I will die because of the disappointment and upset.

I feel so sad and try to pull my bow. Even feeling sad, I still try to infuse magic and element inside the arrow to have a new skill.

But it is not easy as I expected: The arrow breaks immediately when I am infusing, giving me displeasure. I am sure that the bear has noticed me as it gazed at me. I can feel my goosebumps on my body.

The bear dash forward immediately since it noticed me. Its dash cuts through a great number of trees, leaving a big space.

I hurriedly jump to another tree while infusing another arrow. This time, I use very tiny magic and element to ensure the arrow is fine. And it is successful. I can feel a very tiny amount of magic and wood element inside my arrow. I aim my arrow at the bear.

It seems that the bear hasn’t noticed me yet. It turns around to find where I am. I smirk and give the bear a silent death – A silent one. The arrow pierces through the bear’s head and brain and stops on the ground. A small root comes out and ties the bear’s legs.

“Well, I thought it will dodge it, so I give it this surprise. But it is meaningless now.” I sigh and examine the bear.

Because it is quite weak, so I didn’t get much experience, but enough to get to level 4.

I use my element to make a wooden knife and infuse magic into it. With a knife, it will be easier to anatomize.

But you know, the first time always costs a lot of time – about 5 to 6 hours – just to do it.

I also create a wooden bag to put the stuff inside it. It is quite light, I think so.

After that, I continue my journey to the nearest village.

30 minutes… 1 hour… and 2 hours passed, and I didn’t get lucky. I think I will have a situation: A beauty is in danger and I will save her as a hero. But God seems to hate me. He let me meet beauty ‘Beasts’ in the wood. It was so horrible when a lot of female wolves and bears chasing me. Their eyes were like ‘I’m going to eat you’. I can easily kill them but I don’t want to. I’m a mercy dungeon lord. So running is the best choice.

Anyway, I find a village in a distance. It is very popular I guess. The village is larger than what I expected. It should be called the city as its huge size. I pull out my black mask, black cloak and wear it.

A challenge is pretty good: Running to the city in the shortest time. I infuse my mana in my leg. I put my right leg back to gain momentum. I take a long deep breath and begin to run.

I put my arms behind and lean forward to decrease the pressure of the air. But because of this silly challenge, I can stop at a high speed. So you guys can guess what is going on. I run too quickly and put my whole body inside the tree – crash into the tree, I mean.

“Ouch, I shouldn’t do this silly thing. It’s pretty hurt even as a dungeon lord.” I mutter and nag.

Anyway, I reach the gate of the city. I start to move into it. But the guard seems to run a very strict border. I need an identity card, and that’s what they told me.

“Sir, can I please get in.” I insist on the guard.

“No, we can’t let you in. Sorry!” (Guard)

But I have a very ‘terrifying’ idea; I come close to their ears and say:

“I have some fur here. If you let me pass, I will give you these.” I pull out the bear’s fur while talking to the guards.

The guards look at each other and say:

“Ahem, the rule is that you need an ID card, but there is an exception. You can pass now.”

They say with a sense of compliance. I think the general should dismiss them.

I passed without revealing my identity and appearance. The first thing I have to do is to find where the guild is. At there I should have the information about Dungeon and The Kingdom.

I ask people in the city and walk to the Guild.

Well, I have to say marvelous. The Guild is so huge and beautiful. It gives me a feeling of standing inside of the Eastern Medieval structure I have met once before; I’m quite like it. I start to gather the information here and realize I don’t have money. I could get some from selling those bear’s meat I got before for a half-price without the Guild Card. It’s kind of annoying but still giving me a high discipline form.

I don’t have time to think so I decide to sell them all. In total, I got 1 gold coin and 50 silver coins.

There is an informative room in the guild where I can get the information from. I get there to have what I want to. And here is some useful information – I have to say I am a person in hiding [idk what to say] to get these:

Firstly, Dungeon is a place where the Adventure – The one who kills the monsters for money – will get in and make them rich. But the chance to appear a dungeon is very low. Even the Kingdom only has 3 Dungeons in total – And 4 including mine. That’s why they don’t have to destroy a dungeon if it isn’t a threat to them.

Secondly, this Kingdom is called Kurast – A Western Kingdom. And this city is called JoshTer. Near our border is Astfert – you can say, Ast. To The East, There is a Kingdom called Slainet. The political situation between our country with Ast’s country is not good. So we have a war every year.

Thirdly, The rank in the Guild is divided into 7 levels from C to SSS:

* Rank C: potential: < 10

* Rank B: potential: 11 – 50

* Rank A: potential: 51 – 200

* Rank S: potential: 201 – 1000

* Rank SS: potential: 1001 – 10000

* Rank SSS: potential: 10001 – 100000

And there is also a title for the most powerful person – ‘The only one’.

One of the requirements is potential: > 100000.

That’s the most useful information now. I think we should leave now. If not, my truth will be revealed. I pay 10 copper coins for this common information and leave.

At the Guild’s hall, I hear very terrifying information:

“Do you hear that? A new dungeon has appeared inside the Wood”

“Oh, really? If it is, that would be great. We can make a cr*p tons of money there.”

“But we can’t now. The Guild Leader is going to send a scout to assure everyone that the dungeon isn’t a threat to us.”

I am terrified when hearing that. According to the dialog, I will have had a little number of times left before the first scout comes. This is totally the bad information I have ever heard in my entire life. This would be an end for my life if I don’t act quickly.

I run out of the Guild and head my Dungeon as soon as possible.

PREPARING FOR A NEW BATTLE