Blind Extermination

You have cleared an entire floor or dungeon section of the infinite while never laying eyes on your opponents.

Reward: Class Accessory

Tulland pulled back and asked the only person he knew that could explain what was going on.

System, what’s a class accessory?

Something good. Always. Accessories are additive to power, albeit often in roundabout ways. Quick, boy. Find out what it is.

Tulland cashed in the token, watching as a small metal canister materialized in the air. He caught it as it fell, horrified to think what might happen to the treasure inside if it hit the ground from any kind of height. His worries turned out to be for nothing.

Splicing Canister

Seeds placed in any of the splicing canister’s three chambers and enhanced with a class power gain a small amount of chaotic variance, raising the chances of producing a variant plant significantly. This process is only possible when some form of biological matter is placed in the same chamber.

While the success rate is only slightly better than simply growing the seeds in soil with the fertilizer would be, a slight increase over time can often become a large cumulative effect.

Some biological matter is simply incompatible with a given seed. When this is the case, the canister will inform you of the incompatibility through a system notification.

That felt big. But before it could feel too big or really be thought about at all, Tulland felt himself pulled in a direction that wasn’t identifiable by his crude, human mind and tossed one entire layer of dungeon back out to the safe zone.

—

“I don’t mean to whine, I really don’t. I got something that actually seems pretty big. But aren’t the rewards for that floor a little underwhelming?” Tulland asked.

“What do you mean?” Necia looked at Tulland strangely.

Tulland tried to gather his words, then realized it was Necia and it didn’t really matter if he got it entirely right.

“I mean, it’s a few level-ups,” Tulland said, “which are great, and a big chunk of stats, which seems even better. But it was a whole floor of The Infinite, and we performed really well. I was expecting something… I don’t know. Bigger.”

“Ah. Enchanted sword sickness.”

“Of course. Enchanted sword sickness. I know just what that is.”

“Oh, cut the sarcasm. I was getting to it. It’s something that my world used to describe a particular problem with some young adventurers. Mostly men, from my understanding. The idea is that a young adventurer goes to some dungeon with a very reasonable level of difficulty, beats the first floor, and then is confused when he just gets a slightly better sword instead of an enchanted sword of legend. To him, the point of the dungeon is to make him a great hero, right away.”

“I’m failing to see the connection. This is The Infinite, right? It’s supposed to be this big important thing. The biggest dungeon.”

“Not the biggest. The hardest. The most dangerous. It’s like… look. You have a dungeon that’s easy. What makes it easy? It’s that you have something hard to compare it to. And a hard dungeon is hard, but it’s not the hardest. At some point, you get The Infinite, a dungeon that simply can’t be beaten. One that gets harder and harder until it consumes you. Every time. The point isn’t even to win, it’s just to get as far as you can.”

Necia tapped her own new helmet.

“This helmet isn’t absolutely amazing, but it’s more than I might have had going into the next floor. It means that I’m probably a bit ahead of the increase in difficulty for that floor, and that I’ll have a slightly better chance of surviving. That’s what item drops are about, Tulland. Keeping just strong enough to keep going. If you’re looking for more than that, you’re going to miss the point. You need to figure out how to use what you have better. That’s how you are going to get through things.”

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—

There was a brief moment of calm as they walked back to the house. Even though the safe zone was a big space accepting all the adventurers from an unknown number of worlds that joined The Infinite, the actual population of it at the moment wasn’t that high. If Tulland had to guess, he’d say there were probably about fifteen people in town, though he and Necia had done a good enough job minimizing their exposure to them that his confidence in that guess was medium at best.

And none of who he was seeing were people he knew by sight. In almost any other situation, he would have fixed that immediately, learning names and figuring out who might be a resource to him. In this world, he didn’t want to get stabbed in the back by making a wrong decision, and he had already learned that he was far from the kind of guy who could be relied on to make right ones.

“So what’s the deal with the can? You didn’t tell me. Healing salve?” Necia asked.

“Nope. Something bigger. Help me get some seeds, if you don’t mind. Just few briar seeds,” Tulland said when they got back to the house.

Farmer’s Intuition had become pretty advanced recently, but it didn’t trigger when he put the briar seeds in the can. Tulland shrugged and dumped a bit of slime goo in one, then some of his Jewel Moss into another, and put a bit of fruit from the briar seed’s own parent to see what that did. Once he stuck the lid back on, the Dungeon System seemed to finally acknowledge something was up.

All three splicing chambers are filled. Would you like to seal the container? Seeds thus sealed will be unavailable for up to one day.

Tulland gave it permission. He needed to start somewhere, and was desperate to keep his briars relevant if there was any way to do it at all.

Turning his attention to the garden in general, Tulland found his Farmer’s Intuition simply didn’t care about the slime good one way or the other as it came to assessing it as a fertilizer. He was sure the skill might be missing something, but it was so definitively bored about this slime he doubted it would do much at all, either for good or for ill.

Apologizing to Necia, he dumped out both what she had gathered and what had onto his field before settling in front of his cooking equipment to make them both a real meal.

Like the smell of the food had summoned him, it was only seconds after Tulland had finished the food that Ley Raditz, the Spymaster, was banging on his door.

“Oh, hey, Ley. Here for food?” Tulland asked.

“Sure, among other things. And I can even pay for it. I’ve got information you simply need to know. Where were you, anyway?”

“Not important. What’s important is you want more grain. Start on this. It’s hot.” Tulland handed over his own bowl of food. He’d get another once he was done shaking out information. “What do you have?”

“So I’m not completely sure on this, but I think someone’s looking for you. Indirectly.” Ley paused to inhale half the bowl of food in a single breath before continuing his explanation. “One of the less interesting warriors in here came to me today, trying to buy your location with animal parts. I told him I couldn’t help him, and he just looked more scared after that.”

“And you don’t think it’s him looking?” Tulland asked.

“No. For one, I’m not at all sure how he even knows you exist, much less that you farm, which he seemed to already know coming into the conversation. From what you’ve told me, there are only a few people who might have guessed that. Me, Licht, the shopkeep heavy you met before, and…”

“That rogue.”

“Yup. Whose name is Halter, incidentally. Or at least so he told some people around town. Now, I don’t know what you have planned with all this right now.” Ley motioned at the farm. “But if I were you, I probably wouldn’t stick around much longer than I had to. I doubt he’d follow you into the seventh floor. That’s two on one in your favor if he does, and from what I’ve gathered, he’s scary but not stupid.”

“Ah. Yeah. We can probably do that.” Tulland looked at Necia. “Unless you have other plans. The farm isn’t going to be much better than it is right now, so I’m ready to go as soon as you are.”

“We’ll eat.” Necia scarfed down her food, as if to emphasize the importance of it. “And then go.”

“Actually, about that.” The Spymaster had finished inhaling his bowl of grains and now used the dish to dip some water out of a bucket, drinking it to get every bit of nutrition he could. “Do you mind if I go with you? I didn’t entirely hit the caps on the sixth floor, and I have a fair bit of extra time before The Infinite makes me advance again. You don’t have to, but…”

“No problem.” Tulland said. “You are sworn to help us, remember? Just don’t put us in a situation where we have to worry about you cancelling the deal on us, or, you know.”

“You’ll kill me,” Ley said.

“Not me.” Tulland laughed. “Her.”

Ley gulped and nodded under the intensity of Necia’s unimpressed gaze. Tulland didn’t know a lot about people, but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t have any problems with him in the short term, at least.

—

Seventh Floor (Cooperative, Team of Three)

You have entered the seventh floor while explicitly teamed up with two allies. The floor has adjusted the difficulty accordingly. For each ally, the floor has become more difficult, although not so difficult that it can’t be overcome with good teamwork.

The seventh floor is meant to test the dynamics of teams, and will be the first floor where you meet mixed groups of enemies. The seventh floor’s exit conditions hinge on both completing a certain minimum amount of time on the floor, as well as killing a minimum of enemies. If you complete the latter before the former, any excess kills will improve your eventual reward.

“Yeah, that’s the part that caught me.” Ley straightened his clothes and pulled out his dagger. “I could hit from the dark and take them out, but that’s a slow way of killing. With you two around, I should be able to deal a lot more damage per second. Just keep them off me, and I promise you won’t be sorry you brought me along.”