With the adventure he just had making potions, Roa was more awake than ever. Luckily for him, it was dawn and the sun was about to rise in the sky.
“Summon Book.”
Last time, he was interrupted when checking out the kinks of his mysterious skill. A transparent vortex that warped the surroundings appeared in front of Roa, absorbing the air around it to create a piece of white, hard leather. The leather split in half, with one end still connected, forming a bind. Black pages magically fluttered into existence between the leather, ending the vortex.
Opening the book, Roa was surprised to see that this time, there was something written on the first page in white ink.
Potion Creation
Level 1: 3%
Efficiency: 33%
Able to create basic health and mana potions.
He wondered if the book recorded his events in this world. But if it did, why didn’t it record his progression inside Gresknov?
Roa heard yet another set of knocks on his door. Unsummoning the book, he mumbled to himself.
“I seem pretty popular lately.”
He opened to door to see a guard standing at his doorstep.
“His majesty wishes to see you.”
Instead of heading to the throne room, Roa was led to the king’s private study. Inside was the king wearing spectacles, sitting on a wooden chair in a corner of the room that was piled with documents. Next to him, a stack of papers sat on a table barely lit by bright mote.
“This conversation is private, Ethan.”
“Of course, your majesty.”
After the guard closed the door behind him, the king got up from his chair and took off his spectacles, gently placing it on the table.
“I believe your name was Roa Xelt.”
Roa was extremely surprised that this was the same king which had spoken to him two days ago. Instead of the menacing and regal aura when he was sitting on the throne, the king had a more humble and kind aura.
“Y-yes, your majesty.”
“Oh no need for all the formalities. I’m Arthur, pleased to meet you.”
“Pleased to meet you too.”
“Now Roa, I heard from a reliable source that you don’t gain experience.”
That must the reason why the potion creation didn’t make me feel any stronger. God really hates me doesn’t he. If I can’t gain xp, then I’ll be stuck weak forever. What the hell am I supposed to do now?
“So that must be the reason why I’m still level 1.”
Arthur clasped his arms on Roa’s shoulders with a sympathetic face.
“Don’t worry, even if you can’t get stronger and is equal in power to a commoner, as someone from another world you must have some special quality in you. We just have to find it.”
He retreated back to his chair and sat, talking with his back facing Roa. As he spoke, his head was raised, looking at a cross of swords that absorbed all light.
“Since you were out for a day, yesterday it was announced that the heroes would go battle everyday in the dungeon. We were quite astonished at just exactly how powerful you heroes were, since we’ve never had such strong heroes in our entire human existence. Therefore, we decided to just let you heroes go as far in as you please.”
---
Gresknov Dungeon
Floor 1
Mobs: Giant Rat, Mutated Arachnid
Still can’t get used to this.
Inside the dungeon, the corpses of the giant rats were gone. Mana, as usual, acted as the tour guide.
“The remains of the monsters in these dungeons are used as enhancements towards the war for humanity. We usually try to retrieve the corpses right after a battle. The maximum time we get is one week, since that is when the dungeons respawn the monsters as the old remains disintegrate.”
Island after island, the students had already cleared a majority of the floor. They had a short encounter with flying ferrets that the students made quick work of.
The bridge for the next island was twice as big as usual. Instead of a rickety wooden bridge, it was completely made of stone with no gaps at all. Torches adorned the walls of the bridge that seemed to slightly levitate off the bridge.
“Next is the last island on this floor. There is a pretty high chance a boss monster has spawned this time around, so be careful.”
While walking across the bridge, Roa was able to make his way to Lucin.
“Hey Lucin, what level are you now?”
“Hm? When I checked yesterday it said level 4. What about you?”
“Unfortunately still level 1.”
“Shame. Look, when we fight later, I’ll let you deal the killing blow to something so you at least get to level 2.”
Before they could finish the conversation, they had already arrived at the next island. When the first person stepped foot, everyone could hear a loud roar coming from the other end of the island.
In the distance, they saw something approaching them at a very fast pace.
From the mist that only settled on this particular island, out came a minotaur that was 20 feet tall.
It looked like a standard minotaur from the book in their world, only it had three horns: two at their regular spot and one right above the brows.
When Roa looked around, everyone was already in a battle stance. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing; everyone had a dark look in their eyes as they rushed straight at the minotaur. Everyone had changed so much in only two days.
It looked like the students grouped up in mostly fives, with one exception of ten. Although disorganized, the students tried their best in working together. Some were at the back, either casting magic or shooting arrows from their summoned bow, while others danced around the minotaur.
Roa only had 100 health, and would likely die in one hit. As he sat back and watched the battle, he noticed a slightly transparent, red bar with a black border on top of the minotaur’s head.
As the students fought the minotaur, the red bar slowly whittled away.
When the red bar only filled 5% of the black border, the minotaur changed. It bulked up, turned red, and started attacking in a frenzy. The red bar was quickly growing larger.
Before anyone could move, Laur had jumped, approaching the minotaur’s head.
Wielding his sword with both his hands, Laur gripped the handle tightly.
“SEVER!”
The sword pierced straight through the minotaur, slashing through the throat completely. As Laur descended on the other side, the minotaur had toppled.
Nearby, Roa heard Lucin mutter.
“Does he think he’s an action hero?”
In their previous battles, Laur had always executed the tough opponents with fancy moves. At this point, no one was surprised by the outcome. Everyone walked around the minotaur, and stood around a glowing circle similar to the one in the castle, but instead was made up of physical materials.
If one looked closely, the materials resembled marble.
The student’s didn’t know if this was the portal or a trap. Mana, however, immediately walked into the circle.
“See you guys in the next floor.”
She shimmered for a bit, then disappeared.
One by one, the students walked into the portal, teleporting to the next floor. Lucin nudged Roa forward.
“You first.”
Stepping in, Roa immediately felt an elated feeling. As he saw himself shimmering, his brain was sending him warning signals, telling him this shouldn’t be possible. He felt the sensation of floating, and appeared in a different place.
Gresknov Dungeon
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Floor 2
Roa’s head hurt after the teleportation. He couldn’t figure out if it was the instance of a second message popping up in his head, or the teleport itself.
After two minutes, the headache settled down. Lucin arrived soon after.
Atop a cliff, the students were able to see most of the second floor.
The second floor was vastly different from the first. There were no more islands, rather there was just one large cavern, completely with a horizon too far away to see past.
In the distance, one could see a large variety of monsters. The three closest set of monsters were griffons, harpies, and orcs.
“The second floor is actually a very special floor,” Mana explained. “There are many different monsters living here, each in their own habitat. If you haven’t noticed yet, each habitat has a hexagon shape, and separating each habitat is a black powder.
“What the black powder does, well, it’s better to experience it yourself.”
Next to the portal, was a ladder that Mana began to climb down. Because some of the girls were wearing skirts, they insisted on going down the ladder first.
Arriving at the bottom, the group travelled left, directly to the griffons.
Once they stepped over the black powder, the barren cave they were in changed into a windy prairie with a scant amount of trees.
Aside from Mana, everyone was surprised at the sudden change. One person pulled on the grass and was able to smell it, confirming that it wasn’t an illusion.
The numerous griffons flying in the air noticed the group, spreading their wings to charge at them beak-first. While everyone was able to easily evade the attacks, Lucin had to grab Roa by the arm to help him dodge.
Landing on the ground, the griffons took a moment to ruffle their feathers before heading back to the skies. Roa was able to clearly see their bodies.
While their head was shaped like an eagle, the rest of their body was shaped like a giant chicken. The feathers that hid the skin was a yellow gold, with white on the wings and red at the head.
When the group dodged, everyone had already assumed their battle stance. While some of the griffons were able to fly off, others were already dead at the hands of the students.
As the melee students sat back along with Mana, the rest of the students were skillfully killing the griffons in the sky, dropping dead on the ground one after another.
It wasn’t very soon that the sky was empty. Without hesitation or fear, the griffons were completely wiped out.
Not a single person who was fighting lost their breath. The group walked along the black powder, aiming for the next habitat.
When the black powder made a sharp 120 degree turn, they all knew that the next habitat would lie ahead.
Lying across the black powder on the other side were hundreds of harpies, smiling at them. Although each harpie was different, there were many common traits. The bodies took a very human approach, only feathers spiraled towards the belly, with the area around the belly button without feathers. Chicken-like feet replaced a human leg, and wings similar to the griffons were positioned in the spot where a human arm should be, only at the end a human hand still remained.
“The harpies probably saw what we did to the griffons and are now lying in ambush before we can do anything.”
One of the students piped up.
“Uh... Mana, being in plain sight isn’t really an ambush.”
“I would say the same, but the black powder prevents weapons or spells from one side to the other. If you equip your weapon, it will also prevent you from passing.”
“Hey Mana, I have an idea.”
“What is it Lucin?”
“Just watch and see.”
Lucin equipped the iron shield on his back that was the same size as him. He had looted it from a previous fight on the first floor.
Holding the giant iron shield with only his left hand, he walked past the black powder. As soon as he stepped foot on the ground, without even passing through completely, the harpies swarmed. Fortunately, the iron shield was able to withstand the onslaught.
Mana was the second to cross, using the Godess’ Touch spell on Lucin just as she passed through.
“Hurry, after me!”
The students quickly crossed and began to attack.
Within an hour, the harpies all fell to the students.
“Whew, the second floor is a lot harder than the first floor. I actually took some damage.”
“It’s exponentially harder. Our castle’s knights can only make it halfway through this floor. The kingdom’s best warriors were only able to make it up to the tenth floor. We estimate there are over a hundred floors in this dungeon.”
Roa looked at Lucin, who took on the most harpies at once. Lucin noticed his gazed, and smiled back.
“Zero damage. Looks like being a vanguard is more useful than it sounds. In addition, I can wear and use the heaviest equipment without a single burden on me.”
Roa smiled back, but inside he was jealous of his friend’s power. Why couldn’t he also be overpowered like the rest of the students?
As if Lucin knew what Roa was thinking, he whispered to him.
“Don’t worry, I’ll let you kill the next thing.”
It wasn’t long before the group had reached the orc habitat. When the students began to fight them, they could tell why Mana led them to first fight the griffons, then the harpies.
The orcs were much stronger than the harpies, even bouncing off some of the weaker magics used. However, the orcs still did not cause any difficulties for the students, who were able to easily deal with them one on one.
As Laur easily sliced through each orc in one shot, he commented.
“The minotaur was at least a bit of fun.”
Lucin whittled down the red bar of an orc. Roa was able to see the red bar ever since the minotaur. He concluded that it was probably their health.
Lucin was also able to estimate how much damage the orc had taken. When the red bar was barely visible, he shouted to Roa.
“Hurry, kill it!”
Roa ran towards the orc who was laying on the ground, bleeding to death. The only super vulnerable spot he knew was a place he knew very well would deal the most damage.
The question was, could he really hit that spot?
“Ah, for fucks sake. This is to see if I really don’t gain xp.”
With his dagger, he struck right in the groin, felling the orc.
Lucin winced.
“Ouch dude, did it have to be that spot.”
“It was the most vulnerable spot.”
“Even still, to hit the crotch… nevermind. Do you feel stronger?”
“...No…”
Lucin couldn’t help but frown.
“We’ll find a better opportunity with a better monster later.”
When the orcs were also cleaned up, Mana felt the need to applaud.
“Good job world travelers. Orcs are considered the hardest monsters in the second floor dungeon. If they still pose no threat to you, we should move straight to the third floor to find something that would be suitable for your levels.”
The students nodded. Why stay here when they could level up much faster fighting something with a higher difficulty.
---
The group had made a near-straight beeline to the end of the cave. It had taken several hours for them to reach a bridge similar to the final one on the first floor.
Right away, everyone realized from the gap that what they were on was just a giant island.
As soon as they had entered the last island, the students were positioned in their battle stances. Mana was the only one that nonchalantly kept on walking.
“Oh, don’t worry guys, for some odd reason only the second floor has no boss at the end.”
The students looked at each other and shrugged, following Mana.
One by one, everyone took the portal to the next floor.