I spent two more days in this dungeon exploring its tunnels. I finally found the exit, which was guarded by a huge, muscular ten foot tall demon accompanied by a group of normal low level demons. The first time I met him, I didn't even risk attacking him in person. I hid in one of the side tunnels and dispatched the bear and my other creatures on a special “suicide and reconnaissance” mission.
As I suspected, the strength and speed of the giant demon was incredible. I knew I simply had no chance of defeating it. However, I didn't want to give up.
After a few more tries, with a few more bears, I have determined that the final boss would not leave the hall no matter what. I was fully prepared to try to trick him somehow if he did but alas I had to think of a new strategy to defeat the boss.
So I tried again and again. I sent my bear to attack him, trying to discover some weakness, or develop some strategy but nothing worked.
On the tenth time I noticed a few odd things. First the demons never investigated where the attacks were coming from. As mentioned before, they just never left the hall. Also the smaller demons were getting more and more tired and even getting some injuries in the fights.
Naturally, this gave me the idea to get rid of my weaker opponents first. So over the next few hours, hidden in one of the nearby halls, I continued to summon bears until they had killed all the smaller demons in the giant demon's retinue.
“Who is making these bosses? It's impossible to kill it in a straight fight!” I thought to myself. “Maybe this dungeon is for a full party of people, not a lone summoner.”
That's right, much later I found out that the dungeons in the tutorial had various difficulties and this was a hard dungeon. I was supposed to go back and get help, for those dungeons would usually stay active for a few days or until someone clears them out.
After I finished the normal demons, I spent a few more days exploring every nook and cranny of the tunnels, trying to find hidden tunnels or anything at all that would help me.
The next day, I gathered all the demons' possessions in one place and even some of the minerals, and a bold plan was born in my head.
In the beginning, everyone started with food and water for ten days. Or thirty servings of magically sealed food. Before I entered the dungeon I had 22 servings and in the last few days I had eaten 7 more and now had 15 servings.
I felt quite hungry but my body was strong and I was young and full of energy. I had a cousin who led one of those "healthy" lifestyles - eating mostly salads, going to yoga and exercising regularly.
She periodically did a thing she referred to as “healing fast”, maybe once or twice a year. It had something to do with something called ketones and it was supposed to be extremely beneficial. Anyway, during this time, she ate only 800 grams of fruit a day, for 5, 10 or even 20 whole days! That is, she lasted almost a month on very little food without it interfering too much with her normal life.
I, on the other hand, was not a skinny vegan and frequented both the gym and fast food restaurants. Plus, since I had entered the magic towers, I felt like my body was healthier than that of an athlete. That's why I was sure I could survive for a lot of time with my food supplies.
Theoretically, If I spread out my portions I could easily go 7-8 days with two portions a day or 15 days with one portion a day. After that I could stay a few more days without any food.
I knew that a healthy young man could go over three weeks without any food. In the history of mankind, there were many traditions and rituals where the participants had to endure even more than that.
I remembered articles about various hunger strikes - political, public, in prisons and so on, where fatalities occurred only after 15-20 days of complete starvation. In various concentration camps in the last century, many prisoners had to work physical labor under harsh conditions with minimal food and had to endure for months.
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I stood for a long time and pondered my options. Finally I headed for the tunnel leading to the entrance of the boss's hall. And I began to look around it carefully. From my previous fights I knew how far I could lure the boss with my summons and decided to make a trap for him.
So after careful observation I had a plan of what the trap was going to look like and began to dig with the help of my enhanced muscles, the periodical use of mana, the picks of the demons and the paws of my bear.
After three days of hard work, I used up 8 servings of food and had 7 left over. I had dug a deep and wide hole in which I arranged the weapons of the demons I had defeated, and which I covered and masked with various objects from the cave. Dirt, stones, mosses, pieces of chests, clothes of demons and so on. At the sides, I had prepared chests with minerals and large and sharp stones.
After another full day of preparation and finishing touches on the camouflage of my trap I felt ready.
“Time passes differently in this place. So this is an opportunity for me. I can use my last food in order to stay and train my skills and increase my mana cultivation. That way I will have several more days training then the other participants, both humans and aliens. Also the zombies are getting stronger day by day, but if I increase my power somehow I will be much stronger than them and get currency units more easily. Which of course will lead to more increases of power and more currency units and so on.”
My other plans stayed unchanged.
After the last day of work, I had five servings of food. I decided to spend the next five days practicing archery, meditation, and experimenting in summoning and mana manipulation.
When the five days were up, I still felt fine despite the intense hunger. The strange thing is that in such situations, hunger does not increase, but rather decreases with time. However, I found it significantly harder to perform physical activities and got tired more easily.
When my last bite of food was gone, I made the decision to let myself go on a complete water fast for three more days, during which time I would meditate and absorb the mana in this strange place. There were also many summoning experiments I had to do to improve my skills and to be able to summon new creatures.
The last days passed uneventfully. I meditated, filled my mana and then practiced my skills. When I got tired of the summoning rituals, I practiced my shadow fusion skills or just lazily shot mana balls at different targets. There was also multiple mana intensive trainings that was supposed to help me develop and unlock my control over the elements.
At the end of the third day, I decided not to push my luck. After all, when I got back to the tutorial island, I was going to need my strength. First I had to survive and make it back to our camp, and then I had to hunt every day.
And so after some final preparations, I summoned my creatures. Then I sent my imp to lure the massive demon. As it happened many times before, when I was still testing things about my trap, the demon attacked my imp and chased it.
My Imp was flying high, moving left and right, staying somewhat close to the demon, hindering him from looking too much on the ground. Just a few seconds passed and the demon, led by the imp, fell into the trap!
His heavy body slammed into the walls and the weapons there, several times, finally collapsing and falling onto the dozens of large and sharp weapons on the bottom! I ordered my bear and it began to push the heavy mineral chests on top of the demon while I was shooting crossbow bolts and unstable mana balls at the creature.
We had to throw quite a few chests and arrows at the demon and they even partially covered it, then I sent my bear down to finish it. Three minutes later, I finally felt the necrotic energy that was released with the demon's death!
I spent a lot of time feasting first on the life force and then the necrotic energies and mana of the demon. Then I had to descend into the hole to search the creature's body.
He had some hefty weapons that were of little interest to me and which I doubted I could even carry to camp, especially in my present condition.
On the demon's belt were several magic flasks which I stowed in my backpack, as well as a large round disk made of a strange bluish metal. I tucked it away as well, and with a lot of effort I stepped out of the trap and headed for the dungeon exit.
As I walked I remembered how the primitive people, after inventing the spear, set about wiping many species off the face of the Earth. For example, the Mammoths, those hairy elephants with huge tusks, were completely eaten by the ancient humans.
Thousands upon thousands of excavations have been found with their remains, as well as numerous tools and ornaments made from their bones and tusks. The simple tactics of the weak and fragile homo sapiens managed to change their fate from victim, to kings of the planet.
So I too, was inspired by their timeless achievements, and chose this primitive but proven over the millennia trap.
Ancient mammoths have fallen into such traps, as well as entire squads of soldiers, carried away in the pursuit of their seemingly weaker opponents. But this is what distinguishes us humans from animals, the fact that we use not our muscles but the forces of nature and our brains.