I looked carefully around the last room, but there was nothing interesting there. However, I sat down and spent some time meditating, trying to detect something with my mysticism skills. A few times I seemed to find something interesting, but then I lost the thread and finally, after I stopped detecting anything for the last hour, I gave up meditating.

I proceeded to the portal and a small altar opened before me, on which was a special opening and a drawing of the disk which I had found in the body of the boss.

After a brief hesitation, I pulled out the disk and dropped it into the altar. A second later, a familiar graphical interface and message appeared in my head.

"Congratulations participant 72161. You are among the first 10 members of your race to complete a dungeon.

As a result, you can choose one item from the prize pool as a special reward. Aloso there is an additional bonus, a pair of shoes, for each member of your party. You can determine the enhancement and appearance of the shoes.

Achievements like this affect your race total points, your rewards after the tutorial, as well as your home planet bonuses. Congratulations on a job well done!"

"Hey my bear is a participant too, it basically killed the boss, is there no reward for him?" I yelled out and looked around waiting hopefully. After nothing happened, I continued to look at my interface.

There were many different items and weapons to choose from. I was very impressed with the different weapons, but unfortunately I couldn't find a better crossbow that fitted me. There were a few crossbows, but they were quite heavy and loaded using complicated and bulky mechanisms, so I kept looking through the list.

Next came various light and heavy armors and even items that promised to improve my mana control by 15% or the power of my combat spells.

I continued browsing and came across a selection of items with a more specific purpose. There were things like a bottle that fills itself with water, a mirror that allows you to see through the eyes of each member of your group, and other similar items.

Of these I liked the ring which led to 3 cubic meters of private space.

The owner of the ring, with the help of some mana, could send or pick up items freely from the space. Time was almost stopped there, and any item, be it a weapon, magic herb, or just hot food, wouldn't lose its properties. Furthermore, the items that were stored in the pocket dimension weighed absolutely nothing in our world.

The ring description warned that sending living creatures, especially players or their summoned, tamed or hired creatures was impossible.

"That ring looks pretty interesting", I thought. "With it I'll be able to get the weapons and even some of the minerals here, and in the future I'll be able to carry lots of zombie parts, herbs, minerals, and whatnot back to camp. Also, I'll be able to carry a huge amount of crossbow bolts, water, clothes, other necessities.. and most importantly - food! Oh yes, a lot of tasty food. "

“Not to mention that it will be perfect for storing incriminated evidences, or the naked pictures of your second-girlfriend's secret affair, with an office coworker, or this special thing with a young intern. Even better, one can put their shameful collections of strange Japanese toys or ones files with bad poetry attempts.”

As I pondered and hesitated, my sharp hunger reminded me that I didn't have much time. I made a decision and chose my prize: a three cubic meter ring.

The magic boots I chose were black in color and looked like tactical military boots and gave me a 10 percent speed bonus and also reduced my stamina consumption by a full 15 percent.

After I made my choice, the altar began to glow brightly and the outline of a small box gradually began to appear on it. After a few seconds, the light went out and the box materialized completely in this dimension. I reached out and took it from the altar. I opened it and there were my rewards, as well as a brief user manual.

I hurried to put on my boots, and before putting on my ring I had to drip a drop of blood on top of it and perform a special binding ritual.

This would give extra security, since once bound, I would be the only one who would have access to the things stored in the ring's private space. Even if someone stole it, or if I lost it, no one would be able to take my stuff. Besides, as long as the ring was a few dozen miles away from me, I would be able to vaguely sense the direction it was in.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

With hungry anticipation I began the ritual and when I had completed it and put on my ring.

Then I set about collecting some of the demons' weapons and items as well as some of the minerals. Once the three cubic meters were filled, I stuffed my backpack with what I could, having previously disposed of all unnecessary items. I also loaded the bear as best I could with mineral chests and a few uninteresting items and stepped through the portal.

The world turned again and I found myself on the tutorial island. I left the mineral chests I was carrying in my hands, as well as the one from my bear. My plan was, if the alchemists decided they needed the mineral, to come and get them, or even better - send them to take it themselves. Not that I was lazy mind you, but I had still spent almost twenty days in this dungeon, with only 21 servings of food.

Slowly, and especially cautiously, I made my way to camp, avoiding the fighting as much as I could.

When I got home, I headed to the three shops and ordered a few servings of fruits costing me a whole 12 points. I chose two apples and started eating them slowly, in no hurry, despite the overwhelming hunger. I knew it was very dangerous to my health if I stuffed myself with too much or too heavy food.

When the Allied troops liberated the prisoners from the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, they naturally began to feed the prisoners without restrictions. This was a gross mistake and many spent the following days with terrible stomach pains and there were even death cases.

My case, however, was much milder, and I had mana to help my digestion and my recuperative powers were much stronger.

Half an hour later I handed over the minerals and other findings to the alchemists and told Patrick and Mr. Dellucci about my adventures in the dungeon. They were quite interested and often asked questions, but Mr. Dellucci would not stop playing with the strange mineral and I could see in his eyes the desire to begin his investigations.

So I bade them farewell and headed for George Bristol's big tent. There I left a lot of the demons' weapons and told my story again, and he was very impressed by the fact that I was one of the first 10 people in all of humanity to complete the dungeon.

"Meridin, you never cease to amaze me. First the miniboss, now a dungeon. And I'm wasting my time playing politician."

"Haha, you're not wasting it my friend, you're not wasting it at all. Someone needs to take care of the organization part. - I said."

"That's right," he agreed.

After that we talked for a while and I had to finish some of the tasks that had gathered while I was gone. After an hour or so I took a break and had a few spoonfuls of a rather expensive vegetable soup, besides which I picked up some fruit for later and went back to work. This time I helped with filing and sorting paperwork, a rather boring but important job and finally tired and still hungry I headed back to my tent.

Before I went to bed I ate the rest of the fruit and checked my currency units - turns out the creatures in the dungeon weren't giving any currency units! Something rather disappointing.

I had 140 currency units, which I used to buy a rather large amount of crossbow bolts, a set of robes and a blanket, and some small items. I then bought various spices which I took to the cooks and with them as a payment I placed a large order for simpler and cheaper food. Mostly fish soup, various meats and some wild fruits, edible roots and various cooked mushrooms.

Since I had this magic ring I wanted to store a large amount of food, as well as other essential items.

"I will reserve one cubic meter for food. About a half that for other essential items, and the rest I'll use to store the various zombie parts, herbs, minerals and other valuable things.", I thought.

One cubic meter is actually a lot of space. For example, one cubic meter of water can hold 1000 liters of water, and 1000 liters of water weigh exactly one ton! I guess that instead of 1000 liters of water, one cubic meter could hold 1000 liters of fish soup. Actually, I didn't guess, I was even sure. But that is another topic.

On the other hand, in one cubic meter, you could fit a sofa. Disassembled, at that.

"I don't need to pack sofas or soups.", I thought enthusiastically.

"It would be super cool if I could collect a ton of ammo for an AK-47 officially known as the “Avtomat Kalashnikov” and kill all the zombies in two or three days! Or even if it was full of explosives or why not, a small nuke. Wow, how many currency units would I get if I could kill a whole town of zombies!!!"

So I fell into a deep, filled with strange and wonderful dreams, sleep. In the morning I woke up hungry, but well rested and ready for battle! Without lingering, I headed to the restaurant and had breakfast. My order wasn't ready yet, so I only took a few servings of food, which I placed in my ring.

Over the next few days I hunted relentlessly and stocked my ring with food and other supplies. The alchemists were very pleased with the large amounts of zombie parts and herbs I brought them and also with the help I gave them with some of the simpler alchemy tasks.

In addition to that, during the last few days, I have spent no less than three hours each evening in alchemy exercises, under the watchful eye of Mr. Dellucci. The latter proved to be a true genius of alchemy, as well as a very good instructor. I learned a great deal, and my skills improved with every passing hour. However, I found that humanity had a very long way to go and this was only the beginning of a very long path. However, I was grateful for the large amount of poisons I was filling my ring with.