Lariel finally arrived at the next door. Thirteen full minutes late for his one-minute prediction. After all, he had not counted for the absurd amount of goblins on this floor that made him take several detours. They just kept appearing. Not even with all those adventurers culling their numbers. Lariel fought dozens of them. And then when he finally stopped, he read his pending notifications.
*Ding* You have slain a Level 9 (Goblin [Mage](Globin Head Mage))!
---------------------
*Ding* You have slain a Level 4 (Goblin [Warrior](Globin Warrior))!
*Ding* Your class Seeker of Power has reached level 5! +2 End, Int, +1 Will, Per, Vit, +1 Free Stat!
*Ding* Spear Mastery has reached level 36!
-------
*Ding* Your class Seeker of Power has reached level 9! +2 End, Int, +1 Will, Per, Vit, +2 Free Stats!
*Ding* Spear Mastery has reached level 42!
*Ding* Physical Fitness has reached level 44!
*Ding* Basic Sneaking has reached level 7!
*Ding* Weapon Proficiency has reached level 37!
*Ding* Basic Mana Sense has reached level 10!
*Ding* Mana Manipulation has reached level 34!
*Ding* Basic Rock Bullet has reached level 19!
Congratulations! You have reached level 5 in your class (Seeker of Power). You have gained the skills:
Identification, Perception Ball, Power Surge, Magic Empowerment.
Identification (active): This skill allows you to identify anything. The higher the level of the skill, the more information you gain when using the skill. If what you are trying to identify is any higher level than your main class, no information is provided.
Perception Ball (passive): This skill allows you to perceive everything in a small radius sphere. The size of the sphere increases with Perception, Willpower, and skill level.
Power Surge (active): Increase all your stats by a static value for a small amount of time. Effect and duration time increase with skill level. The cooldown of the skill decreases with skill level. Current value: 2. Current duration time: 15 seconds. Current cooldown: 24 hours.
Magic Empowerment (active): Empower a magic-related skill once, increasing its overall effect. After using this skill, access to mana is restricted for a certain amount of time. Effect of the skill increases with skill level. The cooldown of the skill decreases with skill level. Current usage cooldown: 1 week. Current mana usage cooldown: 1 day.
*Ding* Perception Ball has reached level 5!
*Ding* Identification has reached level 2!
First things first. Wow! The influx of information was astonishing. Not only the one coming from all the notifications but also the one coming from his Perception Ball skill.
If it weren't for his high willpower, intelligence, and perception, he would probably not be able to digest all the information. He could see and feel everything within half a meter from him, albeit rather sluggish. The muscles and nerves of his body contorting. His heart beating. His lungs filling up with air. He was finally one with himself. It felt weird to be aware of so many things, although there wasn't that much detail arriving at his mind about said things.
His new class skills interested him. Quite a lot, although training them would be hard due to the cooldown, and due to one being pas-.
*Ding* Perception Ball has reached level 6!
Ok, the passive was not a problem probably. It would level over time. The fact that he was standing still was likely not helping. Things needed to change inside his perception ball for him to upgrade it faster was what he deduced.
His Identification skill was a major thing.
And it was time to start training it seriously since he had only used it a couple of times on enemy goblins, though he did not gain any more information apart from the fact the subject of the skill was a Goblin. As such, he needed to level it up so that he could get more information. He identified the tree next to him.
Identification: Tree.
*Ding* Identification has reached level 3!
Ok. Not that useful yet. He identified it again.
Identification: Tree. Old.
*Ding* Identification has reached level 4!
At least the amount of information is increasing... he thought. He tried identifying it again but gained no further information nor skill levels.
He glanced at his notifications again to make sure nothing had escaped his analysis.
Sweet, sweet levels. Lariel thought. Although he did not win any more XP from Goblins below level 6, he still managed to gain skill levels when facing them. Albeit a very low amount. Another thing he had noticed was that getting familiar with the enemy got you even less XP, which made him understand why the adventurer's party's stayed here for a long time and could not evolve that fast.
The Goblins were weak but still dangerous. He killed so many goblins, that his ring filled up, and he just cut the valuable part of them, the ears and tongue, and kept 5 goblins for three of his quests.
He walked a little bit and found himself face to face with the door to the next floor. There was only one other adventurer party, that entered with no hesitation into the next floor. Lariel decided to do the same. He gained almost no benefit in staying here anymore. But before he entered, he took a look at his status.
Status:
Money: 1 gold, 23 silver, 17 coppers
Name: Lariel
Class: [Rogue (Seeker Of Power)]
Level: 9
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Health: 234/256 (Regen: 0.26/sec)
Stamina: 365/544 (Regen: 0.65/sec)
Mana: 681/790 (Regen: 0.8/sec)
Strength: 12
Vitality: 17
Endurance: 26
Dexterity: 7
Agility: 8
Intelligence: 30
Willpower: 20
Perception: 17
Free Stats: 22
Bonus Stats per level: +2 End, Int | +1 Will, Per, Vit | +2 Free Stats | (9 Total Stats)
Skills: (269 Total Skill Levels)
General:
Identification Level 4 | Basic Sneaking Level 7
Weapon Related:
Spear Mastery Level 42 | Basic Bow Mastery Level 13 | Basic Sword Mastery Level 11 | Basic Mace Mastery Level 9 | Basic Axe Mastery Level 8 | Basic Dagger Mastery Level 6
Weapon Proficiency Level 37 | Basic Unarmed Combat Proficiency Level 5
Basic Shield Mastery Level 12
Spells:
Basic Rock Bullet Level 19 | Magic Empowerment Level 1 | Power Surge Level 1
Miscellaneous:
-Magic:
Mana Manipulation Level 34 | Mana Sense Level 10 | Perception Ball Level 6
Physical:
Physical Fitness 44
His stats were getting ridiculous. Although the gap between some of them was becoming too big. He would address that problem once he went back to the orphanage. He was getting power, but he knew the truly powerful were hundreds of stats above him. The Central Guild Headmaster had very likely four digits on some of his stats if not all. And maybe even five digits if that was possible. And despite what people said, he was likely not the most powerful out there, it was extremely likely that the ones more powerful were busy with more things than political problems. But for now, that was not important, he just wanted to continue to grow. Someday he would be able to equal them. Or so he hoped.
He reached for the door and answered the question that asked if he wanted to go to the next floor.
He was instantly teleported to another place, extremely similar to the first floor, but slightly bigger. You could see seven columns of smoke if you looked around, either goblin camps or adventurer camps. Most beginner parties stayed here for a while, upgrading their skills. Lariel, however, had no intention of doing so. He wanted to reach the fifth floor before going back for dinner, to see if the boss floor was available. And so, with that in mind, he started running towards the next floor-door location. This floor had even more adventurers than the previous one, but he still had hopes of being able to upgrade a bit and hoped that the resident adventurers hadn't massacred them all. The door was only a couple of minutes away. What could possibly go wrong?
--------
Goblins. Wicked small green monsters. Great sources of experience. When they weren't attacking you by the hundreds of course.
Lariel finally reached the door a full thirty minutes later. It had gone very bad in some ways, but great in others. His growth was in the great part, while his close death call was in the bad one. Soon after he had entered the forest, he had found goblins. The adventurer parties were useless against shortening their numbers. Lariel could swear that the Dungeon was spawning them faster than they were killing them.
At some point, while fully covered in goblin blood, he swore that once he was powerful enough, he would come to this floor and burn the forest to the ground. At first, it wasn't really a problem, a few goblin groups, never surpassing ten members per group. They weren't too high level. He barely made any exp from them. Just a few trickles here and there. But what they lacked in firepower, they had in fire amount.
At some point, he gave up on trying to store their parts. He had just too many. He definitely needed a better ring for storing them. Lucky for him, the next grade ring would be a qualitative and quantitative change. It would more than multiply his current storage space by one-hundredfold. There were so many, that eventually, he needed to run, but he kept encountering them, and sometimes he faced their horde leader. A Goblin Master Mage level 48. He hadn't been able to defeat him but had faced him in a very intensive magic battle, netting himself some magic-related skill levels.
Above that, he gained many general skills, confirming his theory that he hadn't gained them before due to the lack of class.
He may have not gained much exp, but damn, danger made you improve, and gain your skills fast.
*Ding* You have slain a Level 19 (Goblin [Warrior](Globin Swordsman)).
-------
*Ding* You have slain a Level 2 (Goblin [Scout](Globin Scout)).
*Ding* Your class Seeker of Power has reached level 10! +2 End, Int, +1 Will, Per, Vit, +3 Free Stats!
-------
*Ding* Your class Seeker of Power has reached level 14! +2 End, Int, +1 Will, Per, Vit, +3 Free Stats!
*Ding* Obtained the skill: Running (passive)!
*Ding* Obtained the skill: Basic Dodge (passive)!
*Ding* Obtained the skill: Sprint (passive)!
*Ding* Obtained the skill: Basic Heavy Blow (active)!
*Ding* Obtained the skill: Basic Mana Bolt (active)!
*Ding* Obtained the skill: Basic Mana Barrier (active)!
*Ding* Obtained the skill: Basic Powerful Thrust (active)!
*Ding* Obtained the skill: Basic Earth Resistance (passive)!
*Ding* Obtained the skill: Butcher (passive)!
*Ding* Obtained the skill: Basic Mana Arrow (active)!
*Ding* Obtained the skill: Basic Poison Resistance (passive)!
There was barely anything of note in this bundle of notifications. He had gained tremendous skill levels in total. Not only in his new skills, but also in his previous skills. His class 7% extra learning speed was helping, that, Lariel could tell. Besides the number of new skills, there were other things of note. His Spear Mastery had reached Level 51 and evolved to Intermediate Spear Mastery.
*Ding* Congratulations! For hitting the Intermediate skill-related milestone in Spear Mastery, you have gained +5 Dex, Agi, End, Str.
Lariel was interested in knowing what he would get at the skill-related milestone for reaching Advanced. He had also reached another skill-related milestone. The one at 300 Total Skill Levels. His class was really showing its worth here because, in less than half an hour, he had gained almost 100 skills levels. Absurd.
Congratulations! +5 Free Stats for achieving another skill-related milestone.
Most of the names of the skills were self-explanatory. The Butcher skill helped him take the tongue and ears of the goblins, in the beginning when he had time and space for it. He had no idea why he hadn't gained it on the previous floor though.
The Poison Resistance was due to him getting stabbed with a poisoned knife. Not a good experience. The Earth Resistance, he gained because many goblins were throwing rocks at him.
He had used Heavy Blow in the beginning, but it was extremely Stamina taxing, so he just stuck with Powerful Thrust. The Mana Bolt and Mana Arrow were similar, but since the arrow spent more mana, Lariel focused on the bolt variation.
The Mana Barrier, he used quite a decent amount of times, mainly to stop those idiotic rocks, and managed to level it up nicely. The Dodge skill helped immensely because it came with something akin to future sight. He basically felt an attack coming around half the times something attacked him. It was very useful because his perception just kept expanding, and the information overwhelming him, so he turned it off. Apparently, you could do that to passive skills, and then activate them when you wanted, without spending anything.
All in all, it was a good haul. He looked at his status and decided that the skill part was a mess, so he just collapsed that part. He would organize them when he reached the orphanage. Which would probably be soon. He was getting out of his depth here. Not because of the levels, but because of the numbers. He needed to figure out a new area of effect spell so that he could progress further. His next stop would probably be the library.
His condition was not very good at the moment to continue. Some potions would go along nicely at the moment. The problem being, Lariel had none.
Status:
Money: 1 gold, 23 silver, 17 coppers
Name: Lariel
Class: [Rogue (Seeker Of Power)]
Level: 14
Health: 189/332 (Regen: 0.33/sec)
Stamina: 126/859 (Regen: 1.03/sec)
Mana: 354/1050 (Regen: 1.06/sec)
Strength: 17
Vitality: 22
Endurance: 41
Dexterity: 12
Agility: 13
Intelligence: 40
Willpower: 25
Perception: 22
Free Stats: 42
Bonus Stats per level: +2 End, Int | +1 Will, Per, Vit | +3 Free Stats | (10 Total Stats)
Skills: (365 Total Skill Levels)
One thing he realized was the reason why his class was considered a Rogue one. Health was not something very worked on by this class. The other reward stats favoring more the whole hunter style.
Before he went back to the orphanage, he would just see the third floor, rest there and then come back. He wanted to empty his ring before coming back for his two unfinished quests.
This time around, there was no one near the door. The waves of goblins making sure that no adventurer lingered here for too much time. And it would probably only get worse on the following floors.