For a moment, Sam stood there and thought about the situation. The monster was strong, yes, and had the high ground. But thanks to Discernment he knew well he could obliterate the monster with a few spells. But he was also aware that this was the first major event, and the developers were watching and, more than likely, they would be using the recordings of the fights in the Fracture Dungeons to create ads for the game.
While he had no problem appearing in those ads, and indeed there was nothing he could do against it, as the terms and conditions of the game were very explicit about using the gamer’s images, he didn’t want to share his most powerful spells with the public.
Those who manage to defeat the fracture bosses would be the current strongest and those who had an interest in these kinds of things would pay a lot of attention to the recordings. So, while he probably couldn’t avoid a partial reveal, he wanted to make sure that he kept at least a few secrets.
After briefly eyeing the giant spider, standing high up, its legs twitching in a manner that suggested they were ready to pelt them with exploding mites at the moment’s notice. Finally, he nodded resolutely.
“Katie, you go and bait,” the crazy girl nodded with a smile, and he continued. “Dan, you nuke while I snipe. Questions?”
Dan shook his head and made a few practice swings with his sizzling club. Katie just began jumping from one leg to another. Glancing at Clarissa, Sam saw her gently shaking her head.
Seeing as everybody was on the same page, he took a small breath and then exclaimed.
“Go!”
Instantly, Katie launched forward, enveloped by several gentle lights originating from Clarissa, while Dan began chanting and the air began to shimmer around him. The spider also reacted the moment the team began to move and by the time Katie was halfway towards the ledge where it rested, it flung two of the silk balls at the berserker girl.
Sam raised his sword and with a casual swing let go of two insanely fast but rather small Wind Blades, cutting the two balls of silk into two and exposing the bundled-up mites in them. For a moment, they hung in the air like a tennis ball cut into twain, and Katie was sent flying once again by an even bigger explosion.
But it was too late.
Before the spider could reach for another explosive projectile or react in any way, Dan finished his chanting.
He stood there, legs apart, both hands on his club, which was raised high in the air, and a baseball-sized flame hovered over it, shining brightly, almost completely white and the air around it wavering, showing how hot it actually was.
The moment the mites exploded, he swung his club toward the spider while finishing his chant.
“…let the flames of my dream strike my enemy down! Flame Strike!”
The ball of white-hot flame shot forward at insane speeds, with Sam almost expecting it to break the sound barrier, and almost conquering the distance between in a scant second before obliterating the spider’s head, not even leaving any material to fly off, simply burning everything and only leaving a sizzling wound on the torso of the insect adjacent being.
For a long moment, the spider’s legs moved on their accord, as if the monster didn’t know it was dead. Then it spasmed a few times and collapsed on itself. Ignoring the notification screen about the level-up and experience point gain, Sam simply turned toward Dan with a raised eyebrow.
“Flames of my dreams? That’s a real incantation?”
Dan smiled shyly and looked away, refusing to meet any of their eyes, scratching his head with one of his hands.
“My class teacher told me to use personal things in my incantation, as that makes it stronger…” he mumbled in answer.
Clarissa let out another sigh, while Katie was already up on the ledge pushing aside the rapidly vanishing corpse and looking for loot. Sam shook his head in exasperation.
“The best would be without incantation, but if it works for you…”
Dan began nodding vigorously. “Of course! How else would my enemy learn about my deep love of fire and plasma? How else would they bask in the glory of fire?” he declared in a loud voice and a massive grin on his face.
The others simply ignored him, with Clarissa finishing healing Katie and Sam jumping up and joining the berserker in looking for the loot. They found another set of Phantasmal Silks and one lone piece of equipment. Apparently, the spider was rather generous.
Sam picked up the simple tunic, obviously made from shimmering gray spider silk and started reading the screen that popped up.
[Phantasmal Silk Tunic: A tunic made from phantasmal silk and regular silk. Enchanted and enhanced, it provides an excellent defense to those who prefer to dress lightly.]
Naturally, they would need to have it identified to know exactly what kind of enchantment was on it, but even so, just the name ‘Phantasmal’ promised good things. Sam directed a sliver of his mana into the garment to try to identify the enchantments, but the only thing he got back was the feeling of safety and warmth.
He jumped back down to the others who were standing at the hole that led out of the cavern and showed them the item.
“We will know the full stats after we get it identified, but more than likely it will be a piece for Clarissa,” he stated while the healer nodded with a small, satisfied smile on her face. Sam suspected this was a surprise as she wasn’t really part of the company properly, just a healer on contract.
The others didn’t object and Sam put the item away, then motioned towards the dark corridor leading them toward their unknown future.
“Shall we?”
----------------------------------------
As they headed deeper and surprisingly higher, Sam noticed that the lichen providing the light grew darker and darker, and the light it gave continuously turned from lively green into a sickly dark green light.
The environment also began slowly changing. The wooden walls, filled with life, slowly turned drier and drier, showing a deathly pallor. And any time they touched it, their hands came away covered in gray dust, leaving hand-shaped indents on the walls.
The spider silk covering things also grew in amounts, slowly creeping over everything and leaving them with a suffocating feeling, as if they were being observed by something. Seeing as they were fighting against the spider, Sam could believe that the boss was observing them in some manner through the threads that infected the poor tree.
Clarissa was clearly walking closer to the team, sometimes anxiously rubbing her upper arms and glancing around. Sam could understand that, too. He had no fear of normal spiders, but giant, bus-sized spiders would creep anyone out. Especially ones so realistic.
And in the next chamber, they weren’t attacked by giant spiders, instead smaller ones, mixed with explosive mites, rushed them. These new spiders were the same size as the mites, but their legs up front ended in scythes dripping with some kind of dark green liquid that Sam would bet everything on was poison.
As the new spiders emerged from the holes high up on the walls hidden behind curtains of silk and sickly lichen, they raised their legs, ending in scythes and let out an echoing and rather creepy chitter.
Sam looked at the others, who nodded at him resolutely, then he turned to Clarissa. “Ready your best anti-poison…”
“Yes…” she whimpered while her eyes darted around, keeping her eyes on the spiders.
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Sam reached out with a hand and patted her shoulder (rather awkwardly) and gave her, what he hoped was, an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry, none of them will touch you.”
“I really need some fire spells…” she answered with a mumble.
Sam grinned. “I’m sure Dan will be happy to teach you!”
His answer was a heated glare from the woman, but then there was no more time to talk as the monsters were upon them, and the flames of war, or in this case, the literal flames from Dan, were around them.
And with a swing of his sword, turned the flames into a torrent that burned everything it touched into cinders.
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After the first chamber filled with exploding and regular mites, small spiders dripping with poison, they encountered two more caverns where they were besieged by the aforementioned monsters. They managed to tear through them, thanks to the judicious application of fire and even more fire.
However, they didn’t know how the other teams were handling the dungeon, as the game prevented them from accessing the internet from inside the dungeon to prevent them from asking for help or getting hints from others.
Pity, as reading about rival teams reacting to each other during an important dungeon run was always one of his favorite parts when reading that kind of novels in his previous life…
Instead, they trudged forward, the fates of their rivals a mystery.
After finishing the third cavern, filled with enough spiders to give an arachnologist issues, they took a little break.
They sat on the ground, drinking water from canteens and snacking on food made by the staff at the headquarters. Clarissa was carefully examining one of the Phantasmal Silk drops, running her fingers along the unnaturally smooth material and marveling at the feeling. Dan was sitting next to her, scribbling into a notebook and mumbling to himself. Katie was sitting next to Sam, humming quietly and brushing Puffball’s fur as it somehow gnawed on a spider leg.
Sam took a swig from his own canteen, letting the cold water refresh his body, and leaned against the dry and cracked wall.
“Any problem?” he spoke up quietly and turned a questioning gaze toward the others.
Katie simply shook her head and Dan finished writing whatever he was writing, then looked up.
“Mana is full, ready to blast anything that comes after us, boss!” he grinned mischievously. “I haven’t had this much fun in a VR game for ages!”
Clarissa looked at him. “I would say that as long as there are no more spiders, I’m good, but we all know what’s coming…” she stated with a deadpan face. Sam could only chuckle.
“Alright, good to know,” he answered cheerfully, then turned to the others. “Let’s take five, then we continue. I think there is only the boss fight left.”
After receiving agreements from everybody, he returned to his leaning and brought up his notification screen. It was time to check his gains.
Opening his notification screen he was once again greeted by a deluge of alerts.
[Congratulations! You’ve leveled up!]
[You are now Level 37!]
[Gained 6 unassigned attribute points!]
[Gained 1 END for your relentless march against the army intent on destroying you!]
[Gained 1 AGI for your haste in defeating your enemies!]
[Gained 1 PER for spotting the tree in the forest!]
Nodding to himself, he allocated the points quickly. Two into STR, one into DEX and AGI respectively, then one into WIS and finally adding one to VIT.
He frowned at seeing that his VIT only reached 19, but that could be remedied. And he would probably get enough experience from the boss to level up again. He gave the status screen a quick once over, then he took a look at the skill level-ups. Seeing the long list of skills, he couldn’t help but lament. ‘Can’t wait until I can upgrade them…’
[Mana Manipulation is now Level 26!]
[Thanks to your superb control, you gained the Mana Channeling subskill!]
[Mana Channeling: Level 0/5 (0%) (Passive) When channeling mana, thanks to your expertise, the mana cost of the spell decreases with time. For every 30 seconds of channeling, the cost is reduced by 5% for each skill level, to a maximum of 50%.]
[Mana Shield is now Level 59!]
[Layered Mana Shield is now Level 2!]
[Mana Tempered Body is now Level 23!]
The extra layer on his Mana Shield, despite the mana cost, was an excellent development, as he felt it would become useful in the coming fight. He spent a moment channeling mana towards it and slowly filled it up enough that it would take a few hits, then sat back, allowing his mana to regenerate while continuing reading.
[Perception Filter is now Level 2!]
[Mana Gaze is now Level 1!]
[Double Mana Slash is now Level 8!]
[Mana Body Enhancement is now Level 55!]
[Mana Influenced Body is now Level 8!]
[Mana Disruption is now Level 11!]
[Spell Layering is now Level 11!]
[Mana Construct is now Level 3!]
[Firespark II is now Level 8!]
[Clean III is now Level 9!]
[Earth Wall III is now level 8!]
[Wind Blade III is now Level 7!]
[Wind Bullet III is now Level 5!]
[Wind Bullet Barrage is now Level 9!]
[Wind Movement is now Level 23!]
[Wind Edge III is now Level 2!]
[Wind Affinity is now Level 47!]
[Windstream is now Level 3!]
[Active Meditation is now Level 40!]
[Serene Movement is now Level 4!]
[Battle Awareness is now Level 3!]
Sadly, Lucky didn’t have a chance to participate in the fights so far, so the skills related to his loyal companion didn’t grow. Even so, the growth was rather gratifying to see.
[Advanced Shadow Footwork is now Level 3!]
[Shadow Grace is now Level 1!]
[Shadow Transformation is now Level 11!]
[Shadow Shield is now Level 15!]
[Advanced Sword Mastery is now Level 11!]
[Basic Armor Mastery is now Level 28!]
[Thanks to keeping your armor almost religiously clean, you gained the Clean Armor subskill!]
[Clean Armor: Level MAX (MAX%) (Passive) Your mana got used to a certain spell, so the waste mana radiating from you will, over time, permeate and clean your armor.]
[Advanced Breathing Technique is now Level 7!]
[Calm Heart is now Level 42!]
[Steady Heartbeat is now Level 2!]
[Flow is now Level 37!]
Sam had to chuckle at the Clean Armor skill. He wasn’t a germophobe, but it still felt icky walking around with spider guts on his armor, so after every fight, sometimes even in the middle of a fight, he cast Clean on himself and his teammates. Apparently, he had been rewarded for his effort.
[Illusion Resistance is now Level 8!]
[Corruption Resistance is now Level 6!]
[Earth Resistance is now Level 4!]
[Multitasking is now Level 72!]
[Parallel Processing is now Level 7!]
Finishing with the notifications, he looked up, took in the others, then nodded. He began talking and slowly got up.
“Alright, folks! We all know what is coming, so let’s not be tardy…”
Dan cheerfully put away his notebook, Katie placed the protesting Puffball on her head, while Clarissa simply stood up with a groan.
As one, they turned towards the foreboding corridor that was completely covered from the ground to the ceiling with spider threads, and the few lichens that they could see only barely let out any light, creating a rather creepy atmosphere.
“Let’s go!”
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Surprisingly nothing attacked them during their journey through the creepy and desolate corridor. However, soon, the sickly green light originating from the lichens vanished completely. Nonetheless, they weren’t left in complete darkness, as from the exit of the corridor a soft pale light permeated the area, showing them the way.
Finally, after a few minutes of walking, they arrived at a giant plane, illuminated by real light coming from somewhere high up, filtered through the countless threads crisscrossing over their heads as spiders ranging from normal size to car-sized scurried around, doing who knows what.
In the middle of the giant area was a hole, leading downwards, surrounded by a mound of debris, creating something akin to a nest, albeit this one was filled not by twigs and feathers, but desiccated hides and bones bleached white.
All this was surrounding a giant ball of spider thread, on which Sam could spot a hole at the bottom. ‘Probably home of the boss… Joy…’ he grumbled in his mind as he cast his gaze and senses wide.
However, the moment they stepped on the floor, which was naturally covered by spider thread, there was a deep gong sound that echoed all around them.
“Oh-oh…” Dan exclaimed softly as he raised his club, while his head was on a swivel. “That doesn’t sound good!”
Instantly, all spiders froze from the smallest to the biggest and turned all their creepy little beady eyes toward the team.
Then there was a thud.
And another.
And another.
Finally, after a second, they could see a giant spider leg poke out of an equally giant spider thread ball in the middle of the area. Just the hairs on the leg they could see were as big as one of their arms.
The boss has arrived.