“Well... I think it’s time for a break,” Sam commented, looking somewhat worn.
“What? Why? We have done nothing but relax for the last 8 hours.” Janik responded with a shit-eating grin.
Sam could only look back at him with a deadpan expression. “I should charge you for these 30 runs.”
The difference between them was that Janik and Dia had just been relaxing in the first room of the Dungeon for the last 32 runs, whereas Sam had been invisible and re-doing the same run for the last full workday. And though using his Skills didn’t tire him, walking the same path repeatedly meant that he had been walking for 8 hours.
“I’d prefer if you... don’t?” Janik commented back almost as a question.
Sam knew that Janik wasn’t dumb enough to assume that this effort didn’t have worth. According to Janik’s repeated explanations, not many can do this with as little effort as Sam needs to put into it.
This had netted them a total of 39 600 000 XP each, counting all 40 kills per run, and the 2 million for completing the Dungeon and the Bonus objective.
Everyone had levelled from this.
Elara levelled twice, counting the level she got from the first test run. Sam was planning to put her points into Dexterity as they originally agreed, but Elara wished to have it put in Vitality, she wanted her Venom to increase in potency. Sam didn’t argue.
[ Elara XP to lv.23: 8 975 018 / 20 971 520 ██░░░ ]
Sam’s level was simply fixed, there was no reason for him not to put it in Spirit, giving him that extra point to gain another Energy, not to mention his extra HP.
[ XP to lv.24: 31 407 724 / 41 943 040 ███████░░ ]
Appraising Janik, Sam saw that he put his point into Dexterity, increasing his damage a little bit. His current and needed XP levels put him a bit lower than halfway to 24.
Dia capped out immediately as soon as the XP share went to her, she was back at full waiting for Sam’s next level before she could gain another of her own. Sam put her point into Dex, increasing her total damages a little bit.
Having run the place 32 times, had also given them the rewards a bunch of times. Though they only got the core of a few targets each run. The only targets that were always available were the first two in the first room, the seven in the courtyard and the four in the Boss room. The boss itself added to this but everything else had a chance to roll off, so there was a surprising amount of loss of cores through these runs.
In a few cases, Sam remembered or managed to catch things before they rolled off the ledges, but more often than not he didn’t. But this averages out to 20 normal cores and the boss core each run, netting them a sizeable stack of cores after the 32 runs.
Each run gave them an Aether Crystal each, and a bunch of Random boxes.
Sam got the short straw this round, and though he got 3 Health potions, 1 Mana potion and 59 Aether Crystals, he got nothing else.
Janik got a similar pile of crystals and potions, but he also got a weapon and a cloak.
The weapon Janik got was a Scimitar, he was quite annoyed at that as it didn’t classify as a Duelist’s weapon, so it wouldn’t properly fit his kit and it would deactivate some of his abilities. But it had a sleek, curved blade with molten orange hues as if there was a fire within it. The hilt was wrapped in charred leather radiant a faint and comforting warmth.
He was a bit happier about the cloak, it had silvery ripples with a slight shimmer of blues and grey. Along the hem were fine threads looking like lightning, he said that when he put it on it felt like the air changed around him a little.
[ Emberslash Blade, High-C tier
Damage: 70
Burning Strike: Strikes have a 20% chance to set the target on fire for 30 seconds.
Molten Arc: Critical hits send out a burst of fire in a cone. ]
[ Storm caller'sr’s Cloak, C-tier
Storm’s grace: Reduces Electric damage by 30% and increases movement speed in stormy or windy environments by 10%. ]
The blade wasn’t useless to Janik, but he preferred to keep with the straighter swords of his style that also worked better with his kit. Checking the app and cached market data, the rough price that Janik would get for the sword on the market was around 150-something thousand dollars, though it’d sell for much more than that there was no need to sell it to TAC when he could sell it for around the same price to Sam, and gain the boon of a stronger ally.
Agreeing on a price of $150 000, Sam added that to a transfer on his phone right away, meaning that it would go through the next time they were on Earth, or within a beacon near settlements that gave some form of data connection. Though this meant that if Sam’s phone had some problems or broke before they got in range, this money would not transfer; at this point Janik trusted him without question. There was also an unspoken comment about the runs done so far, so it felt like there was no need to go deeper.
One could also argue that Sam could request the blade for free, as a reward for the runs, but Sam didn’t bring that up and took the little discount from the sales price instead. The Emberslash Blade weighed the same as the Moonblade, so it needed two hands to wield properly, at least for now. But it has increased his damage potential slightly, two 20-damage daggers swapped out for 1x 70-damage sword with bonuses.
“How far are you from levelling again?” Janik ended up asking Sam as they were resting. Dia had sat down on the rock next to Sam and pressed herself against him.
“I need to do it eight more times, so another four hours,” Sam replied dryly. “I’d prefer not doing more of this one for a short while.”
Sam had his fill of this Dungeon, though it wasn’t stressful or that dangerous for him, having been through it a total of 33 times had taken its toll. And that was without mentioning about nine hours of walking through all of this.
Another annoying thing was that he hadn’t seen the Stat-edit icon on any of their Player Statistics, he still didn’t know what triggered this at all. He thought it might be related to killing a boss or clearing a dungeon, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Yeah... I can see that... “ Janik pondered a moment before continuing. “This might sound... weird coming from me but, I think with that tactic of yours, you might be able to take on the end-dungeon of the Second Floor, that’d get us to the Third one.”
This perked Sam up a lot, he knew it might be dumb to rush but given the ease, he was doing one of the harder Dungeons on this Floor.
“Though, it’s going to be much harder. The Dungeons here on the Second Floor start introducing non-combat elements. So far most things could be solved by combat, but now puzzles or challenges are a thing. And the Frostspire Chasm is... well... the end Dungeon here.”
Janik showed Sam and Dia, by proximity, an image on his phone from the Guide app. It was an aerial shot of a glacier, frozen wastelands, snow, and cold, seemingly taken by a drone.
“It’s at the top of that mountain in the distance there,” Janik moved a bit to find a good vantage point and pointed in the distance.
Sam got up from his rock to see where he was pointing, and in the far distance, hidden in snow and haze was a mountain reaching up into the clouds, disappearing into the sky.
“Ah,” Sam let out a realisation as he saw their next goal.
Janik got down from the ledge he climbed up on to see properly before he continued.
“It’s going to take us a few days to go there unless we charter a helicopter or something but that’s going to be stupidly expensive. Then we need to go to the entrance and first at that point-” Janik put hard pressure on the word ‘that’ as he explained. “-we can start the Dungeon. It’s going to be cold, super cold, and harsh. A lot of experienced players have died there from avalanches or local dungeon bullshit.”
Second thoughts crept up into Sam’s mind. “And we have to do this, we can’t just go to the next Floor without it?”
“Yep. The only way to get to the next Floor is to be part of a group that completes the last Dungeon on the Floor you’re on. Rich people pay experienced groups to do it for them, much like you blasted us through this one today. Just sit at the entrance and wait. If you can get hold of a skilled Player with teleport, this can be done very fast but... the cost increases dramatically.”
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“So, what you’re saying is that boosting or rushing costs a lot of money?” Sam asked with a sly smirk in Janik’s direction.
“Yes, the more experience, the faster, basically the more effective the boosting Player is the mo-” Janik stopped himself as he finally looked at Sam and saw his expression. “No. I’m not paying you for this.” Janik’s smile grew as he denied paying.
“Well, I can just not bring you in the future.” Sam smiled, abusing his position with a dramatic tone strongly suggesting this was a joke.
Janik sighed, his smile still present. “You might joke about it, but I will admit I have been somewhat... guilty for all of this. I could have paid you, given you items like letting you keep shit coming out of the Random boxes but... “
Sam broke in before Janik could. “Don’t worry about it, I know you got bills to pay. If you keep giving me access to shit you don’t need and stuff, at cost price, I’m kind of getting twice the odds for things.” His tone hinted more that he was persuading himself with this. He didn’t know what was in the future, near or far, so he needed people he could trust.
Though Elara didn’t do much most of the time, she was still an ally of his, Dia was more than one and Janik was the only person he could trust as much as he was. He didn’t want that to go and if nothing else, if absolutely nothing else; he is good company and smart when it comes to progression.
“Appreciated.” Janik smiled back, though his eyes weren’t entirely in it.
The feeling of the situation made Sam feel that Janik was still feeling guilty about it, but he also knew that his greed wasn’t entirely unwarranted. Being honest with himself, he was uncertain what the smartest thing was at the moment. Going alone, or rather, without a second Player would double his progression speed due to the shared XP, but... This was more enjoyable and probably just made it safer all around.
Perhaps they should agree on a deal, or perhaps Sam should just stop joking about it.
“With the dangers of this place,” Sam changed the subject instead, if felt more appropriate. “Are you sure we can handle it?”
“Yeah, if we get something to ward off the cold, some ice-climbing gear and perhaps a few potions as things in there hit like a truck, I think we can be fine.” Janik smiled.
“... What are we meeting in there?” Sam asked hesitantly as he sat back down.
Janik brought his phone back up and scrolled a bit before he answered. “There are the Frost Wraiths who are stealthy and want to freeze you, the Shatterbacks throw exploding ice at you and break the ice you walk on, the Ice Drakes fly around trying to knock you off ledges or just freeze you, the Blizzard Wisps can freeze you and obscure vision, the Chillbound Sentinels can crush you or shoot you with a beam of frost... freezing you, and lastly the Glacial Leviathan which is a three-phase boss. All of this is without mentioning the snowstorms... which can freeze you.”
Lifting his face with a smiling expression hinting that they might be screwed.
“Oh, so that’s all, glad there’s no cold there or anything,” Sam replied sarcastically.
Janik chuckled, looked back at his phone and continued. “Things in there have a Defence rating between 50 and 100, the boss has 150 and 3100 health per phase. So considering Defence, you might be surprisingly good at handling this alone. The problem is the damage they deal, the normal attacks average out around 100something, the larger things hit in the 300s, and things even have magic and breath attacks...”
“Soo... this isn’t sounding good...” Sam commented, it was sounding more and more like they were screwed.
“Oh, it isn’t, most of the fights have a chance to be knocked into or off something, like into a chasm or off ledges.”
“You’re not sounding like your normal ‘safety first’ self today, you ok?” Sam joked in a response. However, it wasn’t entirely a joke as Janik had been a grounding safety factor in their little group. Sam would probably survive on his own but Janik’s insight and more active use of the Guide app had made things much easier than if he had been alone.
Janik chuckled. “I suppose I’m getting affected by you,” he smiled solemnly like there was something else on his mind. “I’ve been stuck on the first Floor for so long, with my safety-first mentality. However, I won’t let that go anytime soon but... Everything of proper value is happening on the Fourth Floor. If we could just rush there and then take our time, it’d be great.”
Sam could understand his thoughts. Even he knew that for the most part, 99% of all Players would rush to the latest available Floor. Due to this, almost all Players, crafters and stuff happening would be there, at the forefront of progress or something like that. Janik’s safety mindset might have held him back a long time, and his need for money might have made progression harder. Sam had his reasons to progress, and with how his class and skills were progressing, they could perhaps get there in record time.
One part of him was considering just throwing money on getting through things right away. As Janik mentioned, there were rushers or boosters or whatever you wanted to call them, give them money and they were high-level and geared enough to just crush through everything and they’d suddenly be on the Fourth Floor. Parts of Sam wanted to look into this and just get there right away, but even he felt like this might be overdoing it.
If they did this, the first dungeons on the Fourth Floor might suddenly be too much for them, and it didn’t mean much to go there just to die. By doing the milestones for the next Floor themselves, at least they could get a taste for things, making sure they were ready without jumping too far. This didn’t mean that they weren’t going to rush things, but doing the start, a mid-range and the end Dungeon of each Floor at least gave them some taste of progression and expectations for the next one.
“Well, you’ve been right so far, so if you think we can do that Dungeon, I don’t see why we can’t try, right? I assume the emergency exit still works there?” Sam wanted to confirm with Janik about this, as he knew that some Dungeons would disable that function.
“Yeah, most of the Exit Blocking Dungeons start on the Third Floor, so we won’t meet many of them just yet. The few here on the Second Floor we’ve also avoided, so we’re going to be fine.” Janik’s smile turned more honest before he continued. “But, it’s not going to be ‘us’ doing this-” emphasizing ‘us’ as he spoke he continued. “It’s going to be you.”
Janik let that sink in for a second before he continued his explanation.
“On one hand I’d like all of us to be a part of it, but the Final Dungeon on this floor is a bit... over the top compared to many others. It’s harder than the first half of Dungeons on the Third Floor, not in pure combat power but in the bullshit surrounding it. And I think that you’re uniquely specced to handle it on your own.”
Sam pondered this for a moment, and he could be right. Though his invisibility wasn’t perfect, the synergy between his skills was surprisingly perfect for stuff like that.
“I say we go back to TAC, gear up with some clothing and stuff, get ourselves some good range walkie-talkies and such, and we can camp at the entrance of the Dungeon like we did this one-” Janik vaguely pointed back at the entrance portal for the Mountain Fortress Dungeon Sam had used the last few hours farming.
“-And selling all of this stuff will let me set up some solid backups in case things go weird for me as well, with the kids I mean.”
Janik had mentioned to Sam more than once that he needed money in case things went bad for him during his trips to the Tower. Setting up a backup for them in case he died was probably a good idea, not just for the logical side of things but for Janik’s mind.
They should get several million from today’s grind, so unless he chooses to use that money on something it should set them up for a while.
Nodding in agreement, Sam was fine going back, gearing up and perhaps getting something new from the Marketplace with his new pool of cash if there was something available.
“Ok, let’s go back, we’ll sell the shit and you can set up your backup as we gear up. Then we’ll get ourselves to the final Dungeon of this Floor.”
Dia had spent most of this time just relaxing against Sam, and Elara remained coiled around Janik as she had been doing during the grind as well. But for now, they needed gear to get to the Dungeon entrance, and even more so to complete the Dungeon itself.
“Sounds good,” Janik smiled as he started moving his body around, limbering up. “Would be nice with something to eat as well, I’m tired after all this relaxing.” His smile was properly wide and shit-eating, clearly at the expense of Sam who had been doing all the work today.
Sam decided to not comment on it, even though he wanted to joke that he’d leave him behind. Getting up from his stone had Dia almost fall over, they left the area heading back to Earth for some rest and gearing up before heading for the Frostspire Chasm.