As the golden light engulfed him, Michael closed his eyes.

He opened them again after when the intensity and color of the light he could perceive changed.

“So, this is the first floor of The Dungeon…” muttered Michael as he looked towards his new surroundings with a speculative expression on his face. The walls were made of protruding rock and were extremely irregular and the floor was just hard ground with rocks rising from it. The first floor was bathed in a purplish-blue light coming from many glowing crystals that grew alongside the rocks.

While it was definitely darker in here than in the surface, it was still a bit brighter than at night while during a new moon.

Michael looked back and saw that there was only a wall of rock and crystals behind him and when he looked down, he saw that he was standing on a small version of the magic circle that transported him inside of The Dungeon. Michael knew that there were dozens of these scattered through each floor and they were used to exit the dungeon. To activate them you only needed to step on them.

Michael allowed a grin to appear on his face as he stepped off the magic circle as he unsheathed his claymore. The first thing that the pamphlet Lupa had given him said was that you always had to keep your guard up while inside The Dungeon. Monsters spawned from its walls and there wasn’t an assured safe zone on any of the floors. That meant that you could be attacked anywhere and at any time.

Michael wasn’t going to let himself be killed by something as stupid as being distracted. As a rookie adventurer, he knew that he had to take every advice he got, no matter the source, from those with more experience than him seriously. He had to be alive if he wanted to accomplish his goals after all.

The words proved to be true when not even two full minutes later, a section of the wall a few feet in front of him and to the right rippled almost as if it was water being disturbed by a falling rock. Michael watched in fascination as a goblin quickly jumped from the rippling surface and turned aggressively towards him as it bared its sharp, drooling teeth and brandished its wicked claws while snarling and glaring at him with its sickly yellow and red eyes.

As Michael immediately slipped into his opening stance, he noticed the differences between a dungeon goblin and a surface goblin. The dungeon goblin was slightly taller and more muscular than its surface counterpart. It had green, tough looking skin while the surface goblin had brown, slightly wrinkly skin. Also, the dungeon goblin seemed to be more feral and aggressive than the surface ones. And, unlike the surface goblins who normally ran around completely naked, the dungeon goblin was wearing a loin cloth that thankfully covered its genitalia.

Since it was known that all goblins were male, that was a sight that Michael could forever do without. Not that he thought that female genitalia would look good on a goblin either.

The goblin gave a high-pitched squeal before launching itself towards Michael, its claws gleaming as they reflected the lights of the crystals.

‘It’s also a bit faster…’ thought Michael as he stared at the charging goblin with derisive and disgusted expression on his face. ‘… but just as stupid!’ Michael was most certainly not afraid of the nasty creature coming towards him with the clear intent of murdering and then feasting/bathing on his innards. He had been fighting the little shits for so long that even though it looked a bit different and was obviously a bit stronger than those he’d faced before, it’s actions showed him that, well, a goblin was still a goblin.

When the goblin jumped, Michael just thrusted his claymore forward and pierced the goblin right through its chest. Michael enjoyed its shocked and pained expression before it went slack. It had been completely skewed through and due to the momentum it had carried, its body had ended at about the central portion of the blade of his claymore.

Before Michael could attempt to remove it from his sword, the body of the goblin suddenly burst into black tendrils of smoke that quickly dispersed without the aid of air. Michael blinked when he saw that the disgustingly thick black blood of the goblin covering some of the surface of his blade was also quickly evaporating.

“That’s convenient,” commented Michael as he crouched down and picked up the small purplish-black crystal the goblin had dropped when it had disappeared. Michael saw that it was about as long as his fingernail and estimated that it couldn’t be thicker than the inner carbon of a pencil. “… so this is an Essence Crystal, huh? They are smaller than what I expected,” he commented as he took a moment to observe it from all angles.

Michael eventually shrugged and stood up as he slipped the Essence Crystal into one of the bags attached to his waist. He decided to accumulate as much as he could for now before using them to either acquire Origin Essence to level up or to exchange them for coins depending on their value for each.

Gripping the handle of his claymore tightly, Michael walked forward into the first floor… only for him to stop before he took even five steps as the walls in front of him rippled in three different sections. Three goblins identical to the first one appeared a few feet in front of Michael and they looked even angrier and uglier than the first one.

Michael grinned and with a mental command, his left hand was covered in the flames of his Fire Manipulation. He had discovered the day he received access to the System and his classes that he didn’t need to call out the name of his skills to use them. Focusing and thinking of using them was enough.

At the sight, the goblins just growled and snarled before charging towards him.

Laughing at their stupidity, which was apparently a trait of the goblin race, Michael raised his left hand and released a stream of flames on the first goblin as he jumped back a bit. The other two goblins ignored their brethren screeching in agony as it rolled around on the floor trying to quench the magical flames that were burning it. They flanked around it and continued their charge towards Michael.

Grin still in place, Michael quickly changed from Fire Manipulation to Lightning Manipulation as the flames engulfing his left hand were substituted by crackling electricity. He used [Sparks] on one of the goblins and sent into a screeching and spasming heap to the ground before turning his attention to the last goblin, who just snarled and jumped towards him.

Michael just swung his claymore diagonally and bisected it in two across its torso. The two halves dispersed into black tendrils of smoke before they fell to the ground.

He ignored the Essence Crystal for now and turned towards the other two goblins. The one he’d used [Sparks] on was still writhing on the ground and Michael ended its misery and pain by impaling it through its chest, making it dispel and drop its own Essence Crystal.

Michael heard a low and pained snarl and he looked up to see the goblin he had used [Flames] on was weakly trotting towards him, its hide littered with burns and its loincloth nowhere to be seen, making Michael grimace when he saw its burned genitalia, which made it even more disgusting.

Michael quickly approached it and decapitated it with and horizontal slash before it could react.

The moment the goblin dispersed, Michael blinked as a System notification appeared in front of him.

[Blade Mastery has reached LVL 2.]

Michael grinned before mentally dismissing it. “I think I’m starting to like this…” he said to himself as he went and picked up the Essence Crystal before putting them on the bag along with the first one he got.

When he finished and began to walk once again further into the first floor, the walls in front of him rippled and more goblins spawned. Michael returned their snarls with an almost savage grin of his own as he slipped into his stance and his left hand was engulfed in flames. He pointed at the goblins in front of them with his claymore. “Are you ugly fucks going to stand there all day or are you going to die by my blade?!”

The goblins growled before charging forward.

Michael’s eyes glinted and he just laughed before charging to meet them head on.

-XXX-

Michael lost count of the number of goblins he’d killed after the two hundred and fifty mark. For the last five hours or so Michel had been fighting and killing the nasty and ugly creatures practically non-stop. He had discovered that as long as he didn’t move too much, he could extend the time that would pass before more goblins spawned for a bit more than a minute. He used that small timeframe to allow his body rest enough to reduce the amount of fatigue he accumulated.

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He hadn’t run into many adventurers since this was just the first floor and even though the size of the ‘corridors’ might suggest otherwise, he knew that all the floors expanded to an area that was as the same size of Orus. Because of that, Michael ran into three adventurers that like him were obviously rookies. Michael knew that the only reason that happened was because of the influx of rookies due to the Day of Gaia’s Gift that happened the day before yesterday. That should give you an idea of the sheer size of the first floor of The Dungeon.

He managed to fill one of the three bags completely and a second one already had a few Essence Crystals inside of it. Since he was hungry and was satisfied with what he had accomplished so far, Michael decided to take a short break to eat the dried meat he’d brought with him before he was back it again. He only had a few minutes before goblins started to spawn again.

As he ate, Michael recalled how much his skills had grown with the constant fighting. He had stuck to using the ones provided to him by his [Blader] and [Elementalist] classes only. Since those were the ones displayed on his guild card, he felt that he needed to give them a bit more of priority right now.

[Blade Mastery] had rose to level five, each subsequent level obviously harder to reach than the previous one. He’d noticed that when he’d reached level five, there had been a marked improvement to his usage of the claymore compared to when the skill had been at level one. His movements had become smoother and the blade had felt even more comfortable in his hands as well.

While he had used all of his elemental manipulation skills, they had only increased by one level each. That made him realize that with those skills there was more to leveling them up than just using them. He had a few theories that he felt could be the answer but he was not going to be testing them now.

Michael finished the dried meats and it was just in time as five goblins spawned in front of him. Michael had noticed that after a while the number of goblins that would spawn in front of him would always be five, no more and no less. For the first hour or so the number randomly alternated from one to four before they became always five. Michael had just shrugged and gleefully accepted it. With his higher intelligence, magical abilities and superior physical prowess and reach, killing goblins had become something akin to a menial chore to him.

After a short moment of contemplation in which he watched the goblins charge at him, Michael decided that he would start using his other abilities as well from now on.

He raised his arm and presented his palm towards the incoming green creatures. He focused on his [Mana Manipulation] skill and the subskill he had acquired when he had first used it the day before yesterday while testing it out. A glowing dark blue sphere of condensed magic power appeared floating in front of his palm. ‘Mana Bolt!’ He declared in his mind and the floating sphere of magic power shot forward towards the goblin at the front.

It collided directly with its head and Michael watched as it just exploded in a shower of black blood, green flesh, gray matter and other fluids that bathed the other four goblins as the headless body of their brethren fell limply to the ground before dispelling.

As they got angrier, one of the goblins blinked before it was suddenly decapitated as Michael appeared in front of it when he used [Teleport] after he closed the distance a bit to use the skill effectively. Two goblins lunged at him and Michael used [Time Alter] to slow down his perception of time. With the five second window allowed to him by the skill, Michael quickly decapitated the two goblins just before his perception of time was back to normal and the final goblin attacked him.

Michael made an upwards motion with his index and middle finger and an earth spike rose from the ground right beneath the goblin, making it screech in agony as it was impaled directly through its crotch area. Michael didn’t allow it to experience suffering for long as he quickly killed it by impaling its chest.

[Teleport has reached LVL 2]

[Time Alter has reached LVL 2.]

Michael grinned at the notifications. With the increase on their level, [Teleport] now allowed him to teleport within fifteen in any direction from where he was and the slowing perception of time of [Time Alter] had increased to ten seconds. While he could only use those skills sparingly compared to his other ones, he was still going to use them as much as he can. They were absolutely broken and he couldn’t wait to max them out.

Michael quickly picked up the five Essence Crystals and put them in the second bag he started to fill up. As the walls rippled and five more goblins appeared, Michael didn’t waste any time to appear in front of the closest one to him and remove its head and left arm with a diagonal slash of his claymore. The remaining four goblins snarled towards him and lunged as Michael just laughed and began to bath them in flames.

He really, really enjoyed killing goblins.

-XXX-

Michael was not surprised to see that when he used one of the smaller magic circles to exit the first floor of the dungeon that he appeared in a different room from the one he had used to enter it in the morning. He had only seen people entering the dungeon using that room and with the sheer number of adventurers that were coming in and out of it at all times, the only logical conclusion was that another room was used to exit.

Michael saw that there was also a man standing at foot of the stairs wearing similar armor to the one he had seen that morning in the entrance room of The Dungeon. He nodded in acknowledgement at the man and it was returned with a nod and an impressed look when the man noted his three full bags of what were obviously Essence Crystals. Michael knew that it was only impressive because he was a rookie.

Michael went up the stairs and into the main hall of the guild. Since it was already evening there weren’t a lot of adventurers there and he smiled when he saw that Lupa’s booth was free at the moment. He could see that she was reading something though by her expression it wasn’t something too important so he decided to approach her.

The moment he stood in front of her he noticed that something was… different. When she seemed to sense his presence, she looked up from what Michael noticed was a book of some sorts and Michael gave her a curious and confused look. “You aren’t Miss Lupa, are you?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “And what makes you say that, Mister Kane?”

Michael faulted a bit when she called him by name. Even her voice was the same but he was sure that the woman in front of him, despite being nearly identical, wasn’t the kind woman that interacted with him yesterday. “Well, the fur on your ears is darker and your hair is wavier and a bit longer than yesterday. Unless you used magic to change those, that just doesn’t happen within a day. And you are wearing your guild pin on the right pocket of your blouse. Yesterday it was on the left. I know people usually wear them on the same place, so…”

The woman looked at him seriously for a moment before giving him a pretty smile. “When my sister told me that there was a new interesting rookie becoming an adventurer, I didn’t think it would be to this extent,” she said before covering her mouth as she giggled. When she finished, she regarded him with familiar interested and curious eyes. “My name is Rema. Lupa is my twin sister.”

‘There are two of them!’ He thought with some perversion as he took notice of the fact that their bodies were also identical. Michael made sure his inner thoughts didn’t show on his face as he nodded in understanding. “I see. Then it’s very nice to meet you, Miss Rema. So, both you and Miss Lupa work here?”

Rema nodded her head. “That’s correct. She works the morning shift while I work the afternoon one,” she said before regarding Michael with a speculative gaze. “You know, this is the first time a boy manages to tell us apart from just meeting us once. It usually takes longer than that for guys. You are a very observant person.”

Michael smiled at her. “Thanks. I’ve been told that before.” That was true. Chuck had told him more often than not that he had a good eye for detail. It had showed whenever they had gone hunting or done other things at the farm that required a lot of attention to get done.

Rema returned his smile before adopting a more serious demeanor. “Is there anything I can help you with, Mister Kane?”

Michael nodded as he reached for his bag and put them in the counter of her booth. “I wanted to know what would be better for me now: to exchange these Essence Crystals for coins or to absorb them to get Origin Essence and increase the level of my classes?”

Rema’s eyebrows rose in a bit of disbelief as she stared at the three bags that were filled to the brim with essence crystals. “… just how long did you spend on The Dungeon and how many monsters did you kill?” She couldn’t help but ask in a faint voice as she stared at the bag.

Michael didn’t seem to notice her shocked state as he answered thoughtfully. “Well, the sun still wasn’t up when I went in this morning and I am just coming out so I’d say about fourteen to fifteen hours more or less. And I lost count of how many goblins I killed after about two hundred and fifty,” he answered in an almost sheepish manner. That was more or less the amount of time he spent working and training before the Day of Gaia’s Gift.

Rema couldn’t help but give him a wide-eyed look. “Fifteen hours?! All of this is from the goblins of the first-floor?!” She whisper-shouted as she looked at him incredulously.

Michael finally noticed her expression and he became a bit unsure. “Um, yeah? I decided I wanted to explore a floor completely before going to face the floor boss. I think I managed to explore around twenty percent of the floor today. Erm, is there something wrong?” He ended up asking after his explanation when he noticed that her face had gone blank.

Rema stared at him for a few moments unflinchingly before she began to giggle out of nowhere. Michael was honestly weirded out by the sudden and random action but he didn’t say anything as he just continued to look at Rema with a slightly uncomfortable expression on his face.

When she finished giggling, Rema looked at him with an intense and interested expression on her face. “You are a most interesting person, Michel Kane. I look forward to getting to know you better in the future,” she said and Michael wasn’t sure whether he was more excited or terrified by the look on her face and the tone of her voice when she uttered those voice.

In the end, he just nodded at her and returned her smile with a confident (not entirely, to be honest) one of his own. “I look forward to getting to know you and your sister better, Miss Rema.”

“My, my... how bold and greedy,” she said in a teasing voice and her smile widened when he only twitched a bit at that. After another giggle, her slightly more serious demeanor returned as she focused on his bags of essence crystals. “As for what you should do with these, I suggest you use them to increase the level of your classes exclusively until you reach the tenth floor. Up to that point, the essence crystals you get aren’t worth more than fifty bronze coins and their worth in origin essence is more valuable for the levels your classes should be at that point.”

Michael began to listen intently as she explained the conversion rates of essence crystals depending on the monsters they came from and their quality and other matters. If he also took advantage of this to bask in how pretty and sexy she was, no one could really blame him. If Rema wasn’t complaining nor calling him out on it, why should he abstain from doing so?