The total jog took me about as long as I expected: 3 hours.
I checked the map periodically to make sure I was headed in the right direction and made adjustments accordingly. I found at one point when I wasn't paying attention, I had started to turn west so much I added probably another mile to my jog. I would’ve made it a bit sooner if it weren't for that.
Finally made it. They weren’t kidding about dungeons being pocket dimensions.
In front of me was an opaque blue swirling portal. It was rather intimidating to be honest. The prospect of going in there suddenly seemed a whole lot more dangerous now that I was here. But I made it all this way. I refused to go back now.
I downed one of my three remaining stamina potions and prepared myself to go in. I only just realized I never actually stocked up on potions like I told Luke I would.
Oh well. My Regeneration works for both health and mana. And I have stamina potions to supplement it’s one shortcoming. I’ll be fine.
I hyped myself up once last time and walked into the portal.
NOW ENTERING SLIME DUNGEON. PREPARE YOURSELF.
As I opened my eyes, I saw that I was in a damp cave that had twists and turns that prevented me from seeing very far in. I heard a squelching noise every couple of seconds coming from further in.
Okay, it makes sense that there won’t be any enemies right at the entrance. And where’s the light coming from?
I looked around but couldn’t find a light source. The whole cave seemed to be glowing a bit. It was ominous but not in a scary way. The light seemed to be coming from a line oblong the ceiling of the cave, at least that’s what I thought, given I still had a shadow and the stalagmites to my left also cast a small shadow.
“Alright, let’s get this party started!” I called out. As I did, I heard a large quantity of squelches start to get louder and louder. I cringed at the idea of getting swarmed by slimes.
Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t be talking in here. Or… maybe I should be talking more?
I had a brilliant idea. Or a very stupid idea. Results will determine which it is.
“COME AND GET ME YOU SLIMY BASTARDS!” I yelled out. The squelching noises more than tripled at that. I started approaching the first bend in the cave system and saw an army of slimes hopping, crawling, and rolling in my direction.
Hagrid, don’t let this be my final mistake.
I started casting Arcane Explosion after Arcane Explosion. The booms echoed all around the cave, beckoning more and more slimes forward.
I stopped casting explosions as the slimes seemed to thin in numbers. When they only came in groups of two to three, I switched to Mana bolts to save mana.
But wait. If each Mana Bolt costs 5 mana, and each Arcane Explosion costs 10 mana, it would be cheaper for me to keep using the explosions, right?
So that’s what I did. I waited for the slimes to get closer and group in tighter together before casting the explosions. After I killed what felt like the thousandth slime, I stopped to take a breather. All around me were slime cores. There had to be at least 60 scattered around the cave floor.
After a moment of not hearing any slime squelches, I started gathering the slime cores into a small divot in the floor that acted like a bowl. It only took me 5 minutes to gather them all. I looked around again and couldn’t find any more cores, so I bent down and willed the cores to enter my storage.
Storage (9/20)
0 g 66s 43 c
1. Bowie knife
2. 25 shirts (varied colors, cloth)
3. 10 pants (cloth)
4. 10 underwear (5 boxers, 5 sock pairs )
5. 13 rations (varied flavors)
6. 2 minor stamina potions
7. leather armor set
8. 5 books
9. Water skin (300 gallons)
10. 73 slime cores
I did some quick math to see how many slimes I probably killed. With a 80% drop rate, I estimated I had just massacred 91 slimes in just under 10 minutes. Unfortunately, slime kills don’t count towards the slime quest while inside of the dungeon. Otherwise, this would be a gold mine for everybody. Even as it stands, I just got almost 3 silver in loot. I could probably farm this all day too with my regeneration. I’m up to 367 mana per hour, so almost a mana every 10 seconds.
Health 240/240
Stamina 210/240
Mana 103/360
I decided to wait until I was back to a full mana pool before I continued my dungeon delve. I surrounded myself with a barrier, making sure to close the top off but allow air to flow through it freely. It took 30 mana to do it properly, but I could spare it since having the barrier around me meant I would be safe from any sneak attacks. I doubt slimes are smart enough to try anything like that, but I'd rather be cautious.
I was back on my feet in under an hour, anxious to get going. While I was meditating, I realized I should probably do this after every fight in the dungeon. That way I would have my full arsenal with me the whole time. It added an hour between fights, but as someone who was soloing his first dungeon, I didn't care. I was willing to wait.
I walked slowly onward through the twists and turns, keeping an ear out for any signs of slime activity. I went at a snail's pace for about 15 minutes before I heard anything. I assumed that meant that I had cleared off a good portion of the dungeon in just one go. Maybe I was a secret genius with my rather explosive ideas.
“HERE SLIMY SLIMY SLIMY! COME AND GET YOUR DINNER! I’M FRESH MEAT AND READY TO BE EATEN!”
The squelches started rapidly coming my way, almost as intense as the first wave of slimes I killed. I rounded the next corner and was met with a room absolutely packed with slimes. It was to the point where I wondered how anyone else did this dungeon without some major AOE skills.
I started blasting the slimes as they came. I was more methodical about it this time, aiming for the more densely packed groups first. I wanted to be as efficient as I could.
It took around 18 castings of Arcane Explosion over 8 minutes to fully get rid of all the slimes. After the last slime went down, I waited a full minute, straining my ears to hear anything. After a whole lot of silence, I started gathering all the slime cores in the room. The whole room was about 60 feet in diameter. I gathered the slimes core in the center for an easier time getting them into my storage. I found a couple of cores behind a group of stalagmites on the far left of the hallway I came through.
After piling them up, I added them all to my storage. I now had 167 slime cores in my bag. Judging by how many cores I had, I’ve probably killed the full 210 slimes. I guess I lucked out and got the weaker version of the boss on my first run.
Speaking of which, the boss should be the only monster left in the whole dungeon.
I sat down, cast my barrier, and started thinking of my battle strategy.
I was a little nervous at the thought of fighting it. I think my current plan should be to do to it what I've been doing to the goblins with Griffith. I’ll cage it in a barrier, then start spamming Arcane Explosions until either it dies, or I run out of mana. If it comes to that point, I’ll gladly turn tail and run.
If I can't surround it with my barrier, then I'll still be spamming my explosion spell, but I'll be a whole lot more willing to run if that’s the case.
I waited an hour for my mana to completely refill, and though it finished in under the hour, I still waited. I was nervous to face my first boss monster. Sure it was only a stronger version of one of the weakest monsters, but I was still considered a new adventurer. I want to prove I'm strong, but I don't want to die either. This world might have some video game logic to it, but by the reactions of everyone around, it does not include a revival feature. One death is a true death. All it takes is one mistake.
I stopped bumming myself out and instead focused on the prize at hand. I had a bracelet to get, and I had plenty of ammo to feed it to grow stronger.
“Here goes nothing.”
I dropped the barrier and continued on my way. I went down the next hall and came to another entrance to a large room. I walked to the edge of the entrance and peaked in. Inside the room was a giant slime that had 3 dark cores floating inside itself. It didn’t appear to notice me yet, so I went back to the hall to take a breather.
Okay Claff. Just like you planned. Cast a barrier around it to confine its movements, then start blasting it with multiple Arcane Explosions. Realistically, it should only take a couple of seconds, max. You’ve got this.
All hyped up, I peered around the corner again. I made sure to stick my head in just enough to get a clear view of the monster. When I had the entire thing in my line of sight, I started casting my barrier, and dumped an entire 100 points of mana into it. I wasn’t willing to risk the barrier failing.
As soon as the barrier went up, the giant slime started bouncing around, looking to be in a panic. It only had a foot of wiggle room to bounce though. I ensured it would be a tight fit in there.
It only bounced at the barrier twice before I remembered the second part of the plan.
Oh right, I actually have to kill it now.
I ran into the room and started casting multiple Arcane Explosions in a row. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the damn thing died on the first casting. All three slime cores floating in its stomach burst from the first wave of energy that hit them.
Not taking any chances, I almost emptied my entire mana pool trying to destroy the giant slime. I paused when I only had one more casting in me, my head pounding from only having 10 mana in my body.
The entire boss fight only took 10 seconds, from the moment I caged the slime boss to when I realized the boss was dead. I dropped the barrier, and the tension on my mind lessened a good deal. I walked to where it was set up, and in its place sat three slime cores.
Well, better luck next time.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
I stored the cores and went to leave the dungeon when a portal appeared in the doorway.
Sweet a quick exit. That’ll make farming this a whole lot easier. Now I have to wait an hour for the dungeon to reset, and I can go again. Time for lunch!
I walked through the newly appeared portal and I was suddenly outside. I pulled out one of the new rations I got with Sarah and went to town on it. It was a lemon chicken dinner. In all honesty, if I had been spoiled by how good the food was at Half Moon, I could probably call this the best food I've ever had.
After I finished my meal, I pulled my status up to see how I'm doing on levels.
User: Claff:
Health 240/240
Stamina 235/240
Mana 70/360
Quests [2]
Kill Goblins 0/∞
Kill Slimes 0/∞
Party [0]
Equipment
Ring of Mana Regeneration (20%)
SKILLS
PASSIVE
Enhanced Body Lv 7 [67%]
Increased Mental Capacity Lv13 [81%]
Regeneration Lv14 [83%]
ACTIVE
Arcane Magic Lv 10 [29%]
Barrier Magic Lv 10 [16%]
Game-like Storage Lv9 [19%]
Storage (10/20)
0 g 66s 43 c
1. Bowie knife
2. 25 shirts (varied colors, cloth)
3. 10 pants (cloth)
4. 10 underwear (5 boxers, 5 sock pairs )
5. 10 rations (varied flavors)
6. 2 minor stamina potions
7. 1 leather armor set
8. 5 books
9. Water skin
10. 170 slime cores
“Sweet! Both Arcane and Barrier magic skills leveled! I wonder what I'll get.” If I can't talk to myself in the dungeon, I'll have to make up for it outside then. “I don’t want to wait to get the new spells, but I also don’t want to deal with possibly being attacked right now. Even though this place is dead silent, I still don't want to risk it yet. I’ll do it when I get back to my room at Half Moon in a couple of days. And damn. I should’ve grabbed a sleeping bag while I was in town. I’ll have to remember that for when I get back to Silface. There’s no guarantee I'll get the bracelet on any of these runs coming up.”
I sat around for the remainder of the hour meditating and listening for any possible noises that might indicate a monster. Thankfully, none showed up.
I got up at around the hour mark and stretched a little before going back into the dungeon. I was a lot more confident this round since I had a solid plan that I knew worked.
I walked through the portal and immediately started taunting the slimes.
“YOU LITTLE BLOBS COULDN’T HURT A FLY THAT LANDED RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! HOW DO YOU THINK YOU’LL EVER PUT A SCRATCH ON ME!”
I yelled a few more silly things and rounded the corner to see the horde of slimes quickly squelching my way. I started blasting the slimes, trying to conserve mana so I didn't have to wait as long between fights.
This horde was smaller than the last one I had to deal with. It took me only 3 minutes before I was out of slimes to destroy, as opposed to the previous 8 minutes. When I was done, I gathered all of the slime cores into the bowl in the ground I found last run through and added them to my storage. I only found 48 slime cores in this room. It didn’t make me feel too good about how the next room and then the boss was going to be. My math told me there were only around 60 slimes in here.
I had to wait around 25 minutes before I was at full mana again. I didn’t bother with the barrier this time, and opted to keep a closer eye out for any slime assassins instead. As I had yet to die, I stood back up and went back to it. I was more confident in my slow pace to the second slime chamber, but still mildly nervous about it.
I found the chamber exactly where it was last time. I did the usual taunt and blasted the slimes in my methodical manner. There were more in this room than the last, but still not nearly as many as the first time I came in here. The slime core count for this room was 65. That meant there was likely around 80 slimes in here.
So I gotta deal with a stronger boss this time, eh? That’ll be interesting. Hopefully he’s not that much stronger.
I waited for my mana to fill up again and went straight to the boss chamber. I stopped at the edge of the hallway and peaked around the corner to a slime that was at least as tall as I was. Not to mention that it had 12 more cores than the last boss had.
Hagrid, what are you doing to me man! I’m just trying to get the friggin bracelet! Was an easy boss too much to ask for?
I swear I could hear laughing.
I took a deep breather. Alright, just like before. But faster on the explosions this time. There’s no room to mess up.
I looked around the corner and cast my barrier around the entire giant slime and immediately started throwing Arcane Explosions at it. I didn’t bother checking to see if the boss was dead. I spent 100 mana on the barrier and then threw 200 more points of Arcane Explosions at it. It all happened in less than 5 seconds.
When the dust settled, I saw that there was a small pile of 15 slime cores laying in the barrier. I walked into it and put the cores into storage.
I walked out the portal and felt a little disappointed that I didn't get the bracelet this run either. I sat and relaxed while waiting for the dungeon to reset.
The next two runs netted another 274 mana cores for my storage. Yet I still didn’t get the damn bracelet. I did notice a pattern though. The number of scores in the boss's body went down by one every time the dungeon reset, with the exception being the first run through I did. The third run had 14 cores in its body and the fourth run had 13 cores. I assume the minimum number of cores needed to make the boss was 3, and that was the reset point of the cycle of decreasing cores.
“I wonder if the bracelet only drops at a certain point of the cycle. Like it only appears when the boss has 10 cores. That would explain why people think the bracelet has such a low drop rate. But it would be lower than 10% drop rate though. If the cycle is 15 down to 3 cores, then it would be closer to 7% or 8%. But with it being so close, that would still make a reasonable margin of error. Alright, I’ll go through each numbered boss and see which one it drops at. If my prediction is right, then I only have to go through 10 more dungeon runs before I get the bracelet!”
Turns out that was a false idea. Over the next day and a half, I did those 10 runs instead of sleeping, and not a single bracelet was dropped. I wasn’t mad though. I still had quite the build up of slime cores, 2102 cores total. I started to keep track of how many cores I got from each run, and how many cores came from the boss, by writing in the back of the bestiary I bought. It had a blank page before the cover, so I used my knife and dipped it in some mud before writing with the tip of it. It wasn’t exactly clean or neat, but I could still read it.
Slime dungeon slime core count per run
1. 170 (3 from boss)
2. 128 (15 from boss)
3. 135 (14 from boss)
4. 140 (13)
5. 141 (12)
6. 144 (11)
7. 147 (10)
8. 148 (9)
9. 150 (8)
10. 156 (7)
11. 155 (6)
12. 159 (5)
13. 163 (4)
In that time, all of my skills except for my Enhanced Body leveled.
It’s fine. I still have plenty of time. I’ll just keep going and getting more cores for when I eventually get the bracelet.
I walked into the dungeon, prepared for my fourteenth run, and my first repeat run with the same number of cores in the boss.
NOW ENTERING SLIME DUNGEON. PREPARE YOURSELF.
I was greeted by the now familiar notification, and readied myself to start hollering for the slimes. I took a deep breath in and couldn’t find it in me to yell. Instead, I just let it out and let off an Arcane Explosion in front of me.
The noise did as good a job as me yelling to get the slimes riled up. The squelching could be heard even over the echoes of the resulting boom.
I swept through the slimes with practiced ease. I waited for a few minutes until I had over 300 mana, then went on to the next room to repeat the same process. I gathered another 163 cores this run so far.
With the boss room up next, I decided to experiment and see how many explosions it took to actually kill the giant monster. I waited for a full resource pool and then continued on.
I put the barrier up around the slime and started by casting a single explosion. The boss died instantly.
Are you kidding me? All this time, I've been wasting how many casts trying to kill this thing? It only takes ONE explosion?
I felt slightly irritated and left the room after gathering the 3 mana cores it dropped.
Still no bracelet. What the actual fuck.
“Okay, that’s it. Next run, I want to see what the second stage of this boss looks like. I’ll keep most of my mana on reserve in case anything changes, but I want to see what a dungeon boss can actually do.”
It had just passed mid-day, so I had lunch and waited for the dungeon to refresh. I had so much experience grinding through dungeons in my video games in my past life, that I had no problem farming this stupid boss for his single bracelet. That’s not to say i didn’t get irritated, but i was willing to do what it took to get what i want.
The hour went by quickly. I took a power nap for around 30 minutes after I ate and went back in. I swept through the slime spawns with next to no effort. I ended this last 15 slimes with a mana bolt each this time, though the first few needed some spare shots to properly kill. I still needed to practice my aim, and these blobs of jello were just rolling targets.
I gathered the cores like always and did the same for the next room. I added 110 cores to my collection before getting to the boss.
Well, at least I'll have plenty to feed the bracelet when I get it. It’ll be getting over 2300 cores to eat. I wonder how much it’ll grow from that?
I was exhausted from the lack of sleep, but still pulled up my resources to see how much mana I currently had.
Health 240/240
Stamina 75/240
Mana 70/380
I waited to get full mana and then put a 100 mana barrier over the boss slime. I started wildly bouncing off the wall, though it didn’t have much room to bounce. I had gotten better at making the barrier fit around the monster without leaving a gap. It had about 6 inches on either side of it before it ran out of room.
I checked the stability of the barrier as the boss collided with it. Barely a point of mana was taken away from the spell pattern with every hit. I had plenty of time to experiment. I Fired mana bolt after mana bolt at the giant blob. The first grouping missed all the cores, but after that, I got every last orb floating in my mortal enemy except one. It shuddered as its fourteenth core was destroyed. It slowed down its jumping around by a lot. Then it seemed to spin. It looked to be rotating extremely fast in the barrier. Then it started to pelt the barrier with globs of its own flesh.
This must be the corrosive slime shot I read about. It’s not very impressive, though it is damaging the barrier a bit more than just jumping at it did.
The slime it was shooting started to pool at its feet and corroded the stone underneath it. I was surprised at how strong the acidic aspect of the slime was. But that little trick won’t do anything for it.
I reached out with my mana and started adjusting the barrier to also cover the newly opened gaps between the barrier and the floor.
After 5 minutes of nothing of interest happening, I started to get bored. I added another hundred points to the barrier to ensure the boss wouldn’t go anywhere. That still left me with 110 points of mana in case of emergency.
I started to explore the boss room a bit. At first, it looked similar to the previous two rooms, but after walking its perimeter, I realized, this room had no stalagmites or stalactites. I pondered that for a bit as I kept my slow walk going.
I came to the realization that the rock formations in the other rooms were probably for slimes to hide in. Unfortunately, it just happened that all the slimes that were hiding were getting hit by the outer edges of my explosions. Quite fortunate, really.
When I reached the hallway that led back to the second room of the dungeon, I decided enough was enough. I cast an explosion in the middle of the barrier and put the giant monster out of its misery.
The remaining slime glowed in its ethereal way as the monster’s body disappeared. In its wake was the beautiful bracelet surrounded by 15 slime cores. I nearly cried from joy. I walked over and bent down to pick it up. I added the cores to my storage almost as an afterthought.
“Oh such beauty. I thank you, beautiful dungeon for this glorious gift. And I hope to never see another slime in my lifetime. Well, after tomorrow that is. I still have another day of farming you. After I get some sleep, of course. It’s been too long since I felt the warm embrace of a soft bed.”