I started the delve by warning Bran that it would be getting very loud. He nodded his understanding and I approached the first room. As I approached, I fired off a single Arcane Explosion.
When I heard the appropriate squelching of the slimes, I rounded the corner and fired 10 explosions in the span of a second. I spread them out so that they'd cover the entirety of the room. Not a single slime was left alive. It wasn’t the efficient method I had been using the last couple of times I ran the dungeon, but I was trying to make a good impression.
After the echo stopped, Bran laughed. And he laughed hard.
“Damn Claff. You weren’t kidding about it being loud. So that’s how you got your achievement. Pure brute force. Just how much did that barrage of yours cost anyway? It was quite impressive, even by my standards.”
“It was a round of 10 spells, 10 mana each. I made sure to cover every corner of the room, including the slimes that are hiding behind the stalagmites. I started off with a full mana pool, and depending on how you want to do things, I doubt I'll use half of my current reserves at this rate.”
I wasn’t bragging either. That was just my secondary motive. I could finish the next room with just 15 blasts, and the boss only takes the weakest shield followed by a single blast to end it. But I could show off a little and make a stronger barrier to trap the boss so Bran could get a better look at my skills. That would just cost a bit more mana though.
“I see. Very well done. DO you want to spend the time collecting the cores, or will you pass on them? I’m done waiting if you do. They’re dirt cheap individually, but there’s at least 60 of them here. Every copper adds up.”
“You have a point, but I'm more interested in the boss’s cores. That’s my money maker.”
“As you wish. Continue.”
I led him on to the next room and spread out a blanket of 15 Arcane Explosions. There was a single slime left behind that I quickly killed with a Mana Bolt.
I looked to Bran who had a smile on his face and nodded approvingly.
“The only monster left is the slime boss. Judging by how many slime cores are in this room, and how many were in the last room, I'd wager I've killed around 165 slimes so far. That means the boss will probably have around 8 to 11 cores in it.”
“I’m impressed that you’ve paid so much attention. Not many adventures care to use their brains like that. Go ahead and show me what you can do to the slime boss of yours. Whenever you’re ready of course.”
“I’ll show off a bit then.” Time to trap it in a barrier.
“Just don’t get yourself killed.”
“I haven’t so far.” I chuckled a little. Bran seems like a cool enough guy.
I peeked my head around the corner and wrapped the boss completely in as tight of a barrier I could, including beneath it. There was only an inch of room between the top of the boss’s slime mass and the barrier. I poured 150 points of mana into it, almost doubling the amount of mana I've spent in the dungeon so far.
After I finished wrapping it, I stepped out into the room and called Bran forward.
“What’s wrong? Too scared of the sli- What the Hell?” He looked confused as to why the slime seemed to be just jiggling around a little. Then he walked up to it and poked my barrier. I could feel that his single poke did more damage than the slime’s cumulative effort of slamming into the inside of it has done.
“Impressive. I was wondering what your Barrier Magic would look like. How expensive was the barrier? It looks like it would take even me a few swings to get through this thing. Damn. That had to cost at least a hundred points.”
Mission success. Boss is impressed.
“The basic barrier spell only costs 2 mana per cast, but I can add more mana to it to make it stronger. Manipulating the barrier makes it more expensive, but not by much. I put 150 points of mana into this barrier, just to show off a little.”
“‘Show off’ indeed. Hell, I could use you in my party as you are now. That being said, I think I can guarantee your promotion to silver. I just need you to fight a better variety of monsters first. You’ve spent too much time on goblins and now slimes. I’ll send you a list to check off, and when you’re done with that, you can have your new rank. Sound good?”
I beamed a smile. “Absolutely.”
“Now, are you interested in joining any sort of party when you rank up, or are you going to continue going at it solo? If you joined a party right now, hell I could hand you a new tag the moment we get back. But if you want to continue solo, you’ll need to do the entirety of the monster list I get you. Either way, we’ll be taking a minor detour on our way back so you can try out a Lizard Man dungeon as well. It’s only a 2-hour run north from here. At least, at the pace we went to get here.”
My jaw dropped a little at that. I was NOT prepared for Lizard Men. Hell, I haven't even gotten to try the weaker Kobolds yet. And I still haven’t gotten the new spells for either of my magics yet.
Hagrid, a little help here? I heard the same laughing from far away again.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked. Did you think I'd let a future Gold Plate sit in a field and kill Goblins all day every day? Not a chance kid. If you’re going to get stronger, you need to fight stronger monsters. I’m just giving you the push you need. Now go ahead and put this slime out of its misery so we can get started on our next destination. If you hurry, we can get there before lunch time.”
I cast my Arcane Explosion at the boss and collected the 11 slime cores.
“Fine, I'll do it. But can we do one more run through Slime Dungeon first? The next run will get me to +300 mana. And I can use the break to learn the new spells from my skills that I was planning on doing tonight. It’ll take an hour and 5 minutes, tops”
“Fine, fine, we can wait.”
We stepped outside and I brought out the placemat that Duke got for me. I laid it out so I can meditate on it while I learn my new spells.
User: Claff:
Health 260/260
Stamina 205/260
Mana 370/670
Achievements
Slime Slayer!
Quests [2]
Kill Goblins 0/∞
Kill Slimes 0/∞
Party [1]
Equipment
Ring of Mana Regeneration (+20%)
Slime Bracelet (+290 mana)
Robe of Regeneration (+10% mana regeneration, +10% casting speed)
SKILLS
PASSIVE
Enhanced Body Lv 8 [65%]
Increased Mental Capacity Lv14 [55%]
Regeneration Lv15 [82%]
ACTIVE
Arcane Magic Lv 11 [56%]
Barrier Magic Lv 11 [39%]
Game-like Storage Lv10 [60%]
Storage (10/22)
0 g 95s 33 c
1. Bowie knife
2. 25 shirts (varied colors, cloth)
3. 10 pants (cloth)
4. 10 underwear (5 boxers, 5 sock pairs)
5. 15 rations (varied flavors)
6. Potions (varied)
7. 2 leather armor sets
8. 5 books
9. Water skin
10. Camping gear (tent, placemat, sleeping bag)
I focused on Arcane Magic first. It was the one I was more excited for, and I had a spell and its improvement to learn. I didn’t even feel the headache that came with learning the spell.
Spell modification Charge has been learned.
Interesting. It looked like this wasn’t a spell on its own, but a modifier for another spell. Judging from the feeling I got from learning it, it allows me to pack more mana into a spell pattern before firing it, therefore making the spell more intense.
I fired a regular mana bolt at a tree nearby. Bran looked at what I was doing but didn’t say a word.
I prepared to fire another mana bolt at the tree, but a little lower. This time I pushed 10 mana into the pattern for the spell instead of its usual 5. The resulting mana bolt hummed with power before I let it loose.
The hole it made in the tree was wide enough to cause it to fall over, though thankfully it fell in the opposite direction of us.
“Impressive. Is that the new skill level you learned?”
“Yes, it is. It allows me to force more mana into a spell pattern than is necessary to over charge the spell and make it more powerful.”
“Useful.”
“Indeed.”
I brought my status back up to learn the next spell. I barely felt a twinge of a headache before the notification.
Spell modification Moderation has been learned.
Damn. Two spell modifiers in a row. I was hoping to learn Mana Lightning or something. Either way, these both seemed really useful.
I fired another regular mana bolt at a different tree. Next, I fired a mana bolt charged with only 3 mana instead of 5. It made a small dent in the tree, but nothing near as powerful as a regular 5 mana bolt.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Another modifier?” Bran asked.
“Yeah, this one allows for the exact opposite as the last, letting me fire weaker versions of a spell by using less mana for the pattern. I’ll be using a weaker version of Arcane Explosion to kill the boss this time around. The full spell charge is just overkill for it.”
“I see. Just so you know, weaker spells will have their uses as you get stronger. Just wait and see.” He gave a knowing look.
I don’t see how a weaker version of mana bolt could help me kill something faster than the regular version of it, but I’ll trust your judgment for now, old man.
Next up was Barrier Magic.
Barrier Effect Siphon has been learned.
I see. From the knowledge that just got hammered into my skull, I can now make my barrier siphon the mana of anything that touches it in order to make the barrier stronger. If whatever monster or other sapient continuously touches the barrier, it will drain them at a rate of 1 mana point per second and add that mana to the strength of the barrier. But adding this effect will increase the mental toll the barrier takes on me.
Honestly? Worth it. I can make a 5 point barrier and surround the slime boss. And since it’ll be touching the barrier constantly, it’ll be fueled almost entirely by the monster! If only I could get the unused mana I spend on barriers back after I dispel them, it would be perfect!
Now for the next Barrier level spell.
Barrier Effect Drain has been learned.
It was an extremely similar effect as Siphon, but it drained the affected party of stamina points to fuel the barrier instead. I was almost scared of what the next level would teach me. Would that one steal health points?
With all new spells having been learned, I meditated in silence until the dungeon was ready. I did a quick jog through the caves and tried out my new barrier effects. I added both Siphon and drain to the caging barrier that I only added 10 mana points to and watched it take affect.
The slime started shrinking almost immediately after I wrapped the barrier around it. At the same time, my barrier grew a lot stronger. I felt a minor headache as the combined effects took their toll, but it was nothing serious. I’m sure if I was in my old world, I'd just chug some water thinking I was mildly dehydrated or something. I could probably sleep with the barrier still up too.
It took 8 whole minutes for the slime to dissipate into nothing, and after it died, I checked the barrier to see how strong it was now. It had grown to be about as strong as a 200-point barrier, which made sense, since the slime was drained of both mana and stamina pools.
I gathered the 10 slime cores and was about to leave when I saw a bracelet had dropped too. I added the new bracelet to my storage and I let my current bracelet eat the cores.
I went back out to see Bran and told him of my experiment. He seemed irked that I made him wait, but was happy to hear about the bracelet drop.
“Alright, enough dilly dallying. We have distance to cover. Let’s run.”
That was all he said before taking off.
I threw my mat into storage and chased after him. He always seemed to be just in my line of sight. I’m sure he was doing it on purpose, since I made him wait for me to do another run and then didn’t do the run as fast as I possibly could. He could easily lose me if he wanted to.
After around an hour and a half of me chasing his shadow, Bran started to slow down. He let me catch up to him before meeting my pace again.
“Alright, for this next dungeon, you need to be smarter about using that explosion of yours. Or you can snipe them down from a distance, your choice. But the Lizardmen Dungeon is a rank D dungeon. You can absolutely solo it if you're smart, and I truly won't rush you here. I know I was giving you shit by running so fast about making me wait and all that, but I'm serious here. Take. Your. Time. I will only jump in, if necessary, but this will be mostly you since you want to stay a solo dungeoneer.”
He looked serious, so I took his words to heart.
I was almost out of breath, but I've been feeling that way for the last 10 minutes. However, I knew I could keep going if I pushed myself. I imagined a dagger wielding psycho chasing me down and found a renewed sense of strength.
I nodded at Bran and kept running right alongside him.
We ran for another half hour before we made it to the portal. I almost missed it and ran right into it, but Bran stuck his arm out to stop me.
“We’re here. Recover for a few minutes and prepare yourself to go in.”
I pulled out a regular strength stamina potion and drank it. I felt immediate relief and the taste of bananas.
I kept panting for another minute but recovered enough to stand up straight. I pulled out my water skin and took a long swig. I offered it to Bran and he accepted with gratitude. He drank for a minute straight before handing it back.
We stood outside for five minutes straight before I asked him for some details about the portal.
“The Lizardmen usually come in packs of 3 to 5,” he explained, “with at least one of them being a ranged attacker, be it magic, arrows, or slings. The boss is a larger Lizardman with usually 2 ranged supporters. I won't get into details beyond that, but just know that if you play your cards smart, you can do this quite easily.”
The ranged attacker information was what I was really after. It showed me that these monsters were at least somewhat smart enough to come up with tactics. My current plan for dealing with them will be to try to identify the ranged monster, cage it in a draining, siphoning shield, then focus buffed mana bolts at the rest of the pack. I don’t know what I'll do yet with the boss monster, but I'll come up with a plan as I go. I need first-hand experience with the base monster before I think about dealing with a stronger version of it.
“How's the terrain going to look? The slimes were cave monsters, so I'd imagine a Lizardmen Dungeon to be either plains, forests, or marshes.”
“Very intuitive. This dungeon is strictly a plains dungeon. It’s also a lot larger than the slime dungeon too. In total, it’s around 3 miles long and half a mile wide. If I remember correctly, there will be around 100 groups of Lizardmen in there. The boss monster won’t spawn in until the rest of the monster are killed, so you won't be speed running this one to the degree you can with the slime dungeon.”
I nodded along, planning every step of the way. The terrain would make encounters a lot easier, since the monsters won't be able to sneak up on me.
“Yeah, I got this.”
Bran gave me a pat on the back and we walked into the dungeon together.
NOW ENTERING LIZARDMAN DUNGEON. PREPARE YOURSELF.
The first thing I noticed was how hot it was. There was a sun beating down on us pretty heavily.
Damn, maybe I should've grabbed a hat from Sarah when I had the chance.
The next thing I noticed was the dying grass that seemed to go on for hundreds of miles in every direction. I was about to ask Bran when he explained.
“Some dungeons have hard barriers, kind of like Slime Dungeon. This one has more soft barriers. When you reach the edge of the dungeon, you’ll feel a sort of wall. It feels something like that barrier you used on the slime boss. But the appearance of the plains going on forever won't change.”
He contemplated for a moment before adding, “Another thing of note: No matter the dungeon, you won't be attacked at the entrance. There will always be a safe zone surrounding it. It’s smaller in some dungeons than others, but you will never be attacked by a monster while you are in that safe zone. It’s one of the acts of mercy bestowed to us by God. At least, that’s what some say.”
“And what do you say?” I didn’t take him for a religious man.
“I say you should start killing some Lizardmen. There’s a pack that way. Get to it.” He pointed behind me.
With how flat the plains were, it was rather easy to spot the packs. In fact, I could see damn near every Lizardman in this bloody place.
The first Lizardman I saw looked just as I thought it would. It stood around 5 and half feet tall with green scaly skin and a long tail that reached down to the ground it stood on. It had inch long claws, an elongated snout, and horns and spines in the shape of a crown on top of its head. It had no clothes or anything on, but it also had no clear indication of genitalia.
I got started walking to the nearest set of three and prepared an overcharged Arcane Explosion. I was about to loose it when I remembered I had an actual plan, instead of just throwing ridiculous amounts of mana at them.
I pulled the mana out of the pattern and returned it to my mana core next to my heart.
I had originally planned on figuring out who the ranged one was, caging it, then blasting the rest to smithereens with charged mana bolts. But now I have a different idea. I surrounded the entire group with a barrier of 30 mana, ensuring the barrier had both siphon and drain effects active.
The group started struggling immediately, one of them casting fire blasts at the barrier. The fire did some damage, but it was quickly healed by the barrier effects. I turned around to start on the next group when Bran called out to me.
“Aren’t you going to finish them off? You’re still in the middle of a battle, you know.”
I grinned at him and told him to just keep following along.
I went to the closest group, which happened to have 5 members this time. Despite being larger in number than the last group, this pack was closer together physically. I cast a 50 mana barrier on it this time, also ensuring the effects were active. The group gave a stronger resistance than the first group did, but there were more supplies of resources to steal from. The barrier was growing stronger at an impressive rate. I had nothing to worry about. Bran looked on disapprovingly but didn’t say anything.
The third group of Lizardmen were too far away at the moment for what I planned to do, so I went back to the first group.
Less than a minute had passed since I had caged them, but most of the fight had already left the caster. The two Lizardmen who I assumed were melee fighters looked to have multiple burns on them, but they still hammered away at the barrier with their fists, occasionally trying to scratch it.
I waited another moment before casting a normal Arcane Explosion in the cage. The caster died immediately, but the other two looked determined to live. I blasted them again and they succumbed to their wounds. After the glowing faded away, I walked forward to see what the loot was.
There were two chunks of meat and three claws the size of my pinky. I added them to my inventory and went back to the second group. This group looked more drained, having had more time for the barrier to take affect. I cast one arcane explosion inside the barrier that was loaded with 20 mana points. They all died at that. There were 5 more claws, 3 more chunks of lizard meat, and a sling for the item drops.
I stored the drops and pulled my resources up to see how I was doing. It’s only been 5 minutes since I cast the first barrier.
Health 260/260
Stamina 185/260
Mana 573/670
I was doing fine on mana, and my stamina was refilling at a steady rate since I wasn't physically straining myself in here.
Bran walked up next to me and looked ready to lecture.
“This is not how I planned for you to fight this dungeon, but I won't say I'm not impressed. I intended for you to fight using a series of Arcane Explosions and those arrows you used on that tree. I assume it’s an Arcane Bolt?”
“Mana bolt, actually. And I'll tell you what. Since you paid for some fancy new gear for me, I'll try fighting your way. I'll take the next group without using the various draining effects of my barrier, but I won't promise not to use my barrier at all.”
He agreed to those terms, and I readied myself for a slugfest. I looked around and went to the smallest group nearest to us, which had a bowman - Bow-Lizard-man? - and three presumably melee fighters.
I approached them, and as I grew closer, the bow-lizard-man knocked an arrow and held its bow at the ready, not yet drawn though. The three melee fighters looked in our direction at this, and they crouched in an aggressive manner.
I over charged an Arcane Explosion. There was a total of 70 mana in this one casting, and I was excited to see how it went.
“Heads up!” I called out to Bran. “It’s about to be very loud.”
I had an evil grin as I cast the spell.
The Lizardmen were about a hundred feet away from us, yet my robes and hair whipped about in the wind of the aftermath of the explosion I just caused.
There were no remains from the Lizardmen, but there was a large crater about 15 feet across where the group once stood. In the middle of the crater, the glow of item drops appeared. I went down to get the meat and claws that dropped. I was looking forward to getting a bow, even if I never used it. It would’ve made for a fun hobby at least.
“Alright, you proved your point, but don’t waste mana. Maybe tone it back a bit next time. Any stronger or closer, and one of us might've been caught up in it.” Bran came to the edge of the small indent in the ground.
“So, I have a question. Why aren’t all the Lizardmen attacking me right now? I made quite the ruckus, but none of them have come to attack us yet. Why is that?”
“In most open dungeons like the one we’re in now, the monsters have a set area they ‘guard’. You saw how the bow user didn’t attack you on sight right? It was because you weren’t in his area. Their areas range from dungeon to dungeon, but this one is about a hundred feet or so. If you had gotten any close, they would’ve charged and started firing arrows at you. It was one of the things I was watching for before I intervened. So congrats, you get bonus points for asking good questions. However, they will chase you if you attack one of their group, so be wary of that.
“Thanks, I guess. But now that I've had my fun, I’m almost ready to get serious. I’m planning on rushing the next few groups. Just a heads up.”
“How so?”
“Well, my plan involves gathering multiple groups, surrounding us in a shield, then blasting them with multiple explosions, with mana bolts added as necessary.”
“Sounds good.” He nodded approvingly.
Maybe the key to this guy is communication. He seems easy going when I tell him what my plans are, and only seems to get upset when I just act without consulting him. I guess I'll try better to keep him informed going forward.
I looked around and found what looked like a good spot to enact my plan. I still had a little over 500 points of mana left, so I wasn't worried. I’d reserve 100 for an emergency explosion just in case, but most of the mana I planned on using was going to go towards 20 mana explosions. It seemed the sweet spot for one hitting most groups.
I planned to gather a few individual groups by firing one point mana bolts at one of the Lizardmen and then running away. I was going to run in a big circle, kiting multiple groups along the way so they can all gather behind the two of us in one large group.
“Tell me Bran, do you think I can outrun one of the Lizardmen in a race?”
He looked at me confused, then I told him what I was about to do.
“You ballsy bastard. This is what I was talking about. THAT is at least a more proper fight. That barrier bullshit you pulled earlier was quite frankly disturbing, and the sneak attack explosion left much to be desired. They’re perfectly reasonable tactics, don’t misunderstand me. But I'm looking for a fighting spirit here. My biggest concern with this though would be the ranged attackers, specifically spell casters and bow users. The slings are honestly trash.”
“I still think I can do it. I want to try, at least.” I was too stubborn for my own good.
“Alright, this is your delve, after all. Go for it.”