Levi moved more cautiously this time, restraining his impatience. This dungeon relied less on traps and more on environmental hazards, many of which necessitated Levi carrying Gremlin Two across them.
At one point he had to use potions to speed up recovery after a particularly large gremlin swarm got in a few lucky hits, but that was the only hiccup.
Insofar as a dungeon run could ever be said to be uneventful, this one was entirely so. He found the boss room shortly after reaching level 4, and Gremlin Two had obtained level 2. He’d saved his own point to assign once he had time to think about it, but put Gremlin Two’s into Strength. Since he’d been started on that path, might as well see if the extra regen made him better able to survive.
Levi did not enter the boss room immediately. He returned to the treasure room, where he'd already collected the health restorative and two bundles of shiny plant stems he could sell to alchemists. He wouldn’t be able to proceed safely until his health recovered, at the very least, giving him almost twenty minutes of time to kill.
He considered backtracking; he could find another dungeon before challenging a boss, increase his level and minion count. At level 5 he’d start unlocking ability points, which should tip the balance firmly in his favor. He’d have to be sure not to skip too many bosses in the same dungeon, but once or twice wouldn’t hurt anything.
“What do you think, Two?” Levi asked his green-skinned gremlin.
Gremlin Two shrugged and pointed at Levi’s knife.
“I know you want a weapon, but you’ll have to be patient. Right now, I need this one.”
Level 1 dungeons were a strange combination of too easy and strangely difficult. The early rooms could be cleared within an hour or two in relative safety.
Boss fights were another matter. That plus in their names wasn’t an exaggeration. Even a level 1 monster with the + designation could be more dangerous than a normal monster many times its level.
But now wasn’t the time to start hedging his bets. He'd survived this long; he could do it again.
Levi checked his stats, then added the point to Strength. Health was his largest pool by default, but his regen was abysmal.
Levi Morrison Unassigned Levels: 0 Primary Class: Tamer Tamer Level: 4 Subclass: None Minions: 2/2
Stat Points: 0 Strength: 1 Psyche: 2 Spirit: 1 Health
107/125 Mana
45/45 Stamina
28/75 Health Regen
2 /minute Mana Regen
3 /minute
Stamina Regen
2 /minute
It would be best to bring all of his regens to at least 4, maybe 6, before he started making stat assignment choices based on any other considerations. After a while, the difference a single point provided would hardly matter — from 30 health per minute to 31 was hardly noticeable — but at the lower levels it mattered a lot. The difference between recovering a health point every 20 seconds vs every 30 seconds was considerable.
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Also, the higher he leveled, the less benefit he’d gain from clearing level 1 dungeons over and over. The experience required to level increased pretty steeply after the early levels. It would probably take a minimum of two dungeons to reach level 5… probably more. Since they only fully refilled after around 26 hours, he’d need to roam further and further to find suitable spots.
It was both a blessing and a curse being the only one in the world to know what was at stake. He could get a head start, preparing for the coming fight months before the first demons ever arrived, but he also would have to wait for everyone else to get up to speed before he’d be able to find on-level dungeons or trade with crafters.
Then again, his own Awakening had been relatively late. Dungeons had shown up at least six months before the first invasion, from what everyone had said, so theoretically there should be others who’d already been leveling.
Even so, he had no guarantee of meeting anyone with anything worth trading. Better to assume he was on his own, and if he was proved wrong, then all the better.
Dungeons as a rule leveled faster than humans if they had a steady stream of delvers to test themselves against. Running solo would level the dungeons much more slowly. A level one dungeon could be leveled by a party of five in two days. But on his own, it would take Levi a week or more, and the newly level-2 dungeon would still be underleveled.
He needed to get word out to the rest of the world somehow. If he could convince others to start grinding dungeons globally, then not only would there be leveled dungeons waiting for him, but also, humanity as a whole would be better prepared for the coming demonic invasion.
A problem for another day. He’d already endured more awkward human interaction today than he’d wanted.
Trying to convince the world about a coming apocalypse when most people weren’t even aware of the existence of the dungeons without getting himself locked up or scoffed out of town? Nope. He was not ready to face that. Maybe once he had an army at his back and a full set of mana-powered armor and weapons.
Needing to wait so long for his health and stamina to recover was frustrating. He hated waiting around pondering the problems of the future; he’d rather get to confronting the problems of the present, but after his last boss fight he wasn’t going to underestimate any plus.
Twice he backtracked through the dungeon just to be moving. Nothing had respawned yet, but it was still better than sitting.
Finally, the last stamina point ticked up to full.
“Let’s do this.”
Gremlin Two scampered obediently behind him. The dungeon had respawned two gremlins between the treasure room and the boss room, but Levi didn’t have any trouble taking them out.
Levi pushed open the door to the boss room, assessing the surroundings at a glance. A goblin in ragged robes adorned with bones stood at the center of the room, his staff glowing with the same corrosive yellow-green light as a dozen crystals implanted in the walls.
Level 1+
(Goblin Shaman)
Health 100%
Levi had seen enough similar rooms that he quickly understood the trick. He'd need to destroy the crystals from range — and they'd probably explode upon impact, making people more likely to avoid than target them. After clearing the crystals, it would be easy enough to take the shaman down in a physical contest.
Unless the crystals were destroyed, the shaman would drain them to slowly empower himself, eventually growing strong enough to morph into a more dangerous second form.
Knowing the trick was one thing. Smashing the crystals at a distance would be easier said than done with Levi’s current equipment.
Almost all the abilities Levi knew well enough to unlock were utility spells that everyone knew, and most of them required more than his maximum mana to cast, or they were Fighter and Swordsman abilities that required prohibitive quantities of stamina. He could try pushing mana out in raw bursts like he’d done to topple the pillar onto the ogre, but that wouldn’t be enough to shatter crystal.
At least this wasn't another ogre. Goblins, while tricky and dangerous in swarms, were never known for their ability to stomp your skull in. He could work with this.
Levi backed away from the door and turned to his gremlin. “Alright, Two. Here’s the plan. I think you’ll like it.”
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