Levi eased the paper free from its hiding place and spread it out on the table. Another dungeon map, this one less detailed, with three destinations marked on it. It felt almost unfair to look over it and immediately recognize the locations represented. Even as vague dots, they could easily be lined up with the dungeon maps he’d memorized in the distant future.
The three marked destinations were arranged roughly in a triangle around his current location. One in New York not far from Lake Erie, one in Michigan, and one near Lexington, Kentucky.
His fragment was part of a set of 3, which made him wonder what the fourth location held. Or perhaps he wasn’t supposed to visit all three, but to choose one.
No way of knowing. It would be a trip of several hours to each, even with a car. He exited the dungeon and pulled out the phone. The battery icon flashed at him in warning as he brought up the Uber app and selected his destination.
Eventually, as he absorbed more mana and became integrated into the system-ruled reality, he’d start shorting out devices like the phone on contact, his ambient power accumulating in the micro circuits and bricking the device. His days of zipping around freely were numbered. So... best to start with the furthest location, so he could at least avoid backtracking once he was stuck walking.
He put in the request for a trip to New York, then mentally dove back into the system to locate the requirements for Revive while he waited. It would be a while before anyone willing to make such a long trip showed up.
The search proved futile. If Revive existed, he didn’t find it.
To be fair, there were a lot of things hidden in the system that he’d never found. After a while, trying to wrangle it only gave him a splitting headache. The mental strain of maintaining the interface and navigating through its maze of kaleidoscopic data could perhaps be compared with trying to locate and translate foreign language information further obscured in source code of an unknown type.
But even that failed to convey the frustration of trying to maneuver the alien mental interface. Even after years of use, it still baffled him regularly. Well-worn tracks and familiar commands came to him readily, but beyond that, the system remained as inscrutable as ever.
He found a treatise on farming, complete with crafting recipes for basic elixirs. Very helpful, in theory, but he didn’t have months to sit around growing things. The recipes would likewise be useless for the time being. Mana-filled plants were not native to Earth and their seeds could only be obtained as dungeon loot.
It might be useful in the future, so he did mentally bookmark it in case the Seed Fragment turned out to be something he'd want to grow.
He located a handful of wind spells that could be useful later; he might come back to them once he’d reached the first threshold and had some ability points to spend.
Drift
Glide through the air or descend at a safe velocity.
(Unlock: 2 ability points)
Air Blade
Fire a focused slash of superdense wind to slice a distant target.
(Unlock: 2 ability points)
Gust
Fire a short-range wide area burst of sharpened wind, dealing area damage.
(Unlock: 2 ability points)
He wasn’t sure any of them would be useful enough to justify the cost. All cross-class abilities. Taking any of them would eat into his precious few ability points at double the rate of neutral or class abilities.
The sub-abilities for Tame was the closest he came to finding anything relevant.
Tame: Threshold Increase (0/5)
Tame ability can be used on creatures whose health is 1% higher.
(Upgrade: 1 ability point)
Tame: Second Chance (0/5)
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Subsequent Tame attempts require 10% less mana and stamina to cast.
(Upgrade: 1 ability point)
That second option made him suspect there was something up with Tame. A 10% cost decrease was less than a single point of mana/stamina, since Tame only cost 5 of each. There must be a variable cost increase hidden somewhere that he wasn't aware of, otherwise there was little purpose to this upgrade.
When his driver finally showed up, Levi was exhausted both mentally and physically. He felt like he should still be above such mundane biological limitations, but his low level struck again. System stamina and health weren't yet quite enough to fully sustain him.
He couldn't remember the last time he had slept for a full night. In the future/past timeline, it had been a constant fight for so long that any sleep was in minutes or hours snatched between the endless attacks by conquering demonic forces. The demons had swept across the globe, pushing back the human defenses bit by bit until, in the end, they'd won.
Levi flinched away from the memories, half-formed and nightmarish. He didn't want to think about it at all. He'd rather focus on the present and do what he could to make this time better.
The future could take care of itself. In the present, he needed rest.
He fell asleep to the regular hum of the car and did not wake until they reached his destination.
“We're here,” the driver announced. “I hope you're satisfied with the accommodations?” He winked and motioned toward the seat where Levi had presumably been snoring a moment before.
Levi startled awake, hands going to his swords — no, he didn't have swords, his shortsword and dagger were stashed in his backpack along with Gremlin Two. He stared at the driver for a moment, then his words registered. “Yes. Perfectly acceptable.”
“Don't forget your phone.” The driver gestured to the charging pad.
Levi grabbed it, fully charged once more. “Thanks.” He verified the transaction, pointedly ignoring the 16 missed calls and 20 -plus unread text notifications, and shoved the phone into his pocket.
He grabbed his backpack — a bit too hastily, the jostle awakened Gremlin Two from where he’d been snoring softly.
A single claw pried the zipper apart just enough for one orange eye to peek out questioningly.
Levi shook his head and put a hand over the opening. “Wait.” At least until their driver was out of sight.
The gas station was one of the few places still open this time of night and there wasn't anyone around except a handful of truckers availing themselves of the amenities.
A minute of jogging away from the main road was enough to ensure they’d not be seen.
“Now, you can come out.” Levi unzipped the opening fully.
Gremlin Two jumped to the ground. For the first ten minutes or so, his minion seemed fascinated by their surroundings. Not that there was much to set apart Ohio and New York as far as Levi could tell. They weren’t near any big cities. One town looked much like another, regardless of the arbitrary state lines.
He sent out his mana pings, searching the area to narrow down the dungeon's exact location. In this case, it was somewhere outside of town in the surrounding countryside.
Long before they located it, Gremlin Two grew bored exploring the local fields and instead started tapping at different places on Levi's greaves to make different thudding sounds, as though playing the drums. The sturdy leather-like material was rigid or flexible at different points, making a variety of noises when tapped.
Levi wasn't sure whether he should find it endearing or annoying, but the fact that Gremlin Two had to flat-out run to keep pace with Levi’s jogging while also trying to play music on a moving target was amusing enough to counter the irritation.
He missed having a proper team. Ideally, there'd have been a group of people with maps and scout reports who could spread out and find the right place in half an hour. But Gremlin Two didn't know mana ping, and Levi wasn't going to spend four levels putting his points into Psyche so the gremlin could use one basic spell.
It took three loops of ever-widening circles around their destination before he got a response to his ping. Finally. Narrowing down a mental map of the whole country to a specific location on his own was frustratingly time-consuming.
The dungeon showed no sign of having been disturbed or entered. Good.
Beast Dungeon: Level 1
Levi chuckled. He’d only been in a Beast Dungeon a handful of times, but it had been vastly different from the others. Even Nature dungeons with their lush natural interiors couldn't quite match Beast for sheer cool factor. The one he remembered best had contained herds of mammoths, and whole flocks of massive hunting birds.
At level 1 this one wouldn’t have anything that impressive, but once he leveled and opened up more minion slots, Beast dungeons would be worth revisiting.
“Yep, here we go again.”
Levi pressed the treasure map against the glittering rift, and it disintegrated in the same way as the previous one, adding the + to the dungeon's level.
“I hope this doesn't mean it skips everything but the boss again.”
At least a Beast dungeon would have something reasonable, something he could fight properly, like an angry rhino, or a T-Rex. He’d prefer that over a mind-warping nightmare paralysis eyeball.
Control dungeons were quickly moving up his list of most undesirable opponents. Even the Demon Lords were starting to look more manageable, though some of them were deadly with illusions as well. At least they didn’t have direct edit access to your mind.
It made Levi angry every time he remembered, furious at the usurpation of control. He remembered deciding not to fight. It didn’t feel externally imposed, it felt like his own despair. Even though he knew, absolutely and with full certainty, that it was just the dungeon messing with him, he couldn't excise the memory.
He’d have to run Control dungeons again. Probably over and over to get the materials he needed. But for that, he would wait until he had a much bigger group to back him up.
Some risks weren’t worth taking, whatever the potential reward.
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