Having the memories of past ascenders, I pretty much knew what I should be facing at this level. That said, this dungeon was not acting entirely normal in my case. Up until now it seemed to be extremely generous with me for some unknown reason. Could it be that it has been dormant for too long and was lonely? Maybe it simply took a liking to me? More likely than not, the dungeon had some ulterior motive that it wasn’t sharing.

This got me thinking, was it a coincidence that it appeared under my apartment? It didn't seem normal either that there would be a door to the roof without any way down. Was that door placed there specifically for me?

I still had not encountered any dungeon monsters, so I could find myself pitted against something abnormally strong. I mean, he did make it clear that he didn't care if I lived or died, but I was honestly feeling pretty unbeatable at the moment.

I tried to imagine what could be waiting for me below. A dragon, a wyvern, a manticore, ogres, trolls, vampires, werewolves, necromancers with an army of zombies or maybe some demonic force? Probably there would be some dungeon "custom" creations as well.

As I got to the bottom of the stairs, I arrived at a small landing that ended with a metal banded wooden door. The door handle was in the form of a serpent which was pretty cool looking actually.

When I opened the door, I found that the environment had changed completely. Instead of a stone floor and glowing stone walls, I was in an immense jungle. My senses were assaulted by the smell of rotting vegetation and the sounds of birds and various other fauna hidden in this tropical forest. I could have sworn that I could hear the plants growing. I realized that part of the reason that my senses were overly sensitive to my surroundings, was certainly the mana had increased sensorial perception. It would certainly take a while to get used to it, but it was bearable.

Instead of a stone ceiling, there was a blue sky overhead and when I turned around, I saw the door and the walls that should have been there, had mysteriously disappeared. I was now standing in a small open area, but all around me was jungle.

The level was visibly much larger than it should have been if I were really in the tower, and I had no idea which direction to take, so I decided go straight forward from the direction that the door opened onto this level.

There was a narrow path through the trees and the undergrowth, the kind of path created by the passage of animals. Occasionally I would see what seemed to be footprints from some very large animal.

I had advanced about one and a half kilometers, when I caught site of a creature with the body of an oversized gorilla. It was about twice the size of a large adult male gorilla which is already quite large. It was in the classic gorilla half-standing position, supporting itself with its knuckles on the ground at the end of its long muscular arms.

This wasn’t just a large gorilla though. Its skin looked more like the skin of a crocodile, with a rough rock-like surface. Its mouth, was like the mouth of a crocodile, but much shorter, giving the impression of it having a large toothy smile. And lastly, its teeth looked to be shards of black onyx.

Up until now, he didn’t seem to have taken notice of me. At that moment, I may have been an overpowered battle-mage, but I felt more like a fly sitting in front of a giant toad. I tried to think of the best approach to dealing with the situation, and decided that retreat was the best option, but that idea was immediately forgotten the moment I accidentally stepped on a dry branch when taking a step back.

The creature looked up at me when it heard the sound and came at me with a speed I didn’t think was possible for such a large monster.

I took out my sword and shot forward, hoping to be able to injure it before it could make a move against me. Its long gorilla like hands tried to grab at me when I came within range, but I just barely managed to slip under its arms as they tried to close around me and I swung my sword with all my force, aiming for its midsection. As my sword made contact, I heard a sound like that of metal hitting stone.

The creature opened its mouth and emitted a sound that gave made my hair stand on end. To say it was terrifying would be an understatement.

It turned toward me again, and this time, it sprayed a stream of liquid at me that, fortunately for me, only hit my armored chest, but everything else that the liquid touched, leaves branches, small plants; immediately started smoking and were completely consumed. I made a mental note to myself, to avoid another hit, especially to any area not protected by armor, and as a precaution I created dense layer of mana over any exposed area of my skin.

As the sword did not seem to be of much use against his stonelike skin, I decided to try shooting a stream of fire directly towards its face. It tried to dodge the fire, but I managed to follow its every move. It screamed in rage and ran at me but I jumped out of the way as its mouth clamped down on where my head had been just a moment before.

Although its face was blackened from the fire, it didn’t seem to have suffered any significant damage. It was then that I realized there was one area that wasn’t covered by his skin armor. I formed an ice spear and as it opened its obscenely large but short crocodilian mouth, I shot the spear through its mouth.

For a moment, It looked as though it was going to spring on me when suddenly it lunged forward, dead. Luckily, my ice spear had managed to pierce through to its brain.

I felt that this monster was probably about the strength that I should expect from this level of the tower, but I didn’t think that it was the level’s “boss” monster.

I wanted to retrieve the monster’s beast core, but I didn’t see any way to get through its virtually impenetrable skin.

I already knew that the fire wouldn’t help and I didn’t expect water to be of any use, so I tried my earth attribute and found there was a strong affinity.

Using an earth attribute spell, I managed to get past its natural armor and retrieve its core. Knowing that the earth attribute worked against this creature gave me an extra advantage if I ran into any more of these creatures.

As I continued making my way through the jungle, I ran into a variety of other monsters, but most of those did not pose too much of a threat and I was beginning to become optimistic about my chances of making it through the level, although the level boss could be another story.

I had already traveled about four kilometers by now and I felt I must be getting close to the end of the level, I mean, how much larger could it be?

I continued in the same general direction and after a couple of hundred yards I heard a cry of pain. I decided to investigate and headed in the direction of the sound.

Just a little further, at the edge of a small clearing, I found the source of the sound. A large leopard-like feline with a dark black coat of fur, was caught in a shimmering spider's web. The strands seemed to be sharp, as the cat was bleeding wherever the web pressed against its coat. A chittering sound was coming from the trees all around and assumed that would be the spiders that produced the web.

When I looked back to where the leopard was, I found in its place a girl, completely naked, and bleeding badly.

"Please, help me..."

I could tell that she was in bad shape and getting weaker rapidly. On top of the blood loss, it looked like she had most likely been poisoned as well, from the bite marks and swelling on her upper arm.

"I will do what I can to help you, try not to move." I said to reassure her while I thought on the different options that I had. The sword would most likely cut the webbing, but could worsen the wounds if any resisted when being cut. In the worst case, I could rupture an artery and she could bleed to death.

The threads would probably shatter if I froze them, or melt if I used fire so these would most likely be better options.

There was also a magic spell in my memories, that would simply make them disappear, but I thought that it would be too risky to try that spell with her in the webbing. I would feel pretty bad if I accidentally made her disappear as well.

The chittering increased and I heard movement in the trees. I had to act quickly, so I decided to freeze the threads and then shatter them with my sword.

I created a ring of extremely cold concentrated air from my mana and dropped it into the webbing all around her, being careful to avoid touching her. When I saw that the threads began to lose their metallic shine, I took out my sword and in a rapid circular motion, I snapped all the threads holding her at once and moved in to catch her as she started to fall.

At the same time the chittering suddenly exploded and it sounded like there was a stampede in the trees.

I quickly reinforced my legs with mana and leapt away from where I had been kneeling just a moment before. I laid the cat woman on the ground and poured one of my healing potions into her mouth before turning to face the spiders that were now clearly visible, and advancing on our position.

There were at least fifty of them, maybe many more as some were still hidden. In the trees, on the ground, hanging from threads, they seemed to be everywhere.

Many were about the size of a small pony, entirely black with a metallic sheen. Each one had a dozen gold flecked eyes which were all focused on us and fangs that were literally dripping with what I can only imagine was a deadly poison.

"You gotta be kidding me!" I said to Will who I imagined would be watching the scene and I could have sworn that I heard a distant chuckle.

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The spiders themselves, although formidable, were not so much the problem. It was the number of them that complicated things considerably, especially as now they had managed to circle us almost entirely.

I noticed that I now had a snarling black leopard next to me, as the leopard girl had apparently already recovered from her wounds and transformed back into her leopard form to join me against the advancing mutant arachnids. She no longer had the look of a helpless damsel in distress, but rather a dangerous predator who could probably handle a few of the spiders on her own.

"Just stay put for now while I try to discover their weaknesses." I said, afraid that she would start fighting and would need to be saved again. There were just too many for a manual combat to be effective.

I decided to see how they reacted to fire. I created a ball of medium density mana and gave it a fire attribute and launched it at the spider closest to us. Although it obviously didn't like it, it didn't seem to do any serious damage. At the same time, I got the distinct feeling that I had made them really angry now.

I decided to try the same but this time with lightning, and there was an immediate reaction as the spider fell to the ground where it appeared to be having a seizure.

"So, lightning it is!" I said as the horde started to all charge at us at once.

I quickly created a dome of swirling wind around us and laced tendrils of lightning into the wind. Any spiders that tried to breach the barrier were thrown to the side and lay trembling on the ground.

I knew they wouldn’t all commit suicide against my wind-lightning dome, although that would have made things much simpler; so, I sent out lightning bolts to get any of the spiders that were smart enough to stay away from our wind shield.

There were still many spiders which were now hiding in the forest, waiting for my barrier to drop, so as a grand finale, I conjured a localized storm, with lightning striking randomly over a hundred-yard perimeter from where we were. To be honest, I was pretty impressed with my storm, and found that it wasn’t too bad for my first attempt at a magic spell.

Once all the spiders that I could see, were lying dead on the ground, I removed the shield. I could still hear some chittering, but now it seemed to be coming from much farther away.

I looked to see how the leopard girl was faring and found her unconscious on the ground next to me. I took out another of my precious healing potions and poured it in her mouth. In a few moments she was again back to normal.

I couldn't quite interpret the expression on her face, it looked to be somewhere between awe, fear, admiration and confusion.

Okay, I know that sounds like I am not very good at reading expressions, but this one was seriously confusing. I wonder if she even understood what she was feeling at that moment.

"Well, it looks like we handled that as well as could be expected and I believe we are safe, for the moment at least." I was doing my best to sound optimistic.

She changed back into her human form, and slipped into a silken robe. I realized that she must have a dimensional storage space as well, although I didn’t see any jewelry on her that could double as a dimensional storage.

"I am truly grateful to you. I am fortunate to have been saved by such a powerful mage. Unfortunately, your aura pressure was too much for me endure from so close, thank you for saving me yet again. I am sorry that you are using all your healing potions on someone as unworthy as myself."

"No, I am sorry." I said suddenly embarrassed to learn that I was the cause for her latest accident. "I didn't think to suppress my aura, I am a little new at this, but I should have known better, my sincere apologies."

"No, please, it is my fault." she said timidly, "I am too weak. I want you to know that I will never forget what you have done for me, and I will be in your debt until I have found a way to repay your kindness."

"Well," I said, gesturing to the numerous dead spiders surrounding us in the clearing, and into the forest, "it is not really a loss, because I needed more cores and there should be quite a few here."

Fortunately for me their cores were easy to extract, and with her help, I was quickly able to top up my supply of cores.

"I guess we didn't get the chance to be properly introduced" I said extending my hand "my name is Matthew, but my friends call me Matt".

"Cara" she said taking my hand with both of hers while bowing. "You saved my life, so now my life is yours until I find a way to repay you."

"That is not, necessary" I said, "I was happy to be able to help you. But now that you mention it, I am trying to make my way out of the tower, so any advice on surviving this level would be appreciated. I suspect those spiders aren't the biggest threat on this level."

"No”, she replied. “There is a lot worse than these spiders on this evel. I will accompany you then, Master Matthew, although, for a battle-mage such as yourself I can't imagine that much could be a threat to you." She continued.

“You can just call me Matt” I said with a smile.

“Matt” she said, returning the smile.

For a brief moment, my heart skipped a beat but I quickly tamed it using my super-power which I called “really bad break-up”. It was a power I had also just recently acquired, less than a day before entering into the tower.

Cara was easily the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen. She was about five foot nine, with dark brown shoulder length hair and olive skin. She was fit but not overly muscular, and she had a very feminine form. Her face and all of her features were a blueprint for feminine perfection. An artist would be hard-pressed to improve on anything.

Maybe her most remarkable feature were her eyes, especially when she smiled. They were expressive but more importantly they were sincere.

So, although I would normally be a stuttering idiot at this point, I was at least partially immunized against her super-power, which I called “breath-taking beauty”.

I also knew it was not the best moment for me to be getting interested in women, or probably it would be more accurate to say that I was terrified of getting hurt again. At the moment I equated women with pain. On top of that, I wasn't even sure what Cara was. Human, feline, alien or all of the above? All this played in my favor, because for once in my life, I was able to be myself in front of a woman, so I guess I should probably be thankful to my ex for ripping out my heart and dancing the flamenco on it.

“I have seen quite a few mages, but never have I seen a power such as yours, at least not from a natural mage.” she continued.

"A natural mage? Are there unnatural mages?" I asked. "How do you know that I am natural?"

"The dark mages use an unnatural power. They are very powerful but their magic feels wrong. Although your magic is very powerful, I can feel that it isn’t dark."

"Do you live here in the dungeon?

"My people are not native to the dungeon, but we have been allowed to live in the dungeon as long as we abide by its rules. The reason we had to leave our home is due to the dark mages."

"Do you ever leave the dungeon?" I asked. "The dungeon has only recently appeared on my planet. We have never had dungeons on our world, at least not in our known history. "

"I could leave the tower if I wish, but the world from which my tribe originates has become too dangerous for us to return to it, so we are grateful to the tower for letting us live here, even though it can also be quite dangerous at times.

“And although it may seem that the dungeon is on your world, the tower which appeared on your world is little more than a doorway. The dungeon is not actually on your world. The dungeon is similar to the storage space that you use." she gestured to the storage ring on my finger. “It is somewhere else, but it now can be entered from your world via the tower. It was the same on my world before the door to the tower was closed.”

"If it is more dangerous that this level of the tower, I can understand that it is too dangerous for you to return. What happened to make it so dangerous?"

"This dungeon is not actually too dangerous for us, the adventurers and most of the really dangerous beasts are not allowed to attack us due to the dungeon rules."

"None of the very high ranked dungeon native beasts can attack us and we may only hunt within a certain range or ranking. The spiders are ranked at more or less at my level, and normally I would have been fine but I was distracted at the wrong moment and was trapped by them.” Cara explained.

"Our home world was taken over by some truly powerful and evil mages who came through a dungeon portal and quickly took over our world. It was no longer possible for us to live there, and many of us died. We are very fortunate that the dungeon accepted us before the entrance to this dungeon was closed from our world. We would be allowed to return, but if we go back, we would probably not ever be able to return to the dungeon, it would be a one-way trip."

"I am sorry to hear that," I said. "I imagine that you must miss your home world. If I manage to get out of here alive, you are welcome to visit my world if that is allowed." Now where did that come from, I thought to myself after the words flew out of my mouth.

"I would like that very much Matt." I noticed she looked down slightly as she said that. I hoped that she didn't feel somehow obliged to follow me out of the tower.

"Well, I guess that we should probably get moving before the spiders return" I said as I felt an uncomfortable silence settling in. "Lead the way!"

"Do you mind if I stop by my village? It is on the way." she asked.

"Sure, no problem." I was also curious to see where she lived and learn more about her people.

"One last question, how is it that you speak my language?"

"That is a gift from this dungeon for all who live in the dungeon or anyone who passes through a portal into a new world from this dungeon, they receive the principle languages of the land they are entering into."

"That must make this dungeon very popular I imagine. I guess that we are fortunate to have this one as the first on our world."

"Yes," she said with a slight hesitation, "this dungeon is special in many ways as you will see over time."

"If you don't mind" she said as she took my head in her hands and stood on the tip of her toes and approached her face to mine. My heart suddenly started beating so fast that I almost couldn't think and I found myself closing my eyes. “Oh no”, I thought to myself, this is not what I wanted, or was it? I didn't know any longer. I was more than a little surprised when, instead of feeling her lips on mine, I felt her forehead on mine, and, similar to the memory stones, I felt a rush of information entering my head but I couldn’t identify what I had learned.

"We will be able to communicate telepathically now, but I imagine that you knew that already."

"Actually, I didn't know that but maybe I should have, being a mage and all. Does this mean that we can read each other’s minds now?" It may have sounded like a stupid question to her, but I was more than a little worried that she would hear what I was thinking.

"No, it is a question of intent, if you want to speak to me, I will hear it but I will now be able to hear your thoughts otherwise. This ability is something inherent to my people, but it can be passed on to others if we trust them."

I felt touched that she trusted me enough to pass on her gift.

With that we started off at a relaxed pace through the forest towards Cara's village. As time passed, I became more and more impressed with the dungeon. It seemed like a world all on its own, and to think that all of this was created through Will’s will. I was also beginning to wonder how long it would take to get through all of the floors as I had already traveled a few miles on this level.

While travelling, we got to know each other much better and we communicated with a mix of spoken and telepathic communication. I really started appreciating being able to communicate without words. There seemed to be an improved level of understanding when compared with spoken speech, where there were often misunderstandings. When speaking mind to mind, the meaning and tone were always clear.