After gaining another skill, I continued down the corridor and fought off more skeletons, with the skeleton’s numbers growing higher and higher. Some of them had rusted plates of armor or helmets, some wielding short swords similar to the one I was using currently. The highest number of skeletons I fought at the same time was 4.

It was a close fight, but I managed to kill them all without being too close to danger, using my own sword to parry their weapons and using blunts attacks to finish them off. What I noticed were that the skeleton’s attacks were always the same, as if they were mechanical. They would always swing their weapons once you get close enough, then try to either claw at you or bite at you.

Noticing this pattern, I easily devised a plan to combat these weak skeletons, raising my level to level 8. I added most of my points to constitution, while evenly balancing strength and dexterity. My status currently looked like this:

Name: Kellan Flint Level: 8 Race: Human Health: 65/65 Mana 18/18 Stamina: 165/165 Class: None Titles: Discoverer Attribute Points: 0 Strength: 20 Dexterity: 20 Intelligence: 10 Constitution: 23 Willpower: 30 Luck: 20(x2) 

In addition to that, it seems like the skill proficiency of both my skills have risen to rank F.

Skill List:

Swordplay (Basic) Skill Proficiency: F Skill Rarity: G+ Martial Arts (Legs) Skill Proficiency: F Skill Rarity: G+

From my experiences so far, I can gather than Skill Proficiencies increase the more I use the related weapons of the skills. If I fight more using kicks, the proficiency would increase. But defending with the sword like how I parry attacks with my short sword also seems to increase proficiency in the skill.

Even after fighting so many skeletons, the corridor still seemed to stretch endlessly, the dark mist blocking my view from seeing the end of the corridor. It was at this moment that I sensed a hint of danger.

I immediately alert myself, staring into the mist. I saw something flying towards my direction, it was an arrow. With my increased dexterity, I easily dodge the arrow as it whizzed past my face.

Skill learned: Dangersense Dangersense: A passive ability that alerts you of incoming danger, increased proficiency increases effective range and faster detection

Skill Proficiency: G Skill Rarity: F

Keeping caution and staring into the mist, a figure slowly appeared from the mist. I could clearly see its features. It was a skeleton, but instead of a sword or bone that the skeletons I’ve fought wielded, this one held a bow in its hands and a quiver strapped onto its back.

To make things worse, another figure appeared from within the mist, this time it wore a full set of armor, the armor was clearly old and rusted. In its hands was an arming sword and an iron buckler in its other hand.

The archer pulled out another arrow from the quiver strapped to its back and nocked it in place before slowly drawing it, pointing it towards me. The soldier kept its sword and shield readied and it slowly advanced towards me.

I charged towards the skeleton soldier, paying close attention to the archer’s bow as it followed me, steadying its aim before it shot the arrow. I figured it would be best to attack them before the archer managed to land a hit on me.

Just as I expected, I sensed danger and quickly twisted my body to the side, narrowly dodging the arrow and continued to charge towards the soldier. When I got close to the soldier, it raised its buckler and gave a horizontal slash towards me.

I easily parried the attack and delivered a front kick towards the skeleton, but it was easily blocked by the buckler. The soldier used it shield to ram into my body, knocking me back before advancing towards me.

Steadying myself after I was hit by the shield, I could see another arrow already nocked and the bow drawn towards me. I backed away from the soldier, allowing the archer to have a clear shot before easily dodging the arrow.

I charged towards the soldier once again, parrying its slash but I delivered a sweep kick to its legs, knocking it off balance and falling to the floor with a resounding clang as the metal armor hit the floor.

Not caring about the soldier that is busy trying to get up, I ran towards the archer as fast as I can before it could nock another arrow, smashing its skull in with my fists, instantly killing it in the process.

[Gained 10XP]

[You have gained a level, Level 9]

Skill learned: Martial Arts [Arms] (Basic) Martial Arts (Arms): A passive skill that improves martial art techniques involving arms, such as punches, flexibility and strength of the arms.

Skill Proficiency: G Skill Rarity: G+

Skills Martial Arts [Legs] and Martial Arts [Arms] have been combined to form Martial Arts

Ignoring the messages that appeared, I ran towards the soldier who was still struggling to stand up from its fall, delivering a heavy kick to its body, knocking it back down. Kicking metal armor wasn’t a smart choice as it made my shin hurt right after, dealing 1 damage to myself.

I continued my assault, stepping on its back to keep it from getting up, I took off its helmet and stabbed it in the head with my short sword, breaking it into pieces.

[Gained 16XP]

[You have gained a level, Level 10]

[You have gained 1 Skill point]

Skills Available | Remaining Skill Points: 1

Sense Presence: Senses presence within a 10m radius of the user 1 Skill Point Blink: Teleport to an area within 3m of the user, must be within view 1 Skill Point Lesser Heal: Heals 20HP of user or an ally, costs 10MP per use 1 Skill Point

Seeing these skills, I immediately chose Sense Presence since it would probably be very helpful at any point while I’m in this dungeon. I would probably need this skill in case there’s an ambush or hidden enemies.

I also added 5 points into strength and 5 points into dexterity. After adding stats, I felt like my body was nimbler, yet felt stronger than I ever was before. This is probably the effect of increasing my Strength and Dexterity stats. I also have to thank my dexterity that allowed me to react fast enough to dodge the arrows if not I would have been dead.

I picked up the sword and shield that the Skeleton Soldier dropped, ignoring the armor. The armor would hinder me more than it would help. I also kept the copper and the short sword into my inventory, maybe I would have a use for this short sword in the future.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

First off, let me just say that this sword is unusually light, maybe it’s due to my strength stats, it felt like a feather in my hands. Thinking back, I never realized that the short sword became lighter. This arming sword had almost double the length of the short sword, making it easier for me to fight. I equipped both the sword and shield.

I then headed to loot the archer’s corpse, picking up its bow and quiver, it would probably be useful if I trained in using a bow, I would probably learn a skill from using this.

I kept the bow and quiver in the same inventory slot, it seems like the inventory slots do not restrict based on what type of weapon it is, but they do have a maximum space to store your items in. I kept the bow for future use since I don’t have a suitable target right now.

The two skeletons were the only different monsters I’ve fought till now, I wonder if there were more variants of skeletons that might show up here. Since there were melee variants and ranged variants, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were magic variants of the skeletons. I would probably have to watch out for those.

Instead of slowly walking down the corridor, I grew a little impatient and started to jog down the corridor, killing a few skeletons on the way, bringing my level up to level 12. Additionally, my Martial Arts skill gained proficiency to rank E.

Eventually, I made it to the end of the corridor, what greeted me was a large arched doorway, as high as 4m. The doorway lead to an extremely spacious room, with pillars extending so high I couldn’t see how tall it was, blocked by an ominous dark mist. The pillars were numerous and spaced out evenly, almost seemingly endless.

In the distance, I could hear the clanging of metals and the rattling of bones, clearly showing that numerous skeletons inhabited this spacious room. From what I can hear, there could be dozens of skeletons in this room alone, not to mention new variants I have never seen. I was also expecting an especially strong skeleton to appear given the type of room this was.

Every step I took resounded through the air, albeit not alerting any of the skeletons in the distance. Most of the skeletons were blocked by a dense dark mist that I couldn’t see through, but would disperse once I got closer. I could roughly make out 5 skeletons spaced out, all armed with a sword, but none soldiers.

I easily pick off all 5 of the skeletons without alerting them together, giving me ample time to kill them off one by one. They didn’t drop anything noteworthy, just copper coins which I kept.

I continued to explore this spacious room, eventually coming across a robed skeleton, instead of a weapon in its hands, it held a book, which was probably a grimoire of sorts. I classified it as a magic variant of the skeletons.

I deliberately aggroed it to see what kinds of spells it would use, giving me more insight to how I would deal with it but mostly due to my curiosity to magic in this new world. Magic is a core element in a fantasy world, which I expect make up most of the technology in this world.

Expecting some sort of fireball from the skeleton mage, it started moving its jaws, chanting some indiscernible words before a ball of darkness formed in front of it and shot towards my direction.

The ball flew towards me at an astonishing speed, whizzing through the air at almost twice the speed of an arrow. I barely dodge it in time before it hit me, only to see it disappear into the darkness behind me.

Phew, lucky that didn’t hit me if not I would’ve become a goner! I swiftly made my way towards the lone skeleton mage, gripping my sword and getting ready to strike at the skeleton mage. The mage once again started to chant a spell as another ball of darkness floated in the air in front of it.

I get ready to dodge the spell the moment it fires, trying to move in a zig-zag fashion to make it harder for the skeleton mage to hit me with its spell. Once the spell was fired, it shot towards me at high speed, cutting through the air. I immediately twist my body to dodge the spell, barely grazing my face. I felt the wind brushing my face as the ball of darkness whizzed past me, if I hadn't dodged that my head would have been obliterated.

The mage was only 3m infront of me, I dashed towards it as fast as I can before it was able to unleash another spell, piercing its skull with my sword and finishing it off by crushing its skull with my foot.

[Gained 18 XP]

[You have gained a level, level 13]

Requirements: Average Darkness Affinity, Intelligence: 15>

 The spellbook I picked up from the mage's corpse was useless to me right now. I don't know whether I had the required affinity with the darkness element, nor did I have 15 intelligence. So far i've just placed my points into Strength, Dexterity and Constitution. It's just that there hasn't been any spells so intelligence was useless to me.

I open up the spell book to see its contents, but what greet me was just blank pages. I flipped through every page and all it showed were just blank pages. Maybe it has something to do with the requirements. Since I have 5 spare points, I distribute all 5 into intelligence.

Sure enough, strange symbols started to appear in the book. Symbols that I couldn't read, it didn't help that I had 15 intelligence and met the requirements, I still don't know what the contents of the book said.

A message prompt appeared in front of me as I held the book in my hands. I select 'Yes' by thinking of it.

The strange symbols in the book lit up brightly, they floated into the sky and flew into my head. I felt a strange sensation, like information flowing into my mind. When the runes disappeared, the book crumbled into ashes and a message appeared in front of me:

Skill learned: Darkness Blast Darkness Blast: Fires a ball of darkness towards a desired direction, dealing 30-40 damage to the enemy.  Mana cost: 20MP

Skill Proficiency: G Skill Rarity: E

The mana cost was a problem, but after adding 5 more points to my intelligence, I had a capacity of 57 mana points so I could use it twice in a fight, maybe three if the fight was dragged out.

With this, I now had a new weapon in my arsenal. I could see it being valuable against the long-ranged skeletons I had no way of dealing with when there are other skeletons blocking my way. I found a weak level 2 skeleton roaming the large space, firing a Darkness Blast towards it, the blast shattered the skeleton instantly from the sheer force of the impact.

Upon impact, there was no large explosion or anything flashy, the darkness enveloped the skeleton and dissipated as soon as it struck the skeleton. However, the feeling of the loss of mana was hard to get used to, I felt more exhausted than usual even though my stamina was still high. I could see that mana was slowly regenerating, about 0.1 per second.

Not wasting any time, I continued to fight the skeletons to level up, I occasionally use the bow to train, but it was harder than I thought. Most of my shots would miss or end up doing nothing but leave a scratch on the bones of the skeletons. The arrow wasn't very effective against these bony enemies. I did manage to learn the Bow proficiency skill.

6:20:36:12, the timer read on my 1 week boost. So far I have spent 4 hours in this dungeon, it felt like an eternity for me. I also realise that I haven't felt hungry all this time, I speculate that Stamina also represents my hunger, so when I level up, my hunger is replenished as well.

Right now, all I wanted to do was to get out of this dungeon and explore the new world outside of this dungeon, goblins, orcs and elves to see, magical dragons to fight and adventures to go on. I remember the majestic sight I had witnessed in that dream before the meteor struck, it was definitely a world worth exploring.

However, to do this, I must become stronger, I can't fathom how strong the boss of this dungeon must be and the skeletons must not be the only types of monsters in this dungeon. Setting my goal, I continued to kill the skeletons with more ardor than before.

Slaying dozens upon dozens of skeletons, everytime my stamina ran low, I would level up, distributing attributes prioritizing constitution, balancing strength and dexterity, and adding the occasional intelligence to allow me to use darkness blast more.

For repeating an action countless times without stop, you have gained a new stat: Perseverance! +10 Perseverance, +10 Strength

For being able to continuously grind skeletons for 2 hours straight, I gain a new stat, Perseverance and increased strength. For now, I have no idea what it does but it appears that I can distribute my attribute points to it unlike Luck and Willpower. It also seems like doing activities will also allow me to increase my stats other than leveling up, very useful.

Just when I thought killing this skeletons was boring and my level is getting too high to be still fighting these skeletons, a new opponent appears infront of me... an abnormally large one that is.

----------------------------------------

Current Status:

Name: Kellan Flint Level: 18 Race: Human Health: 65/65 Mana 117/117 Stamina: 165/165 Class: None Titles: Discoverer Attribute Points: 0 Strength: 47 Dexterity: 48 Intelligence: 25 Constitution: 53 Willpower: 30 Luck: 20(x2)  Perseverance: 10    

Skill List: Skill Proficiency: Skill Rarity: Swordplay (Basic) D G+ Martial Arts (Basic) D G+ Dangersense F F Sense Presence F B Darkness Blast F E