Even when he finished eating Shaun sat at the table just thinking about which dungeon he wanted to go to. There was about 6 weeks or so until the start of the event by his counting and there wasn’t much left on his checklist to finish off while on Earth. He had skill levels to increase, the D grade dungeon to claim, the dragon core to meditate with and his affinity to work on.
When he looked at each one individually the amount of time spent on each of these was a lot. All of them though had one thing in common, he would be doing them alone. If he stayed at the school he was likely to get interrupted and distracted a lot so eventually he would need to move away and the only place he would really go would be the D grade area.
Even if he moved he would still spend some time here though, at the very least to visit people, but for the most part he would be in seclusion. The best place to do this would be the D grade area, no one would travel that far and he could easily ensure no one could use the crystals to teleport there.
He was also curious about the D grade dungeon, especially just how strong the monsters would be and what kind. He didn’t think he was ready to complete the dungeon, not yet at least, but at the very least he could find out just how strong a D grade was compared to an E grade.
Having made his decision, he went to find someone to inform them he was leaving for a while. Before that though he raided the kitchen again and stocked up on food and water. He had no idea how long he would be gone and figured the more food the better.
When he left he was surprised that the first people he ran into was Eli and his team. They looked like they had just gotten back form the dungeon and looked exhausted. When he identified them he found that Eli had increased his level up to 17, a huge jump compared to where he had been at before. The others were not that far behind him.
“You look like crap.” They hadn’t even noticed him until he spoke. The moment Eli saw who had spoken he looked pissed.
“Yeah, most people do. Its hard to sleep when you wake up every few minutes thinking your about to die.” It seemed they all shared that sentiment by the looks on their faces.
“Sorry about that. The good news is I am done. So you can get back to getting your beauty sleep.”
“What were you even doing? It was intense for us, but you were in the middle of it.” Eli had gone from annoyed to just tired in a split second. Probably too tired to stay angry at him.
“Just making a sword. How have the dungeon runs been?” He changed the subject as quickly as he could.
“Good, but we are thinking about traveling to the other dungeons, we need more experience fighting different monsters, not just goblins.” Shaun thought about it for a moment before deciding to just do what he wanted.
“I will do you a deal. I am going away for a bit, not sure how long. If you pass on a message to Eric and Gabe that I am heading to the D grade dungeon and will be gone for a while I will give you access to the teleport function on the Settlement Crystal. All you will need to do is touch it and choose which other area you wanted to go to. Deal?”
They all just stared at him for a while before they actually replied. “Deal. But are you serious? The D grade dungeon?”
“Yeah, I figure its time to see what its like. I don’t know where it is though, or even how long it will take me to do. But why not give it a go right.”
“What level are you? If I was E grade I would be able to see, but I’m still F grade so can you tell me?” Eli was practically pleading with him, and he was right, anyone in E grade could see it anyway.
“112, split pretty even between class and profession. By the time I’m back, who knows, you might be able to see my level instead of having to ask.” He gave Eli a wink and walked away to looks of shock.
He had now sorted out telling someone where he was going and if Eric really wanted to talk to him about it he could contact him through the stones.
He moved quickly to the Settlement Crystal and when he got there made the changes he promised to allow Eli and his team to use it to get to the other F grade areas. Then he teleported himself to the closest E grade area before taking to the sky and moving towards the centre of the settlement.
When he finally moved from the E grade area into the D grade he felt just how different it was. This was his first time in the D grade area and the ambient mana was much higher than that of the E grade. It was also a good indication of the jump from E to D. If the move from F to E was a drop of water then the move from E to D felt more like a lake, and that was just basing it off of the mana in the areas.
He guessed that killing a D grade monster was going to be much harder than an E grade, but he wanted to experience that for himself. He didn’t waiver in his choice to find the D grade dungeon, if anything it pushed him to keep going. He knew the E grade dungeons wouldn’t do much for him anymore. Sure, he could run them a few dozen times and level up further, but the bonus experience from them was pretty much gone now. After levelling his profession up so much it would take a long time to hit level 124 in the E grade dungeons.
As Shaun moved through the D grade area, the mountain that took up the centre of the area started to tower over him, even while he was in the sky. The E grade mountains had been large, and hiking up them would be a challenge for any human pre integration, but the mountain now in front of him was several times bigger.
Even post integration, if you were unlucky enough not to be able to fly, the journey up the side of the mountain would take days, if not weeks, to do. Add to that needing to locate a dungeon which would be somewhere on it would multiply that time unless you got seriously lucky.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Thankfully, he had no need to hike the mountain, nor search the entire thing by eyesight alone. His plan was simple, he would start at the top, circle his way down using his echo skill and hopefully find the dungeon quickly. Even with this though, it would still take hours to even reach the top by flying, and even more to circle his way down.
As he travelled up the mountain he stayed close and used his echo skill all the way up. Although it didn’t take long for him to get distracted by what he found within the mountain itself. Through his echo he found the mountain wasn’t just made of rock, as far as he could feel there was different types of metal ore throughout it and even some gems that lit up in his skill.
He pushed his skill further down into the base of the mountain and found that there was pockets of resources as far as his skill went. He came to the conclusion pretty quickly that the D grade area wasn’t just about claiming a dungeon and finishing off ownership of an entire area, there was natural resources that could be mined that, if used correctly, could make a settlement rich.
It was an interesting find, but also one that he didn’t want to deal with, so he left everything as it was for now. Maybe in the future he would explore the mountain further and see exactly what treasures it held, but it was a distraction for another time.
Pushing himself further into the air, traveling at his top speed, he used his echo skill continuously, pushing it to take in as much as he could while he moved. Nothing more of interest stood out to him so he didn’t slow his ascent to the peak.
The higher he went the colder it got, when night fell the temperature this high up also dropped considerably. Eventually snow and ice started to coat the mountain peak and he was way above the clouds at this point but thankfully, given his ice and air affinity, he had no issues continuing on.
When he finally felt the peak come into the radius of his echo he started searching around for the dungeon. He had hoped it would be close to the top, but to his disappointment he wasn’t able to locate it immediately. What he did find was an opening on the side of the mountain though, the first he had found since starting his search.
As this was the only thing he found his whole way up the mountain that was different he made a beeline for the opening and once inside moved back into his physical form. It had been a long time since he had been on his own 2 feet, and it took him a moment to adjust before getting a good look around.
The cave went for as far as he could feel, and even to his eyes it was pitch black inside with no source of light. Not that he minded as he could see just as well with his skill as he could with his eyes in the middle of the day. Rather than run through the cave he went at a steady walk, there didn’t seem to be any changes in the cave, no offshoots, just one tunnel that led down into the centre of the mountain.
After an hour of walking he finally felt a change in the cave, it opened up into a small cavern that contained the dungeon. It was as if this dungeon was supposed to be hard to reach. Climbing a mountain into the freezing cold where everything was covered in ice, to then have to find the cave and traverse through the dark to the centre of the mountain would be painful for any E grade, probably even D grade unless they had the proper skills. Considering that most wouldn’t be traveling alone would add further complications to the entire endeavour. And this is why fighting alone is the best.
It didn’t take him much longer to reach the dungeon after that, when he did he felt both relieved at finally making it here after days of nonstop travel, but also a small amount of fear. If the D grade dungeon was set to peak, there was no way he was going to be able to survive in there, he was strong, really strong for his level, but he doubted that he could fight that gap.
He slowly walked forward towards the dungeon, waiting for the notification to pop up which would give him the information he needed.
**Welcome to Ascend the Peak (D grade) Dungeon**
This dungeon forms part of an unclaimed cluster. Current dungeons claimed in this cluster: F grade 15/15, E grade 5/5, D grade 0/1.
Note: to claim this dungeon you need a minimum of 10,000,000 TE. No rewards will be provided if dungeon claimed.
Objectives of Ascend the Peak dungeon
A beast of unrivalled power had claimed the valley as its home. At the top of the highest peak it watches over its land, controlling all those who live there, forcing them to do its bidding. To attack the beast before killing its subjects will lead to only death.
Only by killing all three leaders of the three subjugated monster tribes and then killing the best will you finish the dungeon.
Note: You may leave the dungeon at any time by retreating back to the entry point. Dungeon difficulty set to middle difficulty until dungeon is claimed.
One participant located, would you like to enter the dungeon?
Shaun was both relieved and thankful, not only was he given the information before he entered the dungeon but the dungeon itself was only set to middle difficulty. That meant the boss, this beast, would be level 190 give or take a few levels. It was still high, but better than level 249. The three mini bosses, or the leader of the tribes, would be in the 160 to 180 range. He couldn’t really narrow it down from there as it would vary. But considering the beast had the power to control all three tribes he assumed there had to be at least a 10 level gap but probably a bit more.
His last guess was that the weakest monsters would be level 125 through to 160. They couldn’t be as strong as their leaders and it made sense for them to scale up from the weakest D grade to the beginning of middle.
He stepped back from the dungeon and made himself comfortable on the other side of the cavern. He wanted to be at his peak before entering, so he would eat and sleep and only then would he enter to test the waters and see how he would go against D grades.
Before he went to sleep he considered checking in on Eric but decided against it. Everyone needed to get used to him not being there, not long from now he would be leaving Earth for good and even before that he would be going into seclusion for a time. Whatever happened they needed to figure it out without him.
He didn’t know how long he slept but when he woke up he felt excitement. This was a new challenge, he might fail, and he was prepared for that. This was more so a test, worst case scenario he fled and ran out of the dungeon. Best case he managed to not only kill all of the leaders but managed to kill the beast as well.
He doubted this would happen on his first go at the dungeon, but this was still a good opportunity for him to gain the last few levels of his class and level up his skills.
With nothing holding him back he walked up to the dungeon again, with one final read through of the objective he confirmed he wanted to enter. Like every other time he had gone into a dungeon he felt the world shift around him until he appeared in a completely new area.
Looking around the dungeon he saw that he was in a completely open valley, it was so large that he couldn’t see the end of it in any direction. Pushing his echo skill he didn’t find any monsters within his vicinity so he continued to look around into the distance.
Far in the distance he saw a mountain, it towered over everything in the valley. If he was right that would be were the beast lives, so for now he was planning to steer clear of that area. He took a moment to take in where he was and what he was about to do. He was ready to kill his first D grade monster.