Once he appeared back outside of the dungeon he didn’t see anyone waiting around this time. He assumed that they had all moved on, or after what Shaun had done before entering, decided it was in their best interest to either enter or meet elsewhere. He couldn’t find anyone close by when he used his echo to check the area, which he supposed was a good thing, although he was a little disappointed at not catching Trevor and being able to see in person what kind of strength he had compared to his own. He looked through his notifications from defeating all of the monsters in the dungeon, he hadn’t done this when looting the bodies, he was still kind of upset about having killed the beautiful creatures.

*You have defeated a (Griffin Cub – Level 23). Experience gained. 230 TE awarded*

……………………………………………………………………….

*You have defeated a (Griffin Cub – Level 23). Experience gained. 230 TE awarded*

*You have defeated a (Griffin – Level 25). Experience gained. 1000 TE awarded*

*Class: Elemental Blade Slinger has levelled up by +1 levels. [Advanced] Elemental Blade Slinger has reached Level 33. +3 Str, +2 Dex, +3 End, +3 Vit, +4 Soul gained*

He had only got 1 level from killing 13 monsters, it was sad to see but he had expected to get reduced return when killing monsters now that he out levelled them all. He was also now pretty much back to being on schedule, he had about 9 more days left in Stage 2, plenty of time to do two more dungeons and have some time left over, hopefully. He looked to the final notifications of his dungeon completion, hoping that everything went to plan and he got another orb for his reward.

*Calculating dungeon reward grade*

Party fully cleared the dungeon of monsters. Adjusting reward grade.

No members of the party died during the completion of the dungeon. Adjusting reward grade.

Dungeon completed by less than the 5 participants recommended. Adjusting reward grade.

Dungeon completed in less than 3 days. Adjusting reward grade.

Dungeon completed Solo. Adjusting reward grade.

Dungeon reward grade: A

*Distributing reward at A level*

*Blank Faction Emblem*

*Fleeting Air Orb rewarded*

*Fleeting Air Orb: An orb that is made of the most pure element of Air, greatly increases control and ability to manipulate this element if equipped. If the user has an affinity for Air, mana cost is greatly reduced when using their affinity. If the user does not have an affinity to Air, when equipped may channel mana through the orb and aspect their mana for short periods.*

He was happy with the orb, and it was as expected, linked to the air element and very similar to all of the others. He had received another faction emblem, now having 3 fully formed emblems was nice, but he still had little use for them, if he continued on like he was he would end up with five of them before this stage ended, he might even try trading them with others if he got a chance, but only if he got some good loot that he could use in return.

*Title upgraded: Beginner Solo Dungeoneer to Solo Dungeoneer*

*Solo Dungeoneer: Through the solo completion of three dungeon’s meant for more than one individual this title grants the holder a 10% increase to their stats while outside of dungeons and alone and a 15% increase while solo within a dungeon. The title is upgradeable.*

Wasn’t expecting to be able to upgrade that title so easily. It was an unexpected boon, one that he was more than happy to accept, it wasn’t a huge upgrade or change, just the removal of beginner from everything and a 5% increase to his stats when both inside and outside of dungeons, still, any % increases to his stats were helpful, they would provide the best return the more powerful he became. He had no more notifications to go over so had no more reason to be waiting outside of the dungeon, instead he looked around getting a better idea of where he was in respect to the next dungeon.

He knew where he needed to head to next, the closest dungeon to him now would be the water one, and if he travelled at the speed he had gone when he was running through the forest before, he assumed he would be able to get there in 2 days tops. If he estimated the time he could spend in every area he figured it would be 2 days travelling to the water dungeon, 3 days inside, if everything went to plan, then another 2 days travelling to the earth dungeon, and that would leave him only two days to finish the dungeon and make it out, he was hoping he could do it much quicker as he didn’t have to bond an affinity to earth, but he set himself the two days regardless, hoping one would be enough though so he would have a full day left once he finished to craft and evolve his profession.

He set out towards the mountain with the mist, he had the direction where he needed to head and all he really needed to do was run, avoid people, and not delay in attacking monsters unless he found something truly interesting that would be worth the delay. The whole first day of running went by pretty quickly, and while he ran, he thought through everything that had happened in this stage of the tutorial. Bringing up the objectives he was happy with what he saw.

*Stage 2 objectives: 11,246 Participants*

Clear 3 Dungeons: Complete

Obtain Profession: Complete

Optional Objective – Form a blank Faction Emblem - Complete

Survive

He found that he had already completed every objective, and if he really wanted to, he could just chill out and do nothing but his crafting for the remainder of the next 9 days, but that would be a waste of potential returns, and the thing that was most important to this stage wasn’t just the objectives but also where you sat in the power ranking. You needed to be in the top 1000 to move on, and there were 11,000 people still fighting for one of those spots. Over a third of the people that had moved on from stage 1 had already died, it was a lot, but this stage was also a lot harder than stage one and the gap one needed to close between their own strength and the level 25 bosses wasn’t easy at the beginning, the more you fought though, the easier it became.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

As he continued to move through the forest he also did a comparison of his own strength compared to every other human he had met in the tutorial so far. Most of the people he had met so far hadn’t reached level 20 in their race yet, but a few had successfully evolved their classes, Gabe and Eric had just completed their upgrades when he saw them, they had spoken a bit about what they had become, but they had all agreed that keeping class evolutions to oneself was important to ensure that your build, including strengths and weaknesses, were not well known. If it was to be believed, Trevor had also upgraded his class, and that would mean that out of the 11,000 people he would assume that at least 1,000 of them were at this point, if not more.

Looking at his TE count, he had just over 45,000 to his name, he would easily hit the 50k mark with two more dungeons, and if he was to guess, this would be on the very high end of what people had in the tutorial so far, the thing that may interfere with this was if people were also killing off their competitors for the 1,000 spots, gaining other peoples TE as well. Even then though, he was always fighting alone, meaning he never had to split the TE or Experience with others which gave him a big lead on most people.

This also directly linked into his level, he was heading towards level 30 in his race, something he wanted to hit by the end of this stage, it was going to be pushing it, he knew that, especially as he had only gained one class level for completing a full dungeon by himself, it was ambitious, but he liked to aim high.

The last things that would impact on the rankings were Titles and Affinity. He had no problems with his affinities, having already bonded four now, there was no way that it wouldn’t put him in a very high position on its own, but he also didn’t know if it would count the same as if he only had one compared to the four when everything was calculated. The titles were a bit harder to compare, currently he had five titles, one was New initiate which everyone would have, so he ignored that giving him a boost. The rest though were all a bit more unique, Apex Predator was something that he got from fighting the Alpha in stage 1, and not many people in the tutorial would have had the opportunity to get it, if any at all. Planetary Forerunner was only given to the first 10 people to get an affinity from every person from Earth, and unless there were a lot of powerful and lucky people in his tutorial it would have an impact on his ranking.

Elemental Master and Solo Dungeoneer had both been upgraded once form their original title, so he didn’t know if they would count as one title or two each, either way there would be very limited, if any others, with his dungeoneer title, although hey may have something of the equivalent for just completing a dungeon. Elemental Master though was going to be next to impossible to replicate, which should give him at least one title on everyone else.

Overall, his conclusion was that he was definitely in the top 1,000, probably in the top 10, and a chance he was actually number 1, but he wouldn’t know for another week or so. As expected it took him two days to reach the mountain, he ended up stopping and getting in a power nap during his travels, running non stop for a full day was a lot even for his new and improved body.

During the time he ran though he wasn’t idle in his training, he practised with the air affinity a lot, predominantly with using the air to make him move faster and more nimble through the trees, but he also dedicated some time to testing his increasingly useful ability to compress air and run through the air. He couldn’t deny how fun it was to be able to run in mid air, at one point, when he couldn’t feel anything around him, he ran up as high as he could, above the trees just so he could get a view of how far away he was from the dungeon, also to just enjoy the view.

As he got closer to the mountain where the water dungeon should be, he realised why it looked like there was mist in the air surrounding it. He had to circle the mountain to get confirmation, but what he found was a waterfall that flowed from the very peak of the mountain all the way down to the ground, falling into a large lake at the bottom. The mist was from all of the water that was in the air from the waterfall, and the sound coming from the water crashing into the lake was deafening up close, he couldn’t hear a thing over the sound, but he could still use his echo to get an idea if anyone was around, which surprisingly, there wasn’t. It was as if no one had bothered coming here to explore the dungeon, or they had already entered and left.

It took a bit of time travelling around the mountain before he found the dungeon entrance, it was actually on the other side of the waterfall itself, meaning he would need to travel either underneath the water, to avoid the crashing water, or just go right through the falling water. As he was thinking it over, he had a moment of doubt about this dungeon, when he was in the air dungeon he had found himself literally so high in the sky that he would have died if he fell off the edge of one of the islands. The nature dungeon was surrounded by forest, the fire surrounded by lava. If it followed the trend he would find himself surrounded by water, and there was a chance he could be deposited in the middle of an ocean, or even under water itself.

He couldn’t breathe underwater, not that he had tried, but he didn’t really want to test the theory either. There was something he could do to prepare though. He decided to go for a swim, he dived straight into the lake, he knew it was deep from checking with his echo, but what he didn’t expect was for the water to be so cold. If he didn’t have his upgraded body or a fire affinity he was pretty sure he would freeze pretty quickly if he stayed submerged.

Rather than focus on the cold though, he focused on holding his breath for as long as he could. 30 seconds quickly turned into a minute, before reaching 5 minutes. It was only when he started hitting the 10 minute mark that he didn’t have a choice but to come up for air. I am the world's biggest idiot. I can literally control the air.

Once he had gotten his breath back, he tried going under again, this time though he connected to the air around him and pulled it in close, he couldn’t harden it for long, but he didn’t think we would need too. When he went back under water, this time he focused on keeping a bubble of air around his head, it was disorientating at first, being underwater and also being able to breathe, he adjusted to it quickly. He needed to keep a lot of control on the air though, it continuously wanted to rise up out of the water and escape into the air above, but he held on.

He didn’t wait long after that, he approached the waterfall and where the dungeon was located, when he passed underneath where the waterfall hit he was pushed around a bit and had to move deeper to avoid getting blasted around. Once he made it to the other side, rising back up to the surface, he found that the dungeon was in the water itself, he would need to swim into it to enter, leading him to believe he would end up in the water as soon as he entered.

*Welcome to the Ocean’s Storm Dungeon*

The dungeon, formed into existence from the untamed water of the world, will test whether you can survive the endless expanse of water, one of the base elements of the multiverse.

Recommended that a full party of five enter at a minimum level of 20, once entered there will be no exit unless the boss is killed and the dungeon completed.

Reward depends on performance within the dungeon.

One participant located, would you like to enter the dungeon?

There was no doubt in his mind how much this was going to suck, he would be at a huge disadvantage in this dungeon, being forced to move through water greatly impacted his ability to move and fight, but he didn’t have much of a choice, he had already committed to getting this done so he just accepted and wished that it would end sooner rather than later.