Shaun didn’t delay in moving towards the final dungeon, it was going to be the easiest for him, and the quickest as he already had an affinity for earth and would not need to spend time doing it inside of the dungeon itself. From everything that he knew about the dungeon from Gabe and Eric, it was pretty straight forward. There were three levels that you would have to move through and on each level was a different golem starting with ones made from marble, then bronze and finally carbon steel.

It took him nearly two full days to get to the dungeon, and by the time he had arrived at the entrance and he checked the countdown it showed that there was just under two days left until the stage would end. That would be the point at which the top 1000 would be set and then stage 3 would begin. He didn’t doubt that he was in the top 1000, he even thought that the top 10 was easily in his grasp, but being able to complete this last dungeon was something he wanted to do. He wanted the orb more than anything else, that and hopefully one more level in his class.

*Welcome to the Earthen Force Dungeon*

The dungeon, formed into existence from the earth, will test whether you can survive the strength and durability of earth itself, 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?

He wasn’t in peak shape at the moment, he hadn’t slept in nearly a week and had been running non stop since leaving the water dungeon. He didn’t care though, he accepted the prompt and immediately was sent into the dungeon.

The moment he was inside of the dungeon he didn’t hesitate to move immediately to the first area where the marble golems were, and as expected six of the golems were present.

*Marble Golem – Level 19*

He threw the trident that he was holding straight at the closest golem, it didn’t get a chance to do anything except turn to face him. Even though the golem stood two metres tall and was solidly built of solid marble, the moment that the trident hit it squarely in its chest it exploded into pieces of stone. He hadn’t even powered up the attack, simply just thrown the weapon at it. Let’s see how quickly I can finish off these monsters.

Shaun ran right to the next golem, having drawn his sword, he was ready to smash them to pieces. As soon as he reached the golem he sent the tiniest bit of mana through to his sword for an Elemental Strike, attuned to his air affinity, and hit it in its face. It was blasted to pieces, nothing remaining but small pieces of stone and dust.

He had used such a small amount of his mana that it was practically negligible when compared to how much he had available to him, and the results spoke for itself. Rather than run at the remaining golems he simply shot out an air strike at each of them, turning each one into nothing but broken stone. He waited patiently for the final golem to wake up. It was a bit different this time around. It was in the room with them already but not powered up. The moment the other golems were dead though it lifted its head and looked straight at where he was standing. The entire thing was bizarre, they weren’t living creatures in the traditional sense, but powered by the earth affinity itself. If he had to guess the way it could see and feel was the same way he used his echo skill, which would make hiding from them, if someone had to anyway, rather difficult.

Rather than wait to see what it could do, he simply sent another airstrike at the golem and finished it in one hit. He had become so overpowered when it came to any of the monsters, even the level 25 bosses that he had encountered, that stage 2 had become less about fighting and more about the loot.

*You have defeated a (Marble Golem – Lvl 19). Experience gained. 190 TE awarded*

…………………………………………………………….

*You have defeated a (Marble Golem – Lvl 19). Experience gained. 190 TE awarded*

*You have defeated a (Reinforced Marble Golem – Lvl 21). Experience gained. 210 TE awarded*

He didn’t even know if he could call what he just did a fight, it was more a one-sided slaughter, but still experience was experience and the TE was better than nothing. What was nice was the loot, marble slabs were put into his inventory, it was a pretty stone, something that he would find a use for eventually. He walked over and retrieved his trident before moving to the stairs at the end of the room and making his way up.

This room was bigger than the last, but still not large enough to cause any issues with being able to attack all of the golems present. He only spent a spare second to identify the golems, confirming they were level 21 and bronze, just as he was told they would be, before attacking. This time, as they were made of metal, he changed up what kind of element he was using, switching to fire over air. He didn’t even bother using elemental strikes, relying on his flamethrower ability to just melt them all down to puddles.

It was a bit slower than using the strikes, but no by much. The closer the golems came towards him the more they were hit by the flames. None were able to get within a metre of him without dropping to the ground. It was an interesting experience, the joints would melt first and they would lose their arms and sometimes legs when the metal got hot enough that they could no longer hold together. They tried to reinforce themselves with their own skills using the earth element, but the sheer amount of flames that Shaun was conjuring overwhelmed their meagre skill quickly.

It took all of five minutes before every golem was dead, and even then, the boss was taken out with one fire strike, not wanting to waste any more mana he had decided to just end it quickly and efficiently.

He got the notifications for the dead golems and made sure to loot them all for the bronze ingots, knowing that they would come in handy with his crafting. He had been in the dungeon for all of maybe 30 minutes and already had cleared two of the areas. He was finishing off these monsters quicker than expected and if he really wanted to, he could kill the last of the golems in the room above him and be done with the dungeon in the next 30 minutes. But he was exhausted, the week he had just gone through had been rough, the travelling, the nonstop swimming, barely having time to eat. He needed to rest, especially with stage 3 coming up at the end of the next day. He was safe in the dungeon, he wouldn’t have to worry about anything attacking him and would not be interrupted in the slightest if he took a nap and treated himself to a meal.

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And that’s what he did. He cooked himself as much meat as how he could, using the last of the herbs he had on him to add some flavour. Only when he was completely stuffed did he take out some of the more comfortable pelts he had gotten from the monsters he had killed and made himself a soft bed to sleep on. As soon as his head hit the ground he was asleep.

When he woke, he had not felt this relaxed and refreshed in a long time. He checked how long he had been asleep and saw that it had been nearly 8 hours, the longest amount of time he had slept in a row since entering the tutorial. So worth it.

He still had one full day left before he would be moving on to stage 3, plenty of time to finish off the dungeon and also get some crafting done afterwards. He put all of the pelts back into his inventory and stretched out his muscles. He doubted that the last room would take him long and figured he should get it over with now that he was at peak health again.

Walking up the stairs he couldn’t help the joy in his step, he had done so much in the last month, thinking back to the first dungeon, he couldn’t believe it took him over a week to finish, he had been so weak back then. It felt like a lifetime ago that he hesitated out the front of the entrance to the fire dungeon and then had to spend days fighting some level 19 lizards.

When he got to the final room he looked over all of the golems, thirteen shiny carbon steel prizes that he would soon be looting for metal. What a great day.

*Reinforced Carbon Steel Golem – Level 25*

The boss was over 4 metres tall, it was huge, and if he hadn’t been as strong as he was, it would have been very intimidating to fight. He wasn’t scared though, his heart didn’t even speed up when standing before the golem before him. If anything he was as calm as he could be.

The boss quickly started to power up its own attack, its body starting to glow as it walked towards him. The golems were not fast, they were so slow that he would simply need to jog and he would stay ahead of them. What they didn’t have in speed though they made up for in their durability and strength, just not enough to make a difference to Shaun’s power though. He quickly sent our fire strikes at the golem, one after the other. The normal golems were taken out in one hit but the boss was still standing after having been hit by two. It was annoying more than anything, he hadn’t put much mana into them, but still, if it was any other monster it would be dead. This was the earth element at play, he knew that it allowed for some resistance to the elements, every time he had attuned an item with it, the description detailed the change.

When it was just Shaun and the boss left, he decided to actually use a physical attack. He prepared his trident with a water strike, something he had never done before, but given the gem that was forged into the weapon he figured that it was better to use water than any other element. When he had powered it up enough that he figured that it would have easily been able to take out every golem in the entire dungeon he threw the trident right towards the boss, waiting to see what would occur.

As soon as the trident struck, the resulting escape of water mana was overwhelming. At the point where the trident met the golem a wave of pure compressed water was set loose, soaking everything in the room, but that wasn’t the worst part. The wave was so powerful that even he couldn’t stand up to its force and ended up being slammed backwards until his back hit the wall and then dropped to the ground. He wasn’t hurt by the attack but the shock of that much power had knocked the air from his lungs. The golem, if he could even still call it that, was laying in pieces throughout the opposite side of the room, the unlucky bodies of the other monsters that were in the room had not been left intact either.

*You have defeated a (Carbon Steel Golem – Lvl 23). Experience gained. 230 TE awarded*

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*You have defeated a (Carbon Steel Golem – Lvl 23). Experience gained. 230 TE awarded*

*You have defeated a (Reinforced Carbon Steel Golem – Lvl 25). Experience gained. 1000 TE awarded*

*Class: Elemental Blade Slinger has levelled up by +1 levels. [Advanced] Elemental Blade Slinger has reached Level 34. +3 Str, +2 Dex, +3 End, +3 Vit, +4 Soul gained*

*Race: Human has levelled up by +1 levels. Human (E) has reached Level 29. +16 Ap gained*

To say he was happy about the level in both his class and race would have been an understatement. He had pretty much given up hope on getting any more levels in his class before entering stage 3, especially after not getting any experience from the Merfolk.

*Earthen Force Dungeon Completed. Dungeon will automatically eject successful participants in 5 minutes.*

Once he received the final notification of only having 5 minutes before being forced out of the dungeon he quickly set to looting what was left of the bodies and gathering the trident back up. He looked at the trident in more detail after this, the amount of power that had been released from his attack was beyond anything that he had expected. The gem, or maybe even the trident itself, was at a whole different level to any of his other advanced weapons. He didn’t know if it was the gold metal it was made form or just the gem itself, but it made him reevaluate his plan on what he would be crafting next. Before he could consider further the timer hit 0 and he was sent outside of the dungeon, where thankfully, no one was present.

*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*

*Earth’s Might Orb rewarded*

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

And with that he had successfully finished his final dungeon and obtained all five of the elemental orbs. He had set out to do this and it had been a battle to get to each of them in time, but having completed each one solo, and all at A grade, he couldn’t help but be impressed with himself.

*Title upgraded: Solo Dungeoneer to Expert Solo Dungeoneer*

*Expert Solo Dungeoneer: Through the solo completion of five dungeon’s meant for more than one individual this title grants the holder a 15% increase to their stats while outside of dungeons and alone and a 20% increase while solo within a dungeon.*

The upgrade to his title was nice, another extra 5% was always welcome, this time though it was no longer upgradeable. Not that he minded anymore, he had done all the dungeons in the area so it's not like he could do any more solo completions any time soon.

He only had less than a day left, and he had the perfect plan on what he was going to do, time to craft.