The Crypts, City Dungeon

Granite City

The space Jut was in was very dark. He read the Notification that had appeared as soon as he was pulled into the Dungeon's blue barrier. The same barrier was swirling slowly behind him now.

You have entered the Granite City Dungeon:

The Crypts

You meet the requirements to run this Dungeon:

Stone Rank

All Skill Slots Equipped

Okay

Clearing that one away brought up another window.

The Crypts are a City Dungeon. City Dungeons grow through being cleared by Ascendant Beings. As such, Death is not an outcome in City Dungeons, unlike Lairs, Wild Dungeons or Challenge Dungeons. Should an Being's health reach 0, they will be ejected from the dungeon in the condition in which they entered. 50% of the gained experience and items will be forfeited to ensure their survival. Skills cannot be equipped during a Dungeon Run, but gear may be.

City Dungeons have their own unique run options, limitations, and treasures. The first time a Being clears a City Dungeon will include a bonus. Good Luck!

The widows faded away slowly after being dismissed. Jut looked around. The space looked to be a long hallway, wide enough to walk three or four people abreast. There were dark unidentifiable shapes to either side of the space. As he studied the hallway, he could make out a faint light at the other end.

Jut equipped his armor through his Spacial Armory screen. It amused him that he could read his notifications and screens like normal, even in the deep darkness. He felt the chest piece, leggings, gloves and leather helmet appear on him, fitting snugly. His sword was now sheathed at his side. He drew it, savoring the sound of it sliding free.

"Alex. Let's do this." Jut said out loud.

Do you remember the choice made regarding your Racial Gift?

Jut automatically reverted to thinking to Alex to answer. I do. Why?

Don't let the change freak you out and look down the hallway.

Jut looked up and that's when he heard a faint scrapping noise from down the hallway. His eyes widened as a shape emerged from the wall, glowing a faint red. It took Jut a long moment of terror and an information popup appearing over the being's shape for Jut to understand and calm down.

Human - Monster Normal Rank

The red Jut was seeing was a heat signature. The body's heat glow obscured the Monster's features. He couldn't guess what else the color could mean. The green bar over the Monster was familiar as well.

The humanoid shape charged at Jut, it's arms outstretched, and he could hear a moaning along with the pounding of feet. Multiple shapes crawled from the from walls, following the first. Each sporting a similar popup tag and HP bar.

Even as he readied his sword for combat, Jut could feel his sword Skill feeding him information. He corrected his stance and gripped the sword with both hands differently than he would his club. He activated Magical Strikes and Windy Steps at the same time. The familiar blue glow started at the swords cross guard and spread up the blade to the tip. A green energy coursed along the edge of and around the blade like a gust of wind.

Jut brought the sword down. Even as he cut into the Monster's chest, the blade slicing easily across the creature, the glow from his sword illuminated the Human - Monster's face.

Just like with the Monster Dogs and Cats, the Human Monster looked like a simplified Human with no distinct features except for the glowing red eyes. With Jut's Dragon Sight, the eyes glowed an even brighter red, sending a shiver down his spine.

Jut's sword cut across the Monster's chest, thick blood spraying out of the wound as it collapsed backward, its HP bar gone in one hit. He stepped over the corpse to attack the second of the shapes to approach.

This was where Jut encountered the first difference between his club and sword and it made him take damage. Jut swung down and instead the body breaking or collapsing with his hit, the blade passed through the second Human Monster. It died, but Jut was still swinging the blade and nearly spun himself around one hundred and eighty degrees. The hard attacks to his back had Jut stumbling forward, trying to catch his balance. The attacks did hurt, but nowhere as bad as when he was hunting before his Ascension.

His Heath Points sank, but only by a few percent for each strike, leaving him at ninety-two. Jut turned again and tried to adjust his movements accordingly. He also activated his other new skill, Consequence.

The bodies felt like they never stopped. Jut kept hacking through them, one after another. He'd cut one across the throat, just in time to reverse the swing and take out another by bisecting it at the waist.

Jut lost track of time as he pushed forward toward the light. His world consisted of two things, Monsters to cut down and the light coming ever closer.

Eventually, Jut was standing at the end of the hall, which was an opening that led to a new room. He was breathing hard as he released all of his Skills. His mana and stamina bars were low, hovering at around thirty percent each. His HP bar was higher, but not by much, sitting at forty-eight percent.

By the end of the long fight, Jut had noticed that he was moving much faster than should have been possible. Incredibly so. He also felt when the last ten seconds passed and he lost the haste buff, his body violently returning to normal speeds. It was like his limbs became heavy. He never noticed the Human Monster's dying faster due his Consequence Skill and the vulnerability debuff it gave because they died too quickly.

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Looking down at himself, Jut noticed he didn't have any wounds on his body. The nearby light showed there was blood all over him, but none of it was his. There were also jagged, red lines that sat on his skin where he knew he had been struck. However, the marks were more like paint or a light shining on him. They didn't hurt and were not open wounds.

Jut's breathing became even as his Stamina bar quickly refilled. His Mana and HP, however, were not visibly rising.

"I need healing potions." Jut said as he stepped into the lit room just beyond the hallway's end once he was certain there were no more Monsters coming at him. The room was round with eight openings leading to hallways, including the one he had come down. The shapes on either side of the hallway were coffins. The Monsters had crawled out of the stone boxes.

There were more alcoves between the hallways in the center room with more coffins. Yet, what really caught his eye was the giant coffin in the middle. At least five people could fit inside it. Light, not torch light like he first thought, more like sun light, poured through an opening in the ceiling and created a circle around the monstrous coffin. There were eight clamps that appeared to hold it shut, three along each the sides and one at the foot and head of the coffin. One of the clamps had been popped open.

Jut knew there would be more Human Monsters down the other hallways, so he backtracked and looted the Monsters from the first hallway. He noticed that when he stepped out of the light from overhead, his Dragon Sight kicked in once more, the torches hanging in the alcoves turned red and everything else faded into black once more.

When Jut bent the first time to touch a corpse, he cringed. He vomited after the process was complete. He had received two Monster Skins as loot, along with a few chips and copper coins and a Monster Bone. He would have been happy about the copper coins but getting a Human's skin, Monster or not, was too much to balance.

The looting was identical to before his ascension. His hand touched the body, he felt Mana move down his arm and into his hand, the body lit up and broke down. The loot appeared in his inventory. Easy and straight forward.

Now, however, the loot was also listed in a popup in his notifications. Alex kept them minimized, but he reviewed the first one.

Loot: Monster Skin x2 Mana Chips x4 Monster Bone x1 Copper Coins x5 OK

To reduce the amount of Monster skins and bones as much as possible, Jut did the rest of his looting with the ritual instead. It increased the amount Chips he received by a few, on average, but he still got too many skins. He also got at least five copper coins per body, which was useful.

There were also Notifications with each kill now as well. He opened one.

Human - Monster has died. You gain Skill Experience.

You gain Experience.

Jut had Alex condense the messages for similar kills into one message, which they said was possible.

Human - Monster x 23 has died. You gain Skill Experience

You gain Experience.

When examining his Skills in the menu, he noticed that Magical Strikes had a bar beneath it that was slowing filling up as he gained Skill Experience, he assumed. However, he also saw that his two new skills were not gaining anything. Likely because they were Normal Rank still.

Jut also had an experience bar under the image of himself in his status menu. He only noticed it because the bar now had a tiny sliver of color to it, not even at a full one percent yet.

Jut moved on to examining the coffin in the middle, letting his mana and HP recharge slowly. Just in the time he had spent looting, they had both gone up a few percent. He knew it would take an hour to refill his Mana completely, so after he finished his inspection, he would head down a hallway.

Jut tried activate to his Aura. He managed it, but strangely enough, it took a lot of concentration. His Mana bar immediately started to climb faster. He felt a warmth spreading through his body.

Jut reached out and touched the giant coffin gingerly, leaning close to examine a rune carved into the side. When his fingers made contact with the stone and metal box, nothing happened. It was just plain stone.

Jut straightened, but was distracted by a chat window appearing.

What's that noise?

Jut listened closely. He couldn't hear anything at first. But, over the course of a few seconds, he did recognize a familiar sound. Stone scraping on stone. Then came the moaning and the pattering of many, many feet. The sound was coming from all of the seven hallways he had yet to clear. Jut yanked his sword out of it's sheath quickly and prepared for combat.

They're coming from all of them. Jut thought in panic.

Not the one to your three o'clock. That's the one we cleared.

If Jut could, he would have kissed Alex as he jumped down the empty hallway. He made it just in time for Human Monsters to spill out of the other seven hallways. However, his exuberance only lasted a moment. A stone panel had blocked off the hallway about ten or fifteen paces in. He hadn't heard or noticed it appear before then.

Jut turned in time to meet the wave of Monsters. He began to swing his sword madly through them. He would activate Windy Steps and Consequence sparingly, letting his speed build with stacks of the Haste buff.

However, it wasn't enough. Even with his back to a wall and every one of his attacks taking down multiple Monsters, he was overwhelmed quickly. He was taking too many attacks.

He tried to activate his Healing Strike and Scaled Skin Skills. He succeeded, but the process was hard. The Skills didn't jump to his will the way his equipped Skills did. He managed to kill every Human Monster though, thanks to the barricade of corpses he made along the way. He had been forced away from the blocked off hallway and had ended up kiting the Human Monsters around the giant coffin.

Despite the healing and defensive skills he had activated, Jut was floating at just above zero mana and less than five percent health. His body ached all over and his head felt like it was splitting open from within. He almost considered pulling out a Mana Chip and consuming it. He had a lot to loot though, so he just caught his breath.

The room was full of corpses, stacked three or four high. He could see his path through the room by how the bodies lay strewn about. The sight was enough to make him wretch again.

If someone had told him a week ago that he would be standing in waste high stacks of chopped up Human Monster bits, covered in more blood than he had ever seen, he would have scoffed at them. It seemed the joke was on him though.

Jut heard a sound and turned his head. A new Monster was standing there, watching him. It was still a Human Monster. The difference was the clothes and sword it carried. It had a difference in the popup tag too.

Human - Monster Stone Rank

It had crawled out of one of the coffins in the center room alcoves. It stared at his face, its eye too knowing. It cracked a wicked grin and swung it's blade right into Jut's throat.

Jut fell onto his back and bled out. His vision went black for a moment before he was hurled back up the stairs and rolled head over foot past the desk at the entrance of the Dungeon. His head was swimming, but all of his bars were full and he was clean.

Jut blinked at a hand that appeared in his vision. Looking up, it was Brick.

"You died, huh? Yeah, me too." Brick said.

Jut took the offered hand and stood before brushing himself off.

"Got rushed. Don't touch the big coffin. It seemed to trigger a wave."

Brick shook his head. "Yeah... I did the same thing."

They both looked away then back at each other. In unison, they said "Next time."

They both chuckled and turned towards the food court. They were both starving after their battles.