With Circe left to her own company, she made her way over to the ‘Weapons’ section. Staring at the six display shelves before her, she crossed her arms, eyes darting from one showroom to another. “...A sword is nice for the range, but the rogue skills I could get in the future mainly scale with daggers. I should get used to using them instead.”
Her gaze stopped on the shelf at the leftmost back. A pair of silver daggers shimmered in their glass cages, as if trying to garner her affection. Interested in its design, Circe walked over and brought up their description panel.
< Weapon Description >
Name: Serpent Twins
Tier: D
Type: Dagger
Class: Rogue
Stats: (+1) to Agility | (+1) to Strength
Effects
- Attacks have a 10% chance to inflict
<<>>
Black, scale-like leather wrapped around the daggers’ grip. Their guards mirrored the shape of a snake's head while curved, silver blades protruded from the serpents’ opened maws. The jagged edges by the base of the blades mimicked two deadly fangs.
“This one looks the coolest,” Circe whistled with a smile. Turning around to the other displays, she saw that the Serpent Twins were the only daggers for sale. “It's not cheap compared to the Tutorial Dungeon, but I'll take them.”
[
[‘Ruelle Peregrine’ -
[Purchased x1
[Equipped
[
After dismissing all the notices, Circe recalled her new weapons into her hands. The leather handles fitted nicely in her grips like a perfect pair of gloves. Despite her proficiency with the sword, each movement she made with the daggers felt more natural. “...Classes have no effect on the in-game character, but I guess they do here in real life.”
Satisfied with the results, Circe dismissed the weapons. She made her way over to Zeke and gently shook his shoulder. “Zeke~ Wake up~ I'm done choosing my new toys.”
It took a moment, but eventually Zeke opened his eyes. As he groggily sat up, stared at her blankly. “Uh, huh. What did you pick?”
“Serpent Twins, they're dual daggers.” Circe summoned them again, flaunting her new weapons with a bright smile on her face.
“We can move on, then,” Zeke followed up with a short yawn. Getting to his feet, he dragged his feet over to the ‘Basic’ section of the shop. Health and mana potions occupied the first two slots, while the remaining displays contained two vials; one in a different shade of blue from the mana potion, and another having clear liquid inside. “Are you getting anything else?”
“Since I still have your buff scrolls, I probably won't need any speed or strength potions,” Circe walked next to Zeke, eyes landing on the vial containing the colorless liquid. “Oh, I’ll get one of these, though.”
[
[‘Rulle Peregrine’ -
[Purchased x1
< Item Description >
Name: Cleansing Potion
Tier: D
Type: Consumable
Source: Dungeon Shop
Effects
- Clears any negative
<<>>
Zeke nodded as he shifted his attention towards the other potion. Its blue gleam reminded him of sapphire; a shade darker than the mana potions. “Then I’ll take some of these.”
[
[
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
[‘Silas Salvador’ -
[Purchased x3
[Purchased x2
< Item Description >
Name: Magic Potion
Tier: D
Type: Buff
Source: Dungeon Shop
Effects
- Grants 20% increase in
<<>>
“Maybe you should learn how to brew potions,” Circe suggested, twirling around the daggers between her fingers. “That way, we won't ever need to bother trying our luck with the shops ever again.”
Zeke scoffed as a small smile crept to his lips. “Even if I do learn it, where am I going to get all the ingredients?”
“Dungeons, of course…Or we could potentially sneak out to the empire’s borders,” Circe playfully pointed the tip of her blade towards Zeke, speaking as if pointing out the obvious. “Since magical ingredients follow wherever magical monsters are.”
Zeke crooked his neck, lips pursed into a straight line. “Mm, maybe, but for now I'll focus on learning spells. There should be a chapter on potion brewing in the Witch’s Codex.”
“I would assume so,” Circe huffed, the corner of her lips stretched into an amused smirk. “It's called the Witch’s Codex, I’d be more surprised if there's not a page about mixing weeds and eyeballs in a large cauldron.”
Zeke gave her a blank look for a moment. “Weed…?” The thought passed by as quickly as it came, but he decided against asking Circe for an answer. “Well, since we're done here,” quickly averting the subject, Zeke turned to the tunnel where they’d come from. “Should we go clean up the rest of the mobs? I’m ready to move on from this floor, to be honest.”
“Yep,” Circe stretched her arms in the air, the way she moved around while holding onto two deadly blades brought a hint of concern to Zeke’s expression. It went by unnoticed, though. “Let's get a move on. There's the path in that trapped mimic room that we haven't explored yet.”
.
.
.
Instead of finding any more harpies to kill, the two found themselves standing before a large, swirling gate in the middle of the lushed aviary.
“...That's it?” Zeke’s brows arched into a frown as he glanced towards Circe, noticing the equally confused look on her face. “I'm not the dungeon expert here…but I'm pretty sure that we haven't gone through ten rooms yet.”
A dungeon’s layout is randomized each time, so the paths connecting the blocks will each feel like a fresh experience for players diving into these portals, no matter how many times they repeat. However, every floor will have a total of ten rooms, leaving for the portal room and the starting room. This number is not ever changing like the dungeon’s construction.
“Maybe this is why we're getting so many experience points,” Circe had put away the Serpent Twins when she realized that they've already reached the end of the level. Crossing her arms, she called for the minimap. “One, two, three…seven. Three rooms are missing on this floor, and there's not even an elite to kill.”
“I knew it,” Zeke narrowed his eyes. “Something’s very suspicious here, this portal isn't going to take us straight to the boss room, is it?”
Circe snorted with a roll of her eyes. “That’d be absurd,” after seeing the contempt on Zeke’s face, she nervously laughed. “...But not outside the realm of possibility, considering what we’ve been going through so far.”
Silently, Zeke took out the Arcane Resonance. “Just to be safe, I'm holding onto my weapon,” his words prompted Circe to do the same, summoning the Serpent Twins into her grip. As she gave him an understanding nod, Zeke took a step forward and took a deep breath. “Well, it's not like we have a choice here. We can't log out, or save scum, or use a return stone…since we don't even have it.”
“Yeah,” despite her short answer, Circe’s voice lacked any hint of nervousness. Zeke turned to her, wondering silently to himself whether she had any sense for danger. “We haven't distributed our stat points yet, right? Let's do that first then.”
Zeke nodded, bringing up his status window. After a moment of calculation, he used up his stat points as planned.
[PNTS: 12 —> 0]
[CON: 8 —> CON: 16]
[HP: 80/80 —> HP: 160/160]
[MAG: 46 (+7) —> MAG: 50 (+7)]
[Stat:
[New stat unlocked:
< Stat Description >
Name: Extrasensory
Current Points: 5
Requirement: Reach 50 Stat Points in
Effects
- Increases the character’s sensitivity to magical energy.
- The higher the stat, the more influence the character can assert on mana. Cannot be increase using
- 5 Points : Reduce mana cost of skills by 5%
- 10 Points: [LOCKED]
- 15 Points: [LOCKED]
[Show More]
<<>>
“There we go, I’ll focus on leveling the con stat now since I got what I wanted.” Zeke dismissed the panels before him, feeling the strings of mana in the air more prominently than usual. Despite already possessing the Mana Overlord aptitude, the ‘Extrasensory’ stat increased his magic perception to even greater heights.
Circe thought about her choice for a bit longer, the frown on her face reflecting her troubles. “Agility also increases critical hit chance, but since my skill already guarantees a crit, I should invest into damage…”
“Shouldn't you be trying to get the ‘Instinct’ stat from Agility?” Zeke tilted his head.
“You're right, but how would a five percent dodge chance even work in real life?” Circe sighed. “In the game, the attack just goes through the character, but I doubt it’d be the same here.”
“Ah, I get it,” Zeke nodded as his brows knitted, realizing that she made a good point. “There's a chance that the bonus could just be completely useless…so you're gunning for the ‘Spirit’ stat from Strength?”
Shaking her head, Circe responded. “It's the same thing with ‘Instinct’, how would the attack speed bonus work? I’d rather get the ‘Willpower’ stat from Constitution for the damage reduction, since at least that's straightforward.”
“Well,” Zeke shrugged. “You can only get one from the first stat that reaches fifty points, so you’d have to pick between ‘Instinct’ and ‘Spirit’ eventually.”
Silence hung in the air between them as Circe’s attention remained fixated to the status screen before her. Eventually, after a minute of contemplation, she distributed her stat points.
[PNTS: 12 —> 0]
[AGI: 35 (+4) —> 47 (+4)]
When Zeke peered his head over to see her choice, he let out a short whistle along with an acknowledging nod. “I had a feeling you were going to choose ‘Instinct’.”
A smirk danced on Circe’s lips. “Since both my options have the same uncertainty, I'll just pick the most interesting one.”
“Now then, let's go to the second floor.” Circe continued, looking up at the portal before them with a shimmer of determination in her eyes. As she took a step forward, the swirling gate reached its smoke-like tendrils towards her, as if attempting to embrace her. Soon, she disappeared into the portal.
Zeke tightened his grip on the staff before following Circe through.