One thing was for certain. Killing is the fastest route to gain power. Kill is equal to growth, which in turn means becoming a monster. The one that can attain peace, power, and free will, or a real monster, true to its name.
Tetsu compared all his gains with the fights as always. This helped him progress faster.
Learn from what worked where and how and repeat the process. A simple technique Grandma Razz taught Tetsu for a bigger adversary than life. It was to outfox Kile.
If Kile wasn’t so out of his league, Tetsu would have more victories in the bag. The victories he had were thanks to these techniques. Thanks to wise old Grandma.
Tetsu shutters by the mere thought of the word, old. Never call her old to her face. “Forbidden word Uno.”
Grandma was beyond wise for her, ah... race. The only human that has the upper hand on Tetsu.
“Hundred to one?” Tetsu wondered about the score.
She always found Kile on his weakest leg, broke it, and scattered before he ever perceived what happened. Figuratively and a couple of literal times, too.
In her defense, Kile started it, hence the one.
Tetsu stares down at the cave with four pits already dug and covered. Two that held meat, one with booger slime, and the last one to hide inside. A hidden pit was dug inside the fourth pit for extra safety measures.
A double pit, if you will. One acts as a decoy while the other acts as the real, real safe zone. An idea his dad came up with, if you can believe that. Because he sure as hell didn’t.
Tetsu’s reaction to when Razz asked him about his father would always be the same. “My dad’s smart? Nah!”
The only thing he learned from Dad was to run and if he says so himself, no one could outrun Dad.
No one.
People say Tetsu had that similarity with his dad, but he highly doubts they ever had or will have anything in common.
Look at all these preparations. Tetsu came to fight. He knew he couldn’t outrun or outmaneuver the Imps out in the open. So, confuse, hit, and hide was the name of the game. Decoy being the last trump card to ensure his survival.
Razz always told him to never assume about the unknown and always question the given. The usual why, how, and what do they get out of it?
These were tools meant to face Kile and, by extension, scenarios way above Tetsu’s level.
These types of dungeons claim to never release their terrors. The first dungeon run and the fact that he is still alive prove that point. Yet he had to question and prepare.
One reason Kile never got the jump on Grandma is this technique. Even his pure gestures were questioned, stripped, and hung out to dry. Never to accept, never to believe. There is another…
A sudden roar makes Tetsu shove away the nagging gap in memory and enter the dungeon.
Time for round two.
Tetsu was shocked to see all of his Ru’nic formation in place. A quick activation of RR skill and Tetsu finds most of his resource bubbles still active.
After a bit of hidden research, he concludes that the clever or big bad boss of the cave ripped out chunks of rocks to disrupt Tetsu’s Ru’nic formations. Most of them are near and around the huge cavern.
The Imps he met the first time in here continued their usual rounds, mechanically repeating their previous actions to the dot.
“Simulation indeed.” Tetsu nods.
If this all was a programmed scenario, maybe he didn’t have to fight. He can wait, find the pattern, and steal the rewards without violence.
If everything keeps repeating, the loot will reappear and justify his stealing as a reward.
No rules broken, no theft committed, and best of all, no violence. This ticked every aspect of Tetsu’s 'Be Good' and 'Stay Alive' plans.
“Gotta find more dungeons.” Tetsu jokes to himself.
More pits, safe zones, and bubbles later, Tetsu topped up his resources and went back to stalking.
By simply following the Imps around, he should understand the maze better.
There had to be a pattern to the ever-shifting maze as well, and the Imps were the key to unraveling its mysteries. But so far, it led him to five different mini-boss Imps. All of them who he recognized before exiting the dungeon.
Each of them sent two guards to patrol and guard the huge cavern. When one mini-boss's minions returned, the other mini-boss automatically knew and sent their minions for the second shift.
The rotation continued, each sending two minions and waiting for four rounds before sending out their pair again.
Not sure about how, but they sent minions without missing a beat. Some telepathy or cave magic must be behind that aspect.
None of them traveled to their real boss, though. Either they were scared or the boss liked his privacy.
A bit of both, Tetsu concluded.
With a wish to stumble into the boss’ room like last time, Tetsu takes a step and enters the boss’ room.
His ‘Assassin Step’ skill kicks in, making him step into the closest pit before the boss even registers his presence. It still sensed his mana signature as moved its massive body around, trying to find the intruder, but didn’t have the intelligence to look below ground level.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Tetsu first suppressed his fangs, which wanted nothing else but to tear into a chunk of juicy meat. Not to eat, but simply enjoy the pleasure of tearing into a higher-level beast.
Next, he tensed up, like one does when one sees a terrifying beast.
His mana blast practice again comes in handy, as he does the exact opposite and pushes his mana deeper within himself, almost extinguishing the mana flames within.
He had little to begin with, so this made it much easier.
Boss Imp loosens up, guessing there wasn’t anything there or the simulation not having covered all its bases. Either way, he was safe, thanks to lazy coders.
The Imp's size and his fangs acting up made Tetsu guess the Imp to be a fair level above the mini-bosses. At least by four levels.
Now that he thinks about it, his vampire fangs might be the reason he craved more meat or the constant need for vital energy.
Tetsu put parts of the puzzle together with the new fangs being less subtle.
‘Did I trade for lower-level fangs?’ He wondered to himself, observing the boss.
The boss Imp wrapped its tail around some usual wooden structure.
“What else can it be but loot?”
Tetsu rubs his hands together greedily. The reason he didn’t bounce up and down with excitement was because of the boss’s size.
It moved on all fours with its limbs towering over Tetsu. Math being his weak point, Tetsu would say it’s huge, huge-huge.
Taller than the monster truck and fatter than his cousin Mave.
“Eh, thinner. Dude, very much needed exercise.”
Mave, short for Marvin. Kile said taunting him would help build up his drive to exercise and my creative mind to make clever taunts. It made sense, so I did.
It helped my creative mind become witty. The first part never came to pass.
The Imp kept its tail around the loot while it surveyed the many entrances to its den. Its tail was a flexible, magical spear that guarded the loot like a serpent protecting its eggs.
“I wish they were eggs beneath that.” Tetsu drools.
He vomited way too many boiled eggs than he dared remember. Kile’s dad didn’t even try to test Tetsu with raw eggs. But now, no one could stop him if the monstrous imp had eggs.
Plans for cooking, frying, and seasoning them with some meat were already clouding his mind. The idea of imp-eggs never did.
The snake or the Imp’s tail magically stayed in place. None of the imp’s movements affected it in the slightest. Tetsu wondered if both of them were separate beings. He wouldn’t be shocked if a snake attached itself to the back. They can already remove and reattach their wings on a whim.
“Is that how bond skills work?”
Tetsu imagines taking on a slime bond. “Ewe!” He shivers in disgust.
On the plus side, having a dragon's bond meant he could fly, throw fire, and not need a skill slot or mana to activate.
“Bonds are overrated.” He wipes his tears, trying to console himself. “Slave bonds are what they are.”
Tetsu makes a mental note to steer clear of the pointy tail’s head. If it is a snake, that’s where its eyes might be.
“Time to plan.” Tetsu bunkers down meditating.
Theories lead to plans and plans lead to action. With the obvious experiments included.
He leaves part of his pants and heads out. The mini-boss Imp sensed his mana, and stench, or used a skill and tracked him. A big bad boss should have better senses, so no mana or health bubbles. Chances are they will be more useful to it than him. The difference in level, strength, control, and whatnot.
The dungeon changes and Tetsu flips. It curves and he dives. No matter what it did, Tetsu always had the upper hand. For it just saw him, not his ability.
Many invisible needles gave Tetsu a vague picture of where he had to go and what he had to avoid.
He scaled his RR skill by the density of the resource accumulated at one spot. Yes, the skill required to analyze the quantity beforehand, but Tetsu wasn’t gonna use the skill like a normal Joe.
No offense to his cousin Joe. The dude was weird from birth and not Kile weird.
Based on the amount of mana/vital energy gathered, the arrow glowed bluer or a bit more green. With one health bubble at the dungeon entrance and the other’s mana-bubbles closer to the mini-boss’s cavern, Tetsu simply had to avoid blue and follow the green arrow.
“I can lure and trap him here.” Tetsu looks at a familiar cavern. “If he brings his tail, this should be over soon.”
Ru’nic formations required constant supply from Testu to stay active. They took little, but keeping many active drained his resources fast.
He can always drain a mana-bubble and refill his resources, but the burnt wood mystery, his sudden fatigue bursts, and his own luck trying to do him in made Tetsu reconsider.
Too many uncertainties. Sit it out until they clear.
Bad luck cleansing is a fool’s errand, Grandma Razz always says.
In short, Tetsu can always reactivate the formation and not waste mana over it until necessary.
All of his formations were drawn by him. When they are in sight, he can always activate any rune by a mere thought.
Tetsu is still working on the how. Until now, he’s got system fuckery or rune force fuckery. Being drawn by a skill was ruled out by a simple experiment.
Wanting to zoom past the current cavern, Tetsu eyes several ‘Fixed Point’ runes.
“Activate.” He commands, trying to look cool.
He hops into the air and sends a mental command to activate the rune ‘Pluck’ on his feet and wrist.
‘BAAM!’ He lands on his face from where he lifts off.
“What the!”
Tetsu checks his wrist. The subtle force of rune energy was around the rune.
“Then why?”
He checks the runes around the cavern. None of them activated.
Tetsu tried again and again. Yet none of them listened to him. He switched a mana-bubble on and off, and that worked.
Tetsu counts all the runes around the cavern and finds six Ru’nic formations. On a whim he cuts off the supply to one runic formation, then all of them.
Each time, the Artificer class gave him information on how long it would take to reactivate the rune. All of them had timers and based on how many were active and for how long, the time increased exponentially.
Yup! More maths.
There was no way Tetsu was going to do the math. End the fight against living or nonliving beings with five Ru’nic formations. He will not let math win. No way.
“Keep the process simple.” Lectured Razz. “If you can't explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it yourself.”
While the cool-down timer ticked on in his head. Tetsu went on with other essential preparations. He checked if the cave could listen and understand him.
What? It’s a cave with intelligence. Who in their right mind would pass up such a unique opportunity?
Tetsu now learned to treat the cave as one entity. The part of it being able to shift meant it was alive, and it was helping the creatures within to expel the intruder.
Aka anyone who enters.
“I just knew those boneheaded imps couldn’t perceive up from down.”
If the cave shifted, all they had to do was walk straight and home sweet home. Yet still they took many lefts and rights to reach their respective caverns.
“Dumb fucks.”
Another reason Tetsu’s plan to dig his way around didn’t work. But... Tetsu checks his safety pits.
“Caves on top.” He smiles, a plan forming in his head.
Tetsu concluded the cave had fifty-fifty intelligence. It can perceive its surroundings but is unable to display them visually.
"As in it can see but not show."
The cave understands Tetsu’s boasts and shifts the maze so he faces the boss with no minions. A direct boss fights to get rid of the intruder.
Yet The Cave is not smart enough to distinguish between bad acting. Tetsu wanted to trick it and it got tricked. Maybe it assumed with Tetsu level he wasn’t a threat or maybe his previous stunt of never getting diverted got it concerned.
Tetsu also tried to plead to the cave, which led to a sudden shift and a poor imp being smoke-bombed in her face. Not the proudest Tetsu moment.
When nothing else worked, offensive measures did. He also concluded that if the cave didn’t listen to reason, he wouldn’t be able to present his case to the main boss.
With the cool-down time ticking down in his head, Tetsu gets to work.
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