Long ago there were rumours of special people contracted by royal families, these people would be like a shadow in the city waiting for the order from the king or queen. They were special assassins that targeted corrupt politicians or people who tried to skirt outside the law. These people were like an invisible blade that hung across all those who worked for the royal families, one misstep and they would disappear.

Having someone like this at his beck and call confirmed to Ron that the town lord most likely was of royal heritage, it would also explain why the town was built upon a pyramid. The pyramid was probably also one made by ancestors of the town lord, but why would it be nameless then? There is also the evil spirit in there, was that an old ancestor of the town lord?

In the time Ron was speculating about the town lord they had walked all the way to the dungeon door, the old man didn’t say anything else anymore and they walked in silence to the door. Once they were at the door the old man stepped aside and waited for Ron to enter the dungeon, Ron walked up and looked at the old man once more before asking him a question.

"How many merit points would it take for you to teach me how to walk like that?" Ron decided to shoot his shot, if he could learn how to walk like that he could add some stealth to his repertoire.

"Not purchasable with merit points" The old man smiled at the question and denied selling it to Ron.

"So what do I pay with then?" Ron asked about a different currency than merit points, he had gotten the hint from the old man’s word choice.

"My interest" The old man vaguely answered.

"Okay, I don’t suppose you’ll tell me how to obtain that" Ron was getting impatient playing this cat and mouse game with the old man.

"Survive the second level of the dungeon at your level and then we’ll talk again" The old man gave his conditions and didn’t say anything more, the old man hinted that he knew Ron was clearly underleveled for the dungeon’s second level.

"Sure, just watch me" Ron smiled and accepted the challenge, and with that he opened the dungeon door. He did notice a small change in the description of the dungeon when he put his hand on the door.

Dungeon: Nameless Pharaoh’s Tomb

Difficulty: Medium

Limit: Level two beings

Warning only 1 may enter per party, once repeatable per level, the first level has been cleared already.

The dungeon actually read that Ron already had cleared the first level was quite interesting. Ron stepped into the door and soon was standing back in the room with the sarcophagus, it seemed like nothing changed even the location of the corpse was still the same place. Was time actually frozen during the time Ron had left?

The door behind Ron closed and disappeared, there was no way to return only victory or death. Walking to the other door that was there Ron put his hand on the door and the same message that rang out last time appeared on the door once more. ‘Advance to the second level of the dungeon? Warning user is below the recommended level of a stage two being.’

Ron knew what to expect, an evil spirit was there and it could take over corpses and reanimate through them. The spirit was sleeping for a long time but seemed to have regained a large chunk of its memories as time went on. Seeing this place is one giant burial site Ron was probably going to encounter more bodies, which meant either destroying all the corpses or hitting the source directly. Hitting a ghost isn’t going to work unless you happen to have a holy weapon or holy magic, luckily Ron has both.

From what the town’s people told Ron the entirety of the dungeon was around a week long, the mazes took on average 3 days each which meant there wasn’t another maze behind the door here. Preparing for the worst, Ron braced himself before pushing the door open, the door opened up and Ron stood in a hallway once more. Walking down the hallway more hieroglyphs were here, Ron was sure a story was being told through the dungeon however he wasn’t interested in spending points to understand it.

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At the end of the hallway it opened up into a room, the room was dimly lit however there were multiple things of note here; first there seemed to be well over a hundred standing sarcophagi here, did they all contain a corpse? The second thing of note was the spirit in the middle of the room, it still felt dreadful, however Ron handled it better now that he had innate resistance to all evil beings. The spirit stared at Ron for a second before it seemingly laughed at him as if taunting him, the spirit then flew off into one of the sarcophagi.

The sarcophagus shook a few times, the door suddenly flew off and a corpse walked out. The corpse stretched a few times before locking eyes on Ron, the corpse ran at Ron and threw out a haymaker at Ron. Ron noticed how the corpse was even faster than before but it made no sense as to why it was faster, was this corpse just stronger? That seemed off, all corpses are well corpses. Reanimating them shouldn’t make them gain a certain amount of strength when they were living. Looking at the corpse’s feet Ron could see something off about them before the answer clicked, the spirit was using a movement technique to increase speed!

Activating the kindling state Ron dodged the haymaker, Ron could feel the air being blown away making the strike also stronger than before. ('Was this another technique?') It was clear the spirit was using techniques to boost its speed and attacks, Ron was no stranger to techniques as his own claw and muscle guard were techniques with the latter still being developed.

Having already taken the whip out Ron jumped back and threw out an overhand strike at the corpse, expecting it to do nothing much the corpse ignored the whip and tried to move through the whip strike. The moment the whip hit the corpse it screamed as if it had just been hit by a corrosive acid. A small bit of black smoke could be seen expelled when the whip struck it, the corpse itself looked horrified at the whip and moved with more caution than before.

It seems like Ron’s guesses were indeed correct, the whip could strike the spirit inside the corpse albeit not fully. Ron would have to whittle it down little by little with every whip strike, but now it wasn’t going to be easy with the corpse on high alert for the whip. Ron still had another hidden card that he could play if things got hairy, however he hoped to outplay it with his whip skills. With the corpse not moving Ron decided to move instead, using the kindling state at his level was too taxing and thus Ron had to end it fast.

Winding another whip strike this time one from a forehanded position, the corpse saw the strike coming and back stepped a little causing it to cut the air in front of it. The corpse saw the chance to close the distance when the whip went by and stepped in, Ron however twisted his body and did a small twirl when the whip came back causing it to shoot out once more from his backhand. Having just stepped in not expecting another whip strike the corpse had nowhere to go and quickly put its guard up. The whip smacked into the guard of the corpse and forced it back a few steps from the impact, more black smoke went out from the corpse’s mouth.

Not quite done yet Ron double tapped and stepped in with an overhand strike however it seemed to come short, just when the corpse thought Ron had missed Ron pulled up the whip causing the strike to come from below. With its guard still up the whip struck once more however this time it was lifted from the floor into the air, Ron jumped and was above the corpse in the air. With an overhand whip strike Ron smashed the corpse to the ground where it landed hard, more black smoke was escaping and the spirit seemed to be getting desperate.

Ron was completely dominating the fight but that was to be expected, in medium to long range with a whip Ron had no trouble against the corpse which was a very close range fighter. Plus having a weapon that was dominant against beings of this type was certainly doing Ron a lot of favours, if he still used the old whip Ron wasn’t sure if he’d be unscathed by now.

The corpse seemed to have a mad look in its eyes as it looked at Ron, it was getting nowhere and taking damage to its core. At this rate it would actually end up perishing for good. Gritting its teeth it sprang up from the ground and rushed at Ron who had just landed on the floor. Ron threw out another overhand whip strike expecting the corpse to dodge when instead it braced for impact and rushed straight through the whip strike as if it didn’t matter, clearly it did however it was ignoring the pain and force to continue its mad dash.

Ron swatted away, causing the corpse to go from running to walking, tanking every shot Ron threw at it, inching closer and closer. Once the corpse was within close range its eyes shined with glee and it set off wanting to tackle Ron, last time it nearly won with a rear naked chokehold only to be caught off guard when Ron dislocated his shoulder and destroyed its head.

Just then it suddenly remembered Ron’s other weapon, his unnaturally sharp fingers. However now that it was in tackle motion Ron couldn’t change his fingers and swipe fast enough, it would tackle Ron and then break his arm off causing the whip to be useless. Its thoughts were lightning fast and the corpse thought he had won when suddenly he could see a white glimmer, Ron’s sharp index finger came flying into its eyes and was coated with the white light. Seeing this white light struck fear into the corpse’s heart, in the corner of its eyes it swore it saw Ron smiling as if he had just been lured in like a fish.

It was exactly like that, when Ron noticed that the corpse was looking to force its way into close combat Ron would of course oblige and as a result prepared a finger into a claw during his barrage. Pumping the finger full of holy magic was no different than training, the only thing training couldn’t prepare him for is what came next. The finger stabbed into the skull of the corpse and immediately Ron felt his magic drain by a lot, in an instant Ron pumped all of his magic into the spirit directly. Ron felt lethargic for a quick second however he quickly pulled out the finger and stepped back.

Once Ron had stepped back a chain reaction could be seen from the corpse, it grabbed its face trying to plug the hole from releasing black smoke yet where it plugged one hole another hole opened elsewhere on its body. The whip had also left small traces of the holy element and being bombarded with them and ignoring them wasn’t a great idea. The corpse tried it’s to hold back the black smoke however the struggle was futile, soon smoke gushed out from the corpse and condensed into the air.

The spirit had no more sanity left and charged at Ron with one last ditch effort, Ron however readied his whip and struck the spirit directly causing it to explode into many pieces and be purified under the holy element of the whip. Soon silence returned to the room as the corpse fell down and Ron deactivated the kindling state, he noticed some bones were close to breaking however it wasn’t as bad and would only suffer some pains that would fade with a day of rest.