Matt’s punch landed with a crack as it broke a few of the needle-like teeth, the surprise causing the spikes forming in the wide open maw to disperse into sand.

  Author note: this webnovel is freely available on Royal Road. Please support the author by reading only on that site.

  The guardian shrieked in indignation as it attempted to bite Matt’s head off.

  Matt dodged to the side while kicking at the monster’s head. It didn’t hold much power, but it was enough to startle the guardian so Matt could get back up.

  Not waiting for an invitation, he jumped the two feet separating him and the gigantic monster, a punch cocked and ready.

  The guardian spun its body, whipping its tail at his incoming form.

  Matt grinned as he fired the mana he had been channeling in his other hand, summoning a small-sized mana wave strong enough to stop the tail’s momentum, allowing his punch to land on the guardian’s wide open ribs with a satisfying crunch.

  Matt kept up his momentum, landing punch after punch, as the skeletal monster struggled to attack or defend now that it was out of the sand, like a fish out of water.

  He took half a step back and tried to balance himself before sending a quick side kick towards the guardian’s temple.

  The guardian reacted by trying to bite the overextended leg off, thinking the attack was a mistake, but missed the mana being channeled as Matt’s foot inched ever so closer towards it.

  Matt fired the channeled mana, sending a massive mana wave into the descending maw, crushing the attack and rocketing the skeleton monster across the sandy terrain.

  The power behind the wave surprised Matt, who hadn’t expected it to send the guardian flying. The monster was still reeling from Matt’s barrage, but the distance created was enough for it to slowly start burrowing itself back into the sand.

  Matt, who had been sprinting towards his target, didn’t waste time upon seeing the guardian start to vanish under the sand, dropping to his knees and pushing mana through his palms once more, in an attempt to locate the heavily damaged guardian before it could attack or recover.

  But he was too late…

  Less than a couple of seconds after he had begun channeling mana, the entire sandpit started vibrating as if hit by an earthquake.

  Matt tried pushing mana faster, the new turn of events giving him a sinking feeling in his stomach.

  A fear that was quickly realized when the sand he was kneeling on turned into quicksand.

  The movement was rapid as it forcibly sucked Matt deeper and deeper into what threatened to be his grave. He remained resolute. Even if he could free himself, there were no safe spots in the entire cave other than the platform, and there was no way he would be able to jump twenty feet into the air, so instead, he focused all his attention on his mana control and finding his quarry. Something he did change, however, was severing his left hand’s connection to the mana sense, before channeling a new swirl of mana in his palm. It would slow down the scan, but it’d leave him prepared for what came after.

  Within a few seconds, Matt was already half buried under the sand, and yet there were no signs of the guardian. Slowing down the scan might’ve been a mistake, and so was not freeing himself, but right now, none of that mattered, the only thing on Matt’s mind being the grueling task of channeling mana for two different purposes, all while running on empty.

  Thankfully, relief soon came as he felt his mana make contact. Without a second thought, he smashed his hand into the sand, pushing all the mana he had been channeling, angling it just right so as to slam into the unmoving skeletal body of the guardian.

  The mana wave, containing most of what Matt had left in his dwindling reservoir, blasted the sand around Matt, before continuing on like a tsunami as it swept through any and everything that stood in its way, even the guardian, pushing it across the entire sandpit and into the wall of the cave.

  The sand had stopped pulling Matt in as soon as his wave hit the guardian, his pseudo-skill clearing enough of it, allowing him to pull himself out and start charging towards the immobile skeleton monster being crushed between his mana and the stone wall, armed with a fist and the will to crush his foe.

  He made it to the immobilized guardian in record time, putting all his power and momentum into his right hand for a punch that felt as if powered by rocket fuel.

  His fist slammed into the guardian’s head with a resounding boom, sending sand and stone shards flying everywhere, as cracks started forming across the wall, and yet, the tough skeleton head refused to shatter.

  A knee strike quickly followed the punch, aimed at the guardian’s lower jaw, shattering even more of its teeth and causing a muted shriek to come out of the struggling monster.

  The effect of the mana wave was slowly fading, the guardian now able to move its tail as it attempted to strike back at Matt.

  Matt didn’t stop, taking the occasional hit, but giving back much more than he was taking. He kept bulldozing the struggling monster with punch after punch after punch with a knee strike weaved in between, until finally, one of his knee strikes managed to shatter the frustratingly resilient jaw.

  The guardian went completely still, dropping to the soft sand, an empty husk, a second later as the mana wave holding it in place finally subsided.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Matt fell on his back, heaving. His head was throbbing, heart hammering in his chest, and muscles aching from the physical exertion. Fighting and running across the sand had been grueling, his body finally being able to protest now that the imminent danger had been dealt with.

  His entire being was in pain, and only now realizing the numerous open wounds covering his body from the sand spikes. The guardian was impossibly annoying to deal with, having trick after trick ready whenever Matt felt like he was making any headway.

  “Fucking… healers… man,” he gasped through breaths, letting himself sink into the surprisingly cool sand, too drained to even lift a finger.

  The cave had turned serene once more, but this time he could finally relax and enjoy the quiet stillness, he had earned that much at least. Every opponent so far had been tricky, or had a gimmick of some kind, but the guardian was, by far, the worst of the lot. Whenever Matt had dealt with one of its tricks, it simply pulled out another one that was even more annoying than the last. It was the kind of fight where elation wasn’t what filled you after you had won, but relief that it was finally over, and boy was he relieved.

  “I’m hunting fish… to extinction… when I make it… to the sea,” he continued heaving as his body yet struggled to regain its composure. He really should’ve gone to the gym because, apparently, his stamina was abysmal.

  His resources were slowly recovering, yet his body still felt heavy. He had wanted to leave right away since he wasn’t that injured, and getting an A here might help with his overall grade, but his body’s protests dissuaded him.

  He waited a few more minutes before he finally felt he had recovered enough to at least retrieve his scepter and shoe from the dead fish.

  Wait, it was already dead when I got here, so now it's a deader dead fish? he mulled it over as he did something he never imagined he would do, rummaging through a dead dead fish’s body for a shoe and a stick. “Boy am I living the dream,” he muttered as he started breaking off the durable bone.

  It took breaking a lot of bones until he finally found what he was searching for. There was a very slight shimmer beneath the forest of bones that was the guardian’s midsection. It wasn’t easy to spot, but hard to miss once you did, and incredibly arduous to reach. Thankfully, it was easier to break them when the guardian wasn’t resisting, and it only took a handful of minutes for the object to finally reveal itself.

  Matt hadn’t known what to expect, but an orb definitely wasn’t it. It was fist-sized with a bright yellow color, and entirely smooth. Trying to identify it didn’t work, which was weird considering it clearly had mana, so it should be identifiable.

  He grabbed the orb, which fit snugly in his hand, and raised it to eye level, only for an endless amount of sand to explode out of it. In his surprise, Matt dropped the orb, which seemed to do nothing as sand kept coming with no end in sight, almost burying him under it.

  This was the third time that day that Matt had almost found himself beneath a sandy grave, something he wasn’t proud of, and after a minute of struggling to get away from the sand fountain, he finally succeeded, and what greeted him was a sight for sore eyes. His shoe and scepter at the top of the new mountain that the orb had unleashed, and it wasn’t a small one. With a grunt of annoyance, he started climbing the incredibly unstable silica made structure. Thankfully, it hadn’t taken him long to reach his precious items, which, while undamaged, were in need of a good scrubbing. Honestly, so was he. He had sand in places it had no right being.

  “You never truly learn to appreciate a shower until you lose that privilege,” he sighed while dusting his shoe and pouring all the sand out of it, daydreaming of the day when he could enjoy a nice cold shower once more.

  He finally put his shoe back on, relishing the comfort as it wrapped around his foot, and that’s when realization dawned on him, he had never picked up the other one.

  His eyes widened in panic and horror as he rushed towards the area underneath the floating platform. His fears were soon realized when he arrived to nothing but sand.

  The quicksand must’ve swallowed it, he thought as he started digging with rapid ferocity, his exhaustion forgotten, as adrenaline, fueled by the will not to lose his item, came rushing in. He kept shoveling sand to the side, only for more to replace it, yet it hadn’t deterred him as he only pushed himself harder.

  He kept going nonstop for what felt like an hour, working like an excavator where its only purpose was to clear away sand, but soon enough, he couldn’t anymore.

  He stood up, panting, with sweat and sand covering his already filth riddled body. Desperation was slowly starting to creep in, and with it came more desperate and drastic measures.

  Matt started firing mana orbs from his scepter, and mana waves from his palms, clearing as much sand as he could.

  Orb after orb, wave after wave, as sand was blasted every which way, the cave serene no more as chaos filled the once calm sandpit arena.

  And yet, after all the destruction, there was still no shoe to be found.

  Matt dropped to his knees overwhelmed with emotion, tears threatening to come pouring out. Life could really be unfair at times, he thought, crestfallen.

  He punched the sand repeatedly, letting out his frustration. It wasn’t about losing the shoe, he knew that. Yes, it was comfortable, but, at the end of the day, it was a shoe. One destined to be replaced by a magical item of some kind at one point or the other. But what it had represented was much more than that. Something he wanted, he valued, he treasured, taken from him, just like that.

  It all just sucked, he thought as he stood up once more, somber, no joy left on his face, no delight left on his mind. At the end of the day, it was just a shoe. A shoe that had carried him through the desert. A shoe that had given him unparalleled comfort. And a shoe that had helped him lure out a deadly opponent. Now, it was finally resting.

  “Thank you for everything,” Matt bowed his head slightly to his buried comrade in arms before turning around and walking towards the portal.

  He touched the dark shimmering circle of nothingness, letting out an exhausted sigh as the familiar message appeared.

  Dungeon Tomb of the Guardian of the Dunes (Tier 9) floor 4 complete.

  Time to completion: 2 hours, 29 minutes, and 55 seconds.

  Grade: B+

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Matt’s eyes went wide as saucers as something in him finally snapped.

  And just when he was about to crash out for the second time that day, a sense of calmness washed over him. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was too tired, too drained, too disappointed. He wanted nothing more than to crash out, tell the system and the dungeon how awful their entire grading system was, but at some point, you just… couldn’t anymore.

  With a resigned sigh, he decided to enjoy the serene silence of the cave a while longer, before whatever came next.

  He dropped to the sand, enjoying its cool feel against his worn out body, dismissing the notification in the process, and missing what had come after the grade.

  Congratulations! Dungeon Tomb of the Guardian of the Dunes Completed

  Final evaluation will be displayed upon entering the reward room.

  Proceed to reward room?

  Yes/No