The second run of the Dungeon was much faster than the first. The fact that he didn’t have to swim everywhere made things much easier. Having Invisibility active also meant that the pulling force was somewhat diminished. This didn’t mean that he’d stop in the water, just be a bit slower. It also didn’t mean he was indivisible but it seemed that an incoming ‘bubble’ was less suspicious than a person so he got a moment to get in range before disabling the Invisibility to manifest his full swarm.
This method worked surprisingly well. Though the aquatic creatures were highly attuned to their environment, it ended up surprisingly straightforward nonetheless.
The second run took a bit less time than the first since he had to dig out the cores himself, however, it still took about an hour and a half per run.
He started the grind at around 2 in the afternoon, and though they didn’t have any form of predetermined bedtime, he still got tired when the evening came in. Especially after the runs became a grind.
Almost getting hit a few times was the closest anything came to hurting him, luckily enough. His method still worked well underwater, and going invisible before pulling himself sideways worked better than it felt like it should have.
Sam decided to call it after six runs. It had taken long enough, and he was tired. Due to the linear nature of this Dungeon, he always got every monster and always got the bonus, so he ended up with full rewards per run.
Sadly, this didn’t end up with any neat loot. All Random Boxes only contained crafting materials, including the ones for completing the Dungeon Sam ended up with 16 crystals, and Janik ended up with 18.
However, between kills and Dungeon Completion rewards, they each ended up with their share of XP, totalling 1.1 billion per person.
This gave all of them two level-ups, except Elara who got three. Sam put his points in Spirit, Janik put both in Dex, Dia spread her two between Vit and Dex, and Elara wanted everything in Vit.
For Sam, this meant that not only did his Energy increase, but it also went over a threshold and gave him another Aura Point for a total of 25.
[ Sam XP to lv.29: 139 477 588 / 1 342 177 280 █????????? ]
[ Elara XP to lv.28: 46 202 792 / 671 088 640 █????????? ]
[ Dia XP to lv.24: 74 818 / 74 818 ██████████ ]
[ Janik XP to lv.29: 110 224 450 / 1 342 177 280 █????????? ]
Dia instantly capped to the next level as she needed so little XP. Sam was a bit miffed at the limit, as it would be interesting to see how much she’d sail past them at her faster progression, but that’s without a doubt why the cap was there at all. Checking her info also showed that she had not unlocked the Active Defence yet, it might not be too easy to learn that for her, but they had time so it didn’t matter yet.
“I think that’s it for me today,” Sam confirmed as he stretched, feeling worn out from the underwater activities.
“What? Only two levels?” Janik started as a joke, but before Sam could react he continued. “But seriously, this is amazing progress, we’re nearing level 30, and I’m excited to see what we’ll get. But... All the XP we got today, giving us two levels, is now barely going to give us one more. I hate this exponential thing.” Janik let out a drawn-out sigh at the end, and Sam had to agree.
Sam would have enjoyed it if the Ascendant thing had given them more points, but today’s grind didn’t trigger anything.
Instead of biting into Janik’s joke, he started heading back to the portal and out of this place, changing the topic slightly.
“What about going to the mid-level Dungeon like we did the others? Or is there a better one for our grinding like the Fortress one on the Second Floor?”
Janik took out his phone as Sam asked. “Let me check.”
The walk back was silent for a short while. Dia, who normally walked as close to Sam as she could, had given him an entire step of distance as he was still soaked. Elara had opted to ride with Dia and the warm fur rather than her cold and drenched master. Sam felt like he wanted some drying spells for this Floor.
“Well, it seems there is a good farming Dungeon, it’ll go insanely fast but... is dangerous as fuck,” Janik didn’t look too happy as he continued explaining. “It’s one where you are just dropped into one large pool, much like the boss room of the first Dungeon, and everything attacks at the same time. The number of monsters in there changes from run to run, but it seems that it’s all from only a few crabs or fish, up to 20 of them. Some runs might even have Tidecallers or if you’re unlucky, a Leviathan Eel.”
Janik looked at Sam, who seemed surprisingly on board with the idea, and continued before Sam had a chance to say anything: “There is no land in there. You’ve just been dumped into the pool, and you can’t use the Emergency Exit.”
“Ah... that’s the catch... makes sense. Then no, not going to risk it at all.” Sam was on board and wanted to give it a go, but as soon as there was no way out, no matter how perfect it might be they could be super dead easily. He also preferred to not go into stuff like this without an exit, he had enough of that from the Solo Dungeons. Sam would love an XP chunk or better farming opportunity, but he also wanted to survive the ordeal.
“Good,” Janik replied, looking satisfied that Sam chose that answer. “In that case, most of them somewhat follow the same logic. All of them are underwater, some have some overwater caves but not enough to matter. They are somewhat similar but the XP and damage increases through them.”
“What’s the difference?” Sam questioned.
“There aren’t exact numbers, but the starter dungeon does around 140-250 or so, giving around 15 million XP. The mid-dungeon gives 35-40 million XP a pop but has high 200s as a norm and a few 300s damage range,” Janik replied as his expression soured as it went on.
“Ah... fuck... that’s a bit harsh...” Sam considered his Defence of 55, if something did 300 damage he would have 55 HP left, and that was if nothing landed a critical hit or anything else hit at the same time. He could focus more on Active Defence and use that more, but it was still risky.
“We could also keep farming the lower-ranked Dungeons on this floor for a while, If nothing else it’s at least steady and safe progress.” Janik smiled as he put his phone back in his pocket.
“I suppose,” Sam replied, not looking entirely happy about it. The speed they improved today was good, but it would get exponentially slower as time went on. He already knew how the progression system of the Tower System was stacked against the Players, making it interesting and rewarding biting over larger and more dangerous challenges for a faster progression but... That still came with the bonus danger.
He had thought this thought several times now, but he felt the need to re-think it to remind himself to not bite into more than he could handle. They’d grind the starting Dungeon tomorrow and see how far that gets them, then make a plan from there.
Returning to Earth they split up for the night and agreed to meet up in the TAC mess hall the next morning for breakfast. Elara went with Janik, Dia and Sam to get a room at TAC.
Sam checked the Marketplace for something good within his current budget, after selling all but one of the Crystals from today’s rewards his current total budget was just a little over 2 million. There weren’t any good skills nor any weapons that he felt like paying for at the moment, so the money was banked until the morning for another check.
Dia tried to argue herself out of a proper shower with the fact that she had already handled it, there was still evidence of saltwater in her fur so both of them needed to get this out before they went to bed.
The next morning he got to see Dia’s reaction to waking to an alarm clock, which was surprisingly mundane, though he was glad that it didn’t startle her or something, parts of him sort of wanted to see that moment.
Going through their morning routine had them meet up in the mess hall shortly thereafter. Elara was surprisingly excited and seemingly had problems staying still, she slithered back and forth in a strangely adorable way, looking about eagerly.
As soon as they were done eating, Sam decided to not torture her more than needed, he got up and let her climb onboard, heading for the market area which was well-marked with signs and arrows on the floor.
They entered a large room with multiple stands and tables. A myriad of people were sitting there selling their crafted or just-obtained items. The bonus of doing it this way was that you could get a higher price for yourself, as TAC only charged a 10% fee for sitting there, rather than marking up and earning 5x what they paid you. The downside was that you had to spend your time here or have someone do it for you. The convenience of the ‘money right away’ path made it much easier, and profitable for TAC, to just sell things over the counter.
This made Sam wonder if this was a better idea for whatever he got in the future, however, based on his own shopping experience it’s just much more practical to use the TAC market instead of this.
The problem if Elara were to sell her Venom on the marketplace is that it would be harder to apply to things, and they would be pre-applied to things like toothpicks or they had to get a bunch of vials. Besides, she wanted to do this so Sam didn’t feel like discussing it.
Walking over to a manager just inside the main doors, they were told where to set up. Elara just needed a small enough table to perch on and the needed payment thing set up. She was protected in here and it wasn’t exactly like someone could steal her stuff. And she was plenty smart enough to handle the tablets needed to take payment, so all in all, this was a pretty decent deal for her.
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The manager registered them and someone helped them set up everything, though they seemed to have some odd expressions taking requests from a snake, they did as told and in only a few minutes, Elara was set up.
She looked very happy when she coiled up on a little pillow that one of the aides came with, writing something on the tablet she had set up a screen behind her displayed ‘Venom’ as a title, with a subtitle explaining that she’ll envenom any weapon or item.
“So... how does this work, should we stay... help... do something?” Sam asked with a confused tone. He wanted to help somehow if he could.
“No, I can do this,” she smiled back. “You go do what you need to, I’ll be here when you get back.” The tip of her tail was wagging and she was smiling widely as she said he could leave.
Sam couldn’t do anything but smile. “Ok, we’ll leave you to it. Have fun.” He gave her a little wave as they left. Though he wondered how she would do, he hoped that she wouldn’t be disappointed if she didn’t get anyone the first day.
That said, the fact that a snake sat there, talking to people, would probably work as some form of advertising on its own.
“Well, that’s adorable,” Janik smiled as they left her to her thing. “She was talking to Grace about this a lot yesterday, it seems she was looking forward to it.”
“I could tell,” Sam chuckled in response.”She couldn’t sit still when we ate.”
“I’m sure she’ll do fine, as long as she doesn’t set her prices too high and gets at least one sale, I’m sure she’ll be happy,” Janik nodded sagely as they headed for the Tower.
“Though, that said...” Janik continued as they were leaving the TAC building. “I have been thinking and... I’m getting much, much more out of this deal than you are, I mean... I’m practically set up for life if I live frugally, with all of my kids. So I have decided that all rewards and loot that I get should go to you.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a bit much?”
“No, not really. You’d do just as well without me, I leech half of the XP and get free loot...” He sounded somewhat guilty when talking.
“What if there’s something you need or want there, then?” Sam challenged the idea, he wasn’t against it but it felt sudden and kind of weird.
“Oh, that’s not a problem,” Janik replied with a wide smile. “You gave me things before, I’m half-counting and hoping for something like that to happen again if there’s something you don’t intend to use.”
Musing to himself, Sam concluded that this wasn’t a bad idea. He wanted to bring Janik, even though it was faster to go alone for the sake of XP, at some point he was going to need teammates. Donating gear to Janik was nothing new, he had done it before and he saw no need to not keep doing that. He even said so earlier so Janik banking on that now was just relying on what Sam had explained.
In a roundabout way, this somewhat meant that Sam had double the chance of getting loot from various sources like Dungeon Clearing and the Random Boxes. It would also help with his need for weapons, given that he currently had 58 hands if you counted his fleshy ones.
“That’s fine, if you’re OK with it I’m fine with that deal,” Sam agreed with a nod.
The simple agreement seemed to lift a weight off Janik’s shoulders. Sam wondered how long he had been thinking about this. Given his personality, it could have been some time, but he might have been worrying about being left behind.
Dia didn’t seem to understand what was going on properly, or was just not paying attention, she tilted her head a little at their expressions but didn’t interject.
They entered the area of the Tower during their talk, triggering the transportation they found themselves on the Third Floor right after. It didn’t take too long to get to the Dungeon entrance, and just like that; today’s grind started.
Like before, they went in, Dia and Janik waited while Sam did his thing. He was already bored at this but it was the only way to get where he wanted. If possible he’d love to rush through things, perhaps it could be worth just paying someone to get them through the End Dungeon so they could go to the next Floor, but that would perhaps make the first Dungeon there... dangerous. Sadly, doing it this way was a good idea, and now and then letting Dia and Janik do things changed up the monotony a bit.
The day went like this, 10 rounds was all Sam could bear before it became too much. Each run netted Sam a total of 350 million XP, 21 Cores if you counted the boss, as well as two crystals and two Random Boxes if you counted Janik’s side of things. XP was still set at 50% so the other half would go to Janik, or it would just be like leaving him behind and abusing him for loot.
Sam opened all the Random Boxes as they were available, which netted them... Or rather, netted him a bunch of stuff. With the completion rewards, there was a total list of 51 Crystals, 2 Health Potions, one weapon and two pieces of Armour. On top of this, they all levelled up, Dia again hitting max XP to be blocked by the limiter.
The weapon was a Glaive featuring a long pole of leather-wrapped iron, with a metal band spiraling around the whole length. Its blade was made of jagged shards of translucent crystal fastened to a metal spiral shape, shimmering faintly. The spike spiral covered a disc-like area like a circular blade.
[ Shardspike Glaive, High-End C-rank
Damage: 280
Blazing Surge: 30% chance to ignite enemies on hit.
Frost Rebound: Reduces incoming ice damage by 30% after landing a strike.
Whirling Momentum: Increase attack speed after three consecutive hits. ]
The armours consisted of a chestplate crafted from thick interwoven vines, hardened into a solid piece of wood. Dark green leaves clung to its surface, glistening as though freshly grown. It had tiny thorns along its edges and had an odd damp-earth smell to it. The other piece was a flowing cloak made from a blend of fine silk and enchanted-looking leaves. It was deep forest green and had subtle golden veins running through the fabric.
[ Thornwave breastplate, High C-rank
Defence: 80
Barbed Retribution: Reflects 30% of melee damage back at the attacker.
Verdant Barrier: Has a 30% chance to sprout temporary defensive thorns when struck.
Nimble Growth: Boosts movement by 20% in forested environments. ]
[ Mantle of Verdant Winds, High C-rank
Defence: 80
Wind’s Whisper: Increase movement speed by 5%
Flame Ward: Reduces fire damage taken by 10%
Ravager’s Grip: Increase grip strength, improving block or parry chance. ]
“Ok... No... I’m done for today,” Sam explained bluntly as they met up outside the Dungeon after the 10th run that day. He had chosen to use the Glaive, though he needed four hands to use it properly, dropping 4x 5-dmg daggers for a Glaive doing almost 300 was a fine trade.
Sam also didn’t want to swap his current armour, it looked neat and he liked the bonuses to Stealth, but realistically speaking it only helped him marginally. The Chamelion skill was also useless since he had his Invisibility. He had opted for the Thornwave Breastplate instead, the Defence boost alone was worth it. Dia also got an upgrade and he put the Mantle of Verdant Winds on her for protection.
Janik didn’t get anything, but his armour was already at this level and had a better Trait set, not to mention that the Glaive was not his kind of weapon.
Dia had also learned the Active Defence skill, something Sam was very happy about.
“That makes sense,” Janik smiled back at Sam’s comment. “We’ve, or rather, you’ve been at it for the whole day.”
“Got some neat stuff, though, but I don’t know how much more I can take of this. The repetition, the same fights, it’s... so boring,” Sam sighed, looking exhausted and bored out of his skull at the same time.
“I mean... we could take a few days off, do something else.”
“I thought about that, but the last time I planned some time off, I was back at it the next day...” Sam let out a drawn-out sigh. He wanted to just get this over with and get to the next Floor. Though they had levelled up, that was just one point added, it gave him more carry weight and more other stuff like Health, but not enough to feel confident with the mid-dungeon. The Glaive added to his swarm also changed his base damage output by around 260 base damage, elemental damage came on top of that. It was also a good weapon to place the Aura damage boost on but, he didn’t feel confident going against harder-hitting things still.
[ Conditions met. ]
“Ah yeah... Fucking go figure...” Sam muttered out in annoyance as he saw the little window he halfway expected around this point.
