Finding themselves underwater, they looked around. The water was surprisingly clear, letting them look far into the distance. It helped that the walls were lined with the same glowing crystals from the Hydra arena. The floor was covered in various corals and long floating underwater plants, which felt weird as no sunlight existed.
[ Dungeon clear conditions:
Kill the Brine Collossus: 0/1
Optional: Kill all monsters
Monsters: 0/4
Rewards:
2 000 000 000 xp
1x Random crafting material
Chance (2%): Low B-tier weapon, armour or another item.
Bonus rewards for optional step:
2 000 000 000 xp
Random Box - X. ]
The immediate danger came in the form of four targets.
There were three colossal eels with shimmering scales, reflecting hues of electric blue and silver. Their long bodies glowed faintly with tines of electricity jumping to the water around them from their jagged fins.
The last target was a weirdly humanoid figure, shrouded with a flowing cloak-like shape of water and mist, giving it an etherial look. It held a staff seemingly made of coral.
[ Leviathan Eel
Level: 50
STR: 18
DEX: 15
VIT: 20
SPT: 7
HP: 1 100
Damage: Thunder Jaws 276 / Tail Whip 125 / Electric Surge 68 / Riptide Smash 253.
Defence: -
Abilities: HP Boon, STR Boon, VIT Boon, Thunder Jaws, Tail Whip, Electric Surge, Riptide Smash. ]
[ Thunder Jaws: Powerful bite with electric damage. ]
[ Tail Whip: Sweeping AOE attack. ]
[ Electric Surge: Electrify all targets around you. ]
[ Riptide Smash: Charge into a target, covering distance and doing damage at the same time. ]
[ Wavecaller
Level: 50
STR: 10
DEX: 12
VIT: 14
SPT: 24
HP: 337
Damage: Maelstrom Blast 348. / Tidal Bind 290. / Water Spout 319. / Stormbolt 290.
Defence: -
Abilities: SPT Boon, Maelstrom Blast, Tidal Bind, Water Spout, Stormbolt. ]
[ Maelstrom Blast: Send out a pulse of water from a point in space. ]
[ Tidal Bind: Restrains a target in swirling currents. ]
[ Stormbolt: Send forth an electrified jet of water. ]
[ Water Spout: Launch a piercing water jet. ]
The first thought was that the Wavecaller was the main danger, though electric attacks underwater were an issue. Sam would know; it was his main offensive element.
“Stay as far away as you can!” Sam ordered the others as he pulled himself towards the group. He was surprised at not seeing any Defensive values, which should make this event much easier.
The Leviathan Eels rushed to meet him, he suspected they were using the Riptide Smash. He had put his Aura Points into the barrier, just in case. But it didn’t seem like that was needed.
Manifesting his complete swarm, he had a brief thought of testing making armour using his Thoughtform ability, but this was not a good place to test. As the first two Eels came into range, he split the swarm between them, and as the combined damage was above 3 600, they fell immediately.
[ Experience gained: +20 M. ]
[ Experience gained: +20 M. ]
[ Companion Dia, Level up: +10! ]
As he was intrigued that the System was now displaying the XP with an abbreviator, and that the shared XP was more than enough to slam Dia up to the limit of 5 levels lower than him, he also got distracted wondering what her Level 30 skill was that he suddenly found that he couldn’t move his body. Swirling waters had formed around him, he felt like he was held by a massive hand. The Wavecalled looked to be constantly speaking as it held the staff with both hands and pointed towards Sam.
This wasn’t an issue for him; it was better than the other things it could be doing as this didn’t deal damage to him.
Freeing up all manifested weapons, keeping only his named ones out, he put all his now freed-up Energy into extending his Area’s range. This bumped it to 122m/400ft and was plenty to get the Wavecalled within range. The lack of defence and not expecting to be attacked like this had it join the Eels in a burst of electricity and blood clouding the water.
The remaining Eel charged the now freed Sam, who moved his Energy back to remanifest his full swarm. It had zero chance.
[ Experience gained: +20 M. ]
[ Experience gained: +19 M. ]
Taking a moment to look around, Sam felt confident that there weren’t more targets. Seconds after considering that, he noticed that the quest log listed 4/4 targets, giving him a brief moment of feeling dumb.
“So, I just find and disturb the crown?” Sam asked Janik through the communication system in his mask.
“Yeah, that’s what the guide said,” Janik confirmed.
“Ok, do you know what it loo... Never mind.” Sam looked around as he wondered what it looked like, but as soon as he asked, he saw a golden crown on a pedestal made of corals.
Pulling himself as far away as he could, putting all his weapons back in storage, he put all his points into extending his range before using only one point to manifest Psyhands. This increased his range considerably, and since he didn’t know how or where the thing was going to spawn, this felt safer.
As soon as he touched the crown, the ground started shaking, which in turn propagated through the water for a very strange and uncomfortable feeling. The crown was stuck in the pedestal and sank into the rest of the coral before a massive humanoid shape rose from underground, tearing up the coral on its way before standing several floors tall. It had the shape of a titanic humanoid of rock and coral. Its arms were massive, with barnacle-encrusted fists the size of boulders. Water was constantly streaming from its joints, and it was covered in blue, glowing, pulsing veins. Its head was a cluster of corals somewhat resembling a face, with the small golden crown on top.
Not bothering with even appraising it, he knew the things he needed to know. Sam sent forth his swarm. Though some of his unnamed weapons missed due to hitting various coral protrusions and not making it in time to be a part of the Cluster Strike, the remaining hitting and critting weapons made up for it with over 3 000 damage.
As soon as the boss woke up, it was taken out. Somewhat anticlimactic, the cracks surrounding the gaping hole in its chest grew in size until the boss fell apart. A pile of broken rubble was all that remained as the quest was completed.
[ Experience gained: +50 M. ]
Sam felt almost annoyed at his success with this. He knew that normally this would be a group effort of higher level Players. Assuming 500 damage or something from each player, lowered to around 200 due to the Defence, or halved if it’s a spell due to the Element resistance. Using that as a baseline, it would take 14-15 hits to take it down. If you had a group of 5-6 Players, they had a volley-damage on around 1000-1200 after the 300 Defence was counted. This let the Boss attack back more than once and could kill everyone, depending on luck and skillset.
Sure, good spells or skills could make up for things, but he brute-forced it with volume, doing over 3 000 damage after the Defence was calculated. He loved it in several ways, especially for survivability, but it felt oddly anticlimactic and drained some of the exciting feelings from it.
[ Experience gained: +4 B. ]
“WOO!” Janik’s voice shouted over their communication. “Level 30, baby!”
Grabbing the Random box and the Aether Crystal, Sam wanted out of the water before he took the time to go through things. “Let’s leave. We’ll go through things when we get out of here.”
Dia started getting the Cores like she had been told to do earlier.
“Ah, you sure? I mean, this is good XP, and with your skills, we can easily farm it.”
Sam could hear Janik’s smile.
“No, I’m done with underwater fighting.” Sam realised that he was being a bit harsh; perhaps his odd boredom of the fight was catching up to him, mixed with the constant underwater stuff, and it just became negative. “As soon as Dia is done, we’re out of here.”
Pulling himself to the center of the room, he found the exit portal where he expected. He waited a moment for Dia to swim over to the creatures and dig out the cores, it took a few moments but she was getting rather skilled at it now. Sam helped by using his remote hands to handle the boss, as he was closer than her.
As soon as they were done, he activated the exit portal and both Dia and he were in the colder water outside.
Starting to swim upwards, Janik joined a few moments later.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
[ Companion Elara, Level up: +1! ]
“That’s fair enough,” Janik added as he was outside. “I also want to go to the Fourth Floor as soon as possible.”
Sam could hear some slight eagerness in his voice, not something Sam could fault him for. He was also looking forward to it, not only to stop being underwater all the time.
Meeting up on the surface, climbing out of the water onto the long pier, Sam finally took the time to not only check the updates they got but to handle Dia’s points.
“Dia, where do you want your level-up points?” Sam asked her, considering that she should pick things on her own as it was her style, after all.
“Zar pick,” she smiled back. “Zar know better, understand.”
“I think you should decide, it’s you who will be... using it, after all.” Feeling a bit odd at how he worded it, he continued. “You want to be better at attacking? More health?”
Dia pondered a moment, looked at Janik, who shrugged, then back at Sam with a little flex. “Dia want attack!”
They proceeded to put all 10 level-up points in Dex, as well as the 11th, which seemed to be an Ascendant hacky bonus thing. Though this didn’t raise her Health at all, it made some decent progress to her offensive. He also took this moment to check her new skill.
[ Defence Breaker: Deliver a powerful punch which can lower the target’s Defence by your Dex for a short while. ]
Taking a gander at Janik, Sam saw that he had put his point in Dex as well, raising his damage slightly. His new skill was also interesting.
[ Duelist’s Charge: Focus energy into a burst of speed towards a target. Linear movement. Attacks done at the end of the charge do +50% damage. ]
“That’s a neat skill you got,” Sam smiled at Janik, knowing he was ever so slightly uncomfortable that he could Appraise all his details.
Faking hiding his nude body again, even though fully dressed, the joke pulled a dumb smile from both of them. “I also see there is a +1 to use on you if you’re interested.” Sam gave a playful tone at the end.
“Oh, another one? Put it in Dex, please.” He eagerly nodded at his own choice, he started thinking a moment after.
Sam put the point in Dex, raising it by 1, as Janik shared his thoughts. “I wonder if the bonus is related to beating a boss, or the floor boss, or something?”
Sam shrugged. “It seems to trigger in several different ways. I often get something in the solo dungeons, but you might be right.” Sam had been wondering what could be triggering these. Just killing bosses didn’t do it, since when farming certain dungeons he would have gotten a ton of points. Perhaps it was only the first time they took out a boss? No, it didn’t trigger for all of them, so perhaps just milestone bosses? The first, middle and last or something?
Sam’s pondering was rudely ended as Dia decided to shake water out of her fur, sending it flying everywhere. Everyone was soaked already, so it didn’t change anything, but it was still enough to bring him out of his bubble of thought.
Janik chuckled as he seemed to have decided to use this moment to open his Random Box. Sam did the same, and they were both disappointed when they only got Aether Crystals. Sam got 3, and Janik got 2. It was still somewhat free money, but not as satisfying as getting items.
“Let’s go get Elara and pop to the Fourth Floor,” Janik commanded as he started walking, looking quite eager.
Sam changed mental gears and joined him with a smile; the Player experience he wanted to taste was just around the metaphorical corner.
Walking down the pier, they hit land soon enough. Still drenched, they looked around for Elara. A futile attempt to find a green snake in a green jungle.
“Elara, you around here?!”
It didn’t take long before she slithered out from the bushes. Sam crouched down to let her climb on board, and they started moving after she did. “You had fun?” he asked her with a smile.
“Yes,” she smiled in response as she settled on his shoulders. “I bit a crab that didn’t die.”
Sam mentally imagined her as the tiny snake, crawling over and biting the truck-sized crab with high enough Vitality that it would eventually power through her venom. “Yeah, that checks out...”
“I would like my point in Vitality,” she answered to a question Sam had yet to ask. Though he expected as much and did as she wanted. Bumping her venom up another notch.
He had a brief moment where he wondered why she didn’t get the freebie point the others got, but she didn’t join them in the Dungeon so it kind of made sense.
It didn’t take long before they found themselves back at the transport area. The window opened, asking where they wanted to go. Sam selected the Fourth Floor!
The warm light enveloped them like normal, and suddenly, the air was very different. The tropical warmth was swapped out for a fresher, gentle wind. It was colder and more crisp but not cold enough to feel uncomfortable. Though, them still being wet didn’t make this more comfortable.
As the light faded from their eyes and they could properly see around them, they saw a large group of island-like landmasses floating in the sky, linked together with chains, wires and bridges. The central area they were at was the largest, it was covered in stands, buildings both large and small, windmills generating electricity and the most important element for Sam: lots of people.
Most people walking about were players, mages, warriors, rogues, rangers. Sam, having his Appraisal active, filled his view to the point of a mild headache; he only got snippets of things before another window overlaid it to the point of congestion. He had to disable the skill for now and use it actively instead of having it passively check everyone.
Looking again without hundreds of windows fighting for his attention, he got the image of a fantasy setting where adventurers walked around in a frontier-like town. The landing platform was at the edge of the island, letting Sam see that there were a bunch of more floating islands around them, above, in the distance and below. Though he could also see that there was no end to the distance, like staring into the vastness of space, there was no end to the ‘above’ or ‘below’. There were only a few clouds in the distance, both above and below, and there were an amazing number of birds around the various islands.
Dia took a few steps closer to Sam, hesitantly grabbing onto his arm and looking very uncomfortable whenever she was looking in a direction that had some height to it, which was almost everywhere. “Zar... Tala korra.” She didn’t sound happy in the slightest.
“I’m sad to say that I think you might just have to get used to it...” Sam didn’t know how to break it to her, but... the Fourth floor was going to be like this. He had read that even dungeons wound be on floating islands, something he found interesting, but she didn’t exactly seem to like heights, so this was probably the worst place for her.
Sam started walking into the group of people. He got some odd looks at first, but Dia was far from the only Beastfolk in the area. Most were Kobolds or flying creatures like Harpies or ravenfolk-looking people. He had a brief internal question about having purged them in the dungeons earlier, but now they were just people walking around. Though since this was somewhat the same for Dia, that line of questioning ended right away.
Though he wanted to give Dia some attention to get her mind off... height, he was somewhat amazed walking amongst as many Players as this. This wasn’t uncommon in the TAC building on Earth, but that wasn’t the same. This was the mental image he had of being a Player: being amongst the others and doing things together.
Manually activating Appraisal on random people, it seemed that most of them were around level 50-70, the latter were older people than the others. Given how long it took to level up at higher levels, he understood that this was going to take a while. The crafters selling their wares were a different story; many of them seemed to be as low as level 20, but their skills weren’t at all combat usable. Remembering what Janik explained earlier, there are ways up there without fighting or doing it correctly through the end-dungeons, but that blocked you from entering dungeons on this Floor.
Most crafters probably didn’t care about that, so it made sense for lower levels to be here.
It also seemed that the general damage ranged from 500 to 1000, depending on skillset. And health was somewhere around 400-500 or so. Meaning that their group was quite underpowered as a general comparison. Though Sam was a glass cannon compared, he had some defences and decent health for his level, but his offence was his boon.
Sam and his group were somewhat of an exception; their levels were low for this level, but as they had discussed many times before, he was cheating.
The wind was slowly drying them, though the salt remained and would need to be cleaned properly later, but for now, they just enjoyed walking around and enjoying the place. Or rather, Janik and Sam was, Dia didn’t like this place. However, she was less stressed once they walked away from the ledges, and it felt more like a normal island.
“So, what should we do first?” Janik asked to gain the focus of the group. “We can just mingle, go buy or sell something, try out a dungeon?”
Sam thought about it for a moment and suddenly realised. “Oh, I got those crafting materials from the Second Floor boss. I can see if anyone can make something with them.”
“Oh, yeah, we can go sell our crystal and see if we find a good crafter.” Janik nodded in agreement before looking around for a local map. Finding one of those ‘you are here’ overview maps, he found out where to go fast enough.
“Ok, it’s this way!” He smiled as he almost skipped ahead like the child he was.
They followed Janik through a wide street going down what looked like a modern shopping street, windows filled with items and crystals, people with stands peddling their wares, people buying this or that, others selling more exotic things. The street seemed to terminate in front of a brothel, something Sam found strangely weird but also oddly making sense.
As Sam took in the sights and Dia did her best to not get bumped into by holding onto him, Janik had already found somewhere to sell his crystals. When he was done, Sam did the same and sold his crystals and cores. His share of the cores and his crystals ended up at $65 000, which wasn’t a gargantuan sum compared to the economy he was getting used to, but it was not bad either.
“Since we have you here,” Janik talked to the man who bought their stuff. “We’re looking for a crafter that can make things with dungeon loot.”
“Ah, most crafters around here can do something with most things, depending on the material. Just listen for someone shouting about whatever you have.”
Sam took this moment to listen, and the man was right. Some shouted about woodworking, they will make things out of any kind of wood. Others are about metals, iron, steel, and copper. Some shouted about more exotic furs or leathers, and it wasn’t until he heard someone shouting about ‘monster parts’ that he felt he might have hit the correct group.
“That’s great, thank you.” Janik smiled to the man with a thumbs up before turning towards Sam.
“I already heard someone. Let’s check them out.” Sam smiled as he started moving towards the voice.
Navigating the group of people, they found themselves in front of a stand with a lot of odd knickknacks. The System read things out as weapons, tools, armour and such, all things were made of almost random-looking items, almost something a primitive or native would wear. The man sitting behind the table was looking geared up by the same style of things.
“Good day, young Sir. What can I do for you today?!”
“I have some crafting materials that I wonder what can be used for,” Sam was unsure. It was the first time he had done this but decided to just start the talk. He took the items out of storage and showed them to him.
“Oh, those are pretty rare,” the man smiled as he looked at them.
