I had some understanding of my power now, after the first test. The Fire Bolt skill wasn’t incredibly powerful at its current level, and unlike a normal skill, you can’t channel a ritual to make it stronger. My enchantment would remain at this level until such a time as I put it on a new piece of equipment.
However, there was an advantage that I had instead, and that was the ability to rapidly cast. Looking at the two moles, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to kill both of them before they sounded the alarm. Even if I sat at the cave and rapid-fired Fire Bolts until my arms were numb, I wouldn’t be able to handle the swarm that came after.
I could keep doing my hit and hide tactics from earlier, but they would catch on soon. Either a lot of monsters would start staying here, or none would. Either way, I had to do something. Waiting around wasn’t going to help me get any stronger… Okay, it was because my passive skills were still building, but it wasn’t going to help my active skills! And those were the ones that I wanted to train right now!
I looked at the two moles, which were positioned next to one another, and took a deep breath. I activated my Sneak Attack skill again, followed by not one, but a small barrage of fire bolts. I found that I could fire off between two and three per second, and so I took advantage of the element of surprise to quickly dispatch both of the monsters.
As expected, they let out the same cry as the first, but I was prepared this time. After reactivating my Stealth skill, I walked over and grabbed the bodies to loot them. One dropped its hide, the other a complete gemstone.
While the other moles rushed into the cave, I waited for just a moment, letting enough of a path open up for me to make my escape. This time, I moved deeper into the mine, looking for other branches where the monsters were lounging in small groups. If I attack elsewhere, it will take longer for them to respond.
The best thing about active skills, at least in my opinion, was that they gained more experience per use than proficiencies or toggle skills. If I managed to stay in this dungeon for one full day, I was confident that I could evolve my Fire Bolt into a higher level skill. This was because active skills typically had a higher burden, which I was able to outright ignore.
The next group I found was a group of three, though they were a bit more spread out. This time, I positioned myself near one of them, and used a Sneak Attack Fire Bolt on the second. While it cried out, and the other two were immediately alert, I drove my sword down to stab into the fleshy neck of the nearest mole.
The final one let out a screech of alarm before lunging at me. Its speed was surprising, managing to latch onto my leg. I couldn’t use my Fire Bolt skill against something attached to me, or I would only burn myself again. However, the piercing pain of its crystalline teeth digging into my skin caused me to cry out in pain.
I swung my sword, cleaving halfway through its neck and causing it to drop. I barely had enough time to loot the three moles before a smaller swarm came to investigate. I managed to activate my Stealth skill before they got too close, ducking back against the wall.
This time, they began sniffing around, their noses lingering on the blood on the cave floor. My eyes widened, and I hastily pulled a Cure Herb out of my inventory, shoving it into my mouth. I needed to stop my bleeding before…
The moles began to turn to look in my direction. They couldn’t tell my exact position, but they were moving closer, the smell of blood still on my pants and my blade. I began counting, gulping when I saw that there were fifteen of them.
If I take my time to fight all of them… even if I win, more will be drawn by the noise. I thought, glancing at the time left on the injury. Thanks to the herb, it would only last a few more seconds, but that was enough for them to get close.
If… if I don’t worry about accuracy, and focus only on the rate of fire, I can probably shoot off my spell faster. But if I do that, will my armor be able to hold out? I didn’t know if overusing my enchantment would damage my armor, but I found it incredibly likely.
Still, I didn’t have much choice. They were following the smell of blood, which would lead them right to me even if I moved from my spot. At the very least, if I couldn’t kill them all, I had to be able to scare them back.
Quietly, I sheathed my sword, aiming both hands forward, fingers spread. Sneak attack… fire bolts! I began repeating the activation command for the enchantment in my mind as fast as possible, magic circles lighting up on each of my fingers. The moles let out a shriek of surprise as a hailstorm of flaming arrows assaulted them, slightly more than ten every second. My Stealth was disabled after the first attack, but that didn’t stop me. If I stopped, they would swarm in.
I had to keep going until I saw them run away. Though, with all the flame rising in front of me, I couldn’t really see much of anything. There were screeches of alarm and pain, and scurrying of claws, but all of that was drowned out by the roar of fire.
My barrage continued for fifteen seconds, after which I finally stopped to let the flames clear. As this was a magical fire, it didn’t produce any smoke as long as fuel wasn’t added, and would quickly dissipate. Before it did, I hastily activated my stealth again, checking the condition of my armor.
My face went pale, seeing that the armor had lost almost a quarter of its durability from that barrage. Sure enough, overheating the enchantment would damage the item that it was attached to. I’d need an item with higher compatibility in order to get around that.
Looking ahead, I saw that there were eight charred corpses, and moved forward to collect their loot. At the entrance to this branching cave, a number of moles were staring in with cautious expressions. None of them wanted to be the first to investigate.
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have a way to get the smell of blood off of my pants, and these creatures had very sensitive noses. If I ran out now, I was sure that they would find me. However, I did notice another skill window waiting for me.
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New Skill Acquired! Fire Magic Proficiency (Magic – 5☆): Increases the damage of Magic skills of the Fire Element. Proficiency Level 1(0%) |
My brow twitched, thinking that this must have been caused by rapidly casting so many fire skills. I didn’t know whether that proficiency would apply to the enchantment, or if it would have to wait until I made a new one… or if I would need to enchant a new item with both the proficiency and the skill. Wait, can you even enchant a proficiency? I blinked, not entirely sure of the answer to that.
Either way, I’d find out eventually. For now, I was stuck in this branching path, the moles too scared to enter. As long as I stayed here, I was intimidating without forcing them to fight. If I tried to leave, I would be encroaching further into their territory, and forcing them to come at me again.
With a grunt, I reached down, tearing the bloodstained section of cloth off of my pants leg, before throwing it out into the main cave opening. As expected, the moles went feral, clawing apart the torn cloth and leaving nothing but shreds. However, they seemed to realize that a helpless scrap of cloth hadn’t been what released the flames earlier, so many of them continued to remain vigilant.
Since they wouldn’t be entering the cave for a while, I began to feel around, using my Perception skill to look for any other escape paths that I could use to get out of here. If I could escape without them realizing, I could potentially throw the entire cave into chaos, emerging at different points.
After a few minutes of searching, I found a crack in the wall, big enough for me to fit my arm into. At first, I was worried that it just happened to be a convenient size for the moles to use as a travel point, but I felt something when I reached inside. A lever? Is there a secret mechanism?
Pulling the lever, I prepared myself to be skewered or dropped into a pit. However, instead, a small passage opened up next to me, the wall receding. My brow furrowed, finding this far too convenient. Little was known about the origin of dungeons, only that they appeared at different points in the world and regularly released monsters into the wild. Oftentimes, the depths of a dungeon would be protected by a powerful boss variant of the monster inhabiting it. Other than that, and how loot was collected in dungeons, people hadn’t been able to discover much.
Some said that dungeons were the creation of the demon lord, because sometimes dungeons would be found containing known demon races like goblins or trolls. However… certain dungeons also had elves, orcs, or even humans, so this claim was widely rebuked. Of course, the races found in these dungeons lacked a lot of their intelligence, unable to converse with anyone that entered.
I moved into the passage with caution, my eyes sweeping the surroundings. Not long after I entered, the door behind me closed, blocking off my path of return. My body tensed, left with no other option but to keep moving forward.
With my Perception skill active, I was able to vaguely make out what was in front of me, though it would be hard for me to fight in this condition. I saw a shape in the distance, almost a cube with a rounded top. My eyes widened, realizing that this was likely a treasure chest.
When I walked over, the first thing that I did was shoot it with a fireball. You can never be too sure about mimics…
Thankfully, the flames scattered harmlessly off of the chest, leading me to let out a relieved sigh. I crouched down, opening the chest and feeling through it. There were two items in the chest. One had a soft exterior, riddled with hard studs. The other was long, sharp, and jagged. From just how they felt, I could tell that the first was some form of armor, and the second felt like a sword.
That’s… convenient. I thought to myself warily. My weapon wasn’t truly player equipment, and my armor had lost almost half of its durability in total. I had heard that people in dungeons were more likely to find loot suitable for themselves, such as an archer finding a bow, but I had always dismissed that as a simple coincidence. A dungeon popular with archers would naturally have plenty of bows in reserve from past ‘visitors’.
Still, I pulled the two items out, grabbing a handful of weeds from my inventory and tossing them on the floor, before igniting them with a Fire Bolt. What I had pulled out was a red, crystal sword with a shimmering blade, and thick, leather pants with crystal studs. I gulped, activating my Appraisal on the two items.
The weapon, the Magic Ruby Scimitar, was priced at a full eighteen silver, with six star damage and two enchantment slots. The pants, Crystal Mole Leggings, had five star damage, two enchantment slots, and sold for fifteen silver. I was briefly confused about the price, being almost twice as expensive as my own armor, despite being one star less effective and having one less slot.
Either the material is more compatible with powerful enchantments, or it’s because it is a rare dungeon drop. I nodded my head, thinking that it was likely one of those.
Regardless, I happily equipped the two items on the spot, feeling a sense of reassurance now that I had some more proper player equipment. Part of me was tempted to enchant the sword with Fire Bolt, but I decided against it. Instead, I’d wait until it was higher level, or evolved into the next skill.
Speaking of… although I found a treasure chest… I didn’t see a way out, only a further winding passage ahead. There weren’t any moles, though, so I decided to wait here and be ‘productive’.
I aimed one finger at a nearby wall, and activated the enchantment on my armor, keeping an eye on its durability. The first thing that I did was find out how often I could fire without incurring damage, which turned out to be once a second. After that… I began firing one Fire Bolt every second at the wall.
I felt no immediate need to leave. My skills didn’t necessarily require me to attack monsters to grow stronger, only to activate my skills again and again. In that case, since I needed to evolve my Fire Bolt before I could leave the dungeon, I would train here for now.
