Chapter 10

  As he crossed the threshold to the boss room, Michael forced his body to take a deep breath to calm himself from the adrenaline of the last room’s battle. Knowing that the danger had been upped, he didn’t want to rush in unprepared. He had to force himself to breathe once more, this time to stifle his rising panic, when he saw that the boss was no longer alone anymore.

  In its stead stood three gigantic goblins, veritable mountains of muscle and spittle and fangs. They roared at him in unison, turning the air of the cave into a maelstrom of sharp wind.

  He didn’t have time to think as the monsters immediately charged at him all at the same time, aiming for the same spot. His developing battle sense kicked in, and he rolled to the side and sprung to his feet in a flourish. Behind him, the spot he occupied a moment ago exploded in a cloud of dust and tangled limbs. When the air cleared, the sight made Michael pause.

  The goblins had trampled each other, and even now they were stomping on each other’s feet like angry teenagers. Some of the panic dissipated like fog in the morning sun at the sight, but he remained vigilant.

  The last of the three had charged right into the other two. The result from this charge was that the middle one was mostly uninjured, but the leading one was in bad shape. It had been pancaked against the wall by the other two and was bleeding in many places, several broken bones jutting out of its leathery green skin. It got up as if compelled to ignore its own injuries and, head swiveling, to stare at Michael at the other side of the room. It roared, and the sound was a wake-up call for the other two monsters, who all stopped fighting each other and turned their attention on the interloper delving the dungeon.

  Who only grinned at the sight. Now that the panic was mostly gone, he was left with confidence and adrenaline.

  What followed was a careful dance of distances and timings. Whenever the goblins charged, Michael made sure that they were all in each other’s way as to make them damage each other, and when they attacked, he used his increased proficiency with the [Distortion Field] skill to redirect their own strikes to break bones and batter their bodies.

  The dagger was useless against enemies so big, its reach too short and its blade barely able to penetrate the tough flesh and muscle. Instead, Michael used the gun when he could and, even though its effectiveness was lessened, the goblins were bleeding from many holes in their weak spots, be it necks, legs, or their faces. Their skull was too thick to pierce, but a bullet to the forehead always stunned them for long enough to grant an opening to snap a bone.

  Michael was pretty sure the dungeon was not going to punish him for using the gun. It looked like the boss’ challenge level had been adjusted to account for it and, if not, he decided that losing some loot was better than the risk involved. Pain was temporary, but death was permanent.

  A [Shield Bash] put an end to the last of the goblins. After the many hits, the shield was starting to look a bit battered, mostly from when it was used without the reinforcement of [Distortion Field]. Soon, it would break and Michael would be forced to find a replacement. Perhaps Old Dave had something he could work with, something made with more modern materials as well.

  The loot appeared soon after. Michael healed himself even though he had been healing himself for most of the fight, as soon as the wounds arrived. Healing after the fight was like washing his hands, it had become something he just did, especially with the plentiful mana regeneration of the dungeon.

  Thinking about the fight and comparing it to his first fight against the goblin boss, he couldn’t help but be impressed by his growth. The first time around he had been scared, forced to think strange strategies. This time it had been much different, he was getting used to moving around, to feeling the distances and the reach both of his own arms and of his enemies. He was incorporating the gun in his fighting style, as well as his magic skills.

  He was a little sad that his [Candle Light] skill had become mostly useless. But he was no longer the same person he was a few days ago, stumbling through the dungeon in utter darkness, afraid and weak.

  He walked over to the stack of loot. There were more coins, bringing the total to 70 Copper, which was not bad. Then there was an ornate bracelet, clearly not magical, and a skill stone. Looking at it, it was as if the dungeon had read his mind—a chilling thought. Or perhaps he was just easy to predict.

  The skill stone was an upgrade for the [Candle Light] skill. The text didn’t say anything about the upgrade, but Michael was not someone who would refuse free power-ups, especially since they weren’t really free, and thus the stone was immediately absorbed.

  Interesting.

  Pulling up the full description of the skill, he carefully read what the upgrade entailed. The jump in rarity was promising, and even the shorthand description of the upgrade was interesting enough to make him salivate.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Even though, fighting with his bare hands… “I guess karate will come in handy now.”

  Being able to increase the heat was a very handy tool. He wondered, an idle thought, if perhaps he no longer needed a portable stove when he went camping and wanted to eat hot food.

  He tried the skill out, feeling the sharp cost of mana required to make the fire burn hotter. It was quite expensive, but if he managed to learn how to only use the skill when he hit an enemy, he could save a lot of mana from being wasted. Dismissing it, his burning hands returned to normal in less than a second, all traces of flame and heat gone as if they were never there.

  It was still too early to switch to a new combat style, full brawler with burning fists. The skill was too expensive to use with his meager mana pool, and he needed to practice and get a feel for it before he could decide what to do. Still, it could be another avenue to consider after his shield finally gave up and broke down, switching to using [Distortion Field] in its bubble version, plus dagger and fists, with the gun as backup. Thinking about the gun, he made a mental note to buy more ammo on the way home.

  While Michael was experimenting with his new magic, partially becoming the human torch for a moment, much to his excitement, two doors had appeared on the far wall of the boss room. One of them was the usual exit, sunlight streaming in from the outside in a way that defied the laws of space. Dungeon shenanigans. The other, however, was dark. Stairs could barely be seen in the darkness, however, their outline as if shining with sinister light. Leading down into the depths of the earth.

  As Michael looked at the staircase, the dungeon spoke in its usual odd voice.

  “You seem strong enough, delver. Want to test your luck on the second floor? I can grant you power beyond your wildest dreams,” the voice lured him, sweet nectar dripping from every word.

  Michael thought about it for all of two seconds before deciding that it was too early to go down to the second floor, especially today after spending so many hours training in the first room. Sure, the three boss goblins had been easy, relatively speaking, but they were still just bosses of the first floor.

  “The second floor must be a sharp increase in danger level,” he thought, “nothing compared to the simple numerical increase each time I delve the first floor.”

  He could be wrong in his assumptions, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He was in a bit of a hurry to change his life, to figure out the mysteries of the dungeon and to see if there were other people like him, but once again he reminded himself that while problems could be solved, death could not.

  Yet.

  Thinking about other delvers, he was also reminded that it was very possible that he was in a race with them. The first to gain real, world-changing power would use it, and he'd rather be him than someone else.

  He shook his head and headed outside. He was not yet at full mana, unlike last time, and this time it became even more evident that, even standing under the sun a good distance away from the dungeon, he was still regenerating some mana every second. He stopped in his tracks, academic interest he thought long atrophied by the tediousness of modern academia suddenly piqued by the discovery.

  He tried to keep track of how much mana he could regenerate while standing right outside the mouth of the cave. He emptied his mana pool several times over, using his healing aura on nothing at all, and after a while he was confident he got it figured out.

  Regeneration was half the speed of the first room while right outside the cave.

  Then he got a bit farther away and repeated the experiment, taking notes on his phone and using the GPS to calculate distances.

  It dropped by another half twenty yards away, and then to zero fifty yards away.

  Michael struggled to remember how it felt the other times. He had an inkling that the range was greater now than it had been, but he wasn’t sure. Then, as if to provide proof, his eyes began to pick up strange things going on around the dungeon. He squinted, and reality was back to normal, the paranormal hiding behind a veil of normal.

  It wasn’t enough. Michael had seen a glimpse, and was now more sure than ever that things were changing around the dungeon—not just inside.

  If this was true, even assuming this was the only dungeon in existence on Earth, sooner or later someone was bound to find something. Someone other than him. Which meant that, even in the best-case scenario, which he found harder and harder to believe was the true scenario, he still had a limited window of time to stay ahead of the curve, before someone else figured out the dungeon and started exploiting it like he did. Eventually it would become public knowledge, with all the issues that it would bring.

  It was then that Michael got a pleasant surprise.

  Michael’s mood improved immensely. If he could gain skills without the need for skill stones, then the possibilities were truly endless!

  It was as if he had been living with his eyes closed for his entire life. Suddenly he could see, and what he saw was magnificent. Specks of colour, motes of mana fluttering in the wind, coming out of the dungeon like a myriad of iridescent fireflies. The sight was a gorgeous spectacle to be witnessed, and Michael felt awestruck and blessed to finally be able to see what he had never been able to see before.

  With his eyes finally open to the arcane, he felt motivated to grow and experiment, the sight of mana bolstering and nurturing the flame of ambition in his heart. So many experiments popped up in his mind, so many things to do, and also so many worries now that Pandora’s box had been opened. Finally he could get answers to his questions, see if there was magic in the world at large, although he didn’t know whether he would like the answers he was going to get.