Darius, it turned out, had been too busy exploiting his own new class to bother hovering over Josh like a mother hen. By the time the party gathered up the next day for the dungeon, he was a level 45 High Shroudcrafter, and the first thing he did when he saw Josh was hand him a new shroud focus. Josh scanned it before putting it on.

  Josh didn't know why he even bothered checking item descriptions, half the time. The System remained extremely condescending until at least the Master-tier. As he was putting it on, he wondered if he could learn to make it if he deconstructed it.

  “How many of these have you made?” he asked. He didn't want to suggest deconstructing it if this was the only one.

  Darius handed out more to Ruth and Mary. “A few dozen,” he said casually. “I cheated by burning up rift crystals to imbue my crafting. Using monster parts is more efficient, as I'm sure you're aware, but with the number of dungeons we're clearing, I do not feel guilty losing so many crystals.”

  “Fair enough,” Josh said. They were already past the effective monster level for the area. While that meant it was safer, it also meant it was harder to gain more levels or hunt useful monster parts. He had heard that even Sarah, the Alchemist, was hitting a wall with her ingredients. “You picked a good dungeon for us?”

  “I picked the oldest one we know of,” he said flatly. “With the rate they're appearing, that's the best that we can do for information. It's a few hundred yards outside the wall.”

  Josh paused. “Dungeons usually don't appear that close to citystones.”

  Darius raised an eyebrow. “And what, exactly, made you feel as though anything about multiple dungeons appearing a day was usual?”

  “Fair cop.” Josh made sure his shroud focus was secured, then grinned at the others. “Ready?”

  Ruth hefted her hammer, Mary spun her guns, and Darius checked the straps on his shield. They all nodded at Josh.

  “All right.” He drew his sword, brand new and inscribed with Ruth's runes, and pointed it into the distance. “Off to the dungeon!”

  They didn't encounter any monsters on the way to the dungeon. Considering how many people had been clearing out this area recently, that wasn't much of a surprise. The dungeon itself was nestled in a thick grove of trees, the kind of trunk-to-trunk wall of wood that you could only get when a dozen monsters all died at the same time and sprouted into trees that grew together.

  The entrance to the dungeon was a small round dome in the earth, no taller than a man. It would be easy to miss, if not for the fact that no plants or trees grew over it. In the hungry Jungle, it stood out like a bleached white bone in the middle of a garden. Josh made a note of how it looked. If he had to guess, the dungeon had appeared in a clear spot between the trees, rather than displacing existing trees. That might be important.

  There was a hatch at the top of the dome, with four indentations for hands. They put their hands in the indentations, and the hatch cracked open with a pneumatic hiss. They dropped down the ladder into the dungeon's entrance. It was a small, circular chamber with white walls and a single exit. There were a handful of rune circles glowing on the walls, like lamps. The second all of them were inside, they received a system message.

  Josh waved away the notification, and noted that none of his friends looked surprised. “All the new dungeons have names like that?”

  They all nodded. “I looked up typical dungeon names,” Darius said. “This is not unheard of, but most new dungeons are named after colors. They seem to be randomized, or perhaps going off a list that we do not have access to.”

  “All right.” Josh was tempted to change the name, just for the fun of it. Considering that they meant to clear out this dungeon on their first run, it wasn't worth the trouble. He frowned, then brought up the dungeon info again. “Spawn level 8?”

  “There have been a few higher-level jobs,” Mary admitted. “I found a level 40 yesterday. But yeah, they're mostly low-level. That's typical, yeah?”

  Josh worried his lip. “...I think?” This was really getting outside his wheelhouse. He was chuffed that the others seemed to think he was some huge expert, but it wasn't all that. Sure, he'd closed more dungeons than they had, but it wasn't as though he had been studying them. Mostly, he just ran through them as fast as possible. “Might be an indication of the rift strength. Spawn levels can increase, after the reset.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  They all nodded at that. Ruth took a moment making sure she already had all the runes on the walls, then together they all walked through the seemingly empty doorway. It rippled like a disturbed pond as they passed.

  Passing through the invisible barrier didn't feel any different than stepping into a cold room. On the other side was a room identical in size and shape to the first, still round and white. Everyone had their weapons out, ready for combat. Darius kept his shield in front of him, and his right hand roiled with near-invisible energy, ready to boost their shrouds in an emergency.

  They needn't have bothered.

  There were four monsters in the room with them. They were silver blobs, like drops of mercury the size of footballs. They bounced gently on the floor, and seemed to be inching towards the party. Inching forward very slowly.

  “Ruth,” Josh called. “What element is Sidero?”

  “Metal,” she said without hesitation. “It's an Exemplary-tier element. I don't know how it can appear at such a low level.” She hefted her hammer, then glanced at Mary. “Magic isn't going to be much good here.”

  Josh pushed her hammer back down. “Neither will crushing them.” Slimes of all varieties were infamously resistant to blunt physical force. He wasn't sure how her gravity magic would interact with them, either. “Let me try first.”

  “Wait, wait!” Ruth used one hand to draw quickly in the air, her finger leaving behind glowing lines. Josh recognized it as one of her runes—except when she used it like this, it was a sigil. Once she completed it, the sigil burned brighter for a moment, and then he felt his body lighten.

  He almost thought it was a gravity sigil, but it was actually an extra two points to his Strength. That was better, really.

  “Thanks,” he said, getting used to his new power. He swung his sword a few times, keeping an eye on the slimes. The things were really slow. “I haven't seen you use those too much.”

  Ruth sighed. “They're too situational, and they don't stack with any buffs from the runes. They're also temporary, mana-intensive, and I can't chain them together like runes.” She shrugged. “They're just not worth the effort, most of the time.”

  “I bet.” He also thought that they probably hewed too close to the support role she had been forced to play for most of her life. Consciously or not, she had probably avoided them for that reason alone.

  “Oh, hurry it up, you two,” Mary said, rolling her eyes. “Josh, either deal with these snotballs yourself or I will.”

  Considering that would probably result in magical bolts reflecting around the room, Josh quickly stepped forward before she could get even more impatient. He raised his sword in a low guard, one that he had practiced so many times it was ingrained into his bones. His missing fingers made him hitch a moment, but he soldiered on.

  Then, he lunged.

  Slime monsters had a number of different variants, and different tactics worked best against them. Dewdrop slimes were among the easiest to deal with: They were heavily resistant to blunt damage, had some extra properties from their elemental affinity, and were slow.

  He dashed across the floor faster than most people would believe someone of his size capable of, charging forward like a knight with a lance and burying his sword deep in the slime's side. The monster withdrew into itself, and tried to grab onto Josh's sword when he pulled back, but he was too strong for it. Still, Josh cursed himself. The one situation where a metal sword was a disadvantage, and he had just started using one. His wooden sword would actually be a better weapon here, at least marginally.

  The slime seemed slightly stunned by the ferocity of his attack, and he took the opportunity to slash it, trying to cut away the silver material of its body. He needed to dig in deep, to reach the core, otherwise this fight was going to be a slog.

  One of the other slimes got too close. Not dangerously close, it was still slow and low-level, but close enough that he noticed. He stabbed it, and this time he hit the core on the first try. The slime instantly shattered into silver dust, giving him more than enough time to turn around and throw an [Empty Chop] at another one.

  Arts had weird interactions with magic resistance, so he had initially been hesitant about using it. On the other hand, if there was ever a time to experiment, it was when he was forty levels higher than his opponents. Thankfully, the invisible slice of energy cut right through another of the metal slimes, shattering its core in one hit, without reflecting off its metal body. The shape of the art was a bit different than it usually was, since he was channeling it through a sword rather than an ax, but at least it worked.

  Two more [Empty Chops] finished off the other two, and he was left with nothing but four small shattered crystals surrounded by glittering silver dust like fine grains of sand. He took a deep breath, stood up straight, and sheathed his sword in a single motion. For a moment there, it was like he was in a simpler time, clearing out dungeons for experience and loot.

  He was only drawn back to the present by Ruth's excited clapping. He turned to see her smiling and bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Oh, that was so cool! Did you get anything good for it?”