Kapitel 69: The Dungeon’s Second Stage!
A cutscene began to play. A man in a lab coat was watching various magic artifacts. As he tampered with some, one began to flash then dim. The lab coat man watched the artifact then slammed the table.
"Who stopped the artifact?! Now my plan has gone to waste!"
He stormed off into a doorway. What was behind it was unknown.
The scene faded to black and the party was standing in front of a extremely large building. It was almost completely silver-like. There were no windows, only a solid door as an entrance.
<Objective Updated! Infiltrate the Mastermind's Base!>
The door opened up with a faint sound and the party walked in. The door shut as soon as everyone was inside. They looked around, they were in a large room. The floor was made out of a strange metal, the walls were similar only a different shade of the same color. The only way that seemed to continue was a door, strangely high on a wall.
A voice began to echo throughout the room, "So you're the batch of delinquents that stopped my magical device! Very well then! Since you made it all the way here I will give you a chance. Each room will have its own little 'challenge'. Complete the challenge and the next room will be available. Can you get to the end?"
The voice began to laugh maniacally before it cut off. Suddenly, the room began to change. From the walls and floor came turret like objects, various platforms were extended as well.
Every turret had a big red button on the top of them. Akiol saw this button and couldn't help but want to press it. The moment he moved all the turrets locked on to him and began beeping.
This made him freeze, "Since when did this game become science fiction?!" He berated.
Wrock laughed, "Better watch out!"
As soon as he said that all the turrets locked on to him. This made him stop laughing. He watched as the turrets barrel stared him down menacingly. Wrock did not want to know what could be fired out of those.
Kan'na made a quick magic bullet and fired at one of the buttons. Once the button was hit the turret went back into the ground. However the turrets locked on to Kan'na the moment she fired the magic bullet.
Everyone saw the moment and knew what to do. Without any verbal conversation the party began to move at once.
The turrets began to aim towards various party members. Each member had an equal amount of turrets. Since none of the party members stopped the beeping grew intense and the turrets began to fire.
To the displeasure of the party the ammunition of the turrets varied. Some were solid metal balls, some were electric, fire, and et cetera.
Tilia made most of the attacks bounce of her shield while dodging electric ones. Her shield was made out of metal so electric attacks weren't her friend.
Akiol dodged and manipulated his body between attacks. This particular 'challenge' was decently easy for him. He pressed another turrets button and continued towards the others.
Kan'na defended her self with various repulsion circles. By adjusting the direction of the attacks she would remain fine. As she defended she put more repulsion circles around the party members that needed it.
Jarvis and Yielya were doing similar actions. With protection from Kan'na they were running around disabling as many turrets as they could.
All in all the 'challenge' posed no real challenge. Within a short five minutes all the turrets were disabled. A set of stairs rose from the ground and connected with the unusually high-off-the-ground door.
They walked through the doors and entered another room. The room looked extremely similar to the previous one, the only difference was the reduction of size. The party looked around and waited for the voice.
"Ah! I see you finished the first challenge. Congratulations! Now it's time for the second. I hope you complete it. . ."
The voice faded and the floor shifted. The floor divided into squares and began to glow different colors. On the wall certain colors began to play.
Yielya looked at it and commented, "What's with the strange challenges? It's Simon says now?"
Wrock looked at the floor and corrected, "Not quite, take a closer look."
The party looked closer, Akiol was the first to spot the glaring problem.
There was no paths to the other colors. Each 'square' of floor were fifty feet squared. Even Akiol's [Leap] could only go a maximum of 10 meters (30 feet).
The colors on the wall kept repeating the pattern. Pink, blue, violet, red, magenta, orange, pink, green, yellow, red, orange.
Since pink was one of the first colors, Akiol jumped on to the corresponding 'square'. As Akiol stood on the ground it slowly lowered then stopped with a 'click'.
Kan'na saw this and was mildly irritated, "So the one who has to go jumping on colorful squares is me?"
Wrock patted her shoulder, "We're counting on you."
Kan'na huffed and began making her way to the next color. Standing on the platform until it fell she repeated this process until it was complete. A cheerful song played and the pieces stopped glowing colors and returned to normal. Except one piece remained strangely out of place.
With no other way to move forward or continue, except the door they came through, the party stood on the out-of-place square. Once everyone was on the platform it began to descend.
They eventually made it to the bottom of the descent. They found themselves in another room similar to the previous ones. Seeing this Jarvis commented, "Devs were pretty lazy huh?"
The was agreement among the group. Why was every room so similar?
~ ~ ~
Desk Guy's eye twitched, devs were lazy? There was so much the players had yet to discover, places players may never find, things players may never solve. Yet they said the devs were lazy?
Sure the inside of the building was similar, but that was for the style of the building. Had they wanted to they could have made it a vacation home!
The curse of a developer is that the players would never be satisfied. He long since accepted this. However why did this particular team have to throw shade?
It was a bad time to come back with another soda, perhaps he should have spent a little longer choosing a drink.
~ ~ ~
Akiol waited for the voice to sound. If the game followed the unspoken rule of three then this should be the final challenge.
Sections in the wall began to rise and mechanical-like creations began to march out.
"Ha Ha! Did you think it was all basic challenges? Nope! Prepare to fight my greatest creations! The magic created soldier! I am still working on the name to bear with me."
The magic created soldiers (M.C.S.) started to march towards the party. Kan'na took one look at the magic circle that ran the machines and immediately came to a conclusion.
"These fall apart if you crush the magic crystals in their heads." She informed.
Akiol interjected, "Don't crush if possible, that's free experience for me."
Wrock cracked his knuckles and immediately jumped into the fray. He smashed open the heads of the M.C.S. and ripped out the magic crystals. He tossed them into a pile in the corner of a room before continuing with his rampage.
Akiol looked at the pile and rubbed his hands. Who knows how much experience he would gain from the level 150 dungeon. Without waiting he began to absorb the crystals like a vacuum.
<User has absorbed Mana Crystal (medium) +1% experience>
<User has absorbed Mana Crystal (medium) +1% experience>
<User has absorbed Mana Crystal (medium). . .>
<User has absorbed Mana Crystal...>
<User has...>
Since Wrock kept throwing the crystals towards Akiol, Akiol kept inhaling the magic crystals. He had already leveled up again. His experience was increasing slowly. He found that this dungeon was an extremely easy way for him to level up.
~ ~ ~
Desk Guy saw the events as they happened. As he watched he began to grow worried. He never thought that the magic crystals from the soldiers would be consumed. Considering the slime race would be found around the level 500 area. So a level 150 dungeon never crossed their minds.
Even if he truly wanted to, he couldn't let this event keep happening. So he pulled out the modifier tool and began to tamper with some code.
He sword he would make it up someway.
~ ~ ~
Akiol had gained five levels. It was the fastest he had leveled up for a long while. He assumed by the end of this dungeon he could be level 115!
Fifteen levels from one dungeon was immense. Something unthinkable for the players currently. Even with the large difference in level of the dungeon, fifteen levels wasn't reasonable at all.
As he ate more a notification arrived.
<User has absorbed Mana Crystal (medium) +0% experience>
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein