章 12: Chapter 12
I made my way to the market and spent a good chunk of leftover clothes buying money I had received when joining the familia. I bought all sorts of produce and meats that ranged from mundane to downright bizarre. Once my money was spent, I placed everything into my inventory after slipping into an alleyway. Then, I walked out, glancing around quickly to see if anyone was paying me too much attention. Nobody was even glancing my way since they were so caught up in their shopping or selling that they didn't pay me any attention at all. I know that I am completely anonymous for now, but that will most likely change in the future. So, I decided to enjoy my anonymity while it lasted as I made my way to the dungeon.
My goal was to try and push all my stats out of the I rank and maybe even get magic to G, if possible, today. I walked into the dungeon and entered a side passage where I put on my armor and strapped my sword to my side. Once I was equipped, I started making my way down through the floors of the dungeon. I had already seen that I was powerful enough to deal with the first floor easily, so I decided to head down to the fifth or sixth floor to see if I would encounter a greater challenge from the monsters there. I was half tempted just to rush the 12th floor and grind as much as possible, but I wanted to take things slow and not underestimate the dungeon monsters.
I remained cautious throughout my trek. Whenever I encountered monsters, I would let out a brief burst of electricity from my hands and watch as it either fried one monster or leaped between the members of the small group I had encountered. I then would rush forward and finish them off while they are stunned and injured with a quick decapitation or by piercing their hearts with my blade. Overall, I was efficient and quick. Using my powers in quick bursts hardly cost anything at all, which made it easy to push deeper into the dungeon without the need to worry about mana expenditure. I also made sure to use my blade as much as possible too, so that my physical stats wouldn't lag too far behind my magic. I made sure to drain the vitality from quite a few monsters to boost my endurance, so I didn't worry about it as much.
I knew I had arrived on the fifth floor as soon as I stepped into the tunnels, which now shone with a light green color compared to the light blue of the floors above. Almost as soon as I started moving, three lizards jumped down from the ceiling above me. I quickly spread warp power throughout my body and moved in a blur, cutting up the first two before they even had time to react. The third was lucky and managed to change its trajectory slightly with its tail, so it was only eviscerated instead of split in two. It hit the ground with a wet thud as its innards poured from the wound in its belly along with a stream of blood. I stood back and commanded the blood in the lizard's body to drain from the wound, causing the pool of blood on the ground to expand quickly.
The monster hissed and tried to swipe at me, but it became weaker and weaker as time passed until its legs buckled and it collapsed under its own weight. I slid my sword into its brain before I dug out the core of the three monsters and moved on from my site of slaughter, letting the accumulated power inside of me fade. I encountered more lizards as I walked to the sixth floor, but I focused on dodging attacks and then draining them once I couldn't use them for training my reflexes any more. I made sure to collect every single one of their crystals since it would be important for the next and most illegal step of my plan. I continued moving deeper into the dungeon, feeling my anticipation rise and I entered the sixth floor since this is where most level 1s really start to die.
Immediately, I noticed a difference in how many monsters were present on this floor. Usually, there was a decently long break before encountering groups of monsters above, but that time was greatly shortened here. I watched as War Shadows, which are dark humanoid monsters that have long arms with three claws that are sharp like knives, began to emerge from the dungeon walls. They moved toward me at a sprint, claws outstretched and ready to rip me open like a bag of chips. I let out a burst of electricity and disrupted the charge by disintegrating the first line of attacking monsters. I noticed that it seemed like my electricity did much more damage than I initially would have assumed.
I guessed this had to do with the composition or biology of the monsters, but truthfully none of that mattered. All that I cared about was that I now knew a weakness of these creatures that I was going to exploit. I sheathed my sword and let electricity flow from both hands in quick bursts that cleared entire swarms of the creatures, turning them to dust in an instant. I made sure to clean the floor of monster stones, especially since these were the strongest mobs I had faced so far. They were certainly more interesting than the goblins, kobolds, and lizards that I had faced up until now, but there was still another creature that I had yet to face on this floor. As though summoned by my thoughts, just as I was bending down to pick up another stone, a long and sticky tongue shot toward me.
I managed to duck out of pure instinct, which managed to spare me from the gross and slimy feeling of being caught by a Frog Shooter's tongue. Before the pink and slimy organ could retract, I reached up and sent a jolt through the tongue, causing a bestial half-scream, half-wail shouts to emanate from one end of the hallway. I let go of the charred tongue and rushed in with my blade to reserve mana. The frog jumped out of the way and sprang off the wall to put distance between us as I approached. This continued two more times before I grit my teeth and reached out, twisting and pinching the nerves inside of the frog's body, causing it to fall to the stony ground hard.
I only kept up the attack for a moment, which was enough. When the monster recovered, I was right on top of it. The Frog Shooter let off a desperate shot with its tongue, but I stuck my blade out and cut the thought in two as it launched out at me. Blood sprayed as two tendrils of the tongue that was only now attached inside of the Frog's mouth flopped wildly on the floor before I cut off the monster's head. I reached in and pulled out its stone, adding it to my inventory before moving on. I couldn't help but admire how much more efficient this already was, so I made my way to the seventh floor, where I knew the Killer Ants would start spawning.
To many adventurers, the fact that when you injure one of the ants, it lets off a pheromone that attracts other ants is frightening, but it was exactly what I wanted to exploit. It would give me a chance to gain a lot of monster stones, which I could then feed to a few injured monsters that I would capture and incapacitate. This would be the most efficient way to artificially boost the power of magic stones here on the Upper Floors since the transfer of power via magic stones is 100% efficient. That's why it is extremely dangerous if there is a monster that starts eating magic stones since they can rapidly gain massive amounts of power. Also, once they start eating the stones, they gain a taste for them and continue to do so. Since it has the risk of getting a lot of people killed, the practice of feeding magic stones to monsters is highly illegal.
That's why I plan to cut off the limbs and cut out the eyes of the monsters that I capture. Then, once the stones are fed to them, I can extract the empowered stones to use in my rituals. That way, neither the guild nor anybody else will be the wiser as to what I have been doing while I reap extreme benefits. I considered it to be more or less a flawless plan as long as I was careful about it. However, I didn't want to count my chickens before they hatch, so I walked into the first tunnel of the seventh floor and began to look for a suitable room to execute my plan.
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