章 15: Treasure room

Lex crawled back to the spot where he had been earlier, his body aching from the effort. Heavy and wet clothes stuck to him, but he didn't care.

He leaned back against the fleshy wall and let out a long breath. After a moment, Lex tried to stand up but found out that his legs refused to move.

"Ah. It has already started. It's to be expected. I didn't prepare for anything this time since I was rushing to reach this place before that bitch."

He had pushed himself too hard and despite looking fine, he was still suffering from the previous encounter with an immune cell. The recovery pill had done its job, but it wasn't a miracle drug and obviously wouldn't fully heal him.

However, it wasn't the main reason he couldn't move his body.

Suddenly, Lex started coughing blood. His head began to get dizzy, and his heartbeat felt extremely slow and heavy. Despite the warm and humid exterior, he started feeling cold. But he knew what this was.

The Titan's body was fighting him like it did anything that didn't belong there in another way. Just because he couldn't see it doesn't mean it wasn't there. Lex was poisoned.

"It would have been too easy if all we had to do was to escape from cells and invaders."

"Administrator authority: Open shop."

[Welcome back, Administrator. 5 coins have been deducted to use your privileges.]

A flicker of blue light appeared before him, floating like a hologram in the dark cave.

Squinting and with a barely conscious expression, he watched the list scroll by. His fingers shook as he counted his coins: 17 left from scamming people and 360 from the Red Cells. Barely enough for a single blessing, but it'd have to do. His finger jabbed the screen.

[Poison Resistance: 300 coins.]

The second he confirmed it, a strange, cool feeling spread through him. There was no dramatic transformation or anything; it just happened. He could feel the poison being partially purged from his body and the toxins in his body being neutralized—at least temporarily.

"It should give me a few days before poison resistance gets overwhelmed," he muttered, rolling his shoulders. Just because he now has poison resistance didn't mean he would be fine. It was resistance, not immunity, and it could, at most, give him a few more days.

It could have been another story if it was a trait, though…

He glanced at his remaining coins; 77 left.

'Not much, but it could still be considered a fortune in the current stage of the tutorial.' Lex thought.

Feeling the heaviness in his limbs ease up a bit, Lex finally pushed himself up, legs still shaky. He glanced at the twisted walls around him.

It wasn't just the immune cells or those parasites. The blood-soaked rain that had soaked him was part of it, too.

Everything here was poisoned. The worst part is that the poison did not hit right away and was extremely slow-acting. It was sneaky and silent, building up over time. But once it reached a certain level, all symptoms and effects would hit in a wave and go off like a trap.

"The worst is that this poison is extremely vicious. It is already too late when someone is feeling sick."

With a sigh, he started walking. He didn't have time to rest. Every second he wasted was a second closer to his death.

Ignoring the burning in his legs and the ache in his chest, Lex forced himself to keep moving. He didn't have time to rest.

Although he was much slower than when he entered the Dungeon, it was still enough to navigate the winding tunnels.

After hours of walking, Lex finally stopped, his eyes narrowing at the wall ahead.

"Finally," he muttered.

The wall was a mess of twisted flesh, and the surface was covered in pulsing veins, not very different from the rest of the tunnels. Yet, this place took him very long and quite a few lives to find.

Lex gripped his knife tighter, digging it into the wall with as much force as he could muster. The tissue was tough, stubborn, clinging back as if it knew what he was trying to do. Each slice peeled back layers of flesh, and he could feel the warm, sticky resistance as the wall fought against him, squirming like a living thing.

Gritting his teeth, he pressed on, ignoring the pain in his arms and the weakness creeping back into his legs. His muscles screamed, but he kept digging, peeling layer after layer until the blade clinked against something hard. Finally, he'd reached it. He forced his fingers into the hole he'd carved, prying it wider, his nails scraping and tearing as he pulled away the last chunks of tissue.

Then, with one final tug, the wall gave way, revealing a small opening.

Lex stared at the tight, narrow hole he'd uncovered, barely wider than his shoulders and disappearing downward at a sharp angle, like some sort of slide. Without giving it much thought, he shoved himself inside and let gravity pull him down.

He slid down the tunnel, his hands and knees scraping against the rough, fleshy ground, but it didn't matter.

After a few long moments, the tunnel opened up, and he found himself falling into a large cavern.

Lex fell hard, landing with a jolt against something solid and unyielding. Not the usual squish and give of flesh—this felt dense, rough, and cold against his skin.

He glanced around, letting his eyes adjust. The place was enormous, with vast walls that curved up and around him as if he'd dropped into some ancient, hollowed-out chamber.

Except, as he ran a hand over the gritty surface, even an idiot would know what it was—bone.

A sprawling skeleton, to be exact, one that must've stretched for miles, like an entire city encased within ribs and marrow. Grayish-white, flecked with dried, dark patches of old marrow that clung to the crevices.

He stood and dusted himself off, taking note of the clusters of dried marrow clinging like boulders to the walls of the chamber. Picking one at random, he approached it with a steady stride, grabbing his knife and digging into the soft, almost spongy matter. The marrow gave easily, crumbling around his blade until he found something moving within—a wriggling, half-formed mass, translucent and curled like some oversized insect larva.

Lex smirked. This was a treasure among the treasures and one of the main reasons he rushed here, ignoring some blessings he could have accumulated in the substage 0' where the aspect awakening was currently being held.

With a quick slice, he punctured the larva's soft body, watching it shudder before going limp. The system's notification flickered in front of him.

[You have killed a Titan's Red Cell (unborn). 60 coins have been awarded.]

[Total earnings: 420/200,000]

"I love free coins with little effort," he muttered, glancing around at the marrow-filled treasure room.