Chapter 13: Another grind

The day after encountering the shady guild master, we decided to head back to the Tower again to hopefully get some money drop as we haven't got any yet. After getting a decent power up from enhancing my armor, we swept through the first floor pretty easily, and honestly, I am getting kinda bored facing the same old enemies so we decided to head up to the second floor after defeating the goblin boss since we were confident that we could now survive the second floor with the addition of the new elite enemies roaming around and we accumulated a total of 200 essence through one sweep of the dungeon and we even got lucky with getting 10 gold.

[Congratulations: Kai Level 6]

[Rewarded +5 HP, +2 MP and SP, 4 stat points]

[HP: 60-->65

MP: 12-->22

SP: 26-->28

Inteligience 3-->7]

I decided that with the addition of a skill that actually requires intelligence, that I should invest some into it so that the skill becomes useful. Upgrading intelligence increased the weight limit I could manipulate with my shadows to 8 lbs, while not being a lot, could be useful down the road.

When we got to the second floor the first thing we come across is a pack of zombie dogs, we immediately get in formation of me standing in front while Maria stands further back so she can provide healing support and pick off the dogs from outside of harming range. Even with the tunnel being about 10ft in and facing 8 dogs, it doesn't take much effort to keep them from getting past me as I out damage them, and they can't really hurt me unless they get a crit.

*yelp* after slaying the last dog by Maria incinerating it while it was trying to uselessly bite through my armor we earned a total of 80 essence off of the fight. Not bad.

"Phew, I remember how hard it was to clear out a pack this size was not too long ago. Before you saved I never dreamed it wouldn't more than 10 minutes to clear out a pack of zombie dogs. It used to take hours to efficiently get through the first floor."

Maria wipes off some sweat from her brow from the workout of casting spells. Maria explained to me yesterday after Mr. Shady left that casting spells expanding mana was like physically exerting themselves in a way. She isn't worn though as she has a decent amount of mana now.

"Alright lets continue, I kinda hope we come across another elite so we have the possibility of getting some good loot today." Maria says with visual excitement on her face. I can understand the excitement though as it is nice not having to worry about being able to defeat enemies, but she has been dungeneering longer than I have so it probably makes her even more excited that she can actually explore the Tower now.

---2 hours later---

Yeah, I am no longer excited about this anymore and my companion is visibly scowling as we have for the past 2 hours only faced zombie dogs. Maria said normally that there would be at least 2 to 3 types of monsters on the second floor in this tower but for some reason that wasn't the case today.

We also earned roughly 300 essence an hour as well because of the sheer number of zombie dogs we came across. Maria leveled up during this and she poured all points into intelligence as expected. Another good note is that we killed so many zombie dogs that we both got the Zombie Dog Slayer title and the Zombie Slayer title. The Zombie dog slayer was even upgraded to Rank D from Rank F giving us an extra 25% damage to them while it gave us +2 damage at first. The Zombie slayer seemed to raise slower than the other title and when I asked Maria she said that she read that Monster slayer titles that deal with a specific monster level up faster than a title that affects a general monster type. The goblin slayer title I have is Rank F as well. Apparently the known titles Ranks go from F,E,D,C,B,A,S,SS,SSS. We also gained another 20 gold so that's cool.

"Ugh, let's take a break." Maria looks tired after constant fighting and while I am feeling it I am don't feel that bad compared to her but I do have more stamina so it makes. I also learned that my shadows are relatively useless right now in a fight. I tried to use shadows to trap a dog in place at one point and while shadows tendrils the size of my wrist left my body, they moved so slow that I am they were useless for battle. I guess I am gonna have to keep increasing my intelligence if I want to use the skill, unfortunately.

Maria sat down against on the stone against the wall laying her head against the cool stone. I also sit down near her but I keep a vigilant eye to make sure I am ready for enemy enemies roaming about. After catching her breath she stood back up.

"Do you want to keep going on leave for the day?"

Honestly, I kinda want to keep going but I would feel somewhat selfish if I voice that out as she is the one that is tired.

"Yeah, I want to see if we can fight the boss today."

"Are you sure? We can go back if you want?"

"I am sure." When she said that she didn't have any indication of uncertainty so I guess onwards to the boss.

"Okay, let's see if we can find the boss."

Luckily it didn't take long to find a stair case leading up to the third floor. The monster we seen blocking the door kinda surprised me a little as it wasn't a buffed-out dog but a skeleton with a black robe and a floating crystal ball that hovered near him and it had what looked to a swirling pitch-black fog inside of it.

"Maria? What is that?"

"I honestly don't know. I have never seen one of those before."

The skeleton must have finally noticed use as it turned towards us and it's eye sockets were glowing red.

"Snoinim ym esir" The skeleton opened its mouth and out came an indescrible voice that spoke a language we couldn't understand and the deep demonic sounding voice sent chills down my nonexistent spine. After he spoke those words the crystal started glowing and we seen the floor between us and the monster cracking.

I unconsciously take a step backward as I don't know what is about to happen and Maria is standing behind me.

"Uh, I don't like what this thing is doing. I don't think the floor cracking is a good sign."

I say and Maria must have not liked my obvious observation. As she just kinda looked at me and grumbled under her breath.

After the floor cracking for a few seconds, decayed fleshy hands started to crawl out of the cracks until it became an arm, then the head, until finally there were 8 figures standing before us with flesh rotting badly enough it made Maria gag and Decayed enough that some of it would occasionally peel off.

After Maria was able to cope with the smell I turn to her to see confusion and some fear about what is ahead.

"You okay?"

She finally looks at me and starts shaking her head.

"No, we need to go. I don't know why a necromancer is on the second floor but there shouldn't be one until at least the fifth floor. I will explain what I know about them later but we need to go. Now!"

She starts tugging on my arm indicating we need to leave and I follow her although not farm after making it 40 feet away there is a wall that is made of bone that sprung up from the ground blocking our path.

I punch the wall to see how sturdy it is and I quickly found out that we are going to have to fight this necromancer whether we want to or not. I looked at Maria and she is shaking and on the brink of a mental breakdown from fear.

"I-I don't want to die."

I shake her shoulder. "Maria? Maria!" No matter how many times I say her name and shake her she doesn't respond. She just keeps shaking and repeating that she doesn't want to die.

I turn around and look at the now 15 zombies with bone clubs shambling towards me. I walk to stand in front of Maria 10 feet away and plant my feet in the ground. I look at the amount of enemies I have stacked in Soul Harvest and it came out to 60 and I spend all 60 of it to increase my strength by 6 bringing it to 20.

I hope that'll be enough. I walk slowly forward until I come to the first zombie and dodge its swing and bring my dagger down on its arm and a devastating notification pops up.

[6 damage]

[Damage reduced by 75%]

"Fuck!"