First Dungeon
In the eternal battlefield, Noah completed his three hours of sword training. It was the last day and gained the Sword Mastery skill.
Noah looked at the skill he had just gained.
You have gained proficiency in using the sword allowing the mana in your body to connect with it.
Increase damage of Sword strikes by 5%.
Enhancers {0/3}
Going through it he was reminded of the firearm mastery skill that he had gotten yesterday.
You have gained proficiency in using firearms allowing the mana in your body to connect with it.
Increase damage of Firearms by 5%
Enhancers {0/3}
Both had the same effect. Although 5% was a very low increase in damage the skill would get stronger with time.
Noah got up and left the training hall. Today was their first day without any classes. They were now officially going to start exploring.
...
Later in the day Alice and Noah bought a travelling bag and filled it with travelling equipment the store was selling. He even bought another sword at the store. It was bought with a budget, so he didn't spend much. It didn't have any bonuses, just like the sword that had been broken by the Alpha wolf.
They went back home to properly pack up. Getting a few last things and organising properly.. They were leaving for some time so kept extra weapons they had as a safety measure.
Noah then rented a horse and paid for 10 days. He helped Alice up and got on behind her. The horses in the eternal battlefield were stronger than on earth and easily carried both off them.
Once they had discussed it, they had decided to travel around the town killing monsters. Now that both of them had teamed up and had gotten stronger weapons they were confident in going deeper into the forest.
The trip was mostly to look for dungeons in the forest.
They had been given an overview of them during their theory classes. Dungeons were places where similar monsters had come together and formed something similar to a hive. The monsters inside were normally stronger than the monsters in the surrounding area.
Each dungeon had a special monster called 'Dungeon Lord'. It was a powerful monster that had evolved in some way gaining new abilities and skills. Because of the higher mana density in it, a dungeon lord dropped rarer loot. It was the reason dungeons were so sought after.
Not only that, dungeons and dungeon monsters would be able to recover and regenerate back unlike normal monsters seen in the wild. This made dungeons the foundation for building up equipment and money in the eternal battlefield.
The Dungeon Lord was the core of the dungeon. It was a monster that had absorbed a dungeon crystal. The crystal helped to form a domain around the monster that would eventually grow out to form the whole dungeon. Other monsters would be attracted in from the surroundings becoming part of the dungeon lord. They would defend the dungeon in turn for growing stronger.
Additionally, a monster killed in a dungeon would not have its soul perish, allowing it to reform. However, this only applied inside the dungeon, which was why monsters didn't like to leave dungeons.
To complete a dungeon you needed to kill the dungeon lord.
Dungeons were mainly categorised into 6 ranks, going from F rank to A rank. Where A rank was the most difficult dungeon to complete and took the longest to regenerate. F rank was the easiest and the fastest to regenerate. As the rank increased the difficulty also exponentially increased.
Currently, they were going to try and enter an F rank dungeon.
Noah opened his Explorer Map, Alice who was beside him could see the map as well. He zoomed out to show the view of the surrounding area that he had mapped out. They both followed along a path killing monsters whenever they came close to one.
...
Alice had her dagger slice past a goblins arm, while Noah who was still wearing the backpack held his newly bought steel magic gun and shot mana bullets supporting Alice from behind. He had used mana to cast Strength Boost on Alice, giving her a +3 in strength.
A goblin blocked Alice's strikes was pushed not expecting the increase in strength. Alice twisted letting a sword pass by her as she attacked with her dagger. While Noah shot twice killing a goblin approaching Alice from behind.
After killing a group of goblins and resting for some time they set off again.
They did this over and over again. Killing a pack of monsters collecting the copper they dropped and moved on. Both of them had gotten familiar with working together and fought better as time went by. Alice was fiercer with her movements as Noah would help defend her using bullets to deflect attacks and kill monsters, primarily using his mana to buff Alice.
As a supporter, Noah had gotten a good feel of where to shoot from. Compared to when he had started where he had been anxious about his bullets being too close to Alice, he was now more assured and comfortable in letting his bullets get closer.
He had noted that mana bullets were different from regular bullets. Where a regular bullet would lodge into a monster's body, mana bullets just caused damage and would disintegrate.
...
At night time they set up a tent with sleeping bags. They had chosen a safe location to set the tent up. It was hidden behind trees and bushes with no monsters far into the surrounding. Alice fell asleep after eating; she had spent the day running around monsters and was awfully tired. While Noah stayed awake.
Noah who couldn't sleep opened his Explorer Map. He got up and chose a direction to move in. Noah felt safe leaving Alice, as not only did the tent have a protective function he would be teleported here if she was in danger.
He noticed an odd spot on the map and turned in its direction. When he reached it, he saw the ground rise to form an opening. It was the entrance to the dungeon.
Looking around one final time Noah walked in.
[You have entered a dungeon]