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321 [Bonus chapter] The Mad Jumper

"No, you are getting it all wrong," but she seemed to disagree with me, "the system doesn't evaluate your performance in the quests, but your overall performance in the apocalypse in the past five quests."

"So…"

"You have already exceeded the needed conditions of the quests," she sighed, "you even expand your territory beyond the reach of one city. Tell me, how many cities do you have now? Ten? Twenty?"

"I lost count already," I laughed and she also joined me.

"That's expected," she said, "but anyway, you already exceeded the basic requirements of any quest. Besides you did brilliantly well in facing all the strong enemies in the apocalypse so far. Manipulating two big races, killing many archlords, and even fighting against Hectors and winning so far… if anyone can claim the golden quests in the human race, then you will be that one."

"Each race will only have one representative?" the memories of the quest I went through to get my class resurfaced in my mind.

"No, it's open for anyone excelling in the previous five quests," she corrected me, "so it's normal to see lots of representatives from each race there. But it's not that big of a deal anyway. It's just a rewarding quest, nothing much about it."

"Hmm… Can you tell me more about these quests then?" as she already was speaking out of her past experience, I asked for more info about these quests.

After all from her words, these golden quests seemed nothing big or important at all.

"They are nothing important," she waved before adding, "in such quests we will be teleported to a fallen world, one of those who lost the apocalypse or got destroyed in the ongoing universe level war."

"Aha…" I recalled the green world I visited before, "and?"

"We'll get fixed time in each world. We can get anything from this world, but don't get your hopes high. After all these worlds are all abandoned and lost for a long time."

"No living races there?" I asked in doubt and she was lost in thoughts for few seconds before saying:

"In a few worlds I met up with the remaining races there. But in others, I met none," her eyes suddenly shone before adding, "but I have to say I never had anything like your chariot. So I had to walk and that might have limited my ability to explore these worlds. Besides, taking back these races seemed hard to me to do."

She looked up at my chariot in envy and I could understand what she meant. After all, my chariot was a mighty weapon in such quests.

If I wasn't pressured by that quest before, then I'd have explored that green world. As for taking these races back, I might have a way or two to do so.

If I couldn't bring them back, then absorbing their souls and storing them in my class would be enough. I could summon a few of these races if I ever met up with any interesting race.

Also I had to ask the green nymph lady about how she managed to bring races from one world to another. If that way was feasible, then I could also prepare this method before going to the golden quests.

But that didn't also solve the mystery of the old man's words. What? Were few of these worlds belonging to his race or what?

"Anyway that's something for the future," I decided to let that issue down for now, "for now we'll have to deal with the problem of the upcoming two quests."

"Are you still planning to participate in them?" She looked worried at me.

"I have to," I shrugged, "what? Don't tell me you don't trust your man."

"If you called yourself my man then of course I trust you," her face beamed with a smile, before all of sudden the atmosphere got electrified without warning.

"Keep your dirty hands off him!" a loud scream came from the direction of the stairs before a flash passed by my eyes.

*Bang!*

I saw the jumper pushing Hilary away from me with his sword. Hilary reacted fast, and stopped his sword by hers.

"What's the meaning of that?" she glared at the jumper in burning eyes, and I stood up, looking at this and back at Karoline.

The one who shouted was surprisingly the jumper. Karoline was still on the stairs when that dude screamed and jumped at her like that.

"Stop it," I said to the two as they seemed this close from turning this into a death battle.

"He started it!" Hilary shouted in a fierce way, "that damn masked man, what? Are you now acting as that girl's guardian or what?"

"I can't tolerate seeing such a snake crawling over him," the jumper roared back and I knew that the bastard went crazy here.

"What's going on here?" The spearhead came next and then the chariot was filled with my people. Angelica was the only one standing on Hilary's side, even moving to stand by her side and unsheathing her sword in the face of the jumper.

As for Karoline, she stood for a second in daze before she stood by the jumper's side. She didn't take out any weapon, but with her presence, the rest stood by her side.

"So are we going to fight among each other now?" I didn't like this situation, "why not summon my boys and let our fists do the talking?"

Just saying that made everyone stop glaring at each other and look at me in doubt and question. From the look over my face, they realised I wasn't joking.

In a few moments, they all moved away from each other, while Leo jumped and stood by my side.

"I didn't take part in any of that," he said and I gave him a warning glance.

"Says the one who stood behind the girls," I said in disdain. That dude seemed to change his target from Sara to Alex, standing beside her.

322 Harvard Is Here

"You should control yourself a bit more," the jumper moved towards me and his eyes behind the mask were glaring in dangerous light.

"Keep your sticky nose out of my business," I didn't respond gently to his rude words.

"Humph," he bypassed Leo and stood by my side, just inches away from my back.

"What are you doing?" I turned and gave him a questioning glance.

"I'm making sure that b*tch won't dare to touch you again," he said and I didn't know why I felt so weird about his words.

He… why was he acting like this? Weird!

"Let's… Talk about business then," I said, especially when I saw a new face added to our group.

It was Mouven.

"You are finally here," as I saw him, I instantly recalled his scattered forces here.

"Does lord want anything from me?" his face changed from surprise and amusement into shock and fear.

"Have you taken control over your forces here or what?" I asked, "I haven't met any representatives from them yet."

"They already signed the contracts," he hurriedly said before adding, "and we all decided, I'm going to be the only representative for our cult."

"It's your force and not a cult," I didn't like the name he still kept using to describe his people, "you work for me, not for your cult anymore."

"I… I got it, lord," it seemed hard to accept the new situation, but with repetition things would become easier in the future. I'd keep reminding him of this until the idea would be deeply engraved in his mind and soul.

"Can you stop this useless sh*t and tell us why you gathered us here?" The jumper was the only one daring to speak to me in this way.

But I knew he was pissed off for unknown reasons. It seemed Hilary and he had a friction, something even far more serious than the thing between her and Karoline.

The latter kept her silence, only standing without saying anything. "You gathered up here instead of releasing us around, isn't it weird?" under my firm gaze, he had to give such a fake reason for his attitude.

"There are more important things to discuss than just running around like idiots," I didn't buy his useless reason, "now let's talk about something, I need three forces out of you. One will stay here and defend, the second will go out and claim cities and regions around here."

"What about the third?" Sara asked, while looking at Karoline from time to time.

"I'll need them to do an extremely important task," I said without exposing everything, "now who will go out and who will stay here to defend?"

"First tell what's that mysterious mission of yours," the jumper said but I looked up at Mouven, ignoring him for now.

"You'll lead your forces and remain here for defence."

"I'll… do my best," me selecting him and assigning the first task directly meant one thing. I didn't trust telling my plans in front of him.

After all, I just met him a couple of hours ago. He should behave well in defending my capital to gain more of my trust.

"Then go and start arranging your troops," I waved my hand at him to leave.

"Ahem, what about the other forces here?" he didn't leave as he asked about this.

"Aren't they all students of MIT academy? They have something to do here, so leave them aside from this."

"No, most of them belong to other universities," he shook his head before adding, "most are from Harvard."

"Oh," I didn't know that, "why didn't I meet up with any of them yet?"

"I believe you asked for only the cult and MIT representatives," he seemed at loss as to me about this, "plus they were active mostly in Boston, their leaders I mean."

"Alright," it was some kind of unintended error, "go and bring their leaders to me then. I'll decide after speaking with them."

"Ok," he descended and vanished from my sight. I turned to look at my team, with faces filled with questions.

"Do you remember this?" I took out one of my two dungeon keys. Both were now dark gold grade, and with that golden key the spearhead jumped as he pointed at it and shouted:

"Isn't it the key I once had?"

"What? Do you want it back or something?" I looked up at him while Alex moved closer as she said in her usual shy tone:

"I recall seeing this… Isn't it one of the two keys you upgraded that day?"

It was the day when we both met. Of course she wouldn't forget about this, as the spearhead wouldn't. On that day, I taught this arrogant dude a lesson and made him obedient.

"It opens a dungeon," Hilary moved towards my side, but the jumper moved faster and stood in between me and her.

"It's something interesting indeed," the jumper said.

"Do you even know what this is?" I rolled up my eyes while he nodded.

"I know dungeons, I once had a key but it was much lower in grade than this."

"A silver grade key?" I asked and he paused before looking at Hilary, changing the topic:

"Stay a little back please."

"Why?" she crossed her arms while her face carried an interesting look filled with challenge, "don't you think you are acting weird? Tell me, are you a guy lover or something?"

"I'm not," the jumper solemnly responded and I had to step in and stop this nonsense from escalating into a bigger sh*t.

"Let's stop this then," I said, "this dungeon is our chance to turn tables over."

"How?" the jumper and Hilary asked in the same breath. Well, if others asked then it would be fine. But these two… Don't tell me they didn't know about the real strength of dungeons!

"Come here," I pointed at Karoline who was standing all silent and seemed a little distracted. Since coming up here, she looked more pathetic to me than ever.

Even if I had little fun with Hilary, Karoline was still my first girl.

323 The Dungeon Is The Solution

"Ah, ok," Karoline was jolted awake, before coming at me while all the eyes fell on the two of us.

"You stop right there," just as Karoline was getting closer, Hilary seemed to intend on moving closer as well. Yet the jumper stood like a wall between the two of us.

"You…" Hilary moved her eyes between the three of us before focusing over Karoline, "lucky… For now at least."

"Humph," Karoline seemed to regain her previous fighting spirit as she responded coldly at Hilary's remark. As she came to me, I pointed at my Gollem to come and extend his thick arm for me to sit.

"Come," I let her sit just like how I let Hilary sit in my lap. But comparing the two together, Karoline was more docile and less daring than Hilary.

"The dungeon is a treasure trove," I started moving my fingers across her hair while explaining, "we can get anything from there. Be it gears, materials, stat points, and even skills… We can get everything."

"I know that," Hilary was a little annoyed seeing Karoline taking up her place, "but I don't see how this will help in our situation."

"The stat points," I said before explaining further, "we can have tons of free stat points if we manage to clear lots of stages inside the dungeon."

"But… Aren't we limited by the system?" Karoline finally spoke to me. It seemed being in my embrace let her anger melt away.

"The system won't upgrade our stat limit," the jumper crossed his arms before adding in sarcasm, "don't tell me you think our problem was in getting stats, and not in our inability to use them."

"Inside the dungeon, we have our system control relieved," I moved my eyes from Karoline to the jumper, "didn't you say you entered there before? What? Were you distracted by a girl or something?"

"You…"

"I also went into many dungeons before," Hilary used this chance to bypass the jumper, standing just next to me, "but there wasn't such a thing there."

"You…" the jumper was startled by what just happened. Before he would do anything stupid, I grabbed Hilary's body and let her sit next to me.

One girl was in my lap, and the other was next to me… This scene attracted the eyes of everyone, and I felt the burning heat of envy coming from the spearhead and Leo.

As for the jumper, my actions stopped what stupid thing he intended to do. He looked at this scene and seemed to not find any suitable words to use in such a situation.

"The system won't disappear," I continued explaining, as if I didn't do anything just now and this was all normal, "but few of its restrictions will be released."

"You mean…" Hilary turned to me as she paused and I nodded.

"The curse will be lifted there."

"So we can gain the system quest again?" Isabella asked.

"I believe this will be hard," Angelica said, "after all that dungeon place seems to be isolated from the apocalypse here."

"That's correct," I nodded in agreement, "the curse will be lifted temporarily but we won't receive any quests."

"Then…" Leo asked and the jumper explained what they all missed.

"The stat limit will be released," he said, "so we can add stat points there. Then when we return, even with the curse being reactivated, we will still enjoy the gains of our stats."

"Exactly," I said, "besides our forces are very big. We need a reliable source to get more stats. These dungeons will help us in doing that."

"We need first to conquer them," the jumper suddenly said, making me look at him in disbelief. "What? You don't know about that?"

"About what?"

"Sigh, you are really helpless," he shook his head, doing this on purpose.

But who said he was the only one having such knowledge here?

"Any dungeon has a challenging test when first opened," Hilary said, giving the jumper a big smile that wasn't a smile at all, "it's not easy and not hard. All depends on the goals you have for yourself before taking this test."

"What do you mean?"

"The dungeons are like separate worlds," the jumper said, seemingly annoyed by the interference of Hilary, "any dungeon is like a bottomless pit. So the challenge test at first will determine not only the level of difficulty of the dungeon, but also the available levels we can clear, the quality and quantity of rewards, and even the number of people taking part in it at the same time."

"This…" This news was all new to me. I never expected dungeons to have such a hard test at first.

"As you plan to let all our forces enter that dungeon, we'll have to try our best and work hard to score big on that test," Hilary said.

"How many can we bring there at that test?" I asked while having a bad hunch about it.

"Only ten," the jumper said, "what? Terrified now?"

"Terrified? Dude, I, alone, is enough to clear it!" I said in a response to his mockery, but for a reason he laughed.

"In there… We can't use lots of our strength," Hilary poured such a cold bucket of water over my head, "each test has its own rules, but in general it tests the individual strength of the team."

"I also believe we can't use cheap tricks like what you used to in the dungeons in general," the jumper didn't stop his annoying comments.

"Cheap? I never knew that my supreme class is considered cheap!" I scoffed before adding, "I dare to see how that dungeon is going to limit my class then."

"Well… We can't tell until we try, right?" that bastard kept knocking on my door of anger.

"I doubt it will limit my class," I said with confidence, "after all classes are just like our bloodlines, genes in other words."

"We'll see," screw you! I decided to drop this topic, for the peace of my mind.

324 Entering The Dungeon

"So I have to choose all of you," I moved my eyes over the elites of my team. In fact I planned to let a few go out and lead their forces to expand my territory and secure my capital.

But this sudden change disturbed my plans. I couldn't risk sending anyone away for now. Looking at my team, I had ten. This meant I couldn't send anyone out…

"Do you doubt us?" the jumper continued his habit, "or do you doubt yourself?"

"The only one I doubt here is you," I looked up at him before adding, "till now you didn't prove yourself to me at all."

"I?" he pointed at his chest before exploding, "are you out of your mind? After all I did?"

"You did nothing," I shrugged, and that seemed to make my two girls laugh.

"Do you want to die?" He stepped closer but the time I was terrified by you pal was long gone.

"Compared to me, you did nothing worthy of mentioning," I kept pickering at him and his eyes kept glaring fiercely.

"Aha, so it's a comparison between me and you… If you dare, let me go and I'll show you my worth by the end of the upcoming two quests."

"No need, it was a pain in the first place to tame you," I lightly said in a way that made him look like some sort of an animal I captured in a cage or something.

"You…" out of rage his body trembled, yet I totally ignored him.

"Let's prepare then," I said, ending this useless debate between the two of us, "we'll leave for a few days. Let your forces spread out and take control of the area around here. The top priority is to secure the lands until the coast, move north and west."

"What about south?"

"What if they met those scary Hectors?"

"What about here?"

They all kept asking and I listened to their questions with full attention. I did that mainly to humiliate that very close to exploding jumper.

"Don't worry about this, the Hectors will be pretty busy during the next couple of days."

"Thanks to you I guess," the jumper said while seemingly gritting on his teeth with each word he said.

"Using the same way I saved your lovely as* from death, do you remember such embarrassing moments as yours?"

"You…"

"Pft!"

This time it wasn't only my two girls, but almost all of the others laughed at him. Yet the ones daring to laugh loud enough were Hilary and her supporter, Angelica.

"Anyway," I shifted my gaze away from him to others, "if they faced any strong city they could regroup and attack it together. If failed, then they shall retreat and leave it until we come here. Ah, don't let them go so deep into the west. Last thing I'd like to see is to alarm enemies there with our presence."

"Ok," they all nodded, yet I still felt doubt coming out from them.

I let them talk to their forces while keeping moving my hands through the hair of Karoline and over the back of Hilary.

As for the jumper, that dude seemed to put a challenge over himself. He kept sending orders to his men while focusing his eyes all the time over me.

What? Was he trying to test his ability to give orders while being distracted or blind? That fool…

In ten minutes, they were all ready. I could see their forces running through the city and going beyond my sight. They looked eager to fight, gain more victories and claim more trophies.

"Let's go," I held the key and without any hesitation, I called back my chariot. I also called back all of my private army, standing in the middle of emptiness with my team.

"Does the young kid know how to activate the dungeon key or what?" The jumper was still mad at me. I rolled up my eyes, and without warning I moved my arms, bringing my two girls closer to me on purpose.

For a flash, I saw his eyes shine with dangerous red light again before he controlled himself. Dude, don't forget I knew your secret.

"Better to know to whom your heart belongs," I gave him such sincere advice, from one who might be considered his only friend here.

"You…" this time he looked more afraid and shocked than being mad. I harrumphed, looked at Karoline and Hilary one by one while painting a soft kiss over their soft and tasty lips.

I didn't do that only to tease him, but to bring good luck before starting this important move.

Hilary seemed normal after I kissed her, but Karoline had her face all red from embarrassment. I released my arm from her back, to give her a chance to breathe.

To activate the dungeon key I had to use my blood. It was a simple method and once my blood touched the key, the key shone brightly before a portal appeared out of a thick ray of dark golden light.

Before I could say anything to them, the portal suddenly expanded, engulfed without warning everyone standing here.

And with it, the scenery all around changed and I even lost the feeling of Hilary who was leaning in a challenging way over my shoulder.

I looked around, but everything was covered in blinding fast revolving whirlpools of a mixture of lights.

And before I could get drowsy with all this, a message popped up in front of my eyes, startling me.

[Welcome to the Lost Roker dungeon]

[This is your first time to enter the dungeon]

[You'll get a test first to determine your authority level over this dungeon]

[The test will be conducted separately. All of your teammates will undergo the same test. The final result of all of you will be added together and the final evaluation will be done over your overall score]

[The test details will be available once arriving there]

[Good luck]

Damn! Good luck? How and each one of my team would be tested separately?!!

325 Like Starting The Apocalypse All Over Again

Before I could think about anything else, the light suddenly flashed as if it was slapping against my face. I closed my eyes fiercely before the next moment the scenery appeared slowly in front of my eyes.

I first felt my feet landing over something solid, then I saw a large stretch of land extending everywhere around me.

Whenever I read the word dungeon I always thought about an underground tunnel or a tiny path surrounded entirely by rocks, like a path inside a mountain.

But this one in front of me was different. It wasn't a tunnel, it wasn't underground.

I could see a clear sky with scattered hazy and fragile looking blue clouds. The sky wasn't blue, but silver in colour. The light came from everywhere, without the presence of a sun or a group of suns here.

The ground wasn't rocky, but filled with mud. In other times I'd consider bringing villagers here and start planting different types of crops.

Unlike how peaceful and good looking this world was, the presence of such big monsters around reminded me of the reality of this place.

It was a dungeon, or the test place of the dungeon at least.

But from their behaviour, it seemed they didn't notice me. They kept moving idly around without aim, as if they were half awake half asleep.

[Welcome to the test grounds of Lost Rocker dungeon]

[You are going to fight until either dying or admitting defeat]

[Death here isn't real]

[Time here is running on different speed than the world you came from]

[Your final score will be determined by the number of monsters killed and the number of gates cleared]

[Your current soul points are sealed]

[Your current stored soul list is sealed]

[Your current inventory special items are sealed]

[Your current coins are sealed]

[Your current blessing points are sealed]

[You have to start fighting in five minutes. Before this, you'll be safe from the monsters]

[Good luck]

What the f*ck was that?!! My souls were sealed? coins , blessing points, and even my inventory of special items? Wait…

I hurriedly checked my inventory. My warriors were stored there. Just as I feared. The tokens of these warriors were considered special items.

[You can't use any special item from your inventory] this message kept popping in front of my eyes as I tried to summon anything.

Even my chariot… Damn! Don't tell me my glaives and grenades would be sealed!

*Fwoosh!*

Luckily my glaives weren't sealed, but unfortunately my grenades were. Even the special weapons I got from the dragon archlord were also sealed.

Damn! This was unfair! How the hell was I supposed to fight here then?

"Think!" I slapped my face, trying to snap myself out of this shocking situation.

I had five minutes to prepare myself for this challenge. In the first couple minutes, I reread all the messages again.

"The system didn't seal my class…" my eyes shone in such realisation. Yes, the class was there, but my previous achievement there was sealed.

What did that mean? It meant everything!

"So I can work again from this rock bottom situation, gather up my souls and summon my warriors? Interesting…"

I looked at the monsters and this time, I had no fear or doubt at all. In fact I started from the rock bottom at first, so it wasn't any hard for me to restart this journey again.

Amassing soul points again? That wasn't hard. Of course the first five thousand soul points would be the hardest, yet it wasn't that impossible to get them.

But the soul list I had was sealed as well. That meant I couldn't summon any of my terrifying warriors. I looked at these bull-like monsters with giant bodies that extended for almost five metres long and three metres in height.

They looked strong, mainly defensively thanks to their thick fur covering their bodies. They also got a few scales in the shape of rings around their bodies.

Black fur with golden yellow rings of scales… long two curved silver horns and one long tail that looked like an extra arm for them.

They looked strong in defence, but what about their offensive abilities? I didn't trust these monsters to be strong, not even close to my weakest dragolves or shield warriors.

Anyway, this was my current situation. I held my heavy weight glaive, intending to use the crushing force of it to crush the armoured fur of these monsters.

The five minutes passed fast, and in no time a message came knocking on my face.

[Your five minutes protection time is over]

[You'll start the test now]

[Kill all the monsters you can, and try to clear the paths behind any gate]

[Start now!]

With the last message, it felt like a bubble burst open in a muffled voice. Then as if I popped out of thin air to them, all the monsters lurking around stopped what they were doing, turned to me and looked in vigilance and hostility.

It was test time, and now I had to prove my worth.

Just thinking about this test for the rest of my teammates made me lose hope in gaining lots of points in this test. After all this test was really assessing individual strength and ability to thrive in such harsh situations.

It was like time rewinded back, back to when the apocalypse first landed. It wasn't that bad for me, but for others… This might be quite challenging.

Compared to myself, the jumper and Hilary might be the only two able to create a miracle here. These two weren't normal, and had their own tricks just like me.

But others… I couldn't help but inwardly sigh, hoping my score would be high enough to balance the final score points.

"Roar!" "Roar!" "Roar!"

As if I didn't notice them yet, they all roared at me, trying to scare me or something. The open area I was in was like a shallow valley in the middle of a big forest, all surrounded with trees.

326 Fighting Rocker Monsters

But the area I was in had few trees, and many monsters. The point I was in was the lowest point in the place. From all sides, the ground kept rising for tens of metres, forming a low angled slope surface, covered with faint green short grass.

Well, they had the numerical advantage and had the terrain advantage. I only got my glaive and nothing else.

The number of monsters just around me was almost a hundred or so, and that was only in the area not exceeding a few hundred metres in diameter.

Facing such a hard situation, I had to take the initiative and control the tempo of this battle. Or else I'd be stamped over without knowing it.

"Let's go," the first thing I did wasn't to fight, but to run. In fact my current place was the worst ever. Even if I managed to kill many monsters here, those coming down from the high ground would pose great threats to me.

So I started off with running. In fact, everywhere around, monsters stood blocking my path. So I had to run in a zigzag like path, trying to evade them.

There was some good news here. The monsters seemed to have slow motion from zero point. That meant they couldn't match my speed when I got near them.

But once they started running, they'd be more agile, able to match my speed.

I noticed this over the far away monsters. As they had time and space, they started to gain momentum and showed nimble movements from time to time.

Yet those around me were acting slow, letting me bypass them for now.

At least I'd be safe for the time being. Then time came to test their defensive abilities.

*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*

I didn't hurry to use my armour crushing glaive. I returned it back and used my light weighted glaive first. Yet the result was like a sword meeting a thick shield, giving birth to many sparks without leaving a single mark behind.

That was a little depressing. The heavy glaive was slightly annoying as I had either to slow down my speed while waving it or I'd have to hold it with both hands. In both cases, I'd be deprived of one advantage here.

"Let's test you then," As the light weighted glaive failed, it was time for the heavy glaive. And the result it brought was really satisfying.

*Thud!* *Thud!* *Thud!*

Monsters kept thrown into the air by each hit, rolling over the ground before finally stopping with a loud thud. The speed of moving it wasn't that high, not like my other glaive, but it brought results at least.

Monsters thrown weren't dead, but they seemed to have deep wounds inside their bodies. I looked at a few monsters hit by it and didn't see any visible wounds, yet the monsters all roared in pain and struggled to stand up.

So it caused deep wounds instead of flesh ones. Interesting… But how could I use such a thing to kill those monsters here?

The first idea that popped into my mind was by crushing their heads. If the glaive could cause deep wounds to the organs, then it would be best to hit a vital one like their minds.

But trying to hit their heads, much smaller than their bodies, during my fast movement was a challenge. I tried, and failed many times before finally being able to nail one of them to the ground, leaving it dead on the spot.

[Congratulations! You managed to kill one a smaller Rocker Bull monster]

[You gained one soul]

[You gained one point for killing this monster]

[Keep the hard work]

These messages came to prove that the previously hit monsters weren't killed. If so then I should have gained such messages by then.

Well… smaller Rocker Bull monsters… I'd come and kill you all!

But first let me go to the highest ground first.

"Roar!"

Just after ten minutes of continuous running, evading, and killing a few monsters here and there, I finally came to face the greatest challenge here.

The monsters at the far distance were now gathered in large groups, running at me and now we were so close to each other.

The nearest group was formed up of almost fifty monsters, running in no organisation and driven only by their rage.

If I clashed directly at them, I'd die for sure. The only way around was to use unconventional ways to fight them.

But to do that I had to risk things a little bit here.

*Fwoosh!*

Just as one of the monsters up ahead tried to surprise me with sudden acceleration and a direct stab of his two deadly horns, I jumped high in the air, aiming to the side.

My jump covered a distance of a few metres without any problems. But that wasn't enough but to escape the first monster thrush and I had to deal with the others.

"Eat this," but before I could land, I turned around in full circle, holding my glaive with both hands, before hitting that bull monster's body with all my might.

Despite that my focus was mainly over guiding the strike, and not the strength or the weight it carried.

*Boom!*

The strikes used to send any monster flying away for tens of metres, before ending up rolling on the ground for another tens of metres.

But this time I controlled my glaive and aimed precisely for another result.

I wanted that monster to move in a horizontal line, almost parallel to the ground, not hitting it or sharply ascending to the sky away from the monsters around.

The monster I hit just moved in the same way I intended to. It didn't fly high or get fixed on the ground, moved like a big boulder over the ground.

And that boulder was just as heavy and strong as any other monster here. Coupled with the strength of my strike, it started crushing more monsters aside, throwing them all over the ground, creating an empty path in front of me.

327 Basins And Borders

And without any hesitation, I started running towards that path the moment my feet touched the ground.

The monster I hit started to slow down even before crossing half the distance any previous monster did. This came as a result of the continuous clashing against other monsters here.

But that was enough for me to catch up to it.

In fact as I started running into that path, I started waving my glaive right and left without any hesitation. The monsters thrown by the one I hit fell on both sides of that path.

So just one hit from the glaive was enough to smash their heads and kill them. I only had to exert little focus here to aim at their heads.

Hitting a motionless behemoth struggling to stand on the ground? That wasn't hard even if I was running at my fastest speed.

I ignored all the useless messages coming with each kill. Just as that monster was this close from falling on the ground, I caught up with it and sent another heavy strike at its big body.

*Boom!*

Like I was holding a big wooden club and that monster was my ball, I kept hitting it and throwing it from one direction to another.

The gaps created by that monster were all covered up fast, but not fast enough. After all the sides had dead monsters, interrupting the incoming ones from catching up with me.

I didn't know for how long I kept doing this. But after some time, I got used to such a technique until I was totally absorbed into it.

I didn't snap out of my focus until the last monster fell under my glaive. The one I used as a wrecking ball was long dead, and didn't survive the damage my repeated attacks caused to it.

"Wow! I killed them all!" I stood in the middle of this wide space, feeling a little exhausted from such continuous fighting and killing. I don't recall the last time I pushed my stamina to such an extent, it seemed like it was ages ago.

"It went smoother than I thought," I looked around at the great land that was now covered in the dark yellow blood of these monsters, staining the area with this colour instead of the pale green from before.

The number of monsters here was really high! I thought I was fighting against the first group but it seemed I fought against all of them.

"Wow! One thousand and four hundred souls… That's great!" I looked up at my class and saw the large number of souls that were added there.

My old soul account was sealed, looking in grey colour. But the new one was active, shining in silver light.

Yet it wasn't that close to the five thousand threshold.

Of course after summoning my first monster, I'd be able to fight much better than this. As I had to rest for a bit, and this test wasn't limited by any time, I went towards the nearest monster and started to examine it.

"From their size and strength I can say they are level five to eight monsters…" I touched the fur to be shocked with its texture. It didn't give me any impression of being special, but once I touched it I felt like moving my fingers over sharp needles.

Each single hair of this fur was like a thin and sharp needle. It was dangerous indeed. However, that also meant this fur was more valuable than I thought.

"Time to reap rewards," I started cutting through the body and got out anything that could be used in forging and making weapons. The fur, the horns, the hooves, and even the tail.

The inside was like a smashed potato, with most of the organs destroyed and ruined. After reaping the benefits from one monster, I jumped to the next and next, until I grabbed materials from all of them.

"Now this region is cleared," I turned towards the forest around. I stood on the top of the highest point here, on the edge of this green basin, or the basin of death at this moment.

The forest seemed from the first look grand. But as I stood here I realised I was tricked. It wasn't a forest, but a thick stretch of trees extending for a couple of miles, separating this basin from other basins.

Yes, there were many depressions around my place, then other stretches of trees appeared again before they abruptly stopped and reappeared again.

This wasn't a forest, but more like an organised area of the world. Basins with monsters and thick areas of trees to keep trapping these monsters inside.

"So each basin will give me one thousand and four hundred souls points… That means I'll need to clear three more basins to reach my five thousand score… Not that hard."

I was filled with more confidence. After all this basin fight was a little stressful but it wasn't that bad. I just didn't know how long it took for me to clear it.

I was so focused on hitting that monster, chasing after it and killing other monsters falling on the sides. Next time I'd be more careful and attentive to this little detail.

But it wasn't that important. After all, time here ran differently than the time in the outside world. It wasn't my first experience dealing with such a thing.

Even if I stayed here for weeks, not much time would pass in the outer world.

As I headed towards the thick border made out of big trees, I started wondering about something.

"I didn't get any equipment, stat point, skill, or anything at all!"

And that was quite disturbing. I came here to gather up as much loot as possible. Yet all I got were just materials, nothing more.

Don't tell me I had to clear this test first, get the final score and then I'd have to send in more troops to clear the real dungeon!

328 [Bonus chapter] New Challenge

This way wasn't feasible or practical to me. Even if staying here took minimal time for me, it also put lots of stress on me.

This way I'd be worn out the moment I'd finish this test. Also who said I'd get a high score, enough to send a large number of my forces into the dungeon?

This… It was getting more complicated than it was supposed to.

Lost in thoughts, I walked inside the tree layer. Each tree was almost twenty metres tall, around three metres thick, with many branches and dense green leaves.

Just before walking into it for a few moments, I felt a weird alarming sting into my soul.

*Fwoosh!*

Just one moment before it hit me, I managed to jump to the side, blocking what was thrown into my face using my glaive. The dart fell on the ground and I found it was like a dagger shaped thing.

It was the size of my forearm, thick at the middle and pointy at both ends. It had a rough surface with deep lines and black colour, yet the tips of it were in a strange dark green colour.

"Poison?" it was the first thing that came into my mind before the same feeling resurfaced again.

And this time I felt like I was stabbed by sharp needles from five different directions, all were coming from up front.

*Clang!* *Clang!* Clang!*

Without a speck of hesitation, I called forth a very big and thick shield that was heavy enough to make my body lean forward for a bit. But its appearance just came in time to block these dangerous darts, with loud clanging sounds.

These things… They were dangerous! I held the shield hardly with one hand while extending my neck outside its protection zone, trying to see what was attacking me.

*Fwoosh!*

Yet just as I tried to see, a single dart just moved inches away from my face. That bastard or those bastards throwing these things were really something.

But during this brief moment before I retracted my head back, I managed to see something. Large number of monsters, smaller in size compared with those bull-like ones, were hanging over the thick branches of these trees.

I couldn't get a clear look over them, but I noticed something arching from their backs. They must have some sort of mechanism to launch these darts at me, resembling those aquatic hybrid monsters I fought against before.

Wait a second… Was I going to fight against such hybrid monsters here? Damn!

Just the initial thinking about this told me how tough this situation was. These monsters seemed to be far agile and more aggressive than those bulls.

What made them dangerous was their darts. I looked at the few scattering around me. Something was drooling from both tips, dense liquid that looked like green blood.

The area that was touched with such a thing turned instantly into pitch black. That meant this thing didn't only have a toxic effect but also a strong corrosive bonus.

Damn! I had to overcome them and ran towards the other basin. I looked up at my shield, with all these loud clanging sounds repeatedly coming from its surface.

These bastards… They were trying to force me to retreat or something.

The first issue I had to solve was this shield. It was enough to stop these darts, but it was damn heavy to walk around carrying it.

But who said I was out of options here?

"Let's see how you'll deal with this," I held the shield and supported it using my back. I took out my two daggers, held one in each hand and looked mischievously towards the nearest tree.

I then moved slowly, step by step, while each step was covered with densely attacking darts.

The number of monsters skyrocketed during the past few minutes until I reached that tree. It was on the border with the basin region.

I didn't believe these monsters couldn't see me at the basin. With such sharp and precise attacks, they must have extraordinary sight. But they didn't start attacking me until I trespassed their area.

That meant there was something preventing them from attacking me if I was out of their region. And that made me come up with such an idea.

*Sizzle!* *Sizzle!* *Sizzle!*

As I reached that tree, I started to work fast. I held the two daggers and started sharpening their edges against each other, releasing dense sparks of fire.

Just in a few minutes, these sparks caught up with the tree and started to burn fiercely. I looked at this in content, slowly retreated back inside the basin zone.

Yet even with that, I didn't lower my guard. I kept holding my shield and protected myself with it.

In the next ten minutes, the fire started to run wild. I noticed the weather here was quite dry, and I didn't see a single pond or lake or any source of water around.

The sky was clear with bright light. It was nearly impossible for it to rain today.

And now all I had to do was to wait.

As I expected, once I left their zone, these monsters stopped attacking me. But even with this calm situation, I didn't lower my guard or even leave my shield.

I kept stealing glances every now and then. The fire spread fast, taking over a wide stretch of area with fierce orange burning thick tongues of fire that extended to the sky.

In less than five minutes, the fire reached these monsters. I heard many roars coming from the depth of this place, but didn't intend to move out now.

In fact my plan depended entirely on causing a distraction by the fire, then slipping fast towards the next basin.

The fire wouldn't differentiate between me and monsters, yet I had a weapon up my sleeve. I waited for another half an hour, while the roarings kept rising, and the side trees away from the fire started to show movement.

329 Burning My Way Through Everything With Ease

In my eyes, those monsters were running fast away from the fire. The zone I started the fire at was now turning wild, blazing fiercely with fire.

The trees there turned pitch black while the ground kept raising thick wisps of black smoke. It was almost the moment for me to start my second phase of my plan.

I took out something from my inventory. Before doing all this, I checked and made sure the liquor wasn't considered a special item.

After all it was an item to store water, something that was impossible to be considered special.

I held it with one hand, and used my hawkeye skill to make sure the fire extended almost all the way to the next basin.

Then I recalled my shield, held my liquor in one hand and my light glaive with the other… and started running.

*Fwoosh!* *Fwoosh!*

"Damn you!" Just as I entered, I was welcomed with many darts. Yet these came from much further away, leading to their late arrival.

As they just kept flying past my body, I finally got more courage and pressed forward.

The first couple hundred metres didn't show any threatening heat, but after that it was literally like hell. Without even slowing down, I opened my liquor and started to pour water over the ground.

*Swoosh!* *Swoosh!* *Swoosh!*

The water once touching the burning ground released a thick bellow of white vapour. It was so thick that it even covered my body, hiding me from the relentless monsters.

I could feel their attack becoming sluggish, disturbed over the wide area of white fog that surrounded me. Luckily they weren't that smart or else they would easily guess my location.

Shrouded with such white mist, I kept moving forward. The mist also hindered my vision, but I moved without slowing down, depending on my memory to bypass the trees in front of me.

Yet I got pumped into a few trees during this run, only to avoid them at the last moment.

The distance I thought it'd take ten minutes to cover took me almost one hour. I didn't know why, but the area kept extending up front until I doubted I was running in circles or something.

But when I was met with a cold breeze of air, I finally knew I entered the basin.

*Roar!*

Just jumping from the frying pan into the fire, I was welcomed with mighty roars that came from all the monsters around the edge of this basin.

"No time even to catch my breaths," I instantly poured the water over my body, trying to cool the heat off fast, before I stored the liquor item away.

I also swapped my glaives. Holding the heavy glaive in both hands, I was ready to welcome another round of deadly fight.

"Come on you pieces of sh*t!" I screamed and instantly started running around. Just like I did at the other basin, I started attacking the monsters here using one as a wrecking ball.

I decided to name this as the wrecking ball technique.

However, just in the middle of this, I felt something was wrong. I felt like the number of monsters coming at me was reduced, not like the previous time.

In less than half an hour, I stopped fighting. There were no more monsters coming in my direction.

Yet I still heard the loud roars of these monsters coming from a certain direction. Just one look there and I knew what was going on here.

"So… Those monsters escaped the fire and came here to fight the dominant bulls over their territory? That's funny!"

ًWhat was going on was exactly like that. During the heat of the battle, the monsters from the tree zone seemed to have more courage and started invading the basin.

The number of these monsters weren't that small, but the bulls were also much bigger than them. The tree zone monsters were just like apes covered with weird sharp spikes all over their backs.

They were double the size of any adult human body, with an arching thin tube that extended over their heads, moving left and right like it had its own eyes.

The monsters were moving fast, but losing their favoured trees made them unable to show their superiority here. On the other hand, the bulls weren't fighting with their full forces.

After all, I killed a good deal of them. Also the agile monsters were smarter, attacking only at the outer region, not delving deeply.

That saved them from facing the entire bull force. The fight was really fierce and bloody between the two sides, making me want to sit and watch.

I even thought about taking out a piece of meat and liquor to waste time while both sides end this.

"Wait… If this tactic succeeded, then why not use it again?"

The only drawback about this tactic was the time wasted to burn the forest. Yet while looking at this fight, I knew I had to wait for quite some time before I'd fight again.

If I had to wait, then why not spread fire among the other tree zones here?

I liked the idea, and started to execute it fast.

Just when I did that, I realised that this basin was hexagonal in shape, lined up with six borders of trees from all sides.

One was burning, and I set fire over the other five places.

Then I took out one piece of meat and liquor, and enjoyed half an hour of rest while my enemies were killing each other.

"Time to end this," after half an hour, the fight calmed down for a bit. The win was leaning towards the bulls at the end.

Even after suffering such heavy casualties from this fight, their thick furs were the best counter for these agile monster's darts.

Even the still standing bulls looked a bit drowsy under the effect of that poison. I moved fast and used my heavy glaive to smash their heads, giving them rest from their upcoming misery.

330 The Gate

"Oh, these monsters are like those hybrids," as I finished this battle without breaking much sweat, I started to dissect the new monsters to see what was inside them.

And there I found a similar honeycomb-like structure with a central core inside. It wasn't close to the size of the aquatic giant hybrid monsters, but it was weirdly similar.

"So there is such a technique in the universe… Interesting," I wasn't polite and stored away all the cores with their structures, besides any valuable materials from these monsters.

But compared to the core structure, there was nothing good in these monsters.

After I finished claiming my loot from both kinds of monsters, I heard an earth shattering series of roars coming from one direction.

Then this one roar turned into a series of roars, and one direction turned into five. I evilly grinned while hearing this, feeling that it was really perfect doing this.

I didn't even need to raise a single weapon to kill them. Using the two types together seemed the perfect strategy that I decided to adopt.

This time I had five directions I had to cover. I randomly selected one, took out my liquor, then started moving through the burning trees once more.

Unlike the first time, I wasn't met with any dart or monster at all until I reached the next basin. There I found the battle raging hot, and so I decided to let them continue their business.

I headed towards the other five zones and started to set fire there.

Damn! This test turned me into a fire starter. Was this a bad thing or what? I just felt weird when I thought about it.

As I did that, the fight in this basin was already dying down. I had more areas to visit, so I didn't wait this time till the end, held my heavy glaive, selected one big bull monster before moving it around like a wrecking ball.

In less than fifteen minutes, I killed everyone here. I then turned to collect my loot. Even if I got my two hands full, I wouldn't leave any single scrap of loot behind.

But my speed in collecting materials was much better than before. After all this was my third time doing this.

"It's still burning," in less than half an hour, I ended up collecting the valuable things here. The fire at the new five areas was still burning, but not enough to scare the agile monsters away.

"Time to visit other places then," I went back through the path I came from, then went towards another basin through another burning zone.

Like this I kept myself busy, moving fast from one place to another, setting fire to any tree zone I'd met. At some point, I took much time to cover up the basins around the burning trees, to arrive when there was not a single monster alive.

When I first saw this scene, I was instantly scared. But when I checked my class, I was relieved to see the number of my soul points was rising.

"Thirty thousand and five hundred and twenty-three soul points? Thirty-five? Fifty-two? Damn! It's rising slowly but steadily."

I moved my eyes around. The world was now filled with two noises only, one was the burning fire noise, and the second was the roars of the monsters.

"So the system considered this as me killing them? Fantastic!"

Currently the number of souls I had was enough to summon almost six warriors. But if I summoned them, I doubted I'd be able to use them properly here.

In fact I was doing just fine by myself right now. Adding any more forces wouldn't help. Besides, the two monsters were strong but not that remarkable for sure.

Using my soul point here would be a total waste. What if I met up with a new type of monster? One that could, for example, fly?

If I just got a small force of flying monsters here, then I could at least scout this entire world. So clung to such a dream I decided to keep my soul.

I lost track of time, but I was sure I killed hundreds of thousands of monsters. Just as I grew tired from doing this, a new thing appeared in front of my eyes.

"A gate?" Just as I reached a new basin filled with dead corpses, I saw something new in the middle of that basin.

It was a black gate with two doors and a big bell hung over a thick arm from the highest point at it.

Its presence startled me at first, but then I recalled what the system told me before. I was going to be evaluated based on my achievements here, precisely killing monsters and claiming gates.

"So this is the gate," just as I approached it, I realised I was wrong in estimating its size. It didn't span for ten metres, but for over twenty, with a width of over ten metres at least.

I reached it and saw many dull looking engravings all over the two doors. There was a thick layer of dust making it impossible for me to see what these writings meant.

I didn't hurry to touch or do anything to it. Instead I took a circle around it. The gate was almost ten inches thick, with nothing to back it up.

It looked like it was hanging there in the lowest point of this basin without any support. I took a couple of rounds around it to be sure I didn't miss anything.

This gate wasn't really standing here with any help. It just was there, like it was cut out from a world and was placed here with a mysterious force or something.

"What should I do?" I looked at the bell in doubt, "shall I force myself to do it or be polite and ring the bell first?"

These seemed to be the two options I had. But just as I stood there looking at this gate, a new option popped up in my mind.

331 Glaive Skills

"I could wipe clean this layer of dust first," the covered engravings and drawings over this gate were a mystery to me. I grew curious the more I looked at it. So why wouldn't I start by doing this?

And that was the first thing I did.

*Clang!*

I held my heavy weight glaive and moved it to hit the gate. I wanted to use its heavy weight to clear the dust off the doors here. But unlike what I expected, the gate stood stable, and the dust didn't move.

"…!" I frowned while looking at such a result. The gate thing I could understand, but that dust… How come it was still there?

And then something appeared in front of my eyes, something that was worth more than a million gates.

[You have unlocked a hidden quest in the dungeon]

[You can now choose any of these skills to unlock using coins]

[The Heavy Blow skill, The Rising Might skill, and The Shocking Glaive is now ready to be unlocked]

[The Heavy Blow skill: Rare grade skill. You can use your glaive and gain extra weight equal to ten folds its weight to crush your opponent. The damage taken will be equal to ten folds the initial damage of your glaive. Cool down: one minute. Price to unlock: One hundred thousand coins]

[The Rising Might skill: Rare grade skill. You can move your glaive in a certain path, unlocking more momentum and adding an aura around it. The glaive will release a cone shaped attack that will cover the distance of one hundred metres in length. The damage taken will equal to three folds the damage of your glaive. Cool down: one minute. Price to unlock: One hundred thousand coins]

[The Shocking Glaive skill: Unique grade skill. You can take a full circle around yourself, releasing a shockwave from your glaive, hitting all opponents in a five hundred metre radius. The damage each enemy will take is equal to five folds the damage of the glaive. Cool down: Two minutes. Price to unlock: One million coins]

I blinked thrice while rereading these messages again. A new message popped up, jolting me awake from my daze.

[Which skill do you want to unlock?]

"All of them!" I didn't even think. I came here with one main target in mind. I had to unlock skills, as much as possible, as mighty as possible.

My lack of skills was something I was well aware of. If I was hindered by anything in this apocalypse then it would be my skills.

The only drawback here was that all these skills lacked the growth factor. That wasn't that bad, but it meant I had to depend entirely on my weapons and work hard to upgrade them.

After all, the final damage of each skill depended upon the initial damage of the glaive.

Speaking about glaives, I didn't feel any pressure. After all I had one hell of a glaive waiting in my inventory for me to grow stronger to use it.

I tested it before, many times already, and it never failed me. It was a deadly sort of weapon. So these skills wouldn't disappoint me at all.

But I had two issues I had to solve here first. And one of them was this:

[Sorry, your current coin balance is sealed]

[Your test coin balance is zero]

[You don't have enough to unlock any skill]

"Do I?" I grinned evilly before opening my market interface and started selecting things from my inventory.

Of course only common things were unlocked. Things like materials and stat points were sealed. I still had my gears, but selling them was a worse option for me.

The better solution here was to sell all the unneeded monster materials I gathered from here. During this fight, I killed lots of monsters, almost close to fifty thousand mark.

I made sure to collect everything while I was on the kill spree. That was, of course, out of my habit. But now such a habit has proved itself worthy.

I now had many items to sell. I only kept those cores and their structures, and placed everything else on the market.

[Do you want to auction these materials or directly sell them by the basic market price?]

I got this message and I was tempted to try the auction. But auctioning them had one drawback… It would waste lots of time.

"I'll sell half of them directly," I decided to be slightly reasonable here, "and auction the other half."

[The fur of the Rocker Bull monster is sold for two hundred coins]

[The hooves of the Rocker Bull monster are sold for fifty coins]

.

.

I started to get a long row of messages about the items sold directly. In a span of a few minutes, I gained almost ten million coins.

"I want to buy the three skills," feeling the familiar feeling of being a rich tycoon, I said in a loud and confident tone.

[The Heavy Blow skill is purchased for one hundred thousand coins]

[The Rising Might skill is purchased for one hundred thousand coins]

[The Shocking Glaive skill is purchased for one million coins]

I have spent only one million and two hundred thousand coins on the three skills. I held my heavy weight glaive, feeling the urge to test these skills now.

But I knew I had to wait. Another issue was there for me to solve.

I swapped my glaive for one of my swords.

The messages came when my glaive touched that gate. So what about my other weapons? I got two swords, two daggers, and a shield.

If I could get more skills for them then it would be perfect.

I hit the gate with my sword, and a message popped up almost instantly. I looked up at it with much anticipation, just to be slightly disappointed when I read its content.

[Sorry the hidden quest is already activated. You can't activate it again]

Damn! It didn't work!!

332 Opening The Gate

So one hidden quest for each gate… Where were the other gates then? Come on, lead me to them right away!

Of course I knew this would take much time for now. After all this gate didn't appear until I cleared a fixed number of zones.

Or was it depending on the number of monsters killed? I couldn't tell without testing.

I estimated that it took almost twelve hours for the gate to appear. If that continued, then I'd be able to get four gates per apocalyptic forty-eight hours a day.

Hopefully that wouldn't affect things outside. I planned to not consider leaving here before getting as much skills as I could.

I used one glaive and got three skills, then what about the other two glaives I got. Would using these affect the skills I'd get or what?

I just hoped that the time difference would be high enough to let me have my fun here without worrying about anything else.

But I didn't know that later on I'd laugh over myself here. Thinking like this was logical, but in time I realised it wasn't right.

And the main reason behind this was one word; the dungeon.

As I couldn't get any skill out of this gate, it was time to try and open it. I tried to push the doors open using my strength, thinking that by unlocking the hidden quest things would be much easier here.

But the doors didn't even budge an inch. I took back my heavy glaive and tried to hit the gate with no effect.

"Let's test the new skills over you then," I looked up at the gate and felt more intrigued and excited to try the skills over it.

If this failed, then I'd have to forget about the gate for now and head towards another zone to clear it.

"Heavy Blow!" The first skill I decided to use was the one that would turn my glaive into a wrecking ball. As I said it, I felt my glaive burning with red gas and its weight raised slightly.

But I was already waving it when I activated the skill. The moment it touched the gate, a loud bang occured and for the first time… That gate shook.

But it was all this. The gate shook and that was enough to wipe clean the dust stuck over its doors.

And in the next moment, I looked at the drawings with surprise.

"This…" the drawings over the two doors were telling a story. I could see lots of small beings drawn, fighting among each other.

After scanning the drawings for a few minutes, I finally saw something familiar.

"Aren't those… Bulltors?" I came closer to the side where a bulltor similar to one of mine was there. He held a sledgehammer, just like my bulltors.

It seemed using this weapon ran through their veins. I smiled when I saw this, and soon enough I saw more familiar races.

Even humans were there. The most noticeable thing here was that each race was described by just one drawing. And all races were fighting among each other.

In the middle of all this mess, I saw a big sphere releasing rays all around. I stepped back for a few metres to be able to see the full mural.

"So… The system is described as this big star, releasing its rays and driving everyone to fight?" The rays all ended up linked to one race. So I got this idea before noticing something else.

This sphere wasn't in the middle of the gate, but at the top zone of it. Half of it was engraved over one door, giving me an idea.

"To enter the gate, I have to crush the system?" I muttered before returning backward for extra ten metres, held my glaive with both hands and took a deep breath.

Then I ran.

As I crossed half the distance, I jumped. It was a distance of twenty metres, but I was able to cross only half of it.

Then my glaive crossed the remaining distance while I shouted:

"Heavy Blow!"

*Boom!*

*Creak!*

Just as I thought, the doors of this gate finally showed a movement. Yet it seemed I had to wait for another minute before hitting it again.

The doors only moved a few inches apart, not enough for me to squeeze myself inside. So I started hitting it and waited, kept doing this for five more times before the gate was fully opened.

"At last," I looked at the pitch black inside of this gate. I tried to see through this darkness with my hawk eye skill, yet failed to see anything at all.

"Well… I'm already here and I have nothing to fear," I said to myself, making up my mind about what to do now.

Just as I stepped inside that darkness, I felt like entering into a new world.

"Damn! Isn't this…" I looked back but found no sign of that gate.

What lay in front of me was a hexagonal vast basin, with many bull monsters looking at me in vigilance.

Wait… Did that mean that… the previous zones belonged to one of the gates? So each gate is held inside a group of such basins and tree border zones?

Interesting… but I couldn't be sure until I'd give it a go first.

Armed with my previous experience, I started my killing spree here. The first zone was wiped out easily in half an hour. Then I started to claim all my loot.

"These monsters… They felt a little stronger than the previous ones."

Despite killing them fast and without any challenge, it felt weird. These monsters were slightly stronger than the ones I killed before.

But the difference wasn't that much for me to worry about. As I ended collecting the loot, I stopped in front of the tree zone, thinking about summoning monsters.

"I didn't need to waste my soul points for now,," I muttered to myself while inwardly sighing.

333 Sword Skills

I didn't like the idea of summoning useless bulls and monkeys and adding them to my forces.

And then I started the fire, burning the entire tree zone as usual.

Burning the trees and driving the monsters inside to face the bulls, this was my plan. After gaining control over the first zone, things started to snowball in my favour with less work to do.

But I noticed that letting these monsters fight each other took slightly longer than the first time. I estimated it took roughly fourteen hours to arrive at the second gate.

Once I saw it, I forgot about anything and only cared about this gate.

It looked like the first gate, or slightly taller than the first one. But it was also covered with the same thick dust layer as well.

*Clang!*

This time I used one of my swords to test my theory out.

[You activated the hidden quest of this gate]

And like I hoped for, this gate gave me a hidden quest and gave me three skills to unlock.

[The Sword Tulip skill: Rare grade skill. Moving your sword fast, it will release a full of twelve attacks at different directions at the same time. Each strike will cause triple the initial damage of the sword plus two folds penetration power. Cool down: One minute. Price to unlock: One hundred thousand coins]

[The Sword Splash skill: Rare grade skill. Moving your sword in a certain trajectory will create a fan shaped damage that will jump from one opponent to another. The maximum covering range of this attack is one hundred metres, with each attack causing five folds the damage of the sword and three folds penetration power. Cool down: One minute. Price to unlock: One hundred thousand coins]

[The Sword Dance skill: Unique grade skill. Waving your sword in a curve from down upward will make you jump directly towards the next opponent you select with your instincts. Then you'll keep jumping from one foe to another for one minute. Maximum distance to cross with each jump is fifty metres. Each strike will cause ten folds sword basic damage and five folds its penetration power. Cool down: Two minutes. Price to unlock: One million coins]

"Unlike them all!" I was very thrilled by this. In fact the three skills looked so damn cool, especially the last one.

But I noticed a pattern here. It seemed each gate would grant me two rare and one unique skill. The prices of the rare skill were fixed at one hundred thousand coins. As for unique skills, they'd reach one million coins.

Did this mean that higher grade skills would require higher prices as well? But how could I get a higher grade skill then?

I looked up at the gate. It seemed these gates came in grades as well, or that was what I hoped for.

Armed with my past experience, I took out my glaive and hit the gate using the Heavy Blow skill. But the unexpected happened!

*Clang!*

The gate stopped my glaive without even budging an inch. Not a single speck of dust fell from the gate, making me frown.

I looked at my glaive and knew the issue wasn't in it. It was the gate.

"So the hidden quest determines which weapon to take down the gate? Interesting," I switched again to my sword, while looking at the gate in doubt. "Which skill shall I use?"

The sword skills were all cool and all that, but they lacked the strength in the glaive skills. Comparing the two together, the sword was meant to kill fast and many enemies and the glaive was for killing the strongest foes in a few strikes.

But I was trapped with my sword. If I couldn't deal with it, how would I deal later with my dagger skills? Or should I not use my daggers?

No, I couldn't waste such an opportunity like this. I'd then try the Sword Tulip skill.

*Bang!*

The gate shocked and the dust fell. It worked! I looked at the drawings on the two doors and they looked similar to the ones before.

I didn't care too much about this and looked at the star in the upper part. I jumped and hit it with the same skill, slightly pushing the doors open.

After seven attacks, the gate finally fully opened. Another pitch black abyss awaited for me, and I didn't hesitate to step into it.

Like before, a new hexagonal basin zone appeared in front of me. But this time the fur over the monsters wasn't like before.

"Metallic fur?!! That's… New," I muttered in surprise when I saw the monsters waiting for me.

Other than their fur changes, there was nothing else worthy of mentioning. But when I started killing them, their fur showed its value in defence.

Previously I only needed one hit to kill them, but now I needed two. Even their heads were covered with this fur and got extra boast in defence.

But that didn't stop me. I kept killing them using the same old tactic. Then I went to burn the forest down.

As the bulls showed a chance, these agile monsters also showed a new thing. Instead of having one arched tail, they got two.

On one side, the bulls got an upgrade to their defences. On the other hand, the agile monsters got a boost in their offence. But the upper hand this time leant towards the agile monsters.

The last couple gate zones I fought at using this tactic ended up with few weakened and poisoned bulls. But this time it was different. What remained behind after setting the first tree zone on fire was a group of over a hundred of these agile monsters.

Just from the look of it, I knew the difference wasn't in the strength in their attacks or the number of darts getting doubled; it was poison.

One dart was enough to poison the bull monsters. Even when few remained alive in the end, they were unfortunate to not survive long enough, fall on the ground and die out of poison.

334 [Bonus chapter] Changing Tactics

And now? Getting these agile monsters to double their poisonous darts made sure to fasten the spread of poison inside the bodies of bulls.

In brief, these monsters became much fiercer and deadlier than before. Just looking at their two moving tails like sensors made me feel little threat and more frustration.

If this kept up, wouldn't I end up facing a hard to move rock or what? Would they stop me here?

No way! I still didn't use one of my strongest weapons yet; my souls!

Should I summon these poisonous monsters? Or those bulls?

The bulls weren't strong against those poisonous monsters, but I still didn't like those agile monsters. They were good as far ranged attackers. But I doubted they'd do anything more than this.

"I'll summon twenty," I decided. Summoning these twenty would consume one hundred thousand souls. It wasn't that big but it was enough force to dominate the fight here.

The twenty warriors summoned stood in front of me. I looked at them and thought about upgrading them.

"It's still a waste," but I didn't do it. It would be a waste to spend even a few stat points over them.

"Attack!" as I brought them into life, I gave them the order to attack. At the same time, I summoned my heavy shield, deciding to use this shield and learn three skills attached to it.

I was almost passive with such a heavy shield. I had much lighter shields inside my inventory but I doubted their ability to stop the darts.

Especially after such an upgrade for the poisonous agile monsters. I held my shield and only did one task; defending my summoned warriors against all the incoming darts.

Using poison to fight poison might seem tempting, but in fact I knew this wouldn't work. The poisonous creatures wouldn't get easily poisoned to death with their own toxin.

But at least these darts would cause multiple wounds, ending up in weakening the enemies at least.

This took time. The two sides slept raining on each other with darts while I tried my best to defend my side. In more than half an hour, this fight was almost concluded.

The monsters were deeply wounded, showing obvious decline in attack rhythm. I didn't hesitate to throw my shield back into my inventory, held my two swords, and then ran towards them.

It seemed with my sudden actions, I attracted their aggro. But they were already wounded, so their actions were slow and sluggish, lacking the old precision and fierceness.

As I moved closer, I didn't hesitate to use one of the three sword skills I had…

"Sword Dance!"

I felt my body moving lightly like a feather. In a flash, I darted and hit one monster.

Then I felt the same force grabbing my body, moving me towards another monster, then another. This kept going on for half a minute before all the monsters here fell under my sword attacks.

The monsters were already this weak from the start, and I aimed directly at their heads. Also my sword gained ten times more damage power than the initial damage of the sword.

So it wasn't that hard to kill all of them. As this battle concluded, I knew I'd take much longer time from now on than before.

"I should summon more monsters," I knew that, but in fact just summoning those agile toxic monsters wasn't enough.

They had to stand far from the enemy, giving the enemy time to evade their attacks. I also didn't want to summon much more of them.

If this kept going on like this, then in five or ten more gates these monsters would be worthy of summoning.

So I decided to summon thirty of those bull monsters. I knew they would be weak against toxins, but if they were used right, then things would be fine.

"Let's see how this tactic will do then," I muttered to myself while burning the five zones around me.

As I watched fire burning and then the roars of monsters fighting each other, I thought about my shields.

I have a big variety of shields. But I wasn't the type of the guy to move around holding shields.

The one I kept using was the highest graded shield I got. It was dark gold grade, so heavy as it had a very thick armour.

I hated pure defence. After all, defending wasn't enough to kill any of my enemies. But as it was portrayed best here, I'd need sometimes to use the shield.

So I just hoped the next gate would grant me an agile bonus skill to my shield, or perhaps some sort of backlash or repenting of the attacks my shield would receive.

If this happened, then I'd be satisfied. But if I only got pure defence skills, it wouldn't be worth the shot.

Anyway, the fire burnt to a satisfying degree. I started moving towards the next hexagonal zone.

As before, this zone was left with slightly over a hundred agile and toxic monsters.

"Come out," I called forth my toxic warriors, leaving them to harass those bastards and attract their aggro.

Then I slowly started to move forward towards them. Last time when I tried to force my attack I grabbed their aggro. If not for them being weak and injured, I wouldn't have got away unscathed.

So I kept slowly approaching while the two sides kept releasing their deadly darts. When I was only less than one hundred metres from them, I started my second phase of my plan.

"Come out," I summoned the thirty bulls I summoned, "go, tear them apart with your horns."

*Roar!*

The sudden appearance of my thirty bull monsters startled the agile monsters. Before they could react, my monsters already hit them.

Close ranged attacks from my bulls coupled with long ranged attacks from the toxic monster… This was my tactic, and it proved it was successful.

In less than five minutes, all the enemies were cleared. I lost only ten bull monsters thanks to poison. A good loss that I didn't feel bitter about.

335 Shield Skills

Even if the exchange didn't seem worth it, it bought me a lot of time. This was the true value in such a tactic.

"Next," I called them back, summoned thirty more bulls and started to run towards the next zone.

The added monsters were an aim towards balancing the situation. After all, if I kept summoning the lost monsters in each battle, I'd end up losing too much.

The added monsters proved their worth in the next zones. The loss decreased from ten to only three, making me feel more satisfied about this plan.

In the next few hours, I kept collecting my loot and using the same tactic to clear the zones. At last I finally ended this fight, and reached the gate after fifteen hours from entering through the last gate.

"So the next gate might take up to twenty hours?" I looked up at the gate while thinking about the time progress here.

It wouldn't matter much if the time difference was too much. But if it wasn't, then it meant I was losing much time while fighting here.

Taking all these skills was awesome. But if that was on the cost of my next big battle, then it wasn't worth it anymore.

I gained skills for my main weapons, swords and glaives. I could get more, but I started retreating and called it a day.

Even if this dungeon final score wasn't that good, I still had another dungeon key. That one would be left when I got more time to invest.

"Let's clear a couple more gates first," I took out my shield and slammed it heavily against the gate. The familiar clanging sound came with the appearance of the usual system messages.

I got three skills, two were pure defensive and the last one was the one I was looking for.

"An attack repulsion skill… Terrific!"

The three skills were as such:

[The Great Palm skill: Rare grade skill. The shield will create a big image of a palm, defending against attacks with equal defence to five folds the initial defensive power of the shield for twenty seconds. Cool down: One minute. Price to unlock: One hundred thousand coins]

[The Shell skill: Rare grade skill. The shield will turn into a massive shield encompassing the user and anything in an area around him for fifty metres radius inside a big shell. The defensive power equals to three folds the initial defensive value of the shield used. Duration: Ten seconds. Cool down: One minute. Price to unlock: One hundred thousand coins]

[The Mighty Defence skill: Unique grade skill. The shield will absorb damage taken for half a minute before releasing half of the damage back into all the ones that attacked in a single flashy attack per target. Cool down: Two minutes. Price to unlock: One million coins]

"This is it," I purchased the three, but the third one was the best. It was enough to let me stand alone, facing all of these annoying toxic monsters, and they'd eventually die.

But this wasn't just everything. I thought about merging two skills together. For example if I used the Shell skill first then added the Mighty Defence skill the next moment, then it would be epic!

There was no mention of limiting the use of such skills together, right? So why wouldn't I use both together? After all, the Mighty Defence skill worked by absorbing any attack landing over my shield.

So if it was a shield or a shield turning into a palm or a shell, it wouldn't matter. I looked up at the gate and then used the Great Palm skill to hit the gate and wipe away the dust.

"What is… That?!!" but as I did that, I was surprised to see a new change in this big mural.

This gate looked slightly bigger than the first one I opened. But that didn't matter to me until I saw the drawings over its surface.

Before it got many races with each race having only one drawing each. But this time it felt like part of this mural was filled with humans. To add more weirdness these drawings were slightly similar to me.

Yes, I saw a human fighting with a group of monsters on his side, my warriors. It felt like this mural was changing, describing my journey here.

But this wasn't the only change here.

That central sphere I first thought would be the symbol of the system had two big eyes. It felt like it was watching, watching me fighting my way through this world.

What? Wasn't this the system? Why did I have the feeling it was like a scary being and he got alarmed with my activities here?

For a second there, I seriously considered retreating and leaving this dungeon at once. But I soon shook off such thoughts. I came here to gain as many points as I could.

Plus I got only skills for my heavy glaive. I still had two more glaives, one was light and fast and the other was domineering and crushing.

I was sure using these glaives would end up with a different set of skills. I wanted these skills, and that was the main reason I decided to keep fighting for two more gates.

"Time for the next challenge," as the gate opened in front of my shield in no more than five minutes, I passed through the pitch darkness there.

The world was the same, but the monsters weren't.

Previously the bull monsters showed a change in their fur. They were metallic. But this time, these bull monsters looked much different.

First their bodies got enlarged by almost fifty percent. Second their fur changed and there were scales covering its body with few spikes here and there.

They also grew two thick and short arms, ending up with sharp black claws. I looked at their red eyes, feeling they were much stronger than before.

"So the second world had the bulls slightly change, then the second world had the agile toxic monsters change more, and now this world had the bulls changing much more.

336 A Hard To Clear Zone

So the next world… Those toxic monsters would greatly change or what?

"Come," as I had to face new species in my eyes, I had to fight using everything I got. I summoned the twenty toxic monsters before taking out my heavy glaive.

"Keep hitting them," I ordered before summoning the bull monsters, "keep them safe."

I knew if I had to release those bull monsters against the current ones here, things would end up bad. The difference between the two was simply too obvious to neglect.

So it was better to use these as a shield to protect the far attackers of my little force here. In return I'd act as the tip of the spear.

I held my glaive and simply waved it towards the first monster I faced.

*Clang!*

Like I was hitting a giant rock or something. Before, my glaive never failed to hit a monster and sent it flying.

But now? I felt my two hands shaking fiercely from the impact, and all it did was push that monster backwards for a few metres before stopping on its feet.

Damn! This wouldn't work!

I squeezed the shaft of my glaive while looking at the upcoming monsters from all fronts. "Screw it! Come forth now!"

Dire times required urgent solutions. I instantly summoned my shield, held it on the ground with one hand and with the other I held the glaive.

Both were heavy, damn heavy, but I had no time to complain. If I didn't push myself this far, I'd fall here!

"The Great Palm!" I shouted without any hesitation before adding, "The Mighty Defence!"

*Bang!* *Bang!* Bang!*

The monsters were stopped by my shield. A great palm shadow enveloped me and managed to stop all the incoming monsters.

At the same time, a faint glow of aura appeared on top of that palm. What the glaive failed to do, my shield managed to execute it.

All the monsters hitting the shield were sent flying backwards. But the number of monsters here was simply too much. Besides, the duration of my skills were limited.

But I waited till the two skills ended and then the payback came.

My Mighty Defence skill paid half of the total damage taken to each monster in a flash of dark red light. Each monster got a hit, roared fiercely before it was sent flying once more.

"Great!" I didn't expect the extra pushing attack that came with the skill. As I looked at the big bodies flying like meteorites everywhere, it was time for me to act.

"Please work… Sword Dance!" I swapped my glaive with one sword, while still holding my shield in my hand.

I couldn't risk losing this shield. Who knew if this tactic would work or not. I was moved forcibly under the effect of the skill, and I aimed not at any standing monster.

Instead I aimed at one of those flying ones. If the monsters showed such resistance against my glaive before, then I hoped this was thanks to their life force.

Dealing with alive monsters and dead monsters must be different, or that was what I hoped. As my body flashed at one of the flying monsters, I hit it with my sword before decisively recalling the sword, and taking out my glaive again.

"Work dammit!" I roared while feeling the immense pressure over my two arms. Holding such a heavy weapon and shield at the same time was really taxing.

But I endured the pressure and pain, moved the glaive to hit that monster midair.

*Bang!*

And it worked! That dead monster moved like a wrecking ball towards the direction I aimed towards. It crushed all the monsters it faced in its path, and it was time for me to kill them.

"Shocking Glaive!" I roared, using this AOE kind of attack from the start. I used the dead monster as a vanguard, crushing and paving the path for my skill to shine.

My glaive sent a crushing wave that fanned out and covered an area of five hundred metres. The damage taken was so good, enough to kill most of the monsters or leave them heavily wounded.

The only drawback of this was the cooldown time. I had to wait for two minutes to use it again.

So as I landed, I started to run towards another dead monster. I now had three skills on cooldown.

*Bang!* I sent that monster flying, but it didn't move as far as the first flying monster did. Yet I didn't hurry to use any skill.

I kept running, dragging both weapons while enduring the pain. I hit the monster successively while moving it in a specific path.

After five hits, I managed to clear an area in front of me. I had to run in a circle to make sure I'd hit the largest possible number of monsters.

"It's all set… Rising Might!"

I moved my glaive in an arc under the effect of my skill, then it released a cone shaped attack that covered almost all monsters I just hit before.

The hit wasn't enough to kill anyone, but it left all of them roaring in deep pain on the ground.

"Time to run," I took away my glaive and replaced it with my sword, "Sword Splash!" I turned around, and released this attack to stop all the monsters coming at my back.

Then I started to run.

I placed the heavily injured monsters between me and the ones I just hit. I checked and found that over a minute had passed. One shield skill could be used, but there were still two more skills on cooldown.

"Little more," I looked fast at my warriors and they were doing good at killing and slowing down the bull monsters. But this was only effective at certain points.

"Time to summon more then," I didn't hesitate to run towards one end. I wasn't that far away anyway. I just paved the path using one dead monster, and finally arrived there.