CH 05: A dungeon is not weird as long as it is not in the basement

Arriving at a cave entrance, Hao wasted no time stepping inside the cave.

[You have entered a dungeon!]

[Dungeon name: The deep stone hideout]

[Congratulations on being the first person to discover this dungeon!! You will receive a 100% exp bonus, increase the rarity of loot drops and guarantee legendary growth type gear drops that will fit your class at the end of the dungeon]

[Warning!! If you leave this dungeon or fail to clear it the first time, you will not receive these benefits again the second time!!]

[Warning!! You are entering this dungeon alone. We recommended clearing the dungeon with your group of friends]

"Friends? What are those? But in all seriousness, it looks like my bad luck from before had been counter with this amazing luck." Hao said while smiling softly. "Now, it's time to turn that mindset into a grindset."

"No potions, no buffs, I can do this." Hao mutter

Hao slowly made his way inside the cave, slowly but surely. Hao doesn't want to rush into fast and aggro every mob in the dungeon; considering what kind of build and class he is playing, Hao knows he can die very quickly.

Finally, Hao arrives at the first room and sees the first group of enemies.

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Skeleton warrior

Level: 10

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Skeleton archer

Level: 10

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There are a total of two warriors and one archer, and there are five groups in the room, meaning there are ten warriors and five archers.

'Aggroing it all simultaneously would be a horrible idea... So let's do this slowly."

Hao slowly walks inside the room toward the closet group, ensuring not to aggro other groups in the room.

Suddenly, the first group of skeletons turn toward Hao, who quickly walks back toward the room entrance while leading the skeletons back.

After arriving at the entrance, Hao turns toward the first skeleton warrior, who holds a sword and shield and quickly rushes toward it. The skeleton put up its shield, ready to defend, swinging its sword forward.

Hao was able to react quickly and duck down, dodging the attack, and using his leg, he swept the skeleton leg, knocking it down. However, before Hao could make a follow-up attack, an arrow was shot toward him by the archer, and Hao quickly does sidestep, dodging the arrow entirely.

However, the skeleton that Hao knocked down had enough time to stand back up; not only that, the other warrior skeleton could sneak behind Hao and hit him with its shield.

-50 HP

'Shit! That one ten of my HP gone in one hit is not even a proper attack!!'

Hao stumbles a bit before regaining his balance, his eyes set on the archer, knowing he should focus on the archer first. Using Backstab, Hao appears behind the skeleton archer, who immediately gets stunned by Backstab effect.

While he didn't have Backstab passive anymore, Hao could still ditch out enough damage to kill the skeleton archer right then and there.

+1000 exp (+100% bonus)

By finishing the skeleton archer with his weapon, Hao performs a perfect execution, reducing the cooldown of his backstab by one second. Hao's attention then turns toward the two skeletons slowly approaching him.

Taking a deep breath, Hao runs toward the two skeleton warriors; he throws a punch toward the nearest skeleton warrior, who got quickly blocked by its shield. However, Hao did not stop; using the same hand he used to throw the punch, he grabbed the shield and pulled it down before using his other hand to throw a right hook toward the skeleton's face, with a cracking sound indicating a Just Frame, the fist land squarely on the skeleton making it stumble a little bit.

Hao quickly continues his assault; he grabs the skeleton by the face before throwing it toward the other skeleton warrior before using Disappear to turn invisible, leaving the line of sight of the two skeleton warriors.

Hao reappeared behind the skeleton warrior he was focusing on and landed another solid hit on the skeleton with a cracking sound. However, due to his Backtsab still being in cooldown, it was not a confirmed critical hit, but that doesn't matter right now for Hao.

Hao follows his first hit of attack with another punch, a knee and a kick, lifting the skeleton in the air. Hao then quickly finishes it by swinging his dagger toward the airborne skeleton, killing it with his swing, and performing another perfect execution.

+1000 exp (+100% bonus)

Not wasting any time, Hao rushed toward the last skeleton who had recovered from being knockdown from being hit by the throw skeleton warrior. Reaching his attack range, Hao takes a step back, dodging the attack from the skeleton warrior, before pulling out his dagger and then jumping into the air, swinging his dagger down toward the skeleton and knocking it down.

Hao then starts stomping on the skeleton warrior repeatedly.

While an enemy is down on the ground, you can do many options as a player. You can grab the enemy and throw or continue the combo, but you will not be able to throw the enemy again at the next knockdown, and the combo from the grab would have less damage than usual.

The next thing you can do is an Okizeme or Oki, where the player attacks the enemies while it is getting, forcing them to block all that received the hit.

The last option is to attack them while they are knockdown; while you are attacking them when they are knockdown, the damage is reduced, and you can only hit them for a maximum of fifteen times before they become immune to damage while on the ground.

Hao repeatedly stomped on the skeleton, and after the thirteen hits, he kicked the skeleton warrior into the air and the side kick the skeleton with a Just Frame, sending it flying; however, while the skeleton was still in the air, Hao finished it off with his Backstab that had finish cooldown, by teleporting behind the flying skeleton.

As a result, due to Backstab that would cause a stunt when activated, it makes the skeleton stops flying immediately and causes it to resist and be stunned standing. But Hao did not continue his assault due to damage reduction from hitting the skeleton from the ground; after all, all of this still counts as one combo, so there is a lot of damage reduction in this combo due to insufficient starter.

So Hao decided to reset the skeleton while it was still stunned. By doing this, he finishes his combo, with the skeleton still stunned.

Hao immediately took advantage of it and started combing the skeleton again while it was still stunned before finally finishing the last skeleton.

+1000 exp (+100% bonus)

Taking a deep breath before breathing out, Hao waits for his mana and health to recover and for his cooldowns to finish.

"That took longer than I expected, and that is only a single enemy, three of them." Hao looked around the room to see another four more groups of enemies. "This gonna take a very long time," Hao sighed.

-5 minutes later-

|You have levelled up!|

After five minutes, Hao finally finishes all the skeletons in the room, clearing the first room of the dungeon. When he eventually killed the last enemy, he finally levelled up, in which he immediately spent all of his stat points.

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Name: Actuallyfiend

Level: 11

Class: Rogue

Sub-class: None

HP: 500/500 | MP:10000/10000

STR: 15

AGI: 35

INT: 25

VIT: 50

SPI: 15

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After that, Hao's gaze turned toward a chest in the middle of the room that had appeared. After killing all the mobs in the room, the chest appears as a reward for clearing the room.

Hao walks toward the chest, opens it, and checks all of the loot inside it; in the chest, there are three pieces of equipment inside.

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Steel boots (Uncommon)

DEF 20

+2 AGI

+1 STR

No effect

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Steel gauntlet (Uncommon)

DEF 20

+1 AGI

+2 STR

No effect

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Bone Dagger (Rare) (one-handed)

+2 SPI

+2 STR

+3 AGI

No effect

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'Well, there is no downside to equipping all of that.' With that thought, Hao equipped all the loot he had received from the chest.

'Should I try to dual-wield my weapon? I mean, it's cool to dual-wield in general, but I've never done it before... Ah, fuck it, why am I even hesistating? Of course, I'm going to used dual-wield! it's doesn't matter whether it is impractical or not; all it matter is that it cool.' Finishing that thought, Hao equipped both of his daggers.

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|Equipment|

Helmet: None

Gauntlets: Steel gauntlet

Chest Armour: Leather Armour

Leg Armour: Steel boots

Weapon right-hand: Bone dagger

Weapon left-hand: Rogue dagger

Accessory 1: None | Accessory 2: None

Gem 1: None | Gem 2: None

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"Now, my stats should be..."

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STR: 15 (+5)

AGI: 35 (+6)

INT: 25

VIT: 50

SPI: 15 (+2)

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"That seems good enough. Now then, let's continue to the next room." Hao said before heading toward the next part of the dungeon, but before he left the room, he noticed something by the exit door.

'Hm? A map? That's good.' Hao quickly grabbed the map before looking at it. 'Let's see... counting this room, there will be six rooms in this dungeon, including the boss room. However, it didn't say which was the boss room. If that is the case, then all I have to do is go into every room and check them.'

'But if that is the case, then that means there will be four more rooms I need to clear, not counting the boss room, and judging by the fact it took me like, 5 minutes to clear this room, it would take me 20 more minutes.'

Hao can only sigh at the thought.

"This gonna take so long," Hao said before heading toward the next room of the dungeon.