The first layer

Zero entered the cave and the big hole laid before him. He was a bit hesitant but he didn't have much of a choice.

Without further to do he jumped in, holding his scythe ready to strike as soon as he landed.

Fortunately, nothing hostile was in sight once he dropped down. Although there was a pedestal with a wand on top of it, a very useful wand in fact, it would cast light spells.

However the wand itself was useless. He took the scythe and cut the wand in half, a stone with some engravings fell out from it. This was another ability of the scythe, it could take out spells out of wands and other instruments directly.

Zero picked up the stone and shoved it into the scythe, which made it able to light up on command.

This was enough, having 2 weapons is just more confusing. The cave was fairly lit up but the item he wants was in another part of the fitst layer, a darker one.

Zero went on exploring, killing some ghouls here and there. They were simple weak lv 1 monsters, that died from the slightest touch of the scythe.

Zero soon understood which pattern this cave had been generated in. Usually the cave layers were the only thing that generates randomly in this world.

However it follows patterns, and after playing the game for 45.000 hours he had learned to recognize those patterns.

While walking around he found a flask with acid in it, he took the flask and poured out the acid into a corner, he didn't need it, but the flask was quite useful.

After walking around for half a hour he had found a chest and a hell monster, it was shooting fireballs, but the fight wasn't even nearly as epic as one could anticipate, the scythe just neutralized the fireball.

Zero opened the chest and found quite a nice bonus, a health increase buff, it wasn't much, but nice nonetheless.

After some time he had almost run out of hope, would he have to return without the item and get the inferior thing?

He couldn't find the invisibility fluid. Without it he wouldn't be able to sneak past the trigger point for the boss spawn, and he was in no way qualified to fight that boss yet.

As he heaved a heavy sigh, something dropped on top of him, how careless! He quickly jumped back, it was invisibility fluid, the one he wanted.

But he was not happy, he could have lost his life if it was another fluid that could inflict harm, he scolded himself for being so careless.

He filled his flask and headed to the place where the item was, a dark cave with absoutely no lighting.

Good thing he infused the light magic stone into his scythe before. The scythe was a bit special, it couldn't absorb Zeros mana directly to use its infused spells, it stores the mana from the spells it nullifies indefinitely, and uses that stored mana when needed.

It was nice that he had let the scythe absorb that attack from the boss monster, light skills don't require a lot of mana, and the scythe should be able to emit light for over 10 hours if needed.

There were no monsters in this location, however there would be a boss, if he didn't use invisibility of course.

He poured the liquid from the flask all over himself and turned invisible. This allowed him to easily walk over and just grab the artifact.

It was a dull pickaxe, it looked very ordinary and boring, however it had a hidden skill, all you had to do is sharpen it.

Zero took out his scythe and with one swoop he sharpened the pickaxe. A faint glow was produced by the pickaxe.

It's hidden skill was that it would mine out a huge half sphere whenever it hit something. That was the best mining tool anyone could get in the beginning, all the other ones were hard to obtain or just worse.

He mined a hole in the cave, which took him back to the normal 1st layer location. He leveled up only once while exploring this place, he had to step things up a bit.

Now he could move freely within this place, like a mole digging tunnels.

He had found some more chests with extra health buffs, it was always nice to be a bit more sturdy.

All in all, the first layer was an easy location, aside from some strong monsters showing up from time to time, it was like stroll through a park.

Of course this was only achievable thanks to the scythe and the pickaxe. Since that invisibility fluid had dropped on him, he was more carefully when it came to random fluids.

He would pay more attention as to not die some stupid death as he did thousands of times before.

He had reached the other end of the first layer, a bridge over a giant pit with almost no end.

He wouldn't die if he jumped down, it would simply take too long to escape, so he had to be careful.

He crossed the bridge and saw a small shrine. He knew very well what was awaiting him, a boss fight.

He needed the thing the boss drops, so he would have to kill it! He seemed excited, he like the idea of fighting a strong opponent after strolling through the first level like that.

Once he stepped into the shrine, a golem was summoned, it was just a couple rocks forming a humanoid form, nothing special.

But this boss was very sturdy and strong, albeit slow. The golem didn't hesitate and launched an attack at Zero.

Zero dodged, at his current strength taking the punch would be suicidal. He put away the pickaxe onto his back, and grabbed the scythe with both hands.

He launched an attack directed at the golems legs, he has to immobilize it so that he could strike even easier.

The golem was sturdy, it required Zero to go in for the chop multiple times, but in the end he managed to cut off the golems leg.

The golem entered its second phase and started using earth magic to generate earth spikes under Zeros feet.

He easily dodged and landed multiple attacks on the golems head. The golem was defeated. Zero made it look too easy!

In fact the golem wouldn't have lost to someone even ten times Zeros level, simply because of the barrier he had on him that rendered all attacks ineffective, be it magical or physical.

However Zeros scythe completely ignored the shield, and even absorbed some mana from it!

The scythe was indeed the best weapon there was at the beginning, and even one of the best in the midgame, in fact, Zero would usually do full runs with only this scythe.

He looked at his partner, it was nice that the scythes properties were the same as in the game.

The boss had dropped a little ring, this ring was enchanted with the earth magic shield the golem used.

This was the best defensive artifact up to the 6th layer! Zero put on the ring, and looked towards the shrine.

A little sphere was lying in the middle, he headed out to grab it.