Chapter 10

As he crossed the threshold to the boss room, Michael was forced to take a deep breath to stop the rising panic from paralyzing him. Knowing that the danger had been upped was a thing, seeing three gigantic goblins, veritable mountains of muscle and spittle and fangs, all roar at him at the same time was another.

He didn’t have time to think. They immediately started charging at him, all three of them at the same time, aiming for the same spot. His battle senses, still vestigial as they were, kicked in and he rolled to the side and sprung to his feet in a flourish. Behind him, the spot where he was in exploded in a cloud of dust and tangled limbs. When the air cleared, the sight made Michael pause.

They… trampled each other? Some of the panic dissipated like fog in the morning sun. This… wasn’t supposed to happen. What was going on?

The farthest goblin had charged right at the other two. The middle one was mostly uninjured, but the leading one was in bad shape. It had been pancaked against the wall by the other two and was bleeding in many places, several broken bones jutting out of its leathery green skin. It didn’t care about it, though, getting up and ignoring its injuries and immediately roaring at Michael.

Who only grinned at the sight. Now that the panic was mostly gone, he was left with confidence and adrenaline.

I can work with this.

What followed was a careful dance of distances and timings. Whenever the goblins charged, Michael made sure that they were all in each other’s way as to make them damage each other, and when they attacked, he used his new ability with the [[Distortion Field] to break bones and batter their bodies. The dagger was useless against them, its reach too short and its blade barely able to penetrate the tough flesh and muscle, and thus had been discarded. The gun had not and even though its effectiveness was lessened, the goblins were bleeding hard from many holes in their weak spots, be it necks, legs where Michael was pretty sure were some important arteries, or their faces. Their skull was too thick to pierce, but a bullet to the forehead always stunned them for long enough to grant an opening to snap a bone.

The last one was finished with a [Shield Bash]. Always satisfying to use. A bit scary, though. What if the thing just tanks it and I find myself suddenly in its attack range? Better to use it as an execution tool once I know it’s safe.

After the hit, the shield was starting to look a bit battered. Mostly it had been from all the hit it had taken without the reinforcement from [Distortion Field], but even with the skill the shield was taking a good amount of damage which accumulated over time. Soon, it would break and Michael would be forced to find a replacement. Perhaps Old Dave had something he could work with, something made with more modern materials as well.

The loot appeared soon after. Michael healed himself, even though he was mostly unhurt, as healing after a fight had become something he just did, especially with the plentiful mana regeneration he had in the dungeon. Thinking about the fight and comparing it with his first fight against the goblin boss, he couldn’t help but be impressed by his growth. The first time around he had been scared, forced to think up strange strategies, burning the monster to rile it up so that it could kill itself on the wall. This time it had not been much different, but he was getting used to battle and it was becoming easy.

I need to be careful not to fall into a false sense of security, though.

He was a little sad that his [Candle Light] skill had become mostly useless. But he was no longer the same person he was a few days ago, stumbling through the dungeon in utter darkness, afraid and weak.

He walked over to the stack of loot. There were more coins, bringing the total to 70 Copper, which was not bad. Then there was an ornate bracelet, clearly not magical, and a skill stone.

Woah, it’s as if the dungeon read my mind. Wait, it can’t do that, can it?

It was a skill stone for upgrading his [Candle Light] skill. The text didn’t say anything about the upgrade, but Michael was not someone who would pass on some free power-ups, and thus the stone was immediately absorbed.

Interesting.

Pulling up the full description of the skill, he carefully read what the upgrade entailed. The jump in rarity was promising, and even the shorthand description of the upgrade was interesting enough to make him salivate. Even though, fighting with my bare hands… I guess karate will come in handy now.

Even better than I expected.

Being able to increase the heat was a very handy tool. I wonder if I can now cook food with my bare hands?

He tried it out, feeling the sharp cost of mana required to make the fire burn hotter. It was quite expensive, but if he managed to learn how to only use the skill when he hit an enemy, he could save a lot of mana from being wasted. Dismissing it, his burning hands returned to normal in less than a second, all traces of flame and heat gone as if they were never there.

It was still too early to switch to a new combat style, full brawler with burning fists. The skill was still too expensive to use with his meagre mana pool, and he needed to practice and get a feel for it before he could decide what to do. Still, it could be another avenue to consider after his shield finally gave up and broke down, switching to using [Distortion Field] in its bubble version, plus dagger and fists, with the gun as backup. Speaking of, he made a mental note to buy more ammo on the way home.

While Michael was experimenting with his new magic, partially becoming the human torch for a moment, much to his excitement, two doors had appeared on the far wall of the boss room. One of them was the usual exit, sunlight streaming in from the outside in a way that defied the laws of space. Dungeon shenanigans. The other, however, was dark, but in the darkness stairs could barely be seen leading down into the depths of the earth.

As he looked at it, the dungeon spoke in its usual crazed voice.

“You seem strong enough, delver. Want to test your luck on the second floor?” The voice snickered at him, cacking madly at the end of the sentence.

Michael thought about it for all of two seconds before deciding that it was too early to go down to the second floor, especially today since he wasn’t at his peak after spending so many hours training in the first room. Sure, the three boss goblins had been easy, but they were still just bosses of the first floor.

The second floor must be a sharp increase in danger level, nothing compared to the slight increase each time I delve the first floor. He could be wrong in his assumptions, but it was better to be safe than sorry. True, he was in a bit of a hurry to change his life, figure out the mysteries of the dungeon and assuming there were other people who could delve then he was in a sort of race with them, but it wasn’t worth dying over it.

Yet. But should I find proof of other dungeon entrances, and of other people with magical skills…

He shook his head and headed outside. He was not yet at full mana, unlike last time, and it was thanks to this that he realized that he was still regenerating a bit of mana every second even though he was standing outside in the sun. The entrance to the cave where the dungeon was located was behind him as he stopped in his tracks, his academic interest suddenly piqued by the discovery.

He strained himself trying to divine just how much he could regenerate while standing right outside the mouth of the cave. He emptied his mana pool several times over, using his healing aura on nothing at all, and after a while he was confident he got it figured out.

Regeneration is half the speed of the first room while right outside the cave.

Then he got a bit farther away and repeated the experiment, taking notes on his phone and using the GPS to calculate distances.

It drops by another half twenty yards away, and drops to zero fifty yards away. It wasn’t like this the first time around, though, was it?

He struggled to remember, forcing himself to re-live the uncomfortable memories of him and Josh walking back to the car. Indeed, back then he had been unable to regenerate mana at all, even right outside the dungeon.

Things are changing around the dungeon. This changes things for me too.

If this was true, even assuming this was the only dungeon in existence on Earth, sooner or later someone was bound to find something. Someone other than him. Which meant that, even in the best-case scenario, which he found harder and harder to believe was the true scenario, he still had a limited window of time to stay ahead of the curve, before someone else figured out the dungeon and started exploiting it like he did. Eventually it would become public knowledge, with all the issues that it would bring.

I need to work harder, but for that I need money and connections. Time to see if Old Dave wants to give me that job. He looks well connected, and is the only one I know anyway.

It was then that Michael got a pleasant surprise.

A reward, it seemed, for his hard work. I can gain skills this way, and even outside of the dungeon? This changes everything!

It was as if he had been living with his eyes closed for his entire life. Suddenly he could see, and what he saw was magnificent. Specks of colour, motes of mana fluttering in the wind, coming out of the dungeon like a myriad of iridescent fireflies. The sight was a gorgeous spectacle to be witnessed, and Michael felt awestruck and blessed to finally be able to see what he had never been able to see before.

With his eyes finally open to the arcane, he felt motivated to grow and experiment, the sight of mana bolstering and nurturing the flame of ambition in his heart. So many experiments popped up in his mind, so many things to do, and also so many worries now that Pandora’s box had been opened. Finally he could get answers to his questions, see if there was magic in the world at large, although he didn’t know whether he would like the answers he was going to get.