As the wind rushed against my head I took the opportunity to observe my surroundings, not that there was much to see, really. There was the occasional door frame on the wall, but besides that there was only smooth stone all the way below. There was no light source whatsoever, differently from the proper floors where the whole floor was illuminated with infrared light, the inky light in the tunnel was the light that came out of my body and reflected on the stone walls.

I was falling for so long that I had started to become bored before the narrow pit that scratched my scales and wings was replaced by a large open space that was only lit by my body light. I quickly opened my wings as far as they would go to slow down my fall, but I didn't have enough space to slow too much and I crashed into the stone floor belly first with a thump, losing almost 700 HP in a single moment and almost throwing up whatever the food I ate with the others had become on my stomach.

As I growled as the pain from the unwanted belly flop on the stone floor assaulted my mind and my stomach as its contents tried to escape. My stomach lost the battle against the food inside it and they forced their way up my throat and out of my mouth.

While I threw up, two things happened. The first thing is that I now knew what the things I ate became in my stomach as the only thing leaving my mouth was superheated plasma that wasn't dense enough to ignite the air around it like my blood did, but it was enough to make my face look like an active rocket engine. The second thing that happened I didn't actually notice it until after I threw up, but somewhere between I falling down and throwing up the lights of the place lit up, revealing a room the size of a soccer field with stone pads of a different material than the floor placed equidistant from each other for a total of 8 of them and two holes in the walls that are further apart. The holes in the walls reminded me of the manaball field Celeber and her team had set up using that magical pillar.

"Looks like we have a challenger" a voice said, coming from one end of the room.

I looked over only to see a human, and what looked like an oversized kobold and goblin. The three of them were standing in front of what looked like a stone door with a kind of control panel on the wall right next to the door. All three of them were wearing light-purple colored clothes that were so tight I could see things that I wasn't in the mood to be looking at.

"And what do we have here?" The giant kobold said as he bent down and picked up something on the floor.

As he got the thing up, I saw it was the medallion with the crystal the kobold leader had given me. I looked over at the paw that was holding it, but it was empty. The thing must have slipped my hand when I hit the floor and rolled over to them while I was distracted.

"The third floor key" the tall kobold said while looking at the medallion.

"Oh? So the upper floors have sent him? I'm looking forward to this hehehe" the tall goblin said.

"Guys, please. Our guest wants to say something, let him talk" the human said.

"Uhmm. Hi, who are you? And could you give that back, please?" I asked.

"We are your first trial to prove you're worth enough to be skipping so much of our wonderful dungeon's carefully planned and constructed floors" the human said.

"In this trial we will be testing your physical and magical strengths by a game the delvers call manaball they have given us for free" the goblin said.

“And this is the key for the trial to begin, if you didn’t have this with you, or in this case fallen with you, we would have to kill you as the dungeon doesn't like cheaters” The kobold said. “By the way, nice entrance. You broke the absorption plate that would break your fall and the floor around it”

I looked beneath me as I got up and saw what looked like a green slime spread all over me and on the ground, but after a few seconds it began dripping back on the ground and getting sucked by some kind of drain, that I almost broke as well as it was full of cracks, that stored it right beneath it.

“Sooo… Hi” I said, turning my head towards the trio again. “I’m Denaru, and I know this might be rude and all, but I just want to check something…”

“You’re talking about me being a human in a dungeon and not being a delver?” The human asked, to which I nodded in confirmation. “Ha, it has been a long time since someone asked this question last. But yes, I’m a human created by the dungeon. If memory serves me right, the first ones to ask this question said that they thought dungeons could only create monsters and all, but they’re dead wrong. Haha. No, no, dungeons can create any type of creature they want and are not limited in the slightest”

“Oh… I see. Thank you for answering” I said to him, which resulted in the goblin laughing.

“Now I understand why those guys on the third floor gave you the key. You’re the nicest delver who ever delved in this dungeon” He said.

“But anyways, you’re here and you brought the key for access to the Skipping Trials…I still hate this name… The Skipping Trials are the series of challenges to prove you are worthy to skip the upper floors and go straight into the 69th floor, one floor before the last built floor, the 70th” The kobold said then the human continued.

“Some delvers in the past have brought with them a “pocket field” from a game called manaball, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, and when they fell, the dungeon took this “pocket field” from their dimensional bag and adapted it for a true challenge worthy to be used when someone wants to skip the carefully constructed floors the dungeon has built” He said and then it was the goblin’s turn to speak.

“The rules are simple, there are no rules. Now, we need to be fair and all, but seeing how you tanked that fall and even damaged the floor underneath you, we don’t need to strictly follow the rules.” He said.

“Now, let’s begin” The kobold said as he threw the medallion with the crystal in the middle of the air.

As the medallion got near the center of the room, ropes made with magicules shot from the crystal and hit the four corners of the room. The entire room came to life as every part of the walls, floors and even the ceiling began shining with magic. Some of the stone pads lit up and a glowing orb appeared on top of them, while the hole in the wall lit up with a mesh-like light that was rainbow colored. Then, the crystal and the medallion shone and the light turned solid and wrapped around it then expanded in the shape of a sphere and began descending towards the floor as the light began losing some colors and the moment it touched the floor it had lost the majority of its colors, now it was a light brown color.

As the ball touched the floor, a buzz echoed throughout the room, signaling the start of the match as the game I played with Celeber and her team and Staash and Kora. The moment the match started, the trio began running at the ball.