James was currently in the dungeon.

After he got out of school, he played some video games with his friends, ate dinner, and then went to bed. His parents thought he was ill; for two days in a row, he had gone to bed really early, at around 8 or so. Before, he would always be up until 10 or 11, playing video games online. They came into his room with a thermometer and checked his temperature, but they didn’t find anything wrong. James was still completely conked out on his bed.

“Shhhh,” said Mama Lu. “Let’s just let him sleep.”

His parents simply left the room, taking care to be especially quiet. They didn’t know that even if they ran into his room banging pots and pans, he wouldn’t even budge. After all, his consciousness was elsewhere, stabbing goblins.

It was about 2 o’clock at night, and he had swept the 1st floor three times. Considering that he had started at around 8, it was about 2 hours per floor, including resting and selling his magic stones. James wanted to be a bit faster, however. His goal on the 1st floor wasn’t to make money. It was to collect orbs. Orbs of strength would give him a much needed stat boost, allowing him to clear upper floors more safely. Given the struggle he had gone through when he first cleared the 1st floor, he wasn’t so eager to jump right into the 2nd.

However, James had cleared the 1st floor thrice today, and hadn’t gotten a single orb. Had he been lucky the first two times? James couldn’t tell. He knew orbs were very rare drops, but he also knew his luck stat was abnormal. At any rate, the best solution was for James to find a way to clear the 1st floor faster.

“Hmmm, well, I’m still advancing stealthily, in order to be able to launch a sneak attack.  But, given that I can beat the 1st goblin in the boss with relative ease now, I wonder if that’s necessary at all.”

He would save a lot of time traveling through the dungeon if he stopped trying to hid the sound of his footsteps.

“Let’s try it.”

James entered the 1st floor again, and instead of using his careful, slow pace, he set out a brisk walking pace. James didn’t run. He didn’t want to tire himself out, and his running speed was kind of terrible. He did take caution when approaching corners, though. He didn’t want to round a bend at subsonic speed just to find a group of goblins waiting.

“Well well well, would you look at that,” James thought to himself. “I’m gonna get the sneak attack anyways.”

The first goblin James met was just around a bend, so when James approached it, he was moving quietly. The goblin didn’t notice him as he peeked around the corner.

James did his usual thing, and followed his 3 usual steps to victory. “Stab enemy. Repeat till enemy is dead. Repeat for all enemies.” He leapt out and stabbed the goblin. It died, so there was no need for step 2. And, this goblin was alone, so there was no need for step 3 either.

James put the magic stone in his bag. This storage bag was useful, and saved James the trouble of lugging around his spoils of war. So far, the maximum number of goblins in 1 clear of the 1st floor had been around 20. The magic stones for all that amounted to about 10 fistfuls of stuff. That was quite annoying to carry around, and the storage bag relieved this burden. However, James still felt like he wasn’t using the bag to its full potential. After all, it could carry 100 pounds of stuff!

James was thinking about this when he met a pair of goblins. Before, he had always dealt with pairs by surprising one of them, and then dealing with the other. This time, because he wasn’t hiding his presence, they noticed him. Now, he had to fight two of them at once. But, James was quite confident for some reason.

The first goblin stabbed at him with its nails.

 “Ah yes,” thought James. “You are following the 3 Steps to Victory. Unfortunately for you, I am a master practitioner of this technique! You stand no chance!”

James stabbed the first goblin and it died. Thus, there was no need for Step 2, Stab the Enemy Again. However, the 2nd goblin also attacked him. This called for Step 3! James pulled his knife out of the goblin and sidestepped the goblin’s lunge with one fluid motion. Then, James applied step 1 again and stabbed the goblin as it was sailing by. The goblin died. The 3 Steps to Victory had delivered once more!

“I think I’ve gotten better at the 3 Steps to Victory lately. Mmm, this is the result of dedicated work and practice.”

James was thinking this as he waited for the bodies of the goblins to disappear into lights. Of course, he wasn’t actually serious.

“Oh nice! An orb!”

Indeed, on the ground was 2 magic stones and an orb of strength. It was a tier 1 orb, because it dropped from a tier 1 goblin. James wiped it clean, and then swallowed it. The expected pain came, but James was ready for it, and managed not to cry. Every time he ate one of these orbs, the pain he felt became less and less, because the difference in stats was becoming less and less. James pulled out his dungeon card and checked his status.

{STR: 10

 DEF: 2

 END: 2

 AGI: 2

 INT: 42

 LUK: 27*$!9}

It was as expected. The strength stat simply increased by 1. James put his card back and continued walking.

====================

James had speed ran the entire floor without mishap and was now outside the boss room.

“Hmmm. Now, how do I deal with the boss? I can clear it normally, but it really tires me out, and I need to rest for a bit before heading into the floor again.”

James pondered. The boss fight itself didn’t take long, but it was taxing on James’ body and mind. He didn’t think there were many good ideas. Actually, from what he’d heard from Mike, he was doing the boss fight rather quickly, compared to most standards. Was he being too greedy? Then, James thought of a good idea.

“That boss goblin doesn’t move until you kill the first goblin. The first time I cleared the 1st floor, I incapacitated the goblin without killing it. Then, I just threw the potion vial at it. Could I instead attack it in that time?”

James wondered why he hadn’t thought of that before. If this worked, he could defeat the 1st floor boss with ease! This was the ultimate speed running strategy!