[Welcome to Slosh’s lair.]
[Slosh’s lair: Rank E
Type: Normal
Clear condition: Kill the dungeon boss]
‘So, this is my first dungeon,’ Leo muttered as he opened his eyes and found himself in a small and circular cave barely five square meters. The walls were black and covered with strange fluorescent blue moss and blue mushrooms which were the only source of lighting inside the small cave. The cave ceiling was filled with long and sharp stalactites. From time to time, a water drop would roll from a stalactite and fall on the ground, filling the already uncomfortable cave with an annoying background noise and creating small puddles on the ground.
‘This place isn’t really suitable for a fight,’ he muttered as he carefully moved on the jagged and slippery floor. With the stalactites threatening to fall anytime and the narrow space, Leo could hardly imagine himself fighting in this place. Luckily for him, the cave he landed in was apparently some kind of safe zone and unlike what he expected, monsters did not swarm him as soon as he stepped into the dungeon.
‘Look like I will have to leave here if I want to fight anything,’ he thought as after scanning the cave one last time and finding nothing, he walked toward the only exit of the small cave, a long dark, and a narrow tunnel leading into the unknown. However, he barely took a few steps forward when he heard a weird splashing noise coming from his back. At first, it sounded just like another drop of water falling onto the ground but after a few fights, he was starting to develop the semblance of a danger sense and it told him to dodge.
Thus, without Leo jumped from his current position, only to feel a water bullet whiz past him. Surprised, he turned around and found a monster standing in the middle of one of the few puddles within the cave. It was a slime. Its twenty-centimeters tall body was seemingly made of water and had it not attacked, Leo could have never guessed that it was there.
‘Well, I guess I found another weak point of my elemental perception,’ he thought, now aware that he couldn’t feel something or someone that was within a body of water.
[Water Slime: Rank E
HP: 400/400 MP: 571/600
INT: 20 SPI: 18
Skills: Water bullet, Water blade
Affinity: Water]
‘Insight is really useful,’ he thought happily as he dodged another water bullet. Unlike with appraisal which only showed the rank and the health point of the target, he was able to gather more useful data with insight. Not only did it show the mana capacity, but it also showed the main attributes of the target and even uncovered some of their skills. Even though he couldn’t access the details of the skills yet, what was shown was more than enough to guess a lot of things.
In this short confrontation, he was able to guess that the slime could only fire 20 water bullets with its mana capacity, recovered 1 MP every 5 seconds, and could only use a water bullet every 3 seconds. While he didn’t need any of this to defeat that weak slime, it could make an otherwise tough fight to win into an easy one. And it would only get better as he could guess that the data he would be able to gather would only increase as the skill level up.
Satisfied with the results of his test, Leo activated wind manipulation and tried to create a wind bullet. Gathering a small amount of wind particles, he compressed them and shaped them like a bullet before throwing it at the slime. With its poor mobility, the slime couldn’t only watch helplessly as the wind bullet created a hole in the middle of its body and turned its core into dust. With its core destroyed, the water forming the body of the slime lost its support and fell on the ground with a loud splash.
‘Hum, I didn’t receive any reward. I guess I should have expected that,’ Leo thought as he made sure there wasn’t any slime hidden within the remaining water puddles.
Once it was done, he walked into the tunnel leading outside. Only that, he was more cautious now that he was aware of the sneaky nature of the monsters inside this dungeon. He could have activated elemental perception, but he wanted to train his normal perception and not rely too much on elemental perception. And this dungeon where the monsters didn’t pose a great threat but had impressive stealth was the best choice.
He barely took a few steps within the tunnel when another slime emerged from a puddle he was walking by and tried to sneak attack him. Fortunately, he was already expecting such a situation and instantly dodged the sneaky bullet before sending his own toward the slime. However, before he could rejoice, he heard a bouncing sound, and a brown slime flew toward him at high-speed. Easily, he dodged the flying slime only to turn around and see it coming back toward him. Even more impressive was the fact that the slime speed seemed to have improved compared to its first attack.
Curious, he decided to not attack the slime and just keep dodging. It was only after executing a total of five bouncing attacks, that the slime stopped, having reached its limit. Fortunately, by the time it reached its fifth attack, its speed almost tripled and he was almost unable to dodge by relying on his normal speed alone.
[Bouncing Slime: Rank E
HP: 570/600 MP: 300/350
CONS: 20 AGI: 17
Skills: Momentum accumulation, Homing
Affinity: Earth]
‘The momentum accumulation should be how it increases its speed and the homing should be how it keeps coming toward me,’ Leo thought as he saw the skills of the slime.
‘Luxia, tell me what would happen if I died inside a dungeon?’ Leo asked as it only took him those two fights to understand that it would have been exceedingly hard to complete this dungeon with the strength he had back then. It was even possible that he would die. It was only because his current power was far beyond the scope of the dungeon that everything seemed so easy.
[You can exit the dungeon any time you want, so there is no risk that you die unless you make a foolish decision. Also, if your health falls under 5% you will be forcefully ejected from the dungeon. If despite that, you do find a way to die, it will be over. It’s that simple,] Luxia explained.
‘I see, I guess I can thank you. Though, isn’t it a little difficult,’ Leo mumbled as it would have been hard.
[Well, the dungeons aren’t meant to give you an easy way around. They are here to challenge you and make you give your best. Besides, it’s only difficult if you try to rely on raw strength only,] Luxia said.
‘You aren’t wrong. Even though they look tough, both are easy targets since one just stays in place and the other literally flies straight toward you,’ Leo mumbled as he stopped dodging the bouncing slime and sent a wind bullet toward its core. However, surprisingly he actually missed it as the bouncing slime showed an interesting ability to shift the position of its core. Another thing was that his attack interrupted the slime wanton charge.
Without hesitation, he sent another wind bullet toward the core and this time, the slime who had its skills on countdown was unable to dodge and was easily killed.
After killing that second slime, Leo continued to walk inside the tunnel and met three other pairs of water slime and bouncing slime. He easily killed the three pairs and only used the same attack, Wind bullet, to do so. By the time he reached the end of the tunnel, he wasn’t hit a single time and could instantly cast wind bullets.
Satisfied with his progress, he stepped into the small cave where four water slimes were waiting for him.
‘I thought I was going to meet a mini-boss,’ Leo thought, a little disappointed that he had to fight against mobs once again.
‘At least, give me four bouncing slimes. It would have been challenging then,’ he thought as he stepped into the cave. However, as he walked halfway through the cave, he felt like something was a little off and hurriedly stepped back, only to see the floor where he was about to walk turn into a slime almost as big as himself. Unfortunately, while he didn’t step into the slime trap, he didn’t react fast enough and a part of his paw that touched the slime’s body was slightly burned.
‘Guess this was indeed a mini-boss level,’ he thought as he looked at the big green blob in front of him.
[Toxic Slime: Rank E
HP: 900/900 MP: 735/750
CONS: 30 INT: 25
Skills: Toxic bullet, Corrosive body
Affinity: Water, Poison]
‘This one looks a little bit tricky. I wonder if I can defeat it using wind bullets only,’ Leo thought, as five tentacles emerged from the slime’s body.
‘Tentacles! Corrosion! Training be damned,’ he thought as he remembered a kind of art he would never be able to enjoy again. At that thought, he let go of any idea of fighting the slime and immediately wrecked it in the most efficient way possible, leaving behind four astounded water slimes.
‘Sorry guys, but he got the wrong dungeon.'
Thank you for the chapter.