(Feeling better now, Jared?)

(A bit, Elly. That fight was exhausting. At least mentally. Physically I don't get exhausted anymore.)

(Say, I didn't see a system manage when you killed that boss, neither did your exp increase nor did you get any loot.)

(I got none either and I honestly don't care. I would be dead if I didn't kill her that way. And getting out of here alive obviously has priority over maximizing every little exp gain.)

(Okay, I'm fine with that as well. So when you're up to it you may want to finally take the fifth Blood Mage level.)

(Yeah, right, there was that. Almost forgot over that stressful encounter.)

(Oh god, I see a glitched name. Please no... Well, let's see what that new skill is...)

(What should I think of this, Elly? The damage is low and it is super expensive. Couldn't even use it as I am right now.)

(At least the area is three times as big as for your regular area spells and it doesn't hurt allies?)

(All zero of them are safe, yay. I don't think I even have a way to inflict bleed currently.)

(Maybe the final skill ties all of those skills together, Jared?)

(Maybe, maybe not. You said that elite classes like Blood Mage expect that I already have a fitting base class so it is possible that the key skill to get the most out of this class is simply on a class I don't have but should've. The strange class core just let me bypass that requirement to my potential detriment.)

(We could look for it if you want.)

(Eh, I'll wait what the level 15 skill is. If that seems worth looking for the missing base class I'll consider it otherwise I'll just take it like another two dead skills. Well, the stun chance even if low isn't a total waste. At least it doesn't waste the more important MP.)

(Say, Elly, that last boss had a lot of classes at level 5 - did you see any that might be worth aiming for? That might be more important than looking for a way to maximize the damage of a skill I can't even use with my current SP pool.)

(Actually yes. One of the classes had the [Ailment Boost] you were looking for. Give me a second... there it is.)

(I guess I can't take this right now, Elly?)

(Correct. Should I note it down for later?)

(Not sure. I wanted to prioritize [Ailment Boost] because I was under the assumption that I'd still be fighting the flood as the main immediate problem. In here a 2 to 3 percent higher chance to land a status effect probably doesn't amount to much. I think having some minions in the form of summons would help much more in keeping me alive.)

(True, I think the same.)

(And the [Curse Magic] seems less useful than what I already have; regular magic already lets me inflict a status as a secondary effect. So what's the point exactly? I can use 130 MP to inflict a status at a rate of 80 as a side effect currently.)

(I think the main difference is that you still have to hit with your current spell. This would be a guaranteed hit.)

(Yeah, not too big of a gain. You know what, note it down for later. A summoner variant has still priority but if I get out of here before gaining that class we can talk again about it.)

(Sure, makes sense. Also, I'm curious, Jared. Where'd you learn to fight like that? I mean when you fought the angel or the boss in melee. It didn't look too amateurish to me.)

(Not sure. I wanna say I did some kendo when I was younger I have some faint memories of that. But that would at best translate to some skill with a sword, maybe barely to staff or sword but certainly not with claws. And then there's the weirdness with the truth gem which makes me doubt my own memories...)

(Sorry for bringing this up then.)

(I don't mind. We've already established that I won't regain those memories and they've likely messed with my mind in some fashion when reincarnating me, otherwise I wouldn't be able to drink blood like this. But really? I think those fighting instincts come automatically when you have the relevant skill. They are called 'training' after all. Gain the skill and get the experience of several years' worth of training for free, why not? And it is not like we've already seen that at least monsters have a skill that openly admits that it messes with their mind, so why shouldn't any passive skill that grants 'training' do the same?)

(Yeah that makes some sense.)

My HP, MP and SP are full again so I get up and set out again to make progress on the next floors.

Down to floor 70 all monsters have already been defeated by the boss. I've still no clue what was up with that. No other time did monsters attack each other, not even when I helped with charm... I guess we can now officially forget the idea that there are ANY rules for bosses to follow except for being tough to deal with.

The next area changes from the jungle-ish area to an open plane area.

On the nice numbered floor I see a grandpa gathering, crooked backs, canes and all. Though the yellow skin color doesn't look healthy.

Well, I was wondering where the glitch monsters are hiding, here they are.

There are about thirty old men in total. The strongest seems to be...

I doubt I can break through their defense with area spells, at least they are walking as slowly as old men want to do. So how much does my single target spell do?

They will take ages to wear down... and just like the previous monster with a glitch class or race, they don't care about the safe zone barrier.

I kite them through the floors and keep my distance. Overall only a third of my spells manage to trigger the damage over time effect. Their high stats or level do a lot of work on protecting them from that.

A few times I get the opportunity to cycle around one of the gramps, they turn as slow as they walk but my claws also do little damage.

"4̵̳̋f̷̩̑7̶̻̃7̷̮̒2̷̯́c̵̟̓2̸͉͝0̶̩̏ ̸̭̕6̶̢̃d̸̙̀7̸̼̔9̷̯̏2̵̻̈0̴̼̐ ̸̪̚6̴̮̓2̶̬́6̷̺̏1̶͕͒6̷̹̄3̵͓̈6̶͍̄b̶̫͝2̴̞̂1̶̞͌ ̵͙͋"

And no matter what I do I don't manage to inflict a critical hit. Don't they have any weak spots? Gramps, if you're that heartless you're in the wrong series! This isn't KH!

Once I try to end one with a bite but my fangs fail to pierce their skin.

Soon I give up the hit and run approach and just let the status deal with the whole work. Between the pure number of opponents and low infliction rate, I need a total of about one hundred spell casts. Thanks to their slow walking speed I can run a bit ahead and sneak in some reading in between herding the flock through the floors.

The whole ordeal takes five days and leaves me at 1392/2578 exp if I want to level a regular class to 6 next.

Most of the old men left me regular items; barely any of the common food items or materials but more of the rarer stuff like sugar, too bad I can't taste it.

Two of them... left behind glitch items, both land in the same inventory slot, so they seem to be the same. Their nameplate reads I̷̱̋t̶̟̆e̴̺̿m̴͈͝:̵͖̃Ṇ̸͗ŭ̴͚l̵̺̒l̶̯̒P̵̩͐ǫ̷̉i̵̢̔n̷̹̏t̶̘͂e̷̘͘r̶͓͒E̵̯̐r̶̳͌r̷̝̆ȯ̵͓ŕ̴͈, is that the same stuff that gave me the 'Class Core EX'?

I move my regular class core into the sixth inventory slot and... yep, they behave the same as before.

(Don't do it, Jared! Think before you do anything funny with those things!)

(Huh? Uh, right, sorry, Elly. I was just curious if it offered a different class this time.)

(Just ignore it, please. You almost died from the feedback last time and the class you got out of it wasn't worth it so far.)

(Yeah, true. And we don't have any new items to put into slot 6 to see what we get instead.)

Overall this section seems to be the 'glitch floors'. 68 through 64 are generally like the standard floors I've gotten used to but contain one or two glitch monsters as well. Also, huge chunks of the floor are 'hacker panels' again. Most of the glitch monsters died by running into those and then exploding. I'm SO not touching those squares!

Floor 63 though has a few hundred glitched fire elementals. This can only end in disaster!

Or laughter... uh, thanks for the free victory?

I carefully step forward but none of the green fire monsters makes any movement besides having spasms from... being a flame out of water. This is a bizarre sight alright.

With that slaughter out of the way, I've already gathered a total of 26 of those glitch items.

(Elly, any reason why I shouldn't use one of the glitch cores in the inventory? By the description, it shouldn't give me a class but at least level up vampire and silver elf.)

(No idea, I have a bad feeling about those items. But the description agrees with your assessment. Hmm... if you really want to try it only use one and then check thoroughly what has changed.)

(Yeah, I'll do that.)

This time I don't take the core out but use it directly in the inventory. The item is gone, no pain. I check my status. HP, MP and SP are still full, Silver Elf has risen to level 2, nothing else has happened?

(I neither feel anything out of the ordinary nor do I see anything off in my status. You?)

(Everything seems fine from my end as well.)

If one is fine, more should be okay as well. Thanks for the free levels.

And another?

(Too bad. I'd have liked some more levels. Silver Elf and Vampire don't give too much but every little bit helps. At least I don't have to waste exp on them to get here.)

(Though that still doesn't enable you to take any of the targeted classes.)

(Maybe not but I'm at least a big step closer. That was over fifty thousand exp I don't have to earn first.)

(I watched the exp requirements and the sum is closer to fifty-four thousand.)

(Even better then. Too bad I can't transfer that exp to a more useful class...)

(Speaking of exp, Elly, these last few floors were a lot more densely populated than the floors before. Did we run into a difficulty spike?)

(If so we should be happy that it is still in an exploitable fashion, Jared. The dungeon could just throw a dozen bosses at us at the same time. Low level if they are on a level budget of sorts. The ant queen showed us that boss encounters are not limited to every tenth floor.)

(Yeah, true. So just random bullshit?)

(At this point... no idea. The previous dungeon seemed organized enough that we had a rough idea of what each floor would be like difficulty-wise. Here? Anything seems to go.)

This makes me think it isn't unrelated to how we got here.

(Elly, do you think it has to do with our unscheduled intrusion?)

(What do you mean?)

(Supposedly you can enter only one dungeon per week. And of course, you go through the front entrance, starting on floor 1. We broke both of those... 'rules'. We were forced on a second trip in the same week and started basically in the middle of the dungeon.)

(I'm not sure I follow what you're getting at, Jared.)

(My suspicion is that this basically caused two overlapping 'dungeon instances' because the previous one wasn't cleared up yet. Like memory in a computer until it is rebooted.)

(So they put a dungeon instance in a spot of 'memory' that wasn't yet reset and the dungeon generating mechanics interact in a funny way with the garbage values?)

(That is what I think, Elly.)

(Hmm... but if that was the case I find it unlikely that no one else had that experience with getting banished like us before.)

(So what? I was LUCKY that I can regenerate HP and MP without sleeping, most others can't. And then they also have to deal with limited food. I only have a chance now because Eva gave me all those blood supplies. A regular person wouldn't just randomly have a year's supply of food on them. Random ingredient drops can only get you so far, all of that would be raw stuff, possibly poisonous until properly prepared. And of course, the attacker would just think they are in a proper different world as they intended so how would they find the difference?)

(We've been very lucky so far, huh?)

(Way too much so. And eventually it will run out. I need to get my shit together and stop being saved by dumb luck over and over.)

(Don't worry we'll get that sorted out, Jared.)

Floor 62 contains a regular mixture of wolves again. Seems like we're through with glitch monsters for now.

Floor 61... is empty?

I look around but no one is home, [Appraise] picks up nothing as well. Sure, why not.

On floor 60 I'm greeted by the usual boss doors. Behind them I see two armored figures, one with a big sword, the other with a spear but otherwise identical.

Damn, so there is no cap at 99.999 HP...
Are any of their skills important?

Doesn't seem like it.
I open with a magic attack, this time it doesn't fizzle out.

They run towards me but are a lot slower than the previous boss so I just run away for a few floors until they are stopped by the safe zone barrier. From there the rest is business as usual.

Ornstein and Smough they ain't.

I throw several more spells at them from the safety of the zone to accelerate the damage ticks. Despite that, they still need almost 28 hours to succumb to the damage from the cold.

(Oh, hey, you just got access to a new title! 'Honorless'...)

(Don't want it.)

(I didn't even tell you what it does.)

(The name already tells me enough to say no, end of discussion.)

Outtakes: some ideas for the Blood Mage 5 that didn't make it

3QGN73

The hardest part of this chapter? Finally making a skill up for level 5 Blood Mage that doesn't trivialize the remaining plot.