**Alert** Impact Resistance has gained the evolution Rejection

Following the tunnel deeper into the dungeon just reinforced the fact that it was way bigger on the inside. The outside of the dungeon was only a twenty-foot wide dome, but inside he had already traveled a few hundred feet without traveling down at all.

The walls of the tunnel were made of the same dense bush structure as the outside dome.

A thin fog blocked his ability to see deeper into the tunnel. Gradually, the fog became thicker the further he went. From deeper in the dungeon, he heard the sounds of light rain along with frogs and crickets.

When the tunnel finally opened up, Jack couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of himself. The tunnel walls stretched far into the fog to his sides and above him. He had a feeling this place was massive.

The ground was covered in tall grass that reached his knees. Short thin trees, with splotches of pale moss, were littered around the area. The fog cut off his vision of the very top of the trees, but their branches were bare and hung low to the ground as if the trees had lost their will to live.

Jack took a step forward. He felt cold liquid run down his leg as he brushed against the grass. The light raindrops splashed onto his bare head and shoulders, helping the chilling air sink deep into his bones. His feet would sink slightly and gave a loud squelching sound when he lifted them up. He walked slowly, pressing his staff firmly into the ground ahead of him, wary of a sinkhole or something like quicksand.

He followed along the left wall to avoid getting lost and to get an idea of how large this dungeon was.

Hyper-aware of his surroundings in case he was ambushed, Jack was surprised when, after a few minutes of walking, he saw a faint light through the fog. Remembering how the angler bulb would lure in its prey, instead of going towards the light, Jack turned around, retracing his steps back to the tunnel, and then started following the right side to avoid the area. The only issue with that was after about the same distance he saw more lights, all tiny and very dim through the fog.

Since he didn’t want to travel towards the center just yet he decided to be proactive about this potential ambush. He pulled a ball bearing from his inventory and threw it towards one of the lights. He heard a plop as it seemed to sink into water. After waiting for a response for a minute, he cautiously made his way forward.

The fog revealed a large body of water blocking the path following the bush-wall. The lights he saw were actually just fireflies floating over the water. Identify confirmed they were just a regular insect at level zero. Underneath the water, he caught a glimpse of an average frog as well. When he had first heard the croaking, he had an uncomfortable flashback to when the soft toads attacked Lucy. She either didn’t notice the sound of the animal that almost killed her or she didn’t care. Feelings of fascination rolled off of her as she stared at the glowing bugs.

Poking the extending pole into the water, he saw that it was about mid-thigh deep for the first five feet then there was a drop-off that reached down over thirty feet, he couldn’t find out more because that was the limit of how long he could make the pole.

The water stretched out perpendicular to the wall, making it as far as he could go to this side of the dungeon without jumping in. He suspected that there would be a similar water obstacle if he returned to the left side of the dungeon.

That left him with two options. Keep following the wall and get in the water that definitely didn’t have powerful monsters waiting below to drown and eat him, or go towards the center of the dungeon in vision-obscuring mist where he won’t get turned around and never be able to find the exit. Such tempting choices.

He walked back to the tunnel to recenter himself. If he was running a game and wanted to cause confusion and have the players lose their way, this would be a scenario he would cook up. Though his players would see through this and try to take precautions.

Maybe tie a rope to the entrance so they wouldn’t get lost? The one rope he had was only one-hundred feet long.

Use a compass to know which way is out? He pulled out his compass expecting it to be freaking out since it had been pointing towards the dungeon this entire time and now he was in it. Instead, it pointed straight towards what he assumed was the center of the dungeon. He moved it around and walked back and forth and sure enough it would turn towards the center no matter where he was.

While he would love to rely on this tool, it already let him astray once and he wouldn’t let that happen again. Plus, if it always pointed to the center, walking ‘south’ would only lead him towards the closest edge, not to the exit.

An idea suddenly popped into his head though. He pulled out one of his tactical folding knives and walked to the nearest tree, and carved a large X into it. Carving it was surprisingly easy, the bark was thin and the wood soft. He then walked to the farthest tree he could see going towards the center. Once he made it to the next tree, he looked back, confirming he could see his mark.

All he would have to do is leave a trail of marked trees to find his way back.

Now that he knew he had a way to navigate, he had two things he wanted to test. First, he tried to climb the wall, but the tiny branches of the bush-wall would snap once he put any weight on it. After the damage, the wall would quickly repair itself, growing back what had broken off.

Unclimbable and it would be hard to break through. Noted.

Next, he put Lucy down and leapt up, shielding his head in case he hit the ceiling. Thirty feet up and he still didn’t see a sign of the roof.

With everything done, he headed deeper into the dungeon.

Your party has slain 3 Frogs Level: 1

Your contribution 90%

You are awarded 21 Experience.

He scanned their surroundings as Lucy finished off a frog. He was stunning them by hitting them with his staff and leaving Lucy to attack them, in an attempt to let her get more experience. Unfortunately, his contribution seemed to be way too high for it to get her any real benefit.

They had been looking for over an hour and still hadn’t found anything besides bugs and the occasional frog. To be fair, they had been going pretty slow to avoid being surprised. As Jack was considering digging up some bugs to smash heard wet footsteps.

Jack quickly went into a defensive stance and waited as the squishing sound of something walking got closer.

Breaking through the fog looked to be a pale white bobcat. Wrapped around its body was a blood-red vine with small flower buds every few inches. One end of the vine seemed to grow out of the cat’s spine about halfway down its back. Starting from the spine, it curled around its torso and went up towards its head, it wrapped once around its neck and snaked up the side of its face where it seemed to be growing behind the bobcat’s eyeball, nearly popping it out of the socket.

Bobcat Budding Titan Drone Level: 7 Current mood: N/A

Once a free and wild creature, now just a walking incubator and fertilizer.

The Budding Titan Drone slowly drains the life out of its still living host.

It's one motivation in life is to bring back living victims to its parent to convert into new hosts.

Once the host is near death a Budding Titan Drone will make its way home to be devoured by its parent.

Age: 6 months

Highest Attribute: Dexterity

Highest Skill: Poison Fang Mastery

Upon seeing them, the bobcat dashed forward with a glazed look in its eyes. Luckily for Jack, the mud slowed its approach so much that he had plenty of time to line up an attack. His staff smashed into the side of its face in a direct hit empowered by his Hydraulic Strike. The cat didn’t even try to dodge. He heard a crack of breaking bone as the creature was thrown to the side, landing on the soft earth.

The cat immediately got back up, its jaw hanging loosely and obviously broken. It wasted no time in lunging towards Jack. Surprised by the sheer aggression of the monster, his next strike was a little too late. The cat got past his guard and was able to get a single swipe of its claw to land on his exposed leg before Jack’s attack knocked it away.

Wincing in pain, Jack followed up his attack by smashing his staff into the bobcat’s head until it caved in and he got a notification that it was dead.

Your party has slain a Bobcat Budding Titan Drone Level: 7

Your contribution 100%

You are awarded 18 Experience.

Jack’s heart was pounding. He quickly looked and listened for anything else nearby. Once he determined he was alone, his face broke into a smile. All his practice with his staff finally paid off. Before his attacks were horribly clumsy and inaccurate, but that first hit went off perfectly.

Yeah, his second attack was a little late, but that was only because the thing was so aggressive it took him off guard. He’d have thought that a broken jaw would have deterred it at least a little. That actually reminded him. He bent down to look at the scratch on his leg. It was a shallow cut with a bit of blood dripping down his leg, but the real problem was a thick yellow liquid that was smeared on his leg and in his wound. “Shit.”

He pulled out his first aid kit, cleaning and bandaging the wound, but he had no idea what to do about poison.

**Skill Up** Medicine Level 2

He walked over and looked at the bobcat’s claws. The claws had the same liquid practically oozing out of its claws. A glance at its mouth showed its entire mouth was coated in the substance.

**Alert** You have been poisoned

He pulled up his afflictions

Ichor of the Blooming Corpse Titan - Minor Paralysis

-1 Dexterity

Jack’s eyes went wide. This must be how they bring back their victims alive. So while he wasn’t too worried it would kill him, he was worried about being stuck out in the open with no way to defend himself. After calling Lucy to him, he ran back towards the entrance to wait out the poison.

As he was running, he felt a tingling sensation as if his scratched leg was falling asleep. Then he began to gradually lose feeling in his leg radiating out from the wounded area. As it numbed, his leg slowly stopped responding to him, fortunately by the time this happened he had the entrance in sight.

The poison stayed in his system for around a half-hour, where in the last ten minutes feeling and function slowly came back to him. The paralysis effect also stayed localized in his injured leg, the numbness stopping near his hip.

**Skill Unlocked ** Poison Resistance Would you like to learn this skill

Without hesitating, he replaced Baking with Poison Resistance. He didn’t know if he would keep the skill in the long run but he needed every advantage he could get while he was grinding in this dungeon.

He returned to where he fought the bobcat to continue examining the body.

Before getting really close to the dead cat, he poked it a few times with his pole to make sure it wasn’t just waiting to jump out at him. You can never be too sure with plant-zombie things. The side of its head was bashed in and revealed parts of its brain. Across its brain were little vein-like crimson roots.

With a silent ‘thank you for your forethought’ to Jay, he pulled out a pair of thick rubber gloves and a tactical knife. Its entire brain was filled with these roots; they all originated from the vine going behind its eyeball.

First, he tried pulling the vine out of its skull, but the roots were incredibly tough and wouldn’t be easily pulled out. Trying to cut it off revealed that the root was also resistant to blades.

After some clumsy sawing with his knife, he broke the skin of the vine. Once the skin broke, a wine-colored sap seeped out of the opening. Assuming it was also poisonous, Jack left it alone and cleaned off his knife.

Inspecting the flower bulbs, Jack used his knife to peel back the bundled petals, making sure to aim where it would open away from himself. Sure enough, as soon as the flower’s center was exposed, a dozen tiny needles shot out flying almost ten feet.

The opened flower looked similar to a small sunflower, except the petals were thick and spongy with a grey, red color that reminded him of ground beef that had begun to oxidize. Instead of seeds in the center, there were small black pods. Most of the pods were intact but about a dozen had burst, dripping yellow ichor, just like the cat had on its fangs and claws.

Still keeping his face far out of the way, he pressed one of the pods with the end of his knife, causing it to burst and shoot a needle into the distance. He folded the petals back over the flower and moved on.

The end of the vine growing into its spine was very similar to the one in the brain. Tough and rooted in.

Grabbing a thermal blanket, he removed the vine and wrapped it up. Using his scimitar, he cut off its paws as well, depositing everything into his inventory. Now that he had poison resistance, he needed some way to grind it up in a safe way. Since the paralyzing poison didn’t seem to do damage, it seemed like the perfect candidate for the job. He might even be able to figure out a way to use the ichor in an attack against other creatures as well.

Over the next couple of days, Jack swept the outskirts of the dungeon. Slowly moving in. Most of the day was spent hunting for small critters and bugs to grind up Lucy’s level before they went deeper in where the dungeon was presumably more dangerous.

Occasionally, they would stumble upon a budding titan drone of some kind. Some more bobcats, a few low level rabbits, a handful of boars, and an alligator once.

The alligator was level thirteen, but it was also on land and like the rest of the drones mindlessly aggressive. It was fairly simple, if not time-consuming, to kite around it, attacking its head until it died.

After killing a drone, he would collect their claws and vines, so far he had collected fourteen vines. Since the first one, none of the drones have actually hit him.

Once he was tired for the day, he would go back to the tunnel and cut himself on the arm with a claw. The poison wasn’t painful at all; it reminded him of being numbed at the dentist. He would then rest while the poison ran its course. Each skill up reduced how long it would last and how much a single scratch would affect him.

When poison resistance hit level four, it took two cuts with a claw to fully paralyze his arm.

Sometimes he would practice with his staff while one arm was out of commission, just in case he was hit again. He even tried this a few times while paralyzing a leg, although it was extremely difficult to swing his staff without losing his balance.

Lucy was rapidly improving her combat capabilities. Well, at least vs frogs and the occasional rabbit. True to her jumping spider nature, she would stalk her prey and pounce on them, sinking her fangs into them before they knew what was happening. Her venom would ravage their body, liquefying them from the inside out.

He shuddered a bit, remembering how the boss spider’s poison ate away at him before he was petrified.

Hydraulic Assist finally showed its worth as she easily overpowered her prey, pinning them down as they tried to escape. After she took out a small rabbit, he had her test the limit of her strength by lifting some rocks and branches. She could lift around two-and-a-half pounds, which was amazing considering she only weighed about a third of a pound. The best part though was watching her lift up a rock twice her size with her palps and front two legs and carry it around like a tiny spider version of Atlas.

Looking at her sheets, he went over the progress she had made.

Name Lucifer Race ManaWeaver Age 25 Days Level 4 Health 15/15 Stamina 7.5/7.5 Experience 14/400 Strength 2 Dexterity 4 Endurance 3 Vitality 6 Perception 3 Available Attribute Points 1 Skills Hydraulic Assist Lvl 7 Poison Fang Mastery Lvl 5 Hair Manipulation Lvl 4 (14) Sneak Lvl 4 Web Weaving Lvl 2 Unlocked Skills Burrow, Grapple

Somehow all of the attributes went up by one. He had to assume it was because she was still a baby and growing. Either that or the reason manaweavers only received one attribute point was because they would gain some for free at certain levels. He put her available point into vitality, as usual.

Now to evolve her fang mastery.

**Alert** New Skill Evolution Available Choose one Piercing Spraying Reinforced