Solomon didn't head straight for the center of the floor. First, he salvaged the metal from the spear that had been destroyed in killing the final lion. With his molding ability it was simple enough to reshape a spearhead. He then harvested some wood from the dungeon's forest and put together a new spear. It didn't look as nice as the one he had built from the materials Mort sold him, but it at least gave him a chance to kill monsters without getting up close and personal.

He had no intention of letting the dungeon catch him unawares. As it happened, his re-entry to the clearing at the center of the level was almost disappointing. The system didn't hit him with a final boss rising from underground, nor did it teleport him to a bonus death match. Instead, he was confronted with a simple stone plinth at the center of the clearing. He was pretty sure that it hadn't been there before.

Atop the plinth was a glowing ball of light. He was absolutely sure that that hadn't been there before.

He took a few steps closer and poked at the light with his spear. No reaction. He sighed and bit the bullet, walking up to the plinth and touching the ball of light with his hand.

Congratulations on clearing the first floor!

100 dungeon coins have been deposited to your account!

400 additional dungeon coins have been awarded for being the first to clear this floor!

How would you like to proceed?

- Continue to the second floor!

- Exit the dungeon.

Startled, Solomon patted his pockets. He didn't think he'd just been given any coins. Then he realized he was forgetting how the system worked. Pulling up his inventory screen revealed a line he hadn't noticed before, under the little windows showing the items he was holding.

D$500

He concentrated for a moment, and a small dungeon coin appeared in his hand. Just like the ones Mort had showed him. The counter on his screen had ticked down to four hundred and ninety nine. He put the coin back, bringing his balance back to five hundred.

It was a little creepy that the system could just dump something into his inventory like that. Then again, the whole concept of an inventory was some kind of pocket dimension managed by the system. The whole process worked under physical principles he couldn't begin to understand, managing a currency whose intrinsic value was based on some kind of mystical mumbo jumbo. It wasn't that different from online banking.

The more pressing concern was what he was going to do now. If he was going to stick to whatever schedule Mort thought was so important, he probably needed to press on. He wouldn't mind taking a break now that he was flush with cash, though. Five times the money he'd started with was a decent chunk of change.

The question was, what happened to the dungeon if he left? Fortunately, the system proved more forthcoming with answers now that he had cleared a floor.

Exiting the dungeon will reset cleared floors to their base state.

That might not be so bad. He'd cleared the floor once already. Sure, it had been a pain in the neck, but if he came back with experience and better equipment, he should be able to move forward much more smoothly than he'd done the first time. He would even pocket another D$100 for his troubles.

Popping out and then back in might not cost him that much time. It might even save him time on net to have better equipment, depending on how big the dungeon was.

After leaving the dungeon, you will not be able to return for twenty-four hours.

Never mind. Leaving would cost him any chance of finishing before the current grace period ended. Though Solomon wasn't sure whether he really had a chance to finish the dungeon so quickly. It would be nice if the system would tell him how many floors he had to go.

The dungeon continues below!

Solomon laughed. Somehow, the system's ability to maintain its cheerfully non-helpful attitude, after everything he had gone through, tickled his funny bone. It had been a long, stressful day. Once he started laughing he couldn't stop. He didn't know how long it took before he finally wheezed to a stop, bent over and supporting himself with hand on knee.

"Fine, why not?" he said. "The system's fair, right?"

Without letting himself hesitate, he reached out and selected the option to continue to the next level. The ball of light vanished. The stone plinth sank down into the ground. When the top of the plinth finally vanished, the whole clearing began to rumble. Right in front of Solomon, the ground began to fall away. First into the shape of a ramp, then, gradually, forming into a stairway of rough-hewn stone.

Solomon stared down at the stairway, which ended in an archway that was filled with an almost tangible darkness. He couldn't see an inch into the second floor. Looking at the descent before him, he felt an immediate case of buyer's remorse coming on.

"Act in haste, repent at leisure," he said, shaking his head. "I might as well get a move on, then."

Despite his words, he took his time heading down the stairs, poking each one with the butt of his spear before he stepped forward. Traps were a staple of dungeons in games, after all.

The system seemed to be taking at least a few cues from Earth. Why else would the time limit for the first grace period be an hour, and the second one a day? Earth's units of time were hardly some universal constant.

So far he'd only had to face monsters, but Solomon was still inclined to think that the system was usually trying to kill him absent some evidence to the contrary. If there was no monster in his face trying to claw him open, it just meant that something more subtle was going on.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he tried poking through the archway with his spear. Nothing. The spear was still intact after he pulled it back, so that was something.

Bracing himself, he squared his shoulders and took a step forward. Immediately, the same disorienting sensation that had hit him when he had been teleported into the dungeon washed over his body.