The next three floors went by no differently than the second had. The third floor was identical to the ones before it, except it did have the occasional Gloom Caster lurking in the shadows and higher leveled monsters overall. The fourth floor was devoid of anything below level thirty, other than the Shade Crawlers that is. Then, the fifth floor was populated by ghouls with levels in the low forties and nearly a dozen Gloom Casters in the middle fifties.

The only twist had been in regard to the Gloom Carriers. They were heavily underleveled since the system didn’t seem to take into account the fact that they spawned hundreds of crawlers each. By themselves, the crawlers weren’t much of an issue, but in a literal flood of black ooze and claws, they were impossible to fight and wouldn’t provide much experience anyway.

It was partially because of the Gloom Carriers that the group never really sought out any fights. They only moved silently through the caves while Christopher guided the many monsters away from them. There hadn’t been anything new since the Gloom Carrier at the end of floor two; all the subsequent floor bosses were monsters that the group had already seen. The fourth-floor boss, for example, was just a level sixty-three Shade Ghoul.

Allen and the others avoided fighting them though. It wouldn’t be smart to fight the boss before clearing out all the monsters from the rest of the floor. So, they continued skipping the floors until they reached the sixth, the half-way point of Allen’s estimation, where the dungeon finally changed in a noticeable way.

The rock that had been grey and a creamy brown was now black and smooth, almost glossy. Shadows seemed to churn at the roof of the cave like a cloud of smoke trapped under a lid. The rock formations were slightly more errant and foreboding, or at least they attempted to be. Most noticeable, however, was the dull red glow that came from the opposite end of the room. It was not enough to outshine Christopher’s ball of arcane illumination from that distance, but it was enough to cast the room into a dramatic, maroon backlight.

“Finally, something changes,” Allen thought, craning his neck to see if he could make out the source of the red light.

Allen’s observations were tacitly interrupted by a series of messages popping into his mind. He let the professor drop back into his wheelchair as he absentmindedly scrolled through them. In addition to the occasional monster that he had dealt with on the third and fourth floors, he had killed a few things on the fifth as well. In addition to the single level he’d gotten at the end of the third floor, the fourth and fifth supplied just enough for him to reach level eighteen.

Your group has defeated 3x Shade Ghoul – Level 41 - 45

Your contribution: 91% Damage

For fighting 57 enemies in a team of 5, you receive a 11% XP bonus!

Awarded: 2260 XP

Your group has defeated Gloom Caster – Level 53

Your contribution: 84% Damage

For fighting 57 enemies in a team of 5, you receive a 11% XP bonus!

Awarded: 2412 XP

Congratulations, you are now level 18.

Requirements met: 4702 XP

Awarded: 5 Stat points – 1 Skill point.

Ty and the others dropped down into the sixth floor from a crevasse in the wall and took in their surroundings. Camila was the first to grunt in approval at the change in the scenery. Amelia was indifferent as usual and Try looked like he was already done with the place.

“What’s the red light?” the Defender asked flippantly.

Christopher hummed as he looked out over the length of the cave. “It is magical, but can’t determine anything else,” he said after a moment, “but I can sense the presence of many level fifty Shade Ghouls.”

“Good, we should start fighting them again then,” Camila said.

Allen stretched and groaned. “I think more vitality, strength and focus would be good,” he thought. Thus, five points went into strength, two into vitality, and three into focus. Then he checked his status briefly before moving on to his two skill points.

Status:

Jeremiah Allen Durand

Human – Rogue – Level 18

XP: 421/4702 (40,089)

Stat Points: 0, Skill Points: 2, Job Points: 0

Jobs:

Assassin

Basic – Tier 1

Striker

Basic – Tier 1

Stats:

HP: 300/300

Regen: 35/min

SP: 689/700

Regen: 15/min

MP: 225/225

Regen: 28/min

Primary:

STR: 35

INT: 15

VIT: 13 (15)

WIS: 16 (15)

END: 16 (20)

FCS: 28

Secondary:

DEX: 68 (65)

PER: 15

RES: 8

STB: 20

SPD: 40 (49)

LCK: 8

---

Skills:

Job: Assassin

Tier 1 – Active: Silent Step – Category: Martial Arts – Stalk quietly on your feet, unheard until it’s too late.

Tier 1 – Active: Surge of Pain – Category: Channeling Magic – Channel damaging mana into an enemy on contact.

Tier 2 – Passive: Killer Instinct ­– Category: State of Mind – Estimate the success of your moves before you make them.

Tier 3 – Passive: Dead Calm – Category: State of Mind – Become like a true assassin: Dead inside.

Tier 5 – Meta: Assassinate – Category: Martial Arts – Deal more damage when your enemies are unaware.

Job: Striker

Tier 3 – Active: Strike – Category: Channeling Magic – Channel mana into a single strike to deal devastating damage.

Tier 3 – Passive: Mana Shroud – Category: Miasma Manipulation – Move your miasma around your body or your weapons.

“Silent Step and Surge of Pain are still sort of useless… and Killer Instinct at tier three just shows me where obvious weak spots are, which isn’t very helpful… I’ll go with Mana Shroud then.”

With that thought, Allen spent his two skill points and pulled up the new skill card.

Skill: Mana Shroud

Move your miasma around your body or your weapons.

Category: Miasma Manipulation – Type: Passive – Tier 5 Max

Effects: Move your miasma around inside your body or other objects; pull it outwards to shroud you or a weapon at your direction or return it to your mana pool. Miasma shrouding your body will absorb a portion of damage and sound in exchange for a portion of mana.

Cost: MP proportional to 75% of damage absorbed.

“Huh, I didn’t really expect anything ‘Unnamed World’ shattering before level one-hundred, but that’s not bad.”

Allen summoned another oven mitt of miasma around his left hand. His mana still didn’t regenerate while the shroud was in use, but he found that he could easily return the mana to his pool if he willed it.

“So that’s the most annoying part about the skill, solved.”

Next, the part about sound being absorbed caught his attention. At first, he wasn’t sure how something like that could be tested but an idea came to him with a bit of thought. Allen pulled the mana into his left hand and shrouded it again, then he snapped his fingers. He could still hear the sound, but it was muffled to an extent, almost like his ears were full of water.

“The best part is that I can reuse the mana now,” he thought.

“I’ll only guide one ghoul at a time towards us until we can gauge their strength,” Christopher began. “There are also Gloom Casters, Gloom Carriers, hundreds of Shade Crawlers, and a handful of another unknown variant.”

Allen nodded and slipped into the shadows. Killing the level forty Shade Ghouls had been tough without Assassinate so he made sure to stay out of sight until the monster arrived. It didn’t take long though; the screeches of a Shade Ghoul could already be heard by the time Allen had found a nice stalagmite to wait behind.

The whole cavern was full of shrieks and cries echoing around, but he could still barely distinguish the single approaching monster. It darted out from behind a rock a moment later, its form casting a twisted shadow in the red light as it madly chased after a faintly glowing ball of magic. It was much faster than the level twenty ghouls they could slaughter easily as a group, but a five-against-one more than evened the odds.

The Shade Ghoul lashed out at Christopher’s magic until it was right in front of the group. There the ball of light exploded in its face before it could react, then Camila whistled a rising tone that enraged it further.

Ty and Camila both rushed towards it in the same moment. The ghoul howled as its hollow eyes locked on to the Berserker. It swiped at her when she came within range, but Camila circled around Ty’s back, allowing the Defender to tank the attack. She stabbed out at one of the monster’s legs, but only grazed its bone.

The ghoul hissed and threw itself at Ty. The monster slammed into the Defender’s shield, throwing him back a few steps while its claws tore deep grooves into his shield. Camila tried to stab it with her sword again, but the monster sliced through her shoulder before she could get back to cover. Her light armor did little to protect that area, and without a steady arm to wield her blade, she opted to quickly retreat to Amelia.

The sound of bone on metal split through the cave again as Ty was launched back from another rush by the monster. Though the ghoul hit Ty hard, he was able to stay on his feet with little more than a stagger. The ghoul was also thrown back a few meters as part of the impact was reversed on it.

An arcane light flashed in the ghoul’s face again, blinding it. Then Ty bellowed and sprinted at it with his shield raised.

Seeing the opening coming, Allen leapt out from his position and dashed into the fight. He covered his knife in miasma and prepared his fully charged Strike. Even multiplied by two-hundred and fifty percent, the attack likely wouldn’t kill the monster, but it would get close.

Ty crashed into the disoriented ghoul a moment later. A shockwave of magic visibly rippled away on impact, and instead of both monster and Defender getting blown away, only the ghoul was thrown into a nearby stalagmite.

It hissed with anger as it stumbled to its feet, but Allen was already upon it. Killer Instinct gave him the best feeling when he aimed right for its head, so he did. His knife swiftly broke through the ghoul’s skull with the full, boosted effect of Strike. Its eyes exploded of their sockets as it shrieked and wildly flung its spiked arms around.

Allen barely had time to get away before a claw came at him. He jumped back, leaving his knife behind, but he wasn’t fast enough to completely avoid the attack. The ghoul’s claw tore through his leather armor and flesh like paper, even cutting into his bone.

The monster lunged at Allen before he had even hit the ground, ooze leaking from every hole in its head. The moment his feet touched the ground, Allen dodged to the side, narrowly evading a follow-up attack. He turned around just as Camila smashed the ghoul into the rocky floor underneath her morning star, finally killing it.

Allen groaned and let his head fall back as he laid still on the ground. The wound was throbbing, and he could already feel the corrupting blood spreading through him. It was much more potent when it came from a higher leveled ghoul.

Amelia was already by his side by then, and quickly began cutting out and replacing the already corrupted flesh with her magic. The agonizing pain didn’t last as long as it had the first time since the Healer had upgraded Dissection a few times since then, but it still hurt just as much.

Allen grit his teeth through it. It was easier to bear the pain when he considered that the alternative would be to slowly fall apart into a formless mass of vile flesh and black slime.

“Always try to look at things from the perspective that it could always be worse,” he thought with a grimace. “We’re going to be on this floor for a while, huh?” he said, turning to glance over at Amelia.

The girl only smiled back at him as she sliced into Allen’s side again with her magic.

Once healed and recovered, the group continued fighting through the monsters in the dungeon’s sixth floor. Hours began to pass by as they methodically killed the ghouls one after another. Each one they killed was over level fifty and would give them a couple thousand experience. So long as they didn’t disengage, the System wouldn’t level them up and they would keep getting the large amounts of experience due to the difference in level.

Eventually, they began to work their way towards the other side of the cave. Christopher guided the monsters at them in manageable numbers as the red light grew closer. Eventually, Allen and Camila fell into the trance of their respective skills and no longer said much. As a result, Ty attempted to strike up conversation with the others, but he had trouble relating to Christopher and seemed subtly creeped out by Amelia.

Fortunately for him, the group stumbled upon a scene after five hours of cutting their way through monsters. Allen stopped abruptly and pointed out at a spot nestled between the rock formations ahead of them. There was an outline of something that didn’t quite fit in with the cave, though it was hard to tell what it was with the deep shadows and the red light shining towards them.

Amelia and Allen had no trouble identifying the shrouded forms though. “Bodies,” they both said in unison.

While bodies alone weren’t anything particularly interesting. The fact that they were human meant something else. It meant the floor hadn’t reset since they had been killed, which, by extension, meant that someone else was still alive somewhere on the floor.

Slowly, the group made their way forward.