One week later, James was on the floor of his bedroom, doing pushups. Even though his sister laughed at him, he continued to exercise.

Over the past week, he had started following a strict schedule. In the morning, he would wake up, eat breakfast, and then head over to school, where he studied diligently and tried to do as much of his homework as possible. Then, after coming back, he finished up the rest of his homework, and then began working out.

Yes, he began working out. As his senior explorer Beck had said, it was a good idea to improve his physical condition. He needed to improve his physical strength and endurance.

“eighteen … nineteen …. twenty! Phew!”

He got off the floor. He had seen an increase in the number of pushups that he could do. However, he was pretty sure that this was only because he had gotten more used to exerting physical effort. Real increases in strength would only come over time.

After finishing his reps, James took a shower and went to eat dinner. Afterwards, he went back to his room, and played some videogames with Jack and Mo. After losing 5 ranked matches in a row, James decided to stop for the night. However, as he was about to leave the voice call, Jack spoke.

“So, do you guys have any plans for spring break? Because my dad is sending me off on some trip and he told me some of my friends can come.”

“What type of trip?” asked James.

“I don’t know. I don’t know where I’m going either.”

“I’ll never understand you rich people,” said Mo. “I mean, your dad’s just sending you on a trip for no reason, but like 3 weeks ago you were all hype because those basketball shoes were on sale. Anyways, I’ll have to check with my parents.”

“Yeah, same here. I should be free, but I still have to get my parents’ permission,” said James.

Most people would not be okay with sending their kid off out for vacation with one of their friends, but Mo, Jack, and James’ parents all knew each other.

“Alright. Just wanted to let you know. Sorry for the short notice, I know break’s in a week.”

“It’s good.”

After saying a few last words, James left the voice channel and logged off of his computer. Then he went to bed.

James’ parents were confused as to why was now going to bed earlier. It wasn’t like they were unhappy about it, however.

James entered the black space again, and decided to go to the shop first, in order to buy a few more potions. When he entered, nobody that he recognized was in the shop. So, he went directly to the bar counter and bought a few more potions of stamina and health. After he was done, he still had 540 points left. He had been doing work the past week, and had already paid off his small debt of 100 points to Mike. Additionally, he had collected 4 more orbs of strength.

His card now displayed this:

{James Lu: Explorer

Cleared Floor 1

Points: 540

STR: 14

DEF: 2

END: 2

AGI: 2

INT: 42

LUK: 27*$!9

Skills: None }

For other explorers, this rate of progress would’ve made them want to cry. James had only been in the dungeon for a week.

James was satisfied with his strength increasing. His plan, however, was to farm the 1st floor until he had taken the maximum amount of orbs, 50. This could take him a few months, but he wanted to maximize his safety.

James didn’t have anything in the skills category, though. Apparently, the dungeon could only recognize those if you learned a skill directly from the dungeon, like magic or physical enhancement. James learned this from Leah, who had learned magic from a skill book. Thus, her magic was displayed in her skills category, and also had levels.

After accepting the potions, James went into the 1st floor of the dungeon. Immediately, he pulled out a throwing knife, held it in his hand, and started jogging. His other knife, his melee weapon, was in his other hand, just in case he missed. He had done this many times in the last week. When he came across a goblin, he stopped, and then threw the knife.

Over the past few days, he had attempted to kill the goblins he saw through throwing knives alone. At first, half of his knives missed, and the other half failed to do any significant damage. However, with some help from a few online tutorials, he got the general gist of it, and now was working to improve his accuracy and efficiency even further. He could now hit the goblins with an almost 100% accuracy. However, he wasn’t at the point where every single one of the goblins died with one throw. Some of his knives hit the goblins in the shoulder instead of the chest or head. He still needed practice.

However, James was much more confident in his knife throwing skills now. In fact, he was confident enough that he decided that he was going to challenge the berserk goblin today. This was precisely the reason he had bought the extra potions. Now that he had a way to attack from a distance, he felt that he could safely defeat it after blinding it.

This particular goblin died with one hit, after a knife was buried into its chest. James simply picked up the magic stone and his throwing knife, storing the stone in his bag. Then, he continued to advance through the dungeon.

====================

James opened the door to the boss room, and the first goblin. He didn’t throw a knife, because there was a chance that the knife would’ve killed it instantly. He didn’t trust himself to be able to throw the knife that accurately. Instead, he took the time to fight it with his knife, cutting off its limbs and disabling it completely. Then, he approached the throne and the boss goblin. Taking out a potion vial, he threw the it as hard as he could. The vial nailed the goblin directly in the eye, causing the eyeball to rupture and start bleeding.

“If I got strong enough, would it be possible to just kill the goblin without it ever moving? I mean, it could bleed out, right?”

James was curious, but he couldn’t kill the goblin just by throwing the potion vials yet. Maybe if his strength stat increased by a large amount it would be possible. Clearing these thoughts out of his mind, he threw a second vial and completely blinded the goblin. Then, he backtracked and stabbed the other goblin, killing it.

The moment James killed the other goblin, the boss goblin rose from its seat.