The party continued their way through the dungeon. At the first fights, Daniel was hesitant. He always kept observing what Isabella did. After she only used her Fire arrow and Fire lance spells once a battle had started, his still lingering anger calmed down a bit. Maybe, she could really change, could learn to control herself, he thought. Her overkills decreased by a lot, too. While she still used fire attacks to kill goblins that were more or less out of the battle, she didn’t blow up dead ones anymore. This felt like progress.

Fedor leveled up again after the next group, and three fights later, Daniel reached level 11. He hesitated a moment before distributing his attribute points, but then he put everything into regeneration. He was powerful enough for this dungeon floor, and regeneration would help when they’ll have to fight their way through the snow. In addition, he had some new experiments in his mind that he wanted to perform after this run.

With how good the fights were going, Daniel decided to use his Air bomb less and less. Instead he concentrated on getting used to fighting with his Advanced Haste activated.

A few groups later, they got the warning from the boss room again.

“Fedor, do you think your strength and toughness has increased enough to block the boss’s attacks?” Daniel asked and Fedor just shook his head.

“No, I’m only one level higher and my shield is damaged.”

“Ok, then we should adjust our battle plan accordingly. Hopefully, the boss room still has the same layout.” Daniel decided.

They went over their battle plan for the next ten minutes. Then, they entered the boss room and to their satisfaction they saw that it had the same layout as before. This time, all of them went to the left side entrance. Daniel created his Windshield again. Then, he and Isabella focused their fire on the two groups of enemy archers, while Anna attacked the goblin shaman. The archers went down very fast, and this time he’d made his Windshield strong enough to block all the arrows. Before the ten goblins that were armed with rusty short swords reached them, he and Isabella managed to blow up four of them. Then, Fedor stepped forward and attacked them.

With this cue, Daniel retreated from the fight. He activated his Advanced Haste and went to the right entrance of the boss room. Shortly before he reached the boss, he activated his Lightning Edge and then attacked. While the goblin had no helmet and he could use his pistol again, he decided against it. He wanted to test himself against the battle axe wielding creature.

The first thing he noticed was, that while the goblin was very strong, it wasn’t very fast. Daniel was able to evade the axe swings without much of a problem. The first problem appeared, when he stabbed his saber into one of the goblins legs. It felt like he'd attacked a tree. While his Lightning Edge allowed him to do some damage, it wasn’t much. Surprised by this, Daniel struggled a bit to evade the next attack, but he succeeded. He stepped back a bit more and surveyed the boss again. Its upper body was protected by a rusty iron armor. That left only its arms, legs and the head open for attacks.

Daniel checked his mana level. When he saw that he was still at 75%, he smiled. He activated Arc lighting with his left hand and aimed it at the goblin. The boss didn’t go down, but its limbs jerked a lot and it did look like it had lost a lot of its motor control. Daniel kept the lightning arc going and aimed his next attack at the goblins throat. It tried to block the attack, but its movements had slowed too much by the electric shocks.

The attack pierced the goblins throat maybe three centimeters deep, but it didn’t go down. Daniel attacked again. Only after three more slashes, he managed to cut off the goblins head.

Shaking his head about the toughness of his enemy, he looked around how his team was doing. He was just in time to see Fedor bashing in the head of the last goblin. This time, they managed to win without suffering an injury. Checking his mana pool again informed him that it was down to 45%. The continuous Arc lightning had cost him a lot of mana, but it hampered the goblins fighting abilities by a huge margin.

After they received the notification about the clear of the dungeon level again, Anna went to the chest behind the goblins boss’s throne. She found the same amount of silver again, but instead of the unknown ore there were a few gold nuggets in the chest.

“The system told us the last time that we received double the normal reward for the first clear. So, this unknown ore that we found must be worth a lot if it is more than twice as valuable as this gold.” Anna observed and the rest smiled. This haul had been more bountiful than expected.

“I think I need a heavier blade.” Daniel complained when they sat down to regenerate their mana and then went on to share his experience about how it felt when he stabbed the goblin boss.

After they focused on their regeneration for a time, Anna began to grin.

“Did anyone of you have a look at the inventory part of your status in the last days?” She asked.

All of them shook their heads and when Daniel opened the menu, he understood what Anna had meant and he started to grin, too.

Inventory Level 1 - Space 1 m³- Weight reduction 1000kg

Upgrade to Level 2 – Space: 2 m³ - Weight reduction; 2000 kg - Cost: 5000XP

After checking his current XP, Daniel saw that he had already gained more than 5k since his last level up, so he bought the upgrade immediately.

Inventory Level 2 - Space 2 m³- Weight reduction 2000kg

Upgrade to Level 3 – Space: 4 m³ - Weight reduction; 4000 kg - Cost: 50000XP

The third upgrade was way too expensive for now. But, the doubling in size with each upgrade was good news.

“With this, I think we should take these goblins with us. They have more meat than the smaller ones. If I think about it, we should take the throne and the chest, too. We found no other wood in this run. Maybe, we could create some snow shoes from the wood and goblin skin. Oh, and let’s take their shitty weapons and the boss’s rusty armor, too.” Fedor suggested and the rest agreed.

After all of them had regained their mana, Anna decided to talk.

“I think, we should at least check the second floor, before we leave the dungeon.” She suggested.

Daniel had to agree. In his estimation the first fights on the second floor shouldn't be a lot harder than the boss fight and it would be good to know if they would be able to leave the second level with the gains they made. Even if they didn’t kill the floor boss. Fedor directly agreed, while Isabelle, who had just reached level 9, nodded only after a short pause.

When they arrived at the second floor, it didn’t look much different that the first floor. Only the tunnels were a bit larger. The first thing Daniel checked was the notification from leaving the dungeon.

Warning you are leaving the dungeon Goblin Fortress without clearing this floor. If you continue, you will lose everything you gained in this dungeon level.

“Shit, it’s the same than in the first level before we killed the boss.” Daniel cursed. Their hope to level up quickly, by killing a few of the weaker goblin groups on the second floor, was destroyed.

“We should advance until we find the first enemies anyway. We need to know what kind of dangers are lurking here.” Anna responded.

Daniel reluctantly had to agree, again. They wouldn’t know when they were ready, if they didn’t even know what enemies would be waiting for them on this floor. With Fedor and Daniel in the front, they started to move deeper into the dungeon.

It didn’t take long before they met the first enemies. The good news was that they were still goblins. The bad news was that they were a lot bigger, maybe 1.6 meters and they were blue. In addition they were clad in chainmail and even had helmets.

Blue Goblin Warrior – Level 16

Thankfully, there were only three opponents.

“You two focus to take out the one in the middle.” Daniel pointed to Anna and Isabella before he continued.

“Fedor, you take the one on the right, I’ll take the one on the left.”

Daniel attacked the goblin in the middle with Arc lightning himself. Anna and Isabella would not be in a good position if it came to a close combat fight against a level 16 enemy. Their focus was on ranged magic attacks. Fighting against two of the goblins at the same time would be suicide. They needed to take out the middle one before his own goblin reached him.

Anna opened the fight with three Acid jets targeted at the middle goblins head, while Isabella throw a Fireball and then switched to her Fire lance. The goblin screamed, but its armor offered enough protection to prevent it from dying outright.

When the goblins were almost in close combat range, Daniel sacrificed 20% of his mana to create the strongest Windblast he could. Two of the goblins stumbled while the middle one went to the ground. Fedor used that opportunity to hit his enemy's heads with his mace. When Daniel saw that the middle goblin had difficulties getting up again, he decided to leave the rest to Anna and Isabella. He switched the target of his Arc lightning to the left goblin and slashed at the goblins arm with Lightning edge activated.

The good news was that the goblins weren’t as tough as the boss had been. But, while he was able to do some damage to the goblins arm, he found out that they were a lot faster. Daniel was barely able to dodge the goblins axe. He didn't try to block, his saber would probably break on the first atempt. He counterattacked, but the goblin was able to block his saber thrust at its throat with the armor on its other arm. Daniel cursed, compared to the boss, this enemy was impeded by his Arc lightning far less. Without any other idea, he used another Windblast to make the goblin stumble again.

Daniel used the window of opportunity his spell had created, to slash at the goblins weapon hand. He managed to cut off three fingers. The goblin howled in pain and dropped its axe. Just as it got ready to jump Daniel, it was covered in flames.

Isabella and Anna had managed to finish their goblin and Isabella was now shooting a Fire lance at Daniel’s goblin. It howled louder while it turned the head at the new source of pain. It gave Daniel enough time to pierce its throat. This goblin wasn’t as tough as the boss and he managed to create a large gushing wound. The goblin tried to stop the stream of blood with his hands, but it was useless. It fell to its knees and a moment later, it collapsed to the ground.

A look to the side showed Daniel that Fedor was managing to hold his own against the goblin. The first strike to the goblins head at the start of the fight had given him enough of an advantage. A few seconds later, Fedor blocked the goblins attack with his shield and then bashed in its head with another blow of his mace.

Daniel was the first to speak.

“Thanks for the support Isabella.” She seemed surprised and only nodded and Daniel continued “I think, this floor will be too much for us at the moment.”

The others only nodded in silence. The difficulty difference to the first floor had surprised them, again.

“What kind of fucking dungeon is this? There is no way to level up enough in the first floor to beat this one. I mean, the huge gap between the last goblin groups end the boss fight was bad enough, but this one is just insane.” Fedor cursed.

“Maybe, unlike in most stories, the dungeons here don’t have an interest in luring in more adventures. Their only purpose is to kill every intruder.” Anna observed.

“Let’s go. There is nothing for us to do here. The boss is probably around level 25 and there is no way for us to beat it. Shit, losing the experience we just gained sucks.” Daniel said.

They left the dungeon floor without checking the goblins armor and weapons.