As Austin stepped through the Door and into the dungeon, a chill ran throughout his whole body. One thought prevailed over all else;

“This is going to be no fun at all.”

The second he entered, he was assailed by icy winds that whipped all around him, dropping his body temperature immediately. An alert window popped up in Austin’s sight: “Warning, environmental temperatures dangerously low. You will start to take damage soon if measures are not taken.”

“Crap.” Austin muttered. He had expected another open field or maybe a cave, not an icy tundra. He was woefully underprepared for this turn of events.

According to data gathered by the Association, lower level dungeons posed lower level threats. This didn’t just mean the monsters present inside, but also environmental hazards, so encountering a threat like this was totally unexpected.

“I’ve got just one thing to try, if it doesn’t work I’ll have to retreat and gear up properly.”

There was even the possibility that the Door had been incorrectly measured, as Austin suspected had happened in his delve with Anderson’s group. If that was the case, he may even have to assemble a team and share the loot and experience, something he was not keen on.

“Avatar, activate!” he cried out.

The golden aura enveloped him, and he was immediately clad in his armor.

He still felt the cold, but it was no longer biting at him like a vicious beast. If he had to guess, it was likely his increased strength granting more resistance to the elements. It was also possible that the Avatar of the Champion was offering him some kind of protection, but Austin doubted it.

“I’m safe from the cold for now, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be colder further in. Gotta be careful.”

Now that he wasn’t freezing to death, Austin took stock of his surroundings. The Door had dropped him in the middle of a clearing, surrounded on all sides save one by mountains or dense forests.

On the path forward, Austin noticed tracks leading deeper into the dungeon, if following a path across a tundra could be called “going deeper.”

“They’re quite deep, so it must have been something big…”

Before he began following the tracks, he had a sudden realization.

“It’s stupid to wear the mask in here, isn’t it…”

Chiding himself internally, he pulled off the mask and stowed it in the duffle bag he had brought to haul mana crystals.

Wrapping his cloak tight with his free hand, he then started in earnest after his only lead.

After following the tracks for what Austin guessed to be a few minutes, he heard a growling sound from the treeline to his left.

He turned and saw a pack of snow white wolves, the leader of which was approaching him with fangs bared. Austin already knew about these creatures from his studies of the Association’s bestiary, but he activated Warrior’s Sense just to be sure.

Alpha Ice Wolf: Level 29

Ice Wolf: Level 23

The leader of the pack was almost a 3-Star monster, but it was made much more dangerous by the presence of a dozen other wolves, all ready to pounce.

Austin held his sword in front of him and dropped the duffle bag from his shoulders so he would have more freedom of movement. As if on cue, the moment the bag hit the ground the alpha barked and the assault began.

Two wolves lunged at Austin from either side, so he dashed left, past the lunging wolf, and launched an explosive kick at its ribs.

The synchronized timing of their leap actually worked against them as one wolf flew into the other, sending both sprawling.

The one that Austin kicked must have broken a rib or two and it died quickly after, he was able to confirm this by the level up message that popped up in front of his face after the tangle of fur hit the ground.

The other wolf got up and began making its way back towards Austin, but before it made it to him, he heard a growl behind him and promptly ducked.

As he hit the ground, the alpha wolf sailed over him and landed in an aggressive stance, baring its fangs.

Austin didn’t have time to focus on just the two wolves in front of him, as he heard growling and the pounding of paws all around him. He struck out with his sword to his left and bisected one wolf, then carried his momentum in a half turn cutting another one down.

He wasn’t fast enough to get the third one, however, and he felt the teeth dig into his arm, piercing the iron like it was paper.

He flipped his sword into reverse grip and plunged it into the wolf that was gripping onto his arm. With the wolf dead, its jaws slackened and Austin shook the corpse off of him.

His arm was bleeding, but it was still usable.

“Wish I had a healer right about now.” Austin griped internally.

With no time to continue bellyaching, he cut another wolf into pieces before dashing forward to avoid the teeth of two more.

“Seven wolves left…”

It was like some cruel version of monkey in the middle, where instead of keeping the ball away from Austin they were taking turns attacking him.

He pirouetted in place and let one wolf slip by him while dicing another before finishing his spin and slashing the wolf he let pass.

Another group of three lunged, but he wouldn’t repeat the mistake he had made the first time.

Austin put all of his strength into his legs and leapt as high as he could, leaving the wolves far below him. He then let gravity do the rest of the work and came crashing down with one foot planted firmly in the heads of two wolves and his sword in the third.

That left two more, the alpha and the one he had injured earlier by hitting it with another wolf.

Not wanting to let them have the initiative, Austin charged aiming a slash that would cut down both in one fell swoop. He cut through the injured wolf as easily as he had its kin, but before his blade reached the alpha it had sprung out of reach.

While Austin was still off balance from his wild swing, the wolf charged in and took the opportunity to sink his teeth into Austin’s good arm before attempting to pin him to the ground with its body mass.

A sharp pain reverberated through Austin’s body, this bite hurt much more than the first one, however he didn’t have the luxury to stop and dwell on the pain.

Yelling out, both in defiance and because his arm really hurt, Austin drove his knee into the wolf.

Crack

Again.

Crack

Again

Crunch

Feeling the bones in the wolf’s chest crumble, Austin also felt the jaw’s grip relax. He shook off the wolf and stabbed it once for good measure before making to inspect his arm.

“Damn it!” He cried out. “That really hurts!”

Despite all of his newfound strength, Austin had never really experienced real pain before, being a kid from modern America. This was different to all those times he fell off his bike, this was real, and despite all that…

“I feel kinda great! My arm hurts like hell, but I’ve never had a rush like that before…”

Austin began to wonder if he was going to turn into one of those battle maniacs he had heard about, always looking for a fight to get their adrenaline pumping.

He opened his stat window to inspect his current state and noticed that he had two numbers for each stat now. He guessed that the bolder ones were his current numbers in his empowered state while the regular looking ones were his natural stats.

Austin McKenna, Level 41

Title: None

Class: None

HP: 540/650 (325)

Stamina: 500/750 (375)

Strength: 126 (63)

Intelligence: 102 (51)

Agility: 122 (61)

Abilities:

Quick Learner

Predecessor’s Guidance

Ant Slayer

Sword Mastery (Level 1)

Avatar of the Champion

Warrior’s Sense

Condemn

Bonus points: 3

As he couldn’t stand all three of his stats being odd numbers, so he used his bonus points fixing that out.

He had taken some damage from the wolf's fangs, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t really that much. He still had an additional 200 or so HP before he’d be forced out of his empowered state, which would be a problem in the cold, so he figured he would be fine.

“Thinking about it now, though,” he mused, “doubling all my stats really is ridiculous. It’s like I’m really twice my actual level…”

As he was contemplating all of this, a message flashed in front of his eyes: “You have accumulated enough combat experience, a class will now be selected for you.”

Austin was suddenly bursting with excitement. Up until now he had been acting as a fighter, but technically he was still classless, so he couldn’t use any abilities related to that. Getting a class would be a major upgrade to his combat capabilities, so he couldn’t wait to see what he was assigned.

“I hope it’s not something lame… “