The novelty wore off quickly. For both of them. Magic is fun, farming for it is not. I have yet to learn something new from past 10 levels. The grandiose first impression lasted only so long. The dungeon started to show its repetitiveness. Grassland to forest and forest to grassland. A few lakes here and there. Same old animals with more hp and damage.

Practice takes time and discipline. It's utterly boring, but I have been practicing diligently. I am at 6 atoms at once stage. Took me some six months to get there. My fisting technique improved substantially though.

Animals are going into monster territories the farther I go into the dungeon. They have much vivid markings on them by the 30th level. The markings origin from their heart and flow through their entire body, and they glow when magic is used. I hope I had them. Not gonna lie, they look cool.

One thing I am still curious about this place is that I did not encounter a single mini boss. Every floor till the 20th floor had one king beast and a floor guardian. This place however does not. So, my fear is that they are somewhere hurdled together. That will be a nightmare to clear.

Right now I am in the middle of clearing out the 30th level. It will take another 10 days to hunt down everything. For the most part, the animal population stayed the same for each zone. The outer levels were bigger so it took so much time to clear them all out.

Beasts don't cross the barrier for the most part, unless they are aggravated. I tried to make fun of one by going behind a barrier and monkey dancing only to get slapped in the face. 'Not a good idea'.

Making my way through the thick vegetation, I walked toward the next level. I had been doing that since 21st level; in hope of finding something exciting. All I found was disappointment so far. These areas didn't have any save points, so I had to go back to previous areas for taking naps and what not.

I was a few hundred meters away from the barrier when I noticed a line. Going perpendicular toward what I imagined to be the middle of the forest.

"Finally. It's gonna get interesting."

On the right of that line, white stretching as far as I could see. On the left was greenery. Two contrasting biomes dissected by an invisible line. Not a single deformity crossed that line. Leaves and snow squashed on the border like two lovers trying to touch hands through a glass wall.

Now that I had seen it, I could hardly contain myself from jumping in. As I walked toward the line. The residual cold seeping through the barrier reminded me of something very important.

"Not yet. I can't jump in blind."

I need to keep reminding myself. 'This place is not my backyard.' Venturing into unknown land withought any information is akin to suicide in this dungeon. I am not some protagonist of a light novel. My luck is going to run out soon. I can feel it. I have been too lucky recently.

Surviving from the tiger attack, jumping into hoards of beasts, flame lion killing himself. Since my time of waking up I have only killed enemies stronger than me through sheer luck. If I missed even one piece of the puzzle, I would have turned into their food.

Clearing out 30th floor takes priority.

__________

That being said, I was still impatient. I could not wait for 10 days. I fought till I got exhausted, ran to the previous level, took rest, rinse and repeat. By the time I was done with 30th level only 6 days had passed.

Recently I have been feeling a lump near my heart. Threaded with a mana channel. Sometimes it released some mana. At first I was scared. A transparent ball near the heart can not be good, but I changed my mind when I saw it releasing mana. I don't know what it was, but if it's releasing mana it's probably not that bad, I thought.

[What I didn't know back then was that there were 2 lumps. One transparent and one black.]

Looking at the snow clad region I could not help but get excited. What adventure lies beyond this barrier! What kind of enemy I am going to face! And most importantly what kind of magic I am going to learn!

There were 5 different biomes connected to 30th level. Ice, forest, rocky land, sea/lake and volcano. The rocky land or the forest would have been the safest bate but I chose the ice region. I was naive.

Stepping inside the icy land was a mistake. It was so cold that I almost froze to death in merely 15 minutes. I jumped out as soon as I could. Going in just like that wasn't gonna work, but I did not want to give it up. As a person who lived near the equator I had never seen natural ice before. To be completely honest, I just wanted to play with snow.

Cold was not enough of a reason to dishearten me. I started walking along the barrier in search of prey. My reasoning was simple. 'I just need to wait until a resident shows up. Kill it. Eat the core and get the ice resistance skill or make a coat out of their fur.'

One hour passed, two hour passed, five hour passed, twelve hours passed. It was then I started questioning my decision. 'What if nothing actually lives there? It's a bit too cold. But, there should be something. All those forest animals lived in the cave after all. And magic you know! Ahh….. right magic. How could I just forget!'

I had an "brilliant" idea. I could just set myself on fire and go in. So I did. Covering my entire body on fire I ventured into the snow land a second time. This time the cold was bearable.

"This is burning too much mana. At most I have 3 hours."

Practically speaking I had around 2 hours to search around. With that in mind, the search for frost resistance began. Luckily I did not have to search for long. Unluckily it was not the prey I was hoping for.

My thought was that even if I ran into a powerful enemy it would be at most double the power level of the once from 30th level. That was not the case.

20 minutes into the search I heard a biting sound. 'Someone is having a meal.' Excited, I perked my ears up to listen for the direction. As I was preparing for the hunt, with the corner of my eye I saw something charging toward me. I tried to evade but failed.

The split second it took me to collect my thoughts was enough for that thing to impale me. Dangling from the antler I screamed. It was painful. Due to the evasion attempt I was impaled through my right calf. Nothing up until this point after the flame lion had damaged me this easily.

Holding the antler I curved my body up detaching my leg from it. I finally got to look at the creature landing on its side. A black bison with antler. Teeths of a predator. Almost double the size of a buffalo, facing me like a black mountain. What a horrendous creature.

The more I saw, the overwhelmed I got. 'The fuck is this creature?' 'What was that speed?' As I was questioning the situation in my mind, the creature's body markings started to glow.

"Not good. I need to run."

The last thing I saw was that thing creating long shards of ice surrounding its body. Using air and fire on my leg I started spring toward the barrier in a zigzag pattern. I was not prepared to take that thing on. Power aside what surprised me most was its speed. It took only a second to sprint around 60 meter with that massive body. I was not sure if I could outrun it.

When it started channeling the magic, I found an opening. If I could run to the forest I would get some cover. Even if that thing crossed the barrier it would not be able to find me in there.

Running back to 30th level I did not lower my speed. Suddenly a cold gust of wind blew past my right shoulder throwing me to the floor.

"Aaaaahhhhhhhh……… fuckkk fuckk.. fuuuccckkkkkk…."

Even from that much distance and tree guards I still got pincushioned by that spell. I did not have the luxury to appreciate the spell. Getting on my feet again I pulled out all the ice shards. Closed all the wounds using my ice magic, all the while keeping my pace up.

"I need that magic. I want that magic. I will take that magic. Just wait a bit."

Thankfully the thing did not chase after me. After scurrying for about 2 hours I sat down near a pond. Cleaning my wounds were of importance.

"Is that thing a right wing fellow? Or just a right side hentai?"

All my wounds are on the right side of my body. 17 fucking shards. How many did he shoot toward me? I need to rethink my plan to approach this level. There Is no way that was a mob. So it is most likely a free for all area.

" But Damnnn, what a fucking Monster."

I need my hammer. I am not sure how much damage my punches will do. Sure I can punch hard, but I can punch even harder with a hammer. Hopefully it will stay in one piece.

Now that I got my ass kicked, I decided to take this thing seriously. Pain is not fun. What happens is when you are not getting hurt you start to think that 'I can take it no problem'. Then you hit your pinky or something in a corner and it dawns on you. No you can't. It still hurts.

This injury is nothing compared to the evolution or the pested legs, but it's not a pleasant feeling. Foremost it's a reminder, and I don't like that.

I was torn between two places. Rocky area or the forest. Forest has a lot of hiding places but the monsters have a homeground advantage. 'After what happened yesterday I don't think I can call them animals anymore.' The rocky area on the other hand is barren. I could watch out for the surroundings.

Tossing a rock resulted in forest's win so I am choosing the rocky land. Rocky land is exactly as it sounds. Dried out grass, thorny trees, small hills and rocks, yellow, black, red. All in all it looks depressing. A place where one would not live if not forced.

Packing some meat and water in my backpack, Hammer in hand I ventured into the unsatisfied land. What greeted me was heaviness. A feeling akin to being a coin on top of a weak magnet. In simple terms, a high gravity zone.

"And here I thought it's going to be easier."

Instead of going any deeper, I opted for staying on the edge and habituating. Imagine waking up one day and finding yourself more than twice as heavy. I was heavy to begin with.

No, I am not fat. Not anymore. I don't know the exact reason but feel like it has something to do with the magic molecules. My body cells are not like humans. My muscles feels more carbon nanotuby than living cells. My weight on a regular day is around 250kg or higher, and it's increasing with the core consumption.

Practicing with the hammer for an hour or so got rid of the heavy feeling by quite a bit. I started searching following the line that divided the forest and the dry land. My current goal was to find and neutralize some low level monsters and find a place to sleep.

After walking around for a few hours I started getting tired. So I found a small pile of natural forming rock to sit down. There were a lot of these in this area. Well it was a rocky area. Leaning the hammer to the side I sat down. As I was debating whether or not to eat, whatever you are thinking is going to happen, happened. Deeply engraving in my heart that 'I am a certified idiot', a wild rock golem appeared.

To my defence, the rocks themselves did not turn into the rock golem. It was more like the monkey was hiding under the rock piles. It looked like a gorilla, so monkey it is.

Gracefully landing from the short flight I retrieved my hammer and immediately fell flat on the ground. 'Gravity manipulation. Suspected as much.' The high gravity environment was a dead giveaway, but this much was not enough to keep me down. Blusting air and fire under my foot I escaped the bind.

" Picking up the hammer was the best decision I made in these few days."

What? I am not punching rocks without an anxiety attack.

Rumblings aside, for a monkey it had a rather grandiose appearance. 7-8ft in height hunched down. Bulky limbs. Small ass. No furs. Looking like an almost broken statue.

"Let's test the water."

I clearly did not reflect enough on the snow bison incident. As if to prove that with an example, I activated herculean strength and smashed my hammer right on it's fist as he was punching me.

I did not budge an inch but the monkey's hand scattered with the dust. Second hit was on his face. The monkey died before it could show its full potential.

"That was anticlimactic."

Ending herculean strength I activated seismograph. A good 10-15 dots were in the rader. A dirty grinn ran across my face. Holding my hammer, I waited.

"Hammer punch is the best kind of punch."