Levi had more trouble with the upgrade than the repairs, perhaps because he'd done it so much less often. The refined bar resisted his hammer blows where the ore chunks had readily shattered, and once he had it in pieces the tokens resisted combining with the purified metal. A better hammer would probably have helped, but he didn't have time or materials enough to upgrade his entire toolset.

By the time he finished he'd moved from sitting to standing for better leverage, and had to wipe away the sweat dampening his forehead before it could drip into his eyes.

The upgrade layer needed to be much thinner and more evenly applied across the entire item, which ended up being a longer and more strenuous process than he'd anticipated.

Finally it was completed. His first proper, if a bit simple, upgraded item of the new timeline. Far from the last.

Iron Chausses (Armor, Uncommon)

Abilities: Piercing Resistance (Standard)

Upgrade Slots: 1/1 (Beast)

Durability: 100%

Repair Requirements: N/A

Reinforcement Prerequisites: Armorer 3

Reinforcement Requirements: Ironium x2 Beast Token x 10

The armor itself had moved from Standard to Uncommon, its physical ability to survive damage had increased - though that wasn't something the system measured - and its Piercing Resistance ability had been upgraded from Basic to Standard.

He hadn't even known the latter was a possible outcome. Reinforcing the physical capabilities, sure, that was obvious. But the magical ones augmented too?

That definitely justified the effort and delay. The fact that the dungeon had already obligingly generated a second-tier health restorative and a second-tier stamina restorative right there on the table next to him without having to kill anything certainly didn't hurt either.

"Everyone ready?"

Levi glanced over everyone's stats in a quick review. To his surprise, it turned out Lash had reached level 9 at some point, so Levi put his point into Strength. He didn't care at the moment that it was incredibly stat-inefficient. The soul-seeker needed better health regen more than he needed another 120 mana, even though it hurt just considering the tradeoff.

Lash: Level 9

(Soul-Seeker +)

Strength: 2

Health: 264/310

(+4/min)

Psyche: 6

Mana: 750/750

(+24/min)

Spirit: 1

Stamina: 45/45

(+3/min)

It would be another ten minutes or so until Lash was fully healed, but since he was Levi's strongest asset at the moment he didn't want to risk losing him.

Skarm had been hovering on the edge of level 15 for a while now, and probably would continue to do so for some time yet. Thresholds grew increasingly difficult the further you advanced. Gremlin Two had somehow managed to flip over to level 15 already, probably shortly before he was killed, but as he was currently dead his upgrade options were greyed out along with the rest of his information.

Becca had hit level 10 during the fight on the first level, which explained how she'd survived so long and where her ability to suddenly teleport several times after already exhausting herself came from.

Levi immediately wished he'd been less distracted at the time. Perhaps if he could have upgraded her or unlocked new abilities she could have survived. Though, realistically, if in that moment he'd been even the tiniest bit distracted... he had to admit that the system had probably made the right call in not shoving the notification in his face at that particular time. For as unintuitive and clumsy as the system could be, it wasn't malicious and did do its job well, albeit in an often incomprehensible way.

Crackle had reached level 8, though how he wasn't sure. They hadn't killed very many monsters at all during this run, but he wasn't going to look a gift level in the mouth. Levi put Crackle's point into Strength as well.

Crackle: Level 8

(Rust Scarab +)

Strength: 1

Health: 53/53

(+4/min)

Psyche: 6

Mana: 160/160

(+16/min)

Spirit: 1

Stamina: 55/55

(+3/min)

Health regen was definitely the biggest weakness of his entire current minion contingent - apart from Skarm, whose regen was absolutely insane.

Scanning down his minion list, there was nothing more he could do to prepare. His harpy swarm were the only other minions not currently dead, and they were half a day behind.

Levi's revive cooldown would end in a little under two hours. He currently had Tink and Firelord shoved in his backpack that he could revive, along with Frosty, but he didn't want to delay that long. A dungeon of this level shouldn't be more than two or three floors and he was already halfway through.

Even if things got progressively harder further up, the 24-hour respawn timer on bosses meant that as long as he kept moving at least as fast as whoever had cleared this dungeon last, he could stay ahead of anything that would lock him into a fight to his certain death. Another reason not to delay longer than necessary.

While Lash's health returned to full, the dungeon provided another stamina restorative and a Beast token, both welcome additions to Levi's dwindling supplies. Though it did make him wonder. This many items appearing was not normal dungeon behavior. Under any other circumstances he'd be reluctant to move on. It would be easy to park himself here like Javier had been, working on crafting while restocking his supply of everything the place had to offer, but he was on multiple timers of unknown duration.

The moment everyone was fully recovered, it was time to move on.

A waterfall masked the exit, completely blocking view of the next room. It flowed softly, a quiet ripple rather than the expected roar.

Levi jumped. He burst through the waterfall in a spray of glittering droplets. For a moment, he soared out over the plains down below, the terrain of the large room spread out clearly visible.

The river ran in a meandering line from the waterfall at the entrance to the distant exit in a steady downward flow. Open ground and low hills spread out in a panorama of browns and greens, the river a broad blue ribbon accentuating the greens in its vicinity.

The brief overview as he began to fall also showed far too may moving specks of different-colored creatures dotting the landscape, a great may of whom were already perking up their heads and turning toward the waterfall.

Well, no chance of making this a stealth run.

The hills were infested with high level dire-turkeys and small dinosaurs, the fields were stalked by large prowling creatures leaving rustling paths in their wake which Levi didn't particularly want to encounter.

Perhaps he could just follow the river?

He hit the water hard enough to drop his stamina, the impact sending waves in all directions as he went completely under, but even as he bobbed back to the surface he saw a swarm of fish heading his way. Seemed that the water would provide no safe haven.

He wasn't sure since when fish counted as beasts, but perhaps it was their distinctly carnivorous bent.

The river was full of piranha-like fishes with far too much bite to their size. The only good thing about them was their relatively low level, only 11 in most cases with the occasional 13, which meant he could reasonably expect to win a fight against them.

However, he did not have time for a prolonged battle with fish, not when he'd seen the rustling grass and the swarming turkeys heading his way.

Levi hated swarms. Hated them when they were Destruction scarabs, and hated them no less when they were tiny biting fishes. He swam for the shore at top speed, Lash helping to swat the fishes away as Levi clambered out onto the bank.

Alas, the fish didn't have the courtesy to stay in the river, but promptly took flight and chased after him as though the air were no obstacle whatsoever.

Better still, not all the fishes were biting fishes. There were also stabby fishes, like miniature narwhals, but considerably more aggressive. Then there were the spiky fishes, which tried to ram you the same as the stabby ones, lacking a horn but with considerably more pointy edges across their entire body.

How any of these various fish remained in the air when their fins were far from the necessary size to sustain their weight, even if they were using them as wings? Levi wasn't going to waste time trying to figure it out. Dungeons had never cared to follow the rules of physics before, why would flying fishes be any different?

The first swarm, he took down two of the fish while Lash occupied the rest, but as a second and then third batch rose up from the river, he quickly decided that surviving wasn't going to happen if he stayed.

Levi grabbed Lash by one tendril and ran, Skarm clinging to his back, the soul-seeker bobbing behind him, pursued by over a hundred hungry flying dungeon fish.