Mentally, and hesitantly, agreeing to know more, parts of him expected this acceptance ot be enough to pull him in to ‘get a firsthand check’ or some bullshit like that, but he was pleasantly surprised to see that it simply explained it.
[ Solo Dungeon: The Brass Hive
- The Ascendant must survive a ruin filled with autonomous constructs that analyse and learn.
- Time flow: #%#&=¤
- Reward: #&9%$@ ]
Trying to think about the constructs to get information about them produced nothing.
“Ah... well..” Sam commented to himself, feeling somewhat disappointed even if he tried not to expect too much.
“What’s going on?” Janik hesitantly asked.
“I got a Solo Dungeon, but this time I can say no, I even got information about what it is. But it’s kind of lacking.”
“Lacking how?”
“Well, it tells me I must fight a ruin filled with autonomous constructs that analyse and learn. There is a mention of the time flow and reward, but both are corrupted.” Sam shook his head, disappointed.
“Figures,” Janik replied with a shrug. “But based on the other ones, the reward is probably good, right?”
“Yeah, probably, but I know nothing about the constructs. Bosses seems to sometimes be able to sense me even when invisible, so I don’t know how fucked I’d be. I don’t get tired from attacking, but I still get normal tired.” He didn’t feel entirely confident about this, especially considering that these Constructs were specifically the learning kind.
“On top of that, I might be gone for... five minutes or two years, not to even consider how long it is for me...”
Janik nodded. “Those are all good points. But... if you can control or ‘request’ them based on wish, doesn’t this mean that the reward is something you want? Or perhaps you can try to request something super simple and learn the system more?”
Sam sighed. They considered this earlier when he got this ability, but it became a topic again now. “It’s not that I don't want to, but I also kind of don’t want to..”
“Yeah, sounds dumb, but I get it.”
“Another problem is that each Solo Dungeon has given me something I can’t easily get at the time, if at all. So it’s a ‘if you survive it’s worth it’ kind of deal.” Sam sounded less and less happy and was mentally considering the Solo Dungeon.
Letting out a deep sigh, he changed the focus. “Let’s consider this later, now I just want to go back, shower, rest and eat something. We can see what we do tomorrow. Though I like having some control over the Solo Dungeons, if it were up to me, I’d just want admin control and get the whole thing over with...”
“Suppose that would be nice,” Janik nodded. “But have you considered what you’ll do once you get there?”
Sam sighed again. He was glad that Janik’s comment was more about ‘when’ than ‘if’, but he had a valid point in questioning his plans. “I’ll be honest and admit I haven’t planned it... I want this shit to stop pulling me here and there, which to be honest has somewhat been solved already. But there’s also the whole thing that I feel people should know what they sign up for, the System is rigged against us, and we’re somewhat being farmed.”
“Yes, but is that a bad thing?” Janik challenged Sam’s raised eyebrow. “Hear me out: I know it’s bad that we’re being harvested like this, but if people knew, this only happens after we die, so as long as we don’t die, we just get powers and an interesting life. I’m sure most people would continue like this... I mean... With what we’ve been through, what you’ve done for me, as long as I don’t splurge on Player gear, both I and the kids are set for life.”
Thinking about this for a second, Sam had to admit that Janik had a point. People are ultimately self-centred. Getting powers and allowing you the real power fantasy of... all of this, is something that most people would want to keep. Even a shit-tier Player is stronger, faster... better, than any non-player. Everyone wants to be better. Stories and games dreamt of this kind of thing when he was young, before the Towers came to be. And now that they are here, it has integrated almost too fast.
“I’m fine with that, but,” Sam started, scratching his head as he looked for the words. “It’s the mental aspect. I can’t remember if we spoke about it or if I just thought about it, but... The drive to push on, to not take it slow, the want to keep killing and all of that. There’s a drive to get better; they are ‘just dungeon monsters’, after all. Which is fine as they are, but the System pushes you, affects you. Not talking about skills like the Taunts or whatever, but... just as a whole.”
Elara had slithered up Sam’s body, perching herself on his shoulder like the scarf she was becoming. Dia was doing her best to get the gore out of her fur, resisting the urge to lick herself clean.
Janik used a few long seconds to think before replying. “I understand what you mean, I have seen people get drunk on power, doing things they shouldn’t, being a normal person against a Player doesn’t go far... I just don’t know, man.”
“It’s fine, I don’t know either, which is why I haven’t made a plan,” Sam chuckled without smiling. “I think just informing people and not forcing anyone is one way. Not going to pretend I don’t like the power I have, I love it, I don’t want to lose it, but at the same time, ignoring the forced... events... I don’t necessarily like the mental aspect of things.”
It was clear he hadn’t thought this through properly, but he didn’t like being a puppet on strings, even if he got power for it.
“Zar, Dia tarn, kru tal.” Dia chimed in suddenly, not considering what they were talking about.
“We’ll get you some water when we leave, but I think you should use English more.” Sam smiled. He was happy that he had gotten used to her language, something he was still certain the System helped him with, but it was still a neat feeling.
However, it didn’t help anyone else to understand her, nor did it help her to train her English.
She moped for a second. “Dia want water, dirty, need clean.”
Sam nodded approvingly. It was broken, but plenty understandable. “Good, and yes, let’s go get you cleaned up.”
Thinking about the conversation he and Janik just had, there is also another question. If he manages to get into the higher-level stuff of the System, what will happen with Dia?
Leaving the Dungeon through the exit portal that opened up in the centre of the caldera, they found themselves back near the entry portal on the flying island tethered to the mainland on the Fourth Floor.
Immediately after moving, Sam felt hostility. He could sense the direction it came from, but there was nobody there as far as he could see. That was until he felt a weak pulse of energy from the Sentinel’s Watch. The area where he felt the hostility now had a shimmering outline of a person, almost like a ghost, hiding behind some large rocks. His best assumption was that this was someone with invisibility.
He didn’t have enough experience with other Players, his progression had been virtually solo with friends, so he wasn’t entirely used to this kind of thing. But based on the weird annoyance from other Players when the crafter made Sentinel’s Watch, it could be a weird envy thing?
When he got the solo quest thing to kill someone in PvP, it was clear that they did that for the fun of it, and since the threshold could be that low, he decided to stay on guard for now.
Dia started reacting as well, sniffing the air as her ears twisted and twitched to each sound.
“Zar, zarvak frin.”
“Yeah, I know,” he commented back to her, not drawing attention to things. “Just leave it for now.”
Janik looked at the two of them with a slight annoyance. “You know... You speaking that gobbledygook language is sometimes annoying...”
“Well, sometimes it’s practical, I’ll translate it for you later,” Sam commented as he started walking.
Janik seemed to catch on quickly enough and didn’t ask more, just followed the duo as they walked towards the mainland. And once they had gotten far enough away, Sam decided it was best to share.
“Someone was stealthed outside the landing area of the Dungeon, there was hostility towards me.”
“Oh. Really? I didn’t notice a thing.”
“I didn’t either, Sentinel’s Watch did. And Dia is just Dia.” Sam chuckled at his latter comment.
Dia seemed to notice but looked confused, not understanding the compliment.
“But, are we going to do something about it?” Janik wondered, sounding almost like he was testing Sam.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Nah,” Sam replied nonchalantly. “It might just be envy, or he might be finding a good spot to attack me when I’m vulnerable. I’m not dumb enough to think I can tank anything a possible assassin-style player can do to me, but I don’t intend to attack anyone who just looks at me with annoyance.”
“Well, at least you’re being careful about things,” Janik approved. “But... as weird as it sounds, I recommend expecting the worst...”
Sam reacted to his tone, sounding like it was more personal than it might have been meant as. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t intend to kill other people, but if it’s us or them, well, it’s not going to be us.”
Briefly considering his defences, assuming some similar skill to Silent Killer and damage akin to Janik, he’d have no chance. One normal attack from Janik now would do about 420 damage, with Silent Killer, that’s 630. 80 Defence and 165 HP barrier would lower that to 385. He had the HP to handle this, but a second attack would make this much worse, so a dual-wield attack would just kill him. And that was just with assumed stats and low-grade weapons. So he’d prefer this not becoming a thing at all.
Janik looked a little worried, but his expression mellowed out into his smile after a second. “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that and just stay vigilant. I’d hate for this kind of thing to become a problem.”
Sam noted a heavier tone than Janik might have intended, Sam was curious but chose to leave it, he could share if he wanted to.
There was a bit of small talk and some annoyance from Dia that they didn’t handle the, as she worded it, bad hunter. But she accepted it when Sam said that she should ignore them, unless they got too close.
Walking towards the entrance area of the Fourth Floor, Sam again got to experience walking amongst a bunch of other Players, it had a very different feel from the almost barren other Floors. He met a group of people outside the Beastfolk Dungeon on the first floor, and the PvP duo, but except for those, there were almost no other players who didn’t work in a shop. So it never felt like a living place, just something to do to ‘get to the next step’. Which wasn’t far from the truth, but it felt strange.
This also instilled an odd paranoia in him. Not to the point that he would get all shifty or too weird, but having been in a PvP scenario, especially on the island and now with the envy that triggered hostile feelings, it made him a bit wary.
This was confirmed when Sentinel’s Watch pinged a few individuals who had a flash of negative feelings towards him, but they faded a few seconds later. These felt more like random envy that was put aside. He would like to put the Legendary Dagger into storage to avoid this, but that would negate some of its features, so... He would just have to accept this for now.
Leaving Aetheria to Earth landed them in the plaza not far from TAC. This also calmed down Sam’s mind a lot. They were out of the loose laws and rules in Aetheria, to the... not entirely safe but slightly safer Earth. The random spikes of hostility also disappeared, putting Sam’s mind even more at ease.
“If you’re up for it, I think grinding the Fourth Floor dungeon is not a dumb idea tomorrow. There are other dungeons, but the first one is always the easiest. As long as you’re comfortable with not being able to leave and taking out the dragon,” Janik smiled his ‘I know I’m getting free boosting’ expression.
“Oh... that’s not something I even realised,” Sam replied. “I didn’t consider testing the leaving function...”
“Yeah, I hear it’s something that gets a lot of players. The Dungeons sometimes let you know that you can’t use the leaving function, but not all of them do. I think all the Dungeons on the Fourth Floor block the emergency exit.”
“That’s terrifying...” Sam replied, not having considered this the first round, just entering without restriction, had their little three-man group not been able to handle it... “If it would have been too much for us, we’d be fucked.”
“Well, I guess, but... realistically, with your defences and damage output... Dia and I might have struggled, yes, but I had zero doubt about you.” Janik confirmed and complimented with a wide smile.
“That... does have me wondering, how well would the two of you handle this dungeon?” Sam was honestly curious. Sure, they hadn’t spent the time to master their tactics; that was an issue in this group, as Sam was solo running everything.
Janik’s smile faded as he thought about it for a few moments.
“A single Cloudhorn we might be able to handle, I can counterattack so I could work as a tank, Dia has mastered Active Defence so... It would take a while. The main danger is that taunt as it makes you attack, which would stop us from defending, and it could get a solid hit at that point. If I challenge it and we take our time... I think we can take one at a time. But since some have groups with the Stirgers, I don’t think the two of us would manage.”
“Dia strong!” Dia chimed in with a determined expression.
Chuckling at her reaction, Janik continued. “Yes, since Dia is strong, it could help, but we’re not as strong as Sam, are we?”
Dia shook her head. “Zar very strong.” She smiled widely, like she took personal pride in this fact.
“In any case,” Janik started as he turned back to Sam. “Unless you don’t want to, it could be faster to just run through that dungeon a few times. We might get some good loot, but most importantly, we’ll get the cores and Experience.”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Sam replied as they started walking towards TAC. “If we want to just farm the boss and ignore the Random Box, I can just fly up to the end boss, land near him and take care of that.”
The boss used a few seconds to wake up and attack last time, so if he flew in as fast as he could and attacked before it could send its wind waves at him, he might be able to super farm it in the matter of minutes.
“That's a good point,” Janik took up his phone and checked a few things, taking a few seconds before continuing. “That would give us the Boss Xp, dungeon clear XP and the 2% chance for some gear. We’d get the boss core, but that’s it. It’s much faster, so you could probably do that plenty fast enough to make skipping the whole dungeon worth it.”
Sam considered a few things, using his phone to consider the math and everything to make it easier.
“It’d probably take me around 30 minutes just walking to the end, taking care of everything on the way. That would net us the 20 kills, the bonus and the boss. After sharing XP, that’s 5 quadrillion per kill, 20 for the bonus, 20 for the clear and 50 for the boss, a total of 190 for each of them. I'm theoretically able to do this twice an hour puts the math at ~380 per hour.”
Pondering for a moment and redoing things, he continued. “If I rush the boss, taking five minutes, that’s only 20 for the clear, and 50 for the boss, so 70 per 5 minutes. That ends up at 840 per hour. Which is dramatically increased.” Looking up from his phone to Janik, he completed his analysis.
“But this would remove the Random Box, which was the more powerful way for us to get gear. I know my hax thing gives me a bonus to it, but the Random Box had more chances for that to trigger than the quest, 2% that had only triggered a few times so far.”
Janik nodded. “I suppose we can think about that until tomorrow. What’s most important, levelling fast or getting gear?”
They had some back and forth about this as they got to TAC. He also used this moment after his phone connected again to handle the financial side of selling the Venom and his crafting costs.
Stopping by the sales desk, Janik again insisted that Sam got the cores. He had his own crystals from completing the Dungeon and he was set, after all.
Adding $1 293 000 to his account, both he and Elara had a look through the TAC marked, they didn’t find anything of interest. There was a low-powered Appraisal skill but it disappeared before they could consider to get it.
“I’ll head home,” Janik started. “You eat something neat and relax, we can talk tomorrow. I’ll head home to the kids and spend the evening with them.” He smiled widely, seeming like he looked forward to it.
Elara looked at Sam questioningly, and before she got a chance to ask, Sam already knew.
“You can go with him if you want.” He answered before she said anything.
She smiled widely, which even after he had gotten used to it, looked a bit odd on a snake.
They separated for the evening, Sam decided to go to a room, clean up and order some roomservice. Dia was still... not clean, and though he hadn’t dug deep into the guts of monsters he wasn’t exactly clean either.
The rest of the evening was relaxing, a solid shower and good food gave him a stark contrast to the lawnmower of death he was when in the Dungeons. Dia also chose to sit a bit closer than necessary every time she could. He didn’t mind and found it more endearing than anything.
Their quiet time was suddenly interrupted by a window popping up in his view.
“Excuse me, what?!”
[ Ascendance system quest: Become the Dungeon Boss ]
