Ed was put to sleep by the system, as ominous as it sounded, so the 10 minutes went by in a flash.
By the time he woke up, he was already inside of his skeletal body laying on the cold hard ground. Not that he could tell...
He quickly rose his groggy body and took in the surroundings. Having long gotten used to the dim torchlight, He was able to tell that he was still where he had last left off.
If there was one thing that changed however was that the remains of the seven skeletons were not on the ground, the dungeon had either absorbed them back or…
[Skeleton]
A relatively weak undead mob. Susceptible to blunt weapons and weak to life magic.
Ed scanned seven skeletons that wandered the cryptic room.
The dungeon had simply replaced the consciousnesses he had stolen was what he was about to say but…
'This assessment didn't tell me much' The only new thing was the skeleton's susceptibility to life magic which was the opposite of the death element and therefore completely expected.
What he really wanted to know was if those were the same skeletons from last time with a new consciousness inside of them. He neared each skeleton and examined them but he couldn't tell if there were any differences so he cast the matter aside.
He had better things to take care of such as…
[A group of trespassers have entered your floor]
Getting his earth manipulation skill to become mana manipulation…
Seeing the alert come sooner than he had expected he quickly adjusted his plan.
'Looks like I should multi-task then' Ed transmitted his thoughts to the seven skeletons in the room asking them to follow him. He then shifted the ground underneath the skeleton's feet to bring them closer purely for the sake of practice.
Ed still remembered where he left off and the way back to the boss room so he wasn't worried about losing his way. He left the room to gather more enemies to form the good old fashioned skeleton horde, you couldn't go wrong with a skeleton horde.
After some more wandering and getting 30 or so skeleton the mana manipulation skill reared its head.
[Reproducing learning conditions]
[??? perk activated]
[<Mana Manipulation lvl. 0> Acquired]
Ed hadn't expected the skill to appear so soon. He especially didn't expect it to only be classified as level 0.
'I guess that's because I can't use the four other elements' The reason why he was able to learn the skill was that he had already learned it as an orc as the first message suggested. The reproduced conditions then activated the system link perk leading to this result.
'Based on my understanding of how this all works so far, a skill starting at 0 means that it is entirely new to me.' So Ed found it odd that the mana manipulation started at 0. It must have been the only way to balance it though given that he didn't really meet the conditions, it was instead based on memory.
Still. He didn't intend to complain. He put the matter aside and moved onto the next step of the plan. Rearranging the dungeon.
With the mana manipulation skill, he should be able to take his earth bending skills to the next level. Closing off a couple of corridors or creating pitfall traps should be within his capabilities now.
'Unfortunately, I don't know much about traps' Putting aside the fact that he didn't remember many things, Ed was starting to regret having lived such a mundane life.
'I guess an average life isn't the best…' It was just average in the end. Maybe if he held higher aspirations he wouldn't have met his end, maybe he would have been more than just a debt-stricken college student.
'I can't change the past though' He had reincarnated. So maybe it was actually possible. But until then, he should try to make the most out of this second chance at life.
This brief moment of realization lasted only a moment and Ed was soon brought back to reality. The annoying sounds of the cackling bones that followed behind him and the eerie atmosphere. He really needed to find a way out of this place.
For now, he would set some traps. Take things one step at a time.
***
They had now entered the third floor.
"Rest up for 10 minutes, we will continue moving after that." They hadn't taken any breaks heading up since the first two floors were easy to deal with and for the most part normal.
The anomalies all happened from the third floor and above. With the current situation, it was a good idea to take a short break to allow the team to respond to any situation without too much trouble.
The break was soon over and it was now time for them to leave the safety of the safe room. It was also Samuel's duty to make sure that everyone maintained their alert state.
"The dungeon gets tricky from here on. We can be facing as many as 200 skeletons before we know it. Stay sharp" Samuel's words were short but they embodied how he felt about the expedition. Some of the more uneducated adventurers believed him to be exaggerating things but for the most simply nodded solemnly. Even Felix did, considering his previous experience of getting mobbed he was one of the few that took the warning quite seriously.
With the formalities out of the way, the crowd took their first steps out of the room. Just like before, the roof collapsed. Samuel figured that this served as some sort of warning but didn't pay it much mind.
Not wanting to be outdone by Drake, he quickly unsheathed his sword and released a sharp swing. His blade which had been covered by a blue hue turned into a ferocious wave that devoured the debris and washed the pathway clean.
"Let's go" He sheathed his sword and motioned for the team to move.
Before he could properly take the lead however, a blueish glow then covered his body and Samuel felt the mana he had just spent start to quickly recover.
He looked towards Clarys with a thankful expression to which she replied with a kind smile. Samuel's impression of her was improving the more time he spent with her, she was definitely a great ally to have.
Drake however scoffed at the preferential treatment. As a total badass, he didn't have anyone look after him so closely. His interactions with the other sex often involved a paywall as well so his action had hints of jealousy.
The large party of adventurers easily swept apart any skeletons that they came across. In less than half an hour, they were already nearing the end of the third floor.
They encountered a group of seven or so skeletons that they quickly finished. Just as they were ready to move on ...
"Hm?" Samuel was forced to a halt.
As he was the one in the lead, once the others saw him stop they also followed after him.
"What's wrong?" Asked Clarys from behind him.
"Something's wrong" Samuel absentmindedly replied. He was looking around the room at the moment so he wasn't really present. He had noticed some peculiar details which needed confirmation.
He quickly brought a map out of a spatial ring. It was the map that he had used the last time he came here which was had been made by the scouts.
They had failed to scout out the immediate area near the boss room, but other than that the entire third floor, as well as the previous floors, were mapped out in a fair amount of detail.
Samuel quickly outlined the path they had taken thus far from memory hoping to figure out their current location and quickly identified the problem,
"It looks like we have been going in circles" He audibly muttered.
Hearing this Drake frowned. He also glanced around the room to ascertain the situation. There were the usual decorations. Creaky wooden chairs, broken down wooden tables, rusty swords. It wasn't a surprise that they had managed to go in circles.
"Some of the hallways must have been sealed off, I don't remember seeing some of these passageways." Said Samuel as he passed his finger over the map.
"Did the dungeon do it?" Asked Felix who was listening in.
Hearing this question Samuel frowned, not only was it hard to swallow it also came from Felix. Not letting his prejudice get in the way, he offered his two cents.
"I don't think so." He took one last glance at the map and roused his wind elements, "This was clearly magic" He said as he threw a glance at a seemingly normal wall.
A strong gush of wind blew against the unsuspecting wall. Upon collision, the wall was surprisingly blown back revealing another dungeon corridor.
Some of the B-class adventurers gasped in admiration towards Samuel's skill while others gasped out of pure surprise.
"Looks like someone or something wants to delay us for a bit" Samuel's eyes gleamed with murderous intent, he remembered killing such an irregular monster before.