I was surprised at how aggressive the entrance to this dungeon looked, but I recovered quickly, after seeing the state in which many people are leaving the dungeon I turn to Diana to talk to her.
“Why are so many people leaving the dungeon injured?” (I)
“This is normal, these are newbie adventurers, they must have just entered and after a round or two of battles they are in that state.” (Diana)
“The most experienced adventurers can spend half the day inside the Dungeon with constant fights.” (Diana)
“How is the number of monsters per floor?” (Irius)
“The monsters on the first five floors are targets of novice adventurers, so there are fewer monsters, the sixth through the tenth floor have a little more monsters, but there are still many adventurers exploring these floors, only after moving to the eleventh floor than the number of monsters increases a lot since the younger adventurers don’t dare to pass by the boss of the tenth floor.” (Diana)
“How do you think it will take us to find monsters on the first five floors?” (Irius)
“Every thirty minutes we should find some groups of snakes, I think you better be aware they love ambushes.” (Diana)
“Alright, before we go in let’s decide on a formation.” (I)
“I was going to suggest this now, well thought out for your first exploration, master.” (Diana)
“Diana and I will go ahead since we have detection capabilities to find the monsters, Irina and Érica will be in the middle with Irius protecting the right side and Ibuki protecting the left side, Kira you and Byakko will protect the back so as not to be ambushed by monsters or adventurers.” (I)
“There!” (I)
I feel a tug on my hair and look at the little Fairy who has come out of the hood that this combat suit has that reminds me a lot of a black army combat suit.
“You forgot to tell you what to do.” (Layla)
“You will stay with me.” (I)
“Okay then I’ll get a ride with you.” (Layla)
Layla flies over to me and sits on my shoulder, I don’t know what to make of this lazy fairy.
“This is a very simple and classic plan, but you did well to see where each would do best.” (Diana)
“Thanks.” (I)
“I think now is our time to go inside, let’s go!” (I)
My group and I entered through the Serpent’s mouth, I feel I have gone through something but I don’t know what it is since it’s very dark, so I keep walking until I reach an open cave area.
I look around and see crystals on the walls and ceiling that illuminates everything around, the cave is completely round with a dark tunnel behind me is a normal cave tunnel on the other side of the cave room, in the center of the cave there is a big column crystal with symbols of snakes.
“What place is this?” (I)
“This is the first-floor entrance room, each floor has a room like the one at the entrance, monsters don’t enter here unless there is a wave of monsters.” (Diana)
“After that cave tunnel, we will be in the caves that make up the first floor, the crystal in the center allows you to teleport to the floor where you have been, only one person can choose the floor and has to have been there before, only teleport together if you are in the same group.” (Diana)
“Before you ask, that crystal is indestructible and cannot be moved from its place, the walls and structures inside the Dungeon are also much stronger and repair over time to their original state.” (Diana)
“I didn’t read that in the Dungeons book.” (I)
“These books tend to simplify knowledge a lot, so I’m telling you that.” (Diana)
“How far have you gone in this dungeon, Diana?” (I)
“I already went up to the tenth floor, but I didn’t face the boss there, that was a few weeks before I met Érica.” (Diana)
“I would like to see more of this dungeon, but I won’t be rushing unnecessarily, let’s explore floor by floor.” (I)
“Old master, the initial goal of exploring the first five floors was for us to learn to fight together faster.” (Érica)
“Exactly that, Érica.” (I)
“Now enter the formation we decided on before, let’s go through that tunnel.” (I)
“Before we go we have to put our hands on the crystal in the center of the room, this will make it register that we were here, or we won’t be able to teleport here later.” (Diana)
“You heard her, let’s go.” (I)
Everyone goes to the crystal and I see it glow slightly where each one puts their hand before it goes out again, after that we head towards the tunnel.
We started to go through that tunnel that I found to have a height of three meters and a width of four meters, after going through this small tunnel we found ourselves in an even bigger tunnel, the ceiling height should be up to five meters and the tunnel corridors it’s about ten meters or more, it looks like there’s a crossroads just ahead that leads to a tunnel to the left, a tunnel to the right and the tunnel where we’re straight.
“Do you know the map of this tunnel, Diana?” (I)
“Don’t worry master, I know the entire map of the first eight floors by the head.” (Diana)
“Are there any traps on this floor?” (I)
“No, the traps only start appearing on the fifth floor.” (Diana)
“I think we can then just explore this floor randomly to fight some monsters, if we find it too easy we can start going to the next floors, what do you think?” (I)
“Good plan, Dad.” (Irius/Irina)
“I agree.” (Érica)
“Ibuki goes wherever the master goes.” (Ibuki)
“It’s fine by me.” (Kira)
“We can do it then, master.” (Diana)
“Then it’s decided, let’s go.” (I)
We started walking slowly with the guard up through the straight tunnel, I was using my [ Detect Presence: 1 ] ability to not be surprised by any monsters.
After five minutes of walking ten green snakes appear in front of us.
“This is a snake that has paralyzing venom, that’s the objective of one of the missions.” (Diana)
Snakes start coming towards us.
“Attack!” (I)
I don’t need to keep shouting orders like that time in the forest, we’ve been training together for these two weeks and we know and what we should do.
“Layla try to capture some for us to leave for Ibuki to kill, I want to make her evolve as quickly as possible.” (I)
“All right.” (Layla)
There were ten snakes, they were big compared to the ones in my world, but in this one, I found they are small in size.
“< Fireball >” (I/Érica)
Diana stands still while Érica and I raise our hands and geometric shapes appear one by one combining into two equal magic circles, then two fireballs fly out of those magic circles and each one hits one side of the group of snakes.
BOOM! BOOM!
With this attack four have already died, so Kira and Diana run, Diana has the swords glowing from the magic Irina used on them to strengthen the swords, while Kira’s daggers seem electrified with electric currents coming out of them, Byakko must have done that.
Each of them kills two snakes, and at some point Ibuki appeared giving one of the two remaining snakes a spin kick, throwing it into the last snake, then using a sword to cut the two together and thus ending in a few seconds our first battle in the Dungeon.
Ding! Ding!
I’ll check the notifications after I leave the dungeon, I don’t want to be surprised by a surprise attack just by getting distracted by every system notification, now I know I can leave the notifications aside for later.
“It was very easy, Ibuki wants to fight more.” (Ibuki)
“I didn’t even have time to do anything.” (Layla)
“I think this floor might be too easy for our group, maybe we should go to the second one.” (I)
“I think you are right.” (Diana)
“Let’s explore a bit more on the way to the second floor.” (I)
“I think I’ll have a quick snack before we go.” (I)
I use my skill [ Weak Blood Control: 8 ] then red energy comes out of my hand very slowly to the bodies of these snakes, after a few seconds I make a gesture with my hand and the blood of the ten snakes starts coming out of their bodies and gather in a sphere of blood on the top of my hand after I’ve got every last drop of blood I open my mouth and drink it all down.
Ding! Ding!
We kept walking through the dungeon, we often saw other adventurers along the way fighting the same snakes, everyone managed to beat them quickly, not as fast as us, but it was pretty fast.
The following fights were like the first one, we never had to fight all together so we just let Ibuki fight alone when there were less than five snakes or when there were even ten snakes I would let Layla join Ibuki to finish quickly.
At this pace, we followed the path that Kira had pointed out until we reached the place of stairs to the second floor.
“Any different monsters appear on the second floor?” (I)
“Yes, there’s the one we faced on this floor and another snake that has a weak necrotic venom.” (Diana)
“Alright then let’s go.” (I)
The others and I headed towards the stairs and started down to the second floor.