System Change

Derek avoided the final shrapnel from the last Fire Golem. Soon, another orb appeared in the middle of the cavern. One leading to the next area. Instead of immediately warping to the next area, he checked some of his notifications. Dismissing most of the kill notifications, he pulled up the last one.

You have killed level 160 Fire Ghoul.

11,787,500 Experience Gained

Level Up

1,524,300/20,000,000 Experience to Next Level

Derek let out a breath and smiled. He knew doing a level 170 dungeon while being around level 100 would be lucrative, but in two areas of the dungeon, he had already leveled up 11 times. Of course, as he leveled, the amount of experience he would need for the next level dramatically increased as well.

Not to mention the fact that he would only earn half the experience from each enemy once he completed the dungeon once. Still, it would give him a chance to both level his Lesser Solo Diver Award and his Lesser Repetitive Dungeoneer Award.

He wanted to level his skills as much as possible in the time before he had to return to Savannah, but towards the end, he would work on speed running the dungeon to push his level to the dungeon cap. The rewards wouldn’t be great, but it was a dungeon with few enemies that he could run many times.

If he could level up the Lesser Repetitive Dungeoneer Award multiple times, it would make things better for some of the dungeons with better rewards that he saw. He only hoped that the bonus for the Award kept rising. Right now, he had a five percent chance of receiving a reward after completing a dungeon after the first time. If he could get that to twenty or more, he could farm skills or equipment in high ranked dungeons.

Derek also checked on the skill notifications that he received during this fighting. His Absolute Nullify was level 2, Void Steps had risen to level 5 already, and he even got another level in Magic Resistance, Void Shift, and Channel Void. This was all in the first two areas of the dungeon.

Finally, he dismissed the notifications and walked toward the dungeon orb. Placing his hand on it, he moved on to the next area.

Derek looked at his surroundings. Damn, this system really enjoys sticking you in a cabin. Again, the safe zone he appeared in was another cabin. He opened the door and walked out.

The third area of the dungeon was a completely open field with waist high grass. The sky was cloudless and the sun was high. It was the perfect sunny day. A constant light breeze fell on Derek’s face. It was the most beautiful area he’d seen in a dungeon. And… there won’t be any ticks in this grass because it’s a dungeon and only dungeon monsters spawn.

Derek walked through the flourishing flat lands. The only problem he had with the area was that the tall grass was too tall to see the boulders that made up whatever type of golem he would be fighting. Fortunately, that was quickly solved by using Void Steps.

Derek kicked off the ground and jumped from ripple to ripple until he was high in the sky, looking down on the land. Sure enough, he was able to find the multiple places where the golems were resting. He jumped off a void ripple and landed next to the first golem.

As soon as he destroyed this golem, the rest would most likely come to life, and he would no longer have to look for them.

As he inched closer, the golem roared and began building itself. Derek used Identify.

Wind Golem

Level 165

A golem formed of stone and held together by the wind element. This monster has high defense and strong physical and elemental attacks.

As expected. If this is a Wind Golem, then the next area must be Earth Golems. He thought. Derek waited for the golem to build itself, then backed up. He needed to see what kind of skills the monster would use.

Once the golem was finished, it attacked. Derek was still close to it, so it only physically attacked. He quickly used Void Steps to jump into the sky.

The Wind Golem continued punching even though Derek was out of range. Only, at the end of each punch, a Wind Blade shot out. It was about half the size of Rayna’s Wind Blade, but they came at Derek much more rapidly.

Derek jumped away, ducking and dodging the blades. Finally, he let one hit him so he could estimate the damage. The blade actually cut through his skin and into his muscle, stopping about midway through. He immediately took Wind Golem off his list of potential Magic Resistance training partners.

However, because of how fast the golem attacked and how much space there was for him to dodge, it seemed the golem would be the perfect partner to train his Void Steps.

That was, until the Wind Golem split itself into multiple stones and floated in the air. Four stones created each limb. The stones began spinning rapidly in four separate parts. Soon, each set of stones sent out small cyclones in Derek’s direction.

At the same time, the head and torso of the Wind Golem floated behind the attacks, under the cover of the cyclones. Occasionally, a giant Wind Blade flew through the cyclones and at Derek. Everything that was happening made Derek wonder if the other golems had more than one elemental attack as well, or if it was just something that was special about the Wind Golems.

Anyway he looked at it, he would not be using this area as a training area… at least not initially. There were too many moving parts, both figuratively and literally. Plus, with all the racket being made by the Wind Golem, the others began to stir. Soon, he would be fighting ten golems instead of just one.

Derek jumped up and over the tornadoes and dodged an incoming Wind Blade before stopping in front of the torso of the Wind Golem. With the void channeled into his fist, he struck at the core. However, the core quickly moved and his fist landed on the torso a few inches away from the core.

Derek waited, but nothing happened. There was nothing vital in the area, so the void didn’t harm wherever it hit. The other golems were pretty slow at moving their whole bodies, so he didn’t expect this one to be any different, even though he should have.

The wind element made whoever was using it much more mobile, and considering the Wind Golem had no problem flying, he should have expected it to be more elusive. Still, it didn’t matter. The thing was huge, and after dodging another incoming Wind Blade, he punched out again. This time, much faster than before.

The punch connected, and the surrounding winds immediately ceased. The green-blue aura glowing around the golem flickered, and the core pulsed. Derek kicked off a void ripple and headed straight for one of the other awakened golems.

It would be a mess if all the golems in the area powered up at the same time. He needed to finish as many as he could before they all split and started sending tornadoes and giant Wind Blades at him.

He jumped from golem to golem, even using Void Shift in between to not allow them to have any offensive. At the end, with an almost depleted mana pool, Derek landed beside the cabin. Because he was using Void Shift, there was almost no time in between the nine explosions.

This time, the shrapnel was propelled forward at a speed that made it hard for Derek to track. The extra wind behind it must have increased the speed. Derek wasn’t expecting that, so he failed to dodge one of the pieces.

He looked down and saw a jagged rock sticking out of his side. It had pierced his skin, went through his muscles, and even penetrated his liver. He was sure his bones would have stopped it, but unfortunately, it just missed his rib cage, passing less than an inch under.

Derek cursed at the scene of the jagged rock protruding from his abdomen. He grabbed the stone and pulled, ripping it out of his body. A jet of blood followed, but soon stopped. He cast Rejuvenation on the wound and slipped into Greater Meditation to speed the healing process.

Having an organ directly damaged took a chunk out of his overall health, which he learned about when Shae destroyed his kidneys. It wasn’t too much this time, only 15%, and he was still sure that none of the shrapnel would have been able to pierce through his bones, but he made up his mind to hide either inside or behind the cabin the next time he came to this area.

Maybe I’ll put some more points into Dexterity and Strength soon. It will give me some more speed to avoid things like that. Still, he could have used Void Shift, but he was unsure if the small amount of mana left in his pool would even be enough to activate the skill.

Yeah… I’ll do that. If Vitality and Endurance were his primary stats, then Strength and Dexterity were his secondary ones.

Still, he waited to allocate the points. He wasn’t sure how precise skill leveling was, but they were leveling quickly at the moment, and making the dungeon easier for him would surely slow down the leveling process.

After making his decision, Derek moved to the dungeon orb and touched it. He disappeared.