- Farming

'I'm not leaving this dungeon until either every boar is dead or I hit level 15' I confidently walked around the trees and hills looking for boars. It's still daytime and the rain hasn't let up. The atmosphere showed no sign of changing anytime soon.

'I'll use this as a way to become more familiar with my skills.' I thought as I approached a group of 6 boars walking deeper into the woods at a very fast pace. 'They must sense me since I'm pretty strong with my new gear'.

I used [Thunder] four times consecutively before the boars even noticed me, making sure to save a little bit of mana just in case. I darted forward and finished off the remaining two with my shortsword. I got another boar tusk shortsword drop and placed it in my inventory. 'I'm not sure how much money it's worth but I plan on selling it once I get the chance.'

[You've received 739 exp for killing Dungeon Boar*6]

[LEVEL UP]

Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and Vitality have risen by 2. Intelligence has risen by 3. You've received 4 attribute points. You've received 1 skill point.

'Just two more levels to go. From what this group just demonstrated, most of the boars are probably gathering in the center of the dungeon so they aren't killed. It would be best to circle the outskirts and look for strays while I wait for night to fall so I can take out every boar one by one while they're asleep.'

As I was circling the center of the entire dungeon, I was checking the progress of my stats, attribute points, and skill points. After realizing I had accumulated 7 skill points, I started debating exactly what I should put them into, or if I should just continue to save them like I was planning to do with my attribute points.

After debating the topic for a while and killing a lone boar that was scratching its back against a tree, I decided I would put one point into each magic skill I had just to see the change in effects and whether or not the mana cost to cast a spell would go up.

As I examined the skills after upgrading them, all of their effects increased slightly while the cost to cast them remained the same. 'I guess upgrading a skill is much like refining it. It improves its proficiency while keeping the same requirements to use it. That's good to know.'

I continued my slow pace of circling the entire dungeon for a couple of hours until finally, the sun was setting behind the cloud-filled horizon. The rain still pouring down as if the gods were trying to flood the world. Nearly everywhere you walked there would be a small puddle waiting to be stepped on. I only ended up running into two more boars after the initial one.

'It's finally time to see what all the boars are up to.' I darted towards the center of the dungeon where the carcass of the boss monster disappeared but a huge hoard of boars were snuggled up together all trying to fall asleep. 'What happened to the boss?' I asked, confused about why it disappeared so fast.

[Dungeons are this world's way of dispersing excess energy. The world is what spawns these dungeons and every monster and item in them. Every time you kill a monster you absorb that energy and every time a normal monster or human dies their energy is put back in the earth. Therefore when these monsters in dungeons die, their bodies disappear after a certain amount of hours and the earth will respawn more mobs and eventually a new boss.]

'That makes sense I guess. I mean it sounds bizarre but it explains the whole corpse ordeal. I'll sit here and wait for every boar to fall asleep. I'll stab each one in the skull one after the other.' After around 30 minutes of nothing but the pitter-patter of the rain and the plummeting temperature of the night, I decided to start my massacre. I'm glad I have this coat or I'd be freezing right now. Oh, wait! I have two coats! I'll use the other as a blanket later when I'm relaxing.'

I got up and walked out of the brush I was hiding in and walked to the nearest boar. I wasn't worried about making any noise as the rain would cover it up. I spun my shortsword around in my hand, grasped it, and pushed it right into its skull with minimum effort. I repeated this process for the next hour or so until finally, every boar was dead.

I got a couple of decent drops such as a couple of leathers, a new boar hide shield, and a skill called [Charge]. The skill boosted my speed by 100% for 5 seconds as long as I was moving in a straight line. However it costs a lot of stamina to use and I'm more suited to moving in lots of different directions than just one, but I saw the usefulness of it and decided to keep it in my inventory. 'I'll figure out what to do with it later.'

I also ended up leveling up once, nearly twice. I was kind of frustrated since I was so close to hitting level 15 and I had run out of opponents in this dungeon. I double-checked around me once more to make sure I picked up all the loot and left. I flew high in the air since it was night and decided to follow the road once more in the same direction the merchant went the other day. Well, it was more like 5 days ago but still. I only needed around 250 exp to level up to 15 and evolve.

'I really don't want to go back to the [Wolves Den] Dungeon. I don't care how desperate I am.' I continued walking down the path. I decided to make some real progress and sprinted as fast as I could down the path. I wanted to leave this area as I had spent too much time in it anyways. I took off into the sky and flew as fast as I could. My stamina could holp up for a decently long time now so I didn't have to worry about exhaustion as much.

After around half an hour I had to land back on the ground and walk as my stamina was nearly depleted but I had made substantial progress as I didn't recognize any of the woods around me. In fact, the mountains stopped appearing and the woods started thinning out.

Up ahead was a huge open field as far as my eye could see with very few hills. The rain was finally letting up as I decided now would be a good time as ever to take a nap. I flew to a tree decently far from the road and kicked back and relaxed while using my extra coat as a blanket to stay warm in the cold night.

I laid there until my stamina was filled, letting the peaceful atmosphere wash my worries away. The wind rustling the leaves in waves every now and then was the only noise you could hear. The ground was struggling to soak up the layer of water that had covered everything from the strong storm.

The clouds were finally starting to part ways, letting the moon shine its light on the woods. I sat up and hopped down from my tree and continued my journey. This time I decided to walk as I wasn't in such a rush.

Up ahead I saw slimes rolling around the hills around the path. 'You've gotta be kidding me. Out of all the dungeons I could've passed along the way it just had to be slimes. I've already killed so many of your friends in another dungeon.'

I walked up to a slime that was rolling around peacefully just like all the others. 'The humans must've disregarded these slimes as they aren't a threat in any way when making this path.' I unequipped my shortsword and stabbed the little guy and ripped his core out.

[You've received 22 exp for killing Dungeon Slime]

'These guys must be a common mob in this part of the world. I also haven't run into a single dungeon higher than E+. Maybe the higher the difficulty a dungeon is, the more uncommon they are? Or maybe the dungeons that spawn have to do with the terrain. I'll find out soon enough.' I walked around, stabbing the innocent slimes until finally.

*Ding*

[LEVEL UP]

The familiar window popped up telling me of my increased stats and the other reoccurring messages. However, this time it had a new sentence at the end.

[You've met the requirements for evolution]