Dungeon Rewards

Whilst Leon's words seemed kind to everyone else, they heard a different meaning.

Instantly, the dying words of Jeff rang out in their minds.

'When your use runs out, you'll end up just like me!'

They had seen Leon bring back a kid from the brink of death, but now you expect them to believe he couldn't even save a guy suffering with some little poison?

There was no way they would believe that!

In their minds, the difference between Jeff and Lucas was that Leon thought Lucas could somehow still be of use and thus saved him.

Leon soon sensed a strange aura forming and soon changed the subject.

"Well, seeing as everyone is okay, I its time to start leaving this damn place!"

Leon faced no resistance in this decision as everyone was just as eager to leave as he was but just as he was about to follow Lucas suddenly heard a strange sound.

[Ding!]

[Due to your previous actions, you gain...]

[+1000 affinity points with ***** **** Baal]

[+100 affinity points with the Demonic faction]

Lucas froze.

This strange being he met was supremely not a hallucination.

Suddenly Lucas remembered the shadow's last words.

'If you ever need help, feel free to just call my name.'

'Baal' thought Lucas.

In this world, nothing can be assured. He had quite literally died just a few moments ago.

Even if the negative intentions of this being were clear, Lucas would never turn down power, not if it would mean he could protect his sister.

With his conviction strengthened even further, Lucas quickly walked after the others.

….

Several minutes later, the group could faintly see the light of the sun shining through the cave hole.

"Finally, we're done." Sighed Leon.

Looking back on the expedition, Leon was left with mixed feelings

He had gained a lot of stats, but the negatives were still many.

He had lost a member of the group. Whether he liked him didn't change the fact that a person had died due it his negligence.

In addition, he had forfeited an easy chance to get an evolving weapon.

But in the end, he couldn't say it was all a failure.

After all, the final rewards hadn't come in yet.

As soon as the group left the cave, they were bombarded with notifications.

[Ding!]

[Congratulations warriors on completing the dungeon instance, Cave of The Arachnid.]

[Evaluating instance completion…. ]

Instance completion rating 100%

Leon El'Johnson 55%

Lucy Breyer 22%

Jessica Bishop 13%

Lucas Breyer 13%

Martin 7%

Personal rating

Mission Contribution: 55% - S rating

Mission timing: 3 hours 25 mins - A rating

Number of participants: 6/ 40 - S rating

Overall instance rating A+

Calculating rewards….

Reward 1:

+8 strength

+8 constitution

+8 agility

Reward 2: Reward from Arachne weapon set

Reward 3: Silk Step boots

Name: Silk Step boots

Rank: Grey stone

Quality: Rare

Classification: armour

Durability: 2000/2000

Effect: + 10 agility

Description: These boots were crafted with the silk of a brood mother spider by a masterful artesian. The boots come with the ability to stick to any surface they make constant with allowing the wearer to have the agility of a spider.

As Leon looked at the rewards, he couldn't help but shake his head.

A+

Normally it could be seen as an amazing rank to achieve, especially in the first instance, but Leon just couldn't look at it that way

There were still many ranks beyond on A+ rating

If he wanted to surpass the heroes, if he wanted to change the fate of the entire human race, an A+ was simply unacceptable!

Suddenly, Leon began to regret his choice in choosing the superior healing potion. An evolving weapon would at least have given him the assurance of high level fighting power in later stages <Haven>. Right now, the best he could do with remaining potion is heal all mortal wounds of anyone at the Black Iron Rank or lower and from the remaining potion, Leon knew he could only heal two more people max.

With a sigh, Leon called the rest of the group.

He could see that each member in the group was holding a new weapon in their hands

From speaking to them, he could hear that most of them had got a rating of B, with only Martin doing as poor as C

But even with that, they all had been given the reward of choosing a weapon from the arachnid weapon set

Martin and Lucas chose swords, whilst Jessica obviously chose a bow.

Surprisingly, even Lucy managed to find a suitable weapon in the form of a staff.

The staff reduced the Mann cost of all spell type skills and even had the ability of increasing the damage of any poison damage type spells.

But it's not like that changed much for Lucy, as she didn't have any offensive spells in the first place.

The fact that it reduced mana cost was enough for her.

Of course, seeing as everyone else was doing, so Leon had to choose a weapon as well.

Name: Spear of the arachnid

Rank: Grey stone

Quality: uncommon

Classification: Polearm

Durability: 1500/1500

Effect: +5 strength to all attacks plus the slight chance of paralysing an enemy.

Description: Forged from the giant fangs of the Broodmother spider, this spear carry's both the piercing and poisonous characteristics of the materials used to forge it!

The weapon was nothing too amazing. The only intriguing thing was its paralytic effect, but since the system didn't even bother to mention the chances of the paralysis occurring, Leon just assumed that the chances of it happening must be negligible.

After giving his new weapon a brief look, Lucas then turned to the rest of the group.

The reason he had gathered everyone again was simple.

To split the rewards gained from killing the boss.

Boss rewards and Instance rewards were two separate things, each completely independent of each other.

After collecting the loot from the Broodmother's corpse, the things Leon had found were a skillbook, a chest piece and, of course, the dropped attribute crystals.

The first things Leon had to share out were the crystals dropped by the boss monster.

You see, in <Haven> bosses had a special characteristic not seen in other creatures.

Their attribute crystals could be split up!

This meant that rewards of bosses could easily be split up amongst party members.

Even Leon, who despised the general workings of the system of this world, had to admit this was a good idea.

If it was impossible to split up boss rewards, then it would just lead to too much trouble and infighting amongst party members.

But it's not like this effect had completely eliminated such problems either.

If a person could easily kill their party members and claim the boss rewards all for themselves, there are still many people in the world that would do such a thing without any second thoughts.

After a short discussion, Leon and the rest decided to split up the boss attribute crystals in accordance with contribution percentages shown by the instance ratings.

In total, from the attribute crystals dropped by the Broodmother, Leon gained +5.5 strength and +5.5 constitution

As for the other rewards, Leon didn't bother to discuss the other's opinions and directly claimed the skillbook for himself.

Skill: Exoskeleton

Type: Defence

Quality: Uncommon

Description: Upon activation, the skill causes a small layer of mana to coat the user's skin, acting as a tight exoskeleton suit

Mana cost: 4 per cast

Leon didn't mind making concessions on minor things like attributes and items, things like those could always be gained at a later date. Skills on the other hand, were a much rarer commodity in <Haven>. Although it was possible to gain skills from fighting basic monsters, it was extremely unlikely.

To put things in perspective, by the end of Leon's previous life, despite people having spent countless years in <Haven>, most people had only managed to get only two skill books from actual monster drops, some unlucky individuals never even got one!

That's why for most people the three main ways to get skills were through classes, bosses and Instances. There were, of course, going to be other ways to acquire skill books, but they were so unreliable and unpredictable that they weren't even worth mentioning.

Because of this, a skillbook so early on, especially a defensive one, was game changing and Leon wasn't willing to back down on this opportunity.

Fortunately, everyone else seemed to sense Leon's determination, so no one was stupid enough to challenge him for it.

After taking the Skillbook, Leon quickly lost interest in the other items and left them for the group to split

Eventually the armour was given to the next in line for contribution which was the brother and sister pair

Of course, Lucas didn't think for long this armour was quickly given to his little sister.

Even with Lucy's instance that Lucas took it with Lucas's recent near death experience, Lucas just used it as an excuse to flip it on Lucy and make it more necessary that she claims it.

It seemed like even death wouldn't even be able to stop this big brother's doting.

Leon turned away from the siblings little argument and looked at his stats.

[ Leon El'Jonson ]

-Race: Human

-Innate trait: Incorruptible soul

-Class: none

-Profession: none

-Title(s): none

- Status

Strength: 38.5 (33.5 +5)

Constitution: 34.6 (31.6 +3)

Agility: 33.5 (23.5+10)

Perception: 18.4

Mana: 10/10

Leon couldn't resist the smile that was slowly forming on his face as he looked at his stats.

Although he hadn't done quite well enough to achieve some of the higher instance ratings, he was still able to almost double his stats with just an A+ rating!

The only downside was his simply pitifully low perception and mana, but Leon knew couldn't truly complain at these stats.

For just awakening, 10 was quite the decent mana supply and his perception wasn't too shabby for only the first day either.

In his past life, Leon could remember his initial awakening mana wasn't much higher than 5. Leon couldn't come up with any reason why his mana had suddenly increased and just chucked it up to some unknown regression shenanigans .

Walking out, Leon expected to see the rest of the people waiting outside, but instead, he saw the tragic remains of a battlefield.

"Kayla!" Cried Jessica in worry as she ran up to her friend.

She was in a terrible state with cuts all over her body and was bleeding profusely from her head

"What on earth happened here?!" asked Jessica

"W-we we're ambushed" stuttered Kayla as she collapsed into Jessica's arms

"After you guys came out to get the stuff needed for the Boss fight, we were suddenly ambushed by a swarm of goblins. As for the rest… I don't think I have to explain."

Looking at the aftermath of the fight, Leon couldn't help but sigh.

He had set out on this mission with 11 people, but now only 7 were returning.

4 people had died, and all under his leadership.

Leon wasn't in the mood to linger around so as soon as Lucy attended to the injured with some healing spells, he quickly rounded everyone up and headed back towards the temple.

….

A day had passed since Leon and the rest had come back from the dungeon.

As expected, when Leon and the rest first arrived, they were criticised by others that stayed behind for their recklessness and carelessly wasting 4 lives.

But Leon simply ignored them, and soon they were too forced to shut up.

The reason was simple.

The differences started showing.

Soon, after only the next wave of monster attacks, Andrew, who had originally come in second place right after Leon, was completely forced out of the battle rankings coming behind even a little girl like Lucy!

It was only after seeing results like this Leon's original words truly started to set in for them.

'Every second you waste hiding somebody else is using to get stronger!'