Dungeon Hunter - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Episode 1. Beginner Protection Period (2)

The Mind’s Eye.
That was the skill that I wanted to obtain, and this was the reason I spent 150,000 pts.
The reward wasn’t too bad. My preference would have been a title, but 30,000pt wasn’t a bad reward.
“What… what just happened?” Lyhee asked, shocked. Her jaw dropped. She was in disbelief.
I could understand why. Usually, unique skill books cost over 1,000,000pt. I’d just spent 150,000pt to get a unique skill. Lyhee was surprised for a good reason.
When I called the status window, there were additional things added on the list.
Skills :
[Skill Combination(R) – Able to combine skills below Rare level.]
[The Mind’s Eye(U) – Able to see the opponent’s status window.] 2
There were only two, but I was satisfied. I opened my status window to check my hidden status. Soon, I was able to see the additional skill under the list of my skills.
First Name: Randalf Last Name: Bruciel
Occupation: Count of Devildom (Dungeon Master)
Title: None
Abilities:
Power 64, Intelligence 42, Speed 59, Strength 72. Mana 50
Potential(287/500)
Others: None
Skills: Skill Combination(R), The Mind’s Eye(U)
Potential had been added, and skills were on my list as well.
I nodded with satisfaction. Potential showed my potential to grow.
287 was the combination of my abilities, and 500 indicated my limit.
The maximum of each ability was 100, and when I reach the maximum of all my five abilities, I could reach 500.
If I wanted to have more abilities, I needed a title, a great weapon that could defend my abilities, or a process called ‘breakthrough’. Only the archdukes knew how to do the breakthrough, and it was an unnecessary process for me at that time.
‘It’s a good start,’ I thought. The Mind’s Eye was a skill that was almost like a cheat key. It was a great skill not only because I could look at the opponent’s status window, but also because I could check if he or she had talents or not.
In my former life, the only one who had had this skill was Duke Depella with thirty mouths. She loved to experiment, and combining skills was one of her experiments. She used a considerable amount of points that she earned to experiment with combining skills. In the process, she’d obtained The Mind’s Eye by accident, and Duke Depella had bragged about it.
Maybe it was because she had many mouths, but Duke Depella didn’t have many secrets. Fortunately, skills above Unique Level could only be obtained by one person. So even if others tried the same combination, they wouldn’t be able to obtain The Mind’s Eye. 1
Duke Depella created an amazingly strong army using her skill, The Mind’s Eye. All of her monsters were extremely strong, meaning that Duke Depellaso commanded one of the best armies because of the quality of her monsters. Naturally, that worked as an advantage for her. 1
Devils could exchange monsters, and Duke Depella earned a lot of points through trading. With the points she earned, she bought more monsters or combined skills. Thanks to that, her dungeon was well known to be an impregnable one among humans.
People would attack the dungeon of an archduke, but they wouldn’t try to attack Duke Depella’s dungeon. That was common-sense knowledge among people, so there was no need to further explain her reputation.
‘Even if I have to use all my points, The Mind’s Eye is totally worth it to learn,’ I thought.
Although she lost all her abilities as a side effect of her reckless skill combinations and everyone hated her for her business of earning points using her monsters, Duke Depella still had a dungeon that was even better than the archdukes’ ones. The Mind’s Eye was such a powerful skill.
“Ma..master. What kind of magic did you use?” Lyhee asked.
“It was not magic,” I responded.
It was clear that I had earned one of the most important skills, but my task was far from over. I checked the list at the shop inventory again. I had 80,000 points left, and I had to make the most out of them.
‘I should increase my abilities levels during the beginner protection period,’ I thought. The duration of the beginner protection period was eight months. Like it or not, I had to stay in the dungeon.
During the beginner protection period, random monsters would appear on the ground floor, and those monsters would attack the dungeon master as well. There wouldn’t be many monsters, but some of them would be difficult for me to fight against even with my current abilities.
That wasn’t just the case for me, but all the other devils as well.
The beginner protection period applied to both devils and humans, even though devils couldn’t attack humans directly. The beginner protection period was a kind of leisure time. It was a period for a warrior to appear and adapt themselves to the dungeon and for devils to reinforce the dungeon and make plans.
I paid 20,000pt to buy the magic alert.
Unlike other skills, it was a skill that would be embedded in the dungeon core. When someone invaded the top floor, the dungeon core would alert me. If I just concentrated on my training, someone could invade the dungeon and break the dungeon core to make everything useless. Because of this, I bought the magic alert as insurance.
Although the possibility of this occurring was slim to none, it was always better to be safe than sorry.
There was one last thing I had to do…
[Entrance ticket to the training room – 20,000pt for the first visit. The points that you have to spend doubles every time you enter.]
I bought the entrance ticket to the training room without hesitation. It was my only chance to stay in the training room for the whole eight months. When the beginner protection period ended, I would be busy working on improving the strength of the dungeon core.
Of course, I had another plan. ‘I should get everything I can in my dungeon,’ I thought.
I was taking a different path from my past life because I thought that at the end of the path, there would be the answer I was looking for.
***
The training room.
As soon as I entered the room, I felt relieved.
There was plenty of mana in the training room. Because of that fact alone, I felt great, like my physical condition was improving.
I looked around slowly. It was called the training ‘room’, but it was more like a labyrinth. There were multiple curvy paths and roads tangled like tree roots.
My goal was to see the end of this labyrinth. ‘Yeah, that is my purpose. Training is just an add-on,’ I reminded myself.
In the beginning, the ability level would increase quite rapidly because I would start adapting to my weak physical body and fully accept all the power. It was more of a recovery than training, so the training room that was filled with mana was the perfect place to recover my abilities.
I also wanted the reward that I could get for clearing the training room rather than increasing my abilities. I would have chances to improve my abilities, but what I really wanted was the reward waiting for me at the end of the training room: The title.
Frankly speaking, there was no guarantee that I’d get it. I had just heard the rumor. Still, I thought I had a high possibility of getting something big. The title would be the best reward that I could wish for, but even if only I got the points, that wouldn’t be bad at all.
‘The title is a really difficult thing to get anyways,’ I reminded myself. The title was one of the ways to obtain the next level of abilities. It was possible to have multiple titles, but in my former life, I was only able to get two titles. I struggled until the end, but I couldn’t get more than two because the title was such a difficult thing to get.
Even if you have great potential, you will face the wall. That’s when you can use good weapons and the title to breakthrough.
In my former life, I failed to reach the maximum of my five abilities. I was able to reach 93 for my strength, but I had to struggle a lot because my other abilities were quite low.
‘The biggest reason for that failure was that I was only able to use the training room a handful of times,’ I reflected. I was the first one who lost the dungeon. So without my dungeon, I naturally was not able to use the training room.
I was fully motivated. I promised myself that I would use the training room until I no longer could.
The title was the only way to have a breakthrough. It was the most important thing that I had to remind myself of.
You can only equip yourself with a limited number of weapons, but you can have a limitless number of titles. If there’s someone who doesn’t realize the importance of the titles, that only means that the person has no plans to become strong.
“It’s been a long time,” I said.
There was a high mana density, but everywhere I looked was blocked. It was a labyrinth for a reason. It looked like it was all blocked, so it was impossible to check the map by flying.
I held up the leather pouch from my waist to check what was inside.
I could go back any time I wanted to, but I promised myself again that I wouldn’t leave this place until I had cleared this room and bought this magic pouch. I had spent 10,000pt on this, and I could carry things 150 times bigger than the pouch itself.
Apart from a few potions, I filled it up with food. Even devils couldn’t survive without eating for eight months. I made practicality my priority and ignored the taste. All I needed was something that would save me from hunger.
I checked my things and closed my leather pouch.
‘I should warm up by running,’ I decided.
In the training room, there were tasks for each quarter. When you complete the task, you can choose one of the paths and move forward. I ran until the first quarter. I had to run for about three hours to arrive at a huge room. There were a few dozen basic weapons. It seemed like they kept every one of them.
[Choose your weapon.]
A message window came up from thin air. I didn’t even hesitate and picked up the steel sword. All the other weapons disappeared like an illusion.
The mana around me started to vibrate. It was not a regular mana wave.
“Grrrr….”
A crack appeared on the empty space, and around 300 monsters appeared through the crack.
[Slay a monster wolf Crazy Hound! 300/300]
If I were still in Devildom, I would have killed the Crazy Hounds with a tap of my finger. But now my ability was terribly limited, so those numbers were quite a challenge for me.
I checked its status window using The Mind’s Eye.
Name: Crazy Hound
Abilities:
Power 31, Intelligence 14, Speed 42, Strength 34, Mana 9
Potential(130/130)
Others: A temporarily summoned monster into the training room. Extremely hostile toward Randalf Bruciel. 2
Skill: Rampage(Normal)
It seemed like even The Mind’s Eye was not able to read the explanation of the skill of the opponent. But the name ‘Crazy Hound’ clearly showed its skill.
‘A beating is the only cure for a Crazy Hound,’ I thought.