The Dungeon Mafter Series - Days 1 to 3

Day 1 - Toto, I've a feeling we're not on Earth anymore...

“Hhhh…!”

I could feel my chest rise with a sudden jerk and my mouth opened wide into an involuntary gasp. Soon after that, my mind was also shocked into motion as the same breath left my lungs. I tried to look around, but I couldn’t see a thing. An embarrassingly long moment later I finally realized why. My eyes were still closed.

So, I opened them. It took way too much effort, or at least it felt harder than it was supposed to be. After blinking a couple of times, which I needed to do in order to get used to the movement of my eyelids, I found myself gazing at a dim, damp stone ceiling. Needless to say, it was an unfamiliar sight. My thoughts were chaotic, but I was still fairly sure I was not supposed to sleep in a… cave? Where was I? I tried to get up, but my head felt a little funny, so I only managed to sit with the support of my arms. At last the nausea settled down a bit and I took a proper look at my surroundings.

It was so dark I could only see a couple of meters ahead, but that was enough to ascertain my previous guess; I was indeed in a cave. Or rather, a tunnel, though I suppose as far as waking up in one was concerned, the difference was strictly academic; the important part was that I was sitting right in the middle of one. I pondered whether it was natural or man-made for a while, but I couldn’t say for sure from a single glance.

Once my eyes adjusted a little, I also realized that there weren’t any torches or lamps around. Instead, the place was lit by blotches of luminescent lichen. Or maybe some kind of fungus? Either way, the reason behind the low visibility lied with these gently glowing things on the wall. Though, to be fair, without them I wouldn’t have been able to see past my nose, so I figured I shouldn’t complain too much.

It was at this point that I noticed, with a shudder, that I felt quite cold. I glanced down and, to my further puzzlement, I found myself completely naked. No, I have to correct myself there; while my lack of attire was surprising, the thing that really puzzled me was the fact that my body looked really weird.

First off, I was white, and not the kind of white you get from staying indoors all winter. My entire body looked like I was dunked into a giant can of fence-paint.

More alarmingly, my body was lacking a number of essential parts, so to say. For a start, I didn’t have nipples. As for the area between my legs, it was completely smooth like a doll’s. Heck, after some poking around, I concluded that I didn’t even have the otherholes either. Not only that, my body was also thin to the point where I could count all my ribs through the unnaturally white skin stretched over them.

I reached up to touch my face, and I found that I not only lacked hair, eyebrows and eyelashes, but anything resembling a nose or lips as well. My mouth was nothing more than a thin opening, but at least it was filled with perfectly normal teeth.

Now, considering that last I remembered I was a perfectly ordinary human with all the naughty bits attached, I had a nagging feeling that this was the point where I was supposed to start screaming and running in circles. I might have done just that, no doubt embarrassing myself in the process, but then another niggling feeling made me stop for a moment and think through the situation one more time.

I was in a dimly lit tunnel. I was naked. I didn’t know how I got there. I was white and featureless. Why did that all sound familiar?

As usual when it comes to rhetorical questions, the moment I thought of it, the answer came to me with a burst of memories.

“The game?” I muttered in a screechy, high-pitched voice that made chills run down my back. I shook my head to get over it and thought back on my most recent memories. The last thing I could recall was me sitting in my room. It was a little after midnight, and I was tinkering with a character sheet for some kind of online roleplaying game. Actually, wasn’t there something more to it? My memories felt a little muddled, but I could still remember being pretty adamant on rerolling stats and min-maxing skills, as if it was a matter of life and death.

I took a deep breath and tried to reorganize my thoughts, and it came to me bit by bit. Right, I was indeed making a character, but it wasn’t a game; or at the very least the site didn’t treat it as just a game. It had a simple layout, but it kept insisting on transporting the player to another world.

Yes, I know. That sounds like some really cheap advertiser bullcrap, and I thought the same… no, wait. I don’t know if I thought the same back then. My memories are still fuzzy.

Anyways, I took the character creation pretty seriously, and after spending the entire night making the character I finally clicked [Okay] on the last prompt, and then… and then I was here.

I paused for a long moment. First I looked over the tunnel, then I glanced down at my strangely deformed body as cold sweat started rolling down my back.

“Don’t tell me… that tagline was serious…?” I muttered as I reached down and pinched my forearm. “Ow. This is real.”

Now, this was the second time in the span of ten minutes where I would have been 100%  justified in freaking the hell out, but I once again took a couple of quick breaths and got my rising panic under control. Maybe there was a completely reasonable explanation, like a dr… no, I couldn’t even finish that though. I just pinched myself, so this was definitely not a dream. Then what else could it be? Was I really transported into an RPG? With swords and magic and dragons and dungeons and status screens?

Name: ???? Level: 1 Experience: 0

Classification: Humanoid Race: ?????

Health: 30/30 Stamina: 1100/1100 Mana: 100/100

Body: Low(Mid) Mind: Mid(Low)  Insight: High(High)

Traits:

High-Speed Regeneration Lv1

Wisdom Lv3

Boundless Reserves Lv1

Immortal Lv2

Skills:

Observation Lv1

Shapeshifting Lv3

“HOLYSHITWHATISTHIS!?” I shrieked as I momentarily lost my grip on my panic. I don’t think anyone can blame me, as I was caught totally off-guard by the semi-transparent blue window appearing right in front of my face.

I was already on my feet before I even knew it, with my back at the wall, and only then did I notice that the panel was following me, as if affixed inside my field of vision. It didn’t follow the movement of my eyes, but if I moved my head, it immediately moved along. It was like a floating glass panel with words on it.

After some hesitation I raised my hand up to it and tried touching it. At first my fingers passed right through it, but when I tried again and touched the frame around the text, the panel stuck to my fingers, allowing me to move it around within my field of vision.

I must have spent several minutes experimenting with this strange new thing before I felt calm enough to actually start thinking about what it actually represented.

First and foremost, it was a [status window]. I should know; I played enough RPGs to recognize one at a glance. It even got a small [X] on the upper right corner for closing it. More importantly though, the stats on display were more or less what I remembered from my frantic character-creation. After some hesitation I gave up and let out a long sigh.

“That settles it,” I muttered in a dejected voice. I was either having the most elaborate fever dream ever, or I really got transported into a game world.

Worse yet, it was a game I knew nothing about. My only lifeline was this panel in front of me, and I didn’t even know how I got it to appear. In fact, that bothered me so much I started experimenting, and I quickly figured out that it reacted to a couple of keywords, such as [stats], [status window] or [status menu].

Now it was time for the main issue. I took a deep breath and started scrutinizing the actual text on the panel. After a while I nodded to myself. They were exactly as they were when I finished the character creation.

The distribution of the three common stats was extremely uneven, and they were so for a reason, but I couldn’t exactly remember why. On the other hand, I finally remembered why I had such a hard time remembering things: it was related to the very last skill on the [Status Panel]. While thinking so, I absent-mindedly poked at the panel with my finger, and a separate window popped into existence under it. This time I wasn’t even surprised. Well, not to shrieking levels, at the very least.

Immortal Lv2 (Passive) (Mythic):The owner of this skill is removed from the cycle of life and death. They no longer age and they are immune to all forms of natural or magical poisons and diseases. Health and Stamina regeneration is greatly increased, allowing the owner to perfectly recover from any non-fatal wounds.

Lv2 Bonus:The owner no longer requires sustenance. Even if the owner’s Health reaches 0, so long as they don’t suffer Lethal Damage, they will automatically recover and return to life.)

I read the description and exhaled sharply. Yes, this was the skill. Sounds overpowered as hell, right? You'd think that no self-respecting game-designer would let a player get away with having something like this, let alone during character creation. Well, I did, but it required certain sacrifices.

Let’s start at the beginning: The character creator of the [game] operated on a point-based system. The blank slate character was a fairly muscular male with chiseled abs and a lantern jaw. There was also a set of starting gear and a set of attributes. Said attributes went [Low], [Mid], [High], and [Supreme], with added Low/Mid/High modifiers tacked onto them. I don't know why it wasn't just a numerical system, but maybe there was a good reason for it.

But back to character creation: There were also a thousand extra points that could be used to increase attributes, buy starting gear, and even [Skills] and [Traits]. As far as I can see, the former seem to be something that could be actively used, while the latter are passive abilities.

However, even with a thousand points, I couldn’t have bought everything currently on my [Status Panel]. This is where [Maluses] came into the picture, though they apparently don't show up on my status screen anymore.

Simply put, a "Malus" was something like a negative trait, a weakness I could take in exchange of extra points. I sacrificed all the basic skills and traits, the starting gear and, without knowing how it would affect me in the present, I even took on a particular malus called [Loss of Oneself]. Long story short, it gave me a lot of points, but it affected my memories in a peculiar way.

Now, to be clear, I didn’t have amnesia. Not really. I could still remember a lot of things from before I woke up in this tunnel. I was a student. I wasn’t particularly popular, I believe. I could remember playing a lot of online games and spending all my time in front of my computer. My grades, at least those I could remember, weren’t that great either. In short, I was one of those guys with no outstanding talent and no passion. Then I was given a link to a peculiar site by an online acquaintance, and the rest is history.

According to the description of [Loss of Oneself], it was to lose one’s memories of their own thoughts. I probably didn’t really understand what that meant, but I cannot be sure since, well, I cannot remember what I was thinking at all!

At this moment, my memories of my previous life were like watching a movie from a first person perspective; I could see what was going on, but it just didn’t feel like I was actually there for the recording. I had no memory of what I was thinking, what went through the head of the old me when I made certain choices, or why I was so obsessed with getting the [Immortality] skill.

Was I just min-maxing my character? Or maybe old me hoped that the tagline was true and this would happen? Did old me want to live forever? Well, as current me, I'm certainly not against the idea, but wasn’t losing myself in exchange a form of suicide as well? … Was it? I couldn’t tell, as I didn’t know the way I was thinking back then, so I couldn’t contrast myself with old me. In retrospect, not picking that malus would have probably spared me a lot of existential mind-bending, but crying over spilled milk was pointless at this point.

I stopped my mouth from making annoyed grimaces and looked over myself again. Why did old me decide to go for an appearance like this? I couldn’t be perfectly sure how I looked, since I didn’t have a mirror and the [Status Panel] didn’t have an appearance tab, but even a cursory glance could tell that I was a sexless, hairless, pure white humanoid freak. Something like this didn’t give extra points! … Or maybe it did?

Trying to recall how each change affected my point pool was hard, and not being able to remember the logic that connected one change to the other made it almost impossible. In the end, I figured it might have been another malus old me forgot about during character creation.

I closed the panel and stretched my limbs before I looked around one more time. Now that my eyes were completely used to the dimness of the tunnels, I could finally make some proper observations. I touched the wall at my side. It was made of a smooth, dark material. It certainly wasn’t concrete, so it was probably some kind of natural rock. I wasn’t really good at geology, so that was as far as my observations on that front went. As for its structure, the tunnel was perfectly rectangular, and the floor was made of grey cobble-stones. It was also surprisingly clean. I couldn’t see far in either direction, but I could tell from the light of the ceiling-lichen that the tunnel continued for some distance in both directions.

In the end, I had to conclude that this place looked just like a dungeon in some of the more old-school first person RPGs I've played. Just what you would expect from a game world, I supposed. As I pondered on that, I realized something else: if this really was a dungeon, wouldn’t that mean there would be monsters? I involuntarily glanced around and tried to make myself really small. Well, it was not like I could hide in the smooth tunnel, but I tried all the same.

Monsters. They were a staple of any kind of role playing game. Giant rats, goblins, imps, wargs, undead… there were too many kinds to count, but I was fairly sure I wouldn’t last long against most of them in my current condition. Speaking of which, what was my current condition anyway? I opened the [Status Panel] once again and began reading the tool-tips.

Health: A measure of physical resilience. Governed by Body. Decreased by damage, illness and certain negative abnormal statuses. Increased by rest, healing effects and passive regeneration skills. Once exhausted, death occurs.

Well, that one was self-explanatory. Mine was at 30. Since my Body score was the lowest of my attributes, I figured that was pretty low. What would happen if it reached 0? Did RPG logic apply there as well? Would I be totally fine with 1 Health and then immediately drop dead after stubbing my toe? And considering I was immortal, would I even really die? How did that work? Honestly, I didn’t want to test it. It was best to avoid getting hurt after all.

Stamina: A measure of one’s capability to act. Governed by Body and Mind. Decreased by physical activity, sleep-deprivation and skill usage. Increased by rest, rejuvenating effects and passive regeneration skills. Once exhausted, negative status effects are applied. Maintaining a state of low stamina can cause status effects, health damage, fainting, and death.

That was fairly straightforward too. I had 1100 Stamina, but I didn’t know whether that was a good or not. It was way greater than the other stats, but I didn’t understand the formula, so I decided to just keep an eye on it for the time being.

Mana: The measure of one’s capability to use magic and certain skills. Governed by Mind and Insight. Decreased by casting Skills, spells, and using enchantments. Increased by rest, spirit-recovery effects, and passive regeneration skills. Once exhausted, any effect that would have used mana uses stamina at three times the cost.

So I learned three things by this: There are spells, there are enchantments and that I could use my Stamina instead of Mana. Still, spells… That made me a little curious. I didn’t know about old me, but the me right now really wanted to try out casting a spell, if only to find out what it felt like. Unfortunately I didn’t seem to have any, but I was still at Level 1, so I hoped might get to experience it in the future.

Next came the attributes.

Body: The representation of one’s physical abilities. A combination of one’s physical strength and resilience. Increases maximum health, stamina, the natural regeneration rate of these statistics, and one’s passive resistances towards physical attacks.

Mind: The representation of one’s capability for thinking. A combination of one’s analytical skills, memory, learning capabilities, and willpower. Affects the rate at which Skills are learned and improved.

Milestone Bonuses:

· Mid(Low): The owner may pick an area of knowledge. In the future, learning things related to this subject becomes significantly easier. Chosen area: Language.

Oh, look at that. A milestone bonus. I remembered that old tried to get that for some reason. I think it was because one of the maluses I picked in exchange for points was not being able to speak the local languages. Apparently language comprehension was a basic trait every new character had. I hoped it was a good trade, but only time would tell.

Next came the big one, the attribute in which old me invested every stray point available.

Insight: The representation of one’s connection to the World. It governs the power of Skills, one's affinity with Mana, and the ability to understand and affect the underlying structure of the World.

Milestone Bonuses:

· Mid(High): Grants the Wisdom Lv 1 Trait, or if already present, increases the Trait Level by 1 stage

· High(Low): Grants the Observation Lv1 Skill, or if already present, increases the Skill level by 1 stage.

· High(Mid): Increases the Wisdom Trait by 1 stage

· High(High) : The owner gains 1 Free Point they can allocate amongst their already existing Skills or Traits. 1 Free Point allocated to Immortality.

I tried to whistle, but it came out a little strange. It was probably because of the lack of lips. Anyways, I had to hand it to old me; he knew how to be a total munchkin. The last milestone bonus of Insight was especially significant, as it allowed [Immortality] to rise to Lv2. Still, the biggest headway I received from my Insight was the two levels in Wisdom. Speaking of which, it’s time for the Skills and Traits.

Shapeshifting Lv3: Allows the owner to mimic the shape of other beings. Shape shifting is restricted by the original body type of the owner (Currently: Humanoid).)

· Lv2: Freely modifying the owner’s appearance becomes possible. Body-proportions can be altered, but the total volume of the body cannot deviate from the base form by more than 25%.

· Lv3: Grants High-Speed Regeneration Lv1, or if already present, increases the skill level by 1 stage. The total volume of the body may deviate by up to 50%.

Oh, this looked useful for correcting this sexless form of mine. No wonder it was one of the only three skills old me actually bought during character creation. Leave it to old me to find loopholes like this! Apparently this was an activated skill, so I decided to try it out, but when I poked it again I only got a red panel in my face instead.

No alternative form found. The Skill requires at least one alternative form before it can be activated. New forms can be acquired by the Skills Inspection, Lore, Observation, Consumption, Predation and the usage of transformative spells.

I frowned at the error message and dismissed it. Apparently I had to mimic someone first to acquire a base human shape. Thankfully I had the Observation skill already, so I figured it wouldn’t be too hard. Speaking of which…

Observation Lv1:Allows the owner to gain basic information about people, items and environmental elements. The amount of details is dependent on the owner’s Insight score. Consumes mana on usage.

This was a basic skill for all RPG players if there ever was one. Being able to identify stuff and learn the stats of monsters and people was incredibly important. Old me would've probably bought it during the character creation if the Insight milestone didn’t give it out for free.

Boundless Reserves Lv1: The owner gains 1000 Stamina per skill level, plus 10x increased Stamina regeneration speed per skill level. Increases the rate at which the Body attribute improves.

Ah, now I remember this one! It was the second Trait old me bought for points on purpose besides [Immortality]. So this is the reason behind my huge stamina pool. But one thousand points? If I subtracted those, it meant my base Stamina was just 100 points.

I was also starting to get an idea of what old me was thinking when I left Mind at [Mid(Low)]. Since Mana can be substituted by Stamina, it meant that I could use the equivalent of 375 Mana for spells, and the extra regeneration speed meant I was unlikely to run out of Stamina to spend this way. Speaking of which, how fast did Mana and Stamina regenerate on the first place? I was tempted to repeatedly cast Observation to deplete my reserves and find out, but I decided to do that later. The next Trait was the regeneration one, right?

High-Speed Regeneration Lv1: Allows the owner to rapidly regenerate their health and perfectly recover from injuries. The recovery uses Stamina and stops when it drops below 20%. Cannot recover severed limbs. Regeneration can be temporarily disabled by attacks with Fire, Corrosion, and Poison attributes.

So this was the Trait granted by [Shapeshifting Lv3]? Immortal was already giving me a regen buff, and I didn’t want to get hurt in the first place, but in case I did anyways, this could serve as another safety net. Especially since I didn’t have to worry about running out of stamina.

Last, but not least, was my most important Skill after [Immortality], [Wisdom].

Wisdom Lv3: The owner gains more experience based on their Insight attribute, multiplied by the level of the Wisdom Trait (Currently: +171%).

· Lv2 Bonus: Half of the owner's Mind attribute is added to their Insight attribute during Skill use. Also increases the rate at which the Mind attribute improves.

· Lv3 Bonus: Increases the chances of gaining Enlightenment based on the owner’s Insight attribute. Also grants complete immunity to mind-altering effects.

I couldn’t help but smile. While I might not be able to remember what the old me was thinking during the character creation process, I could clearly understand why I really wanted to get this one as high as possible. Naturally, this was the third Trait old me bought during the character creation, and the experience bonus alone was probably worth it, but the other effects made this skill all the greater. I wasn’t exactly sure about the Lv3 effect though. Just what did [Enlightenment] do? Give extra experience? Raise stats?

I shook my head, dismissed the [Status Panel] and looked at my surroundings once again. For a moment an unexpected wave of uneasiness washed over me. Maybe it was because of [Loss of Oneself], but the situation never really sunk in until this moment. I was naked, unarmed, and all alone, with no knowledge of this new world I found myself in, and because of the missing parts of my memories I didn’t even know why I thought the possibility of coming here instead of living a comfortable 21st century life was a good idea. The only thing I had was myself, a minmaxed character designed to survive at the cost off all comforts and common sense.

I closed my eyes for a moment and forcefully calmed myself down. Before anything else, I needed to get my priorities straight. First off, what exactly did I need to survive?

I was functionally immortal, so I didn’t need to eat or drink. That meant that I didn’t need to forage for food. I was also fairly sure that I didn’t need shelter. However, just because I didn’t need it, it didn’t mean I didn’t want it. The tunnel was dark, damp and cold, and I since I was completely naked, I was already chilled to the bone. Speaking of which, I needed clothes. Also, I had to find someone I could [Observe] so I could use Shapeshifting and change my current appearance.

After some more pondering, I decided to make these my initial goals. With that I looked back and forth, and cautiously walked down the long passage.

Day 2 - Note so self: slimes are dicks

So, after long and careful consideration, I finally concluded that I was, without a shadow of a doubt, totally and irrevocably lost. Now, one might be tempted to say <Lost? In a labyrinth? Color me surprised.> while making those annoying air-quote-things with their fingers on the last word. I admit, I might've done the same on better days, but being on the receiving end made me unable to find the situation amusing.

I investigated the tunnels and determined that it was a labyrinth, with identical walls and 90° turns. I tried to keep track of where I walked, but since there was no automap on the [Status Panel], and I had no pen and paper to make a map by hand, I inevitably lost track of my way and have gotten completely lost.

To be perfectly honest, I was getting a little nervous. I've been wandering for several hours, yet I couldn’t find anything other than more drab, brown rock walls and the glowing moss. What if I couldn’t find a way out of this labyrinth? What if this was one of those classic moments when an asshole game master looked at my character sheet and decided that if I wanted to be immortal, I could totally be, except I had to live the rest of my eternal life in a labyrinth? It was a scary thought.

Thankfully, after several more hours, at least the second part of my fears was alleviated when I ran into the first real monster I've ever seen. It was a small puddle of cyan ooze that I might've accidentally stepped into if it didn’t suddenly contract into a half-dome when I came closer to it.

“A slime!” I exclaimed in a weirdly excited voice that reminded me of fingernails on a chalkboard.

The slime wobbled left and right for a moment, but it didn’t actually move towards me. Maybe it was only reacting to movement and not sound? But wait, why was asking questions when I could get the answers? I only had to use [Observe]. But then again… how did I do that?

The [Status Panel] could be opened just by thinking about it, so I tried that first. I started to feel a little silly after a few seconds, but I persisted and tried to call out [Observe] in my head, and it finally worked. There was a status screen in front of me that looked just like mine.

Name: Labyrinth Slime Level: 2 Experience: 27

Classification: Critter Race: Slime

Health: 30/30 Stamina: 42/65 Mana: 0/0

Body: Low(Low) Mind: None Insight: None

Racial Traits:

Viscous Body Lv1

Omnivore Lv1

Skills:

Predation Lv1

Description:

A common monster native to the labyrinth section on the first floor of the Grand Vargebernos Abyss. It scavenges the remains of other monsters and explorers that die inside the labyrinth, and rarely leaves its walls. They are not sentient, and while individually weak, they can overwhelm goblins and weaker explorers in large enough numbers. Threat rating: E

Oh… I got a ton of new information just from this. So it was a slime, as I thought. Not only that, the description said that it lived in the labyrinth ‘section’ on the first floor of this dungeon. That not only meant there were other floors, but that this labyrinth didn't cover the entire first floor! That meant there was an exit. I just had to find it.

Also, now that I had a comparison, my stats seemed to be surprisingly high. I was pretty sure this was a weak monster, but even still, it was at Level 2 and yet even my lowest stat was higher than its highest. Or rather, it's only stat, as the others were "none". Does that mean it was entirely mindless? Finally, there was one more thing that I noticed when looking at its [Status Panel]: [Racial Skills].

I wondered what the difference was between those and my own skills. Following the logic of these windows, I decided to try poking the word, and the moment I did so, a second panel popped up like when I was looking at my own stats and skills in detail.

Racial Traits: Abilities that are shared by every member of a species. They cannot be raised, but may change upon the individual evolving into a higher tier species.

Huh, that’s neat. So monsters "evolve" individually into "higher tiers"? And they all get the basic set of Traits right out of the gate. For a moment I wondered why I didn’t have any racial skills, but then my attention was grabbed by a small notification rhythmically pulsing behind the others I dismissed the rest and opened the new golden panel, revealing the following:

You have received Enlightenment! The skill-proficiency of Observation has risen by 1 stage. You now possess Observation Lv2.

Wait, so that’s what [Enlightenment] does? It outright raises my skill levels? But how? Did I meet some hidden requirement? I opened my [Status Panel] and looked at Observation.

Observation Lv2 (Activated): Allows the owner to gain basic information about people, items. and environmental elements. The amount of details is dependent on the owner’s Insight attribute.

Lv2: The skill no longer requires Mana to use.

I still didn’t get it. Maybe it was random? The description of [Wisdom] said it increases the chance of [Enlightenment] based on my Insight, which was my highest score by far, so maybe I just hit the jackpot? I couldn’t tell that for sure just from one occasion, so for the time being I dismissed the panels.

In the meantime the Labyrinth Slime was patiently waiting for me. Or rather, was it even aware of the fact that I was there? I tried waving my hands around, but it didn’t respond. Next I took a step forward, trying to see if it may be reacting to the sound of footsteps or ground-vibrations, but then it suddenly lunged at me!

I didn’t think a semi-transparent glob of goo could move that fast, and I was caught completely flat-footed. The slime landed on my left shin and it immediately enveloped my leg below the knee. For the first second it only gave me a slightly icky and cold sensation, but then there was a sudden, burning pain shooting through my leg.

I let out a surprised scream and kicked at the creature. It took me several tries, but I managed to get it off my feet. It fell onto the stone floor with a wet plop and I instinctively took a couple of steps back.

It hurt! A lot! I knew that I was supposed to be an immortal who was meant to sneer at something like this, but it still hurt so much! For a moment I thought my leg would fall off!

I looked at my left foot. It was colored a deep shade of red, like I burned it in a fire, and there were spots where the skin seemed like it was melted off by acid. It looked bad, but after only a couple of seconds the pain subsided and it was replaced by a strange, prickling sensation. As this happened, my foot let off a puff a white steam and then my skin visibly cracked. I was alarmed at first, but then the cracked skin rapidly peeled off my limb like a molt and it fell onto the ground, revealing a perfectly fine white foot underneath, good as new.

I didn’t have time to wonder though, as the slime began wobbling again and jumped at me for a second time. I let out an undignified voice that I blame on the shock and scampered back in a hurry, avoiding it. Without further ado I turned around and dashed down the tunnel like the devil was on my heels.

I ran until I reached a corner and hid behind it. I cautiously glanced back from behind my cover, and I found the slime right where I left it. It wasn’t moving, but it was making weird, undulating movements.

“What is it doing?”

I squinted really hard to see better, and I finally realized: It was eating my molted off skin. Eww!

I shuddered once and then quickly brought up my [Status Panel]. My Health was at max, but my Stamina was down to 1087/1100. I tried to connect the dots and figure out what happened.

I was attacked, so I probably lost Health. However, my [High-Speed Regeneration] kicked in, and it consumed 13 Stamina to immediately heal my wounded leg. I don’t know how severe the injury was, but 13 Stamina didn’t seem like a steep price in exchange of getting rid of both the wound and the pain in an instant. Speaking of which, my left foot was still tingling a little, though I guess it was more of a phantom pain after the shock.

I tried to get it out of my head, so I focused my eyes on the slime again, and its [Status Panel] popped up in front of me. Now that [Observe] was a free action, decided I might as well use and abuse it. In the meantime the slime was still busy digesting my left-behind skin, so I decided on focus on its skills for a moment. I needed to know my enemy.

Predation Lv1: Offensive skill used with biting attacks. During activation, the owner’s Body attribute is boosted by one minor stage. Predating on an opponent rapidly recharges Health, but consumes Stamina. Successfully predating and consuming an opponent gives +50% experience.

Viscous Body Lv1 (Restricted): A skill restricted to [slime] body types. The owner’s entire body is treated as a mouth, so biting skills can be used with their entire surface. Also grants limited Presence Detection and increased physical resistances, but lowers magical resistances.

Omnivore Lv1 (Passive): The owner is capable of consuming any organic material and use it to restore their Health and Stamina.

I see. So this creature is entirely optimized to jump at people using a burst of speed, eat them to recover their Health and Stamina, and then continue looking for its next prey to repeat the process. Furthermore, while it was weak, it was my worst opponent. I was naked, so just touching it meant that it could start [Predating] me. I had no weapon, so the only way I could damage it was with my hands and feet, at which point it would also start [Predating] me. In other words, I had absolutely no way to fight this monster. As such, I decided to do the only reasonable thing and retreat while it was still busy with my castoff.

I only stopped after I was one hundred percent sure I wasn’t followed. I really, really hoped slimes weren’t the only enemies in this dungeon. For example, the slime’s description mentioned goblins. Those were another staple of dungeons in the games I played, and usually considered to be some of the weakest enemies. They should also have some crude weapons and clothes I could use, and maybe I could even mimic them.

Speaking of which, I checked Shapeshifting, and it was still unavailable even after Observing the slime. I figured that would be the case. The skill did mention humanoid forms after all. Goblins should fit that criteria; I only needed to find one. With that in mind, I proceeded to explore the labyrinth, this time paying extra attention to any suspicious puddles on the floor.

Day 3 - Rude awakening

This day started horribly. While my stamina was still sky high, mental exhaustion caught up with me after a while, and I decided to try to sleep in one of the corners, since the identical walls and tunnels didn’t provide any alternative. I set my back against a corner, so I'd have full vision of my surroundings. Unfortunately, it made little difference while I was asleep, and I was awakened by a nasty surprise.

"Owww!"

My eyes popped open and I sprung to my feet, only to stumble for a moment and nearly fall over. I kicked at the obstruction and managed to disentangle my aching feet. I had a suspicion of what just happened, but I decided to run away first before I started thinking, so I bolted down the tunnel while ignoring the pain shooting through my leg, and only stopped after I reached the next turn. I once again hid behind the corner and glanced over, only to have my suspicions immediately confirmed.

Name: Green Slime Level: 1 Experience: 15

Classification: Critter Race: Slime

Health: 5/10 Stamina: 22/30 Mana: 0/0

Body: Low(Low) Mind: None Insight: None

Racial Traits:

Viscous Body Lv1

Omnivore Lv1

Common Skills:

Acid Spit Lv1

Description:

A common slime found around the world. It is timid and rarely attacks living beings, but when cornered it can use its digestive fluids as a weapon. Threat rating: E-

Of course it was a slime! However, this one was colored an angry, vibrant green, and was considerably smaller than the specimen I encountered the day before. I wondered if it was because of the level difference, or because they were from different sub-species? Did the Green Slime evolve into the Labyrinth Slime?

After further observation, I realized that the creature was slowly moving towards me. At first I thought it might've designated me as a meal, but on closer look I realized it was following a trail of molted-off skin I left behind as I ran. Speaking of which, the little bastard tried to eat my left foot! What did these slimes have against my feet?!

I shook my head and frowned at the creature again. By then its Health had risen to 8/10, and that had me thinking. While the Labyrinth Slime was something I couldn’t even touch, this Green Slime didn’t have the [Predation] skill. Furthermore, it was clearly damaged when I jumped onto my feet and stepped on it, which meant that I could hurt it.

I hesitated for a moment, then decided to stop running. I might've lacked weapons or offensive abilities, but it was all the more reason to try and raise my level. Now, while I still had a hard time wrapping my head around how my attributes corresponded with my actual abilities, my extensive experience with RPGs told me that leveling up was very, very important for getting better skills. So far this slime was the only monster I could reasonably defeat so if I wanted to get XP, this was a good opportunity to get started. At last, I steeled myself, and slowly got out of cover… and then the slime suddenly spat at me.

Nope, can’t do it! This is scary! I don’t want to get covered in acid! It'll hurt!

For the second time this day I scrambled back and hid behind the corner, barely avoiding the thin green liquid flying my way. After a few seconds I carefully peeked around the corner again. The slime was still there, slowly going around in circles while searching from flakes of my discarded skin.

It was only then that I realized that its [Status Panel] was still open. I glanced over to see if there was a change in its Stamina, hoping that with careful kiting I would be able to have it deplete its reserves on spitting at me, but instead I found something better.

Acid Spit Lv1 (On Cooldown): The owner uses their own bodily fluids to create an acidic glob and spit it at a target. Using the skill consumes Stamina, and in some cases may damage the owner as well.

There was a cooldown period between skill uses! Some of the skill descriptions mentioned them before, but this was the first time I've seen it happen. I quickly tried to guess how many seconds ago did the slime spit at me, then began silently counting in my head while observing the creature. After just six more seconds the [On Cooldown] part disappeared from the skill description, so I guessed it could be used once every fifteen seconds or so. I took a deep breath and steeled my nerves, this time for real. Right. With my current knowledge, I should be able to beat this guy.

After firing myself up by hopping in place a few times, I carefully moved out of cover once again. I was watching the slime with eagle eyes, and the moment it got ready to split, I jumped right back. I waited for the splash, and the moment the attack landed ineffectively on the floor, I jumped out again. Unfortunately I managed to step right into the puddle of acidic liquid, but I didn’t pay it any attention.

I rushed towards the slime, and raised a leg high. With a strangely high-pitched roar, I stomped on the green glob with all my might. The slime flattened from the impact, but a moment later it tried to regain its shape and engulf my foot. I didn’t give it the chance, instead I raised my foot and stomped again, and again, until it finally stopped moving and became an indistinct puddle on the floor.

My breathing was heavy by the time I finished even though my Stamina barely decreased, if at all. I quickly opened my [Status Panel] and checked my XP.

Name: ????? Level: 1 Experience: 3

Classification: Humanoid Race: ?????

Health: 30/30 Stamina: 1091/1100 Mana: 100/100

Body: Low(Mid) Mind: Mid(Low) Insight: High(High)

Traits:

High-Speed Regeneration Lv1

Wisdom Lv3

Boundless Reserves Lv1

Immortal Lv2

Skills:

Observation Lv2

Shapeshifting Lv3

I got three EXP out of the encounter. I couldn’t help but wonder how many more slimes I would need to defeat for Level 2?

…

……

………

As it turned out, six.

I had spent the entire day (though I admit, the concept of "day" and "night" was becoming increasingly useless to me in the unchanging labyrinth) running around and hunting Green Slimes, Red Slimes, and Blue Slimes, and I finally hit the level threshold. I didn’t know if it was because these were all slimes, or because they were all Level 1, but no matter the subspecies, they all gave 3 Experience points upon defeat. Funnily enough, if not for Observation Lv2 this might've taken way longer, but whenever I got into a new corridor with a slime in it, I could instantly see if I had a chance against it. It turned out I was probably unlucky with my first encounter, as Labyrinth Slimes were considerably rarer than their colored brethren.

Anyways, back to leveling up. The moment I finished stomping my latest victim apart, I got a new prompt I could open up. I did just that, and I received the following message:

Congratulations, you have reached Level 2!

Your Attributes have risen!

You gained 20 Health Points!

You gained 40 Stamina Points!

I have to say, I was a little underwhelmed by this level up. Sure, my Health pool nearly doubled, but I expected something more pronounced. It said my Attributes have increased, but they were still [Low(Mid)], [Mid(Low)], and [High(High)], so I had no idea what that meant. I also didn’t receive any new skills or spells, which was a bit of a problem. How was I supposed to take down stronger monsters without offensive skills? I really needed to find a weapon…