[Welcome to Floor 8! Mission: Collect Rare Clay Core]

This new Floor was pretty desolate. There was the ground and the sky. Nothing else. The earth was a vibrant brown yet nothing at all grew on it. Josh figured it would probably be a repeat of the Zombie Floor with enemies underground.

He had only walked a few meters that 5 enemies suddenly popped out of the soil!

Each had a roughly humanoid shape, one made of clay. They were a few meters tall and big. On the face of every one of them, there was a red crystal of some kind. Inside of it, there was a small light flickering. Was this its power source?

Dashing, Josh took his new sword out and plunged it straight into the target sending crystal fragments all over the place. Yet the creature didn't stop moving and simply slammed its arms as big as logs downward, producing a shockwave.

They seemed to be resistant and powerful, but relatively slow. Josh was confident in defeating them easily especially with his new gear. His new sword even had the sharpness attribute that made it easier to cut through.

Josh retreated. Meanwhile, the golem was…foraging? It proceeded to dig the earth until it managed to uncover another red crystal, then it simply pressed it against its face area. Wow! Was the crystal even necessary? Perhaps it was nothing but a fashion choice? How crazy would that be?!

Josh navigated in between them, shattering one crystal after the other. Then he watched. All the golems proceeded to start foraging too. Josh started stabbing one repeatedly until he finally heard a cracking sound.

Approaching its victim, Josh noticed a red shard now sticking out of its chest. As soon as this happened the golem slowly stopped moving. Before long it was falling to the ground with its body merging again with the soil.

Oh! It seemed like the creatures were powered by these crystals indeed! They simply had more than one. Now, how to find the target?

Josh estimated where it would be located on the others, then he struck! Without any result. It took him a few minutes to dispatch all the golems. Each of their core was at a different emplacement inside.

Josh figured out that destroying the internal core without touching the external one would send them into a panic where they would dive into the ground and only reappear a good 30 seconds later as good as new.

The best tactic was obviously to hit the face, then target their weak spot afterward. For once Josh didn't go crazy with pulling them. Simply because a hit-and-run tactic was much harder.

Before long some clay cores dropped. It seemed to be a crafting material. It was peculiar for sure, why were there so many crafting materials if one could simply drop equipment in the Tower directly? Apparently, it was more useful later on for Floors that required more preparation.

For once, this Floor was definitely PG-13. No gore to be seen whatsoever, only bits of hardened clay and crystal shards. Also no sign of any rare core. It was probably in possession of the Boss, right? That was the issue, however.

No matter how Josh looked there didn't seem to be any to be found. Thus he kept looking while slaying more enemies. Until finally he found something. It was a small old-looking stone pillar that was sticking out like a sore thumb.

On top of it was a spheric hollow part. One that was perfect to put a clay core. Scouting the surrounding area, Josh managed to find 3 more in a square formation. As soon as all the slots were filled came a prompt.

[Optional mission: Don't Die!]

"Optional? Optional my ass!" Not that the Tower system would reply.

A mass of clay slowly rose from the ground. A big one at least 10 meters tall, except that it looked as if it wasn't even done hardening. It had about 10 crystals all over its body.

Josh approached it carefully. The creature started swiping left and right at ground level. Josh evaded every hit by jumping above, landing on the creature's arm. Except that something wasn't right. Its clay was hardening around Josh's foot. He quickly gave up attacking and destroyed his prison before retreating, narrowly dodging a slap.

This would prove tricky. Contact with its body wasn't possible directly. Yet Josh needed to destroy multiple targets, some at a height that would require him to jump. He slashed at the creature opening its arm wide, but it quickly filled itself with mud before he could even celebrate.

He would have to somehow dig the cores away from… Wait...! There may be a fun and easy way to deal with this. Josh led the Boss farther from the square area. The creature didn't seem restricted in any case.

Before long, Josh came across what he was looking for, a pack of 5 golems! But he didn't stop just yet. He kept going until he had 20 of them at his heels, plus the big one.

Only then did her turn back. He waited until the Boss was nearby a small golem before decisively destroying the small one's face!

That made the target start looking for a core to replace the one it had lost. It just happened that there was one right next to it. Without even bothering about the consequences it simply grabbed one off the Boss! Of course, the big guy didn't take too well to it. Destroying the offender swiftly.

The little one had given its life for the cause! Both its new stolen core and its main one had been utterly reduced to dust.

"Let us take a moment to remember Clay Golem A's sacrifice, amen! Now, my golem army! Time to destroy this giant!" Josh laughingly announced while dodging all the attacks, repeating the same process as before another minion valiantly gave its life. So what if there are enemies everywhere? Pit them one against another!

Before long the 10 cores were gone. That is when the Boss started trembling all over. Josh decisively charged at it, slashing its lower body. It may have been the only part he could reach but that was enough to bait a minion in the gaping hole. Josh then watched as it clawed its way inside looking for a core.

Whatever the Boss was doing it was busy so Josh used the opportunity to repeat the earlier process. Before long there were 5 golems swimming in there, somehow.

That is when it happened! A feeling of uneasiness. Quickly running away Josh finally understood what was happening. The monster had been gathering and condensing clay. That is when he released it all at once.

That sent both a shockwave and projectiles all over the place. The safest seemed to be the air! Josh jumped before using his sword to cleave apart everything coming his way, or at he tried to. Long mud skewers made their way through his body.

Josh had managed to protect his vitals but that was it. He had fallen. On the ground, Josh inspected his surroundings.

In the distance, the Boss was falling. Of the small golems, only one remained. All the others had died to the shockwave. Said golem was now slowly approaching him, one step at a time.

Before long the soulless creature stood right above Josh. Then it stomped on him violently. Stomp that Josh barely evaded before pushing his sword through the creature's body, hoping for the best. After a few strikes that took all of Josh's remaining energy, it stopped moving.

Had he been unlucky with a few more strikes he would have perhaps needed to use his ring to save himself. This would have been a huge waste.

Thus laid Josh unmoving on the ground, bleeding. He could somehow feel his necklace slowly healing him, very very slowly. Still, that combined with a Climber's vitality would let him survive.

Josh could barely move and yet he still had 300 HP / 900 HP left. This proved his theory that HP wasn't as simple as reach 0 and you die, it wasn't a game. The good news was that there was no monster spawning nearby.

Josh took the time to rest all the while thinking about his options. There were a few ways to kill that Boss.

One could kill it before it finished channeling its ultimate attack. That would be a straight DPS check from Josh's knowledge.

Another option was to forcefully take on the attack. Josh remembered about the Vanguard role. Someone would probably Tank it in a party.

Last but not least one could simply run. The attack was very wide but not impossible to escape at all.

Josh figured his best option would probably be to run, but he wouldn't settle for only that. No, Josh went and got himself 4 more normal cores and some more creeps before summoning the Boss again.

He did the exact same steps he had done before except for a tiny difference. This time when the Boss did his strongest attack, he went to the very edge of its range. Then he started hacking the projectiles with his sword.

Of course, Josh got injured in the process, but this time it was all superficial. It also turned out that the creature kept using this one attack over and over until it died.

Josh simply let it be. For 5 whole days, Josh remained there playing with that one boss until he finally managed to reach a point where he could defend from that one skill using only his sword.

Anyone would have celebrated and would have been ecstatic, but for Josh it wasn't enough. Then he started training again, this time to be able to kill the Boss directly and fast enough. His goal was to accomplish something that usually took entire parties.

At first, Josh was taking too long and only relying on his blocking skills to finish the fight. Because of the difficulty, it took him a while, but Josh finally managed to succeed.

He found the trick. Just relying on the small golems wasn't enough. He had to help them by shattering a few cores himself too. He had obtained a rare clay core, a few armguards, and leveled up in the process.

Exiting the Tower, he quickly looked at the forums trying to figure out if he had missed any clear strategy at all. He soon found an answer….

-Tower Strategist: "Floor 8's Boss? Easy, skip it! There is no strategy for it haha. Just kill the small ones until they drop the mission objective and GG!"

"..." Josh couldn't help but facepalm. Seriously these experts were unreliable!

Suddenly, an intense growling sound came to disturb Josh's search!

What was that?!