Standing in the middle of the swampy field surrounded by the corpses of slain drones, Jack was practically paralyzed as he mumbled to himself. The paralysis had nothing to do with the ichor coursing through his body.

There just didn’t seem to be a right answer.

On the one hand, this exact issue could be prevented in the future when it came to picking the best evolution. On the other, he was preparing to fight a boss and one of the skills specifically references boss fights.

The ever-present rain has essentially faded into the background during his time in the dungeon. He hardly ever noticed it unless he was avoiding his inner thoughts.

While he focused on the feeling of rain against his bare skin, he noticed an odd sensation. The rain would hit him, but the feeling was muted like he was wearing a raincoat. Looking at his arm to see what was causing it, he saw that the rain would land on his arm, but instead of spreading across his skin, it would bead up and slide off of him.

Touching the spot he was inspecting, he felt a thin layer of slime. “When did that happen?” When he learned the Mucus Shield skill he had expected his skin to immediately start pumping out the slime just like the frog did.

Mimicry didn’t give him any feelings on how the skill would work. The whole reason he could finally learn it was because he realized it was a passive skill, so he knew he shouldn’t have to ‘activate’ it. It should be on at all times. It might need something to trigger it, like how Researching needed him to study something for it to be ‘on.’

At the time, he was more interested in going to learn Mana Absorption, so he didn’t test the skill. It seemed that it finally started working, though. The question he had was what triggered it? Or did it just take a long time to build up the thin layer he now had?

Welcoming the distraction from his warring thoughts on what skill to take, he inspected the rest of his body.

Most of his body had a layer just as thin as his arm, but there were a few places where it was thicker. His armpits, forehead, his thighs, and he was also pretty sure his feet too. His feet were covered in mud though, so he couldn’t be sure.

After the first day in the dungeon, he’d stopped wearing his tennis shoes. They kept getting soaked, and he knew from horror stories he’d read about trench foot in world war one, that you did not want to keep your feet inside wet shoes for long periods of time. It had taken some adjusting to, but now he didn’t even feel like he needed them anymore. At least not in a place where the ground was so soft.

The thicker areas of slime gave him a decent idea of how the skill worked for him. When studying the frog he had thought the mucus coming out of it was almost like it was sweating. For him, it was literally his sweat. It would explain why he didn’t produce the slime until he was in a fight.

That was probably the best possible way for him to generate the mucus. It was a minor worry, but he didn’t want to feel slimy all the time.

While figuring out what all Mucus Shield could do was certainly on his to-do list, right now it was just distracting him from making a decision.

It boiled down to whether or not the boost of power that Quickened Evolution could give him would be a deciding factor in his upcoming fights. If it wasn’t, then the investment in long-term power would be the better choice.

If in theory, Quickened Evolution would let him gain another evolution in each of his skills, he would have to take time to learn what each did and how to properly utilize them.

Considering he only had three days until the dungeon broke and he still had evolutions that he was trying to fully understand, like his staff evolution. There might not be enough time for him to take advantage of the new evolutions.

The weight of indecision seemed to lift as he realized what he should pick.

**Skill Acquired ** (Class) The Long Game Level 1 Destroying a Dungeon or it's Boss will award Attribute Points.

One boss per Dungeon. Target must meet or exceed Skill level.

Points awarded per target. (1)

A few things to unpack. First, it just straight up awarded attribute points. He had expected some sort of attack or buff that built off how many dungeon bosses he’d killed. While attributes seemed objectively better, it was surprising that a skill could just award them.

He already had more attribute points than a normal person in this day and age with his perk Genesis Wave.

An average person at level twenty would have sixty attribute points to put wherever they wanted. While he would have one-hundred. Without any skills, he should already be sixty-six percent more powerful than someone of equal level. With The Long Game, there wasn’t a real cap on how high his attributes could get, as long as he could find dungeons.

While a single attribute point didn’t seem like much for killing a boss, they would add up over time and Jack saw a similarity between his new skill and Mimicry.

(Class) Mimicry Lvl 10 Imitate and copy the non-magical abilities of another creature.

Physical limits may apply.

Increases maximum skill slots available. (3) Evolutions Basic Instinct, Eternal Intern.

At first, Mimicry only gave him one additional skill slot. At levels five and ten it increased by one. Both Mimicry and The Long Game displayed their numerical values in the same way.

If The Long Game scaled like Mimicry, then when it reached level twenty it would award him five points, a boss kill would be the equivalent of a whole level up. That could make him crazy powerful compared to people of the same level if he just went dungeon hunting all the time.

Another very interesting thing about the skill was that it wasn’t just bosses that rewarded him, but also destroying the actual dungeon.

He’d seen the heart of a dungeon before, so he had the idea that a dungeon was somehow a living creature in his head, but it was still a weird thing to think about.

Obviously attacking the heart was how he could destroy the dungeon, but what would happen to him? There was some kind of spatial condensing going on with how big it was on the inside compared to the outside. If the dungeon collapsed, what would happen to him? Would the entire area get sucked into some sort of black hole? Would he be able to get out before that happened?

So no killing the dungeon until he knew what would happen.

An odd sense of relief came with his new skill. There was no deciphering or experimentation needed. Just a simple skill that told him exactly what it did.

Now that he was done with choosing his new skill, he pulled up his status and invested his attribute points into endurance and dexterity.

Name Jackson Calder Race Human Class Adaptable Dungeoneer Age 5000 Level 8 Health 43/54 Stamina 25/81 Experience 23/800 Strength 10 Dexterity 15 Endurance 18 Vitality 12 Perception 10 Intelligence 21 Available Points 0 Skills (Class) Mimicry 10 (Class) The Long Game 1 Hydraulic Leap 8 Hair Manipulation 8 Impact Resistance 7 Poison Resistance 6 Identify 5(24) Researching 5 The Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod 5 Wanderer 4 Focused Senses 4 Medicine 3 Empowered Howl 3 Blood Drain 3 Fear Resistance 2 Mucus Shield 1 Unlocked Skills Baking, Cleaning, Burrow, Reckless Charge, Swim, Bite Mastery

The space right behind his eyes was pounding as Jack switched from watching the wolf absorb the barrier to looking at the mental image he received from Lucy, revealing the aura of the wolf and the mana being sucked into it.

Looking at what she saw definitely helped. The mana didn’t just go into the wolf’s mouth and be the end of the whole process.

No, it was more like the wolf took the golden mana from the barrier and mixed it with its own. The golden mana would stay in small clumps as it swirled inside the purple aura. The aura seemed to grind away at those clumps, reducing them in size and scattering golden flakes throughout the entire aura. The tiny golden flakes would start to dissolve, fully incorporating into the entire aura.

When the wolf finished breaking down the barrier, Jack let out a frustrated growl.

He was so close!

If he just had a few more seconds, he would have gotten the skill. He looked down at the pistol. It had enough mana for one more charge, but that would leave him without the emergency protection it provided for almost eight hours.

It wasn’t like he was planning on going out hunting again that night. Plus, the entire time he’d been in the dungeon, nothing came into the tunnel where he slept. It could be worth the risk since he was so close to getting the skill.

Deciding it was worth it, Jack fired off the other charge of the barrier.

What he could understand was that the wolf couldn’t just suck up the mana and use it for itself. When it pulled foreign mana in, it had to forcibly convert it into its own mana.

Why was that? Could you only use mana that was attuned to you?

The wolf used its own mana to attune the foreign mana. Does that mean it’s a magic-based skill? No, based on his experience with Mimicry, he was ‘learning’ this skill. If he couldn’t unlock the skill, he wouldn’t have that feeling.

Was he focusing on the wrong thing? Looking at how the flakes dissolved into the aura, could it be just that?

The skill did two things, first break down the spell and pull in the chunks of mana from it. Second, it would slowly convert those mana chunks into your own mana.

Maybe the grinding of the chunks was just something the wolf did to speed up the process.

**Skill Up** Mimicry Level 11 **Skill Unlocked ** Through observation, you have unlocked (Class) Mana Absorption with Mimicry. Would you like to learn this skill? Yes No

He shot up from his kneeling position startling Lucy, “Yes! Lucy, I did it!”

She jumped up and let out an excited squeak for him.

Clicking yes he replaced Fear Resistance since he didn’t have a reliable way to train it and as his confidence in his skills grew, he shouldn’t need it.

**Skill Acquired** (Class) Mana Absorption Level: 1 Drain mana from target and store it as your own.

This mana is stored in a separate pool from your natural reserves.

Maximum mana storage. (10)

One step closer to wielding actual magic.

Although his skills were almost like magic themselves, there was just something missing. Something, well, magical. It might just be him romanticizing the idea of magic, but it just seemed like there was a line to what non-magical skills could do.

He wanted to animate a sword, to dance around him and fight. To create an illusion of a marching army to scare off bandits. As cliche as it was, he wanted to throw a fireball, at least once.

The possibilities of magic seemed endless.

Putting aside his dreams of grandeur, Jack scooped up Lucy and went back to his camp to practice his other skills before bed. As much as he wanted to practice mana absorption he needed to wait for the barrier to recharge.

Jack was strolling through the first area of the dungeon that he had long since cleared out when he noticed movement at the edge of the fog.

Coming into view was a budding deer drone. Jack quickly jumped forward and used a Hydraulic Strike to bash it in the head. A couple more hits while it was on the ground, were all that was needed to finish it off.

Strange though, he hadn’t seen a drone in this area in four or five days. He realized it wasn’t the only one as another two came out of the fog. The two were taken care of quickly, but more drones kept coming out of the fog.

Just as he thought that something terrible was happening he received a notification.

**Alert** The Bloodied Woodlands has broken. Multiple Partys may now enter at the same time. Creatures may freely move in and out of the dungeon. Time until the dungeons closes again: 900 hours.

But there were still two days left! He thought as he dodged a swipe from a bobcat.

Since it was always dark in the dungeon, he had been keeping track of the days by watching Lucy’s age. At least until she turned one month old, and he stopped getting the daily updates. But by then he’d been going out to see the wolf once a day and used that to keep track of the days.

A bear rammed into his side, knocking him to the ground. Lucy, who had just finished off a deer, jumped onto the bear.

Rolling to the side to avoid being trampled by a boar, Jack used Hydraulic Strike with both of his arms to push himself off of the ground. They were now surrounded by a dozen various budding drones and more were coming out of the fog.

There wasn’t time to worry about why the break happened early, they had to get away from this mob of drones quickly befor- Just then Jack heard the powerful echo of the Spell Seeker’s howl.