The dungeon was silent save for the light tinking sounds of rain hitting the foil-like tube tent and the occasional crinkle as the spider within moved.

Jack was leaning against one of the trees that held up the tent, keeping watch while Lucy molted.

After the harrowing battle with the Spell Seeker, they had to find a safe location to recover. Since the entrance tunnel had drones traveling through it now, it was not a safe option. They ended up setting up camp on the far side of the first area of the dungeon, ironically it was around the area that the Spell Seeker had found them.

Jack didn’t know how long molting would take, but it had already been an hour and she didn’t seem anywhere close to done. Well, he was pretty sure it had been an hour; he was slowly losing track of how long an hour seemed to be.

He’d been so focused on finding a safe camp and watching out for drones that he hadn’t checked the rest of the battle notifications. Since he hadn’t seen anything yet, he figured it would be a good time to finally go through them.

Your party has slain a Deer Blooming Titan Drone Level: 12

Your contribution 10%

You are awarded 2 Experience. **Skills up** Hydraulic Leap Level 9 Hair Manipulation Level 9 Impact Resistance Level 8 The Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod Level 6 Medicine Level 4 Mucus Shield Level 2

His hand found its way to his face as he let out a dejected sigh. “Of course, nearly dying would be great for skill leveling. Why would it be anything different? Because almost getting your face torn off somehow makes you better at using your skills, that makes total sense.”

It’s not like he had some big revelation about his skills mid-battle, that would explain the increase in levels. He was conflicted; on one hand, he was happy with the gains, but he was just annoyed that no matter how much hard work you put in, going out and risking your life will be the faster way.

“Whatever, it’s just how things work, I guess.”

It was good to know that he still received experience, even though the wolf killed the drone. Apparently luring the wolf to kill it counted as a contribution.

As he thought about the entire fight, he couldn’t help but smile. It was horribly unplanned, dangerous, and messy, but they did it. They actually killed it. They had won. Winning felt pretty good.

Mistakes were made though, that could not be repeated in the next fight, like the way he held his staff when making a powerful attack. He had to start thinking about how to fight things that weren’t mindless.

For now, though, he needed to figure out what he wanted to do. They could safely leave the dungeon now. Well, as safe as fighting through a wave of drones was.

They‘d been stuck in the dungeon for eleven days now, plus the five days they had walked, it’s been sixteen days since Kai left them. Which means he should have made it to the herd six days ago.

Did Kai notice he never made it? Did he even care? Jack knew he got on the birdman’s nerves, so maybe he’d be happy they never showed up.

Jack shook his head, trying to rid himself of the negative thoughts. Even if the first person he met in this new world didn’t like him, he still went out of his way to help him. Either way, the herd was civilization, and he needed to get there.

But did he? As crazy as it sounded, on some level he was enjoying himself. He was fighting plant-zombies and super wolves. He was learning new and interesting skills that let him do things he could never do before all this.

What would he do when he made it back to civilization? When he was originally picking his class, he chose the option that was for an adventurer.

Truth be told, he might not have been thinking too clearly, picking the option that would let him be someone new, someone who hadn’t just lost everything. But he passed on the mundane Baker and Scholar classes in favor of something exciting.

Did his desire to go to the herd have to do with him wanting to go back to normal? In a way, yes. He could easily see himself getting there and feeling safe. Maybe make a few friends and find some way to help the herd. Eventually, that ‘helping’ would turn into a job. He would make excuses not to leave and adventure because he was useful there. Why would he risk anything when it’s safe and comfy living with the herd?

A part of him longed for that.

What would he miss out on? Who knows what wonderful and crazy things are out there in this new world? What feats is he capable of?

It’s also not just him, it’s Lucy too. She may be very young, but she had an endless curiosity for the unknown. That was apparent from the moment he met her. Plus, she loved fighting; overcoming foes that were giants to her brought her so much joy. There was no way she would be happy living a quiet life.

While a quiet life sounded nice and he could easily fall into one, it wouldn’t be fulfilling anymore. Not after he’s tasted this life.

Laughing at himself, he realized that he got completely sidetracked thinking about the long term. What was he going to do now? Did he want to head to the herd or stay and keep grinding the dungeon?

Jack didn’t want to worry Kai if he did care, but he would probably understand. Kai was all about improving himself. In fact, he might even give Jack a disappointing click if he found out Jack gave up this opportunity.

That solidified it for him. He was going to stay and keep up his grinding. Plus, he still needed to learn Vitality Absorption from the boss.

That brought him to a question that had been burning in the back of his mind. Why did the dungeon break early?

His higher Intelligence may not have made him actually smarter, but it did make it so that when he tried to recall something, it came back pretty clearly. He distinctly remembered that the dungeon had three-hundred and forty-five hours until it broke. Which worked out to fourteen days and nine hours.

He’d used Lucy’s age to track the first eight days since it was still counted in days, and the rest he tracked by his daily visits out to see the wolf. While those last days were only really judged by his own sense of time and the fact that it was always light outside when he went out, there was no way he lost two to three days in that small time.

There were a few theories in his mind that could explain what happened.

First, at some point, if he was accidentally dosed again with the prince’s surprise and lost a few days. Unlikely but a slim possibility, especially if it happened while he was sleeping.

Second, the system measures time in a different way than he does. It could make sense because the system implied other worlds were out there. Maybe the system used a universal way to measure an hour or a day?

Again, unlikely because he hadn’t run into any issues for that so far. When he first saw his menu, his age was right, if it had a different way to measure time how would a year coincidently be the same.

Lastly, something had caused it to speed up. Maybe it was him killing the monsters inside or the wolf absorbing mana from the outside. This one had the most merit to him. It meant the dungeon really could think, and it was trying to defend itself somehow.

Even though the last one made the most sense he was going to cover all his bases and watch out for the others. Conveniently, he had a solution to the first two that he hadn’t thought about before. There was basically a magic clock in his possession already.

Pistol of Protection A shield against those that would hurt you and your allies.

Create a Barrier that lasts for 5 minutes. (500 mana)

Charge 143/1000

Recharge: 1 mana per minute.

If he just watched how much mana was in the pistol, he could keep track of minutes. It had already been about an hour and a half since he shot off the barrier mid-way through the fight.

As he sat there looking at the pistol, he had an interesting idea. The wolf could absorb mana from the barrier it produced, and presumably, now he could as well. Did he have to, though? Couldn’t he just skip the middleman and take the mana directly from the item?

His only worry was that it might damage the item and make it unusable. As much as he wanted to start training the skill he couldn’t risk the pistol. It’s already saved his life a few times now. Maybe after he had some experience with the skill.

Poking his head in to check on Lucy, he saw a gentle blue glow as she worked her way out of the exoskeleton. The glow was much more vibrant than it normally was, reminding him of the older manaweavers. Maybe she would finally be able to start weaving mana into her webs. Either way, it still looked like she had a while until she would be done.

Feeling antsy just sitting there, he decided to work on some skills to kill the time. It couldn’t be anything too intensive though, he still needed to keep watch.

Maybe working with hair manipulation a bit more. Choking the wolf with his braid definitely saved his life.

His hair could be a useful tool in battle. Tons of ideas floated in his head from using it as an extra arm, to blood draining needles. He’d just need to get to the point that using it was as easy as moving his real arm.

**Skill Up** Sneak Level 3

He didn’t expect the skill to level as fast as it did, but he wasn’t going to complain.

After taking some time to rest and heal up, Jack wanted to start trying to learn Vitality Absorption. To do that, he was hiding at the very edge of the fog wall surrounding the boss.

It had taken some trial and error, but he found the appropriate place to hide that blocked him from view but still allowed him to spy on the boss.

Learning the Sneak skill from Lucy definitely seemed to help. It was a strange skill, somehow making him harder to notice. This was shown off by the fact that the first two times he tried hiding at the edge of the fog wall, he was instantly spotted.

It wasn’t until after he got the skill that he was able to hang out for almost a minute before he was noticed.

This was now the fifth try, it had been almost ten minutes, so unless a drone came very close he didn’t think he’d get spotted.

So far, nothing interesting had happened. Just blooming drones wandering around, seemingly guarding the boss.

He felt Lucy shift on his shoulder. She wasn’t quite used to her new size yet. Not that it was dramatically different, her body had been the size of a softball or about four inches long with each leg four inches long as well. Now she was five inches across and with five-inch legs.

The real difference was her coloring. No longer a sky blue but a strong cobalt blue like the older female manaweavers he’d seen. The glowing lines on her were a deep sapphire color. The lines were dim while she was sneaking.

After going through her stats, he found that Web Weaving did gain an evolution called Mana Infusion. She hadn’t tried that out yet.

Sudden movement drew Jack’s attention back to the boss’s clearing. A budding bear drone was dragging the paralyzed body of a two-foot rabbit.

When it entered the area, the boss’s flower head perked up and faced the approaching bear. For what reason, he didn’t know. It wasn’t like the boss had eyes.

The only feature on the face of the flower was those black pods. Due to their similarity to the smaller flowers on the drones, he had to assume the pods were full of ichor-coated needles. Probably a more potent form of the ichor too, since all the drones seemed to have the ‘minor’ tag on the poison.

The bear dragged the rabbit until it was about ten feet in front of the boss, then it turned and left the area.

The corpse titan had four long red vines that connected to different areas on its stalk. They all hung limply off the stalk until they touched the ground. Each one then rested on the ground, running off in a different direction until they hit the fog wall and he could no longer see them.

One of those vines wrapped around a tree is what he originally saw when he first discovered the boss.

Now, though, the boss retracted one of the vines, using it to pick up the paralyzed rabbit.

The center of the flower’s face seemed to divide into six triangle flaps and opened up, revealing that the stalk of the corpse titan was hollow. It placed the rabbit into what he was going to now refer to as its mouth, then the hole closed up.

The head of the flower tilted back as if it were swallowing, and the vine went back to its resting position.

A few moments later Jack saw some light movement in one of the huge Brussels sprout-like things attached to the stalk.

After watching for another five minutes, one of the other sprouts fell off of the stalk and landed on the ground. The leaf-like exterior quickly began to wilt. Antlers pierced out through the leaves as a deer drone emerged from the sprout.

It quickly got up, shook the remains of sprout off of it, then moved out towards the dungeon’s exit.

Well, at least he knew how it made drones now.