Turns out when a pack of dungeon monsters is all moving in the same direction, it strongly implies that there are lots more monsters on the horizon. I snuck down the corridor, following in the path of the spiders I just encountered. Twice more I ran into another swarm, killing them all from behind in a similar manner to the first. Perhaps the most peculiar thing was that I had yet to see any movement in the opposite direction, the spiders preferring to advance down the tunnel all going to the same place.

After walking the path for another 20 minutes, I started to see a familiar orange glow in the distance. There was a swarm of eggs ahead, and I had a suspicion that the exit would be nearby. Perhaps the randomized floors were now working to my advantage? The enemies on this floor were not challenging in the least, making the amount of experience they produced minimal. If I wanted to hit the next rank up anytime soon, I needed a more efficient grinding area, and that meant encounters significant enough to challenge me. It would take thousands of kills on this floor to bring me to level 24.

Factoring in the light and the probably massive number of spiders in the tunnels ahead, I would first try and sneak my way through but would be ready to take flight and rapidly flee at a moment’s notice. Entering the orange glow was daunting, but gripping my sword, I swallowed my fear and continued into the strange corridor.

The first thing I noticed was the sound. Through the hall was the strange hissing and chittering of the skullback spiders, echoing around me like a violent chorus. I entered into a large space, around 100 feet high and longer than a football field. All along the walls and floor sat massive spider eggs, some glowing, others similar to those I saw on the very first floor. What the difference was, I did not know. Spiders moved everywhere, going about their business. Here, hundreds of drones went about their tasks, working away to care for their unborn brethren. Five different tunnels were leading to this massive room, groups of spiders moving in and out of them constantly, and they moved with purpose. I crept into a tight crevasse ten feet up the wall unseen and continued my observation of the room from my hiding spot.

Spiders would enter the cave, harvest eggs, and then move out through the tunnels on the sides, taking the eggs throughout the cave system to hatch. The eggs were brought into the cavern by drones through a hole in the floor, presumably leading down to a deeper level. The broodmothers and warriors seemed to function as escorts for the worker drones, defending them from attack.

While that information was useful, the final thing in the room, and by far the most significant, continued to draw my eye. In the very center, standing right over the portal to the lower floor, was an impressive statue of a woman, though waist down she possessed the body of a spider. The statue was still in progress of construction, and drones swarmed over it, using their mandibles to break the stone, shaping the strange effigy. The face looked peaceful, not harsh or mean, and in the Arachne's hands was a large crystal egg. What’s more, the statue stood facing away from a very familiar door, denoting the traditional means of entering the next floor. I surmised that I might be able to reach a lower floor through the egg tunnel, but I didn’t want to risk it when the true exit was so close by.

Leaving the spiders to their own business and not wasting any time, I left my crevasse and snuck around the circumference of the room. As I moved, I quickly heard the alerts for stealth leveling up, the ‘dings’ starting to drive me crazy. There were many close calls when drones or passing lesser warriors and broodmothers would get too close, but I managed to make it almost the whole way without issue.

Before me was the last hurdle before the eighth floor; a large open space, clear of eggs and rocks to hide behind. As soon as I left here, I would be an immediate target, so I needed to flee through the exit quickly if I wanted to avoid conflict.

After a deep breath, I jumped from my hiding place, and took flight, speeding across the void before placing my hand on the smooth stone entrance. The spiders started to shriek in alert behind me, the swarm of drones coating the statue like a blanket pouring off in a hissing tide. I stood and waited for the door, and as soon as it was big enough for me to squeeze through, I moved through the opening. Once I passed the threshold, I felt the end of level alert ping into my mind, opening the message as the door shut, sealing the angry drones behind a foot of stone, and returning me to the teleportation room once again.

Alert! Floor 7/15 Cleared! Experience Calculated!

Enemies Eliminated:

Skullback Drone (Rank 2) x 412: 137xp

Lesser Skullback Warrior (Rank 2) x 25: 50xp

Skullback Broodmother (Rank 2) x 7: 28xp

Experience Bonus: 12xp

First! (+10%)

Lone Wanderer (+25%)

First Dungeon Dive (+20%)

Total Experience: 348xp

Ugh. This freaking menu. Annoys me with a ding, then kindly informs me that I got fuck-all from the dungeon floor. The skill ups had been frequent, but I had no desire to pull them up and see whenever I got them, preferring to wait until I had more overall gains before looking. Checking every five minutes felt superfluous and like a waste of time. I should be focusing on personal improvement, not on the levels themselves.

Luna, are there ways to configure the alerts? I’d like to limit the frequency of the skill alerts and the size of the end of floor announcements. Can it be done?

Yes, you should be able to. The menus are personally customizable, and you can limit and arrange what you can see through various means. I would recommend only having alerts within the menus based on priority. You can change it simply by willing the change, then pull up the alert again to see what would happen.

Following her instructions, I closed my eyes, and willed the change within the menu. Immediately I heard the alert trigger and pulled up both the new alert and the most recent floor clear message.

System Settings Changed: Alert set to high priority only

High Priority: You hear alerts only for significant skill milestones, level-ups, and encounter completions.

Alert! Floor 7/15 Cleared! Experience Calculated!

Total Experience: 348xp (+55% from bonuses)

It was so much nicer. I would need to share the menu configurations with everyone when I got back. It was good information to have, and it needed to be researched by a larger group of people.

I used the teleporter for the next floor coming out on yet another cave system. The tunnels were once again very inconsistent, frequently changing in size. It reminded me in particular of the second floor of the dungeon, with its myriad of traps and surprises. I would need to be very careful, here.

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Exploration on this floor was going significantly slower. The previous floor was a straight shot, though with the dungeon rearranging parts of itself every week, there was no telling whether or not that was coincidence or the intent. This floor had even more complex and winding tunnels than that of the first floor. On several occasions, I had to stop due to webs blocking paths, the thin filaments almost transparent. I only ended up catching them with my uncanny sight, and it was a very close thing. These were far more impressive than those encountered on previous floors.

I would find the occasional drone, spitter, or broodmother, quickly killing them without any problem. Also, I managed to find two more hidden chests filled with a few handfuls of silver, one stuck in a tight cave that I had to squeeze into, the other webbed to the floor of a drone room. I was constantly encountering clutches of eggs, destroying them immediately if I got the chance. The only interesting encounter I had was when I turned a corner and came face to face with a greater spitter. This was the first time I had ever seen one since the third floor.

It glared at me with its larger than normal eyes and attempted to douse me with its acid, but I was much stronger than before, and I had the advantage in this small corner. I lunged in quickly, and brought the sword around in a horizontal crescent, destroying the spitters' mouth. Acid scattered from the wound in all directions, spraying the walls and floor of the corridor as the spider shrieked in agony. Moving back quickly, I was able to avoid most of the acid spray but was still injured a bit when some landed on my shoulder, torso, and tail.

Using water to dilute the acid on my body and wash it away, I charged in once more, and plunged my sword into the spitter’s brain, ending it’s suffering shrieks. Its body blocked most of the corridor, but I was still able to traverse the blockage by forcing my way through on the side, taking advantage of my increased strength. The goo on the spider’s body covered me as I moved, and I immediately had to clean myself off when I made it past.

I found the door to the next floor after three hours, located at the end of a long bridge spanning a deep pit. The bottom of the pit was filled with an unpleasant bubbling black goo, and the bridge was only three feet wide at its center. I moved into the corridor to quickly try and pass, but as soon as I made my presence known, ten spitters and two greater spitters appeared on the walls from hidden indentations. Because I was already in the air, I was forced to take evasive action, spiraling through the air in loops and corkscrews, dodging the deadly corrosive orbs showering me from both walls.

It was a difficult path to traverse, but by strategically placing myself in the air, I was able to kill the spiders one by one, clearing the way through the long corridor. I laid my hand on the door and returned to the hub. There were only six more floors to go before the end.

Alert! Floor 8/15 Cleared! Experience Calculated!

Total Experience: 472xp (+55% from bonuses)

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I took the teleporter again and found myself standing 200 feet in the air on the edge of a cliff, the wind whipping past my face. I almost thought I was above ground, but a glance upwards showed extremely large stalactites and the tell-tale shimmer of spider web among the darkness. of stone reaching the ceiling and stalagmites more than 100 feet tall peeked out of a dense mushroom canopy. Glowing mushrooms the size of apartment buildings lit the level, shining dim blue light across the whole expanse. The ninth floor was so massive that the edges of the mega-sized cavern were out of sight in the dim lighting. In the far distance, I could see what appeared to be a Mayan-style pyramid, complete with a golden Arachne idol on top, climbing above the fungal-jungle landscape. The ceiling of this level, too, crept even higher, reaching another 200 feet above where I stood. Interspersed through the mushroom forest, I could see patches of orange where I was sure spiders bred and spawned in massive numbers. This floor was large enough to accommodate hundreds of thousands of arachnids, and I was sure I would not find the location lacking in population.

First up, I wanted to scout out the area. I needed to determine if there were difficult enemies to fight here. There were food and water to be had, but if there were no enemies worth fighting, I could see no reason to stay here for long. This was especially true considering that the location of the exit was obvious, and easily reachable through flight.

There was a staircase leading down from the stone pillar on which I stood. To many adventurers, this would be a daunting and potentially deadly climb, but to me, it was as easy as breathing. I threw myself over the cliff face, spreading my wings out to their maximum and soaring through the black. I descended until I was just over the top of the mushroom caps and began to search for enemies to face.

Drones were by far the most common enemy found, followed by spitters and the occasional broodling. The drones themselves were almost innumerable, reaching well into the thousands. I could kill them for weeks here and would accomplish nothing. I needed more hands, preferably hands of people who would benefit from killing drones and lesser warriors at this level. I could imagine had I not attempted the tutorial all alone, this floor would be a veritable gold mine of levels and spider loot.

Around the orange spots, I found yet again more tubes heading downward, deeper into the earth, drones bringing orange eggs out preparing them to hatch. The spawning tunnels were guarded by lesser warriors, greater spitters, and broodmothers, and in great numbers as well. I decided I would spend several hours clearing as many of the orange spots of the powerful spider variants as I could, before moving on. I drew my sword and got to work.

The next few hours moved by in a blur as I traveled from spawning ground to spawning ground, killing all of the spiders I found there. While I didn’t focus on the drones, I didn’t ignore them either. I heard the first level up announcement after the first hour of fighting, and then the next once I had been fighting for three, bringing me up to level 25. The carnage continued until I got a surprising skill alert.

Skill Alert! Level Up! Max Skill Level Reached!

Race Skills:

Warrior’s Flight – lvl 66 -> 70 – Max speed cap removed; now dependent on storm command ability.

Alert! Multiple Skill Derivations for Race Skill: Warrior’s Flight!

- Fast Flight – Increases the base speed of flight, reinforces movement ability, and dexterity of movement. Slightly improves all wing attributes. Wings are better for quick bursts of speed.

- Chaos Flight – Replaces metallic feathers with softer crystalline feathers to allow channeling of chaos attribute mana through the wings, granting various effects based on magic skill and channeled effect. Wings are shifted for greater long-term use.

- Razor Wing – Greatly enhances feather strength, feather regeneration speed, and allows feathers to be used as projectile weapons in combat. The top edge of the wings becomes razor sharp.

Alright, let’s see here. Every maxed-out race skill has had increasingly powerful results, usually folding into other skills to enhance their capabilities. I needed to pick a good choice I landed on a mushroom cap while I made my choices, as it looked to me as if it would cause my wings to change function…

Fast flight was looking like a very solid choice and would help me avoid enemies better. Chaos flight seemed useful, but the actual effects it would have were unknown. Razor wing appeared to be an offensive variant of the wings, focusing on their metallic traits. Was Fast Flight the right choice?

No, it’s not worth it.

Sorry Luna, what?

The best choice of the three is Chaos Flight. It has the most potential and the longest skill tree.

What are you talking about?

You just asked me ‘Was fast flight the right choice’, didn’t you? It’s not, you should pick Chaos Flight. It’s the best choice of the three, and the rarest between them.

Well, I think I didn’t mean to ask you, but I’m glad for my mistake! Thanks for the advice, I guess.

No problem. If you need anything else or have any questions, just ask!

Luna really was the best, wasn’t she? I selected Chaos Flight, and my spine erupted in agony.