Assault on The Shrine of Bakkukang.

In the mini-world of the dungeon, the shrine was preserved as it’d been in the year 5146 B.P., on the day it and the abominations it housed had been destroyed. Due to The Mammoth Beetle Sect having been undead by this date for over a millennia, the shrine was already in a state of disrepair. Vines had broken through the windows, microbial creatures had eaten the furnishings, and thick sheets of fungal growth hid the depictions of an insect God carved into the walls.

Henry and co were deposited in an empty antechamber at the dungeon’s entrance, where they like so many other noobs teams to challenge this noob dungeon could prepare for the struggles to come.

Through a small hallway, a sneak peak was given of a more spacious chamber being patrolled by squads dressed in the robes of The Mammoth Beetle Sect’s lowest-ranked novitiates. From under their beetle-shaped helmets, beards protruded that’d been twisted into six locks and decorated to resemble insect limbs. From their exposed bones, mummified skin flapped like sheets of mould-eaten parchment.

Alfgrim The Grey Wolf sniffed out thirty of the undead. “This is suicide!”

When the wolf tried to leap back through the Entrance Portal, Henry caught it by the scruff of its neck. “Don’t overreact. It’s a noob dungeon.”

“Gross, Big Bro! This place reeks!”

“Deactivate your sense of smell.”

“Do you intend to poison my royal stomach?”

“If you want fine dining, you can pay for your own meals.”

Ignoring any further complaints, Henry browsed a pamphlet produced by The Slum Empire that he’d picked up on the way in. A map of the shrine showed that it was modelled with descending floors, each having a stronger boss than the last. Teams were warned that the zombies had unconventional spells - The Mammoth Beetle Theocracy predated the spread of standardised classes in Saana III’s history.

Dan, growing impatient, flourished his sword. “Donkey Bro, Wolf Bro, last one to score—”

-Henry Flower: Stop. Unlike us, the monsters are NPCs, so their deaths are permanent. Be careful.

Dan, as though a bucket of water had been dumped on his perfect hair, turned a look of heart-broken concern upon Donkey Bro and Wolf Bro.

-Danontherightwing: Will it be safe?

“It’s a noob dungeon,” repeated Henry dismissively, before buffing his comrades with his best scroll. “By the way, this scroll doesn’t make it safe – that was a trick to get the wolves’ compliance. Since it’ll trigger Sentient Bloodlust in the zombies, they can coordinate to kill you in a fifth of a second, buff or not.”

He then equipped his shabby get-up with the rusty ring, seashell necklace, ugly trousers, rope belt, and—the latest addition to the Legendary Armament of The Syncretist—his straw sunhat.

Moving to a corner of the antechamber, he used a Spelltome for on a spear from his inventory, the weapon floating by his side as it glowed indigo-azure. Immediately afterwards, he a dagger, then, having created a Dead Zone for Arcane Energy, shifted to another corner, where he added a sword and a hammer to the growing swarm of steel.

He could channel multiple of these at once thanks to the necklace of seashells around his throat a.k.a. The Pendant of a Thousand Minds. With the 5 set pieces he’d acquired so far, the pendant could sustain 16 A.I. minds, each of which could be tasked to control a channelled spell independently. Since weapons produced a Basic Attack every 15 seconds, he became quite formidable whenever given enough time and space to summon all 16.

Combat-wise, his shabby gear set wasn’t too bad. In addition to this bonus, an unobtained weapon would multiply his Boost gauge for almost unlimited bullet-time and aim corrections, while an unfound cloak enabled the other items to mutate form for greater flexibility.

The sets main limitation was its poor bonus stats. Like many Legendaries, its stats did scale with the owner's Martial Class level, the shabby equipment repairing itself by drawing greater energy from one’s Martial Body. However, these bonus stats were no more than what standard gear for a tier provided. This meant that the owner would actually be weaker than someone with an equal number of Legendaries, forcing them to outplay the opponent with the expertise acquired in The Overdream.

Of course, few other people possessed 5 Legendaries.

After 8 weapons, Henry exhausted all the Arcane Energy in the preparation room.

“You three," he ordered, "to the corners, out of the monsters' sight. When they can’t find me, they’ll search for someone else.”

“When they can’t find you?”

“You’ll see...or maybe you won’t.”

Gathering two handfuls of Fauna charges, he into a Chameleon Monkey, before casting . As his green lizard skin blended in with the surroundings, he vanished amongst the weapon swarm.

He’d been pleasantly surprised after acquiring his Earthfriend class to discover that his shabby gear’s bonus effects persisted through .

At a mental command, the swarm of metal flew out into the larger chamber and began their slaughter.

The zombified novitiates, their eyes glowing rose-pink, searched with their enhanced cognition amongst the swarm of steel for a foe but discovered nothing except their frontmost members being skewered and pulverised and hacked.

Chameleon Henry, with the extra Technique from his Spelltome and stat scroll, was undetectable to them beyond a range of 2 metres. The initial volley having cleared a path for him, he strolled comfortably around, keeping on the move because each of the attacks drained 20% of his surrounding Arcane Energy.

In two volleys, half the zombies were wiped out.

Amongst the zombies was a swordszombie whose teachers in life had praised it for its keen observation. It noticed that tied to each floating weapon was an indigo-azure trail as thin as spider silk, and that these trails all converged to one neck-height spot moving with a human’s walking pace. Stretching open its undead mouth, it belched a command with its tattered vocal cords, some of the sound bleeding out through a perforation in its throat.

The other zombies joined its charge.

Subsequently, they were hurled back by a superstrong Gorilla.

It beat them up relentlessly without bothering to ration its Stamina because its ugly trousers a.k.a. The Leggings of a Thousand Leaps had multiplied its Stamina pool by 16.

To use such cheats on a noob dungeon, it was almost bullying.

Two more volleys later, human Henry stood alone, a fan of dead undead radiating out from his position.

“Donkey Bro,” he called. “Dinner is served.”

Shapeshifting into a wolf, he repeated the message.

The donkey continued to complain; nevertheless, its lust for might drove it to soon tear into a zombie's chest and gnaw on its rotten heart. The Grey Wolf did the same for a different reason, feeling terrified of the human after witnessing the result of his swift carnage.

While the monsters had their feast, Henry his remaining 8 weapons so that the later pulls would be even smoother.

The limiting factor for their speed during this noob dungeon would not be himself but the pace at which the monsters could eat.

You and a groupmate have shared in the lifeforce of a Mammoth Beetle Novitiate Mage (11). 225 XP gained. 3515 remaining until level up.

Across from him, Dan raised a shrivelled black heart to his handsome face, then chomped into it like an apple. "Yuck."

Yet he continued to chew.

This kid...

“Dan, did you miss the notification popping up before you bit? Touching the corpse is enough for us humans.”

“Oh.”

Since the dungeon monsters had larger health pools than normal ones, they provided bonus XP, which divided between just Henry and Dan was enough for them to level up from this single room.

The levelling process was less efficient for the donkey and the wolf, though, so Henry slew an extra 70 for them to munch on.

For efficiency's sake, he timed the last zombie pull with their arrival at the first boss room.

In an empty barracks, blocking a trapdoor that led down to the dungeon’s next floor, was a solitary figure duel-wielding scimitars. It had the small, wiry frame of the teenager it'd been before its conversion into undeath.

“This Zombie Bro looks tough. What should we do?”

“Let me swallow him!” snorted the donkey, who was feeling cocky after ascending to the indomitable level of 12.

“It’s just a noob boss," said Henry.

His army of weapons flew forth.

After they entered the boss’s aggro range, the zombie teen awakened and activated an ability normally reserved for when it'd fallen to 20% health. Its skin hardened into an exoskeleton of itself, then it sliced open its back to moult along with two new minions.

Before they could climb out, though, the sword leading the swarm cleaved through their waists with the ease of a Japanese chef knife through three putrescent sausages.

When the boss’s halves glued back together through the self-healing effect, a hammer exploded its skull and its upper torso, followed by the stab of a dagger waiting in an orderly queue of weapons.

In six attacks, the damage being based on Henry's boosted Magic Power stat, the noob boss was defeated, having never demonstrated its paralytic spit or a sick mantis-claw arm transformation.

A shimmering gold podium of light sprouted from the boss’s corpse, offering its slayers prizes that could be taken out into the game world.

There was a novitiate’s Steelcloth sash and a Steel replica of one of the boss’s scimitars - the original items, much like the original zombie teen, had been several Tiers higher before being downgraded to fit the balance of this noob dungeon.

The weapon was inscribed with hieroglyphs that read, ‘Until Kabit The Green breathes its last', the line being completed by its sister sword, 'The Duspada will hunt.'

Henry dismissed a quest notification that tried to pop up after translating the text.

Dan, approaching the loot, reached for the scimitar.

Novitiate Duspada’s Left Scimitar

STR: 1 | VIT: 1 | TECH:1

+17 Damage

Level Restriction: 0-3

Quality: 59%

Material: Steel

Weight: 1.11 kg

‘The juvenile Duspada boy was found on the outskirts of The Mammoth Beetle Temple carrying this heirloom. For refusing to hand it over, he was almost executed until Abbot Magtutung detected potential in him and granted him clemency for enlisting in their sect.’

Dungeon Acquisition Bonus: This item may be refitted once for any member of your group without a degradation of Quality.

“It’s worse than my current sword,” observed Dan with surprise.

“Noob boss, noob loot.”

Dan used the scimitar to carve a handsome slash. “Can I keep it? A sign outside said items can be traded for Slum Points.”

“Do whatever you want. Next.”

Henry slid open the trapdoor and descended a flight of stairs.

Unlike this morning, there would be no insidious scheme on the part of the game developer or a mind-reading demon to complicate his levelling process. This being a normal dungeon for noobs, it could pose him no challenge. He swept through the floors one by one, feeding the wolf and donkey then dispensing with each boss as uneventfully as the first.

Level 12, Monk Ulod, transformed into a gargantuan earthworm and carved out a tunnel in a futile effort to evade the sting of the weapon swarm. It dropped a longbow and a necklace with a diamond-shaped stone...

Level 13, Greatmonk Kabalyero, a set of robes that became limp when abandoned by the termites infesting it – a Steelglass dagger and Steelsilk gloves...

Level 14, Teacher Lalawa, a witch with an arachnid lower-half, crawled using its eight legs up onto the ceiling for safety – a ring woven of flies and a Steelcloth yarmulke...

Level 15, Abbot Magtutung, the dungeon’s final boss, wore a suit of chitin armour forged from the scarab Bakukkang that’d once enslaved him and ruled this shrine...

...

The spear that finished off zombie Abbot Magtutung passed from its head to groin like a cooking skewer through a fly-blown rotisserie chicken and pinned it upright in a standing position.

Congratulations! You have completed Assault on The Shrine of Bakukkang (Tier 0 – Level 11-15 – 6 Players)!

An Exit Portal appeared.

“That’s it, Big Bro?”

Dan, having glimpsed hints that Big Bro was involved in many heroic affairs, had expected an action-packed adventure during this dungeon trip.

“It’s a noob dungeon.”

Henry approached the slain Abbot, a beetle visible through a hole in its cheek, and tapped its zombie forehead, causing a single mote of light to fuse into his fingertip, while a second entered the handsome meathead beside him reaching for the boss’s loot.

A powerful lifeforce has been absorbed by your Martial Body, pushing it beyond the threshold of its current limits.

You are levelling...

Congratulations! You are now a Level 16 Earthfriend. As your first branch sprouts its fourth leaf, you gain the ability to equip Mithril.

The fourth leaf mumbo jumbo simply meant he’d reached Tier 0-4. To climb up quarter tiers typically required a notable accomplishment, such as defeating a dungeon's end boss. Classes had unique names for each rank, but Henry’d always refused to use them out of principle, believing that to be a form of roleplaying.

While the Earthfriend glow around Henry’s hand intensified, Dan underwent a more pronounced transformation, the metal flecks in his flesh mutating from the silver of Steel to the silver-blue of Mithril.

“I want that!” said the donkey. “Give me the pretty skin!”

“I doubt you'll metamorphosise until Tier-1.” Henry, into a gorilla, plunged a fist into the Abbot’s chest, ripped out its unbeating heart, split it in two, and tossed one half each to the monsters.

While they feasted, he messaged his friends, who should have been arriving.

-cathysong31: Delayed. Hard to reply.

‘Why?’

-cathysong31: Slothosaurus Rex. Tough healing. Dying. Everyone dying.

During their trip north as part of the caravan of Villagers, a giant sloth had been spied out on the plains, so 4,000 of them naturally tossed everything aside to hunt the beast.

‘Good luck,’ Henry replied.

He’d been planning on depositing the wolf and the donkey with someone while he speed-ran dungeons with his friends, then continue levelling the monsters afterwards. However, if his friends were delayed, then he may as well persist with the grind.

“Next.”

He transferred the weapons back to his inventory in order to avoid creating an international incident. Then they exited the dungeon, returned to the crowded excavation site, and followed neon signs to the largest building in the complex.

Fall of The Mammoth Beetle Temple.

Although Tier 0-4, this too was a noob dungeon, incapable of putting up any challenge.

Level 16, Abbot Mosukli, a skeleton ninja with ‘bones’ made from the parts of 15 different insect monsters - a wedding bracelet and Mithrilsilk moccasins...

Level 17, Abbot Anino, a mage zombie that wove shadow magic with its right hand and poison with its left - an effigy of a beetle and a personal memoir...

Level 18, Construct of The Masters, an 8-metre tall undead monstrosity composed of the sewn together corpses of the sect’s former leaders - belt and gloves...

Level 19, Novitiate Alibang, a beautiful polearm user with butterfly wings surgically attached to its back to give it flight – sabatons and a potion recipe...

Level 20, Master Pangulo, the sect’s supreme leader, formerly Tier-8, immediately enclosed itself in a hardened cocoon while spam-summoning zombie squads...

...

In Master Pangulo’s bedroom, Gorilla Henry punched his fist through the cocoon, grabbed the zombie Master by the face, and pulled it back out, its collar bone and ribcage crunching as they were squeezed through the hole.

After the Master was then tossed into and churned up by the weapon swarm, the zombie minions it'd summoned collapsed with the severing of their spiritual connection to their summoner.

Congratulations! You have completed Fall of The Mammoth Beetle Temple (Tier 0 – Level 16-20 – 6 Players)!

Henry tapped the mangled corpse, this time receiving a slightly different notification.

A powerful lifeforce has been absorbed by your Martial Body, pushing it to the threshold of its next stage.

To advance to Tier-1 and unlock your new Earthfriend abilities, you must visit your nearest Oracle Coven.

Note: By doing so, Earthfriend will become your permanent Martial Class.

Dan, wearing an eclectic mix of dungeon gear, grinned handsomely. “Awesome! Big Bro, do you want to go to this Oracle Coven tomorrow with me? I have to log out after these dungeons. My mum will be mad if I stay up too late.”

“Can’t," replied Henry. "I’m staying at Tier-0 for two weeks to participate in a 1v1 tournament.”

“Can I join?”

“I won’t stop you.”

“Do you think I can win?”

“Nope. I’m going to win.”

“Damn.”

Henry extracted Master Pangulo’s heart and fed it to the monsters.

Each, upon taking a bite, was suddenly blasted with a torrent of blinding whiteness like the explosion of a mini-nuke, energy motes condensing from the atmosphere with such a density as to envelop them totally.

“Donkey Bro! Wolf Bro!” screamed Dan, about to charge into the pyrotechnics.

“Chill. They’re metamorphosising into stronger forms.”

"Phew," said Dan, stepping back in relief. “Is it like a Pokémon evolution?”

“What’s a Pokémon?”

It was the year 2050.

“A retro game my dad plays where you raise monsters. It’s pretty fun.”

“No idea.”

Alfgrim was the first to complete its evolution.

Staggering out of the light, its muzzle swaying in a disoriented circle, the wolf turned to Grey Wolf Henry.

"Check yourself out." Henry flicked his wolf nose to a wall mirror that'd remained immaculately free of the fungus smothering the rest of Master Pangulo's bedroom.

Alfgrim, gingerly approaching the mirror, wolf-frowned as it observed its changed self in the reflection.

The red-streak to its fur had spread, a dark splotch appearing around its chest over its heart. Curiously, its frame had become leaner, a sixth of its muscle mass having been shed.

“Shouldn’t I have grown?”

“You have. Test your new abilities.”

When Alfgrim heard this, he realised at once that an ancient knowledge had intruded into his mind from a place that was both familiar and foreign.

.

The wolf raised its head. “Awooo!”

You have been blessed by Vampiric Howl for 30 seconds. Damage has increased by 4. Physical attacks heal 10% of damage dealt.

.

The wolf made a ghastly shriek, performing a reverse howl. As the air was inhaled into its mouth, brown flakes of dried blood flew in as well from the nearby zombie corpses. These flakes, diffusing throughout the wolf’s lungs, caused it to double in size and its body to emit the sweet metallic odour of the blood droplets dripping from its now crimson-red fur.

“Sick, Wolf Bro!”

“M-m-monster,” the wolf stammered at its gruesome appearance. “I’m a monster!”

“Literally, yes,” said Henry, “but in the sense that you mean, no, you’re just a wolf variant with a blood affinity.”

When arranging wolves for testing his monster army, he’d requested that the abductors bring over whichever pack possessed the most members with pre-markers for developing into variants, which could improve the army's flexibility. Along with the red-streaked Alfgrim, there were two further candidates, a she-pup with the frosted tips (frost affinity) and the emaciated wolf Melde that’d rebelliously abandoned the pack (bone).

“Anyway, a blood affinity doesn’t confine you to being evil. As the popular saying goes, ‘blood magic doesn’t kill people, Bloodmancers do.’”

Henry'd made that up now.

He should devote an Overdream session to conquering proverbs.

“This is a racket, a con, a scam! Where are my promised gifts?!”

This cry came from an indignant Donkey Bro, who, looking into the mirror, had seen only its usual shabby self.

“Hmmm,” said human Henry. “Maybe Theory 7 was correct.” They’d brainstormed during the months before fighting The Redeemer. “You’re not monster; you're just a mount with a one-off gift.”

The donkey whip-cracked its tail. “I am more than a mount!”

“A mount with a - that still puts you at the apex of donkeydom. Be proud.”

Donkey Bro cast a scornful gaze to the heavens. “Listen up, I have never been so foolish as to believe in a higher power.”

“But you've met a God. You ate—right.”

It meant a higher power than itself.

“But, if you’re out there, and you foresee that what awaits me is a continuation of this pauper life, then I beg thee, please, do not prolong my torture! Smite me where I stand on these four hooves so that I may be born anew in a shape that can contain the immensity of my soul!”

There was no reply.

“Give me what the wolf has! I want to be huge!”

When the heavens kept their silence, the donkey began to shake with anger.

Then it shook some more.

Strangely, its shake became increasingly vigorous, well-surpassing the level of shaking one might expect from a standard donkey.

When it worked itself up to the shake of a second-hand washing machine loaded with bricks, its donkey muscles suddenly flooded with heat, before the boss room exploded with the cataclysmic sound of a corn kernel popping in a microwave.

Pop!

Lowering its eyes, it met in the mirror a donkey who was not so shabby anymore, who had huge, rippling muscles, like a fusion of Arnold Schwarzenegger and a donkey.

“Very nice, Donkey Bro!”

The donkey turned sideways to admire its sculpted hind legs, the skin so taut over its bulging muscles that you could bounce a coin off it.

“I call this !”

“I guess it was Theory 3bii instead,” concluded Henry. “You create abilities to suit your current desire during moments of high-emotion, but this has been impossible previously due to your having maxed out the ability slots for your tier.”

Given the happiness of the donkey, he resisted pointing out that the it’d taught itself was a waste of an ability slot. The temporary bonus Strength would have no effect on its , which already destroyed any material.

Dan grabbed the boss’s beetle antenna staff and twirled it. “Big Bro, what’s next?”

“Speed-runs with the chums. One sec.”

Henry messaged them again, only to learn that they were still 3 kilometres away, a free-for-all having broken out over the distribution of the Slothosaurus Rex’s loot.

-cathysong31: Why do you keep asking for updates? What’s wrong? Is someone threatening you? Tell me…

“Big Bro, what’s with your expression? Did you sniff something rotten?”

“In a sense," he replied flatly.

This zone has laid yet another steaming delay before him.

How should he maximise this wasted time?

Chatting more with the people he hadn’t spoken to in 19 years? He'd already grown bored of that, having never really been the social type.

Reading? There was nowhere comfy enough to settle down with a book. Inside, stinky zombies. Outside, even worse, Villagers.

“Dan, want to kill the hidden boss?”

An incidental benefit of this dungeon for Henry was that the bosses were added to the clones he could summon to spar in The Overdream. While they presented no challenge here due to the power discrepancy, their combat skills in their Sentient state had been impressive, the zombies having accumulated plenty of experience during their millennia as part of The Deathless One’s undead legion. (Although mindless automatons, their cognitive capabilities had been preserved – as with the Overdream clones, the mindlessness stemmed from the absence of the game’s wishy-washy concept of a soul.)

“Hidden boss?”

“This way.” Henry strolled over to the blemish free mirror then walked past it to a point Master Pangulo had been gunning for before being caught.

Not noticing anything at first, he summoned a Spelltome for and stripped off the grime caking the ground to expose the clay floor beneath. “There we go. Check it out.”

Neither Dan nor the monsters who’d bounded over out of curiosity knew what he was pointing at.

“Understandable. In contrast to the rest of The Temple, the flooring here is flatter and the clay particles more uniform in size. Why is this so? Following the decimation of the world’s human population by a certain genocidal monkey God, the building techniques that remained were trash. Thus, most of this temple is shoddily built - except for this trapdoor-sized section, which must have been installed in a better era. By my estimation, before the construction of The Temple. My rationale for that assumption is—Dan, the antenna staff please.”

The handsome meathead handed over the boss’s weapon.

Henry strolled out onto the centre of the trapdoor. “Is that this little circle of clay hiding the trigger point is shoddy, too."

Empowering the base of antenna staff, he slammed it down.

As it smashed into the floor, glowing lines flared out from the impact point to form a 6-pointed star.

“Nevermind,” he grumbled. “More delays...”

“What’s the problem?”

“We missed the opportunity. ‘To open the trapdoor, we should each stand on one of the star’s points’. The discoverers of this formation would be half-correct in this conclusion, moments before they exploded in a shower of blood as a living sacrifice to power its unlocking – there’s a bunch of evil stuff written in the runes. What that team should have done was drag over the zombies summoned by the boss to substitute for them." He stroked his chin. "Curious, based on the number of conditions and probability of a normal person triggering each, the final reward for defeating the hidden boss should be a Legendary." He shrugged. "Oh well, since the minions are dead, we’ll claim it after resetting the dungeon when my mates arrive.”

“No!” Donkey Bro puffed out its sculpted pecs. “I will not sit on my ass and watch another claim my kingly prize! !”

The donkey, having become over-confident after getting jacked, used its on the formation.

With the chunk of floor it ate, it also destroyed the top of the pillar that’d been supporting the trapdoor.

Everyone began to plummet.

"Interesting," said Henry, spotting an Exit Portal adrift in the blackness below.

As they phased through this and were transported back to the game world, they continued to descend into the unknown dark.