Now, I know what you were thinking. Hell, Tsar was thinking it too. When he’d heard the words fast travel network, he’d immediately assumed that it meant teleportation. What it really was, was an interdimensional Autobahn, on steroids, with superpowers. Going through the rotating doors with the label Fast Travel over them led him to where he was now. Running faster than he’d ever thought possible on a strange indoor highway through a tunnel filled with different lanes of traffic, foot, animal, vehicles, and straight up people just flying. Tsar found himself in a lane of people moving at his speed. Some people greeting each other and others ignoring everything besides heading towards their destination. There were signs and exits everywhere, but they were fairly easy to follow. His destination was dungeon city. From what he’d seen on his and indeed on his minimap right now. The city was over fifteen thousand miles away. But using the fast travel network it was only about an hour’s jog away.

Tsar almost couldn’t believe it when he ran down the Dungeon City exit. The place was significantly more crowded than Greenbriar and there was a long line to enter the main hall. But it was moving quickly. And soon he found himself in a Guild Hall that was identical to the one he’d left, save for the fact that there were about four thousand people shuffling around through the hall, forming lines to the different doors.

Tsar exited the guild hall and looked around at the vastly different city he found himself in now. This was a city. The streets were clean and paved in something that looked almost like asphalt was obviously something different. The buildings were huge. Easily 20 to 50 stories tall. He already had a detailed map of the place, and he knew where the Dungeons were located, so he headed towards the closest one which just so happened to be the Celestial Dungeon.

Tsar honestly didn’t know what to expect. He was honestly just going to enter the dungeon on his own, explore the first few floors to see what it was like, then probably head back to the Guild Hall to go into the ‘Lobby’ area where people who didn’t have teams went to meet others and join up for group Contracts, and Dungeon runs.

It only took him about fifteen minutes to arrive at the Celestial Dungeon’s entrance. He found it confusing. The entrance wasn’t like a decorated cave opening or a hole in the ground. It was like someone had taken one of the Stonehenge doorways as a baseline. Made it about ten times larger. But made it out of a pale white metal. Then, decided that it wasn’t blingy enough, so they painstakingly attached diamonds the size of his fist to it in symmetrical rows. Then decided that it needed a square Stargate puddle inside it.

There were hundreds of people lined up and walking into the event horizon while other groups of people emerged from the other side. Tsar wasn’t exactly sure what he was seeing but it certainly seemed like another space bendy thing that the system seemed fond of. On the exit side of the giant portal were what appeared to be healers at the ready to heal injured and surrounding the thing were booths of kinds. One of the booths caught Tsar’s eye in that it just had a big sign over it that said “information” and there seemed to be no one going to it.

Tsar walked over to the information booth and saw a very bored looking man sitting behind it looking like he couldn’t wait for the day to be over.

“Hello there.” Tsar spoke as he approached the booth.

The man behind the booth straitened up his posture and seemed to gather himself for a moment as if he wasn’t quite sure what to say, but then he seemed to have collected his thoughts.

“Hello there yourself, are you looking for information on the Celestial Dungeon?” the man spoke, “Well then you’ve come to the right place. My name is Mark and if I can’t answer your questions, I will be able to point you in the right direction to get the information you desire.” It seemed like a spiel that he was supposed to say more than anything, kind of like an HR person.

“Well… I’ve honestly never been into a dungeon. I have fought monsters out in the wild. But I don’t know what to expect here. An idea of what I might find in there and such would be good.” Tsar spoke.

“Well, there are a few things about Dungeons in general that you should know then. It is a far different experience than fighting monsters in the wild. First off, there are traps. Traps are often more dangerous than the monsters themselves. On the first ten floors you can expect pitfalls, darts that shoot out of holes in the walls, and the occasional rock drops. The first ten floors honestly are not dangerous to anyone of silver or above guild rank, and only mildly dangerous to copper ranks. The danger curve of the Celestial Dungeon is linear in progression. Starting to grow up to about silver rank danger at around floor 15, then close to gold at 30, platinum 45, mithril 60, adamantium 75. Each floor is progressively more dangerous.” The man had this spiel memorized even though it seemed he hardly ever needed to tell it to anyone, “Now the important thing to not about the difference between Dungeon monsters and wild monsters is that wild monster can be unpredictable, and vastly outperform their own tiers in terms of stats and skills. Dungeon monsters are more like a… Play Script if you will. They have set patterns of behaviors and actions that they will take depending on what you do, and whether or not you draw aggro, aggro being the term we use to say, ‘you’ve got the monsters attention and now its going to try and kill you.’ Depending on the individual monster and how deep you are in the dungeon Aggro range is different. The second big difference is that though the monster bleed and behave more or less like their wild counterparts. The moment that they are killed they burst into a cloud of rainbow-colored energy which coalesces into a Core. The Core will be of the type of monster that you slew.” The man was going to continue talking buts Tsar needed him to stop. So, he held up his hand.

Tsar delved into Zen Meditation and tried to find the memory that what the guy… Mark. Had just said reminded him of. After a few moments he found it. Radgar had said practically the same thing about Spirits! Tsar had actually killed a Wisps in his testing of his magic, he had the Wisp Cores from when they died. Exiting his meditation, Tsar pulled one of the Cores out of his Soul Vault and showed it to Mark. “Are the cores like this?” he asked, showing the pea sized core to the man.

Mark squinted at the core for a few moments before nodding, “What you have there is a Wisp Core. They are good for being ground up and turned into a base for enchanting runes and such. You can find Wisps in practically any Dungeon but not many people bother with them. You need a lot of Cores for it to be worthwhile selling them. But yes, they are essentially the same thing. You would never be able to tell the difference between a wild wisp core and dungeon spawned one.”

Tsar looked over at the dungeon then back at Mark. Was it possible that all of the Dungeon monsters were actually spirits? Would his Bind Spirit work on them? those were questions that he would answer once he got into the dungeon. There was another question that was bothering him though. How were so many people going into the dungeon at once?

“Ok this may seem like a weird question but is the Dungeon just enormous and allows tons of people inside at once or is it some kind of weird space magicky thinking going on?” he asked.

“Have you ever been to the Service Department?” Mark asked, Tsar smiled remembering the things that he’d definitely not done in there as he nodded his head. Mark flashed him a knowing grin before continuing, “Well you know how each store was actually many stores based off of the location you entered the Service Department from? It’s a lot like that except based on parties, or individuals. Everyone enters into exactly the same area but are in a different dimension sort of. We call the instances. Once a dungeon develops to a certain size, they almost all become instanced.”

“Well thank you for the information, Mark. You’ve given me a lot to think about. I’ll be going now.” Tsar spoke.

“Wait… Do you happen to know where that music is coming from? I should like to go and see the [Bard] who is playing it in person. It is beautiful.” Mark said.

Tsar blinked; he’d almost forgotten that he was just always playing music. It always fit the situation so it kind of just melded in with everything he was experiencing. The interesting thing is that the sound was completely non directional. It was just everywhere around him.

“Oh, sorry about that. Umm, its actually one of my classes’ unique skills. It just plays music all around me at all times.” Tsar said.

“Well, that’s an amazing skill. Tavern owners would pay you just to come and drink at their bars… what Class is it? Maybe I could pick it up.” Mark asked with hope in his eyes.

“It’s called [Intrepid Explorer], and the requirements were so ridiculously specific to my own life experiences that it’s considered a similar class to Sorcerer, only even more rare to get.” Tsar explained.

“Well damn, I was just imagining being able to live a nice easy life never having to actually work. Just existing is something you could charge for.” Mark sighed.

Tsar quickly headed over to the Dungeon entrance and joined the crowd of people entering it. He had some serious experimentation to do.

Entering the Dungeon felt a lot like being teleported by Iggy. There was a massive sensation of magic happening around him, then he was in a room. A room made of white stone with repeating geometric patterns on the walls floor and ceiling. The light source was surprising. There were Wisps floating in little sconces at even intervals throughout the room. Other than that, the first room was devoid of anything in it. But the path forward was clear, a hallway that was brightly lit and seemed to curve just enough that he couldn’t see the next room.

Moving through the hallway Tsar remained cautious of potential traps. Though none presented themselves. He guessed that the first area was more of just an entryway, and he was currently headed to the actual first room. Upon seeing the first room Tsar was momentarily disoriented by the fact that it looked like he was emerging from a tunnel into the great outdoors.

It was a field of perfectly green grass that looked manicured and maintained at exactly a certain height. There was path cutting straight through the field going perfectly straight until it hit an archway about a mile away that looked exactly like the Dungeon entrance. There were trees around that were all carbon copies of each other and seemed to be planted in exacting rows. Flowers were also peeking up around the area, but they too were all perfect copies of each other, in exacting arrangements. Everything was so uniform, so exacting, so neat that it was actually a little unnerving. Like he’d entered a holy place that was not to be disturbed by imperfections. Each side of the field split by the pathway was a perfect mirror of the other side.

Then there were the Dungeon monsters. They were set up along the sides of the path in pairs, one on each side of the path, every fifty or so feet. They were all some sort of really pudgy, and frankly adorable rat creature that stood on their hind legs, their fur was golden, and they had big eyes to go with their chibi like heads, standing at about a foot and half tall when they were on their hind legs. Tsar had thought they were statues at first. But apparently his music had quite the range and drew aggro. Because suddenly the first 14 pairs, 24 monsters total, charged at him. They weren’t fast, or strong. but they charged at him nonetheless.

Tsar wanted to run an experiment or two but with a whole bunch of monsters all charging him he would need to wait until he’d taken care of all but one of them. Which wasn’t hard at all. As they ran at him, he just pulled one of Iggy’s spears out of his Soul Vault and Skewered them one by one. They were basically regular animals, so it was pretty much just a chore. The moment he skewered them they burst into rainbow lights that coalesced into little pearl like beads.

Once he was down to a single one of the creatures, he used analyze on it as he dodged its leaps and frankly pathetic attempts to hurt him. He was surprised to find that it was a [Cherubic Rat], race level 0 C+ creature. Its highest stats were Dex, Con, Vit, Hp Regen, and Cha. All of them sitting at 25 apiece. Though its health pool was huge for its Vit stat, sitting at 625Hp. Meaning that each point of Vit was worth 25 Hp for the little guys

Now came the next experiment. He focused on the Cherubic Rat and cast Bind Spirit. The skill worked perfectly. Just like the description of the skill said… Yeah, the skill specified something that Tsar hadn’t really considered. The cost of the skill was point for point the targets resource pools. So, the second that Tsar cast the skill he felt a wrenching pain wash through his body as his Hp dropped by 625 points instantly, blood burst out of his eyes and mouth. He felt his stamina drain by a fraction, and his mana drained by the expected amount.

The unexcpected severe pain and subsequent blood spattering all over the place dropped Tsar to the ground like a sack of potatoes. There were notifications flashing in the corner of his vision. But all Tsar could really do was groan. The pain had been unlike anything he’d ever felt. He popped a health potion that he’d in the Service Department and waited for it to heal him up. But even with his health topped off Tsar still had a headache from whatever had just happened.

The Cherubic rat was now wandering around sniffing things and chewing on the grass nearby. He knew where it was and what it was doing even though he was currently curled up in a ball with his eyes closed. Just like he knew where the Wisp was and what it was doing at all times. He’d gotten used to the feeling with the Wisp, but he didn’t know why the rat was behaving like an animal now. Why was that? Tsar sat up and stared at the rat and it stopped what it was doing turning to look at him.

Then the world stopped. Not Tsar, his rat, or his Wisp, but everything else froze. The music around shivered and switched to an eerie sounding tune. Then suddenly the being that he’d first met in this universe appeared in front of him.

“Hello again Tsar Bomba. You’ve been a very busy mortal.” The person said. Before Tsar had not had magical senses the last time, he’d encountered this being. This time though. He felt it. The utter and all-encompassing power that was contained in the person was horrifying. And utterly beyond his comprehension. It was like trying to truly wrap your head around the amount of energy released by a supernova. “In less than one mortal year, you have brought to the Systems attention. More bugs than have been encountered in past thousand years. Now you have discovered an Exploit the likes of which has not been found in the System since early in its inception. We applaud your hard work. Truly and sincerely.”

Tsar mouth just hung open. He was utterly unable to speak now that he could catch a glimpse of the power that this thing that was talking to him had.

“Oh, and the answer to your question earlier is that it is behaving that way because that is what you subconsciously believe a rat should behave like. Anyway, I was sent here because you’ve done something that the System has decided is too far out of balance. So much so that it is considered an exploit. The issue has been corrected in all future iterations of the Shaman class. However, it is impossible to alter your state directly without your permission. And the system doesn’t really care to either.”

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Now that’s just horseshit. I’ve had two classes forced on me already. That’s altering my state without permission.” Tsar spoke.

“No, you gave the system permission to, in those instances, by meeting the requirements. That is different than what I am talking about. Anyway, that is not important, the issue is resolved for any future individuals who take the class of Shaman. This Exploit will not be available to them, it will however, remain available to you. Use it wisely. The reason I have come to you, is that the System decided that notifications were not the way to convey everything. You see, by uncovering a truly broken exploit, you would have been awarded another title that reduced the increase in EXP requirements to your race level by a further -10%. But the System has flagged you as not eligible for further reductions aside from your occultist class level reductions. -95% is the highest that the System will allow reductions. This placed the System in a dilemma of sorts. A reward equivalent to the reduction must be given. I was instructed to tell you that because of this reward, you are no longer eligible for classes below the Legendary classification that mortals have given those kinds of classes. At a minimum your next class will be Legendary, if not higher. More than likely, it will be at least Mythic, on the mortal scale though.” The person spoke.

“I kind of feel like all of that could have pretty easily been explained in a little blue box.” Tsar pointed out, and for the first time he saw the person smile.

“Certain requirements have loopholes that the System can take advantage of… for its own amusement of course.” The person said before disappearing.

The world unfroze a moment later leaving Tsar standing there feeling goosebumps rising on his flesh. The system wanted to give him some kind of class that had a requirement for meeting that being in some way. Tsar was afraid to look at his notification now. He had a bad feeling about it. But… he had to know.

Congratulations

By finding a broken mechanic in your class and exploiting it, You have been awarded [Redacted]

You have been awarded the Title: [Boundary Breaker]

Effect: All sources of regeneration have had their decimal points moved to the right by one.

Congratulations

You have bound the Dungeon Creature [Cherubic Rat (C+)] Race level 0

Congratulations

You have killed 23x [Cherubic Rat (C+)]

+23 EXP

He breathed out a sigh of relief, nothing crazy. Just a new title and some EXP. But the effect of the new Title alone was huge. It meant that each point in his regen stats counted as a whole 1 point per hour of regeneration. Which meant that he now had 3,469 mana regen per hour and 1,640 hp per hour. That meant that with just his stats Tsar’s mana regen was nearly at 1 mana per second. And after checking, Tsar noticed that the title applied its effect not only to his stats but the souls in his soul well too. Meaning that he was now getting an additional 74.5 regen to all resources per hour. When the effect of Greater Mana siphon was applied on top of that he was regening mana at 88.57 mana per minute or just shy 1.5 mana per second. It was insane! How had binding the Cherubic Rat been an exploit that was considered more unbalanced than shooting his resource regen rate with a steroid injection?

Tsar was about to use analyze on the rat when he realized that there was a new icon in his vision. Set unobtrusively just under where the Party interface area would be located. He clicked it and his eyes went wide. “Yeah, that is beyond broken. Even if normally you’d only be able to have four.” He muttered to himself as he took in the Rat’s Stat Sheet,

Name: ???

Race: Dungeon Forged Cherubic Rat(C+)

Race Level: 0/350

[Racial bonus: none] Bond Bonus: Gain Shaman’s Unlocked Stats as a modifier to the corresponding stat. Additionally Base regeneration rates of resources are based on the Shaman’s base plus modifiers. Unlocked all Stats that the shaman has access to.

Strength: 25(752)+727 from bond

Dexterity: 25(757)+722 from bond

Constitution: 25(752)+727 from bond

Toughness: 25(737)+712 from bond

Fortitude: 25(737)+712 from bond

HP Regen: 25(737)+712 from bond

Vitality: 25(747)+722 from bond

Lifespan: 25(741)+716 from bond

Attributes

Intelligence: 25(1,072)+1,047 from bond

Wisdom: 25(1,072)+1,047 from bond

Perception: 25(921)+896 from bond

Charisma: 25(1,023)+998 from bond

Willpower: 25(2,571)+2,546 from bond

MP Regen: 25(737)+712 from bond

MP Capacity: 25(737)+712 from bond

Soul: 25(737)+712 from bond See Next Page 1 of ???

Resource Pools

[Sp 3,760/3760] 12.28spm

[Hp 18,675/18,675] 122.8hpm

[Mp 3685/3685] 12.28mpm

(Note: Sp regeneration is based mana consumption. Dungeon Forged subsist on mana alone.)

Skills

[Celestial Vitality lvl.N/A] [Celestial Regeneration lvl.N/A]

[Bite lvl.1] [Tackle lvl.1]

Spells

N/A

Yup, it was completely and utterly broken. The little rat was a tank now. And all Tsar had to do was suffer a little pain. Now he had his very own Pokémon that would definitely get stronger than he was. It could level up separately from himself. It didn’t have classes as a control for how quickly it could gain exp. He could probably teach it new skills. And already he’d learned a bit more about celestial creatures. It’s two, Level N/A, skills were racial traits that applied to celestials. Celestial Vitality made it so that each point in Vit was worth 25 points. While Celestial Regeneration took your total hp regen and moved the decimal to the right. And because Tsar’s modifiers had just been moved it was like the rat got it moved over by two. Meaning that the rat had the equivalent of 7,370 hp regen per hour!

The next thing that Tsar noticed was that he was stuck with this bond. Unlike the with the Wisp. And he was unsure what would happen if the rat was killed. It would probably free up the slot. But he didn’t want to test that. For now, he dismissed his bond with the Wisp. He really didn’t need it and now he had a replacement. The moment he ripped the bond away from the wisp it exploded and condensed down into an abnormally large Wisp Core. About the size of a Golf ball. Probably because of the excess mana. But back to the Rat. Tsar’s question about why the rat was acting like a rat had been answered, it was because he thought it should.

Oh, Tsar was so going to collect one of each of the different types from the different Dungeons. He already had a Celestial rat. Maybe he should bind it to the Grimoire of Lightning to give it spells? He really thought about that one. But this thing was built to be a tank. Health and health regen. It didn’t have a huge mana pool. Maybe the Infernal creatures had big mana pools and Celestials has big health pools? Anyway, he would find out. But first he was going to power level his little rat here in the dungeon he’d stolen it from.