During the day, James was a normal teen. But at night, he changed completely.

James stepped into the dungeon. In reality, all of his wounds were actually healed, because the dungeon had miraculous things called potions. However, the existence of the dungeon was supposed to be a secret, so James would have to pretend to be injured for months. Ouch.

James didn’t know why it was kept a secret, but he didn’t have a way to find out. Truthfully, he didn’t know why the dungeon was created, who created it, why it was created, when it was created, how it was created, and what it really was. He did however, try to make sense of what little information he did know.

From what James could observe, his body stayed still and unconscious on Earth. His parents would simply think that he was asleep. This led him to think that the dungeon might only exist in his consciousness. Or, since there were other people here, the minds of all the dungeon explorers were put into a certain place, the dungeon. This would imply the existence of the duality of body and soul, or at least body and mind.

Yet, if that was the case, how did his physical state in the dungeon affect his state on Earth, and vice versa? For example, when he had healed the injuries from the bear incident, he had consumed a potion in the dungeon shop. But when he went back to Earth and “woke up,” his injuries on Earth were gone as well. If somebody stabbed his body while he was in the dungeon, would, a wound appear while he was diving?

Furthermore, James was able to take his watch into the dungeon with him. The watch showed accurate times outside.

James, as well as his senior dungeon explorers, and probably all of the other explorers, knew that something beyond their comprehension was happening here. But, since there was no way to find out more, he decided it wasn’t worth thinking about. No explorer knew what was going on.

Yet, James always kept on thinking about it. These thoughts currently circulated within James’ mind as he dashed across the dungeon, throwing knives at goblins.

After 3 weeks, his status looked like this:

{James Lu: Dungeon Explorer – Status Monitored

Cleared 1st Floor

Points: 1006

STR: 54

DEF: 2

END: 2

AGI: 2

INT: 42

LUK: 27*$!9

Skills: Intermediate Knife Throwing, Monster Taming

Tamed Beasts: Leonardo the Bear (Leo) }

James didn’t like the message that said “Status Monitored,” but he couldn’t do anything about it, so he ignored it. Somehow, the dungeon had recognized the name of Leo the bear, and had put it onto his status. The reason why James’ number of points had stopped at just over a thousand was Leo. Instead of cashing in the magic stones, James fed them to the gluttonous little ursine. In the level 1 shop, there wasn’t anything James was planning to save up for, so James didn’t feel a big loss. He’d already stockpiled a ton of potionsLeo had become stronger, and now exerted the same pressure as a goblin.

“It’s an easy way for him to grow up, but it’s really inefficient. I fed him hundreds of stones, and he only improved a bit. I should see if he can fight a goblin when he gets a little stronger.”

James had been scouring the dungeon every day, looking for orbs of strength. It was beginning to get a little tedious. However, his efforts had paid off: James had taken 47 tier 1 orbs of strength, and 1 tier 3 orb of strength. Along with the bonus for completing the 1st floor and his base stat of 1, he now had a strength stat of 54.

Now, it would seem like James was now superhuman. 25 points in all stats was about average for a normal human being on Earth. With 54 points, James should’ve easily bested world class athletes with his sheer strength. However, he’d run into another problem: his other stats.

When James wanted to test his strength, he couldn’t do it on Earth because he was “injured.” Instead, he had asked Mike for help.

James thought back to that day, which was only a few days ago.

Mike brought him, Leah, and Beck to a training room in the dungeon. James didn’t know about the existence of the training room beforehand. The training room was an indestructible room where people could test out their strength and new ideas without any danger. James felt like it was a nice idea. Inside, there were weights, targets, punching bags, and all sorts of other equipment. James was told that these were adjusted for dungeon explorers. He tried hitting a punching bag, and felt like he was punching a brick wall. Mike punched it and it started swinging.

When James tried doing presses, he could press 60 kilograms without a problem. His strength had definitely improved by leaps and bounds. However, when the weight increased further, he felt a peculiar feeling. Normally, one would feel as if they couldn’t lift the weight, no matter how hard they tried. However, James felt as if he could go further. But, he also noticed a pain in his arms and chest. He felt like if he wanted to, he could hurl the weight across the room, ripping his own muscles in the process.

James realized this was probably related to his imbalanced stats. With only 2 points in both defense and endurance, James’ body couldn’t actually take the stress of the strength it could exert. So, James was stuck with strength at the level of an athletic adult. This was the maximum strength his body could handle. When one looked at it, though, that was already pretty good. If he wanted to, he could maximize his strength for a moment, to escape a critical moment. Although it would injure him severely, like the latent potential pill he had consumed, it was nice to have a trump card.

James was able to figure out his own capabilities, as well as see his seniors’ strength. Mike turned out to be a paladin, using holy magic to heal and buff himself, while wielding a mace and a large shield in combat. Beck was a magic swordsman who specialized in water and ice magic. Leah was an artillery mage that like to make things explode and literally melt from heat with her fire magic. Leah was fun.

All of them were ridiculous in their own ways. They were 3 of the top dungeon explorers, and that was no accident. Each attack they made left an impression on him. James also noticed that all of his senior explorers were like one man armies. They all had their own ways of surviving in the dungeon by themselves. Even Leah, who seemed to be a glass cannon, had a multitude of defensive and movement spells that would keep her safe. Balance seemed to be key in the dungeon, because you could only rely on yourself.

“Heh, good things I’m friends with you guys. You all could kill me in an instant.”

Mike scratched his head. “Actually, if one of us killed you, we’d get punished severely.”

“Punished? How?”

“I don’t know and I don’t intend to find out. But I do know that John, the shopkeeper, is extremely powerful.”

“I’ve only seen him break up a fight once,” said Beck, “but he could definitely annihilate all of us at once. I couldn’t even see him move. I don’t know if he teleported, or he just moved so fast I couldn’t see.”

“Mmm,” said Leah in agreement.

It seemed there were rules to moderate interactions between dungeon explorers. Although Mike, Beck, and Leah were very nice people, there were probably assholes in the dungeon as well.

Mike cleared his throat. “Anyways, you’re pretty strong already. How many orbs in these 3 weeks?”

“Uh, I’m at 44 right now.”

“WHAT?”

Mike hadn’t been too content. Maybe the rate at which James was growing was rather fast.