When the party left the dungeon, they notice that a lot had changed in the entrance area. The ground that was cleared from snow had increased a lot and the other travelers had built additional wind protection by piling the snow to create walls around the cave entrance. In addition, they saw drying racks with goblin fur hanging from them. In front of it, a middle aged black woman was skinning a goblin. It looked like she had a lot of experience in skinning animals before. In addition to the woman, there were only 10 of the 23 other travelers still in the entrance area of the dungeon.

Interested in the woman’s work, Daniel went over and greeted her.

“Hi, how is it going? Are you skinning goblins to create fur clothes? I’m Daniel by the way.”

“I know who you are. Every traveler knows who you are after the little speech you gave. My name is Azza and you are right. I’m skinning these goblins to make something useful, clothes, tents, covers to prevent shoes from getting wet and more. But, the goblin fur is pretty bad, so don’t expect miracles.” The woman explained with a thick accent that Daniel couldn’t assign to a specific country.

“Nice work. Sadly, goblins are the only material we have access to right now. Do you have experience in leather work? Where are you from, if I may ask?” Daniel inquired.

“Yes, my family had a small tannery in Namibia. But, skinning goblins is a lot different than skinning cattle.” Azza answered while another party came out of the dungeon. Two of the four people went directly to her. They greeted her and started to remove goblin corpses from their inventory and to put them on a pile.

“Oh, I have goblin corpses, too. These are from higher leveled ones and might be useful.” With that said, Daniel started to remove the boss and the other goblins from his inventory. The body of the goblin boss spiked Azza’s interest. When she tried to cut its fur, she looked surprised.

“Yes, that’s a tough bastard. It’s the goblin boss. It was pretty hard to kill and its flesh is as tough as wood. You might need higher strength or a sharper knife.” Daniel explained, while he removed the sharpening tool that he got from the dead traveler and gave it to Azza.

“Thanks you, that will help. This goblin could probably give a decent fur. Sadly, all the electric burns will make quite a bit of it useless.” She explained.

“Yes, sorry for that. But, it was a tough fight and seemed like a good idea at the time.” Daniel explained with a smile and continued. “May I ask you why I don’t remember you from yesterday? It seems like you brought some order into the camp and people support you. Why didn’t you say anything when the other two presented their great ideas?” Daniel asked a bit confused.

“I was in no state to take part in your fight. Yesterday, I was still so weak that I had a hard time standing on my feet.” Azza responded.

“Weak, from what?” Daniel inquired and Azza sighed before she responded.

“I had the virus.” When she saw Daniel’s confused look, she went on. “I mean Aids. Before I was summoned here, I was dying. Maybe, I would have survived another week. The system saved my life. When I arrived here, all my attributes except the regenerations and mana cap, were at 1. In addition, I had a status effect from the disease. I couldn’t get up, but as I was lying on my back, I started to get messages that my vitality leveled up at a steady pace. When I got my first level, I put everything into regeneration. A few hours later, the status effect disappeared and my disease was cured. But, you can’t imagine how weak you are if your strength is one. I needed to raise it to four before I was able to stand up and then we were summoned to the dungeon entrance. When you made your little speech about equal opportunities and so on, I would have punched you in the face, if I had had enough strength to do it. The first few hours in the cold were pretty hard. My toughness was only at two. But, my regeneration saved me and the cold helped me to level up my toughness. Now it is bearable.” Azza explained.

Daniel felt a bit bad about himself. He didn’t notice that one of the travelers had problems with standing on her feet, when he made his address.

“Sorry for that, I didn’t notice that. Your information about how your toughness and vitality increased might be pretty useful. Up to now, I only managed to increase them together, when I was wounded by the goblins. So, letting your body be healed by your regeneration increased your vitality and putting it through pain and discomfort increased your toughness. I believe in fair trades, for that information I can offer you to level you up to five in the dungeon.” Daniel suggested.

Azza was surprised by the offer. She hesitated a moment and then shook her head.

“Right now, my attributes are leveling quite fast. But, I will come back at you for that offer before we leave here. At the moment, the most useful thing to do, would be to gather more of the bigger goblins. Their fur will offer a lot more protection against the cold.” Azza suggested and Daniel nodded.

“One more thing, the cop you beat up had a panic attack. He went into the dungeon, probably to show off how tough he is. Maybe, he wanted to outlevel you and teach you a leason. It doesn’t matter, when they met the first goblins, he panicked and ran away. He was half mad when he came out of the dungeon, screaming that he needed his gun. He ran out into the snow and we haven’t heard from him since then. He is probably dead. I just thought you wanted to know.” Azza added.

Daniel was stunned and didn’t know what to say. While the cop had been an arrogant prick, he didn’t deserve to die. He decided that there was nothing for him to do about it and saw off Azza and looked for his party.

When he went over to Fedor, the Russian had taken out the chest and throne, they’d collected in the boss room. He was talking to another bearded traveler about creating snowshoes. He estimated the man around 45 years old. Daniel greeted the stranger and then turned towards Fedor.

“There is a woman here that was dying from Aids, but the system healed her. Seems pretty amazing if you think about it. If the system can cure stuff like cancer, too, you’ll have a long and healthy life. At least, if you don’t meet a violent end.” Daniel informed the Russian who only nodded.

“John here had a crippled hand from an IED. After coming here, it was slowly starting to heal.” Fedor responded and gestured to the man he was talking to before.

“So you were a soldier, too?” Daniel asked the man.

“Yes, I was a operator before that IED made my life go to shit. I was in constant pain from the nerve damage in my right arm for ten years. I thought about getting it cut off, but there were no guarantees that it would get better. It feels like that time is covered in a fog from all the pain medication. Here, after only one day, the pain is gone, and even my fingers are starting to grow back.” John explained with tears in his eyes.

“Operator?” Daniel asked.

“Delta Force, the best of the best.” Fedor explained.

This sparked Daniels interest. Someone with such a background was an expert in small unit tactics. In a way, an adventure party challenging a dungeon did require a lot of the same skills. His experience would probably make a very good party leader. But, before he could ask about it, John shook his head.

“I know what you want to ask, but I’m finished with war. I got a new life, and I will treasure it. I’ll help to escape from here, but I will not become an adventurer. I can see it in your eyes, you are like me when I was younger. The action, the danger, and the feeling of victory, you’ll keep challenging dungeons after we escape here. I lost that spark. I will just look for a quiet place to live and enjoy my life without pain.” John explained and Daniel nodded.

He didn’t know what John was like before the injuries, but ten years of agonizing pain would probably change everyone.

“Fedor, I think it will be a good idea to level the people up to at least level five. Two of our party will be enough to clear the first half of the dungeon. We could take two or three other people with us and level them up without risking their lives.” Daniel suggested.

“Ok, I don’t have anything better to do anyway. We need different wood to make snowshoes. Maybe, we can find goblins with campfires again. I’ll take Isabella with me, she needs to train her anger management anyway.” Fedor responded.

“I’ll go with you. While my right hand isn’t healed enough to hold a weapon, at least it is warmer inside.” John commented.

With Fedor taking care of leveling the other travelers, Daniel decided to test a theory he developed from the information Azza had given him.

The other people gave him weird looks when he left the cave entrance, went past the large goblin corpse fire and started to undress. It was around -10°C outside, pretty cold to only wear boxer shorts. He tried his best to ignore the cold, sat down into the snow, and covered himself up to his neck. It was very uncomfortable, but he decided to endure it and waited.

Five minutes later, he got his first notification. His toughness had leveled up. Daniel felt pretty bad, but he smiled and kept going.

Eight minutes later, his toughness increased again. Shortly after that, he got another notification.

Status effect inflicted

Mild Hypothermia

Stamina regeneration decreased

He checked his status and saw that life and stamina were still at 100%. So, he kept going.

A few stat increases later, he got another notification.

Status effect inflicted

Hypothermia

Light stamina loss over time

He waited a minute, and then checked his status again. His stamina was still at 100%. It seemed his high regeneration was more than enough to compensate this status effect.

Before his toughness increased again, Daniel got a surprise. His endurance had increased. It seemed like the stamina loss from the status effect was a good training.

He kept going. Half an hour later, he received another status effect.

Status effect inflicted

Strong Hypothermia

Moderate stamina loss over time.

Checking his status again told him that his regeneration was still keeping up. He was feeling pretty bad right now, but he kept going. The other people that had watched him at the start, were starting to lose interest. They probably thought he was a lunatic.

An hour later, another notification appeared.

Status effect inflicted

Severe Hypothermia

Large stamina loss over time.

Daniel felt like shit, and a look at his status showed him that he was starting to lose stamina at a slow pace. He tried to meditate to counter the stamina loss, but thinking was getting hard and he was not able to concentrate enough. His life was still full though, so he decided to stay in the snow a bit longer.

When his stamina reached 50%, he decided it was enough. He had difficulties standing up and his walk towards the fire was very slow. He didn’t feel much of the cold anymore. It had probably numbed his nerves.

The warms of the fire felt good and the hypothermia slowly started to weaken. He took out the blanked from his inventory and rubbed himself dry. After that, he put on his clothes again.

A look at his status showed him that the excruciating training exercise had been a great success.

Attributes Efficiency bonus

Strength

Agility

Vitality

Endurance

Mana Capacity

Regeneration

Mana Regeneration

Toughness

32

50

17

35

54

63

11

26

-

+30%

-

-

+30%

-

-

-

His toughness had increased by a full ten points in a little over two hours, while his endurance increased by four.