I

The next morning, Eva got dressed and donned her gear after breakfast. When she was ready, she let herself be taken to the next level as the timer ran out.

The monsters she faced next were about the size and shape of small dogs. They were covered in coarse black fur and had large mouths. There were two on the 51st level, so she thought it wouldn't be too difficult; and to some degree, she was right. However, it was on the 52nd level—when there were three—that she realized what the challenge was. They were weak creatures. They were easy to kill. They weren't overly fast. Even their large mouths didn't bite that hard. No, the problem was the venom.

The venom was injected both by their teeth and by their fur that acted more like quills than fur. At first, Eva thought nothing of the venom, but with each subsequent sting and bite, it started to slow her down and overwhelm her. It acted quickly, too. It wasn't a painful venom, but rather one that acted to numb everything—her muscles, her nerves, and finally her brain. The instant she slipped into unconsciousness, she was back at the start of the 51st level.

Just getting through these five levels was a four hour slog. Despite her failure, she was able to gain a very important skill: Poison Resistance▲. Apparently it worked for both poisons and venoms, though the slight wrongness of the name bothered her. She was even able to raise it to Novice✦ level through spending so damn long getting slowly killed by the little murder dogs, or ‘Black Forest Hounds’ as the boxes called them.

Choose a Novice rank upgrade for Poison Resistance▲

1% reduced duration of poison or venom

1% increased damage while poisoned or envenomed

0.5% reduced damage from poison or venom

0.5% chance to become immune to a poison or venom Novice rank or below

Eva had chosen the immunity option. Though it took a few more deaths, being immune to the venom made the section a breeze.

Novice Poison Resistance✦ Lv 3

Receive 13% reduced damage from poison or venom

1.5% chance to become immune to a poison or venom Novice rank or below

II

After resting and replacing busted gear, she continued to the next set of levels. These levels turned out to be even more of a pain in the ass than the first five of the day. Her enemies were spiders that came up to her hips. Not only did they have an annoying venom that took multiple runs to overcome, but they also had sticky silk that could immobilize her if she wasn’t careful. Once she had the venom under control, she took the approach any sensible human would have. Eva torched them with fire until crispy with a few extra hacks with her sword after—just to be sure.

She hated bugs. A lot. Spiders, though, were on a completely different level of hatred. It was a deep seated instinctual kind of fear and hatred that was only made worse by the fact that they had been huge. Eva never wanted to be done with a set of levels more than she had with those five. She decided that even though she'd only been through ten levels, they had been more than enough for a single day. She retired for the night after taking care of her Stat Points, of which she'd received twelve throughout the day.

When she was awake and ready, Eva went ahead to the 61st level. Thankfully, these weren't nearly as difficult as the previous ten had been. They were armored opponents of varying types—goblins, grays, kobolds, and others—and she had little trouble ending them with a few Pierces✦. That Skill finally came in handy like she hoped it would. She just didn't know it was going to take as long as it did.

After the first ten—and her ten Stat Points—she decided to continue. The armored fights had been easy enough that aiming for 80 that day didn't seem like a difficult thing to do. At worst, she'd have a repeat of the 50s and be there for 8 hours, but since it only took about an hour for the first ten, that wouldn’t be too bad.

As it turned out, her fear of another 8 hour slog was well-founded. She was pitted against ranged enemies. Again, they were from various humanoid—but not human—types and they wielded a variety of weapons, from bows, to slings, and to magic Skills. It wasn't the conventional ones that bothered her. No, those were pretty easy to deal with. It was the magic ones that were a bitch. To be fair, she could block some of them—like a rock sent at about 200 miles an hour—but many of them were just impossible. Some she just couldn't see—like air bullets that were quick and invisible—while others were too fast to block unless she had some serious mind reading capabilities she was as of yet unaware of.

On the bright side, when she finally collapsed into the safe area following the 80th level, she had many levels to her Skills. She even had several Basic▲ skills that had gone up to Novice✦ rank along the way. Eva checked the description of the newly upgraded skills.

Novice Air Resistance✦ Lv 3

Receive 13% less damage from air elemental attacks

Deal 1.5% increased air elemental damage

Novice Fire Resistance✦ Lv 2

Receive 12% less damage from fire elemental attacks

Deal 1.0% increased fire elemental damage

Novice Water Resistance✦ Lv 1

Receive 11% less damage from water elemental attacks

Deal 0.5% increased water elemental damage

Novice Earth Resistance✦ Lv 3

Receive 13% less damage from earth elemental attacks

Deal 1.5% increased earth elemental damage

Novice Medium Armor✦ Lv 1

Medium armor blocks 11% more damage

Gain 0.5 Strength while wearing medium armor

Novice Shields✦ Lv 2

Shields block 12% more damage

Shields block 1% of elemental damage as if it were physical damage

Eva checked her Challenges. She'd gotten five for killing different types of enemies, but there was one she saw that really made the hell of a day worth it.

A True Novice★

Gain 10 Novice skills

Reward: 10 Stat Points

With the 25 Stat Points she’d obtained, she was able to bring most of her Stats to the breakthrough point. The only ones that weren't were the ones where she didn't have a negative Status Effect—Wisdom, Acuity, and Intelligence. Even then, with ten more Stat Points into her Stats, she'd advance no further without breaking through each stat.

100 for each breakthrough was a steep price to pay, and not one that she'd be able to for a few days. Eva had been enjoying her daily increases, but it looked like that was going to be on hold for a while! Even removing her negative Status Effects—for as bad as they were—would only postpone the inevitable.

Eva was thankful to see Unfit✦ downgrade to Weak▲, gaining her a net of one point each to Strength, Agility, and Endurance. Poor Diet▲ was taking longer to remedy, however. Sighing—and feeling like it might not ever go away—she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

III

Eva woke up rested the next morning. She donned her gear after an enjoyable breakfast of bacon and eggs. It was time for level 81.

The first ten levels of the day weren't too bad. She died a fair few times to complete them—a painful occurrence as always—but after dying a thousand times, the shock of it had less impact than it once did. The pain was still there, but the fear of the unknown was gone. Her enemies were groups of pretty much everything she'd already fought before. Spiders, goblins, skeletons, etc. They were in mixed groups, which gave her an idea of what groups were like to fight against. The spiders were the first to die whenever they showed up. She had principles, after all.

She used her ten Stat Points—maxing out all the Stats she could—before she moved on to level 91.

Prepare to defend yourself

Wave 1/10 starting in [0:0:0:29]

“Wave?” she asked herself.

Eva had a sinking feeling about what was going to happen. There would be a lot of death and a lot of attempts to get through this one, she could already see it.

She was in a much larger area than she'd been in for previous challenges. Everything about it felt more real as well. One side was blocked by what looked like some kind of wooden wall made out of logs. The other edges faded into deep forest—not solid like before—that had a sense of foreboding that kept her from exploring. The ground was rocky with stumps and mounds of earth. The whole place smelled of trees and of blood.

When the countdown ended, she saw several creatures exit the forested edge. They were not in groups, but there were about ten of them in total. Goblins. Some had weapons, some did not. Starting on one end, they called out with guttural roars until it sounded deep in her ear. She was Charged by all of them, though in a staggered fashion. Eva knew that if she stood her ground and fought where she was, she would die.

She Charged▲ the closest spread out section first. By this point—with her improved Stats, combat experience, and Skills—the goblins individually were not a threat. Eva took advantage of this and went from one to the next. She cut them down while taking minimal damage herself. The only drawback was that she had to waste half of her Stamina pool doing that.

10 goblins killed

1 Stat Point gained

Level 91 completed

Prepare to defend yourself

Wave 2/10 starting in [0:0:0:27]

It was as she feared. The levels from 91 to 100 were all done in one shot without a break in the middle like the previous levels had done. It also felt somehow more real. The wall to her back made it seem like she was defending a settlement against the hordes of monsters trying to wipe it out. This was where she would put into practice all the training of the previous 90 levels.

The countdown finished too soon for Eva to have gotten much Stamina back. Her chest was still heaving from the effort of the first wave! Out from the forest came more goblins. There were fewer of them than the first wave, but they brought with them a pair of hobgoblins. Like the first wave, the goblins were a mess of equipment and cooperation. In contrast, the hobgoblins had more gear and looked a whole lot more intelligent.

She focused her efforts on killing the goblins first before fighting either of the hobgoblins. She was mostly successful—thanks in part to the agility boost from her boots—but she was unable to chase the last one down before she got caught against the wall by one of the hobgoblins.

It thrust its spear at her, but she easily deflected it with her shield. Eva whipped her sword around at its neck and sliced his throat. Though not outright dead yet, it was no longer able to prevent her from killing the last goblin, which is exactly what she did while the hobgoblin slowly bled out on the ground. The final hobgoblin was better armored than the first, but it went down when she Pierced▲ its heart.

8 goblins, 2 hobgoblins killed

1 Stat Point gained

Level 92 completed

Prepare to defend yourself

Wave 3/10 starting in [0:0:0:28]

With each passing wave, the difficulty increased. The 3rd wave added ranged goblins. The 4th added a shaman. The 5th gave the goblins better gear. The 6th doubled the number of hobgoblins. The 7th added five more goblins. The 8th added two skeletons and two zombies. The 9th added a fifth hobgoblin. Eva made it through each of these, but they took their toll. Just completing the 99th level alone cost her two health potions! Finally, it was time for the 100th level.

She heard a crash in the forest as the countdown ended. She heard the crash again as something big left the forest. Eva was as prepared as she was going to be, with 3 health potions left and a fair number of mana potions and stamina potions too. The monster that came out was definitely a goblin, but it was easily ten feet tall and carried a huge cleaver. He wore only a cobbled together crown of shiny things. Surrounding him were eight goblins and two hobgoblins.

As Eva had done for the second wave, she did her best to take care of the small fry first. The big boss harried her. He stayed close behind and attacked any time she was within reach, which happened every time she slowed down to attack one of the goblins. She had to burn a lot of stamina just to keep away from him by using Charge▲ to Dodge▲ his attacks.

He wore her down while she ran from monster to monster, using Skills to bring them down quickly. After an exhausting five minutes, she was left with only one enemy left to fight.

Eva Infused✦ her weapon with air. Fire—while painful—didn't have the stopping power she needed. Bleeding it to death with deep cuts was her best option. After all, her sword would struggle to reach far enough into the monster to deal a fatal blow directly. Dodging▲ the cleaver was easier said than done as the monster was more agile than he let on. He was also more accurate with the crude weapon than she thought a monster of his size could be. She did Dodge▲ most hits—regretting the ones that hit immediately—and was able to make some good slices into him. The air Infused✦ attacks did a good job in making her blade that much sharper. Her cuts slowly whittled away his health while he took massive chunks from her any time he connected.

Eva chugged two of her health potions while continuing her constant fighting retreat before the goblin finally began to slow from blood loss. He still got in a few more hits that she was unable to Dodge▲ before he collapsed to the ground. She separated his head from his shoulders to quickly end the fight. She was in dire straits herself. The crown he'd worn toppled to the ground. She picked up the souvenir and drank her final health potion.

8 goblins, 2 hobgoblins, 1 goblin lord killed

1 Stat Point gained

Level 100 completed

Prepare to rest

[0:0:0:28] remaining