For the next fourteen hours or so, Michael had focused on exploring the entirety of the first floor while using all of his skills to kill every goblin that spawned in front of him. He only had stopped for a few minutes to eat something around six hours in to quench his hunger.

Because he was significantly stronger and more powerful than yesterday and his abilities and experience grew as he continued fighting, Michael managed to not only completely explore the first floor but he also managed to fill up the six bags with essence crystals just after the mark of ten hours of relatively constant fighting and exploring. In the last four hours, Michael had been ‘forced’ to immediately convert the essence crystals into origin essence to not let the ‘effort’ he put into killing the goblins that dropped them go to waste.

Anyways, right now his skills looked like this:

Skills

Blader

Blade Mastery. Passive. (LVL 10/25). Increases proficiency using bladed weapons. Increases damage done by bladed weapons by 55%.

Elementalist

Fire Manipulation. Passive/Active. (LVL 8/25) [Flames; Firebolt]

Wind Manipulation. Passive/Active (LVL 8/25) [Gale; Twister]

Water Manipulation. Passive/Active. (LVL 7/25) [Stream; Pulse]

Earth Manipulation. Passive/Active. (LVL 7/25) [Spikes; Earth Wall]

Lighting Manipulation. Passive/Active. (LVL 8/25) [Sparks; Thundershock]

Manablessed

Mana Manipulation. Passive/Active. (LVL 7/25). Allows you to freely manipulate the magical energies within you. [Mana Bolt; Mana Arrow (3)]

Harbinger

Time Alter. Active. (LVL 6/25). Allows you to perceive everything around you up to two times slower. Limit: thirty seconds.

Teleport. Active/Passive. (LVL 6/25). Allows you to change your position in space within a range of thirty-five feet.

[Blade Mastery] was the skill that had grown the most for the simple reason that as long as he was using a bladed weapon, in this case his steel claymore, to fight, he would always be getting experience for it. Since he was always holding his sword to slay most of the goblins he fought, it was only logical and expected that [Blade Mastery] would be the skill with the fastest growth rate.

Since he preferred [Fire Manipulation], [Wind Manipulation] and [Lightning Manipulation] over [Water Manipulation] and [Earth Manipulation] due to the higher offensive capabilities of the former three, they were slightly higher than the latter two. That didn’t mean that Michael was sleeping on the capabilities of the other two elements, but since he was only dealing with puny goblins it was simply more practical to use fire, wind and lightning on them.

To develop [Mana Arrow] and raise his [Mana Manipulation] skill to level five, Michael had just shaped [Mana Bolt] into an elongated shape with a pointy end. [Mana Arrow] had an increased range and velocity but less damage per arrow compared to [Mana Bolt]. Also, the number of arrows he could create per use of the subskill increased along with the level of the [Mana Manipulation] skill. Since he had gained [Mana Arrow] at level five, now that it was at level seven, he could shoot three arrows per use.

And finally, [Time Alter] and [Teleport]. Those skills had not grown as much compared to the others not because the amount of experience required to increase their level was more than the others, but because they were still so magically demanding that Michael still had to use them relatively sparingly. And even then, despite not being skills that caused direct damage to opponents, Michel felt that [Time Alter] and [Teleport] where his most useful and effective skills at the moment.

“Hm, so that’s the ‘Boss Room’, huh?” Muttered Michel as he stood inside of a wide cavern within the cave system that was the first floor. In front of him were a set of wooden and metal doors that had the skull of a goblin painted in what looked like blood in the middle of it. There were two flaming torches flanking it and the ‘frame’ of the door was made up by what looked like humanoid bones.

Instead of being intimidated by the door, Michael only felt excitement for the upcoming battle. However, the was something he wanted to do before heading in.

Knowing that it took a long while for monsters spawn in the area around the Boss Room and having killed the goblins not even two minutes ago, Michael knew that he had enough time to do what he wanted to do before facing the boss monster of the first floor.

He dropped all the essence crystals he had gathered inside his bags into a pile in front of him before kneeling down and pressed his hand to them.

Would you like to convert 1826 Essence Crystals into 2774 Origin Essence?

Michael accepted and he watched with an eager smile as the pile of crystals converted into energy before it was absorbed by his hand. If it weren’t for the fact that he had the origin essence that was leftover from his use of them yesterday and the amount he got during the last four hours because he had to immediately absorb the essence crystals he got from the goblins because they couldn’t fit inside his bags, he would have been very upset right now.

He needed twenty-eight hundred origin essence in order to level up his four classes twice after all. Since he had more than enough to do so (four thousand, two hundred and twenty-one to be exact), Michel went and raised his classes to level six.

He shuddered a bit at the increase of his attributes. Since he had already done it once, coming into ‘awareness’ of the increase of his physical, mental and magical capabilities was significantly easier when compared to yesterday. Instead, he focused on the many System notifications that appeared in front of him.

Blader Class has Reached LVL 5. The Skill ‘Far Edge’ has been acquired.

Far Edge. Active. (LVL 1/25). Increases the distance of all blade strikes up to a distance of ten feet from the tip of the blade that is being used.

Elementalist Class has reached LVL 5. The Skill ‘Elemental Resistance’ has been acquired.

Elemental Resistance. Passive. (LVL 1/25). Damage received from elemental attacks is reduced by 2%.

Manablessed Class has Reached LVL 5. The Skill ‘Mana Sense’ has been acquired.

Mana Sense. Active. (LVL 1/25). Allows the user to perceive the magical power within all beings, sentient or not, up to a distance of ten feet.

Harbinger Class has reached LVL 5. The Skill ‘Gravity Press’ has been acquired.

Gravity Press. Active. (LVL 1/25). Increase the gravitational pull around you by twice the amount in a radius of ten feet.

“Holy… shit…” muttered Michael as he read the notifications in front of him with widened eyes. That was the only thing he could say about what he just read. What was even more shocking, was the fact that these skills just were the ones he got at [Class] level five. Just what would he be getting at level ten, fifteen, twenty and twenty-five?

Michael decided to test those skills before entering the Boss Room.

The first one he decided to test was [Far Edge] and he quickly read the description of it once again. After getting a fairly good idea of what it did, Michael turned towards the walls of the cavern he was in and approached it until he was roughly ten feet away from it. He then swung his sword diagonally in front of him while focusing on using the skill. Michael’s eyes widened a bit when he heard the sound of steel hitting rock as a slash mark appeared on the rocks of the wall in front of him.

With a giddy look on his face, Michael quickly began to use [Far Edge] multiple times against the wall of the cavern. His claymore was literally cutting beyond the reach of its tip and he could even feel the resistance of the rock when he slashed it. It was like an invisible blade was connected to his sword that he could use as much as he wanted. The best part was that it didn’t consume mana at all though he could feel a bit of his stamina leaving whenever he used the skill. That meant there was a limit to how much times he could use it but by his estimation it would take about a three dozen uses constantly to tire him up to the point he wouldn’t be able to fight.

He couldn’t really test [Elemental Resistance] since he needed someone or something to attack him with elemental attacks. Heck, he wouldn’t be capable of leveling it up until he came across someone like that. So, for now, he was just going to trust that the skill did what its descriptions said it did.

Seeing that everything had magical power within it, even rocks, Michael decided that he could quickly test [Mana Sense] right now. He closed his eyes and focused on using the skills and he felt his own mana quickly spreading through his body and ‘settling’ on his five senses and brain. A short breath left him not a moment. The best way to describe how it felt to use [Mana Sense] was that he could ‘see’ how mana flowed in a sphere that had a ten feet radius with him as the center point. It was like everything around him had ‘veins’ and ‘arteries’ of magical energy running through their structure.

A few seconds later Michael cut off the flow of mana that technique used. While it wasn’t necessarily taxing and he felt like he could keep it for fifteen minutes or so, he still became a bit disoriented since his perception of things changed drastically. He was going to have to quickly get used to it. While it was an active skill, Michael felt that the most effective way of using it would be to use it like it was a passive, meaning, constantly active.

And finally, [Gravity Press]. Michael activated the skill and frowned when other than a light shift of the ground around him there wasn’t a visibly effect. He could tell, however, that the skill was taking effect and was even draining mana from him very quickly. After a few seconds he stopped using it and decided he would test it against some monsters later on.

Michael then waited a few minutes to recover the mana and stamina he lost testing his new skills. After he felt he had finally recovered them, Michael stepped towards the ‘fearsome’ doors that lead into the Boss Room and pushed them forward to open them and slipped inside.

He blinked when he found himself in a wide, circular room that was lit in a similar manner as the other parts of the floor but there were also torches at the edges of the room with a few feet of empty space in between them. Weirdly, despite the room being sufficiently lit by the crystals coming from the rocky walls and the stone floor, when he looked up, he noticed that there was only darkness beyond a certain point hundreds of feet above him.

Michael walked forward and paused when the door suddenly closed on its own behind him. “Yep. That’s not creepy and disturbing at all…” he muttered before shrugging and walking forward again.

He stopped, once again, when the air in the middle of the room began to shimmer and ripple. Michael watched with excitement and eagerness as the Boss Floor slowly spawned, walking out of the shimmering and rippling air in a slow and deliberate manner. Michael blinked and tilted his head in confusion the moment the biggest monster he had seen so far in his life was finally revealed completely.

“You are not the Goblin Chief,” deadpanned Michael as he stared at the monster in front of him, who snarled and threateningly brandished its fucking serrated cleaver while glaring at him with pure yellow and bloodshot eyes.

The reason why Michael said that was because according to the pamphlet Lupa had given him, the Goblin Chief was supposed to be a bigger and more muscular goblin wielding a spiked club and leather armor. It wasn’t supposed to be a red skinned monstrosity taller than him, with arms bigger than his torso, teeth longer than his fingers and black fur around its neck, wrists and ankles.

Did he said that it was wielding a fucking serrated cleaver bigger and longer than his own claymore?! Yes?! Oh, just making sure.

With a high-pitched roar, the clearly abnormal boss monster of the first floor charged at him.

“What the fuck?!” Exclaimed Michael as he jumped away to evade being cleaved in half by his opponent. While Michael could tell that he was still faster than the goblin monstrosity in front of him, it wasn’t by much. That meant that if he hadn’t increased his levels before entering the Boss Room, he would’ve certainly been dead.

Deciding to play it as safely as he could, Michael jumped back to put some distance between them and launched a [Firebolt] towards the red goblin who had turned towards him in rage after realizing that its attack had failed. The red goblin screeched in pain and hate when it was engulfed by the explosion of fire and smoke.

Michael’s brow furrowed when it came out of the cloud of smoke covered in flames, a pained expression on its snarling face, and its movements not being affected by it. With a [Thundershock], Michael forced it to stop by sending it twitching to the ground while screeching in pain.

Being burned and electrocuted at the same time had to hurt a lot after all.

Michael continued to use [Thundershock] to keep it writhing and twitching on the floor as he slowly began to approach the downed red goblin until he stood about ten feet away from it. While still using the [Lightning Manipulation] subskill, Michael began to use [Far Edge] while swinging his claymore repeatedly at the downed boss monster.

The screeches of agony and hate of the red goblin increased in intensity as multiple cuts began to appear all over its body at the same time its body continued to burn and being electrocuted. Michael was surprised that the hide of the goblin offered more resistance to the strikes of his sword than the wall he had tested them on not even ten minutes ago. Still, he was still managing to give it significant cuts all over its body.

As [Far Edge] began to increase its level rapidly, Michael began to step back as the range he could use the skill increased as well. Michael would also quickly change from using [Thundershock] to [Firebolt] to keep it in a constantly burning state when he noticed the flames about to die out and then back to [Thundershock] to keep it from moving.

By the time the red goblin finally perished, it had turned into a cut up charred pile of smoking meat and [Fire Manipulation] and [Lightning Manipulation] had reached level nine, [Far Edge] reached level five and even [Blade Mastery] went up a level since he had been using his claymore, a blade, to use his other [Blader] skill.

Michael stared at the dead boss goblin with a derisive expression on his face. “No matter how different or stronger it looks, a goblin is still a goblin,” he said before the dead body of the first-floor boss variant exploded into black smoke, leaving behind an essence crystal that was roughly half as long as his thumb and as thick as a pencil. Michael sheathed his sword and walked towards it to pick it up. “Huh? It looks a bit different,” he commented when he noticed that instead of the normal color of the essence crystals, this one was colored mostly black with a subtle purple glow coming from its core.

Shrugging, Michael decided to pocket it since he recalled that essence crystals from Floor Bosses were worth significantly more than those gained from normal monsters. Since he had gained his from a variant floor boss, which had not been in the catalog and that told him that it had never appeared before, Michael reasoned that it would be prudent to not consume the essence crystal until he spoke with Rema.

That was when two System notification appeared in front of him.

You have defeated the First Floor Boss Variant Species ‘Goblin King’.

You have gained access to the Second Floor. Would you like to proceed to the second floor or exit the dungeon?

Michael stared at the first notification with a contemplative expression on his face. “Goblin King, huh…” He muttered to himself before smirking. “It’s fitting. Even though it was just as stupid, it was certainly stronger than any goblin I have faced. It deserves its name,” he said before deciding to exit the dungeon. He had been in here for almost fifteen hours now and he had already accomplished his goals for the day. He was also hungry and looking forward to a warm bath and resting on his comfortable bed. The Second Floor could wait for tomorrow.

And he was also looking forward to seeing the sexy and beautiful Rema as well and the face she was going to make when he told her about the Goblin King and showed her the proof. The prospect of ‘showing off’ and being the one to ‘discover’ and ‘experience’ something new about the dungeon to her made him feel quite the amount of excitement and pride.

After dismissing the System notifications and choosing to exit the dungeon, Michael watched as one of the magic circles used to get out of the dungeon suddenly appeared beneath his feet already activated and glowing. In a flash of golden light, Michael disappeared from the Boss Room of the First Floor of The Dungeon.