The second Fred unlocked the door to the dungeon lobby, I was inside before sunrise. I waved my badge at the man, who grunted. He gave me a look like why return.

“If only criminals were so eager to get the ax.”

I glared at the towering man, who only smirked through the horns on his dragon bone helmet. “Where are the others? I’m ready to go. Did you tell them I was joining, or were you hoping I would go away?”

“Trust me, you won’t be my problem much longer. Just sit down and wait for your execution like a good little fool.”

“Do you have any advice about the mobs inside?”

Fred stroked his beard before leaning back to sit on his desk. The armor he wore scratched up the desk, something I couldn’t do with my full strength. Of course, Fred cheated. If I had hit it with my full strength, it would be firewood.

“That last punch you threw yesterday, was that all you had?”

“Yea,” the man nodded.

“Alright, there is one mob that you might be able to kill. Do you know what a Starved Eldritch Berserker Vampire Demigod looks like?”

I shook my head. “Are they a super rare mob or something? Would I gain a hundred levels if I killed one?”

My heart fluttered at the thought of gaining so many levels from my first real kill. Raising a rank from my first kill would be a dream come true. It was my ticket to become powerful enough to enter the Mega Ultra Sky Dragon Peak.

Fred pulled a long brown cigar out of his desk and lit it from a blue flame conjured above his thumb. Then, after puffing a few times, he pulled it free and blew a smoke ring in my face.

“No,” Fred said and took another puff.

I froze as my dreams crashed down around me. Green qi swirled around my body, ready for a fight. “Then what’s so great about it?”

“They’re the most common, and you might be able to kill them in one blow if you hit their exposed hearts. While their loot is trash to your party or me, that isn’t the case for you. I would advise you to kill as many as possible and turn tail when you hit lvl100. They only need you to get in.”

Sounds from a hard-working respirator sounded behind me. “That would deprive him of so much valuable loot.”

I turned to see a skinny giant of a man wearing black scaled armor. He floated a little off the ground, and the only thing that exposed him as anything but a puppet was his eyes peeking through a black draconic mask. The man had to be nearing 8ft tall, and on his side, there was a sword hilt with a crystal jutting out of it. When the man’s feet touched the ground, he moved like a puppet on strings. Everything but his face seemed mechanical or dead. Was he a head attached to a suit of magical suit of armor?

Powerful adventurers could afford some crazy surgeries when they wanted to power up. So it wasn’t strange for some to merge their flesh with a powerful or every evolving suit of armor to gain some form of immortality. There are stories about them all over the place.

“Don’t let the old desk jockey get to you. This is your chance to fight powerful bosses and maybe meet a cute monster girl in the dungeon.”

“There is nothing cute about the monsters in this dungeon. Anything that looks tempting won’t hesitate to suck your brains out. So keep your willy in your pants unless you want to die.”

“Nonsense, the forbidden love between monsters and adventures does happen. Haven’t you heard the tale of the dragon and the sage; I have all 10 volumes.”

Fred opened his mouth and closed it. While the towering black-armored man handed me a well-read romance novel. Many of the pages were dog-eared, and the language wasn’t anything I recognized.

“My name is Black Obelisk; my friends just call me Obelisk. You must be Red; we received our badges and a document stating that you were subbing into our party. I find it very brave that you would venture into the dungeon and brave the dangers within. Truly you are doing us a favor.”

Fred snorted, and Obelisk spoke louder even as his respirator activated, as if his voice and the respirator weren’t connected. “Do you have a girl you want to impress with this dangerous stunt? Is she with someone else too powerful for you to combat?”

The sheer intensity of Obelisk’s gaze was becoming too much to bear. So, I did the only thing I could. I said what this man wanted to hear.

“Yes, her name is,” I reviewed every female name I’ve ever heard of and found one on the Skydragon Ultra Divine Sect 2nd year list. “Hao,” I started, and Fred coughed.

Obelisk whispered. “That’s a boy’s name.” Obelisk looked even happier, if anything.

My mind flipped to the candidates that had already been accepted. “Sorry, I meant Ai; I get names mixed up when I’m put on the spot,” I said.

“That is the name of my co-worker’s daughter. I don’t think she would be happy that a boy who liked her threw his life away to get into the same school as her.”

A gruff, almost angry voice spoke up. “Are you bullying the newbie again?”

“It's great material for the tragedy I’m writing. Unrequited love and a desperate dungeon dive only to die as a nobody. My book may be his only hope to carry on his name.”

“Boy, the second we enter the dungeon, you’ll turn back around if you know what’s good for you. None of us will back you up if you can’t pull your own weight.” I unleashed my green aura to its full power, only for the newcomer to flare his own and extinguish mine. My eyes widened as I looked closer at the newcomer.

He was short, with spiky hair growing down his shoulders from a widow’s peak. His eyes were slit yellow, and numerous tiny scars covered his face and nearly bare arms. Red fur lined up the man’s arms and shoulders, stopping at a line of scars surrounding his chest. The lighter skin of his chest wasn’t human; from what I could tell, it belonged to an ogre. The man smiled, revealing a set of very square teeth. But none of them were human, and by the scars on his head, some of his brain had been replaced. Golden accessories covered his body from the ten rings on his fingers, a set of jeweled earrings, and a heavy golden crown on his head. He looked like the end of my journey, from how he carried himself to how he controlled his aura just now.

“Call me Samson the Tyrant, or Samson for short. Though if you’re smart, you’ll turn around, and we won’t see you again for some time.”

“Don’t bet on it he has a girl to impress and only a week until his sect tryouts begin.” Obelisk said with a smirk.

There was a month until they began. I wasn’t banking all my preparations on the dungeon. With the money from drops I didn’t need, I was going to bye a pill furnace and recipes. The pill-making division in the sect was second to none. I wasn’t about to say that out loud.

Fred muttered something like, “I better get my congratulatory gift ready then, or Shao Meng won’t drink with me anymore.”

I heard the buzzing of thousands of insects behind me. “What a handsome-looking boy; maybe we could let him kill one mob before he leaves. He is doing us a favor.”

Behind me was a woman covered in thick robes from head to toe with a mask over her face. I couldn’t sense her lifeforce, which meant she was undead. But I could feel thousands of insects within the robes and didn’t want to get close to her. I fought with all my might not to take a step away from her.

A calm but proud voice rejected the idea immediately. “No, we can’t spare a moment to care for him in this dungeon. I’m surprised you of all people would feel that way, Swarm.” The flutter of wings grew louder, and the speaker only smirked.

The room seemed to freeze as the man entered the lobby. He wore a blue and silver helmet covering his face except for his glowing blue eyes. Long blonde, almost white hair stretched down from his helmet onto the pauldrons of his full plate armor. On each pauldron, there was the noble symbol of the Blue Dragon, something only those of the high nobility could wear. That means this man wasn’t entirely human like other high nobles. For a weapon, he had an eastern sword with a worn hilt and a new age firearm only the very wealthy could afford. The heavy rank 7 spirit crystal carved into the weapon couldn’t be ignored. The weapon was worth more than everything in the room ten times over. He carried it around, meaning he was well above even a Rank 7 adventurer. He could probably solo this dungeon alone.

“My name is Majorian. I hope you survive and stay out of our way.” Majorian said.