Agis woke up and rubbed his face with his hands.

--Man...that dream, those memories. They are all thoughts that I've tried so hard to forget. I remember now that Bishop Tulvir always asked me if I was a pet of the Sophos. I guess now I can’t truthfully say no to that anymore. I don’t think I'm their pet, but I can no longer deny any relations with them. I still don't know why the Sophos did what they did for me, but I owe them for the chance I’ve been given.

Agis pulled out a stick of jerky and ate a few bites of it.

--I wonder whatever happened to Bishop Tulvir. I hope he’s still alive. Thanks to the Sophos I have a chance to return some ‘business’ to him. How ironic that the Sophos will bring us back together one day.

He pocketed the rest of the jerky and turned his attention to the rocks. Pushing one rock and then the next until he finally escaped out of his little sleeping hole. It was time to go and put his new weapon to work. The first real hunt in the dungeon. He spent no time in activating his stealth skill and proceed down the tunnels.

--I know that there is an expanse down here below the ground. Some huge area that dungeon divers usually go to for good materials...I just don't know where it is, or exactly what it looks like. Hopefully, if I just make my way downwards, I will get there not long from now. Until then, I need to hunt and get stronger.

……….

It didn’t take long for Agis to find his prey; another gecko. It was clinging to the ceiling, the same as the other one did. He figured it was waiting there to ambush a smaller monster as it walked by.

--If you stupid geckos would stop licking your eyes than I wouldn’t notice you so easily.

This time the gecko was looking straight at Agis. It was probably hoping that he would keep walking and not notice it up there. It gave Agis the perfect idea. He couldn’t really reach it in any way, so why not make it come to him? He obliged the monster and continued walking. Slowly, one step after the other, he waited for the gecko to pounce on him.

The gecko hunched it’s body together and sprang downwards; however, Agis was ready for that and used dash to move out of the way. Cutting off his momentum, he immediately transitioned himself and used the lunge attack skill, bringing the spear head straight into the side of the gecko.

*ping*

Blood sprayed out, and the skin was cut, but it was only a shallow gash. The skin was just to tough.

--Damn it...I thought that would kill it.

The gecko hollowed out in pain and whipped its tail into Agis chest, sending him flying.

*crash*

Rocks flew everywhere as Agis slammed into the wall. Blood erupted from his mouth and he struggled to breath. But there was no time. The gecko was rushing in to bite Agis and he barely managed to roll out the way. But as he ducked and rolled, one of the talons from its claw managed to scrape his leg.

With pain now in his leg and chest, he landed hard on the ground. He tried to force himself up as fast as possible, but it was too late. The gecko came in for another large bite. Quickly rolling to his feet, Agis used lunge attack one more time and stuck right into the geckos mouth, the spear going straight through the back of the head. The gecko fell to the ground, limp.

[Lunge attack has increased to level 2]

[You have defeated level 1 Pardus Stilio]

--That was...really intense. I actually could have died twice there...So thrilling!

He stood there, leaning on his spear for support and trying to catch his breath. His left leg dripped with blood and his chest felt like it had been shattered. Yet, regardless of the pain, he smiled. He smiled a kind of smile he hadn’t shown for so many years.

After a few more moments to catch his breath, something popped into Agis head.

--I wonder, does it have a core at all?

Agis decided to dig around the monsters corpse to try and find a core. The biomass was currently useless, but that core would be priceless at the moment. He didn’t actually know what it would look like, or where it would be located in the monsters body, but he had a general idea of it all. After ten minutes, he gave up.

--How do I find monsters with a core? Or at least, how do I know they have them? I was never taught any of this, it seems I will just need to keep checking until I find a monster that has a core. I’ll find one eventually. I just want to know what that Sopho meant by ‘maxing out my core’. He also said something about engineering my own core, I wonder how a core can even be ‘engineered’.

Filled with questions to think over, Agis found a small crack in the wall he could squeeze into and sat down. He was waiting for his body to heal before he went out hunting again. The blood had already stopped and his chest only felt sore now, so he figured he would give it a few hours and head back out again.

……….

A few hours later and Agis was in good shape. His body had mostly healed and he was ready for another fight. It only took thirty minutes or so before he stumbled upon a large centipede. It was smaller than the gecko in height, but longer by a meter or so. It had large pincers in the front and a stinger on the back end. All in all, Agis found it extremely disgusting and had to hold back his body’s attempts at gagging.

--I really don’t want to fight this thing...