Do you like rats my friend? I don't. They smell, they come into your room without permission, eat your food, bite your fingers. I don't like them at all. Now imagine a big rat, bigger than any you have seen, bigger than your cat, even bigger than two cats. Sorry I couldn't find anything to compare them with. Just imagine a big fuckoff rat.

Now, in your imagination cut the rat's tail off and spray some chili powder and salt on the injury. That is what I am dealing with right now. Absolute batshit crazy rats. Hordes of them. They are not hard to kill, just annoying. And yes, before you ask, I am eating their hearts though I have changed the term a bit. I am calling them mana core now, core for short. Calling them hearts will be bad for mine. Besides mana flows from hearts so it will work out.

The power up I got from the suicidal attempt are in no particular order-

Speed boost. Strength boost. Strength boost. Strength boost. Strength boost. Strength boost. Strength boost. Strength boost. Strength boost. Makes your body hard like a rock. Poison resistance. Elemental resistance. Speed boost. Speed boost. Speed boost. Nothing Sharp ears Sharp teeth Strength boost.

So, aside from poison resistance and elemental resistance, nothing. The speed boost and strength boost cannot even come close to the once I already have. The large chunk of mana and the two resistance were great though, especially the poison resistance one. Now I don't have to worry about food poisoning. I wish I could see what they were but it seems like all bosses will turn into blobs of light.

Eh, it doesn't really matter. The boss core did not try to turn me in their shape either. They just increased my physical condition and gave me mana. I can feel my mana increasing because of the thickness of the magic pulse. How do I explain it? Let's say at first the pulses were like tiny electric current flowing, now they are a little bit watery. It's very thin but I can keep using strength boost for 20 minutes now and that skill consumes a lot of mana. But, as usual no spells. I wonder if the Toaster has a spell or the fire mane is just an ornament.

After a few sittings I completed the first level. Rats were not worth much but the king rat did give a very useful ability. I call it seismograph. It basically allows me to sense the vibration from the surrounding ground. The range is not particularly big but it does allow me to sense around 100 meters or so. I did turn into a few percent rat in exchange though. I bit more than I am comfortable with.

On another note, rats test 'not bad'. I will not eat them over any other food but they are more edible than the tigers. That being said, they smell horrible, give too little exp and there are too many of them. The exp I will not complain about too much, any amount added is that amount increased in my reserve, given that they are too numerous it does add up to a satisfactory chunk. The smell on the other hand, no thank you.

I realized something recently. The first core I consume gives me multiplicative bonus, the successive once gives additive bonus and the biggest one gives the blob, almost full transformation and an ability. So, on the next floor I am thinking of doing another experiment. I want to see if I kill the boss first, will it give me more mana and strength in the multiplicative bonus or not?

With my experiment in mind, I headed off to the next floor. Both the 1st and 20th floor have a 'fucked' safe room. Monsters don't enter there for some reason. I will have to check it out later by dragging one in there. Hopefully I will find some that are not too smelly.

I would call the second-floor fluffy heaven if the bunnies didn't try to kill me that is. White furs everywhere, jumping around dropkicking me. You read that right. They were dropkicking me. Why? I don't know, maybe they like it. Looking at them you will never imagine that these cute fluff balls can be this ferocious but they are. Even on earth, rabbits are really scary.

I killed a few of them, just by cutting their heads off. I heard rabbits were really tasty. I don't know how these once will taste but judging from the deers they should taste good. I am trying to preserve their furs too. The best place to store them will be the cave, meats will freeze if I keep them over the furs and as nothing else gets in there it will be a great place for safekeeping as well.

It took me a few hours to find the cave. The only good thing about this place was this cave. You could let your guard down there and there was a water source too. It's not too much, but I didn't have to search for drinking water. After spreading a few of the rabbit skins on the ground I put the meat on them. The skin will turn hard so I can use them as plates. I skinned them with my claw, it was not ideal but I could work with that.

I hunted a few more rabbits, enough to make a bed for me. 'I need to go to the 20th floor soon and collect my dress'. Even though no one was looking I still felt cold. Elemental resistance was meant for magical attacks, not natural cold. After eating my fill I made a makeshift carpet with the rabbit skins and slept. It had been a while since I slept this comfortably.

It took me some searching before I found the boss rabbit. It was as big as me. Searching for it was the actual hard part as it too died in one hit. After taking its body inside the cave I ate the mana core. Now to see if the theory is correct or not. A few minutes passed, there was no reaction. I got confused, 'It should have started by now'. I sat down to meditate. When I reached my mana body, there were no rabbits there. It was another blob of light.

Still confused, I touched the blob and became more confused. The blob did not go into my body this time. It just stayed there. 'Hmmm, it's not glowing'. So, killing the boss to get more bonus was out of the equation.

"That was disappointing."

Anyways, that makes things much simpler. ‘But what to do with the blob? Eh, I will think about it after clearing the floor. Maybe I need to get the new evolution to get this blob.' Thinking this I started consuming the mana cores.

After the baptism, I forgot all about the blob inside of me and continued killing rabbits. When I finished clearing the second floor, I sat down to kill the remnants. Only to find they were nowhere to be found. The blob on the other hand was glowing now.

'I get it, so I have to power the blob with a lot of mana remnants to get the special skill they have. That means If I clear out the deers completely I still have a chance to get the ice magic.' Nice. Thinking this I touched the blob of light, suffered a bit, turned into an ugly bunny then got the jumping skill. After jumping around a bit, I started butchering the rabbits.

It took a long time to prepare those rabbits. They were numbered in thousands so the stockpile I got covered almost half the room and this room was huge. After my work here was done, it was time to erase every living being from the rest of the floors till the toaster.

The subsequent floors were nothing interesting. They were mostly oversized animals with focus on improving one trait over everything else. Most of them either increased my base strength or speed. That was good enough. 'I will take base stats over useless skills any day.' The few skills I got are as follows.

Thick skin from the wolverines on the 7th floor. Echolocation for some bat looking things from the 15th floor. and Stamina increase (passive) from wolves on the 19th floor.

Leaving that aside though I am thoroughly disappointed. I mean, all the animals are either the same or too similar to that of one's from earth. Just a tad bigger. They don't use any magic beside fortification either. I wanna see some spells flying. I want to see some fantastical organisms. It feels like I am locked in a zoo rather than a dungeon.

I did find a neat technique from the honey badgers though. Apparently if you coat your body with magic molecules you can protect yourself from magic spells! It didn't work out for them as I only used physical attacks but it's a good trick to learn for the future.

__________

"You know Dave, you are the only friend I have in this place. Nothing else talks to me. At least you listen quietly. Everything else just wants to eat me."

"I think I have become a lot powerful since the last time we talked. I can probably take on the lion thing if I try now. What do you think?"

………

………

"Silent as always I see. That's great. I don't want to kill you after all."

It took me about 2 months, I think to clear them all out. Finally, I reached the 20th floor. Now I am talking to my friend Dave and catching up on the tales. I will clear out this floor of what little left of its inhabitants, then go into the lion's den. I am not sure If I can kill him but that is the only way forward.

I could not find the deer king. No matter where I searched, I just couldn't find him. I think I know why. Toaster most likely ate him too. 'Aaaaarggghhhhh, bastard. Now I have to kill you for sure.'

One thing I got curious about was that there were many deers. How fast do they respawn? Tigers on the other hand were very few. 20 in total may be. I clearly saw the lion take around five or six hundred of them but when I hunted them there were still more than two thousand left.

This floor is huge. Almost double than the previous one. And the beasts here gave out the most exp too. 1/3rd of all the mana and strength I have is from this one floor. I wanted to complete my deer evolution but that will not be possible. I can't complain too much, killing so many deers gave me a large amount of exp and I am pretty confident in myself now. Oh, I stored the deer meat and hides in the safe rooms too. It took up 5 full storehouses.

__________

I washed myself by collecting water from a few caves. Wore a new lather cloth. Tied my heir into a 'Jata', and put a 'tilak' of blood on my forehead by slicing my thumb tip.

I do not believe in gods as described but I do believe in them. Besides, today I am going on the biggest hunt of my life. I gotta look the part.

Taking my bone hammer in hand and short spear on my back, I left my room. The claws I have are strong and sharp but I am no beast. I don't have the weight or hand structure like a beast to get the full benefit of the strength boost. My individual fingers are weaker than a paw. In my hand, the claws are more like five daggers, a finesse weapon. They are good for hunting small animals but to the flame lion, those daggers will only inflict flesh wounds. This is not a game where I can just chip away my enemy's health. I have to actually kill them. Hammer and strength boost goes too well together. That's why even if it is a bit weaker than my claw I am using it.

After walking a few hours, I reached the gate. 'This is it. This fight will determine my future. This will be my true test. I cannot falter. I cannot fear. I have only one option. Victory.' After a bit of prep. talk to myself, I pushed the door. With the same ancient sound, it opened. There it was. The majestic lion. Looking at the door. Searching for the challenger. My heart was palpitating but my mind was clear.

" It's not that scary anymore is it!"

I muttered under my breath. Don't get me wrong. The lion was, stronger than me, but I was not the scared cub either.

The door closed and he found me. Looking at me he puffed out a hot breath then opening his mouth let out an ear-splitting roar. Not wasting time in greeting I moved. I flashed toward him then with my hammer and strength boost I slammed into his front knees. Presumably he wasn't too happy about it. Jumping back the lion roared again and lit its entire body on fire.

Slapping its tail on the ground it scattered flame everywhere in the room. The room became hot. 'Heat, aaaahhhh heat, I can finally feel you.' What a comfortable feeling. For the first time since my arrival, I could finally see clearly. The eternal cold that had slipped into my bones melted away. Instead of hatred I felt gratitude toward my enemy.

"Thank you, I will end this quickly if possible."

With that, I protected my body with mana and ran toward the lion. The lion jumped up, flew toward the ceiling then swiping down on me attacked with its left paw. Seeing his movements, I ran to right. Missing his mark, he flew up again. He did this two more times but his attack pattern was too easy to read. Noticing his attack failed, he adopted a different strategy. He started swinging his tail madly in the air and fireballs fell from them like meteors. The temperature of the room rose dramatically.

At first I liked the heat but this was getting ridiculous. Too much of anything is not good and my place to stand on was getting lower by the seconds. 'I need to bring him down.' I squatted down then jumped straight toward his side. Appearing right beside him so first that he didn't even notice.

"Hehe, bunny hops for the win."

Using the momentum of the jump, I attacked with my claw to his right wing, shredding his bat like wing to thin strips. The lion started rolling and fell down. Landing on the ground I grabbed my hammer and went in for another hit on the same left knee. Just before I could connect the lion used his other paw to slap me away. With a whoose and boom I collided with the wall and got embedded in it.

I heard a few of my bone cracks. 'This time he predicted my move and successfully counter attacked. I can't get hit by him directly, our physical gap is too vast. He can slap me around easily if he needs to.' I had to switch up my strategy too. Instead of breaking his legs to bring him down, I need to go straight for the head. It will be risky for sure.

I was getting myself out of the wall when I sensed danger. Quickly rolling to the side I tried to dodge. As soon as I rolled, the lion's attack hit me and sent me flying again. I had a deep wound on my left lower ribs. If I didn't roll in time who knew what would have happened! I stood up and the lion started his relentless assault on me. 'Left' 'Right' 'Left' 'Bite' ……….

After dodging around 10-15 attacks I found his pattern. 'Both hands are spreading to the side. He will bite.' After determining his next attack, I activated speed boost and ran under his chest. With his site of me lost, his attack chain broke. Continuously using speed boost I grabbed my hammer and jumped onto his left leg. This time I did not attack. I brought my claws out, dug into his flesh and ran across his body reaching his head. Shaping my leg claws into hooks I stabilized my balance on top of his forehead.

'Bang'

I started banging his forehead with all the strength I could master. 'Bang' 'Bang' 'Bang' 'Bang' 'Bang' 'Bang' 'Bang' after a few swings my hammer broke. 'I can't stop now.' I took out my spear, held it with both my hand jabbed into the same place. Blood sprayed out and the lion went into a frenzy. He jumped, rolled, knocked the side of his head on the wall, burned the fire more vigorously. I moved out of harm's way but I never let go of him. And whenever I got the chance, I would jab the spear in his head. After a few times of this back and forth the lion jumped and started flying again.

I don't know how, but he did it. His temperature rose to an astounding degree. Blisters formed all over my body but that was not enough to shake off someone who has evolutionary pain for lunch. He rose up and up until he almost reached the ceiling then put his head downward and accelerated. 'I know what this is, your version of supernova.' He was trying to slam down onto the ground killing both of us.

After passing the halfway point toward ground I left my spear embedded in his head and jumped, aiming for the farthest corner from the impact. The moment I landed and curled myself into a ball I heard a heavy boom noise then a catastrophic amount of flame scorched me black. The whole room was covered in fire for a long time.

Then the fire slowly but surely died down.