Faust quickly drew his saber from its scabbard on his back. Activating his strike skill, he charged forward.

‘I need to get a hit in while it’s still confused. It’s agility is slightly above mine, and it has more HP and Strength. I need to aim for the vital spots. If it hits me or bites me with its poison, I think I’m done.’ Faust no longer had time to think as he was nearing the viper. His blade glowed in a dull light.

It lay on the dirt, slightly disoriented from missing it’s prey. Its black and brown scales gave it good camouflage, but Faust didn’t lose sight of it. Its confusion didn’t last long, however, as it quickly whipped it’s head back and began to move swiftly. It was too fast to be called slithering, as the viper had simply darted to the side and gone for Faust’s right leg.

Like a dark flash, it appeared at his feet. Faust quickly hacked downwards towards where it’s head. Simultaneously, he lifted his right leg to dodge the blow, but he wasn’t quite fast enough.

[You have taken 23 damage! You are poisoned!]

[You have dealt 42 damage! Target is bleeding!]

They were both injured. Faust quickly checked the poison status.

[Poisoned]

The poison of a Red-Eyed Viper. While deadly, it doesn’t last for long. Lose 2HP per second for 30 seconds.

While the bite didn’t deal much damage initially, it’s damage over time (DoT) was huge! 60HP was almost half of his health bar. He had to finish the snake off, quickly.

After the clash they had both retreated a few metres. Faust quickly sprinted forward again, wasting no time. The snake was faster. By the time Faust had regained his footing and taken a few steps, it had coiled like a spring and launched itself at Faust’s neck.

He lifted his blade in response, attempting to wedge it between himself and his foe. The snake was thin, however, and it’s head managed to dodge the blade. Seeing the snake’s head getting closer and closer to a vital point, time slowed down for Faust once again. His head began to pound with different ways to deal with the incoming attack but eventually his mind decided on the simplest one. After tilting his head backwards ever so slightly, he threw it forward in full force to headbutt the snake!

[-13!]

[-10!]

Two damage numbers floated above Faust and the snake's head. The former belonged to the snake. As Faust’s strength was slightly higher, he eked out a small victory in terms of damage.

More importantly, however, was that he had managed to distance himself from the snake. Only now did he see another notification.

[You have dealt 112 damage! Mortal wound created! Target is hemorrhaging blood!]

Looking down at the snake, he saw a massive gash along its side. It had gotten unlucky, and in its desperate attempt to kill Faust had run its body over the sharp edge of his saber. With the snake wounded so badly, the fight was basically over. Faust quickly killed it and received a notification.

[You have killed a level 10 Red-Eyed Viper. As the target was higher level than you, XP reward has increased. Calculating… Player has received 350XP! Player has levelled up! You have gained Viper's Fang x1!]

“Huh? A special reward? This is the first time I’ve gotten a notification from something I’ve killed.” It had automatically gone to his inventory, so he took it out to inspect it.

“Examine.”

[Examine skill activated. Displaying information… ]

Name: Viper's Fang

Rating: Rare

Requirements: 30 Agility

Durability: 15/15

Attack: 24 ~ 33

Description: A small dagger that resembles a viper’s fang. It’s edge is permanently coated with a weak poison. Do not lick the blade, no matter how good it smells.

[No further information is available.]

Faust took the dagger up to his nose to smell it after reading the description.

“It smells like mint. What a weird dagger.”

After freeing himself from the temptation of the dagger, Faust had a difficult decision to make.

'Should I switch my main weapon? This dagger does way more damage than my saber, but their combat styles are different. I feel like I'm slowly getting more and more used to this saber…'

While he chose not to switch his focus, he managed to equip the dagger onto a notch on his belt so he could switch to it at a moment's notice. It would be suitable for close quarters.

After the poison wore off, Faust had managed to shave off a solid 93HP, so he tried to find somewhere he could sit down and recover. The recovery system for Chaos Realms was quite simple. Assuming a player had no recovery-based skills, they recovered 1% of their total health for every minute they were out of combat. If Faust wanted to heal back up to full, he would have to wait over an hour. As someone who was trying to catch up in levels, this was an unacceptable waste of time. Putting his newly earned points into agility, he decided that he simply wouldn’t allow himself to be hit again. In addition, he would spend the next hour exploring as much of the forest as he could without getting into any fights. With this plan and mindset, he set out once more.

Trudging through the damp forest, he had managed to one-hit killed a few of the weaker rabbits with his new dagger. Though they barely provided any XP at this point. It wasn’t until his health had recovered to about two-thirds of his total HP did he finally find something interesting. The mouth of a cave.

Much like the rest of the forest, there wasn’t any sign of human activity. From the outside, it gave off a sense of dreariness. The entrance was overgrown with weeds and moss, and it was so dark inside when he peered in that he could barely see. He decided to enter the cave just so he could rest for a few minutes before continuing on. When he entered, however, he was greeted by a notification.

[You have entered the instance dungeon ‘Bat Grotto’. You have been given Torch x10 and Match x10. As the first discoverer of the dungeon, XP rate is increased by 100% for the first 24 hours.]

He didn’t succumb to panic. While he had read about instance dungeons on ‘Dominion’, they were apparently very rare. There were only a few vague posts about them, so it was lucky that Faust had spent so much time browsing the forum. He knew that you couldn’t escape an instance dungeon unless you died, or completed it. None of the players had mentioned the XP increase though, most likely intending to keep that to themselves.

‘Well, I wanted to quickly earn XP. I guess this is what I get.’ He couldn’t help but admonish himself a little bit. ‘Once again, I was too careless. I need to pay more attention.’

Faust began to slowly inch forward in the dark cave. While he could only see a few inches ahead, it was still slightly bearable. Although he had been given torches upon entering the dungeon, the name ‘Bat Grotto’ gave a hint on the monsters inside. Using a bright source of light would be dangerous.

Keeping track of his way by running his fingers along the stone cave walls, Faust continued deeper into the dungeon. There had only been a few slight bends in his path so far, but Faust had yet to encounter any monsters. Finally, a change occurred. As he was running his fingers along the wall, it suddenly stopped. The wall had ended.

While Faust knew better than to panic in this scenario, being alone and surrounded by nothing but darkness did nothing positive for his mental state. Eventually, he succumbed to the pressure and decided to light a torch so he wouldn’t be a blind man stumbling in the darkness.

Taking out the torch and match from his inventor, his fingers felt the edge of the torch for where he should strike it.

Whoosh!

The torch lit up, illuminating the surroundings. Faust found himself in an enormous cavern. The torch only illuminated around 10 metres around him, and he couldn’t see the roof nor a new wall. Faust had just taken his first step when he heard a screeching sound from above him.

Unsheathing his saber, he swung at the dark figure approaching him.

“Strike!”

[You have dealt 81 damage! Mortal wound created! Target is bleeding heavily!]

“Examine.”

[Examine skill activated! Target: Beast]

Name: Blood Bat

Level: 10

HP: 19 / 100

Strength: 8 / Agility: 18 / Constitution: 6/ Intelligence: 3 / Faith: 0 / Luck: 0

[Skills: Fly, Bite, Blood Suck]

[No further information is available]

[Your Examine skill has leveled up.]