Dave and I chatted a bit more. I could stay in the safe room as long as I needed. Every day that passed in the safe room was an hour outside. The way the magic worked, however, would keep me from gaining levels while in the room. Which meant I couldn’t just use the place to train. No, that was what the rest of the dungeon was for.

The safe room was to let me recover from damage and prepare to move on. Grieve those who died and get my head on right. Some people needed more time than others. Many people would use this room to consolidate their gains from in the dungeon. If they learned a new skill or got an active skill, they would take the time here to learn how to use it before leaving.

I basically did the same but with equipment. It turned out that dungeon food wouldn’t be able to leave, but I could take equipment if I wanted to out of the dungeon. It also turned out that Dave moonlighted as a pawnshop owner.

The cuirass and halberd I could sell to him for a 50 silver total. With that, I could buy other items that he was selling. He had a minimal amount of equipment that I could obtain. Most of it was what I would think of as a basic adventurer’s kit.

The exceptions were the potions that I could buy from him, which could make a huge difference. He sold four types of potions, all at the minor level, mana, health, cure poison, and stamina. If, and it was a big IF, I sold the equipment to him, I would be able to get two potions as each cost 25 silver.

The large medallion-sized coin I found was an entrance token. I would need to use it to either open the stairs going down or the entrance at the start of the dungeon. The kicker here, of course, was that I would need to leave the safe room to go in either direction. The dungeon would reset each day. So if I spent twenty-four days in the safe room, the dungeon would reset, and I would have to face everything out there again. Which meant that I would dump right back at the 4 skeleton guards and the randoms that came with them.

The prize in the bag turned out to be just the thing for me. I pulled from it a pair of bronze vambraces. They appeared to match the greaves I had gotten earlier and would suit me well for what I needed to do.

I wouldn’t need twenty days to do what I wanted to do. Just a few would get me taken care of. I used the knife that came with the meals to etch another blade to make it stronger and sharper. Then I used that knife to etch my new armor.

I personally was weak compared to everything else except the bashers. Bashers were trash, and so I was kind of surprised they were in here. The thing that I had going for me was my ability to think and the equipment that I had. So it was the equipment that I needed to work on.

I had the time, and so I took it to upgrade, first the vambraces, then greaves, and lastly, I tackled the breastplate and backplate. I wasn’t sure when I started if I was going to try for the halberd as I didn’t have much skill in it. It would default to spear, and then I could get the sub-skill up. I just wasn’t sold on the weapon.

I created a cluster core using the backplate and the breastplate to create the Cuirass of Vitality. Each of the independent parts added 5 to my vitality stat, and when worn together, they doubled that to a total of plus 20.

This brought my effect vitality when armored from 15 to 35 and gave me 70 hit points. When wearing this, I had more hp than Lannah did and just over half of what an orc had. I still wasn’t ready to go toe-to-toe, but I would live for a much longer time now.

The greaves and vambraces sets each gave me a 50% increase to my strength. They were two independent sets. I wasn’t sure why I was unable to link them when I tried. The 50% was cumulative, and so I ended up moving from 17 to 38 for my strength.

I took a gamble and put a core in the minor health potion. I wasn’t sure if it would do anything other than waste time, but it had a significant effect. The potion itself wasn’t changed, but the vial now would refill once a day.

Because of how well the health potion went, I sold the halberd and bought a mana potion. My biggest weakness was mana, and if I could increase how quickly I could get more, I was all for it. The mana potion was a minor potion and provided 20 mana which would be enough to get me halfway back. It would be handy in a pinch.

The beautiful thing about both of these potions were that they were the world’s firsts. Now the kicker was raising them. They were the only thing I had gotten that offered options for what I needed.

Item core created

World first!

Mana Potion core!

As your Mana Potion core is the first, it is uncapped in level

Normal Mana Potion cores will be capped at level 3.

As your Mana Potion levels, its helpfulness increases.

General

Showing up in all gold.

Arn’s Mana Potion

Level 0

Type item core

Class Ultra Rare

Durability 100/100

Mana potions come in many sizes and qualities. This one is a low-quality potion in a small container. As such, it will provide only 20 mana when used.

>Growth

To level your item core, you must use it for its purpose and provide for its material to level to the next level.

Higher quality Mana Potion 0%

Mana 0%

Or

The root of Amze %

Ground leaf of Zerr %

Eye of Mull %

Clean water %

Ground powerstone %

Mana %

With my new equipment, I felt like I was ready to go. Everything I had was as good as I could get it. I had picked up from Dave a backpack since I didn’t have my other one, and I dropped a core in it. Since it was an External frame, it wasn’t a world’s first, but it did reduce the weight I had to carry.

“Dave, it has been a nice few days in here. I want to thank you for all the questions you answered and the great food that you created.”

The barkeep reached out his hand, “Arn, it has been good to meet you, I do hope that you live to the next safe room where I get to see you again.”

“Blink, you ready?”

I felt the princess send a bunch of happy feelings across the link, along with an image of her ripping the throat out of a goblin.

“Okay so we were only in here for three days so that means that only three hours in the dungeon passed. That being said Blink let’s have you go out in stealth and I will follow behind you.”

I opened the door and then felt an invisible scaly leg rub as Blink made her way out the door. I counted to three, drew my sword, and exited.

The dungeon was just as we had left it. No new monsters had formed; the only difference in this room was that the glow from the chest and door was gone. The entrance to the safe room was black and closed. I tried it.

This safe room is closed

You may reenter the safe room after 12 hours.

I expected that; I just hoped that it wasn’t the case. I would have cleaned up all the weapons and armor out here to sell. If I had the time on the next level, I was going to have to throw everything into the safe room first so that I could sell it.

“Well this is it, we finished the first floor and we are now ready for the second floor. Dave said that it is gremlins so I am hoping we can sail right though this.”

Blink sent an impatient feeling across to me, “open hunt.”

I looked at the gate. On the far left was a circle indent the size of the token. I pulled it out and pressed it in. As the token settled in, there was a blue-green glow, and then the gate started to rise.

Beyond the gate were a set of wide stone stairs leading down. As we approached, I could tell that there was a change in the way the dungeon was presenting itself. Where the rest of the stone flooring had been smooth, and even this was cracked and jagged. Even the natural dirt where the bashers had been was an even ground.

As I stepped on the first step, I heard a click, and I threw myself to the side. Right where I had been standing, a plume of flame licked up from the ground where I had been standing. I felt the whole room turn hot for a moment, and then I heard more clicking.

The portcullis I had just passed through slammed down. I looked back through the gaps where we had just come from and flowing out of the ground bones. The bones formed into skeletons, and then armor started to form around the skeletons. I watched as the guards all returned to formation.

They started back on their patrol that we had interrupted a few hours before. As they began to pass the gate, the one closest to me turned and charged. That caused the others to turn as well. I kind of started to laugh at how stupid they were. Then, the two with halberds began to try to poke me through the gate. I stopped laughing when the crossbows came up.