《The Cardboard Explorer》Chapter 8
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“If I can increase my luck, can I increase my grade too?” Cade wondered. Seeing that his luck can be increased, it was possible that he can increase his grade, lifespan and everything else linked to him.
Cade never once tried to check it but he was desperate to become stronger and he should try it even if it was not working.
Cade opened his stats screen and stared at his grade E potential. Looking at it, he sighed. His special skill made it possible for him to increase his puny luck, he hoped that it could increase his grade too.
Cade tried touching the ‘grade E’ on the system screen and to his surprise, besides it appeared a sentence.
‘1000 Grade E level 1 magic Crystal’ was what the sentence said. Cade’s body started shivering with excitement. He felt like crying too. He was really happy that he could increase his grade.
Cade tried touching his other stats too like his lifespan, age, vitality, strength, endurance, dexterity, wisdom, and level.
However, out of all of them, only lifespan and age can be increased. Both needed stat points instead of the magic crystal.
For one year increase of lifespan, Cade needed to use 10 stat points. As for his age, he can decrease his age for a year with 100 stat points.
Cade was amazed that he can increase his lifespan and also reversed his age. However, he found it a waste to use his stat points there because his lifespan will increase automatically when he leveled up and he was still young to lower his age more.
Unfortunately, his skill did not affect his other stat. Cade concluded that maybe that start was capable of increasing normally with stat points and link growth did not bother to affect that.
With this discovery, Cade immediately poured all of the magic crystal he got that day to increase his grade.
Thanks to his huge amount of magic crystals, Cade added 340 grade E level 1 magic crystals to increase his grade. He needed another 660 grade E level 1 magic crystals more to increase his grade to D.
This discovery made him treasured all the magic crystals he got. They were totally useful to him. He extremely needed them to increase his linked equipment and also his grade.
Both equipment and grade potential played a huge part in an explorer’s strength. The higher their grade, the stronger they become. The better equipment they had, the stronger they become.
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Cade calmed down and went to sleep.
He started his fifth day in the dungeon as usual. Once he had his breakfast, he headed to the fourth floor and continued his explorations.
At his current pace, Cade could complete the dungeon before his time limit ended. There were only five floors in the slime dungeon and he was currently on the fourth floor on his fifth day.
If there were no hiccups happening in his explorations later, he will be able to complete the dungeon before his limit entry license ended its time.
He was excited to think that he might be able to complete the dungeon solo. He knew the slime was weak and the dungeon was weak overall but he was still happy nonetheless.
---
Cade met his first slime of the day and similar to how all of the fourth floor’s slime had been, they were in a group.
Cade started his killing immediately. Due to the floor getting smaller and smaller, he arrived at the end of the fourth floor three hours after he started his day.
Cade decided to take a rest for a bit before he advanced to the fifth floor. The fifth floor was the last floor of the dungeon and seeing what had happened to the fourth floor, he needed to be extra careful.
It was also a common knowledge that the fifth floor housed the highest level monsters the dungeon can offer and they were strong.
Other than that, the last floor will have a boss monster. The boss monster will usually exceed the dungeon’s level limit and it was the biggest threat to all explorers who wanted to complete the dungeon.
If an explorer wanted to complete and close the dungeon fast, he or she can go straight to the boss and kill it.
However, no explorer wanted to do that because the monsters dropped items and that items were valuable. No one wanted to let that fortune pass.
Cade checked his haul he had gotten. His high luck was working well that morning. He got himself a grade E level 8 bow and a grade E level 7 spear.
They were grade E equipment and thus did not have anything special. He had no intention of using them but they still fetched quite a lot of money when he sold it. The equipment was left in his storage once he had looked at it.
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He also got twelve pieces of level 7 and ten pieces of level 8 vitality crystals. Cade used them all to increase his grade. He was currently halfway to increasing his grade to D.
When he got enough rest, Cade went to the fifth floor. To his surprise, there was no ambush from the slime this time but he still stayed cautious.
All of the slimes on the fifth floor were at level 9 and 10. He did not want to make any mistakes and always stayed vigilant.
Upon walking further and further inside the fifth floor, he still did not meet any group of slime, even an alone slime had not once appeared in front of him.
Cade had a bad feeling however, he continued forward. Once he felt like he had walked too far, Cade stopped.
He opened his system and checked how many slimes were there on the fifth floor. Upon seeing the number of slimes, he was shocked.
There were many of them but he did not meet any of them.
“Maybe they are scared of me?” Cade wondered. It felt like the slimes were evading him on purpose.
“If they were running away from me, this is not good for me. I can’t get more items,” said Cade worried that he won’t be able to get anymore item drop.
While Cade was focusing himself on his system, something was coming fast at him. Without him realizing, an army of slimes had surrounded him.
Cade sighed when he thought about not meeting anymore slime, unbeknownst to him that they were already surrounding him. Cade was again being careless.
He closed his system and was shocked to see he was surrounded. “Damn it!!” Cade immediately took a fighting stance readying himself to fight the army of slime.
However, the slime did not move. They looked totally angry… or maybe rage and it was shown clearly in their eyes. They were shining red. It was scary.
Cade’s hair stood while looking at their eyes. Sweat started forming on his forehead and flowed down. Cade knew he was in an extremely dangerous situation.
Suddenly, the ground shook lightly. It was not an earthquake and Cade felt like something big was moving towards him.
Then, he saw something huge was coming. When it got closer, Cade saw an extremely huge slime. Compared to the slimes that had surrounded him, that huge slime was twenty times bigger than them.
“The dungeon boss,” Cade immediately knew the identity of the huge slime. It seemed like the boss slime was either controlling the slimes or buffing them.
The boss slime stopped on its track and stared at Cade. Cade did the same but the boss slime was staring viciously at Cade.
Cade wanted to stare viciously too but he was unable to do that because the pressure of the boss slime was too great. He felt fear.
After a minute of staring, the boss slime smiled sinisterly with its red eyes. Cade felt goosebumps all over his body. His danger-sense was tingling violently and he realized that the army of slime had started attacking him.
Cade blocked the incoming attack with his cardboard round shield and slashed the slime with his cardboard short sword. He killed the slime in front of him instantly but the one at his side tackled him.
Thanks to his body armor, he did not suffer much damage but it hurt. However, he held it in and slashed that slime and killed it too.
His one hit killed worked wondrously even against the level 9 and level 10 monsters.
The slime army came at him fast and he moved as fast as he could too.
Cade blocked an attack, slashed and killed the slime and at the same time got hit by another slime. This routine kept happening.
Other than enduring the pain he felt, there was nothing else he could do to elevate the pain. He struck and then, he got hit. He did not know how he could dodge their attack because there were too many of them.
Cade leveled up while he kept killing the slime. Instead of increasing his luck, he increased his endurance. At the moment, he needed to endure the attack coming at him and kept killing them.
If he gave up, he will die.
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