3rd Floor

‘Slash!’ Another big blue tongue toad was killed. However, before Cade could take a breath, another two of them were coming at him.

Excluding the two big blue tongue toads that were coming at him, Cade had been fighting eight of them nonstop.

Cade had been on the third floor for two days but he never once fought these many big blue tongue toads.

They were usually by themselves and Cade never once met a group of them. He might be in the same situation as the slime dungeon when the slimes decided to fight in a group after too many of them were killed.

Cade was happy fighting a lot of them but the big blue tongue toad was stronger than the big tongue toad and their tongue ability to slightly freeze things they touched was annoying.

Cade’s sword and shield had become quite heavy from the accumulated ice formed on them when they touched the blue tongue.

The increased weight of the ice reduced his speed a lot. It was getting harder and harder for Cade to evade the attack because he was getting slower.

With his puny stats, without his strong linked equipment, he was nothing. The big blue tongue toad’s difficulty was 3.5 and that meant they were 3.5 times much stronger compared to the monsters with difficulty of 1 with the same level.

Comparing them to the monsters of difficulty 1, their stats were estimated to roughly reach a maximum of 100 stat points per stat and that was for an E grade blue tongue toad. D grade was much stronger.

Comparing that to Cade’s stats, he was far too weak to defeat them even if he was level 9. The level meant nothing if his stats were low.

His linked equipment was the one that was helping him a lot fighting against his opponent.

His fight against the two blue tongue toads continued but, he was losing. Cade was getting tired with the increased weight and longer fights.

Cade did not know if he should use the emergency badge. The potion he had can heal his wounds but it cannot heal his fatigue.

The army of slime was easier for Cade to defeat compared to the big blue tongue toad. His fight against the toad had surpassed the time he fought the army of slime plus the boss slime.

Cade was not the type that exercises a lot and his stamina was low. With his stats that were slightly higher than a normal human, he could not fight for long. He was at his limit.

Cade decided to use his emergency badge. However, before he could even use his badge, another Cade suddenly appeared and attacked the toad.

Cade was surprised by the appearance of someone that looked like him but he immediately knew that it might be someone else’s skill.

With the help of another him, Cade was able to fight the big blue tongue toad and killed one of the two while another him killed the other toad. To Cade's surprise, he leveled up to 10 and gained 20 stat points thanks to his D grade growth potential.

The toad that was killed by him dropped a skill book while the toad that was killed by another him did not drop anything.

Cade took the skill book and it was the blue tongue skill. The skill had the same effect as the blue tongue toad.

Cade looked at another him and that guy disappeared. Cade looked around and he saw someone familiar.

“You are… the stalker,” said Cade to the familiar man. He was Shihoon, his stalker. He had not met him once since they separated on the first floor.

“Urm~ Please stop that, I am not your stalker anymore. This is a coincidence,” said Shihoon with a bit of a panicked face. It was a pure coincidence that he met Cade.

“…What is the skill that you use?” asked Cade. He was curious about the skill that Shihoon used.

“Picture Come to Life. I can summon anything I want from a picture for a few seconds but the picture will disappear when I use this skill,” said Shihoon happily revealing his skill.

It was not much of a secret because many people knew about that skill. It was a common skill.

“…I thought I asked you to delete my picture,” said Cade while staring at Shihoon. Shihoon suddenly realized he should not say that to Cade.

“Ahaha…” Shihoon laughed awkwardly. “Don’t worry, I keep it because it is useful with my skill,” said Shihoon making excuses. “You saw it yourself just now how good it was.”

Cade looked at Shihoon and decided to let it go. Shihoon did not look like a bad person and he did save his life.

Well, he was a bit creepy with the stalking but Cade knew that he had not been following him since they separated on the first floor.

“I thought you left the dungeon?” asked Cade. He did remember that Shihoon immediately left from the embarrassment he got.

If he went out and came in later, he won’t be able to reach the third floor this fast. If he did reach the third floor this fast, he must be strong.

“Well~ I did intend to leave the dungeon but I realized that it will be a waste of time going back since I was already at the end of the first floor. I waited for you to leave the first floor and then, I continued my exploration… without any stalking,” said Shihoon.

Shihoon was telling the truth. It took them three days to travel to the end of the first floor and going back without defeating the boss was a waste.

With the new dungeon’s rules, once someone has defeated a floor boss of a dungeon, they can just skip that floor to the next floor when they enter the dungeon again in the future.

If Shihoon did not defeat the first-floor boss before he came out of the dungeon, he needed to travel three to four days again to reach the end of the first floor.

“Is that so. Hmm… then, this is for you,” Cade threw the skill book, blue tongue to Shihoon. Shihoon caught the book and blankly stared at it. He looked at Cade with a blank expression.

“As thanks for saving my life,” said Cade. He smiled a bit but Shihoon cannot see that because of the mouth mask. Cade felt a bit uncomfortable with Shihoon but he did feel thankful to him for saving his life and gave him the skill book.

Cade got quite a lot of skill books during his time exploring the toad dungeon and giving one of them to Shihoon was not a loss to him. His life was much more precious compared to the skill book.

“Are you giving this to me?” asked Shihoon with an unbelievable face. Skill book was precious and super rare. Whenever someone got their hands on it, they would either learn them or sell it.

Even the weakest of the skill can sell for quite a lot of money. And here was Cade who casually gave Shihoon a skill book.

Shihoon looked at the skill book and he was much more surprised because the blue tongue skill book was rare. Out of the three skill books that can be gained from the big blue tongue toad, the blue tongue skill book was the rarest.

“I cannot accept this. This is too expensive for a small help I give you,” said Shihoon while he tried giving the skill book to Cade.

Cade stopped him and he took out something from his storage. He took out two books from his storage and Shihoon instantly recognized the two books. They were skill books.

Cade showed Shihoon the title of the book and Shihoon blankly staring at it. “Blue tongue…” Shihoon sighed. “Then, I will take this. I forgot that you got quite lucky with the item drop.”

“How high is your luck that you usually got a drop… you even got two blue tongue skill books,” asked Shihoon. He had been following Cade before and he knew how many drops Cade got.

For every ten toads Cade killed, seven of them will drop something. Rarely did Shihoon saw Cade get nothing from killing the toad. Shihoon assumed that Cade’s luck must be high.

Cade did not answer Shihoon’s question and he left him to find a place to rest. He was extremely tired from fighting the toad. He needed to rest.

Shihoon saw Cade leaving and he decided to leave too. He took a different path from Cade because he did not want Cade to misunderstand him as a stalker anymore.

After a few minutes of walking, Cade found a place to rest. He decided to stop exploring for the day and started setting up his resting place. It was just a simple portable fireplace for him to cook some food.

Once he finished cooking, Cade checked his stats and he had 20 stat points he can use to increase his stats. He contemplated on which stat he should increase.