Steven watched the giant rat pace back and forth in its room. A few times it had gotten far enough away from the corridor entrance that he'd been able to sneak up and peek around the corners. There was no exit.

Assuming this was the boss for Floor 0, he knew the only thing he could do was defeat it to move on to the next floor. More than that, however, as the rat was almost twice as large and stronger than the previous rats, Steven decided he couldn't pass up the chance to absorb it. The giant rat granted no mimicries, but the attributes would be a welcome addition. But he needed mana.

He made his way back through the three previous rooms and up to the Red Eye. Tapping the implant to the eye, he waited for the floor to reset. The darkness that usually accompanied a reset never came.

He felt a lump in his throat. Resetting the floors meant he can farm mana indefinitely. For other classes, they could simply do the same early enemies over and over and get stronger. It seemed that the dungeon decided that progress meant one had to continue to push forward to reap any benefits. Steven had been rewarded progress with the nine rat deaths.

Steven would have no extra mana to bolster his absorption damage and for extended use his mimicries. But that wasn't the biggest issue. He figured the much larger rat, with higher attributes, might actually have a different attack pattern. It also had bigger claws and teeth. The previous rats didn't really use their tails to attack, just the one with a ineffective tail swipe that didn't really do anything.

There was nothing else he could do but go forward. Making his way to the giant rat room, he checked his status and quests. His timers on the status screen showed that he had been in Floor 0 for a bit over three hours, but that didn't feel quite right. Steven could spare no thought on the matter, and his attention was taken by the new quest he found.

Quests

Defeat Giant Rat

And that was it. No rewards or progress meter, not that he couldn't keep track of one rat. If he wasn't stuck here in this weird purgatory he would have no reason to kill these rats anyway. He guessed the promise of a boon from the infinite Drknfel Dungeon was enough to keep going. His ruminations distracted him from the upcoming battle while he made his way to the final room.

He watched the rat for a while longer, trying to think of some way to easily defeat it. But the rat just paced back and forth, claws clacking on the stone ground, until he finally had enough. Steven stepped into the room and clapped his hands.

The rat immediately turned and screeched, even louder than its smaller brethren. The sound seemed to dig its way into Steven's bones, like a deeper version of nails on a chalkboard.

He didn't expect the rat to chase after him and leap at his throat like the others, but he also didn't expect it to rear up on its hind legs and walk toward him. This made the giant rat even taller than himself, and completely freed its front claws for attacking.

Steven sidestepped into the room and began backing away from the rat while it toddled towards him. Its claws outstretched and swinging wildly while it tried to keep its balance and close the distance at the same time. Equal parts laughable and terrifying.

He kept walking backwards in a circle around the room, trying to keep the giant rat around seven to ten feet away. The rat did a little hop to get closer and lashed out with a quick swipe of a claw. Steven watched and noted that it used its left claw to swipe. He allowed this to happen a couple more times, making sure to jump backwards at the last moment.

With no change in behavior, he jumped forward instead of backwards and landed an absorption powered punch on the rat's abdomen. He quickly dashed forward to the closest wall and watched the rat fall back to all four limbs. The rat shuddered a bit then stood back up, and Steven saw where the blow landed was a raw patch of skin instead of fur. He could do this. Absorption cost no mana, and both the punch and absorption effect did damage.

The rat continued its shambling towards Steven. He watched, and at the last moment before the rat would unleash its swipe he dashed forward to land another absorption punch. He felt a sharp pain on the top of his head and felt himself being pushed down towards the ground, folding in half under a great weight. For a second he saw a four fingered claw on the stone ground next to his face, and then black.

Steven's vision came back a split second before his body exploded in agony and he crumpled to the ground. His head felt like it was splitting from the top down, and several parts of his back throbbed. Thankfully the pain only lasted a few excruciating moments, and he relaxed, confused as to why he was killed.

He cleared his head, deciding it wasn't really important how he was killed, and made his way back to the boss room. Steven was a bit annoyed that even after death the small rats hadn't respawned, but death was no different than resetting the floor. Even the other classes couldn't continuously farm mana after a certain point.

He stopped in the final corridor when a thought struck him. If after a certain point in a floor's progress the monsters aren't able to respawn, the other classes will have a progression block themselves. Their levels and attributes are tied to the amount of mana they can acquire, and the faster they clear a floor, the lower their potential mana gains will be.

This puts the special classes, assuming they work the same as his own with a different method of attribute gain, on a whole different level of progression potential. Assuming, of course, in an infinite dungeon there are infinite types of monsters.

Steven shook his head. There was no way that it really mattered anyway. Infinite dungeon, infinite floors, infinite mana. The other classes can have just as much as he can, it just might take them longer. Still doesn't change the fact that he had to clear the dungeon, and he had no idea how to do that.

He resumed his course for the boss rat, retrieved his lost mana, and upon engaging the enemy was subsequently slashed across the throat on its initial charge. After being revived, Steven tried again. And again. Each attempt ended in a death that he hadn't experienced before. He was slashed and bled out, impaled by teeth, eviscerated, and broken in more ways that he thought possible. After his most recent death, he was at a loss and took a nap. He was tired of rats and failure.

Steven woke up hungry and thirsty. Not wanting to drink the water from the rocky puddles, he was angry at the lack of provisions the dungeon provided. If he were to spend an eternity here, fighting through floors, he would need some way to store food and drink. Thankfully, other than obvious hunger and thirst, he was physically fine. Each reset and revival restored his body to its default condition. No bruises, scratches, or scars that he could see.

He needed to finish this floor and move on. Maybe he could find something to eat and drink on Floor 1. Most of his previous deaths were because he got hasty and irritated, made a bad dodge or moved in too quickly. This time, he would take his time with the original plan. Dash in and connect with an absorption punch, then get away.

In the boss room, he got the rat's attention and it did the standard screech, stood up and began slowly toddling towards him. His first few punches hit, but he was unable to retreat from a claw slash fast enough and wound up with a nasty gash along his shoulder. Undeterred, he leaped in and landed another punch on the raw spot that his absorption had made. He rolled left as the boss rat slammed down, presumably with the attack that had killed him the very first time he fought it.

This time, instead of teeth punching through the top of his skull they slammed into the ground. He took a chance with the mana he had been saving and cast Partial Mimicry: Rat Claw then leapt onto the back on the rat. It began bucking and jostling around to dislodge Steven, but he dug his claws deep into the back of the monster's neck to keep his position. The rat was only the size of a mini horse, and he was able to use his legs to keep himself upright when he pulled his claws out and quickly slammed them down into the neck again, digging a small hole of blood and gore with the sharpened fingers.

He did this a few more times until he could feel the spine at the bottom of the hole. He cast absorption on the clawed hand and slammed it down on the bone as hard as he could muster. His hand tore through the spine and the rat went limp, dissolving into red dust swirling into his implant. He felt a slight increase of strength not attributed to adrenaline as the final bits of dust disappeared. A screen appeared in the air in front of him.

Floor 0 Complete.

Proceed to Floor 1 [Y/N]

Proceed to Serenity Springs [Y/N]