Ch 5 - The Second Floor

Quinn arrived at the white void, astounded like everyone else (except Cory) was when they arrived. It felt weird, since you couldn't see the end of the void, yet you can walk around and stuff. He didn't know if the void had an end, but that was a question for another day.

"Good. Now that we're all here, I want to say a few things before we continue". Cory announced. "As we're all aware, we are a team. So, we need a team leader. Now, I don't want to sound overconfident, but I'm the one who made this team, and I also have the most knowledge about the dungeon. That's why I think I should be the team leader".

Cory proudly declared his speech, causing everyone to roll their eyes. "Dude, you were always the team leader" Jax stated, with Quinn and Ruby nodding their heads as well.

"Wait, really? I mean, I organised the team and everything, but when did I become the leader?" Cory was oblivious to the fact that his actions already made him the team leader. Usually, people in teams on the higher floors fight over leadership. But, these people were all new to the dungeon except for Quinn, and not familiar with the whole 'team' thing.

"Well, not only did you recruit everyone on the team, but you also guided us and explained basically everything. Plus, like you said, you're the most knowledgeable among us as well" Quinn laid down all of the reasons why Cory had become the leader.

"Uh, okay then" He was slightly taken off track. "But there's something else we need to discuss"

Cory became serious. "Like you all know, I have insider knowledge. This includes knowledge for most of the floors, including the second floor. It's called the gladiator's floor. The challenge on the floor is to fight in gladiator arenas, and win medals. Once you collect 10 medals and at least 1 gold medal, you can descend".

"But, the challenge isn't that important, since we can complete it at any time. What's really important is that this is the floor where you can train. There are many people who settled down here and act as trainers. They can teach you any of the common arts, as long as you're willing to pay".

"The problem is money. All of us are broke except Quinn, but we can't keep relying on him. Plus, he'll eventually run out of money, right Quinn?"

Quinn nodded in agreement. Cory continued. "So, the plan is to find a way to train and learn an art, as well as earn some money to pay for it".

"Wait a second. We need money?" Jax was oblivious to one of the main problems their group faced. Money.

Money in the dungeon was universal, using a special currency called manacoin. You can do many things to earn manacoins. Basically anything that you could do to earn money outside of the dungeon, can be done as well to earn manacoins inside the dungeon. So, you can have a normal job, join a guild and earn manacoins doing tasks, or even become a bandit and steal manacoins from others.

A unique and special property of manacoins, which makes it a great currency, is that it can combine together to make it easy to carry around. So someone could be walking around with 1000000 manacoins, but it would look and weigh like 1 manacoin.

Manacoins themselves are shaped like a coin, but tainted in a golden blue hue. The coin cannot be copied, since it can only be made by the dungeon. So there's no way to fake a manacoin, making the currency even better.

Quinn had roughly 5000 manacoins saved up. For reference, one manacoin roughly equalled one dollar. So 5000 manacoins was a decent sum, but nowhere near enough to last. Especially if they splits them.

"Nothing in this world is free. At some point, money becomes an issue, so even if we don't get any manacoins now, we'll need it for the next floor, and the next floor, and so on". Cory explains the problem of capitalism to Jax.

"You mentioned that we need money to learn an art. But what exactly is an art?" Ruby asked a question.

"I'll explain," Quinn volunteered. "I may not know much, but an art is basically a set of skills that you're skilled with. They can be used in various ways. There are martial arts and magic arts".

"Martial arts is using a weapon and basically using it as a part of your body. Your body could also be used as a weapon, which then can be used as a part of your body as well".

"Magic arts, on the other hand, is using mana and your magic affinity to cast spells. You need to have a magic affinity and enough mana to be able to learn spells though".

"For example, I trained in sword arts and healing magic arts, so now I have moderate proficiency in both. That means I can use both swords and healing spells fairly well. I can improve with sword arts, but unless I upgrade my healing affinity somehow, I'm stuck at moderate proficiency with healing magic arts".

"Do you understand?" Quinn tried his best to explain it to Ruby.

"Uh, kinda. It's still confusing, but I think I understand" she replied.

"Well Quinn's right. He missed a couple of things, but that was correct for the most part". Cory backed Quinn up.

"Anyways" he continued. "There's one more thing we should do. Split up".

"Why?" "What?" "Huh?" they all voiced their confusion.

Ella ran to Quinn and refused to let go. "No! I'm staying with Quinn" she declared.

"Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. We'll split up into 3 groups" Cory cleared up some confusion.

"But why?" Jax asked again.

"Well, if we split up, we can earn more manacoins and learn different things. Plus, we can't all have the same job, since it might not be suited for all of us".

"I'm thinking that Quinn and Ella go in one group. Ella needs to find an art that suits her, and since Quinn is already trainedin two arts, he can stay with Ella and find a good art for her".

"Yay!" Ella shouted in joy. She got to stay with Quinn.

"Plus, she probably won't separate from Quinn either way" Cory added. "Anyways, Jax, Ruby, you two should go in a group as well, while I'll go by myself".

"Why can't we go in a group of three?" Jax asked. Ruby looked at Cory for an answer as well.

"It lets us get more manacoins and find a more suited art. Plus, I know more about the second floor, so I'm better for going solo".

"Okay, I guess…" Jax was still uncertain, but he knew Cory probably had his reasons. "Anyways, let's go already".

The group of five walked through the portal, unaware of what's to come.

{}

'Okay, they're gone' Cory thought to himself as the group split up. Once through, they each bid farewell before walking in different directions from the portal.

Around the center of the city where they arrived were a few info brokers, providing free information about the floor and its challenge to people who exit the portal, but Cory ignored them. He still appreciated the service they were doing, since free information was non-existent on the higher floors. Even if there was, 99% of the time it would be a scam.

He hoped the rest of their team found a good art to train in. But that wasn't the whole reason why he split the group up. The main reason he did it was to go after the secret challenge on this floor.

What's a secret challenge? Well, a secret challenge is an extra challenge one can do on a floor. Each floor has a secret challenge, and upon completion you gain a powerful item, which boosts one's power.

The item and secret challenge are always related to the floor's theme. The secret challenge can be done as many times as you want, but you can only get the item once. It's to prevent too many people getting the secret item.

The locations of the secret challenge are unknown, but Cory remembered a few. This one was the most well known and basically public knowledge on the upper floors, but the rest that Cory knew of were secret.

The reason why this floor's secret challenge was well known was because it took place underneath the city. It's themed around an underground tournament, where thousands of contestants fight for the prize. The only difference from a regular gladiator fight aside from the item reward is the risk of injury or death.

In normal gladiator fights, it's illegal to cripple or kill another gladiator, but that doesn't apply in the underground tournament. You can choose what to do to your opponent once you win. Cripple them, kill them, anything's allowed. That's the risk you take for the secret challenge.

But, if you win, you get an amazing prize. A weapon. It's a suitable reward for any gladiator. The weapon can be anything you want, as long as it's a basic weapon. Sword, spear, mace, knuckles, bow, etc. Whatever it is, the weapon will be of excellent quality, great strength and can be sold for a good sum.

High risk, high reward. The tournament takes place every month, and you need to sign up beforehand, so Cory walked down the road for a bit before ducking into an alleyway.

There was a manhole halfway through, and Cory opened the cover and climbed down. It smelled of feces and urine, but Cory ignored it. He'd been through worse conditions.

He stopped at a wall that has a symbol of an X with an eye in the middle. He knocked on the eye socket 3 times and waited. Soon after, the brick in the middle of the pupil got pulled, revealing someone on the other side.

"You're a new face. What do you want, kid?" A shifty man said from the other side.

"I want to sign up for the underground tournament".

"You do know the risks, right?"

"Just hand me the bloodstone already".

"Sheesh… kids these days…" he mumbled, leaving for a second.

The man cave back and handed a rugged stone. It gleamed red as if it was covered with blood. Cory knew it was the bloodstone required to sign up.

Bloodstones are a unique type of stone, found both in and out of the dungeon. They existed as an expensive and reliable way to form a contract.

To use it, the person creating the contract must put a drop of blood into it and state the contract details. Then, the person accepting the contract can hold the bloodstone to read the details. If they accept, they drop their blood into the bloodstone.

Note that they have to drop their blood in willingly, or else it won't work. That's to prevent injuring someone and stealing their blood to track them.

Once accepted, the bloodstone glows red, and stays that way until the contract is completed, which then the bloodstone turns back to normal. If the contract isn't completed on time or breached in another way, the bloodstone will track them down.

One last thing about bloodstones is that the ones in the dungeon can be used between floors. So, if the person breached the contract and fled to the next floor, they can still be tracked.

Anyways, Cory bit his thumb and pressed it in the bloodstone. The bloodstone grew red, and he handed it back to the man through the crack.

"Come back in 2 weeks. Hopefully you know what you've got yourself into" the man informed him and patched up the hole. Cory backtracked and left the sewers.

The streets were still bustling, and Cory wandered around. In his head, he was making a plan on how to win the tournament.

'Firstly, I need a place to stay and train up my martial and magic arts. Secondly, I need some way to get manacoins fast to buy supplies' Cory thought to himself. This was going to be a tough 2 weeks, but he thought of a plan.

He needs to join the adventurers guild to earn manacoins. It was the fastest and easiest way to earn manacoins, if you knew what you were doing. Despite it being a joke to many, it still offered lots of pay. Then with those manacoins, he can buy supplies and a place to train.

Cory sighed. His days were going to get hectic. Hopefully, during this time, Quinn and the others will train as well.

Because he knew that they'll need all of the training they can get.