54 Orin

Adam looked down at the dead spider boss and took what it dropped in his pockets. Honestly it was a little disappointing as it only dropped two sets of each of the materials along with a Common dagger.

Adam then set his sight on the chest behind, and quickly opened it, but he didn't have any expectations. And as expected, there wasn't anything interesting in the chest, only some more materials and Common equipment.

After Adam opened the chest, he felt space around him warp as he suddenly appeared outside the dungeon. As he appeared outside he looked around and saw that he had appeared at the entrance of the dungeon.

Adam had already decided he would go through this dungeon for the rest of the day, but not right now as he was getting really hungry right now.

Adam opened his system and left the game, his avatar disappearing.

When he got out of his room he saw that neither of his parents were here, as expected they were working. While he took the rests from yesterday's dinner out of the fridge and into the microwave, Adam thought about his brother.

He hesitated whether he should go visit him or not, but eventually decided not to. He wanted to go visit him when he would finally start accomplishing something really significant in the game, and by when he would be 100% sure he would be able to save his brother.

His determination and will, that had a little waned after three hours of grinding, were renewed as he quickly ate and went back in the game to grind the dungeon.

This time, Adam selected the Normal difficulty before entering the dungeon. It didn't take long for him to see the first change. He saw a spider approach, and looking at its status that hadn't changed one bit in his past run, this one now had a slightly different one.

[Cave Spider] (Common, Level 25)

2500/2500

The difference wasn't much, but he could see the difference between the two difficulties. It wasn't really felt when he fought it though, as he killed it as easily as he did back then.

Like that, another dungeon run started for Adam who began playing with the spiders. This run actually changed somewhat from the first one.

The dungeon was still split in one main path and several smaller ones leading to mini rooms. However, the small rooms now had more spiders in them, and all of them had spiders in them, when earlier some of them had been empty.

The biggest change though was the appearance of a mini boss room, in which there was a Level 30 Elite Spider waiting for him.

Despite the changes, Adam was still capable of reaching the doors leading to the last boss, it just took him 4 hours this time, but the number of resources he got was bigger. His inventory wasn't even half full though, the drop rate was just too little.

The dungeon still wasn't finished though, as he now had to face the last boss. Adam opened the doors and was greeted by the sight of an even bigger spider than earlier. Moreover, not only its size changed, but its color changed too as it it changed from brown to a mixture of black and brown strips, which made it look deadly and a little funny at the same time. It's status made any notion of laughter disappear though.

[Black Stripped Cave Spider] (Chieftain, Level 30)

66000/66000

This time, Adam decided to be more careful, but he still went for the attack first. In a fight, one should always start by attacking, as being sent on the defensive could sign one's defeat.

This boss acted in the same way as the one from earlier as it tried to stab Adam with one of its front legs, except that this one was sharper, faster and stronger.

Still, Adam was once again able to dodge it before striking the monster, making it lose about 7000 HP this time, instead of the normal 9000+ damage he should do. This meant the boss' defense was quite good.

As soon as his attack landed Adam stepped to the side, dodging another attack and slashing at the leg that just attacked him. He wasn't able to sever it, but he still made considerable damage to it.

The spider was angered and spat out a white substance at Adam. This was a new skill, or maybe the Elite Spider had it but just didn't have the time to use it…

Anyway, Adam didn't take any chance and used [Charge] to rush under the spider's body and collide with one of its legs, stunning it, before activating [Crushing Blow] and performing a circular slash, hitting each of the spider's 8 legs.

In the middle of his spin he saw that the area where the white liquid had splashed had corroded, this must have been acid, he thought. After his circular slash that shaved off about 3000 HP from the spider as well as 15% from its defense, he jumped away, just before the spider crashed into the ground.

Feeling nothing under it but the ground, the spider knew it had missed it's tentative to crush the human bothering it. But before it could move again a blade coated with a green wind appeared before its eyes.

The next moment, the entire left side of its vision went dark.

Critical Hit! -1052 HP! Cripple!

In a short confrontation, Adam had already taken out 17% of the boss' HP, and crippled half its vision. Even though this boss was strong that the Troll he had fought in the Goblin Fortress, he had changed a lot since then.

First, his stats had simply become better, his strength to be exact. Although the spider boss seemed to be stronger than him in stats, it wasn't that bad thanks to the boost he received. But more importantly, he had opened the first Gate, the Gate of Opening, and now his senses were much better.

That's why, he was able to deal with this spider boss easily, and it didn't pose much of a threat to him. The minutes went by, and although the spider was strong, its HP continuously went down, and even as it tried to use its different skills, it fell to the ground, dead, after five minutes of fighting.

Adam looked at the corpse with a sigh though. This fight had been too easy. With how big the difference in martial arts was between him and the boss, the gap in attributes needed to be bigger than this to give him even some difficulty.

The only reason he had taken 5 minutes to kill it was because its regeneration was quite good and it had a big amount of health.

The corpse disappeared into dust like the other spiders, but it did leave some loot. First were the usual materials, but there was one additional one here, and that was a piece of [Dark Gold Iron Ore]. From its description Adam concluded this was the enhanced version from the [Black Iron Ore].

There was also an Uncommon Helmet, but it was Level 30 and for Assassins only. Then, Adam turned his attention to the chest, which became even bigger in this difficulty. Opening it, Adam was stunned by the treasure he got.

There was 1 Gold in there, as well as a Level 30 Rare pair of daggers. Adam took them in his inventory and exited to dungeon.

Once he appeared outside, as he was about to enter back in the dungeon, he was surprised to feel a presence behind him. He turned around and saw an old dwarf was sitting on a nearby rock, looking at him with a smile.

Adam was confused as to why he was smiling, but decided to smile back to be polite as he looked at his status.

[Orin] (Bronze, Level 50)

HP: 4400/4400

This dwarf could be considered average for a Level 50 Bronze, having 4400 HP without any equipment was average for a Monk. With how old the dwarf was though, he probably wouldn't become Silver Rank in his life, but die before. Reason as to why Adam thought this was that the old dwarf hadn't opened any Gates yet.

Still, for the current him, this old dwarf was stronger, even without any equipment on. Although he could deal about 9000 damage with his strongest attack, that was when he overwhelmed his opponent's defense.

For this dwarf to have 4400 health meant its Endurance was at an impressive 440, so his raw defense would allow him to survive Adam's strongest strike with probable ease, and that was without activating any skill.

Of course, the two had no reason to fight, as the dwarf looked friendly.