23 23. Newbie killers.

"On the 6th floor of the dungeon you will start to encounter what we call newbie killers." Rose says with a serious face producing pictures of two monsters. A red ant and a black shadow. "The Killer Ant and the War Shadow. They are called Newbie killers for a reason. The Ants have strong bodies and their armor plating can easily block attacks or quickly destroy equipment. They also release a pheromone to attract all the other ants in the area if they are in danger or killed causing a swarm. This is what kills newbies they get overwhelmed by numbers. As for the war shadow it is the strongest monster on the 6th floor, it can hide in shadows and has razor sharp blades for fingers that can easily cut through flesh, bone and some armors. They specialize in sneak attacks." Rose says. "The fingers of a war shadow are also pretty valuable as they can be used for weapons and are incredibly sharp. Of course there are other monsters you need to watch out for, like frog shooters and needle rabbits."

She brings out more pages and I start looking over them. Apparently the difficulty only rises from the 6th floor onwards. Things like orcs which can fight against level 2 adventurers along with minotaurs, hellhounds, imps.

Seems I'll have to be incredibly careful of those guys, I don't really have a good measure of my physical strength right now but I'm struggling alone with kobolds who are damaging my normal equipment. I'm not looking forward to lizard men on the fifth floor with their hard ass scales.

"When fighting against things like hellhounds who use fire magic most people wear clothes made from salamander parts as they are fire resistant. Hellhounds arent very strong but are pretty quick, the fire magic is usually what kills most adventurers though." Rose says helpfully.

"Are the Killer Ant bodies worth anything like the plating?" I ask.

"No they can't be melted to be shaped and are too small and odd shaped for most armors." Rose says with narrowed eyes. "I would prefer if you kept far away from any Killer Ants, or War Shadows."

"Eh I'm not even at the lizards yet, gotta see how I fair against those guys before I decide to go any further." I tell her.

"Have you not updated your status plate yet? Should make it easier." Rose says.

Shaking my head, "I plan to not update it for a while and see how far I can get with 0 stats, its risky but it will not only help with increasing my skill but with the acquisition of excellia, I also don't plan to level up until my stats are maxed out to the limit. If I leveled up when my stats were only D-rank I would be an idiot. The difference between being a common adventurer who levels up at the first moment they can and a rare adventurer who hides his time and works on his foundation. I'm not in any rush so i can take my time." I tell her.

She shakes her head. "Plenty of adventurers have tried to do that but only died or wasted their time. It takes months or years to level up for an average adventurer." Rose says with a frown.

"Well like I said before, I have nothing but time." I smile before going back to studying the monsters on the papers.

Still need to know where to cut them for the magic crystal's.

After a bit more studying I once more head for the dungeon. This time instead of just trying to forcefully cut everything to death I work on targeting the soft spots of the goblins and kobolds. Eyes, throat, mouth, places I can pierce easily to kill them with a sharp stab. Of course it's a little more difficult than brutally chopping them to pieces but I'm fine with that. It's training after all. Plus it does wonders keeping my sword sharp.

I also start to practice my magic a little bit more, trying to control the lightning of thunder to not just crisp my opponents, I want to make it into a kind of beam to pierce my enemies. So far it's not going well, still just whips out and fries them to death. I don't even know if its possible but I can try. Besides i need to practice both my magic and swordsmanship as excellia i believe was absorbed into the body based on what combat method you used.

For example if you used swords then things like strength and endurance would increase, but if you used magic then mana and magic related skills went up.

Gotta be well rounded so when I finally update my status then I'll have less stats I need to even out hopefully. I should also look into going back and working on just hand to hand, that might improve some of the other stats since I'm not really getting hit by anything. Just beat the shit out of everything with my bare fists. Well goblins at least.

Cutting into the throat of another kobold I fire off a blast of lightning towards the other member of the group before everything around me seems to freeze.

The next thing I know I'm standing in a dark room.

"Congratulations, one of your stats has reached the threshold for you to become level 2. As your patron god, I'm enjoying watching your journey so far. Here is your reward." A voice says.

Three familiar looking golden cards float into view before the silhouette starts rotating. The first one stops on a man with dirty blonde hair a cigarette in his mouth and a spear in his hand. He looked like a mechanic.

"Cid Highwind, final fantasy." The voice says as memories bombard me making me groan in pain and new items float into my spatial ring.

The second silhouette stops on a giant of a man with tanned skin and a large mohawk on his head. In his hands are a massive stone axe.

"Kongol, Legend of the Dragoon." The voice says as more memories flood my mind and items flit into my ring.

The last one is a brown haired teen with a black jacket with white fur around the collar, a large scar was across his face and in his hands he held a Gunblade.

"Squall Leonhart, from final fantasy. Enjoy your rewards mortal. Until next time!" The voice says as a final burst of memories bombard my mind and more items flit into my ring.

Everything goes back to normal and I have to dodge a claw aimed for my face from the final kobold I was fighting and stab it in the gut.

"Ugh, how inconvenient." I groan from the headache.