First Dungeon IV: Onwards

Even after a year of study I knew there was a lot about my new reality I just didn't know about, of course sometimes I had this moments of confusion where the world I left behind seemed like a dream to me. Like I had just imagined all of it as a side effect of being aged rapidly till I was six. I don't know, if I should say I haven't been having identity crisis then I would be lying, living here…. Living like this hasn't been easy, and sometimes I find myself wishing for a change or perhaps a return. Back to that life of simplicity where all I had to worry about was a brother in a gang and trying to finish school so that I could make something of myself.

But this was a whole new reality, or perhaps this has always been my reality and earth, the one where I already grew up in and died was and has been nothing more than a delusion. It was a rabbit hole that I've suddenly found myself slipping into more and more often as I try to find a way, a method to cope with everything that I've been through, and the recent experience Hajiya Suraiya had put me through. It's not a thought I like to have or think about, because in all honesty I had no idea how to feel about this, but in the end, some things were just wrong, and sexually molesting a seven-year-old in the name of training was and is, or perhaps should be one of them. this is a very different world from what I remember. But be that as it may, Tri and I were not out of danger yet, and it doesn't seem I could afford much from the system with the little amount of credits I have, plus the shop won't be open to me until I get my first card and become a terminal apprentice warrior.

And with the way things are going, it seems that would still take a while. I'd need to kill a 100 of these beetles to complete their card fragments into a single card, and even then there's not much of a guarantee whether I would be getting a skill card, or a template card for a terminal orb. Those are actually the most common as feeding a terminal orb template cards would transform them into the species or creature the card was compiled from. Or you could use the card to upgrade skills or sell it to the system for credits and get something else that suits you better.

I raised my head and looked down at the grisly work I just completed. Only one of the beetle was intact enough that I harvested both its pincers. That alone had not been an easy task as I've had to direct triumphant to smash through the beetle carefully at certain segments of its body to dislodge the pincers. And then I had to use its pliable paper thin but still extremely study wings to wrap around the end of the pincers making a makeshift handle for my dual daggers made off Beon (Beetle iron). Now I don't know how valuable or important Beon is, because frankly speaking I had zero information about this dungeon, and I lost the book Mallam Bako had given to me. Perhaps if I had already purchased an Inventory module from the system, it would have been an extremely different case.

But my interactions with the system was kept controlled, which was even though they had thousands of cards to give, the caliphate had refused, instead choosing to keep most functions of the system away from me as having access to an inventory would mean that invariably I had a place to hide things they couldn't get access to. But be that as it may I had an opportunity here, a better opportunity than most and I intend to use it to the fullest. The person that leaves this dungeon, whether he is John or number 7 would be a lot different from the test subject that walked.

"Are you done master John?" Tri asked as her head peeked over my shoulders to look at the Pincers.

"I am tri, we should get a move on. Your senses are sharper than mine can you tell me if you can hear anything from deeper within the tunnel." She gave a swift nod as she cocked her head to the side and took a deep breath. There was a bend at the end of the tunnel, it was probably 8 to 9 feet away from where we had engaged the Beetles and about twenty to twenty-five feet away from the now deactivated Dungeon gate. We couldn't see past the bend, and with all of the commotion we just made dealing with three beetles I'd rather not be caught unawares, so being prepared would be good, and for some reason Tri was very good with her senses, especially when it comes to hearing. Dr Salami had said that it was possible that unlike my elder siblings I had unlocked a rare condition where the terminal beast or orb gains a characteristic of their master, or perhaps a skill.

Either way she could hear, see, and smell better than I ever could. "Master John the tunnel goes down into a decline after the bend, I don't know how deep the decline is, but what I do know is that it's littered with beetles. Though they don't seem to have been spooked by the noises from our previous battles so perhaps we can still continue to pick them up one by one." I nodded my head with a sigh as I rubbed a hand on Tri's neck, a melancholic look on my face.

Gaining the characteristic of the master also meant tri gained a defect too. She could still talk of course but, she also had a split personality disorder, or at least I think that's the case with how she seems like a different person with each conversation that we have. But be that as it may, it was time for us to move forwards and exterminate some bugs,