Entering The Dungeon Once More

Seeing how quick the pouch was taken from his hand, Ethan could not help but be shocked.

Shouldn't you hesitate first?

"That is called Moonlit Bone. This is not a high-level treasure, so you don't have to feel burdened about it. You can use it as treats for your dog-type beast. I saw that you have been training diligently with it as well, so this is a great treat to make it more obedient. Long-term consumption will also increase your dog-type beast's stamina," Ethan explained.

"Of course, to increase the beast's stamina, you definitely need more than a just pouch," he continued with a smile.

"Thank you, senior. I'll get going now!" Lucas bowed and left the Beast Gymnasium in a hurry, as if afraid that Ethan would take back what he had given.

Seeing him depart in a hurry, Ethan could not help but shake his head.

"Alas, that masochist junior can't clean any more beast cages today," Ethan sighed with regret.

For a person to be able to clean and even train under the suffocating smell of the beast cage for a few amounts of Starlight Coin, Lucas was indeed a lunatic and a masochist.

…

Lucas rushed to the dungeon area with the Moonlit Bone now being stored inside his bag.

Approaching the female receptionist of the dungeon that Teacher Julian had approached before, Lucas told her that he wanted to enter the dungeon and gain experience.

The receptionist was quite polite. Even though she was older than Lucas, she still nodded her head and began to deduct Starlight Coins from his balance after he logged in his unique ID.

After verifying that the unique ID was his, the receptionist told him that he could now enter the dungeon once. Once the time limit was up, he would need to pay again before he could enter the dungeon; otherwise, he would be hunted down by the guard and receive punishment.

The same rules applied to dungeons owned by the government or even private companies.

Others might think this was an act of blatant capitalism, and indeed, they were not wrong.

However, even if they knew that it was so, they would still not complain about it. In fact, others might think that this was just justified and right.

As they say, there was no free lunch in this world.

You want to get stronger inside a regulated dungeon where every beast and location has already been recorded and you need to search and kill?

Then pay up.

What? You want to enter a dungeon for free?

It's possible. Just search for a newly descended dungeon and enter. 

However, doing so would mean that you would have no idea what kind of creatures you will face inside the dungeon.

As for how they would verify that he had already paid, Lucas did not know.

After paying, Lucas only has 50 Starlight Coins left. With a rate of three cages per day and adding the one he had finished during the first day, he cleaned a total of 10 beast cages and received 300 Starlight Coins as a reward.

Taking a deep breath, Lucas stepped into the portal and experienced the same nauseating feeling once again.

Landing on the ground, Lucas staggered and took some time to recover his bearings.

He looked around and noticed that the Safe Area was still as lively as always. There were teachers and students roaming around, each with their own agenda.

Glancing around, Lucas realized that there were no second-year students present yet. At least none that he knows of. And as the class representative, Lucas knew a lot of the second-year students.

'Are they still not over what happened before?' Lucas thought to himself.

As someone who was not originally from this world, it should have been him who will recover last from the trauma.

As kids born in this world, their point of view towards death should have been more different and casual compared to Lucas, as death was pretty normal in this world due to the threat of beasts and dungeons.

It has been more than three days since that incident; even the guilt that he was feeling had already diminished.

Anyway, Lucas did not think too much about it anymore. If they do not want to level up, then it's on them.

Reviewing the contents of his bag, Lucas nodded his head and proceeded forward alone once more.

Like before, he had thoroughly prepared for this dungeon dive.

In case he encountered the same situation before, he even brought more insect repellent powder and some throwable items that he could throw as distractions if needed be.

His bag was bulging as he walked away from the Safe Area.

The other students looked at him with a weird expression.

'Is he out on a field trip or something?'

All of them thought the same way upon seeing how full his bag was.

…

Lucas, with a bag full of supplies, arrived near a cliff that towers about fifty meters high.

This cliff, known as the White Stone Cliff Area in the map, was famous for the beasts that resided under it.

There were a lot of beats that could be seen in here, like the Crack Back Lizard and Cliff Borne Ram, but the most famous one was still the Rip Claw Spider. 

This Rip Claw Spider was also Lucas' target for today.

They mostly reside and build their webs beside the cliff. They were easy to spot and easy to fight as they were pretty territorial and didn't live in groups.

For a solo leveling person like Lucas, this was the most suitable beast for him to hunt.

Since he knew that the Gentle Dog could fight multiple beasts above its grade and star rank in its Hellhound form, Lucas wanted to test its limit and try the Rip Claw Spider that was an Iron Grade-Iron Star 4 Beast.

Even though he was the summoner of the Gentle Dog, he truly did not understand the full extent of its prowess during the Hellhound form. He wanted data and to gauge the limit of the Gentle Dog to avoid underestimating it like he used to before.

The Rip Claw Spider was perfect for the job as it lived alone. If the spider turns out to be too strong for the Gentle Dog, they can just retreat away from it, as it doesn't live within the perimeter of its territory. And if the Rip Claw Spider could still be easily handled by the Gentle Dog, Lucas had already thought of another beast that they could fight that was stronger than the Rip Claw Spider.

Since the beasts inside the dungeon would resurrect after a set period of time, there was no need to worry about it running out of beasts. The period of resurrection depends on the dungeon.

To conquer a dungeon, one would only need to defeat the dungeon boss, which, most of the time, was the strongest beast inside a dungeon.

Walking along the pediment, Lucas searched for traces of the Rip Claw Spider around in caution.

At this time, he had not summoned the Gentle Dog yet.

The Rip Claw Spider liked to cast their webs around their territory; if one were to trigger it, the Rip Claw Spider would know it almost immediately.

If the Gentle Dog was around, Lucas was afraid that it would accidentally trip over the trap webs; hence, Lucas did not summon it for now.

In his hand was a flashlight that operated with a battery. Using the light, one would be able to see the light's reflection if it hit on a web. Using such a method, Lucas carefully tread along the pediment of the cliff.

A moment later, a glimmer of delight finally flashed across Lucas' eyes.

A few meters in front of him, Lucas saw a thin, thread-like line suspended in the middle of the air. Struck by the flashlight's light, the thin web of the Rip Claw Spider became visible to the naked eye.

With that in sight, Lucas hurriedly went forward to examine where the end of each line was.

"Since the line is here, the Rip Claw Spider could only be at one of the other ends of this web-line."

One end was extending to the forest, while the other extended toward the face of the cliff. 

It was obvious where Lucas would search next.

Tracing the line toward the cliff, Lucas finally spotted the Rip Claw Spider, sleeping inside a huge crack in the cliff's face.

It was stone-gray in color and camouflaged extremely well with the cliff. If not for the flashlight showing the webbings around it, Lucas might not be able to spot it at all.

With the target in sight, Lucas did not waste anymore time and summoned the Gentle Dog.

Upon its descent, Lucas immediately told it to use the Hellhound Manifestation immediately.

He then wore the leather armor that was already quite damaged, took a small ordinary knife, and then picked up a fist-size stone on his other hand.

Once he determined that he was ready, Lucas finally slashed the trap web of the Clip Claw Spider.

Ting!

As the sound and vibration akin to a guitar string getting plucked resounded in the air, the sleeping Clip Claw Spider also woke up from its slumber.