Leveling up skills

After staring at that for long enough, Zane finally noticed something happening in it. Another window popped out when he focused his eyes too much on a single part.

Energy Points: A numerical representation of the energy obtained inside the dungeon. It can be used to level up techniques, spells, and passive skills, and it can also be used to restore your mana.

When Zane's focus changed, that window disappeared, and then the previous one returned. He decided to check the other parts, and he learned quite a bit. Health was how much damage he could take before falling unconscious, and once he fell unconscious, practically any hit was mortal. Mana represented the energy that he could use that made him feel stronger, and stamina was how much he could do using his own vigor.

"The dungeon's magic is really suspicious… but I can say that it can evaluate my strength while it also informs me of it," Zane thought.

The other parameters were simple, strength and endurance determined how much damage Zane could deal and receive physically. Each point would increase his health by five points.

Intelligence and Mentality affected his mana and the power to cause and receive damage from magic… Zane heard of some people that were able to use magic, but he couldn't imagine himself doing that. They also increased his mana by five points.

Speed and Dexterity affected his movement and reaction speed, as well as his ability to do things more skillfully. They increased his stamina by five points whenever either of those increased by one. Things didn't end there. When Zane checked the things that he had learned, he also saw more information.

Dash Lv 01 (0/10): passively Increases your speed when running by one point at the cost of one point of stamina per second.

Mana Manipulation Lv 01 (0/10): it grants you the power to control the spiritual energy known as mana by one point per level and per second.

Swordsmanship Lv 01 (0/10): when using swords, this passive ability increases the damage you can cause by one point per attack and per level.

Do you wish to spend 10 energy points to level up the passive skill Swordsmanship? Y/N

When Zane tried to investigate things further, he saw that message had appeared. After thinking for a while, he decided not to do that… the reason was the fact that another skeleton appeared in front of him, and he didn't want to experience unknown changes during the fight.

Zane dashed at the enemy, and he lowered his stance when the arrow was pointed at him. When the monster shot, he jumped to the side at the last moment… the arrow scraped his right arm, but the pain had been minimal.

Zane approached the beast and quickly disposed of it… he checked his status screen again, and this time, he decided to check Dash and use his status points. The faster he reaches the enemies, the fewer chances they will have to attack him.

The Technique Dash has leveled up.

You obtained one status point.

Zane needed twenty points to make Dash level up again, but he decided to check the other things. When he checked his status, another window showed up, showing him the parameters that he could increase. Zane used two points to speed and see if he really got fast… he felt a feeling of power passing through his body for a moment, but only that…

Zane checked the recovery value, and it showed that he could recover that much mana and stamina per minute. However, the effect was six times weaker for health… It only made him recover the same amount in an hour.

"This isn't complicated, but it is rather curious, huh," Zane thought. "Let's check if this really worked…"

Zane began to walk again, and he found another part where the path split in three. While choosing the middle path seemed like the obvious choice, Zane chose the left, and soon, he found the path splitting into right and front…

Zane decided to keep going forward until another sphere appeared. He lowered his stance to dash the moment the beast moved, and when he did it… Zane felt himself moving like the wind. Before the enemy could pull all of the string of the bow, Zane stabbed the blue sphere. The first attack made the monster stagger, and that gave him for the next one, which killed the creature.

"I really got faster…" Zane rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "This dungeon… why is it giving us the power to get this strong?"

It was convenient, but Zane didn't like that since it was something granted to him by the thing he wanted to destroy. That also made him think too much about a lot of things, and that was annoying…

In the end, Zane shook his head and then kept going. He would get his answers eventually. Until then, he just had to keep sharpening his fangs…

As it turned out, Zane's guess was right this time, and so he found other stairs that would lead him to the third floor. He felt that he walked a hit more than he did on the first, though. Even though he didn't choose the wrong path even once… each floor was probably larger than the previous one, so Zane couldn't get carried away with his current progress.

"I didn't find anyone or signs of battles yet… maybe it has been a while since the last time someone entered the dungeon," Zane thought while he was going downward.

After climbing down fifty or so steps, Zane reached the next floor… again, with no changes in the environment. He didn't know how to feel about that, and while he was fine for now, Zane wondered if things would remain like that forever, where he would be unable to feel or see the sun or even the sky. He didn't regret his choice of coming, and Zane's will was only steeled further since his family was deprived of that when they were selected…

Regardless, Zane was forced to forget about that when he saw another sphere emerging from the ground, and while he opened his eyes in surprise when he saw a skeleton with a wand, that didn't slow him down. Unfortunately, the creature shot a Fireball faster than a skeleton archer could fire an arrow…