Ways of Getting Stronger

A/N: This is the chapter for yesterday's forgotten upload.

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'You have died.'

It was the second time Kalle had heard the message when fighting inside the slime dungeon.

He soon found himself back in the circular room, the entrance to the slime dungeon.

His body which had been sliced in half had returned to its normal state and all the pain that he felt before had gone away.

But still, even though Kalle couldn't die inside the dungeons inside the legacy dungeon, he sometimes thought that dying was better when he felt the pain that assaulted him right before he died.

The pain of having his own feet melted and his body being sliced into two halves, Kalle would never want to feel them again for the second time.

Hence the reason he wanted to purge all the slimes inside the dungeon.

Not only did he want to gain more dungeon points and have more monsters to summon as his army, but he also wanted to make the slimes pay for what they had done to him.

Unfortunately, although everything seemed to be going fine so far, the final room, the boss of the dungeon, was something that was still out of Kalle's reach.

He didn't expect at all that as soon as he stepped into the room, he would be bombarded with different kinds of spells from the elemental slimes.

Earth spikes, wind blades, fireballs, water balls, everything that he had faced so far separately, all came down towards him and his two contracted creatures at the same time.

Forget about dealing with the huge slime that was able to swallow another slime, gain their abilities, and even amplify them, Kalle didn't have a clue about how he could deal with the different types of elemental slimes at the same time.

He could easily use the curse of weakness before when he dealt with these slimes separately.

Because as soon as the curse of weakness hits, these slimes were only cannon fodders that even a goblin could handle with ease.

However, when all the slimes were grouped up together, Kalle realized that the slimes, the small creatures that he had been easily dealing with so far, were an opponent that he couldn't deal with.

When he entered the boss room, the earth slime, just like before, was able to notice his presence the second he entered its detection range and it sent an earth spike in his direction.

He was able to deal with it easily by jumping away, but it turned out that the earth slime's detection didn't only work for itself.

Kalle didn't know whether the slimes had a party voice chat or anything that enabled them to communicate with each other, but the other slimes seemed to also know their location when the earth slime detected them.

Without the earth slime, there was no way all the other slimes were able to attack them from dozens of meters away.

'How the hell am I supposed to deal with that…?'

Thinking about the situation he was faced with before, Kalle couldn't find any solutions even now when he tried thinking about it with a calm mind.

'With the way I am currently, there's no way I could deal with those…

I need to get stronger first.'

Kalle went inside the legacy dungeon to get stronger, but even trying to get stronger required him to get stronger first.

'How the heck does that work…'

Kalle racked his mind and tried to think of ways to get stronger than he was currently right now.

When thinking of making himself more powerful, of course, one certain way that came up in his mind right away was to claim more dungeons.

Not only would he have more dungeon points, but he would also have a more diverse army from conquering different dungeons than the goblins and not forgetting the boss of said dungeon.

If he made a contract with the dungeon boss, then he would gain more abilities, one that befitted a boss of a dungeon and also another contracted monster in the level of Grux and Betnulb.

'Then that means I have to run around and find more dungeons, conquer or claim them, and then come back to defeat those damned slimes…'

Kalle decided that it was his next course of action as he prepared to leave the legacy dungeon.

Even though he might have spent a couple of hours inside the legacy dungeon and seemed to gain nothing, Kalle had learned that he was still fairly weak and there were all kinds of different enemies out there with unique characteristics.

Also, It wasn't a complete waste of time since time also flowed differently inside the legacy dungeon compared to the real world and Kalle didn't actually spend that much time inside the dungeon.

Before exiting the dungeon, Kalle remembered something and opened up his inventory.

He had asked the staff about it before, but he couldn't use them at home.

So he decided to use them inside the legacy dungeon.

Kalle grabbed the monster core from his inventory and followed the staff's instructions.

Putting the monster core on his left hand and touching it with the staff, Kalle commanded the staff to consume it.

As soon as he commanded it, the monster's core began melting into the staff as it absorbed the yellow pebble and turned it into energy.

The energy traveled from the staff into Kalle's body.

Kalle picked up the yellow pebble with a note that said it could increase his agility, so when the staff absorbed it, Kalle could feel the energy coursing through his whole body, making his body feel somewhat lighter.

But still, Kalle wasn't sure whether the effect was only a placebo or did it really made him more agile.

To make sure that he wasn't just imagining it, Kalle grabbed more agility monster cores and absorbed them all one by one.

When he was on his last agility monster core, which was the 6th one, Kalle was now sure that he wasn't imagining it.

Not only did he feel his body was lighter, but it was very apparent to him that moving his limbs felt significantly easier than before.

Knowing that the monster cores did work in helping him get stronger, Kalle went and finished all 19 remaining monster cores in his inventory increasing his Strength, Vitality, and Spirit.

By the end of it all, Kalle felt like a new man.

Just like when he first discovered mana could enhance his strength, toughness, and speed, the feeling of having his body nourished by the monster cores felt just like that but better.

Different from mana which only gave an ephemeral boost of power, the energy from the monster core stayed inside his body and actually made him better in each of the aspects the monster cores gave him.

He felt so much more powerful than before that he even thought of challenging the slime dungeon for the third time.