Chapter Twenty Six

The next half day, Jason dedicated all of his time to completing the dungeon to its fullest. He was not able to increase his wisdom through dungeon bonuses, and the dungeon had become repetitive to the point of boredom. Now that he knew what to do, the desperation was gone. It was only strategy and calculation now.

He had defeated the dungeon three more times before his level had increased to ten. Though it was time consuming, he had long since learned the pattern to the rooms, so he was able to clear them without much difficulty. His mastery over his projectile attacks began showing on his stats after he experimented with them more.

The intensity of his fire and frost mana grew more each time that he cleared the dungeon, he gained proficiency up to half a percent per time.

He also decided to put five stat points into intelligence, and five into his vitality. If he didn't balance them out, he might have a decent mana regeneration as well as mana reserves, but he would be using it all to maintain his life instead of worrying about attacking.

With the bonuses, he was now sitting at a little more than forty thousand dollars and made a mental note to check the store for better equipment, seeing as though he was still sitting at twenty one defense. If he wanted to be a solo leveler, or at least hold his own in a group, he had to find a way to not be so squishy.

Jason took out his phone to exit the dungeon, but stopped. "I'm still good." He said to himself. "Actually, I'm kind of bored." He looked at the next dungeon prompt.

'Level 11-16 dungeon

Enter? {yes} {no}?'

He looked for a moment at the prompt. "I'm only a level ten, why would it let me continue ahead?" His finger hovered above the yes button. If he did go in and he was in over his head, he could always leave and go back to the level ten dungeon, besides, there had to be a reason why the dungeon appeared on the list a level earlier than it would usually. He pressed down on yes and the cavern faded into nothing.

When the darkness faded away, Jason found himself atop a skyscraper. He almost lost his footing as the wind buffeted him. He looked around at a city that could put New York to shame. In every direction, there were two hundred story buildings twenty feet apart from each other, at least.

Jason squinted to attempt to find the edge of the dungeon, but couldn't find the mists. Against his better judgement, he stepped to the ledge of the building and looked down. It was there that he found what he was looking for. He gulped as he saw the insane drop into nothingness. This wasn't a city, it was a floating death trap.

He looked up to see what he was worried about. Above there were hundreds of bird like creatures flying around. "How the hell am I supposed to get them?" He made a mental list of his arsenal and confirmed what he already knew. "I only have two projectile attacks, both which would have a hard time getting to them. I could always teleport to them, but for that distance, it would drain me after just a few jumps."

Jason paced the roof for a moment before deciding on a course of action. "They can't make a dungeon unbeatable!" He yelled at the beasts before teleporting to the first flock. As he appeared, he activated his mana saber and slashed a wide arch towards the first one. The hit connected and the beast was slashed in two, but before he could teleport to the next one, a razor sharp feather found purchase on his abdomen. "What the hell is it with you assholes and the gut?!" He roared as he used flash heal.

The wound closed up and he could feel a slight drain on his mana. He began to fall back towards the rooftops, so he focused on the bird that had clipped him. Activating temporal shift, he teleported half way through the next strike, delivering it directly to the bird's throat when he appeared.

Instead of pausing after the strike, Jason teleported to the next bird, which was just ten feet away. He cleared ten other birds before he felt a headache coming on. He looked back towards the nearest roof and teleported to it. When he felt the solid ground beneath him, he sighed in relief, at least before the first attack came.

Instead of getting out of the area of aggression and cancelling out the battle, Jason had only brought the attack to the roof instead.

Birds divebombed him from every direction. Jason dodged as many as he could, but he could feel cuts forming on his arms and legs, even one to the face. He had only gained a sliver of his mana back, but it was enough to cast flash heal every couple seconds.

Instead of teleporting through the sky, slicing birds to bits, he was now dancing around avoiding the bastards. Instead of increasing in mana, he was using everything he had just to stay alive. Just as soon as he began building a routine to keep himself alive, he felt something change. Before he had the chance to figure it out, his neck hairs began to stand on end. The next thing he knew, his world turned gray.

Looking down at himself, he noticed a hole as wide as a golf ball, perfectly round, had been shot through his skull from behind. He watched as all the birds went back to their formations high in the sky. He waited until his timer finished, then color returned to the world around him.

"This is not like the last two dungeons." He glared at the flying beasts ahead. "There has to be something I'm missing." He looked at his stats one more time:

'Current Level: 10

EXP: 2,600/10,500

HP: 230

MP: 280

STM: 95

Armor Rating: 20

Current Skills:

English Scribe: Intermediate

Cooking: Beginner

Cardio: Intermediate

Hunter: Apprentice

Hand to Hand Combat: Beginner

Sword Skill: Apprentice

Spellbook:

Novice Fire: level 7.2

Novice Water: level 7.0

Novice Wind: level 7.0

Novice Earth: level 0.0

Novice Light: level 3.0

Novice Dark: level 1.2

Novice Time: level 3.1

EXP Bonus: 20%

EXP to next Level: 7,900

Spells Unlocked:

Temporal Shift: Mastery: 100%

Arcane Thrust: Mastery: 2.46%

Mana Saber (Elemental):2.36%

Hurricane Kick: Mastery: 1.0%

Flash Heal: Mastery: 2.82%

Revive: Mastery: 0.00%

Sneak: Mastery: 1.30%

Mana Skin: Mastery 5.10%

Frost Bolt: Mastery 5.10%

Fireball: Mastery 5.10%

Light Ball: 3.10%

Other spells may be unlocked upon experimentation and advancement in rank.

INT:28

STR:25

VIT:23

AGI:33

WIS:43

DEF:23

'You currently have 0 attribute points to distribute.'

Balance: $43,216'

"I got fire, wind and water from the last dungeon, and the one before focused on my physical stats." He thought to himself as he looked at his phone.

He looked at the wind stat, and a small smile played on his lips. It might be time for him to learn how to fly.