Dungeon Challenge (2)

Once again, he followed his newfound routine and carefully searched the whole room. This time he didn't find anything as useful as the 'Energy Pill' but he still managed to find something. It was a crystal coin with the number five printed on it. After picking it up he was greeted with a prompt.

[[ Currency: Crystal Coin

Value: 5EC

Description: The physical representation of 5 EC. This can be exchanged with other players or put onto your account in a store.

]]

There was nothing to say about it but Ivan found it interesting that the thing he had found by just carefully searching the room was worth more than the monster he had slain.

'Whatever, let's continue.'

Once again, he slowly made his way down the tunnel. And once again the tunnel was straight for some time until it was curved and ended in another room. It seemed like this dungeon had been designed in such a way to slowly introduce players to dungeons. The curves would stop sight between monsters, allowing for the players to fight the monsters inside one room, without alerting those in another room.

Ivan was sure, that there was also something that would stop sound traveling from one room to the next. Maybe the moss would absorb it?

Inside the next room, there once again was just one goblin waiting for him. But this time it faced towards the tunnel he was coming from. This meant that when he saw it, it saw him as well.

And as soon as it spotted him, it stood up and started to rush towards him.

He didn't have any time to develop a fancy strategy to fight against the goblin but was directly thrown into a heated fight.

The goblins low height resulted in its attacks mostly focused on his legs and lower body. This made it quite hard for him to block its attack.

After barely managing to dodge its first swipe with its claws, by turning, he decided to crouch down to improve his range. This way he could more easily block the attacks onto his legs.

He used his arms to block the flurry of strikes from the goblin. Luckily the monster wasn't strong and it was easy to block the strikes with his arms. But while it was easy for him to block the attacks, it wasn't possible for him to attack. He just didn't have the experience, to find a hole in the rhythm of the attacks, which would allow him to counterattack.

Thus, he could only continue to block in the hopes of outlasting the goblin's stamina.

Although the monster attacked him in a frenzy, it didn't have the capabilities required for breaking through Ivan's slowly improving defense.

But it still didn't stop. It continued to attack him with his claws, displaying the simple-mindedness of a monster like this. It wasn't able to strategize.

With each passing second, it became easier for Ivan to defend. Not only did his own skill improve, but the goblin was also getting slower and slower. Instead of trying to counterattack, Ivan decided to continue defending until that monster had run out of stamina completely. Sure, this would also consume more of his own stamina but currently, the most important thing for Ivan was to successfully finish this dungeon. And any way of reducing the risk was highly welcome.

Finally, the goblin was too exhausted to even lift its arms. But even so, it still tried to continue to attack him. But now Ivan was able to easily handle its attacks. And soon it fell under the stabs of his knife.

Once again, its body vanished after falling to the floor, leaving behind only a small piece of flesh as the drop.

[[ Material: Goblin Steak

Grade: 1F

Description: A piece of a goblin, cut into a steak. It contains a large amount of energy and can be eaten raw or prepared to absorb this energy.

Effect: Improving stamina regeneration, Temporary or permanent buff

]]

So, it was a consumable, Ivan mused when reading through the description. Consumables were something extremely useful in many games since they allowed for temporary buffs or restoration of health or mana. And this Goblin Steak seemed to be the equivalent of some kind of steak in such a game. By consuming it, it would provide a buff and if prepared by a cook, this buff could be improved.

But there was one huge difference between a game and reality. In a game, nobody cared about texture, form, color, and taste. None of these things mattered since they weren't something the player could really experience. Who cared if a potion smelled or tasted like shit? The only thing that mattered was the effect it provided. But in reality, there was a huge difference.

Ivan just had to look at the green slimy steak, that smelled slightly rotten, to understand this fact. In a game, he wouldn't hesitate to either consume this steak or keep it for later but now he was more than tempted to just let it lie on the floor and ignore it. It was just too disgusting.

He carefully took stock of his current situation. He had exhausted nearly all his stamina and hadn't even processed far into the dungeon. Also, a lot of time had already passed since he had entered the dungeon and he still had to go to university tomorrow. It wasn't like he could just stop going just because of the appearance of these dungeons.

Currently, there was no way for him to live of dungeon runs and it wasn't sure if he would be able to do so in the future. So, having a good education was still of importance.

Thinking it through he finally decided to try and consume this disgusting Goblin Steak. Taking a deep breath, he picked it up. It felt just like had imagined it. Slightly squishy and without any good texture.

"If only I had a fire. Everything tastes better barbecued."

He then bit down onto the raw steak and a disgusting taste filled his mouth. It was as if he tried to eat some days old socks. Fighting the desire to puke, he hurriedly consumed the whole steak. The faster he did so, the less time he would have to endure that taste.

Luckily, a feeling of warm energy being emitted from his stomach, made it easier to endure the torture that was eating the steak raw. This energy slowly filled his body and washed away his fatigue.

[[ Tip: You have consumed your fist consumable. Consumable are things that contain energy, which can be used by your body and Nanite-Suit. If the energy reaches a certain threshold it can function like energy pills, permanently improving your Nanite-Suit. If not, it will be consumed by your nanites to provide a temporary performance boost. ]]

[[ Buff: Energized

Grade: 1F

Description: Your nanites are flooded with energy, temporarily improving their performance, thus increasing your speed and strength.

Duration: 1h 25min

]]

This was the description of the buff, that had popped up after he had finished the whole disgusting steak.

"I hope, this was worth it.", Ivan sighed. At least it now felt as if his body was once again in its best state. He felt as energetic as when he had just entered the dungeon, or even better.

Not wanting to waste any of the precious time of his buff, something he had gained at the cost of his taste buds, he continued on.

Once again, the tunnel had the same design as before. This time it led to a room which was occupied by two goblins. Both of them were sitting with their backs to the entrance he was coming from.

Once again Ivan had an opportunity to silently kill them before they could fight back. But he knew that he wasn't capable enough to succeed with that. Him even killing one of them with one hit would already be surprising. He had been lucky during the first kill and he had no certainty that he could repeat it.

He analyzed the situation and decided on two possible options for going forward. One was to try to kill one of the two goblins and then fight the other one, while the other was to try to hurt both of them at the same time with the hope of doing enough damage to make the fight possible.

Since he had only one knife he decided, after thinking about it further, to once again try to kill one of the goblins with a stab into the neck, the best spot for him to target, to archive a fast kill.