Third floor (2)

While the other two goblins were looking at him in shock, he made use of their stupor to attack them. Unable to react to his speedy attack, which made good use of their mental state, they were unable to defend themselves and were slain as well.

The light particle marked not only their end but also the beginning of Ivan's favorite part, collecting the loot. And since this was his first time on the third floor, there was plenty of it.

He didn't take the time to check it in detail but just grabbed it and went back into the starting cave. He didn't want to get surprised by another patrol suddenly appearing while he was checking out the loot.

Back in the safety of the starting cave, he dropped the loot back down onto the floor. Since it had already fallen down, he was sure that him dropping it wouldn't matter.

He hurriedly grabbed a clear ball that threatened to roll away. Just when he wanted to put it down with the rest of his loot, he paused.

"This...", he exclaimed in surprise.

He then hurriedly brought the ball closer to his eyes. Inside the ball was a miniature version of himself. But unlike himself, this version wore only a basic t-shirt and jeans. It didn't even wear a pair of shoes or socks.

Ivan stopped himself from thinking about such unimportant things as the copy's choice of fashion.

He focused his attention on the ball and a popup window appeared in front of him.

[[ Item: Respawn Orb

Bound, Consumable

Grade: 1F

Can be used by the owner "Ivan King", to respawn inside the dungeon, after having died inside a dungeon.

The orb can also reset the dungeon access cooldowns.

Can only be used if Nanite-Suite is in stage 1F

]]

"Wow.", he once again exclaimed. This orb was just too useful. With this, even if he died inside the dungeon, he would be able to access the dungeon again after using it. There would be no need to wait for one year.

Of course, that didn't mean he could take unnecessary risk. It just meant that he had a fallback in case something happened.

After the orb, the other items appeared boring. Mostly because he already had gotten all of them before.

Besides two Goblin Leather and Goblin Steak, there were also some rocks. But not even a single EC or pill had dropped.

"At least I got some more material for crafting.", he murmured to himself before storing the things inside his backpack. Only the orb was placed inside his pocket. After all, he didn't want to lose it, and he wasn't sure if his backpack would be ported to his room if he died inside the dungeon. His pocket seemed to be a more likely option.

A single man slowly crept through a tunnel system. Wherever he found a group of goblins, he ambushed them. Slowly less and less breathing, living beings were left inside the tunnels. All the while, a backpack was slowly filled.

Time flew by and before he knew it, Ivan had slain the last goblin. His body was stained with blood and he was completely exhausted. Even gnawing on raw Goblin Steak wasn't able to remove his exhaustion. That was something he had found out after consuming the fifth one. The energy refill definitely had diminishing returns.

He dragged his tired body through the exit portal, dragging his backpack behind. He didn't even have the strength to check his loot. He only wanted to sleep now. So as soon as he was back in the comfort of his small room, he collapsed. Only his snoring indicated that he was still alive.

With his blood-covered clothes and body, anyone who would enter the room would think he was a corpse. Luckily in their dorm, nobody would enter another guy's room.

The next day he was awoken by a terrible stench combined with a pounding in his head. "Urgh.", he groaned while moving his hand up to hold his head. Before his hand could touch his head another waft of terrible smell entered his nose, waking him up fully.

"Shit.", he cursed out, when he saw the blood on his hand, which nearly touched his head. It had combined with his sweat to create a disgusting brownish red paste.

This paste was not only on his hands but also all over his body.

"Time for a shower.", he hurriedly stripped out of his clothes and after grabbing a towel ran to the bathroom. He didn't care if any of his dorm mates saw him naked, after all, they were all guys and he really didn't want to continue wearing the disgusting clothes and maybe dirtying the floor.

While the hot water of the shower ran down his body, taking with it the dirt, his mind also cleared up. But the headache stayed.

Ivan guessed that he had overused not only his body but also his mind during the dungeon clear yesterday. Even now some of his memories were foggy and not all that clear. He didn't even know how he had gotten back.

After finishing his shower he wound the towel around him and prepared to go back to his room, leaving the small bathroom. This was when he saw his image in the mirror. "Huh?"

When he saw the reflection of himself in the mirror he was surprised. Although he had always tried to stay fit, he hadn't really worked out. His part-time jobs and low amount of money for food had always kept his body in good condition. It was just cheaper to not eat fast food and drink water, which eliminated a lot of problematic foods from his diet.

But now his body seemed to be ripped. He looked like someone who was constantly working out. And not in a body-building way but in the endurance/strength way. His muscles were lean and seemed to be perfectly designed for exerting power for a longer duration.

"Could this be because I have been running the dungeons?", he asked himself before shaking his head. "No way, it has only been a few days. A human shouldn't be able to change his muscles that fast."

But even though common sense told him that it wasn't possible, it was still the only logical explanation. The fighting inside the dungeon should have created this transformation. Maybe the Goblin Steak and the Nanite-Suite had a part in it as well.

Although he didn't know how it happened, he couldn't help but feel happy that it had happened. It was always better to be fit. Especially when running a dungeon.

Having cleaned up he went back to his room and opened the closet to get some new clothes to wear. Once again he was reminded of the fact that he was poor when he found only one pair of jeans and two t-shirts inside. Picking the less washed-out t-shirt he put on the clothes and got to work cleaning up the mess in his room.

First, he grabbed a garbage bag and put his old clothes inside. Although he didn't want to throw them away, it seemed impossible to salvage them. Not to mention them being extremely filthy, they were also cut into pieces. The fighting inside the dungeon yesterday had been much harder than in the two other floors.

He shuddered just thinking back to the desperate moment yesterday when a second patrol had surprised him from the back. If not for him having just finished with the patrol, he wouldn't have survived that organized attack.

If he was unable to utilize a surprise attack, his lack of combat skill and experience showed, making it nearly impossible for him to break their formation.

Dodging the attack of multiple goblins and trying to attack them as well had been an impossible task. Only by risking heavy damage had he managed to take out the leader of that patrol.

While cleaning the floor he thought about how to proceed. Because one thing had become clear to him. Without any systematic training, it would be impossible for him to continue. Now the question was how to get that training. The hub offered knowledge packets that included combat skills, but they were only available after buying the Galactic Common Language Kernel, which was too expensive for him to afford. The second method was to find a teacher outside of the dungeon. There were a lot of martial arts studios in the city and they would be able to provide him with a good basis. The only problem was that they required money to pay for it.

This basically only left him with the most primitive method, which was using the first and second floor to practice his combat skills and collect knowledge. This would mean that he would start at the beginning without being able to make use of the knowledge his predecessors had aquired.