Fire Valley

After stocking up on necessary supplies, Alex left the trade center, he found a taxi, and jumped it. Hearing the destination did not surprise the driver and after a quick ride, Alex arrived at a fortified location just outside the city's bounds. The driver wished him good luck and gave some words of encouragement before driving away.

Alex looked over the small fortress that stood in front of him. A circular wall with a reinforced gate surrounded what looked like a crack in reality. It painted the walls surrounding it in a soft, slightly shimmering red light.

Inside the perimeter there were all kinds of devices installed, most likely measuring the fluctuations coming from the crack. A large display was showing various information about the data gathered as well as providing an estimate until the dungeon break.

The text read: "Low Risk of Dungeon Break", which was quite surprising since this dungeon was not very popular due to the exhausting heat within it. It made clearing it more dangerous and rewards were limited to 1-Star grade so most 1-Star grade awakened simply avoided it in favor of other, more mild environment options.

There were still some opportunists or people with appropriate skills or equipment who chose this dungeon simply because the rate of rewards was lower the more frequently the dungeon was cleared.

The location was guarded by two 1-Star awakened and a bunch of unawakened soldiers. Thankfully, slinging pieces of metal at high speeds at your targets was still somewhat effective, otherwise, humanity would probably have already perished.

Actually, the Union military wasn't the worst choice for a career, since then you would have access to government resources, and since the government happily bought the loot from the dungeons in droves, the reserves were pretty substantial. But it also came with severe restrictions on one's freedom, something Alex did not look forward to.

Alex presented his certification at the checkpoint and was allowed to enter. Since he didn't plan to join up with anyone, Alex went straight for the queue and waited patiently for his turn to enter.

As it moved forward, he took notice of some weird looks by other teams. But unlike the guards, they did not comment.

"Another one thinking he's a protagonist."

"Wanna bet on whether he survives?"

"Twenty-five on him running back and exiting within first five minutes."

Alex did not pay much attention to them afterwards. Soon enough, it was his turn to enter. Steeling his resolve he touched the surface of a surrealistically looking crack and disappeared.

"Hundred on him surviving."

"Come on Marv, you always bet on those solo guys and they never clear it. I asked Vito and he told me his permit was issued today. Today!"

"It's my money, and I bet on what I want."

"Whatever."

***

As soon as the nauseating feeling of entering the dungeon dissipated, Alex realized that he was transported to some kind of volcanic mountain valley. An imposing volcano was seen spewing ash and fire into the skies on the horizon. One could argue that this is what the hell looks like, but as far as smell goes, it was probably pretty accurate.

Alex activated the [Resistance] right away and felt much better. Having a climate control system on demand was pretty convenient, and while it did not eliminate all of the heat, it was closer to being in a sauna rather than in an oven now.

At this moment, Alex realized that there were two large reptiles creeping towards him. Because of the soot and the ash in the air, combined with the color of the lizards themselves, it would be hard to notice them if not for the bright orange glow of some of the scales and more importantly their eyes.

Alex quickly recognized the monster. It was Fiery Salamander, and thankfully, aside from having a literally fiery bite, these monsters had no other ability.

One of the lizards that was closer opened its maw and brandished its sharp teeth illuminated by a soft orange glow coming from within the lizard's throat. Alex did not hesitate to send a shard of ice right into its mouth. The sheer force of impact tore the poor salamander apart. A moment later, the second lizard suffered the same fate.

Killing low-level monsters did not bring the same adrenaline rush as before, so Alex quickly picked up the vitality crystal one of the lizards dropped and proceeded deeper into the dungeon.

The lizards were usually just chilling in the dungeon in groups of 2-5. When Alex was close enough, they would detect him as if by magic and attack him. With a rapid-fire 2-Star skill, however, keeping them at a distance was pretty easy.

Alex kept moving forward counting the passes he went through. When he exited the fourth one, a new scene greeted him. Instead of another elongated space filled with lizards, he walked out into a circular open area, surrounded by what looked like a moat filled with lava. In the center of this space, was something that looked like a bonfire, but as soon as Alex walked in, the bonfire stood up and turned around.

It was the first stopping point for many teams clearing Fire Valley. Mid-dungeon boss, Fire Elemental. Many teams would fail here since this monster had an annoying property which made fighting it in melee extremely hard. It had no body. What looked like a body was actually a flame surrounding its internal core. If you tried to hack at it, you would be just waving your sword through the flame without actually hitting it. And thanks to the sheer size of the elemental, to hit the core itself with a melee weapon you would need to practically dive into the flames first.

But Alex wasn't a melee fighter.

Before the Fire Elemental was even able to take one step, Alex already had unleashed three [Ice Razor] shards in its direction. All three connected with the elemental's imposing frame but were unable to hit the small core. Nonetheless the elemental had noticeably shrunk in size.

It roared in rage and began to gather flames for its skill, but before it was able to release any, a volley of ten more ice shards connected solidly with its flame. The first one interrupted the skill cast. The next three missed the cory, but the fourth one struck and shattered in one hit.

"First boss, down in under a minute!" Alex couldn't stop himself from grinning like an idiot.

He quickly approached the remains of the boss to check if dropped anything good. And sure enough, it did. 

The shattered pieces of the elemental's core were accompanied by seven stat crystals, two of them magic, but more importantly, there was a skill shard as well.

Alex picked it up and sent a small amount of his mana inside. A description of the skill appeared in his mind.

[Rejuvenating Flame]:

Covers the caster in flames that slowly mend the wounds over time.

A simple skill, but nonetheless useful. And since Alex had no healing skills up to this point, it was a rather handy drop. He crushed the shard right away and a new skill was added to his skill list. Without hesitation, Alex exited the arena.

The next four zones were a lot more populated with lizards, some packs even surpassing ten in number, but for Alex, it was a trivial obstacle, and before long, he had arrived at the last pass before the last boss. 

Inside the last arena, a spear-wielding Infernal Lizardman was waiting. The lizardman dashed towards Alex the moment he stepped inside the arena. For someone like Alex, whose speed was on the level of 50 agility, dodging the spear strike wasn't hard. However right as Alex evaded the lizardman's strike it opened its mouth and released a fiery breath in Alex's direction.

He tried to dodge again but did not anticipate that the breath could stretch so far. Some of it grazed him and Alex could feel the burning sensation on his skin even though the [Resistance] skill was still active. Burning pain spread through his nerve pathways, but he was able to focus on activating his new healing skill right away.

A warm sensation covered his body and numbed the pain. The burned skin began to heal at a visible speed, albeit slowly.

Meanwhile, the lizardman charged at Alex once more. This time Alex retaliated, using the opportunity that the lizardman's charge left its right side wide open, and launched a shard of ice straight at the beast's chest. The shard pierced right through the scales and sliced the lizardman's heart in two pieces. Its lifeless body flew forward for a couple more meters due to inertia before stopping.

Alex's heart beat like crazy, but under the effect of [Rejuvenating Flame], he quickly calmed down. The boss was still somewhat dangerous to him, but just the mere fact that he solo cleared a 1-Star dungeon in under an hour made him suspect that he was dreaming right now.

But Alex chased away these thoughts, since now was the time to check whether the boss had dropped anything interesting.