[Cannot Capture Dungeon Monsters]

[Cannot Capture Dungeon Monsters]

The chamber at the bottom of the stairs turned out to be extremely long, as long as the hill itself above the ground, and contained two more groups of enemies like the first. However, when it was finally down to just my team and a single spider I tried to catch one. Only to learn that dungeon monsters were pretty much owned by the dungeons. After the mob had proven useless to me, I simply cast a Spirit Slash through its last ten percent of health.

[+60XP]

"Sixty per spider and sixty per solider, these are good numbers," I say as the others receive the same notification.

At the end of the chamber was another tunnel but this tunnel, like some parts of the back half of the first chamber, was lined with a few dark purple torches that shed the questionable light of the darkness element through the tunnels. Like the first chamber, though, three groups of enemies were waiting along the long tunnel.

The first two groups were just like the groups of seven in the chamber, but the very last group was different. There was but one large undead soldier who stood as tall as the young gigantulas to either side of him. Behind the group was a T intersect at the end of the tunnel with two paths to take, but before we could even think about that we had to get there.

"Lil, buff us," I call out, drawing the attention of the first group of enemies as Papi, Go, Skooma, and I take the lead to engage the undead soldiers. Once our speeds were increased the undead were easy to take advantage of, dipping in and out of their reach with crippling attacks aimed at their legs. The spiders, though, did not simply stand aside.

Almost as soon as the giant spiders tried to join the conflict a barrage of magical attacks from everybody else on the team started draining their health bars. Following up my initial attack with a Slash combined with Spirit Slash that staggers the higher leveled undead, I finally use a simply 360 Edge that shoves the undead backward toward the spiders. Then I lunged in with a 360 Geist that drained all of the enemies in my reach down under fifty percent of their health.

Then, jumping up after a quick landing, I channel more fire element into my sword to make it burn before performing a third 360 Edge and unleashing a set of burning Spirit Slashes in the process, fifty mana points were used up in a single attack but now the tanks of the group were down to twenty percent of their health and the undead soldier's aura fed into my sword upon death.

[+60XP]

I simply leaped back, then, and let the mages in the back unload another barrage on the three Young Gigantulas and more experience notifications appeared. Then the rest of the undead were dismissed from the field right after.

Moving swiftly forward, I let the mages lead the assault on the next group by damaging all of the enemies in one massive barrage before sitting out to let their skills cool. Then everybody who liked swinging a weapon went forward. Despite the way I would have preferred things, I ignored the front line of undead and ran straight into the middle gigantula. Right behind me were Hermes and Cweeper riding on Hermes' lizard.

As I dove under the front most legs of the spider that were suddenly thrust at my chest, an Air Cannon enforced crossbow bolt suddenly disappeared straight into the spider's head. Rolling up to my feet out of sight of the spider's head bar, I stand straight up with my sword pointing up to plunge into the spider's body as I did my best to raise them up. Experience told me that the giantulas around this size were between three and four hundred pounds.

This guy's front legs barely left the ground even as my sword was driven up to the hilt in its underside. Since the game measured weight units by kilograms and one Strength was a weight unit then my permanent Strength of one hundred and thirty-six was right at the line of three hundred pounds with the extra five points from my Delai Family uniform I should have been able to manage around three hundred and ten pounds.

This spider probably weighed five hundred pounds!

Leaping from the lizard and into a sideways Flying Guillotine that dismembers the front two legs the spider had been attacking with, Hermes soon joins my under the spider where he performs a sideways 360 Edge while still in the air. Between my Strength bracing the spider and the advanced goblin's Strength on top of the knockback from 360 Edge, the Young Gigantula soon found its feet no longer touched the ground.

Then, focusing my mind on the raw kinetic energy of the seismic activity involved in Quick Quake, I hop up and uppercut the airborne spider with a quickly cast, "Quick Quake!" There was no earth for the earth element mana gathered around my hand to react to, but when my fist struck the spider's rent underside there was still the same reverberating shock waves that usually displaced soil.

[Learned Spell: Kinetic Force]

[+25XP]

[Kinetic Force Uninitiated: Using magical energy to replicate moving energy, you can now unleash a wave of pure blunt impact force to strike your enemies with as much force as your Strength stat can produce. Costs (10)MP to unleash an expanding cone of Kinetic Force for (10)yds and (30)MP to unleash a 360degree wave of energy. To Initiate, send ten flying 10 enemies you ordinarily could not move by hand]

[Learned Skill: Force Strike]

[+25XP]

[Force Strike Uninitiated: Combining magical attacks with brute physical speed and force is the essence of an Enchanted Warrior. As an Honorary Enchanted warrior, you can obviously do the same thing! Use 20MP to increase the damage of your physical attacks through burst enhancement magic, dealing (130)% normal attack damage. Once Initiated, can be combined with other skills in the same fashion. To Initiate, One-Hit-Kill 10 enemies with a Force Strike]

Luckily, the spider I was fighting had died as its entire body simply cracked apart from the rampant kinetic energy bouncing around inside. Otherwise, I would not have had the time to skim the skill I had just learned. I was honestly a little displeased with the initiation requirement for Force Strike but the 'difficulty' of the requirement was probably a precedent for how strong the skill itself would be.

I hoped.

Running to the right as Hermes cuts left, we both attack different spiders as the others finish sweeping away the undead soldiers. Only a few moments later the remaining two gigantulas were also fading away out of the tunnel. "Go, Skooma, Conan, you two target the left big spider. Papi, Stonewall, Merch, take the right. Lil and Oleander, support the left. Agnes and Ivana, support the right. The big guy feeds my sword."

Taking advantage of my Strength and Agility that both exceeded one hundred, I swiftly run ahead of the others to the end of the tunnel while gathering a handful of St. Elmo's Fire in my left hand while channeling fire into Midnight Hauntings in my right hand.

Even my familiars were left behind on the lizard, forcing Hermes to disembark and run on foot to trail a few yards right behind me with his sword out and at the ready a few yards ahead of his lizard. They were at roughly the same distance ahead of the others who took the time to divvy up first but that would change soon enough.

Roaring to provoke all three of the upper level enemies at the end of the tunnel, I unleash sixty Mana Points worth of St Elmo's Fire across the dwindling distance between the level forty-eight Undead Berserker and myself.

The berserker, who carried a massive two-handed sword that was even bigger than the one Sir Beryl used, was staggered two steps back from the explosion of electricity that left arcs flickering all about their body. The undead even dropped its weapon with a thundering clatter that cracked one of the large masonry bricks in the floor. The spiders who were unaffected by the electrical attack rushed in to support the berserker, standing closer to the full size of a proper Gigantula with the tags 'Adolescent Gigantula' hanging over them.

They were both level forty-eight just like the berserker.

Hermes caught up just as the first spider struck forward, breaking two front legs on one side with a heavy 360 Edge. I was left to deal with the other as he pressed the berserker, though, using a 360 Edge of my own to smash away the multiple legs thrusting at my body. One of them actually managed to hit me, dropping a solid twelve percent of my health even as my skill struck their legs aside.

Cweeper caught up as the spider was pushed back from 360 Edge, unleashing another bolstered crossbow bolt that reinforced the knockback. Then we both rushed passed the spiders to attack the berserker.

Hermes had already chained together a Flying Guillotine and 360 to keep staggering the partially stunned monster, but even after those two attacks and my previous St Elmo's Fire only twenty-five percent of health had dropped from the berserker's black bar.

Preparing for a fight that might take a few moments, I unleash a burning Spirit Slash at the berserker while Cweeper reloads her crossbow. Then, leaping up from the opposite side of the berserker from Hermes, we both perform matching 360 Edge strokes at head height to the berserker. However, my 360 edge triggered five Geists to suddenly swirl about the berserker's body.

Chaining a second 360 Edge right behind the first as Hermes uses another Flying Guillotine to smash apart the berserker's jaw while changing side, I find myself on Hermes' side of the berserker right afterward. "Guillotine Geist!" I call out, forcing myself into a jackknifing front flip that slams the flat of my sword down on the top of the berserker's skull.

The skull began cracking apart and a suddenly super powered crossbow bolt flashed by, punching straight through the forehead to break away several large chunks of the berserker's face. Sadly, only now did his health actually drop below half. "360 Edge! 360 Edge! 360 Edge! 360 Edge! 360 G-" I call out, forcing my skill to enact itself again and again while chipping away eight percents of health at a time before twenty percent of my health suddenly disappeared with a loud cracking noise.

[360 Edge Leveled x3]

[+45XP]

[Your already inhuman body is becoming more adapted to acrobatic maneuvers]

Luckily, the berserker was knocked down to just over ten percent before I found myself faced with a thirty-second timer while once again crippled on the ground. The others had already dealt with the slightly weakened spiders but were still holding off on fighting the berserker. They knew I wanted to feed its aura or soul to my sword as they had seen before.

Just as well, Hermes seemed to understand that something was wrong because he focused more on kiting the berserker away from me than actually damaging it. Still, there were times when he had no choice but to smash into its leg or even cut off one of its arms to avoid being struck. Like me, Hermes seemed to take it as an offense to actually be hit in a fight.

By the time my timer was up the berserker was down the three percent of blinking HP and Hermes was just dancing about its legs. I jumped up and stole the kill with a 360 Edge across its back.

[+120XP]

As I landed from the attack, the aura of the berserker stretched out with my sword and swirled into the hungry blade. However, it was still not enough to increase the spirit's strength again. Luckily, we still had more dungeon entries and more modes to explore with even stronger enemies.

Looking down either path leading away from the T at the end of the tunnel, I find that just ten or so yards down the left path there were numerous webs stretching across and along the next tunnel. However, there were more torches in this tunnel which allowed me to see large moving bodies through some areas between the webs and through the thinner webbing against the light.

Off to the right was just a normal hallway filled with undead soldiers with three berserkers at the end of the corridor.

"Go, Ivana, Oleander, you three and your familiars are coming with me," I decide after only briefly surveying the area. Everyone else, go take care of the spiders and try to preserve the web! Those webs look new which means we can probably harvest them."

Leading my much smaller team of players and familiars to the right, I set the pace at a light jog that nobody has to struggle to keep up with even as the others more calmly walk down the left corridor. Over the party channel, though, Go starts making a few quick calls.

"Dungeons with multiple enemies but one enemy per path are usually leading to a lesser boss," Go warns the entire group. "There's not telling what's coming but for you guys it will certainly be big. Keep Stonewall safe and let him take point against the numbers and the boss. Nobody on our team but Conan, Skooma, and maybe Agnes have died yet so there's no reason to take risks. These are the dungeon's virgin runs, we don't need to worry about speed records."

After being reminded about how 'early' dungeons usually worked in a simplified fashion, even if this was a hidden dungeon, I suddenly wondered why I had brought anyone with me. I needed undead kills more than anyone else here! Yet, I had foolishly opted to share them.

Rushing ahead of the others to take the aggro of the entire first group of undead, I awkward dive sideways along the ground into a sideways Flying Guillotine that sweeps all of the legs around me out from under their bodies. Then I switched right to 360 Edge to shove the falling bodies outward in all directions. Every enemy lost almost thirty percent of their health from the attacks.

Ivana and Oleander both picked the same undead to pelt with arrows and small spells, quickly emptying its health bar in just a few seconds.

[+60XP]

In those few seconds, Go took three of the other undead to tank while I danced around the remaining trio. Passing Spirit Slashes through the entire group as I circle around and keep the slow undead changing directions, I soon lead them over to where Go was performing the same routine simply slashing away with his axes. Gleefully.

Then Ivana and Oleander both unleashed a large explosive spell of either fire and lightning that sprayed all six enemies down to thirty percent health. Then, Go and I simply traded groups and we both passed through swinging low, high, and wildly until the enemies faded away from around us. I took a single hit while making the transfer but nothing compared to Go's straight tanking.

[+360XP]

[Leveled Up]

[All stats raised by 1]

Our familiars honestly just stood back, remaining out of the way in the otherwise close quarters combat. To make up for this, though, I divided my familiars from theirs riding the lizard of the right side of the tunnel while theirs hugged the left wall. The walls here were full of shadowed alcoves that bore linen and leather wrapped bodies on indeterminable age but I was not too worried about surprise mobs.

If there were magic undead enemies that could potentially summon others, though, I would have worried. Since all of these were melee types, though, I did not mind the precariousness of our familiars' positioning. Mostly because, from the flanks, they could unload ranged and magic attacks almost freely while Go and I maintained static positions at the front.

Luckily, Oleander had the all-purpose recovery skill and both Go and I could use physical enhancement to raise our defenses a little as well as increase our damage. I could not initiate the skill while fighting these enemies, even if I managed to sneak up to one and Force Strike them in the head. However, having a quick and minimally disruptive skill that did not have a cool time but increased my damage made maintaining a single position easier.

Every Force Strike I landed was worth more than ten percent of an enemy's health and a sweeping sideways attack could hit at least two enemies at once. It only took a single minute to kill this group of seven at the same times again.

[+420XP]

*