10 - Level Up (Patreon)

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Ryan sneaked around the wooden crate, getting dangerously close to that humanoid figure made of brick, held together by a flower's roots. And then, he finally found the bud of that flower; it was hidden at its side, covered by its arm most of the time. This was going to be a bit rougher to deal with, but him and Maximus really did have to take this one down. It stood in the way of where they needed to go; a door leading to another room via these catwalks.

However, Ryan had an idea. He locked eyes with Maximus and carefully placed the knight down onto the front of his left boot, where he was holding onto the laces. Slowly, Ryan moved forward toward the back of the monster, tightening his grip on his pickaxe. He had practiced with this plenty yesterday, so he had a pretty good feeling of the range of this thing. But it was also going to be his first time actually swinging it at one of the monsters in this dungeon.

Ryan suppressed his breath, trying to be as quiet as he could be, as he stood up and straightened his back. He pulled the pickaxe back and with a swift motion, swung it right at the monster's underarm. The pickaxe was lodged between the bricks as fragments were flung around. Keeping the pickaxe pushed in so it wouldn't dislodge, Ryan pulled his whole upper body backward while shifting his weight onto his right leg, pushing his other foot into the monster's hip, or where its hip would be, as though he was trying to tear its arm off. With this, before the Monster was even able to properly react, Maximus was delivered basically right to the flower bud and was able to quickly cut through it. Immediately, Ryan could feel the resistance of the bricks disappear, and quickly twisted his body around so that he wouldn't be thrown backward.

The monster fell apart into a pile of bricks as the roots that supported its body disappeared, and Maximus glanced up at Ryan, who wasn't able to hide the broad grin on his face. Doing things like this, fighting freely without restraint was just exciting beyond belief. It made Ryan feel a bit of regret at not having gotten a physical class that would allow him to train his combat abilities much more easily, but at the same time, fighting alongside Maximus was a unique experience as well. Not to mention, he had grown quite attached to Maximus, so he wouldn't trade this class for anything. Not even that massive, life-changing amount of money that Bluesky was offering to buy his class.

Ryan squatted down in front of the pile of bricks, pushing it all to the side to look for the seeds, when two windows appeared in front of Ryan. One was pale blue, like the ones that always popped up in front of Ryan when he was checking his own skills. And one was a deep red, belonging to Maximus.

They both said the same thing.

[You have levelled up!]

Ryan's heart pounded in his chest. If he didn't know any better, he would swear that others would be able to his chest rapidly pop up and down, and a broad grin appeared on his face.

Immediately, Ryan pulled up his and Maximus' status windows.

[Ryan Aglecard] [Age - 19]

[Spirit Keeper | Level - 2 (+1)]

[MP - 21 (+3)]

[Stats]

-[Dexterity - 1.17 (+0.05)]

-[Intuition - 1.1 (+0.09)]

-[Mana - 0.62 (+0.06)]

-[Sociability - 1.06 (+0.08)]

-[Spirituality 0.55 (+0.08)]

[Skills]

-[Spirit Construction | Level - 3]

-[Spirit Domain | Level - 1]

-[Spirit Link | Level - 3]

[Maximus]

[Knight | Level - 2 (+1)]

[AP - 23 (+5)]

[Stats]

-[Aura - 0.66 (+0.1)]

-[Strength - 0.87 (+0.08)]

-[Stamina 0.77 (+0.06)]

-[Resistance - 0.86 (+0.06)]

-[Physicality - 0.81 (+0.09)]

[Skills]

-[Knight's Attack | Level - 4]

-[Knight's Guard | Level - 2]

-[Knight's Martial Knowledge | Level - 2]

Ryan looked at the increases within the knight's as well as his own statuses, and was more than just happy with it. Both his own and Maximus' five base stats increased by more than 0.3 total each, which was actually slightly above the average. Especially Maximus, his stats increased by nearly 0.4.

While Ryan couldn't feel a massive difference just yet, there was definitely something tangibly different than it had been just a minute ago. Whether it was his senses or that subtle heat flowing through his body; it all just became clearer. Though, the kinds of stats that Ryan had were a bit harder to really notice in the first place. He should really start working out with Yanna so that he could unlock some physical stats beyond 'Dexterity'. Those wouldn't automatically increase by levelling up, but training was usually considered a more effective method of increasing your stats anyway.

That was, if you weren't Maximus. He was training like a madman whenever he was in the Domain, but his stats never increased. Which, to an extent, made sense. His body was something that was 'built' by Ryan, after all. It most likely wouldn't be able to increase in strength that easily. Though, Maximus didn't seem to care that his stats didn't increase through training, at least when Ryan asked him about it. Maybe that training was just some kind of habit that had formed, like something to let off steam.

For a short moment, Ryan looked over at Maximus, who was seemingly hoping to quickly move on. He was right, Ryan could geek out over all of this later when there wasn't a constant threat of being attacked. After getting rid of the system windows, Ryan quickly picked up the seeds that the monster dropped and then grabbed Maximus. The two quickly hurried over to the doorway that this worker had blocked. Peeking through, it seemed to be completely empty. It seemed like some kind of break room, with old tables set up in rows for the factory workers to eat their lunch at.

Since this place was empty right now, Ryan quickly took the opportunity to check his phone. There was a specific place that he was looking for; the office.

When looking at the factory's original blueprint and comparing it to the map of the dungeon, the only room that seemingly wasn't copied over was the elevated office space overseeing the main foundry hall. Of course, a dungeon's layout usually didn't adhere to what it was before. For example, this break room was originally near the entrance and on the ground floor, not here on this elevated level you could only access through the catwalks. However, it was unusual for a space to be completely missing from the dungeon.

That was, unless it was done deliberately. Maybe the dungeon was initially born within the office space, so it was treating that area as a bit more 'special', turning it into either a unique or a much rarer occurrence. That was Ryan's current theory, at least. And if that was the case, whatever it was that pulled Maximus to this dungeon would probably be in there. He didn't even bat an eye at anything else in the dungeon so far, after all.

He looked at the map provided on the Awakened Forum's page for this dungeon, trying to figure it out somehow. But if the dungeon could purposefully hide away the offices, then it probably had a fairly high connectivity to the space itself, so there should be some kind of pattern there. Especially because the monsters were acting in very specific ways, Ryan guessed that this dungeon might already be a lot more intelligent than you would think.

And then, Ryan noticed it. At the edge of the currently explored dungeon was an empty space on the map. It wasn't particularly large; actually, it was quite small, so it was easy for him to overlook it until now. Adjacent to that empty space were hallways as well as one of these production halls that Ryan was in just now. Initially he thought that it would just be a space that the dungeon hadn't taken into account, but looking at the rest of the map, it was all fitting together like a perfect puzzle. Having that kind of space just left open like that without any kind of entrance was far too suspicious. However, it was pretty deep into the dungeon, so Ryan would have to be careful on his way there.

Just as he was thinking that, Ryan heard heavy footsteps outside in the large hall. He peeked up and looked out of the door leading back. There wasn't a monster there, so he carefully stepped out, and saw that something was going on at the crucible. It was quite literally overflowing now, with splatters of molten copper hitting the ground. But right in front of it, where the moulds would usually be placed, stood one of the workers. The Cyclops-shaped monster was holding onto the edge of the crucible, and carefully tipped it over. A flood of red hot, liquid metal flowed over the worker. That whole massive crucible was emptied on top of it, but there was barely a puddle forming at its feet, as though its body was soaking up all the metal like a sponge.

It didn't take long for the metal to seemingly cool down; it happened much faster than normal, but this wasn't quite the usual process anyway, so Ryan dismissed the dungeon's logic. All that copper was created by the dungeon in the first place, so it could do whatever it wanted with it. Either way, once the metal had cooled down, Ryan saw the second type of monster for the first time.

The newly-created foreman took a step forward. The flower bud that had been growing on its chest had now bloomed into a metallic copper flower, and the gaps between the bricks were completely filled in with metal as well. Nonetheless, it seemed to be moving perfectly fine.

Without hesitation, the foreman walked over to a nearby pile of copper ore that hadn't been thrown into the crucible yet, picking up a piece of the oxidized, green ore before holding it up to the flower on its chest. And as if it was a vacuum sucking in a ball of hair, the copper was quickly devoured. The foreman did so with all of the remaining copper that was laying there, and when it was finally done, a small area of copper had formed around its chest, now covering the bricks, as metallic tendrils started to spread over its body starting at the flower's base.

'So that's how they transform...' Ryan thought to himself. If he could report that later on, he might actually be able to get a bit of money from the DMB. Unless someone else already reported this, of course.

Ryan carefully stepped back into the break room. Now that a foreman was in this hall together with all the workers, Ryan really didn't want to take any risks. There was another exit on the other side of the break room.

Ryan rushed through the space, carefully peering through the doorway. It was another catwalk in some kind of storage room. Looking around, there weren't that many workers in here, and only one or two on the catwalk network up here. Down below was a massive pile of raw copper ore, that different workers were shovelling into the minecarts so that another one could start bringing it away. Though, the rails were leading away from the room that Ryan was just in. If the Dungeon wanted to create more foremen, then it would've been a lot easier to just connect this storage room to the adjacent room with the crucible.

'Maybe there's something about the ritual of bringing the ore through the rest of the building,' Ryan thought to himself. Most dungeons worked in that kind of way, following arbitrary rules that it imposed on itself. Whichever the case, Ryan didn't really have the time to think about that right now. He slowly continued on, trying to get an overview of the space and the monsters within it. Before long, he figured out a good moment to try and get out, and quietly rushed down the catwalk's stairs. He turned around the corner into the hallway, trying to remember the map in his mind.

'One right, two lefts, straight, and then right and left again...' he repeated in his mind over and over again. Luckily, by now the 'Spirit Link' skill cooled down, so he was able to use it again and send Maximus ahead for scouting. Since even when he was sprinting, Maximus didn't make any noise due to his low weight, the knight was running a bit of a distance ahead of Ryan, checking out the hallways and spaces that they had to go through to get to their destination.

Now that they had a clue about where they had to go, that was their focus instead of trying to keep taking down more Workers. They could do that later on their way back, where they would end up closer to the dungeon's entrance in case something went wrong.

The way they were moving, it didn't take the pair all too long to get to their destination, and they were soon just a little bit away from the space that Ryan guessed to be the office. Maximus seemed to be getting more motivated to continue on as well, as if he was sensing what it was that made him want to come here in the first place.

However, there was an issue. There was a monster walking through that hallway, and if it had just been a worker, that wouldn't have been an issue. But it was a foreman. Those metallic flowers that sprouted from the buds couldn't just be cut apart, so they would probably have to be destroyed otherwise, and definitely wouldn't go down with just a single attack either.

But that wasn't even the worst part. The foreman was based on a Cyclops. A three-metre mountain of bricks and metal. Copper tendrils were covering nearly its whole body, with reddish-brown buds carefully sprouting along them. This was clearly a more advanced version of the foreman, and Ryan didn't know if that already made it stronger than others.

He thought for a moment. It would be too risky to just face the foreman, and due to the position of the metal flower that they had to destroy, the difficulty was raised even more. It was right in the centre of its face, where its eye would usually be. He tapped his foot on the ground nervously, trying to come up with a solution. If there were just some kind of entrance to the office already, this wouldn't be much of a problem. He could probably just sneak past the foreman somehow. But there wasn't; Ryan would need to try and break through the wall somehow. And that would not only take time, but also make plenty of noise; it's not the kind of thing he could do sneakily.

But then, an idea came to him. Maybe he could lure the foreman away after all. He pulled out his phone and double-checked the map, looking for a good spot to execute the idea. Ryan used one of the entrances leading away from the foreman and sneaked through the foundry, soon finding the rails that he was looking for. If he followed these rails, then he would end up in one of the storage rooms with those massive piles of ore. He slowly made his way down the rails toward a specific area where he could hide out and wait for an opportunity. And it didn't take long for a worker with a cart to come by either.

Since Maximus and Ryan already had some practice with these guys, it wasn't particularly hard to take the worker down. And once he did, he took his pickaxe and lodged it under the wheel, trying to tip the cart over somehow. Luckily, the handle of the pickaxe was also made of metal and was well-reinforced, so there was no threat of breaking it. Though, Ryan had to shovel parts of the ore out of the cart first to make it a bit lighter, but soon managed to finally tip the whole thing over.

Immediately, Ryan picked up as much of the ore as he could possibly carry, creating small mounds of it at regular distances leading back to the tipped-over minecart. He was creating a trail for the foreman to follow right back to the minecart filled to the brim with ore.

As he was making his way here, he had spotted two other foremen that he had been able to avoid easily enough. But each of them was picking up any copper that was left behind on the ground, ignoring the carts and storage rooms completely, so Ryan figured they only 'cleaned up' any ore that wasn't going to be directly used to create more foremen. And by tipping over that cart, Ryan hoped that it would count in the same way, and would keep the cyclops foreman distracted for long enough.

Ryan turned around the corner, placing down the last small pile, holding one of the clumps of ore in his hand, getting ready to bolt down the hallway in the other direction. He could see the foreman in the distance, its back turned to him right now. Ryan took a deep breath, and threw the ore into the hallway, specifically aiming for a spot without grass or moss. But before it even landed, Ryan was around the corner and rushing toward one of the nearby doorways, as he heard the footsteps of the massive monster come closer to the corner. They stopped for a while, then moved on. Then stopped for a while, and moved on. It seemed to be working.

Now, he just had to get back to that hallway.

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