The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 3 - Chapter 54 - The Sixth Theme (Patreon)

                                                                                       Wolf

Before the light of the teleportation even fades, my ears begin to ache as some sort of mechanical sound, similar to that of shifting gears pound into them. When the light finally fades enough for me to open my eyes, I find myself in a strange chamber with a very sci-fi feel to it. The walls, ceiling, and floor are all made up of blue cubes with some sort of purple light in between them. There are also doors on all four walls, with the doors themselves being made out of some sort of silvery-blue metal. They have some sort of diagonal line going through the center of the doors, likely being the spot that they open up.

After adjusting the soundproofing on my headphones, I glance at my system mini-map before opening up my dungeon map and finding the same result.

Neither of them can see beyond the room I’m in.

Which means that this floor is going to be an interesting one.

Right as I am about to step forwards, a notification appears in front of me, surprising me for a second before I begin to read it.

My eyes widen slightly at the reward before three of the same tokens as before appear in front of me. I then reach forwards to grab the small, pale-blue tokens and put them into my inventory.

Now I have four tokens total. Which means that I only need five more to upgrade my ability.

Although, I still haven’t even unlocked the fifth effect yet, so there isn’t much of a rush to upgrade it. From what I remember, the most important benefit to upgrading an ability is the new effect it should be given, with the other benefits being a lot less important.

At that thought, I turn to look at the door directly in front of me.

Judging by the fact that I am in an enclosed room with various different doors, I would be willing to bet that this is a puzzle theme. Just like the very first theme.

Which means that I’m going to have to worry about Pandora’s Boxes again.

I honestly don’t know which theme I like less. The puzzle floors where you are required to open the loot boxes regardless of what type they are, or the hazardous floors that have almost no loot boxes whatsoever.

Either way, it’s a pain in the ass.

Shaking my head to dismiss the thought, I step forwards, only to realize that there isn’t a doorknob. However, before I can react to it at all, the door suddenly opens up on its own.

Okay then… I’m not used to the dungeon having higher leveled technology. Up till now, it’s always been medieval stuff.

I look at the room on the other side of the door for a few seconds, vaguely noting the layout, before opening the System Forums to check on something.

A few minutes pass by before I finally close out of it again and focus on the room beyond the door.

From what I could find, sci-fi-like themes like this one do exist, but they aren’t very common in the dungeon. No one really knows why, but most people seem to guess that it’s going with the average level of technology amongst the people within the System. And since high tech like this is extremely rare within the System, it’s going to be just as rare within the dungeon.

Anyways, I step through the doorway before pausing as the door closes behind me. The room itself has various different screens floating in front of the walls, each with some sort of big green button beneath them. Meanwhile, at the center of the room, there is a pedestal that reaches up to about my waist, with some sort of writing engraved on the top of it.

I ignore the sealed door for now to approach the pedestal before reading what is written on it.

To pass through this room, you must identify the five themes of the dungeon before this floor.

One of my eyebrows raises slightly at the easiness of the puzzle before I turn to look at the screens around me. Each of them shows some sort of environment, all with their own ecosystems and noises coming from them.

The screen on the far left has a simple forest, with the one next to it having a large desert, and the one next to that one being a dark hallway. Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, there is a volcano, a simple, grassy field, and a snowy mountain range. Lastly, on the wall opposite the entrance, surrounding the door on both sides and from above, there are screens depicting a jungle, an empty, snowy field, and a dark forest coated in moonlight.

My eyes focus on the forest a little bit more than the others before I reach forwards and press the green button beneath it.

The forest that changed my life. Where I was bitten and turned into what I am now.

I reach towards the screen for a moment, only to pause and turn towards the next screen, the snowy field.

Probably not the time to reminisce.

I go through and press all of the remaining buttons, the ones for the dark hallway, the large desert, the jungle, and the snowy field before turning back around as the sound of some sort of electronic bell rings throughout the room.

When I look at the pedestal again, I find a large, green and purple chest sitting in its place. The chest is mostly green, but it has the same purple lighting as the walls, ceiling, and floor on each of the edges of the chest, with a very fancy – and high tech – looking seal on the front of the chest.

I guess even the loot boxes are high tech looking on this theme.

Too bad the chest is only an uncommon one though…

After taking a few more seconds to examine the chest, I turn my attention towards the doors in the room. When I walk up to them, neither of them will open, so I guess it is just like with the labyrinth after all.

And here I was hoping that the information I had found on the forums was wrong about that little fact about puzzle themes…

I turn back towards the chest before touching the top of it. As soon as my fingers make contact with the chest, a loud beep comes from within, followed by the sealed portion of the chest extending upwards, lifting the lid slightly before the chest fully opens and the description of an item appears above it.

                                                       -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

                                                            Item | LXRv09 Blaster | Tier 3

This blaster fires off a thin beam of plasma in a straight line. The shot can reach nearly a dozen meters away from the shooting point and can damage beings at level 250 and below.

Note: This weapon takes LXR charges as its ammo. It may not fire without any charges.

                                                        -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

My eyebrows raise slightly in surprise before I shake my head and put the item that appears in place of the description in my inventory.

It’s cool and all, but only being able to damage beings at level 250 and below? The thing is nothing but garbage at my level.

Not even a second later, both of the doors within the room open up, revealing two different rooms, each with three closed doors.

Is this really how this floor is going to be? One puzzle, then a room with four doors, another puzzle, and another room with doors, and so on?

Because this is going to get old really fast if that’s the case…

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