At some point, Kairos no longer thought of himself going down a pathway filled with poisonous daggers. Instead, he began to see everything as a set of patterns and conditions. If he felt pain, he would retract his body. If he felt the bag get caught by the dagger, he would pull a bit faster.
Kairos kept his arm close to his side so that he wouldn’t trigger daggers that were far away, thus avoiding a situation where he couldn’t pull his bag in time.
It was almost like he had become a machine.
Move now.
Stop then.
Speed up soon.
Kairos wasn’t truly thinking anymore. Other than thoughts of performing the task before him, all other thoughts avoided him.
It was to the point that when he felt that the daggers had stopped coming for him, he was confused. Kairos continued to try to move like he did before, but there was no feedback. Eventually, he snapped out of his stupor and opened his eyes.
He was in another room.
Except this one was different. Instead of there being other pathways, it was just one giant room. Kairos would’ve considered it a dead end if it wasn’t for the glowing misty blue pillar in the middle.
After a bit of hesitation, he walked towards the pillar and touched it.
His hand phased through and a familiar water-like sensation came back to Kairos. A possibility formed in his mind, but he was partly in disbelief.
He walked into the blue pillar and had a strange sensation of falling, but not really falling. The misty blue mana wrapped around his body.
Until eventually, he found himself back in his room.
[1st Dungeon Floor Cleared – 50 Dungeon Currency awarded]
[First 25 To Clear First Floor of Dungeon 0032 (25th – by ID: 345315364923) – 5 points awarded]
Kairos blinked a few times, looking at the system notifications.
He was honestly surprised that he had actually gotten a decently large amount of dungeon currency. Though, maybe that was actually just his misconception with his lacking understanding.
Another thing he was surprised about was that he had gotten a top twenty-five achievement as opposed to the traditional top ten. On top of that, it meant that only twenty-four other people had actually been able to pass the first floor of this particular dungeon.
When Kairos recalled all the dead bodies he saw outside he couldn’t help but suck in a cold breath. It was almost like one of those post-secondary schools that had an unbelievably low acceptance rate.
Though, when Kairos thought about it, that was pretty reasonable given the difficulty. After all, even just the hallway with spears was hard enough, then you would have to get lucky that one of the paths was actually the correct one.
If it wasn’t for the man that had indicated that he cleared most of the other labyrinth, Kairos wouldn’t have had such an easy time finding the right path.
He looked over to the holographic projections, standing there completely still with the same smile it always had. After walking a little closer, it began to talk.
“Congratulations on clearing the first floor! Your room will be merged with the dungeon lobby within the next few hours.”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“Dungeon lobby?”
The projection quickly responded.
“You will join the others that have also cleared the floor! It’s a privilege for all those that have worked hard to climb the dungeon.”
Kairos’ eyelid twitched.
“Can I be excluded from this privilege?”
The projection immediately spoke.
“No.”
Kairos blinked a few times before letting out a sigh.
“Can I see my status panel?”
Once he said that a panel appeared next to the projection.
[Status]
[Floor Level: 1]
[Dungeon Currency: 64]
Kairos rubbed his chin.
“Hm… I only remember gaining enough points to have sixty-two.”
The projection spoke up.
“That is because certain actions within the floors can also give points, such as passing through hallways. The dungeon is very generous!”
Kairos sighed.
“Sure… could you open the store page?”
The projection complied.
“Of course!”
[Shop]
[Bread and Water – 1 point]
[Fried Rice and Milk – 3 points]
[Steak and Wine – 5 points]
[Blanket – 4 points]
[Bed – 10 points]
[More]
Kairos clicked on the tab that said more, and several other options popped up.
[Proof of Perfection Point – 1 point]
[Random Elemental Spell (1 Available per Participant) – 10 points]
Kairos’ eyes widened considerably once he saw what was available.
His fingers immediately began itching to spend his points, but he stopped himself from hastily doing anything. Kairos definitely planned on taking the elemental spell, as he had never seen a way to gain a spell like this elsewhere. With how the conversion system worked, it was basically ten points he could use for evolution, when he spent only five last time.
But although it was overpriced, he still didn’t have a shadow of a doubt that he wanted it.
Something so limited was just too valuable, even if its price was normally lower.
Kairos was also very tempted to spend all of the other points on evolution points. After all, the fifty-four points were more than all of his current status points added together.
Nonetheless, he couldn’t help but feel there was some sort of caveat.
There was no way that this place was going to be that generous given how stingy it was earlier. Nonetheless, Kairos couldn’t see a world where he didn’t buy the spell.
And so, he tapped on it.
His mind suddenly felt strangely clear as information became infused in his mind. It almost felt as though he had suddenly grown another limb, but he was able to use it as though he had been born with it.
After a minute or so, Kairos muttered to himself.
“Gale spell?”
He opened up his status panel and saw that there was a new addition to his special abilities.
[Gale Spell (F)]
The first thought that came to mind was that this spell sounded similar to Tori’s wind spell. Kairos’ impression of the spell was that it was fairly underwhelming compared to the power of the other elemental spells.
However, his spell seemed to be different, for better or for worse.
He was almost full on mana, thus he wasn’t too concerned about conserving it. And so, he tested out casting the spell at its minimum mana requirement.
Kairos could tell something had formed just above his four fingers, but he couldn’t see it. After a moment of contemplation, he held his fingers out straight and pointed towards a wall.
Suddenly, a whipping sound filled the air before a clear smack.
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
It seemed that this spell conjured a wind blade. He decided to pour more mana into it, enough to form a fireball that was a meter wide.
Faint blue mist had formed around his hand, but other than that, there was nothing showing. Nonetheless, Kairos felt the tip of his fingers get a little heavier as the air around it became quite dense.
The charging time was roughly the same as the fire spell, a couple of seconds.
He then let it loose.
A subtle whistling sound filled the air before a loud bang resounded. His wind blade had collided with the wall, but it was still intact. Kairos closed his eyes and pondered over the power of the spell.
It definitely paled in comparison with the giant explosion the fireball had as well as the flames that came afterward. However, sometimes the flames were undesirable as they could cause some friendly fire.
The gale spell also had the advantage of being invisible. While the pulse spell also had this property, its damage dropped off significantly past a few meters while the gale spell did not have this problem.
Kairos was satisfied with the spell. Though it wasn’t anything too different from his current skill set, it helped tie up loose ends.
He then took another look at his status panel.
[Status]
[ID: 345315364923]
[Rank: 471/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup]
[Objective: Clear Dungeon]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 5.5]
[Stats –
Strength – 12.0
Endurance – 11.0
Agility – 12.6
Willpower – 4.9
Mana Capacity – 9.0
Magic Affinity – 7.2]
[Special Abilities: Fire Spell (F), Pulse Spell (F), Gale Spell (F)]
[Inborn Abilities: Shattered Truth (F)]
[Hide]
Kairos thought about the projection’s words earlier, that his room would be merged with the lobby. That meant he would be placed with other similarly powerful people, thus it was probably best his stats were a little higher.
One thing he could assume was that they had gotten the top 25 achievement, and at a higher rank than him. In other words, they would have far more points. Those that were near the top should have countless points from the achievement alone.
Though Kairos wasn’t sure, if there was an increment of 5 points for each rise in rank, that meant the first person to clear the dungeon got 125 points.
Which was quite a terrifying amount.
Kairos thought about evolving, but did not actually have enough evolution energy to do so. The only thing he could hope for was that the others weren’t able to evolve either.
With narrowed eyes, he clicked on the option in the shop to buy evolution points.
[Points: 5.5 – 9.5 | Dungeon Currency: 54 – 50]
Then, Kairos maxed out his physical stats.
[Strength: 12.0 – 14.9 | Points: 9.5 – 6.6]
[Endurance: 11.0 – 14.9 | Points: 6.6 – 2.7]
[Agility: 12.6 – 14.9 | Points: 2.7 – 0.4]
Kairos took several deep breaths as his body began heating up tremendously. He began sweating fairly badly, but it wasn’t too bad overall.
The only slight issue was that he had begun to feel hungry.
It wasn’t the kind he normally got from spending so many points, where he couldn’t stop himself from tearing through everything around him. However, it would definitely affect him as he moved on.
Though the effects of the green orb were strong, they weren’t omnipotent.
Kairos frowned.
He didn’t want to spend points on bread and water, especially considering that they had the value of an entire evolution point. Yet, at the same time, he didn’t want to consume one of the green orbs just yet.
In the end, Kairos decided to wait and see.
The hallway in his room that used to lead to a glowing blue mist of mana was now blocked off by stone. As such, there was nothing to do for now.
Kairos laid down on the ground and closed his eyes. His shoulder still ached slightly, but it was mostly his head that was hurting. His hunger couldn’t compare either, as it wasn’t nearly as bad.
He passed time with regulated breathing, deliberately taking air in before expelling it out.
The stress in Kairos’ mind gradually lowered, becoming far less painful.
This was actually something he was quite used to doing, as he would frequently have to deal with excessive amounts of stress. This was something that persisted even after he had gotten his glasses.
Only after several years from then, did it calm down by quite a bit.
Kairos sometimes found it a little crazy when he thought back to how bad it was when he didn’t have glasses. Most of his days were spent with closed eyes and regulating his breathing to try and lower his stress, just like now.
He honestly had no idea how he had dealt with it before.
Though, it seemed like he would have to learn soon, unless he could get some replacement for his glasses.
Kairos remembered another small issue.
It was almost impossible for him to sleep before he got his glasses, and even if he could, it would be for a few hours at most. The nightmares didn’t help either.
And that was something he was experiencing right now.
Though his stress dipped, it still stayed above a certain threshold and made it difficult to feel sleepy.
Nonetheless, he wasn’t aiming to sleep right now.
After all, he was going to meet his fellow dungeoneers.