Chương 66: (B2 Chapter 17)

We took the time to once again clear the glowing crystals from the ceiling. Luckily, just a few of the crystals had re-spawned, so we were able to take them out in a short time. As we settled down to relax, almost all of us got level up notifications. The rush of energy from my level-up felt incredible as always, and I realized it was my first level since I had gotten my new class. I opened my status and saw the increase in my mana, as well as the five free stat points.

I put two in Wisdom, two in dexterity, and one in perception, just like I had planned. Done with the distribution, I admired my new stats for a second before closing the status window. I looked around at the others who were busy staring at their own status windows. We had been here for what felt like two to three hours and had already started levelling up. For now, coming to this dungeon seemed like a good decision. I just hope this feeling doesn't change…

The sounds of combat rang out all around me. We were at the boundary where the hallway suddenly expanded, taking out the smaller crawlers with ease. We would make some noise to lure a bunch of crawlers towards the smaller hallway, where they would be killed off easily before repeating everything once again. These smaller crawlers were much easier to kill, but also much more numerous. The perfect opponents for a bit of experimenting in understanding how exp worked.

"Hex that one," I pointed at one of the crawlers to Madelline, and she obliged by hexing it. I had my status screen open, and I killed the hexed crawler off with a strike. Then, Madelline and I both stepped away from combat, waiting for the system to assign exp. After about a minute, my exp went up by 9, which was the same as I had been receiving from these smaller ones. The real question was how much Madelline received.

I looked towards her with a questioning gaze, and she averted her eyes, presumably to look at her own status screen.

"Nope, got nothing at all," she stated. Interesting…

"Now, hex that one," I said, pointing to another one. Once it was hexed, I asked Hannah to kill it off. Hannah was the lowest level amongst us; only at level seven as she had only really participated in monster hunts at the end during the tutorial. She had been having real trouble facing off against these crawlers alone, but on the flip side, was gaining experience rapidly. Sam was also still in F Grade, having reached level nine just earlier.

Getting the two of them to E Grade was essential in us being able to move forward with more confidence, and for that, we needed to understand how exp worked. The hex successfully slowed and weakened the crawler, allowing Hannah to kill it off in a few strikes. As soon as the crawler was dead, Hannah and Madelline stepped away from combat, and after the system thought they were out of combat, they both exclaimed about their exp.

Hannah had gotten 22 exp, which was lesser than the range of 30-35 exp she was getting from her solo kills. However, what was interesting was that Madelline also received 6 exp. Her putting a hex on a crawler for me didn't work, but it worked for Hannah. The only difference is that Hannah is much weaker than me… I did the same experiment a few more times by asking Madelline to hex the crawlers for different people, before Madelline announced she was running low on mana.

She stepped back to wait while I started the next round of experiments. I stabbed one of the crawlers deeply, resulting in a crippling injury. It was basically down for the count, but not dead yet. Hannah then stepped in and finished it off before retreating to see if her exp changed. It didn't, while I got my usual exp. Then, Lucas held down a crawler by pressing it down with his shield but without damaging it at all. It just wasn't able to move. Hannah then killed it off.

The result – Lucas got 4 exp, which was much lower than the 10 to 12 exp he normally got. Hannah got nothing. The experiments continued till we finished off the group of crawlers and then decided to retreat back to the safe area, where Omar and I blasted the few returned mana crystals before settling down to regenerate our resources. Marcus also did a round of healing for everyone before settling down and waiting for his own mana to climb back up.

What I had learned showed me that the system didn't just give out exp for killing something. It didn't even matter who did the most damage. What mattered was something far more complex. I wasn't completely sure yet, but it seemed like the system awarded exp based on the amount of challenge that a person faced, and also if a person's contribution to the fight mattered or not. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

For me, Lucas, and Omar, the crawlers weren't any challenge at all. So, it didn't matter if Madelline helped us out by a hex, as it wasn't needed. However, the crawlers were a challenge for Hannah, so Madelline putting a hex on a crawler for her helped Hannah out, allowing her to kill the monster much more easily. Therefore, the system decided to reward Madelline with exp for her hex, and Hannah got reduced exp for the easier fight.

It also awarded exp to Madelline for putting a hex on a monster for Sam, but she got lower exp for helping Sam than she did for helping Hannah, as Sam was a higher level and had better defenses against the crawlers. Another thing that was clear to me was that power-levelling was going to be extremely difficult in this system. It didn't matter how much we tried to limit our impact; any instance of me or Lucas helping cripple, damage, or trap a crawler was met with Hannah or Sam getting no experience at all.

The one exception was if Hannah or Sam started the fight solo and managed to cripple the crawler, but it was then finished off by me. The system rewarded Hannah or Sam with some exp, as they had challenged themselves with a fight, while I got zero. So, being there for lower-levelled people was possible, and it would be relatively safe as a higher levelled person could step in the moment things got too out of hand.

However, the lower levelled person would have to fight by themselves and challenge themselves to grow, there was simply no scenario in which the system would hand out freebies. It had been the same case during the tutorial. The ones who had stayed inside the longhouses without contributing anything had not received any exp or rewards for the completed tutorial. They had just received the Pioneer title and a few bronze coins. Getting the title is more than enough reward for them…

I admit I wasn't much of a fan of the system so far. But the way it was handling giving out exp was something I approved of. There wouldn't be any free-loaders getting power-levelled to insane heights with little to no risk. Although, now that I think about it, human ingenuity works remarkably when wanting to find loopholes, so I'm sure we would be able to find numerous ways to game the system once we had experienced more time in it.

I took out the list of questions I had made earlier, happy that I had made some progress with it. I had started to understand how exp worked, and I thought I had gotten the main gist of it. I went over the list to see what else I could work on, when my eyes fell on my question regarding loot.

'What determines Loot? Is it tied to the nature of the monster, or based on a hidden Luck stat?' This is something I can find out here as well... I opened up my inventory again, looking to see if I had any new loot from the countless crawlers, both large and small, that I had killed. However, I couldn't see anything new inside my inventory. I wasn't sure about the amount of wealth I had earlier, but I was almost certain that even that hadn't changed since we came here. The stingy system strikes again…

I wasn't sure why the dungeon wasn't providing any loot. Would it reward loot based on performance like during the tutorial? Or will loot only be distributed when the dungeon is complete? Or does this dungeon just not have any loot? I sighed, but then put it out of my mind. I couldn't do anything about loot right now, so there was no point in thinking about it. I'll have to think about other things that I could learn while in here…

Time passed as we continued to rest, while my mind kept going over the different things I had already learned, and the different ways I could glean more information about the system. Even though I was a bit miffed about the lack of loot, one thing was becoming abundantly clear – coming to this dungeon had been a great idea!

We trudged forward as silently as possible, keeping our eyes peeled in every direction. We had cleared out the smaller crawlers, and were now making our way through the massive hallway. Although I really wanted to use concealed presence to scout ahead, I refrained from using it. I couldn't afford to be low on mana, especially with how the dungeon had managed to surprise us repeatedly. Instead, I was walking slowly two steps behind Lucas. Hannah was beside me, followed by Omar, Madelline, and Marcus.

Sam brought up the rear, and each of us were looking at all directions constantly, with our heads on a swivel looking around. Despite our alertness, the hallway remained silent, and empty. It had been easily over an hour since we had started making our way forward, and something had yet to change in this never-ending hallway. Omar had tried to start whispered conversations numerous times, always getting shot down by all of us.

He was still fidgeting, and I was sure his next attempt at conversation was just a few moments away. However, before Omar could enlighten us with his entertaining conversation, something changed in the hallway, and it changed quite suddenly. I looked around in alarm, finding everyone else in the same boat, and heaved a sigh of relief at not having been separated from them.

It felt like we had crossed some kind of threshold or a barrier, or perhaps we had been switched to a different place, but we suddenly found ourselves in a large, circular cavern, much like the safe area we had left earlier. There was no transition at all during our walking in the hallway and our appearance inside the cavern. We just… appeared on one side of it. I immediately looked all around, including the ceiling, which I couldn't see at all.

It was so high up that the crystals looked like small stars in the sky. It would have been a beautiful sight had it not been spoiled by something much more sinister on the ground. Are those bones…?