Chương 45: The Never Ending Journey

I write this book to crush any hopes and aspirations of those who seek to follow in my footsteps to reach the heights of someone like me, The Supreme Legend Baker Bastian. My path is one of unrelenting suffering, hardships, and delectable pastries. Looking back, I would never have set out to become as strong as I have if I had known what awaited me. I would have chosen a simple life as an actual baker instead of baking monsters in the dungeon. This is not to garner sympathy or understanding.

The only purpose is to dissuade people from going into the dungeon. My father was a highly skilled Baker with a Tier 4 baking skill learned from his father and his father before him. I was going to follow in his footsteps. I always enjoyed the smell of fresh bread. However, he ran afoul of some officials in the Eldarin Empire. Even after going back to investigate, time caused this knowledge to be lost. It doesn't matter except that they stripped me of my family and home and made me a slave.

I would not wish this horrible existence on anyone, not even my enemies. I wish them death so that I may get stronger. My first encounter with the dungeon was as a child slave in the Eldarin Empire. I scouted ahead of the exploration team to check and report on the monsters in the chambers. Many of my fellow slaves died in traps. I remember a boy my age named Sam. He was crushed into paste, which splattered onto me.

When I screamed from shock and ran back, all I received was a slap and was told to stop crying, or it wouldn't be a trap that got me. That was when I resolved to become the strongest. While others died, I continued to live. My skills improved. And then I bypassed a trap and led my masters into it. I rejoiced as the trap sheared off their legs, and they bled out screaming. I took their weapons and equipment and continued on my way.

For years, I lived in the dungeon, preying on the adventuring teams of the Eldarin Empire. One after another fell to whatever weapon I had in hand, freeing slaves. Most of the freed slaves either died or escaped back up to the surface. I went deeper, killing and stealing as I went. The dungeon was unrelenting. While I discovered a red soul fruit early on, to fuel my growth, that was just a single bit of respite from the constant fighting. My reserves regularly dipped down and even exhausted themselves completely.

I didn't care and pressed forward. Unrelenting and uncaring. The more I killed, the more I came to see no value in life, for we are all food for the dungeon, monster food to be eaten and recycled into the hellscape beneath our feet. That was when I had a second brush with death with an Abnormal monster. It was there that I learned the true nature of the great and changing labyrinth beneath us. It does not care. There is no mercy. The monster bit down on my shield arm.

Though I tried to block it, its mouth expanded too wide for its body. I should have dodged. I should have been more careful. None of that mattered in the moment. As its venom entered my arm, I did the only thing I could do. I removed my weakness, which was my arm. While the Abnormal was busy consuming it, I used my good arm to hack it to death with my sword. I then burned my stump closed so that I wouldn't bleed out. That was the first time I left the dungeon to seek a Healer or Fleshcrafter to repair my arm.

The Healer I found healed my arm, since I got to them quickly enough, but they saw my slave brand and planned to report me to the Eldarin Empire. I cut off their head without mercy or regret. For while they had given me my arm, no one would ever take my life from me ever again. I gave the Healer a quick death as an act of mercy and kindness. My third brush with death was the slave hunters of the Eldarin Empire. Word of my deeds had spread throughout the adventurers in the dungeon where I roamed.

I was called many names, but I had no care for the crying of people that had no purpose, no significance. Many of you who will read this don't matter. You are complete and utter trash, thinking there is something beyond suffering and then death. Like trash, I discard everything about you, for there is only one singular vision that carries me forward. My vision. If I had listened to the screams of the people I killed, then I would never have advanced to the heights I have. The slave hunters came in the night.

Nothing but assassins and cowards. They stabbed me, and I stabbed them back. They died and I lived, barely. Poison coursed through my body. But I refused to die. I escaped to a cave behind a waterfall. There I drank the freezing water, ate raw fish, and endured. The pain was beyond reckoning. The slave hunters of the Eldarin Empire liked to make it very clear that death was preferable to their poisons. That was foolish of them, only death matters. As long as I lived, I would triumph.

For an entire year, I fought the poison and wounds, eventually overcoming them in that cave and absorbing them to strengthen myself. Through this process, I earned my first Tier 5 skill. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I returned to my only home that I knew, the dungeon. I had only distant memories of my father and of the smell of bread. The dungeon was a strange home, but the monsters were my family.

They gave me experience, which increased my stats and skills. They let me kill anyone who was my true enemy. Time is strange in the dungeon, for there is no sun. Only the light the dungeon provides. That was when I had my fourth brush with death. A mind parasite that I wasn't ready for. It latched onto the thoughts of my soul. I slammed my head into the rocks repeatedly to daze myself and fight the mind parasite the only way possible. For every bit of damage I did to the monster, I damaged myself as well.

But that didn't matter. Only that I would outlast it. I refused to lie down and die. Many people think I got the scars on my head from being tortured. That is not the case, at least for the first set. I got my first set of facial scars from killing the mind parasite by slamming my head into rocks.

"Damian, is this real?" I asked hesitantly.

"Yes. Historians confirmed many parts. Bastian killed many adventurers of the Eldarin Empire. There was a large spike in disappearances in the dungeon where he had been a slave. There were countless paintings and statues made of the man, even if he didn't care for them," Tutor Damian explained. I turned back to reading with trepidation about what would come next. My fifth brush with death came when I was in a battle with a giant spider of some kind. The spiders are the worst monsters in the dungeon.

While battling it and its smaller brethren, a team of adventurers stumbled upon me and knew of me. Attacked from two directions, it was a desperate battle. My reserves ran out, and my weapon broke. I was forced to use my teeth to rip out the throats of the adventurers and then used their weapons to kill the spiders. I knew the risks of consuming Mana not of one's own, so I consumed nothing, but it was another step on my path. I refused to die, no matter what. That was when I realized the truth.

The winner isn't the one who wins, but the one who lives. Nothing else matters. If you live, you have won. If you die, you have lost. Many people would say running is cowardice, but it doesn't matter. I enjoy winning and my opponent losing. Even if it means running away, I will always come back stronger, no matter what. That is the big secret of my success, never giving up and living. It is easy to make that determination when you are safe and reading this book. But that is why you are trash.

The people who will truly follow in my footsteps already know this wisdom in their hearts. They don't need me to tell them. As I stood there, with the monsters and adventurers scattered about and their corpses left for the dungeon, I roared triumphantly. I was only ten. One of them had a book describing basic Mana control skills. I began to practice and get stronger as I kept killing. Even with my body covered in scars, it didn't matter.

When I returned to the surface, I had a desire for fresh bread, something the dungeon did not provide. That was when I had my sixth brush with death. A baker who liked to bake the destitute into meat pies to feed them to the rich and elite without their knowledge. Turning my passion against me… I suppose I dislike bakers who disrespect their craft as much as slavers. I have debated this in my mind for centuries, but have come to no answer to this vital question, which is worse?

Regardless, I lit both of us on fire when the crazed baker tried to shove me inside an oven. The pain of burning alive is not something one can easily deal with. It transcended regular pain to an entirely new level. My enemy didn't have my conviction or determination, and I burned down the entire bakery. As the flames consumed me, I dragged myself out of the bakery with a sack full of rolls, which weren't meat-filled. While I enjoyed killing my way through my enemies, I also enjoyed fresh rolls.

That is why I spent far too much time working on perfecting my Baking skills. Many people thought it was a joke, since I never shared my bread with anyone. But it is the most delicious bread ever made with a Tier 5 skill. It wasn't at the start; I had to work up to that tier 5 skill, but it is probably my greatest accomplishment, surpassing my ancestors. My enemies would joke that I was Baker, but I preferred that title over anything else in honor of my father.

Baking became my hobby, and I integrated numerous skills into it. It wasn't easy, but this early experience of being burned alive by a disgraceful baker made me come to love burning everything that I didn't like.

"Tutor Damian, what is this?" I asked.

"Ah, are you at the early baking part? He goes on for quite some time talking about baking and describing the various rolls and techniques he developed over his long life."

"Why?"

"Ah, well, Bastian never learned to read or write. While he found a book on Mana, it is speculated that he had people read it to him. An unnamed writer followed him and recorded his entire life's journey in honor of all his achievements. The book is a collection of Bastian's thoughts, with a focus on all the times he came close to death, interspersed with his culinary accolades regarding his many baking skills."

"But…this man is clearly mad."

"Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Your mother might seem a lot more normal, but she has various issues as well. Her focus isn't baking," he said while staring at me. I blushed and felt embarrassed by that comparison.

"Is the entire book like this?"

"Indeed. That is why it isn't very popular despite being incredibly famous. Constant near-death experiences, but as time goes on, Bastian keeps dragging his enemies to their deaths. If they do one bit of damage, he does two bits of damage and tries to outlast them. I don't recommend this fighting style, but it worked for him. There is more speculation about what his tier 6 skill could be. He had one, but no one recorded the specifics of him using it."

"It is depressing," I said.

"Indeed, it is. But he is right. If you can read the entire thing and still want to go into the dungeon, then you have the tenacity to go the distance. And it has taken your mind off other things." Damian was right about that. While reading about Bastian, I had forgotten where I was or why I was at the Five Star Institute of Healing.