Chương 51: Champion Monster Of The 2nd Layer

This was going to be a hard fight. The Minotaur had a large club in one hand and based on its appearance, had a high Strength stat. Its more extended reach would make it difficult to fight. There were no traps or other monsters in the large chamber, but there were thick stone pillars with magical torches on their sides. The dungeon had a sense of drama, adding light like this for the Champion's chamber. A bow would work best, and then switch to my sword. My shield would be useless. I needed to dodge, not block.

I changed around my equipment and set my pack to the side at the entrance to the tunnel. Steadying my breath, I aimed with my first arrow and fired. The monster's thick neck absorbed it. The thing was twice my height, primarily muscle. It let out a roar and spun to face me, but I had already ducked behind a pillar. I used my sensory skills to track its movement while it spun about, looking for me. Stepping from behind the pillar, I nocked another arrow. This time it sank into the monster's rear right shoulder.

It was already spinning towards me, and I got off a third arrow, which sank into its gut. Casting my bow aside, I drew my sword and raced forward. A shield would only slow me down for this fight. The Minotaur swung its club. Instead of backing away like I had with the troll, I had learned what to do in such a situation. I forced myself to slow down and juke to the side. The club missed me. I was ready to rush forward, and I took advantage of the opening.

I ran past the monster, cutting at its leg with a deep slash, and kept moving. The creature roared and spun around again, but I had moved, and its leg was heavily wounded. It would heal in time, especially since it looked like the Champion had a lot of Vitality as a physical monster. It rushed towards me again, and this time it hesitated, swinging, trying to adjust to my dodge from last time. I didn't hesitate and kept running forward more quickly and juked to the monster's left while it tried to turn.

I body-checked it, sending it stumbling while leaving another heavy gash along its side. It madly rushed after me, and I kept running for one pillar, an immense sense of danger coming from right behind me. Just before I would have run into the pillar, I stepped to the right in a feint and then dove left. The monster tried to adjust, but was too late and slammed headfirst, or horn first in this case, into the stone pillar. I quickly came back up to my feet and rushed in, delivering several slashes.

While a stab might have done more damage, the risk of my blade getting trapped in its body was too great. The Minotaur freed its horns from the stone pillar and took a couple of steps towards me. It then fell to the ground. To make sure it was dead, I stabbed it in the head, sighing with relief. I had beaten a Champion of the 2 nd layer. Even as I smiled, I kept my breathing under control. I beat a level 20 monster with roughly 400 stat points. This was also my limit.

I would go down to the 3 rd layer of the dungeon, but I wouldn't be facing another Champion monster there. While I had won, the dodges had been far too close for comfort. There was no room for error. My shoulder was also sore from the body check I had done on the monster. Already, my healing points had dropped by a quarter from such a minor bruising. It would be nice if I could regulate them better, but I didn't have the skill for that. They would kick in immediately regardless of the injury.

A sore shoulder wasn't the worst. But healing it wouldn't keep my combat ability at its peak. Fighting by myself was a lot different from the time I had come into the dungeon with Squire Jessica. Back then, it had almost seemed like a game. Methodically picking the best way to deal with each monster. But it was fake, there was no genuine risk. This was real. While my mother was watching me, there was no way to teleport between layers in the dungeon.

She could hang back at a distance where my sensory skills wouldn't reach, but I had backtracked twice, and the tunnels and chambers had changed. So, it didn't appear that she was following me, and I was down here by myself. I honestly thought she would have someone monitor me. I looked around with Shadow Vision but spotted nothing hiding. Before I got the Minotaur's core, I looked around once more. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Hmm, there was something off about a portion of the wall on one side of the chamber. Perhaps a hidden room with a natural treasure? Now, that would be amazing. Maybe a red soul fruit even? For any other new adventurer, it would be priceless; for me, my mother had given me far stronger soul fruits. It would feel like a step backward to consume a red one. I suppose I was truly spoiled. After dealing with the monster corpse and cleaning off my equipment and armor, I went over and got my pack.

Only after doing all of this did I carefully approach the section of wall that was off. Using Mana Sense, there was an abnormal flow of Mana in this area. The first test I did was poking the area with my spear. Nothing, no reaction. I poked it several more times in the surrounding area. Still no reaction. I stepped closer to get a more detailed look. Mana would normally flow through the walls and other structures, making them more challenging to damage. But here the Mana was flowing inwards, like a sideways hole.

It was a minor disturbance, not a large hole, but there was something there. I poked it several more times with my spear and focused all my senses on the location, but still nothing. It could be another oddity of the dungeon, but I wasn't about to walk away when there might be a secret room with a natural treasure. There was a reason they were hard to find. Most people lucked out, stumbling over one during a battle.

But if you had the right skills and sufficient experience, then it was possible to detect something like this. There was a reason my mother wanted me to get the specific skill Shadow Vision. Poking the wall some more, I was uncertain of my next action. I put my spear away and got the Minotaur's club. I hammered the wall. Although there was some minor cracking, the damage was superficial and didn't reveal a secret passage.

This was annoying, but I wasn't about to let a natural treasure of the dungeon slip through my fingers. I kept swinging the club. Every couple of minutes, I would take a break and check my surroundings to make sure nothing was sneaking up on me. Slowly, I broke the wall. After an hour of work, there was a crumbling hole that was about the size of my head, just wider than it was tall. Based on the change in sound from hitting the wall, there was clearly a chamber behind this section.

I had a meal of salted jerky and dry bread. It was nasty, unlike the nice food Squire Jessica had in her spatial storage the last time we came down here. While it wasn't something a noble would eat, it was better than this nonsense. I didn't need to do anything to prepare it at least. Cooking was definitely something I was going to learn. While I didn't mind pushing myself, there was no reason to be miserable the rest of the time. Misery did not make skills level up faster.

Focus and the threat of death improved their leveling speed. I guess misery might be a form of death. I would have to double-check with Mother once I left the dungeon. After being down here for a month, I realized that spending the last two months on the 3 rd layer felt like a good idea. The regular monsters would push me to new heights, and the dungeon would pull out more tricks. I had only encountered one trap so far, a pressure plate, which I had carefully gone around. I didn't want to face spiders again.

They were the absolute worst. Those ice spiders had been a massive pain to kill since they kept staying at a distance and shot frozen webbing at me, trying to entrap me. At least they were slow and weak. It was still incredibly annoying even if I had won. I preferred monsters like the Minotaur I had just fought. Straightforward, no other nonsense to deal with. The one nice thing I could say about the dungeon was that it was never dull and constantly changing.

Trying to spot the tiny differences in similar biomes was a way to keep my focus on my surroundings, to check for hidden traps or something like this spot I had just discovered. After I finished my cold, sad meal, I stood up and swung the oversized club several more times, gradually demolishing the wall. My stamina reserves had recovered, which was another reason for frequent breaks, ensuring my reserves never ran low in case of an emergency. That was how more experienced adventurers died.

Monsters slowly ground down their reserves, leaving them with nothing, and then overwhelmed them. It was essential to always keep an eye on them. My skill System Sense helped with that, allowing me to sense my reserves more easily. Constant checking of just my reserves had unlocked that skill previously. Now it was something I was constantly working on, just like my breathing. Finding a natural treasure in the dungeon wasn't easy. People were more likely to see other people or lost gear than natural treasures.

I had already come across a couple of packs and corpses. I put away the adventurer's plates in my pack to return them to the Adventurer's Guild so the guild could mark the adventurers as dead. My mother's discovery of two green soul fruits, which she didn't use, was awe-inspiring. I'd need to ask her how she did it. Perhaps there was a treasure sense skill? If there were, and she had it, that would be incredibly powerful. Or maybe some upgraded version of Depth Sense. Or it was Shadow Vision.

She had specifically gotten this skill for me. While it was to look for hidden enemies and traps, it also gave me a chance to spot locations like this one. Seeing the difference between the flow of Mana and the physical world, where there were disruptions. It was distracting to use during a fight, but I was getting used to using it down here in the dungeon to check everything. I observed that the wall was weaker where less Mana flowed, around the area I'd missed.

I crashed into the wall once more, and this time a sizable piece crumbled and broke off. I lowered the club and examined the concealed, obscure room, though I couldn't see anything. That's when a sense of danger washed over me.