Chapter 2: Hunting

As he slunk off into the forest, Derek mulled over what the mysterious voice had said. It seemed that he had to kill things to level up. He grinned as he thought about all the skills he would get. However, for that he would find an opponent. Derek cleared the errant thoughts from his head and focused on the hunt.

As he stalked through the forest, Derek thought about what would happen to humanity after the tutorial ended. The voice mentioned that they had to join one of the six great powers after 1 year, which didn't sound great. "Also," Derek said, "what is up with this empty forest? Where are these dungeons the voice told us about?" As if mocking his words, not even 10 minutes later, Derek found himself at the mouth of a cave in an open area in the middle of the forest. Derek was deeply suspicious of this strange cave, but made the decision to creep inside.

As soon as he stepped inside, Derek felt a strange sensation, as if he was experiencing turbulence on a plane. When he looked around to find the cause of this sensation, Derek found himself at the entrance of a mossy, overgrown, giant temple. He looked around, awestruck at the site. The temple must have been 25 meters tall at the very least. He could see hundreds of precisely carved, delicate statues. He was pulled away from the breath-taking view when he saw a notification from the system.

New achievement! The first dungeoneer! 

This is an upgraded version of the achievement Dungeon Diver! This is because you are the first user of  the system (Milky way) to go into a dungeon. This Achievement gives you a 10% bonus to all stats in a dungeon!

The Aztec Temple

Recommended party size: 5

Completion at lvl 10- Common class

Completion at lvl 8- Rare class

Completion at lvl 5- Epic class

Completion at lvl 1 or below- Legendary class

After looking at the status screen, Derek thought about what he would do next. First, he saw that the recommended size was a party of five. That meant clearing this dungeon would be 5x harder than it normally would. Further more, the lower level you were when you completed it, the better the reward, however, Derek knew there was no free lunch in this new world. With great rewards would almost certainly come proportional risk.

Derek knew that as he was still lvl 0, with no xp to his name, this dungeon would be near impossible to clear. With this in mind, he decided to leave the dungeon, and return at lvl 5 for that epic class. After all, with his previous life experience and titles, he should be miles above the average lvl 0, or even lvl 1. In fact, he might even be the strongest human right now. He re-affirmed this when he looked at his status sheet.

Derek Hunt                                                                                                                                                             

Level N/A [0/10]

Class N/A

Body stats

Strength: 21                                                                                                                                                                                                            Dexterity: 25                                                                                                                                                                                                    Constitution: 19

Mind stats

Wisdom: 20                                                                                                                                                                                        Intelligence: 28                                                                                                                                                                                                       Charisma: 14   

Skills

Assassination: Master Tier lvl 4                                                                                                                                                                    Stealth: Expert Tier lvl 9                                                                                                                                                                                           Firearms mastery: Grandmaster Tier lvl 2                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Abilities: N/A   Achievements: First kill! (UN) Cannibal! (R) Connoisseur of brain!(E)

After looking at his status, Derek confirmed that all of his stats did indeed get a bump, however, it seemed like they were rounded to the nearest whole number, instead of being decimal places. Even after looking at his impressive status sheet, Derek decided it was too risky to try and clear this dungeon with no xp or levels. Derek looked around for the exit before realising that he had missed one crucial detail. There was no exit visible in sight.

With a wave of panic rushing through Derek, he frantically looked around for an exit, however he could not see one. He clamped down on his emotions and started to think. Based on all the dungeons he had played in the past, he assumed that the only way out was through. Even knowing that he had abnormally high stats, Derek felt a surge of apprehension every time he glanced at the intimidating stone sculptures.

Derek steeled his resolve, and walked through the entrance of the temple, which resembled a huge, gaping mouth. As Derek walked through the entrance, he could hear skittering noises all around him. He hurriedly pulled out his gun and aimed down the sites. He did not know where the sources of the noise were, and he wasn't sure how big they were, but he did know that they could die. That, was good enough for him.

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Out of nowhere, the skittering suddenly ceased, and the man instantly became even more alert than he was. It was good that Derek was so alert, because if he wasn't, he would have fallen prey to the insect that tried to jump him. Unfortunately for the insect, Derek reacted in time and shot off a bullet from his pistol. The insect was thrown backwards, and hit a nearby wall. It slid down, blood dripping out of the hole Derek had made with his bullet.

Derek watched as it breathed its last, however, he was distracted from the morbid site by a flashing notification on the right hand side of his vision. He concentrated on it, and a system screen unfolded in front of him, its glowing blue giving a soft light to the surrounding area.

Level up!

You have killed the Stalker Bug, level 5

25 xp earned (/2 due to non-system recognized weapon)

You have 2 free stat points! If you do not allocate them in the next 24 hours, they will be randomly allocated.

After seeing this notification, Derek hurriedly opened up his status, rubbing his hands together in excitement. He was already so much stronger and faster than he was before the system, Derek wondered what he would be like in a year, or 10 years. "Enough musing," he reprimanded himself. He then looked over his status sheet, and then summarily decided to put a point in dexterity and constitution. 

Derek Hunt                                                                                                                                                             

Level 1 [15/20]

Class N/A

Strength: 21                                                                                                                                                                                                             Dexterity: 26                                                                                                                                                                                                    Constitution: 20

Mind stats

Wisdom: 20                                                                                                                                                                                          Intelligence: 28                                                                                                                                                                                                       Charisma: 14   

Skills

Assassination: Master Tier lvl 4                                                                                                                                                                    Stealth: Expert Tier lvl 9                                                                                                                                                                                           Firearms mastery: Grandmaster Tier lvl 2                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Abilities: N/A   Achievements: First kill! (UN) Cannibal! (R) Connoisseur of brain!(E)

Derek looked at his stats and smiled. His intelligence had nearly reached three times the average of a normal person, and it might just have been his imagination, but he thought he could almost feel the improved clarity and his more efficient thought processes. Derek was abruptly brought out of his happy imagination when he heard skittering, like before. However, it was more than two times louder, and the sound was only growing as time went on. 

Derek reasoned that the cause of this skittering was more of the bugs that he killed earlier, however, he knew that he would not be able to fight against more than two at once. Knowing this, he tried to retreat out of the temple, but as he reached the entrance, it closed in on itself, and was blocked by what looked like huge, pointy teeth that perfectly interlocked. Derek heavily cursed, and ran deeper into the temple. However, he had wasted too much time.

The skittering was louder than ever, and Derek was scared. In every shadow, he saw at least one bug, near identical to the one that he had killed, however, they all retreated when looked at directly. Derek increased his pace, and came to the end of the entrance chamber. The only way forward was a small door.

Derek hurriedly opened this door and looked at the site in front of him. He was in a giant maze, of interlocking corridors. He could not appreciate the view, as the skittering sound was right behind him. He looked back, and saw a horde of bugs chasing him, spilling over each other and clacking their mandibles together. In some corridors they were there, and in some corridors they were not. They chased him, but seemed to maintain a steady distance.

Derek was not stupid. He knew that the fact that they had not caught him yet meant they were leading him somewhere. Finally, with the swarm of bugs on his heel, Derek turned yet another corridor, and realised that he was out of the maze. For some reason, the bugs had shown him the perfect way out. He was in a large room, at least three meters tall. There were torches at regular intervals along the wall, providing steady, if dim light. There was no way out apart from the way he had just come in from. He was trapped.

Derek turned around and raised his pistol, prepared to shoot the bugs. However, just as he was about to pull the trigger, the bugs all dissolved into smoke. Derek kept his guard up, and slowly walked to the place where the bugs had vanished. He knelt down and tried to figure out where they went. No matter how hard he tried however, he could not rationalize a way that they could have just vanished like that.

Suddenly, the door to the maze vanished, and in its place, there was a solid stone wall. Derek quickly got up. Now he knew there was something in here, otherwise why would the dungeon lock him in here. Suddenly, the room plunged into blackness as all the torches simultaneously went out. The room was in absolute silence. Derek kept his pistol up, holding it with both hands while he aimed down the sites, all the while creeping into the centre of the room. Derek stopped in his tracks as his pistol pressed against something hard

Derek stopped. He had been walking at a slow pace, and the room was very wide. There was no way he had already reached the far wall, which meant that whatever his pistol had pressed into, was not there when the lights were on. Derek made the decision to fire, and the resulting muzzle flash blinded him. When he regained the use of his eyes, the object was still there. Then, the torches flared back on, and Derek found himself looking at one huge, angry bug.

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