Chapter 26: Chapter 25: Floor 1 & The Outside

Wow, it really can bring me anywhere in the Dungeon now.

I exited my Player Room and found myself on the first floor of the castle. The jet-black corridors stretched further than I could see even with my restored eyesight. Now that I think about it, I never got a good look at my upgraded trait.

Oh-ho? Did I get even better against physical attacks? So much for being weak in defense. And it seems that my weakness from the "Purification element" if that's a thing, got better. Still weak against it though. And my magic defense..., no comment. 

The fact that my five senses aren't reduced anymore is great to see, but haven't the "fluctuation of stats"-thing gotten better? Before the evolution, the changes of my stats, both positive and negative, were enhanced with this trait, but now, the enhancements are greater than the reductions.

As I looked at the new trait, I noticed the demons that were walking by. One was a huge, ogre-like creature, but its arms and legs looked cuddly like a plush toy. Another was a huge, black eye that was floating in the air and had several tentacles dangling from its bottom-side. 

Then I noticed something in the shadows, most likely thanks to my Manavision ability. That's probably the Dark Phantom. And finally, there's this strange, joker-looking character here and there. As in the joker in a deck of cards. That must be the Stygian Clown. 

As I walked through the black castle corridors, the monsters gave me free space to walk in, but they didn't show extreme loyalty or anything. The settings for the monsters included "Hostile" and "Non-Hostile" towards me and people on my friendslist, but I think it's possible to unlock new features if I spend DP on it.

Then a sudden *thump* noise made me freeze on the spot. Turning around, I saw one of the plush ogres, the Gloom Boogeys, having several wooden arrows stuck in their body...

AAAAHH!! The trap! Did the Boogey trigger it!? Crap, traps can be triggered by allies? Don't tell me I have to spend DP on a feature to prevent friendly fire?

The Boogey didn't seem to mind as it casually pulled the arrows out of its fluffy arms. Are the arrows too weak, or is it the Boogey's fluff defense that's a bad match with this kinda trap? Then one of the flying eyeballs, the Dark Gazers, pointed at the Boogey with one of its tentacles and used a magic spell that covered the Boogey's wounds with a black light..., healing magic!? Okay, I once again understand why most people chose Mage as their main class...

Wait a sec, the Gazer healed the Boogey on its own? Without any orders? So, the monsters aren't just mindless NPCs, but capable of individual thinking and actions? That's a big thing to take notice of, even if it doesn't look like a big deal. This may mean that monsters are smarter than what people may think if they're "poisoned" from other VRMMO games.

As expected of Terra Sol AS. They're serious about revolutionizing this genre. 

While entertaining those thoughts, I reached my goal. And in one way, it's the goal I've aimed at ever since I started this game. The exit of the Dungeon.

It's gonna take a good 9 hours before the DP is reaching its cap, and there's no need for me to wait inside the castle while doing so. There is the catch that I can't alter the stuff inside the Dungeon unless I use the terminal in my Player Room, but there are a few hours until that, so no worries there.

It's even possible to fickle with the Dungeon from my computer or smartphone, as I have the browsing app related to NFO installed on both of them. To summarize, the only time I can't make use of the DP is when I'm outside my Player Room in the game.

With that in mind, I took my first steps outside the castle with peace of mind. And this stupid game better not come with some "not a shut-in" title or something. I take offense to such comments.

The outside of the castle was..., a dark area. That's all I can describe it. The place looks like a rocky wasteland with various naked trees here and there, all of it either pitch-black or close to that in colors. The sky is extremely dark as well, so much that someone without a Nightvision ability wouldn't be able to pass through here.

As I marveled over the sight of the new land, being more than happy over being able to see it at all, [Detect Monster] warned me of something. In a hurry, I used [Lurk] and hid behind one of the dark boulders in the rockscape. 

The origin of the signal appeared shortly after I'd gone ninja on it. It's a black frog with pearl-white eyes. Is it blind? Feeling curious, I used [Identification] on it.

"Darkland", that's not telling me much. I guess it's of the Darkness element, but that's all. Maybe it's about time I upgrade [Identification].

The frog, excuse me, the toad is big enough to reach my knees, and it had dark skin that made it almost disappear in the black landscape. Natural camouflage?

As for how dangerous it is, I don't know. I can tell it's an F-rank from its level cap, but that doesn't say anything about the toad's actual fighting ability. Maybe it rams into people with a jump? No, wait. It's the frog that jumps and the toad that crawls. Then..., a tongue whips? Magic?

While I was pondering over that, something strange was going on. Or rather, nothing was going on. Despite that I'd Identified the toad, it wasn't doing anything that suggests that it had noticed me. Even when Identifying the spiders in the Dungeon made them charge at me in anger from me violating their rights of privacy...

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There are two possible explanations here. Either the toad is blinder than a mole to the point of not noticing [Identification] being used on it, or..., [Lurk] is hiding even the effect of [Identification] from the target. Or it could be a combination of both. Or maybe the toad's just trying to trick me.

To see if the toad is a trickster or not, I started to stare at it with [Weakness Evil Eye]. FINALLY, I can use this thing! 

The really good part of the Evil Eye skill is that its range equals my line of sight. Before, that was its bottleneck due to my bad sight, but now I can aim from this distance without any side effects! No lowered attack strength or higher MP consumption! Thinking about it, Evil Eyes are just cheating, no?

The toad didn't seem to have noticed that it was under attack. Is it faking it, or is it simply my skill that's too weak? The effect of the Evil Eye should be weakening of the target's stats, so...

Don't tell me that the punchline is that F-ranker's stats are so low you can't lower them any further!? Should I increase the level of [Identification]...?

It was getting tiresome in staring at the toad while using both my Evil Eye and [Lurk] at the same time, so I turned off the Evil Eye and aimed a [Mystical Thread] at the toad. 

A huge hole emerged where the magical thread pierced the toad. 

Okay, I get that [Mystical Thread] is strong, but that's taking things too far! Wait, what was the Evil Eye's effect again? Inflicting "Weakness"..., ah. Now I get it. The toad never moved from the spot, so it didn't notice that its stats, including speed and defense, was lower than before.

Then I noticed that something had been dropped by the toad after the rest of its body had finished disintegrating. Ya-hoo! Does the wildlife have better drop-rates than Dungeons? 

But before I moved from my hiding space to get the item, [Detect Monster] pinged again. I returned to the shadows (not really, as the whole place is pitch-dark) of the boulder and peeked from behind it to observe the newcomer. 

This time, it was a bonafide frog. Its legs are much longer than the toad's legs, and that's not even counting the fact that it's as big as me! Its eyes look like pale pearls, just like the toad, but its skin has dark-yellow spots here and there. Is it poisonous? 

A normal evolution of the frog, it seems. Ah, crap! The frog started to look around after I Identified it. I hid behind the boulder in a hurry. The frog stopped after a moment and grabbed something on the ground with its long tongue. A pearl-like..., the toad's eye!? Urg..., and the frog ate it. Double-ugh!

I get that toad eyes are something that a witch would use in her brews, but that's not for me, mister! After swallowing the toad eye, the frog then started to jump away into the distance. 

Are higher-ranked monsters more difficult to trick with [Lurk]? Or is it that the Darkland amphibian family has some sorta Perception Skill to compensate for their apparent blindness?

I'm not in the mood of fighting a higher-leveled creature than me at the moment, so I let the frog go without any problem. I'm sorta confused over its cannibalistic nature as well, so I want some more info about them before going hunting for real. My stats now are, after all, just..., huh?

Scout is at Lv.24? I could swear it was Lv.22 before I left the castle. Did simply hiding from the frog and the toad give so much class proficiency?

...new plan. I'll aim for evolving the Scout class before starting to grind levels for real. Doing so will let me take a new class that may not hamper the growth of the STR stat. My current race isn't a weakling like the Grey Demon or the Unstable Djinn.

If that's the case, I should save..., no, let's use some of my AP. The event is just around the corner, and several official leaks say it's possible to earn AP in the event in addition to the Skill-Up Potions and other stuff. 

Therefore, I'll increase [Detect Monster] by 1 level to make it easier to "scout" for those frogs/toads, and [Lurk]..., or maybe I should take [Lesser Darkness Talent]? Both [Lurk] and [Weakness Evil Eye] are classified as Darkness skills, and Talent improves all other skills of the matching attribute...

Okay, I've decided.

And from now on, it's hide-and-seek with the frogs until the event starts in..., how long was it before it started? Browser, browser..., around a week left? Well, time to scout!

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