Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

His feet slightly sank into the soft dark earth of the 6th floor. The floor was dark, but thanks to his pendant he saw everything clearly. Still, it was Mina that was the first to find a monster. With a <Shadow Step> she had vanished from their formation. With a shout, a big spider with spindly legs and a big bulbous butt fell on the path. It was black with purple markings and had big wound bleeding with yellowish clear blood on its behind. Mina had brought it into the open with an <Backstab> attack.

The monster turned towards them and hissed at their group spitting fluid in their direction. Before it could hit anyone Bulko, the giant priest, had already cast a shield to block the attack. Mike had already sliced the creepy-crawly apart before Seth could even react.

<Ding! -Woodland Spider lv.31- has been killed. You have earned Experience!">

It was over before he could even use <Observation> on the creature! He had gained 1% experience without doing anything. He would have gained more if he did it alone, but he wasn´t even sure he could have dealt with this beast on his own. The party had wordlessly synchronized their actions and showed their splendid teamwork.

Seth was impressed by their fast reaction and resolved himself to work hard in the future. If he wanted to survive back home, he needed to learn to deal with such situations.

"Mina, you loot it."

"Yeah yeah...."

Mina had to loot all the corpses since she was the party's lucky hand with 33 points in luck!

They kept going, searching for the right way. These planes were fundamentally different from normal dungeons where one could either go back or needed to clear the dungeon to escape.

The dungeons that resembled tiny dimensions had the core hidden somewhere in the landscape. You could only clear them by finding the dungeon core or killing all the monsters. Of course, there were also special circumstances. Some dungeons could also be cleared with a quest and you could always use an escape scroll. But those were rare and expensive. In the tower, each floor was like a separate dungeon, and one needed to clear it to climb to the next floor. Obviously, the "dungeon core" of a floor was not the dungeon core of the tower, but simply the power center of the floor.

Seth got his chance to shine soon enough! They had entered a clearing when a great group of centipedes silently tunneled out from the ground in the darkness surrounding them. This time he was the first to react since he could clearly see them in the dark.

With a shout, he swung the spear. The sharp tip easily mowed down the centipedes like grass. They were about the length and thickness of an arm with thumb-sized pincers.

<Ding! You have killed -Demonic Scuttler lv.31-. Experience gained!">

<Ding! You have killed -Demonic Scuttler lv.33-. Experience gained!">

<Ding! You have killed -Demonic Scuttler lv.31-. Experience gained!">

He hit three with one strike! Alarmed by Seth´s shout, Bulko cast a greater <Light> to illuminate the whole clearing. Promptly the rest of the party started to fight the roughly 20 centipedes surrounding them.

<Ding! -Demonic Scuttler lv.32- has been killed. You have earned Experience!">

<Ding! -Demonic Scuttler lv.33- has been killed. You have earned Experience!">

…

<Ding! You have leveled up! You are now lv.21!>

The monsters were no problem for the lv.40 party and they soon cleared away all monsters. They killed the second to last centipede and Seth finally leveled up. Just one more level and Seth would have enough skill points to level up <Spirit Smithy>.

He had gained 9 attribute points and used them to smoothen his attributes. He brought strength and dexterity from 63 to 65, agility from 38 to 40, and put the remaining 3 into intelligence bringing it to 31.

After they looted all the mobs and Bulko re-cast the buffs they kept going. Mike´s party knew this floor already, so they were aiming for the dungeon core. After level up, he only got about 1% experience for the mobs on this floor. They met some more insect-type demons on the way but it was barely enough for Seth to get halfway to lv.22.

But leveling up had not been the goal, to begin with. When they finally reached the dungeon core Seth and the party had gotten a feel for each other's skills and how to work together.

When they touched the core, they got the option to either go back to the lobby or proceed to the next floor. As the party leader, Mike decided that it was enough for today and they left the tower.

It was late afternoon when they stepped out of the dungeon. Seth invited them for food at "The Lucky Miner". After having reconciled with their parents, the two siblings and the rest of the party gladly agreed. At the inn, they talked about their plans for tomorrow over a meal. Mina and Mike spent the evening with their parents while the other two left.

Seth had waited for this. He was not done for the day. It was just another 50% until the next level and he didn´t think it would take very long to farm it alone.

As such he decided to visit another dungeon with Puffles as the sun started to set. Their destination was Ora's graveyard. Undead dungeons were the kind of dungeons Seth found himself always returning to. He had gotten used to the gruesome looks of skeletons and zombies.

The dungeon was supposed to be an old crypt that was known to spawn undead up to lv. 20. They shouldn´t be a problem for Seth and Puffles, who also leveled up quite a bit in their last dungeon dive, the Ivicer was now a proud lv. 16. He had no attribute points, but his stats naturally grew, increasing his defense, endurance, and mana by a lot.

A cold fog covered the nightly graveyard and was dipped in an alien light by the colorful moons of this world. The graveyard itself was well-kept and lacked a creepy and terrifying atmosphere. It was filled with an array of beautiful and lifelike statues displaying the great skill of the town masons. Seth didn´t really know the rites of this world, but people who could afford such tombstones must have been wealthy.

The entrance to the dungeon attracted negative attention, compared to the neat surroundings. It was an old and weathered mausoleum. Some bronze letters once spelled the family name of the people resting here, but many were missing leaving the name unreadable. The hinges were so rusted, that the rotten door almost crumbled in his hand before opening with an unpleasant creaking.

Contrary to expectations there was no room with nameplates or niches for coffins behind the brittle doors, but a big staircase directly leading down into the darkness. Puffles cast the buffs he learned after leveling up increasing their defense, attack, and stamina by 5%.

They entered the stairs and the door smashed close behind them. Slowly they descended the stairs.

They kept descending.

...

The stairs were really long.

Finally, they reached a floor. Was this what a crypt looked like? It reminded Seth more of catacombs. Long narrow corridors hewed into the stone with recesses for coffins.

After setting off a flame trap by opening one of them Seth decided to not touch them anymore. He didn´t get hurt, but the durability of his armor had decreased a little.

Soon opening in the walls started to appear, leading to small barren rooms that held stone caskets. This time Seth could not help himself. He shoved off one of the covers using his spear, evading a volley of poison arrows this way. Inside was a roughly humanoid skeleton and nothing more. It really wasn´t worth the effort.

As he was occupied with the casket before him, suddenly the cover of another one to the side exploded upwards and a pale creature lunged at him. Sharp claws aimed for his face, but he blocked them with his armguards, only to take a hit in the gut. He felt the power penetrate through the lamella of his armor. How was it this strong?

He shoved the heavy attacker away with the spear shaft to gain distance and ready his weapon. It had surprised him, but he was able to deal with it thanks to <Calm Reaction>.

< Ghoul lv.21>

<Observation> did its job and told him that the pale roughly humanoid creature before him was in fact not a vampire, as Seth had judged because of the appearance, but a ghoul. It had razor-sharp fangs and claws like hunting knives.

These claws had left some marks on the bone-plates of his armor, but now that Seth was ready, he did not give it a chance to get past the spear tip. When it attempted to slap the spear aside and rush at him, the spear tip evaded the hit and thrust deep into the creature's chest.

It didn´t die, but let out a bloodcurdling scream. Impaled on the spear it caught onto the shaft and didn´t let go. At this moment the sound of stones breaking and rubble falling echoed through the corridor outside and he heard fast steps approach shortly after. Was that a call for help!?

"Let go!"

Seth had not wanted to use it, because it could damage the loot but this was not the time for it. He tightened his grip and a tongue of flames shot along his spear and directly into the monster's chest. Like other undead before it shrieked in pain and let go of the spear. Seth used the chance to pull the spear out and thrust again, this time into the ghoul's face.

<Ding! You have killed -Ghoul lv.21-. Experience gained!">

Puffles had cast a barrier to keep the horde outside. Seth turned to the entrance of the room... the corridor was filled with ghouls.