Versatile: Alternate World



We entered the dungeon. Just like before, we have to clear the first difficulty first, progress through every difficulty, then reach the final difficulty which would be the Abyss difficulty.

"Just so you know, although we can safely die just like how you guys mentioned, we will bear a very heavy penalty after death. Unlike the Nexus where all of your deaths might have been trivial especially due to the Goddess of Life immediately creating a new body every death, if we die, we will have to endure the excruciating pain of revival as the difference between the Goddess of Life and Goddess of Death's revival powers are different. The latter would revive us by reconstructing back our dead bodies, but as a result, we will suffer all the pain and suffering our bodies would suffer during the repair period. Plus, the return is also a bit painful as well."

"I think it is fine. In fact, I expected that we shouldn't even consider dying here as we are now using our real bodies without any sort of protection from death. If we wanted to avoid getting to feel the pain, then we will just have to avoid death as much as we can," Pandora firmly said, giving others their confirmation as well.

"Well said, Pandora. We needed to avoid death as much as possible. Let's keep it in our mind that if we die, it's game over, that way, we don't rely on that we can get ourselves to be revived once we die," Rika added.

"Heh, if we haven't died for long when we were still using the virtual bodies, then we would also never die with our own bodies," Riko put both her hands on her waist and act confident.

"Ha, don't be too easygoing on this. Until we get our proper gear, we needed to be careful, alright? Now, let's get inside."

We entered the beginner dungeon. Unlike the Nexus system, we do not receive any indication of name that we are in a dungeon or just a new area. But I can tell that this is the same dungeon as in the past timeline.

"What kind of dungeon this is, Manato?"

"This is called the Treasure Dungeon. It's designed for beginner practice levels for dungeon exploration. Treasure chests are plenty in this dungeon and drops of small HP potions and small MP potions are good here and we can sometimes find some sack of bronze and silver coins here though that is pretty low chances. There are also some trinkets that are valuable to traders so it's also quite amazing for a beginner dungeon. The only problem with the dungeon is that, due to the place being filled with treasure chests, Mimics resides here and disguises itself as a normal treasure chest, ready to attack any unsuspecting treasure hunters. Slimes are also present here as well, making them perfect targets and their cores sell for quite a bit of money as well. But the enemies change every time the difficulty is ramped up."

"Mimics huh? That's good. Mimics give a hefty amount of money and experience when killed. We should hurry and find one first!" Riko happily leads the way.

Just like what Riko said, the mimics here offer a fair bit of danger but they offer big experience points for beginners with the money drop being pretty great as well.

And so, we fought the first difficulty of the dungeon and cleared it in a few minutes. Because the enemies are not even that many in the beginning and we only got one mimic, we got more loot than monsters instead. Since there were not many highlights in battle, I couldn't tell much except we just walk through the whole dungeon and mopped the first boss which didn't feel much.

So after the dissatisfaction everyone had, we went to the next difficulty. As  I said before, the difficulty ramps up so when we entered, the monsters are not as casual as before and the drop significantly increased as well. Not only that but we also saw significant danger on the mimics as well.

But due to the number of monsters present in the area as well as the number of mimics we encountered, we have managed to level up to level 2. As I said before, due to the low number of monsters present in the first difficulty, it wasn't enough to level up in the first place. The best difficulty to level up properly would be in Abyss Difficulty as the number of monsters is enough for all of us to gain at least 10 levels before we head to another area.

"Damn, I think I underestimated the enemies. I think the monsters are much more dangerous than before," Riko is catching her breath after our last encounter with the current dungeon boss.

"Come on, Riko. I know you are not used to using normal attacks since you specialize in magic before but I think you have to get used to it before you learn magic spells," Rika gives advice to Riko.

We have yet to learn our skills after our level-up. Unlike during the first system, we don't have the free SP points that we get for the first time to learn at least 4 1-point skills to help with our progression making the second difficulty a bit harder to deal with to those who are more skill-related classes user before, namely Riko and Sora. But that will change now that we have our first SP after we level up.

We didn't immediately choose our new skills because we will have to think hard about what we will grab as a skill. Whether we first get a passive skill. Since the next difficulty will be really difficult due to our low level and we will have to rely on our new skills to get by and we will have to stay there for a while before we tackle the next difficulty.

"Should we get a passive first or should we get an active skill first?" Akira is pondering over what he should get.

"Are you still going to the route of going into a paladin?" Rika asked.

"Yes. It's the only play style I am more comfortable with and I promised to be my sister's shield while she will be the one to attack the enemies, so to fulfill that, I will be her shield like always."

"It's a tough decision to learn new skills and even though we also have this problem before but I didn't think we will be experiencing this again," Labo smiled as he picked one skill he wanted to use.

"True, but I suggest that we pick the skills that you guys are more comfortable with for the first time. Don't take the skills that you don't know the effects of or you don't know how to use. We only go to other skills that we have not learned if we are sure that we can now defend ourselves properly and we could now experiment," Renatta suggested.

I also nodded as well. After all, what we needed is something of utility and not just for fun usage. I opened my skill tree as well and just like what I expected, all 1 SP skill can be selected to learn and due to the number of skills that are scattered in all skill trees present in my skill tree, I wanted to check where are the skills that are pretty easy for me right now.

But then, I suddenly stumbled on the skills that are related to Necromancy. I know I have these skills in my Bladeheart character but to see it here, I wasn't expecting it. Not only that, but they are all learned skills. They are not greyed out like the rest and they are not glowing like the other skills that I have yet to learn, they only have still color on them and I can use them.

"[Summon: Skeleton]"

The moment I uttered those words, a similar portal that looked like the portal to the Summon's Area appeared but it is clearly different and I have seen this before. The portal where all of the Skeletons I summoned before currently appeared before me.

And to my surprise, a familiar Skeleton Knight appeared before me.

"Woah, woah Manato! Necromancy? And a Skeleton Knight to boot?! Isn't that a tier 4 Necromancy skill?!" Rika frowned.

"I agree. I have seen this skill before as some people I know have this skill as well. But I remember it clearly that you need a corpse of a monster to summon a skeleton or a skeleton knight first. How come Manato can summon one without the need for a catalyst?" Alena frowned.

"Eh? Did it need a catalyst when using these skills? Then how come Manato summons skeletons like nothing? I have seen him use it multiple times without the need for any corpses," Pandora frowned as she recalled the times I summoned skeletons to fight for us before so she knew about it.

Still, does that mean the Necromancy Book that I have before still has an effect on me? And it wasn't bound on my Bladeheart character but on me instead?