[Test 1][Time Remaining: 48 Hours]

Maria and I jump through the portal and enter a grassland dungeon. I can see 10 or so parties in front of us splitting off in all directions.

Not many people are using magic, they must be trying to conserve it for later.

We sprint forward and dive deep into the dungeon.

The grass is short, and there are patches of pink, yellow, and blue flowers. Occasional trees pop up into view, but they seem to be pretty rare.

After about 5 minutes of running, I hear a deep voice yelling out from behind us.

“HEY! You two, stop right there!!”

Maria and I turn our heads to see a massive bearded man chasing after us with a steel chest plate and an enormous silver sword. There are two shorter men behind him carrying swords as well. He keeps yelling.

“My first victims! Come here!!!”

His eyes are bloodshot and his teeth are showing through a malicious smile.

I take one look at Maria, she’s grinning ear to ear.

I nod.

We stop running and turn to the group of men chasing us. Maria runs forward at them and begins to glow bright blue.

It’s over in a matter of seconds….

She runs through them all leaving trails of ice in her tracks. With a single touch of her blade, they’re all frozen solid instantly. She turns to me and laughs.

The leader still has an angry look on his face with his mouth wide open mid-yell as he points his sword high in the air. He’s petrified in Ice standing upright with his dedicated followers frozen close behind him. They never saw it coming.

“I say we let them thaw out on their own.”

I laugh back at her.

“Good idea. Those Idiots chose the wrong party to blindly attack.”

We turn and continue running toward the back of the dungeon. A party approaches us from the rear as we’re leaving, but swerves away at the sight of Maria’s Ice sculptures. I turn to Maria mid-stride and point out the new party running away from us.

“This exam might be easier than we thought.”

“Hmmph, might be.”

Finally, about 20 minutes later we found our first monster. A horned rabbit… With a single kick, I easily killed it. It’s still cool to see a new monster species though.

They’re about half a meter tall and look like oversized muscular rabbits. They have bright white fur, red eyes, sharp jagged teeth, and a single brown horn protruding from their foreheads.

After the first one, I just ignored them moving forward. They’re all between levels 5 and 15. There isn’t much to worry about.

Another 20 minutes go by, and the hunters have really spread out a lot. I can only see one team in front of us far off in the distance, and none behind. That ice attack must have skewed the path people are willing to take….

As we continue, the party ahead of us starts becoming larger… No wait, we’re just getting closer. It seems they’ve stopped moving.

We approach them cautiously but do not change our speed.

At closer inspection, I can see it’s a team of 4. They’re all wearing matching silver armor with gold accents. Their under-suits are white and elegant… its really nice gear. They seem to be examining a few sheets of paper while trading magic items around on the ground. A man with long blond flowing hair and bright blue eyes steps out in front of the other three and yells to us.

“We do not wish to fight, but If we must… I shall destroy you.”

Out of curiosity, I use inspect and appraisal.

[Lv. 275]

Active Items:

[Steel Sword] +300 Strength

[Enchanted Armor Set] +600 Defense

[Dragon Scale Pendant] +50% Mental Strength

[Rodrigo’s Silver Bracelet]

Active Skills:

Combat Magic [Barrier Summoning]

Swordsmanship

I grin.

“Now here’s a real opponent. Maria, I want this one.”

She steps back.

I run toward the man igniting flames around my sword and preparing an attack.

He nods slowly, then draws his own sword.

“Fine.”

He begins glowing white as I swing my burning blade toward his neck. The swordsman lifts his own blade and covers it in a soft white aura. I bring my sword down and he counters with his own.

My blade stops in mid-air… Less than a meter from his blade. I grit my teeth and push forward with all my strength. It begins to move. Slowly but surely, I bring my blade closer and closer to his. Sweat rolls down my forehead as I let out a yell activating berserker.

*CLINK*

My sword touches his and we’re both blown backward by the built-up force from our attacks. The grassland around us is destroyed and a dust cloud forms from all the dirt thrown in the air.

As it slowly settles, we both stand 10m apart pointing our blades at one another. He speaks.

“Again, I do not wish to fight. You are a strong adversary, I believe it would be a waste to drain our strength now.”

I grin at him and don’t move a muscle for a few seconds. Then nod and put out my flames while pointing my sword at the floor.

“I’m Jay by the way. You’re probably right, It would be a waste to fight now.”

He points his sword to the ground too.

“I’m George Arden the Third. A pleasure to spar.”

It seems our mutual test of strength is over.

We back away from each other slowly.

With that, we give each other a formal head nod and I motion for Maria to follow me. He turns to his team and they all continue looking at the sheets of paper from earlier. Maria and I head off past them just like that. What an interesting guy….

We continue forward, and the group of armored men fades into the distance behind us. I can’t see any other teams in any direction. It feels like we’re all alone in the dungeon now.

After another 30 minutes of running, we still make no contact with the other teams. In total, we’ve had about 5 horned rabbit encounters I’m starting to get out of breath. I’ve been training hard recently… but no matter how you put it, running for over an hour gets tiring. I turn to Maria, she’s breathing heavily as well.

“Hey, want to slow down and walk?”

Maria turns to me.

“Let’s make it through the first floor, then we can take a breather!”

I nod resentfully.

She has a good point though…

“Sounds good.”

We continue chugging along at a solid pace. 10 minutes later, we make it to the first boss room.

A floating grey portal stands alone in the middle of an open field.

“Well, it was a bit closer than I thought it would be…”

Maria laughs and we jump through together.

The boss room has a dirt floor with no plant life. It’s dark and there are sloped walls creating a cave-like environment. It feels like we’re underground, in some kind of burrow….

Red eyes appear from the back of the room and a massive horned rabbit hops out. It looks very similar to the normal mobs, just… huge…

It gets up on its two hind legs and shows us its teeth standing almost 1.5m tall.

I use inspect, then smile.

[Lv. 37]

We walk over to it slowly. The monster gets on all fours and starts running at us while growling.

*SHINGGG*

I cut it in two like butter.

Maria and I look at each other, then she speaks up.

“One floor down, nine to go.”

I nod.

“Yup.”

The rabbit disintegrates and white transport magic teleports us to the next dungeon a few minutes later.

“NEW GUYS ARE HERE! GET EM!!!!!”

As we’re spawned into a forest-like environment. There are thick trees in all directions and fairly rocky soil. I see two men and a woman less than 5m away with their weapons fully drawn. There’s a massive dark-skinned man with a silver shield and long thick sword lunging at me. A slim dark-haired fair-skinned woman wielding daggers runs at Maria. A short red-haired man stands behind them both glowing bright yellow.

The tank lets out a yell as he shoves his sword at my chest. I instantly react by erupting into flames and creating a layer of body-hardening crystals over the front side of my body.

*CLANGGG*

His sword smashes into the hard crystal armor and his eyes open wide in disbelief.

Maria gasps as she sees my defense out of the corner of her eye while instinctively putting up her own shield of Ice to block the woman’s ambush of daggers.

I face the man standing in front of me, he stands over 205cm tall, wearing makeshift leather armor, and deep scars on his face.

I use inspect and appraisal.

[Lv. 258]

Active Items:

[Heavy Iron Long Sword] +200 Strength

[Heavy Iron Shield] +250 Defense

[Enchanted Leather Armor Set] +200 Defense

[Rodrigo’s Silver Bracelet]

Active Skills:

Extreme Strength

Buffs:

[+35% Speed & Agility]

I smile and raise my sword pointing it at the large man’s head.

“You call that an ambush?”

He grunts and stares me down while beginning to glow orange. A new Buff appears in his appraisal stats.

[+50% Strength]

I grin.

“Interesting…”

The team member behind him must have a speed and agility party-wide buff skill, while he has his own strength buff skill. Unfortunately for him… it’s not going to be enough.

I ignite into flames and look the man straight in the eyes. I activate berserker and intimidation.

“ATTACK THEM N-“

He stops yelling mid-sentence and freezes with fear. My vision tunnels and I charge forward.

*SHINGGGG*

Without hesitation, I slice him in two then stab the short red-haired buff caster through the chest in the same attack.

Instantly, they both dematerialize into a flash of white light.

“So that’s how the bracelets really work…. Good to know.”

I turn to see Maria facing off against the dagger-wielding woman. Her eyes open wide as she sees her teammates easily obliterated.

Maria places her hand on the ground and releases a wave of Ice. The woman turns to run as the frost creeps up her ankles. She lets out a scream and drops her daggers before turning into a glistening white statue. Maria walks over to her and slashes the ice into a million little pieces. The white light appears again, indicating she’s been sent back to her party members.

I think to myself for a moment. If I really killed them, I’d be able to absorb their skills. So it looks like I won’t be getting to farm skills that easily today…

Maria speaks up.

“Hey look! That woman left her weapons!”

She bends down and picks up the two black daggers off the ground. I use Appraisal.

[Enchanted Dagger Set] +250 Strength +250 Agility

I nod.

“Nice. I guess they’re yours now. Looks like you have to be holding your items to be transported with them.”

Maria smiles and places the daggers into her item box, then points her sword in the air toward the back of this new dungeon.

“Let’s go! I hope we get to fight some stronger opponents soon. Monsters or Humans, I don’t care.”

She starts walking forward.

I nod and follow.

“I’m sure the higher we climb, the more challenging this test will become.”