Chapter 80: Stage Cleared, Time Difference

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Done with his resource collection, Ren wiped his sweat as he happily looked at his inventory that now had stacks of them.

It was really generous. Sure, the resources he gathered were cheap, but he had heaps of them.

If he sold them in bulk. He would easily gain at least 50,000 credits for them. Not a bad haul, especially for a first-time explorer. And this is considering that he wasn’t digging for more.

Had he really wanted to, Ren could’ve started felling trees as well. The oak and birch trees around here would also fetch some decent prices at the stalls outside.

Unlike in the human world, Ren doesn’t have to worry about mass deforestation here. There will be no consequences whatsoever. He could uproot every tree here, and he wouldn’t suffer divine punishment or be imprisoned for doing so since each dungeon stage is procedurally generated. Once he’s gone from here, this design will be refilled and recycled for another explorer.

So yes, it’s no big deal.

But Ren didn’t feel like being a lumberjack right now. He already got plenty of resources. Earning 50,000 credits for her first dive was already excellent. Other first-time explorers won’t even earn as much because of their inexperience.

Besides, Ren wasn’t short on credits. He can make potions, remember? What’s more is that now he could fetch the materials needed for them by himself.

Wasn’t he surrounded by slimes now? He could get slime clumps from them, that’s for sure, and slime clumps are a common ingredient for potions, ones that he had already mastered.

He could even make them right here and now.

’Alright. Looting is over. Let’s fight,’ Ren muttered to himself.

He hopped in place for a bit, agitating his chakra in preparation for his assault.

His targets were already in sight, and soon as he decided that now was the time for action, he decisively made a move.

Swoosh! Boom!

Ren disappeared from his previous location and reappeared before an unsuspecting slime. It couldn’t even perceive the danger he posed before it got blown off by his punch.

Since entering the Bone Forging Stage, Ren’s raw power skyrocketed. To him, punching a slime so hard that it also destroys its core at once wasn’t a big deal.

His slime fights in the virtual arena helped a lot. They were incredibly realistic after all. However, actually killing one in real life still feels slightly different. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Actually landing that blow, and the sensations that followed that caused Ren’s brain to release some chemicals that made him feel strangely calm but also excited.

Killing a monster for the first time in real life didn’t make him feel squeamish, disgusted, or horrified. Instead, it just felt...real, all of a sudden.

This was what he was training for. All that sweat and hard work...it’s all for this purpose. Martial arts was invented with the idea of using it against monsters.

Although these were just slimes—one of the weakest monsters around—the fact that he could slay them so easily just validated his progress. And it felt great.

Aside from using Flash Steps for ambush, Ren deigned not to use other techniques. It would be an overkill if he did so. The Nine Echoing Canons are reserved for Elites and above. He could just punch the ordinary slimes to death with his raw strength alone.

Not all slimes were easily ambushed, though. Some caught him with hostile intentions and reacted fast.

Although slimes are considered one of the weakest monsters out there, they have tricks that could kill idiots if they’re not careful.

Slimes could control their viscous bodies to form tentacles that could morph into weapons. Although they can’t be compared to real steel, they are still deadly. And slimes can control three at a time. Variants could use more.

Even an ordinary slime could fell an oak tree in one swing of their tentacle axe. Now, unless one is confident that their body is tougher than that of an oak tree, avoiding those tentacle swings is the wisest choice to preserve their life.

Slimes were slow, though, ordinary ones, at least. Even their tentacle swings were slow and telegraphed. So long as Ren was paying attention and hasn’t gone completely stupid, there should be no way that he’d be hit by them.

Some slimes tried to shoot from afar. Their arrows were made from their own flesh. If Ren got hit, the viscous liquid would stick to him, and once he got within the control range of the slime, that same slime could control that liquid to infiltrate his body and kill him from the inside.

So, yes. Slimes could be sinister creatures as well, especially when they’re provoked.

Speaking of killing...

Dying in the dungeons was bad. Of course, it is. Especially when one goes solo. There’s a high possibility that their bodies and their belongings won’t return to human civilization ever. They’d just become a casualty. Discarded data that will be erased by the time the same dungeon level gets recycled.

But in stages 1 through 30, ’dying’ in dungeons wasn’t so punishing. Since they’re considered beginner-level dungeons, if somebody dies inside these dungeon levels, they’d just lose all the resources they’ve gathered from that stage so far, and they’d return to the human world—in pain, but still alive, at least.

However, for stages 31 and above? Training wheels are off.

There is a grace of one resurrection chance per month. Meaning that if somebody dies on stages 31 and above, so long as they have a ’resurrection chance,’ they will return alive, just with empty pockets.

But if they don’t have a resurrection chance? RIP.

Resurrection chances are only bestowed once every month. It’s not given for free, though. Those who want them must’ve at least entered the dungeons—and this is very important—within their strength level at least 10 times during the previous month to qualify for it.

Oh, and resurrection chances don’t stack. It’s either you have one or you don’t.

If you didn’t use the chance from the previous month, it turns into a random gift box that could be opened before the next chance arrives.

The concept of somebody having multiple resurrection chances at once was practically unheard of, which makes sense since anybody who has that surely wouldn’t reveal that secret to the public...unless they’ve gone completely insane.

Although there might be a way for everybody to have more than one resurrection chance at once...however, that involves an honor roll-worthy feat, and it’s not guaranteed either.

In short, that’s out of Ren’s capabilities right now.

**

Boom!

With that muffled sound, Ren slew his 15th slime, thereby completing the quest.

[Quest Complete! ]

[Congratulations on your first dungeon clear! ]

These were the messages he received after completing the quest. Just these. No additional rewards whatsoever. And that’s fair, Ren wasn’t expecting one. He’s not an exception, after all.

The second message indicates that the dungeons recognized his first time clearing a dungeon. It probably won’t appear again in his following attempts moving forward.

Now that that’s settled, a 30-second countdown appeared above the world. That’s the time remaining before he gets kicked out of the dungeon.

He looked around and saw that aside from the patches of grass stained by slime residue, there was nothing worth his notice. There were no other slimes around him either.

The countdown eventually ran out, and once again, Ren felt that he was being violently yanked away somewhere.

When his senses returned, he found himself back at the plaza where the archstones were located. Once again, his ears were flooded by the noise of the explorers around him.

Ren wasn’t tired at all, but he did feel some comfort in knowing that he’s back in safe territory.

Since he wasn’t tired, Ren could’ve easily gone back to stage 1 and done it all over again. He had four more attempts for this day, after all.

But he didn’t do that. Instead, Ren found a place to sit for a bit and reorganize his thoughts. It didn’t take him long to find one; there were a lot of benches in the plaza, and despite being crowded, he found one that was empty.

So, he sat down and began jotting down his thoughts. He wrote his experience completely and everything he felt about it. He wrote down the things he noticed, especially the ones that caught his attention.

Ren was building a habit. He wants to get used to compiling information based on his experience, not the ones he got from other people’s perspectives.

His last entry for this note was the fact that even though it took him an hour to complete stage 1—because looting took most of his time away—only fifteen minutes passed in the human world.

This was, perhaps, the most magical thing about dungeons—you can spend mere minutes, or even days, in there, but in stages 1 through 30, it doesn’t matter how long you spend inside the dungeon; only fifteen minutes will pass in the real world.

From stages 31 and above, that extends to 30 minutes.