Draft: 39 Dungeon Completed

For all that the fight took less than a minute, James looked worse for wear. Her left palm was covered in blisters, her left arm was cut, her right wrist was twice its normal size, and it hurt to breathe. Not to mention that her whole body just looked like one big bruise. Even her eyes were swelling up as if she had gotten a black eye. And it hurt.

James was learning that ignoring pain during a thirty second fight, with the adrenaline pumping through you, wasn’t such a big deal. The issue was that after the fight, the pain came back. And suddenly, there wasn’t a convenient fight there to help you ignore it. Granted, James figured that feeling pain was a way of confirming you were alive, but she could do without it. After all, notifications were a new and viable method, and, best of all, they didn’t hurt. You didn’t even need to open your eyes to see them!

Dungeon Objective Quest [3]: Defeat the Lumina Nutria [1/1].

Extra experience is awarded for finishing the dungeon.

Extra experience is awarded for finishing all parts of dungeon quests.

Extra experience is awarded for completing the Quest by yourself.

You have killed Lumina Nutria level 26! Experience is granted.

It was by far the highest leveled monster she’d faced. And she could see why, it had taken two mana blasts to slay it along with physical damage. Even now she was in shock over its sheer size. Nutrias should never get that big. They weren’t even tasty!

Your Class Pure Castorhas reached Level 8! Stats allocated.

Your Class Pure Castorhas reached Level 9! Stats allocated.

Your Race Human has reached Level 8! Stats allocated.

James waited patiently for her race level to increase again and sighed in disappointment when it didn’t. It seemed her time with her race level increasing alongside her class was coming to an end. Moving to a sitting position before deciding to lie down, she read on.

Quest Reward: 2500 Bytes, 1 small chest.

It felt like an extremely small reward compared to the rest, and especially when looking at all her “extra experience awarded” messages. She shrugged internally, at least she got through the dungeon. Thinking back over it, if she hadn’t had Mana Blast she would have probably died several times over.

She could see how it would be possible for her, if she had played it right, to get through the first dungeon level. While it did seem to be the nutria’s natural environment, at least before they started glowing and gaining levels, it played to her strengths too. There were places where she would have been able to hide and ambush them individually, and some of them weren’t even fully grown.

The second level was a bit harder to analyze. On the one hand, the base requirement for the level seemed easy enough to achieve, just killing four Lumina Nutria, but that bred overconfidence and complacency. Besides that, the long hallway where the fights took place enforced straight confrontation. James was sure that if she didn’t have Mana Blast, she would have died on that level. It was a sobering thought, especially because there was no way to leave the dungeon once she entered it. The only way out was forward.

But even if James hadn’t fought all the extra nutrias on the second level, she was sure she would have met her end on this third one. The door handle burning was a guaranteed way to get an injury before the fight had even started and throw the whole mental game off. So was the long way down the staircase. And when the door was finally opened, it was to a French clothing boutique of all things. Filled with exactly one large, powerful Lumina Nutria.

Every single thing about it was distracting, the setting, the lead-up, and the absolutely bizarre opponent. Even with her overpowered skill helping her stay alive, James was sure the situation could have gone either way if she was a bit more frazzled. Or, more accurately, a bit less used to being so frazzled. Social anxiety for the win!

Resting for a bit longer and letting the health regeneration do its job, James lamented that the reward didn’t include a health potion. She could really use one. Or even just something to increase her regeneration. Dipping below 10% health did not feel fun. And even now her regeneration was only undoing the continued damage from the nutria boss’s magical attack. She’d probably stay a human-sized bruise for at least two days, if not longer.

You have 55:13 minutes until you are ejected from the dungeon.

Well, that was a time-crunch, and she wasn’t filling particularly well. Groaning, she sat up and went to the chest. Opening it, James was greeted with simple stud earrings. She frowned at them, at least they would look good with whatever she was wearing? Identifying them dispelled any disappointment she felt, however.

Earrings of Holding [Epic]: Earring meant to hold things out of the way in a different space. The right earring is meant for non-living artifacts and the left may be used to store excess health, stamina, and mana (up to 25% of users’ particular attribute). Also have transformation enchantment so that they may take on any desired appearance. Soulbound artifact.

These, these were amazing. No wonder they were her only real reward! Eagerly taking them out of the chest and not even really registering its disintegration, she watched her white mana touch both of the earrings. Flashing white for a second, they returned to normal, though normal was an understatement. Both held a deep blue vein of mana around them, which she could clearly see now that they were out of the chest.

Donning them, she could instinctively feel how to take in and out objects as well as input mana, stamina, and health. She’d probably take care of that once she got better.

And now she had a shopping cart in an empty clothing boutique. Despite the way she was feeling, James could sense a smile on her lips. She had always wanted to see what shopping at upscale stores was like.