Damien stood before the Stage-1 dungeon, fully equipped in his gears: a jacket, a pair of shoes, gloves, a chef knife in one hand, and a santoku in the other.
Alas, he lacked many essentials—no awakened pants, shirt, underwear, cap, rings, necklace, or the countless other gear slots he wished were filled.
Gritting his teeth in frustration, he muttered, "I should've picked more versatile objects."
Tightening his grip on the knives, he shouted, "System! Enough with your napping—come and help me!"
> [Commencing Dungeon Analysis…]
[Dungeon Details: Stage-1, Tier-1 Dungeon]
[Enter the dungeon for further analysis.]
"Oooh… So you can detect tier as well. That's… good."
---
Dungeons stages were further classified into tiers based on how closely they replicated the abyssal environment.
There were five tiers, with Tier-1 dungeons replicating only 1% to 10% of the abyss, and upto 90% of the surrounding where the formed, while Tier-5 went up to 41% to 50%.
Obviously, dungeons couldn't mimic man-made environments like buildings or vehicles, but the natural ecosystem and mana density could be frighteningly similar.
"This is the weakest of the weak. I already know what's inside, but it's nice to get reassurance—at least nothing's been tampered with."
With that, he stepped into the dungeon.
---
Damien cautiously stretched his hand forward touching the blood red spherical thing levitating in air. A ripple went through the whole sphere.
As he entered, a strange sensation coursed through his body—like facing a crashing ocean wave while simultaneously being pulled by an unseen current.
For one second, everything vanished. In the next, he stood in a forest eerily similar to the one outside, but darker, quieter, denser. The soil was damp and slippery, and the grass barely grew.
Not an ideal place for a first fight.
> [Monster Probability]
Mini Rats: 90%
Giant Centipedes: 8%
Ant Swarm: 1.5%
Beetles: 0.5%
Glancing at the status window, Damien muttered, "Only rats and centipedes appeared in the novel…"
Then he noticed the 1.5%.
"Wait, ants…? Ugh, no way. Those things are a nightmare. Please, not the ants."
Shaking off the thought, he refocused on his objective. Knowing rats and centipedes were most likely, he switched his chef knife for the slicing knife.
---
As he moved forward he switched chef knife to slicing knife to activate [precision] any time. Since rats are very hard to catch unless the themselves jumped at you.
Generally stage-1 monsters didn't attack unless hungry. But after being transported from the abyss, starvation turned them into ravenous cannibals. Anything in their path became prey.
Damien heard faint squeaks ahead.
Cautiously, he crept forward and spotted a cave on an upward slope. A few rats scurried about, feasting on the corpse of one of their own.
These weren't regular rats—they were upto three times larger, with sharp front teeth capable of channeling mana, enough to disrupt a human's mana flow. Each carried a small solid mana core.
Generally mutated being have pseudo mana which can evolve as it absorbs more mana and vanishses after their death, but Abyssal creature have solid mana core which cannot evolve and also not vanishses after their death.
But stage 1 dwellers of abyss are native to earth who survived and mutated the mana exposer of abyss, but still noone know why they developed solid mana core.
He activated [Precision], increasing his accuracy by 200%.
Without hesitation, he hurled the slicing knife at one of the feasting rats. It sliced cleanly through the creature, splitting it in half before it could even squeak. Blood splattered across the nearby corpses, but the other rats didn't even flinch—they simply turned to devour the fresh meat.
"Blagh… Ugh, I put too much force in that one."
He looked at the system window.
"Great. Now the knife's gone. I can't aim for another throw."
> [You could've used another knife instead.]
"Yeah, yeah… but I can only throw five of them, and then what?"
He sighed, frustrated.
"If they were normal rats, I could club them with a stick. But these? One bite could screw my mana pathways."
> [You can activate your attack speed buff.]
With a tired groan, he muttered, "…Alright, let's do this."
He equipped the chef knife in his empty hand and stepped into the open.
The rats who hadn't gotten their fill—especially the smaller, weaker ones—turned toward the new scent of flesh. With sharp squeals, they charged.
As a dozen of them rushed at him, he activated [slice and dice], boosting his attack speed.
A surge of power coursed through his limbs, similar to the jolt he felt using [Sprint x3].
As the first few rats leapt at him, he stepped forward and slashed a flurry of arcs through the air, cleaving them in half before they landed. Blood and severed limbs splattered the soil.
Then he activated [Leap], jumping back to avoid the remaining rats lunging for his legs.
Thankfully, his awakened shoes held strong the biting of weaker mini rats.
The battle had stirred up a commotion, drawing attention from the larger rats feasting deeper inside the cave. Now, they too joined the frenzy.
Damien's expression paled. He could handle a few rats mid-air, but if any latched onto his leg, he'd be in serious trouble.
He made a split-second decision—dashing to a nearby tree and climbing up. The rats began climbing after him.
The tree was thin and brittle, barely supporting his weight.
As the rats scaled the trunk, he unequipped his knives and clapped activating [spark and fire]. Flames ignited on his gloves. He pressed his palms against the trunk, trying to set it ablaze, but the fire was weak—barely licking the bark.
Instinctively, he clapped again and again. To pace the process. Fortunately, the flames grew intense.
A third clap, and this time a intense burst of flame surged like a mini flamethrower. Extinguishing the flame from gloves.
Fire roared down the tree trunk, catching the rats mid-climb. The closest ones were scorched instantly, falling to the ground in flaming heaps. The ones behind caught fire and thrashed violently.
Damien leapt from the tree just in time. Avoiding getting caught in fire of burning tree.
A few rats, further away from the blaze, turned and charged at him again.
He have only few seconds before his speed buff ran off.
He didn't want to waste more durability on fire. Instead, he noticed a loose branch and hurled it at them. The rats scattered and jumped to dodge it.
That was his opening.
He activated [Sprint x2], dashed in, and cut through the mid-air rats with precise strikes.
Only three remained.
He rushed toward the cave, unequiping Santoku and picking slicing knife. He activated [Precision], this time hurling his chef knife. It pierced through the closest rat, slowing down the other two.
As they lunged at him, Damien kicked one—but it bit into his shoe.
"Ghh—!"
Without wasting time, he crouched and stabbed it with his slicing knife. The final rat leapt for his throat.
Startled, he caught it with his bare hand. He clapped activating [spark and fire] one last time and burned it into ashes.
"Aaah… haah…"
Breathing heavily, he dropped to the ground, propping himself up on both arms.
Even though the fight hadn't lasted a full minute, the exhaustion hit like a truck. Every skill, every movement took a toll.
But it wasn't over yet.
He stood and made his way to the burning tree. There were still a few half-charred rats writhing in pain.
One by one, he put them down and collected their Mana core.
The core were small, dark red—each the size of a bead.
He had killed a total of 23 rats. A few more mana stones were found inside the cave, harvested from older corpses.
In total, he had 34 Mana core. Eight of them were of better quality from larger rats.
Holding the sack in his hand, he smiled.
"Not bad for a first-timer. What do you think?"
A pause.
Then, with a sly grin, "I bet centipedes will be easier."