System Change: Chapter 21

Derek viewed the dungeon information.

Oh, that’s informative, he thought as he viewed the different aspects of the dungeon. Level 100. Derek frowned. I wonder if the adventurers that Torith is going to send will be able to do a level 100 dungeon. I wonder what the levels actually look like in a big city. Surely, the lord has to be at a super high level.

Well, at least it’s an undying dungeon—just as I thought. I wonder if my Rejuvenation spell hurts undying creatures. It didn’t say anything about being a holy spell or anything, so I doubt it. Derek made a note to check it out later, if possible.

So, it’s level 100 and undying. That’s going to make it much harder to complete for whoever goes in. It’s probably packed full of enemies too, based on the extreme overflow. Derek felt bad for the adventurers that were going to be sent.

At least I know I should be able to find something over level 100 around here. If it’s that overflowed, something strong has to have come out. Derek looked at the final two pieces of information. I wonder if the first person to complete a dungeon gets anything special. Maybe every participant will get something good. Derek was tempted to enter the dungeon and complete it.

Damn, I wish I didn’t care about my level right now. I’d probably come out a level 50 or something if I solo’d it right now, he lamented. No sense in dwelling on it. I’ll just look for something to kill. Derek left the dungeon alone, for now, to do what he had set out to do in the first place.

He closed the window, and the dungeon interface appeared back in his vision. This time, he focused on the leave option, and just like that, the interface closed, and his hand fell free from the orb.

Before Derek did anything else, he noticed a new notification at the bottom of his vision. Hmm… I wonder what this will be.

Oh, sweet! I never expected a new achievement to come out of this. This system seems to be just giving them away. Maybe it isn’t as greedy as I thought. Then Derek thought of everything that had happened since he arrived. No, you’re still a super stingy system. I won’t fall for your blatant attempts to win me over. Derek dismissed his notification and looked at the achievement.

Nice! I hope I can choose from some excellent skills this time. Derek focused on the new skill.

What? Hell, no! What a useless skill. You want me to spend a precious skill point on being able to walk a little faster when there isn’t anything around me? I mean, if I could use it while running for my life, it would be different. Derek narrowed his eyes. Good one, System. You almost had me. I would rather spend the skill point on Cooking. Derek closed the notifications. The skill remained with the Award. If he ever decided that he wanted it, it would still be there.

Derek turned around and walked away from the dungeon. Okay, time to find this elusive high-level monster. He circled the area close to the dungeon, making as much noise as possible as he moved outward. This method had some decent results, as many diseased beasts approached him. There were bears, wolves, bunnies, and all kinds of other animals, all decaying.

Derek made sure to Identify every living, or nonliving, thing that approached him. So far, the highest-level creature he had found was a level 102 Forest Wolf. So close. Just ten more levels. Derek really wished that he could help the wolf level by helping it kill all the monsters that had gathered, then kill it for the achievement. But alas, there was only one dumb bunny.

Derek continued his ridiculous strategy for some time. The sun had already set, but he was in no position to rest. He had to keep at a fast pace to avoid the horde of monsters now trying to kill him. Solo, none of them would be a challenge for him, but if they all jumped him while he was meditating, yes, he may escape, but he would definitely not escape uninjured.

A couple hours after sunset, he got a notification after using Identify on a new addition of the horde telling him that the skill had reached level 11. That’s better than nothing.

It was now dark, and Derek was still running around. His massive amount of endurance made it so he wasn’t even close to being exhausted. Fighting was much more taxing on him, but he could run around for hours.

Finally, his eyes caught onto a glowing yellow pair of eyes slowly approaching him. Another bear? he wondered. Derek used Identify on the new beast.

That’s what I’m talking about. Derek had finally found his target. It was stumbling towards him. So, a zombie then. Derek glanced at the wave of monsters still following him. Better make this quick. Let’s go for the head.

Derek held his right arm out, and his glaive appeared in his hand. He took off toward the glowing set of eyes. When he got within five meters of the ghoul, it lunged. Whoa, it’s quick. Instead of cutting off the creature’s head as planned, he could only swipe at its chest. Shit, I wasn’t expecting that.

There was no way that this creature was as strong as the Void Beast, but he had been too lax. He finally decided to take it seriously—especially since the horde of monsters was drawing closer and closer. Derek focused on his bracelet, and his armor appeared on his body, all except for his helmet as it was in a poor condition and he could barely see out of it.

He touched his chest and felt the dents caused by the Void Beast. I’ll have to repair this eventually too. He dashed back in, this time focusing. The Acidic Ghoul swiped. This was what he was waiting for. He stepped backward. The ghoul’s hand slid across his chest armor, and Derek channeled the void into the end of his glaive.

Once the ghoul ended its attacking motion, Derek attacked. A purple glow streaked through the pitch-black night as the glaive flew toward the head of the ghoul. The blade met with the left ear of the ghoul. Derek felt a slight resistance, but the blade continued. Soon, the blade was freed from that rancid head. It hadn’t been sliced off, but it was enough. Derek saw the notifications stack up at the bottom of his vision.

Not wanting to stay around, Derek stored his glaive and was about to dart through the forest. However, before he could, he felt a sharp sting on his chest. What? Was the acid that potent? Derek decided that the chance for a quick kill was worth the risk of the acid on his armor. He hadn’t expected the acid to eat through his armor at all, much less this fast.

He did a quick take and grabbed the first diseased animal he could find, which was a wolf with dim red eyes. He brought it up to his chest and used it as a makeshift napkin. The wolf wailed as he tossed it aside and ran. He stored his armor, not knowing its current state. Then he removed his shirt and wiped his chest, tossing the remains into the forest.

That’s another T-shirt down. I really don’t want to have to wear one of those damn tunics. Derek could still feel the acid eating into his chest. Even with my endurance, it’s doing this shit. He did a quick view of his HP. Holy shit! A thousand points already. Now that was unexpected.

Derek had only channeled the void for a couple of seconds, so he still had plenty of mana. He cast Rejuvenation on himself. I’m glad I got some levels in this before I got here. At 25% health over 30 seconds, he would recover over 1300 HP. He could feel himself healing, but he could also feel the acid still eating away.

Dammit! This is ridiculous. Derek had been running at full speed through the forest and had lost the horde of monsters by now. 30 seconds passed, and Derek looked at his health again. It was at 4,800 and ticking down fast.

He found a still-standing tree and sat with his back to it. Let’s see if this works. He entered a meditative state and activated Greater Meditation. He could feel it working just like Rejuvenation, but he didn’t have to worry about Greater Meditation ending. After ten minutes, Derek checked his health status again.

It was full, so he left his meditative state while monitoring his HP. It’s still going down but at a much slower rate. Derek let out a deep breath. Whew… That sucked. He cast Rejuvenation, then slipped back into meditation to continue healing. He wanted to feel his chest with his hand but didn’t want to chance getting any of the acid on his fingers.

Ten minutes later, he sat up and checked on everything again. His health was full and no longer going down. Derek looked around, not seeing much in the dark, but also not seeing any monsters. I’ll rest here until morning. I have to go back to the dungeon tomorrow anyway, so I can get my bearings and figure out which way to go to leave this forest.

He leaned against the tree and closed his eyes.

Derek got up the next morning after a restful night of meditation. With the sun finally out, he could make sense of all that happened. First, he did a quick once over of his chest to see if there was any residual damage remaining. Fortunately for him, either his multiple Rejuvenations or his Greater Meditation had been able to fully heal him, allowing no scarring to occur.

In fact, as he looked over his chest, he realized that there was actually less scarring than there used to be. I guess the acid ate through the original scars, and when the healing fixed my chest, it went ahead and put me together anew. Damn, I actually like having the scars. I’ll definitely have to watch out for creatures that use acid from now on.

Next, Derek decided he had to do what he’d been dreading since last night. He had to see the damage caused to his chest armor. With a shake of his hand, his chest piece was on the ground beside him. With his hand, he flipped it over to view the front side.

Dammit! he cursed internally. Not only was the chest piece terribly damaged, but the acid was still on it, eating through. If he couldn’t think of something to do, the armor would become an irreparable piece of scrap metal. For the time being, all he could do was store the armor again to prevent further damage. Derek grabbed the shoulder of the armor and it vanished back into his bracelet.

Derek looked at the different things stored inside his bracelet. He needed to know if he had something that could help. He had some rags, bedding, and clothes, but he knew based on his shirt from the previous night that trying to wipe the acid off with cloth would have next to no effect.

Eventually, he decided he would wait until he could find a stream to wash the acid off. With his armor taken care of, for now, he pulled a fresh shirt out of his storage. It was another solid black, cheap cotton shirt, one that he used to buy for just a few dollars at any supermarket. I wish I would’ve bought more of these. Derek imagined himself in the same style tunic that Thomas was wearing and shuddered.

Now it’s time to reap my rewards. Derek began going through all the notifications he had received after killing the Acidic Ghoul.

Wow, that was a quick five levels. I could probably hit level 80 in no time here. Derek wanted to stay under level 25 so he could enter those dungeons for their rewards. He shook his head and checked his next notification.

He checked out the achievement.

Oh? I thought I was only supposed to get the one extra skill point. Another upgrade point is a big surprise. Derek thought that possibly losing his armor wasn’t going to be worth the reward, but with the extra skill upgrade point, it made the blow hurt much less.

Hmm? Why do I have more notifications? Derek was confused. He couldn’t think of a reason he would have more notifications other than maybe a skill leveling, but he could still see multiple messages waiting for him to read. He opened the first one.

Huh? Derek was speechless. He thought back to everything that he remembered happening. Finally, it hit him. The washcloth. Of course, Derek was thinking about the wolf he picked up and used as a makeshift wet wipe. Holy shit! I’m glad the shirt I threw didn’t land on a monster. How come it’s hard to get levels when you need them but easy when you don’t want them?

Finally, Derek opened the last notification.

Now that’s nice. He still couldn’t help but imagine a time when he could fight with Greater Meditation active.

Overall, I would say it was a very profitable trip. He was sad about his armor, but when he thought about how it was made by a level 125 Blacksmith from some planet in the other system, it made sense that the acid would damage it. Hell, I’m lucky that it held up against that Void Beast. It had to have been around level 150 or something. Now that he had fought a true level 115 beast, he could finally compare something to the Void Beast.

Finally, it was time to return to the village. But, in order to return, Derek had to make his way back to the dungeon so he could recognize the way he came. He trudged slowly toward the more diseased part of the forest—the same as he did when he was initially going in.

Soon, he found the gray orb again. He checked his surroundings, looking at the damage he had caused the night before. He chuckled. Looks like a tornado hit the place. The area was destroyed more than it had been previously. The damage was all in a circular pattern from when he used his ‘farming mobs’ strategy.

He had wondered why he had seen no one other than himself implement this strategy yet. It was a well-known method in RPGs to gather and kite around as many monsters as possible before killing them all at once. It saved a ton of time, and he had been using the same method since he first received the system. Of course, the Wide Sweep skill had a great part in the strategy working for him. I guess everyone doesn’t have a suitable area of effect skill or the speed to make it work.

While looking at the damage, he saw something in the distance. Oh, is that the ghoul? It was odd because, while it seemed to be at the right distance, there seemed to be more than the ghoul there. He went over to see what had happened.

To his surprise, there were at least a dozen dead beasts laying at or around the body of the Acidic Ghoul. Derek trembled with horror at the amount of experience that could have very well gone to him. I dodged a bullet on that. It seemed like the beasts had run over the acid-covered corpse while chasing Derek after he dispatched the ghoul. He would have tried to dismantle some corpses, but the potent acid had made the hides unsalvageable.

Derek stopped thinking about it and walked back over to the dungeon entrance. From there, he looked around and got a good idea of which way he had come from. All he needed to do was move away from the disease and he would eventually find his way out of the forest. From there, it would be easy to find Thomas’s village once again. Then, he began his long trek back. I wonder if that damned bunny is still hanging around here.

He decided that there was no need to hurry because there was plenty of time remaining before the boy’s birthday, so he traveled leisurely, still using Identify every chance he got. The higher the level the skill was, the less he had to worry about anyone discovering his actual level.

Hours later, he found one of the fire pits he had made the night before he found the dungeon. Not seeing a reason to waste it, he gathered wood and started up another fire. Derek took a flask out of his bracelet to relieve his thirst, then closed his eyes and entered meditation. Halfway through the night, a slight smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

In the morning, he opened his eyes and looked at the sun beaming through the trees. Then he looked past the dead fire to see a little bunny snoozing on the ground. “Hey! Wake up!” he yelled at the stupid rabbit. The bunny shot at least ten feet into the air before landing and looking over at Derek.

He could see that the rabbit didn’t find his antics funny. After staring at him for a moment, the bunny shot over the fire pit directly into Derek. This time, instead of Derek dodging, the bunny hit him in the chest and bounced off. “You better cut that shit out. I need a level 50 monster to take back with me, and right now, you’re looking like the prime candidate,” Derek warned the little rabbit.

He didn’t know if the bunny understood, but it hopped a few feet away and waited. “Now, you can stay with me while I’m in the forest, but when I leave the edge, you will have to stay in the forest,” Derek told his companion, but the bunny just stared back at him dumbly. “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?” It just stared at him.

Derek let out a sigh. “Well, I’m tired of calling you bunny, rabbit, and dumbass. Let’s give you a new name. What do you think?” Silence. Derek shook his head and thought about a name. “Hmm, we can call you Snowball or Bella.” Derek laughed at the names. “Yeah, I know, there is no way I would give anything such a generic pet name. Let’s see. You’re stupid, have silver-gray fur, and are always trying to kill me… Ding Bat? No…” Suddenly, a light bulb went off in Derek’s head. “I got it, the perfect name. From henceforth, the bunny known as dumbass will now be referred to as… Silvi.”

With that, Derek stood up and began walking through the forest. “Come on, Silvi, there are things that need head-butting.”

The man and beast continued their journey through the forest.