After my first glance at the twelfth level, I had to pause and catch my breath. This place was freaking nice. I stood on the other side of the entryway to the castle in a massive entry hall. The floor was covered in a fine velvety red carpet. The walls crafted from carefully cut and polished stone bricks. Lavish tapestries depicting, unsurprisingly, spiders, covered the walls at intervals interspersed by half-columns set into the stone faces. Each corridor was lit with elaborate candelabras and chandeliers plated in gold, holding glowing glass spheres illumined with magic. I originally thought this place would look similar to a temple inside given the name of the dungeon, but I would equate this more to Versailles than a cathedral. I almost felt bad, knowing I was going to be destroying a large amount of this level in my pursuit of strength. Almost.

  100 enemies? That didn’t sound too bad. Hopefully, I could get through this floor quickly. From where I stood, there was a total of five possible exits. On either wall next to me were two stairways leading upwards with corridors at their apex, and beneath the stairwells were the starts of two more hallways. Furthermore, beneath a small balcony lied a large double door made of thick wooden slats, carved with intricate floral patterns. Not wanting to think too hard about my exploration of the castle, I opted to just walk to the left and hope for the best.

  The corridor stretched deeper into the castle, with the occasional door placed down the hall. At the first door, I tried to open it and found it locked. A quick cast of my water cutter saw the wood around the handle disintegrate, and I was able to pull it open only to find that behind the door was a wall of bricks. They were a fa?ade.

  This whole castle, while it might look real, was still a dungeon and still followed the rules of one, which seemed to revolve around corridors and open spaces. The hallway stretched around the circumference of the castle in an arc, and after a while, I came to a turn, moving further into the circular structure.

  I was about to continue deeper into the structure when my uncanny sight picked up something strange with the ceiling over the junction. There was an irregular shape sitting in the crown of the corridor.

  It was a variant of the normal warrior, but considering its coloring, size, and name, this was certainly an upgraded version. If the lesser warriors were the stage 1 variant, and the large black ones were stage 2, this must be a stage 3. Considering the impressive increase in fighting strength between the different stages so far, it would be a good idea for me to be extremely careful with this enemy.

  Moving back several paces, I retrieved a small copper coin from my bag and experimentally threw it at the shape. The coin simply bounced off but was enough to provoke the arachnid to attack. It flipped over backward, landing on the ground in a ready position.

  Like its previous iteration, this one had two unique forelimbs, but where the previous version possessed swords, this one seemed to have a set of scimitars. The bladed limbs were significantly longer than the six others and had upward curved tips and broad blades. The shell of the spider was unique, possessing a slate grey color similar to stone, with metallic gold accents. These spiders were either created to specifically hide against these walls, or these walls were picked to allow these spiders to hide. Their camouflage is what allowed it to hide from my sights so well.

  The corridor was around 15 feet wide, rather large for a hallway, but small for a fight, and the ceiling was 15 feet as well, making it high enough for vertical dodges, but too low for any impressive flight. While the warriors always tended to try and attack first, this variant seemed more cautious, opting to slowly approach from the front. When I would try and move to the left, it would move to the right to cut me off, and vice versa. Slowly I drew the knight’s blade and prepared to make my move.

  As soon as the sword was clear of the sheath, the royal warrior struck, as if it was waiting for me to arm myself. With deft movements and finesse, the spider began a complex series of attacks against me, forcing my retreat. I was being pushed back. When I sent lighting or ice blades it’s way, it would simply slice them out of the air, or force me to shift my free hand to miss the attack. The two scimitar-like appendages worked in perfect coordination, sometimes attacking, sometimes defending. They would work together for more powerful joint strikes and would separate, one forcing me to defend, while the other targeted my openings. I couple of times I tried to fly up and over, but the deft movements of the blades preventing any chance of vertical escape. I was slowly but sure taking damage, my exposed arms starting to take shallow cuts.

  In an attempt to break its defense, I used 30 stamina and lightning stepped to the left. Amazingly, it was able to sense my intent, and it held its right limb out, leaving me to injure myself against its blade. It was a sore reminder; the lighting step did not make me teleport. It made me move with incredible speed and at a steep cost, but I could only move in a line, and I was still vulnerable during travel. Somehow, the warrior had understood my plan and acted accordingly, and now, my left arm was hanging loosely by my side, too damaged to function. Time ticked by and I continued my retreat, the fighting prowess of the royal warrior plain to see.

  This fight had been going on for too long. I was almost ten minutes into the encounter and was covered in even more wounds across my body. I had started to use my mana to quickly heal the injuries across my body, but I couldn’t concentrate on any one injury without opening myself up to more attacks. Any time I tried to cast a spell, it would either be deflected or avoided. I wanted to try and use lighting step again but understood that it was probably unwise to focus my quickly dwindling stamina on such a gamble. If I was going to win, I would have to be through either luck or pure skill. I just hoped what I brought to the table would be enough.

  First, I needed to break its attack, and give me some space to engage on my terms. I charged my wings with lighting, using almost all of the mana I had left. Fortunately, random arcs of lighting worked as I wanted them to. While they did little to injure the monster, they did play on its caution, forcing it to retreat a few paced. It was a small gap, but it was enough to let me make my move.

  The spider was strong, but it attacked in patterns that I recognized as sword forms. It was incapable of flowing seamlessly from one to another, and I noticed a small gap in the stance each time it would shift forms. It would bring both of its arms back into a ready position before moving on. That was my opening to attack. Attacking in the opening was a risky business considering its prowess, but it was my only chance of landing a critical blow.

  I engaged the warrior again, being once more forced to defend as it started its debilitating attack. I bided my time, staying on the retreat, but prepared to engage when it was time.

  There! Its form ended, and the opening appeared! I dove forward in a lunge, the knight’s blade held out to destroy the brain in one shot. This attack was all or nothing. I dumped all 90 of my remaining stamina into tempered body, increasing my strength by 9 for a brief second to let me get just a bit more power.

  I sensed the world move in slow motion as the tip of my sword entered the royal warrior’s head, sinking deeper and deeper until the sword was half-buried into the dense carapace, but I wasn’t fast enough. Like a falling guillotine, the two scimitars closed in on me, the right sinking deep into my lung, and the left piercing my femoral artery. I felt my vision fading as the blood started filling my airways, coughing a mouthful of the stuff into the warrior’s eyes. I guess this was it. I had no potions to rely on, and I was out of both mana and stamina, health soon to follow.

  I tried to release a bitter howl of anger but only succeeded in coughing out more life-giving blood.

  In a final act of defiance, I used my remaining hand to grip the handle of my trusty sword, twisting it deeper. If I was going down, this bastard was coming with me. As the world faded into darkness, I clenched my fist around the handle, falling out of thought to the sensation of the scimitar-limbs tearing through my skin.

  --------------------- --

  I awoke.

  I was… alive? Everything hurt, but the pain only served to fuel my awareness, pulling me from the black. My sight was blurry at first, and it took me a second to realize where I was.

  Currently, I was pinned to the ground, stuck under the corpse of the royal warrior. The goo falling from its corpse was a navy blue, unlike the green I was used to seeing, and it stank like rotten eggs. I had been here for a while. Cautiously, I pulled up my status to check how I was doing and give me an idea of how long I was out of it.

  I was now 22 days old, meaning that at least 8 hours had passed, and I had officially lost the bonus experience and item drops that the dungeon offered. I was bummed that I missed the window, but honestly, I was just happy I was alive.

  Vic! You finally came to. I was so worried about you!

  Luna! It’s good to hear your voice again. That fight was terrifying… what the hell was up with that spider? Was it another boss or something?

  No, it didn’t seem so. My guess is that the spider had training. Lots of it, too. Physically it wasn’t much more impressive than the warriors, but considering it’s fighting prowess? To be quite frank, I thought I would lose you. Good thinking taking advantage of your Survivor skill to get you out of trouble.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Survivor skill? What was she going on about? I opened up my skill sheet and pulled up the relevant entry to look at.

  Ah. I definitely forgot the skill was even there. It’s just never come into play, and it sits right around the bottom with my other weird 1/1 skills. What a lucky break…

  Yeah, haha, super good thing I had that skill. Just as I planned.

  Riiiight. Vic, you may be an impressive fighter, but you are one terrible liar. I can’t believe you forgot about one of your skills. I’m glad you’re okay, but still.

  Sigh, that’s fair, I guess. I do always carry around a notebook for a reason. I tend to forget things that I don’t deal with all the time, so I always try and write them down. If only I could do a better job at remembering what I’ve written…

  Vic, have you, perhaps, ever thought to invest in a memory-enhancing skill?

  Those exist?!?

  Of course, they do! You just need to practice memory improving exercises, and you should eventually develop a skill for it. Considering your lifespan, you have more than enough time to work on it.

  Can you remind me to do it when we finish the dungeon?

  Vic, I’m not an alarm clock. Yes, I’ll remind you, but you need to remember that I won’t be sitting in your head forever, so savor it while it lasts.

  That was a bit of a grim reminder. I enjoyed having a companion to talk to when I was bored, and when I had trouble, and I would miss it. My build was based around solo exploration, but that didn’t mean I wanted to go through life by myself. It was comforting to have someone to fall back to when things didn’t make sense.

  Regardless, now was not the time for such thoughts. I needed to get some work done if I was going to survive on this floor. I had enough food with me to last for six days, and I intended to take all the time I needed to ensure my survival. The first rule of being a solo MMO player was to always be prepared. Stock potions, over-level, and play as cautiously as possible to ensure that you can make it to the next encounter. In games, you could die and start over as many times as needed, but I didn’t get the luxury. I didn’t choose the solo play archetype, H.G. chose for me, but I would make the best of it, and I would kick ass.

  First things first, I pulled up my alert page for level-ups and skill ups.

  I had a lot of questions regarding the new combat skills, but first, I wanted to advance Pain Tolerance.

  This was… a hard choice. Pain resistance was out. The danger of not feeling pain was too steep. If I was going for a tank build, that would be the choice, but it was not a good idea for me to ignore injuries altogether. Both Advanced Pain Tolerance and One Body would grant the same bonuses to the original skill, but their effects vary. It was a difficult decision. Did I try and increase my focus in combat with my injuries, helping me make better choices, or do I make it easier to heal injuries when I receive them? It was a tossup. Enhanced Physicality granted some amount of proprioception, but it was only to the level of understanding general information, nothing specific which would help me heal.

  With hesitation, I selected One Body from the menu.

  Skill Sheet:

  If you have any questions or comments, leave them in the discord please. I'm working on getting an editor through Patreon funds, but for now, I'm focusing on editing my stuff more.

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