Once again Kyle had to swim for a long time, when he arrived at the 7 minutes mark he hesitated for a second but steeled his resolve and kept swimming down, if the rock was playing him then he was now dead.
After the 10 minutes mark his vision started to darken and blur, darken because the sun was down already now and blur because of the lack of oxygen. The pressure made his chest painful and his mind fuzzy, he couldn't think anymore and was just following the rock by automatism.
One more minute in the water and he would probably die, when he was on the verge of losing consciousness and regretted following a stupid rock he felt his body being twisted but it didn't even last a second so he wasn't sure if that feeling was real. What he was sure about tho was that he wasn't underwater anymore, the pressure around his chest had disappeared and his buzzing ears were now fine, instead he could hear water dropping like a cascade. How could water drop inside of water ?
He opened the eyes that he didn't remember closing and in front of him was a 5 meters high cascade that fell straight in a pool, inside the pool were golden and silver fishes swimming around. He lifted his eyes from the pool after a second and realized he was being observed, an old man wearing a silver and golden robe embedded with the same type of fishes as in the pool was standing a few meters away from Kyle with his arms crossed behind his back, he lifted one hand to gently put his long hair behind his ear and smiled at Kyle.
"Welcome to the dungeon !"
Kyle looked at the man for a second before asking
"You are ?"
"Hmm how should I explain it, I'm not human. I am the dungeon."
"You are the dungeon ?"
Kyle looked incredulously at the old man.
'He's joking right ? Should I laugh ? Maybe he's crazy.'
When he was about to smile politely the old man continued
"Shining lake dungeon, this is the name of this place and also my name. When a dungeon go through enough time it can develop a sentient mind and I am the soul of this dungeon, I also brought you here."
"You're the rock ?"
"Hahah i was controlling it, of course I'm not the rock."
His first guess was right, the rock was being pulled by someone and wasn't a treasure at all...
"Why did you bring me here, I'm only a level 2 magical knight. There is no use in framing or killing me..."
"I'm well aware of that, I once belonged to your grandpa. There is no heredity rule in dungeons but I promised to your grandpa to help you out when he will be gone, he felt his end coming long before it happened and on top of being my owner he was a good friend I can't refuse a favor to my friend."
"You belonged to my grandpa ?"
"Once a dungeon is cleared by someone that someone becomes the owner of the dungeon and is granted complete control over it and over the income, follow me."
The old man started walking towards a well lit corridor while speaking.
"How did my grandpa conquer the dungeon ? Isn't it supposed to be possible only for a huge group of people ?"
"Your grandpa wasn't as strong as your dad but he was still one of the strongest people on this planet."
"Wait ! You knew my dad ?!"
"I know you are curious but there is nothing I can tell you, your grandpa left hints for you on the upper levels to find your dad and mom. Become strong enough to reach them and you'll be qualified to learn about your parents."
"How many levels are in this dungeon ?"
"Nothing much, most dungeons have between 1 to 100 levels, I on the other hand am a legendary class dungeon and I have 1000 levels."
Both kept chatting and walking until they reached a small room, it must have been someone's bedroom once. There was a bed, a table, a bookshelf and a bathtub, now however it was covered in dust and only the white bathtub was filled with water and looked perfectly clean.
"Get in the bathtub."
Kyle looked at the old man, he understood that this man was saying the truth as there was no need to go this far if he wanted to kill or do whatever the hell he want with him, except if he had a hidden Demon inside him like Naruto... that was kinda improbable.
When he wanted to take off his clothes to jump in the bathroom he realized he had already taken them off before jumping in the lake and had been walking around with his Lil Dicky dangling since earlier...
He hid it with his hands and looked at the old man.
"Couldn't you remind me I've been walking like this since earlier?"
"Oh you wanted my reminder? Sorry I thought that was your fetish, I'll remind you next time."
Before causing himself anymore embarrassment he jumped in the bathtub.
That's when he realized it wasn't water, it looked like water but he was being attacked by it. As if the liquid wanted him to get out it kept giving him minuscule little hits everywhere on his body, Kyle looked curiously at the old man and without asking the old man said
"Why would I bring you here to take a bath ? I've smelled you needed one since you arrived but I'm not responsible for that, this is called a [strengthening elixir]. You can find stuff named like this everywhere in the city but the quality is vastly different, if I had to guess you must be able to find this stuff at only 2 or 3 places across the earth, legendary dungeons excluded."
While he said that the old man extended a hand in front of him and a book flew from the shelf to his hand, the book was extremely thin with only 10 pages at most.
"Read this."
Without hesitation Kyle opened it and started reading, he very soon got so focused on the content of the book that he forgot about the [strengthening elixir] kicking in, in 5 minutes he closed the book and closed his eyes.
The old man didn't say anything and kept looking at him, 2 minutes passed before Kyle opened his eyes and looked at the old man.
"You learned it ?"
"Yes."
"Alright use it on the [strengthening elixir]."
It was a skill book.
The skill contained was [High grade Analysis].
Normal [Analysis] that could be found in any library in the city could only analyze an item of lower or equal level as the user of the skill, [High grade Analysis] could analyze any item of lower, equal or at most 10 levels over the user !
[High grade Analysis] used.
< The item has been Analyzed:
[Distilled legendary grade strengthening elixir].
Minimum level of the user : 1.
Maximum level of the user : None.
Effects : - Strengthen the foundation and body of the user.
- Grants +10 experience points for each minute spent in.
Effect will fade after 10 hours of usage.>
'This works really well.'
Thought Kyle, he already had a [Low grade Analysis] that he had found in his grandfather's room, that skill had disappeared after finding a higher graded one but Kyle realized that even the informations given by the higher grade skill were more detailed !
"Alright I'll take a nap, you stay here until the effects fade. You should have reached the level 11 after I come back."
Said the old man as he merged into the wall he had been standing against.
"For real ?!"
Kyle didn't believe this item was so good, the effects were otherworldly! In 10 hours he would skip 9 levels while most people would need 1 year at least to do that ? And one year was only for geniuses, normal people would take 3 to 5 years ! He wondered if the most talented kids his age were also given such heavenly items from their youth...
He opened his status page to check :
<
Name : Kyle Lee
Age : 15 years, 3 months, 8 days.
Race : ?
Title : ?
Job : None.
Status : At home : +10 recovery speed, +5 to all stats.
Level : 2 ( exp : 57/100 )
Stats :
Strength : 9 (+5)
Dexterity : 7 (+5)
Speed : 8 (+5)
Intelligence : 11 (+5)
Leadership : 0 (+5)
Stamina : 8 (+5)
Luck : 13 (+5)
Skills :
[High grade Analysis]
[Medium grade swimming]
[Low grade freestyle fighting]
>
The maths were easy, 10 hours was 10 times 60 minutes which made it 600 minutes and since each minute was worth 10 experience points he would get a total of 6000 experience points.
'So 6000 experience points will take me straight to level 11 ? This elixir is insane... this is only the distilled version ?'
The only thing annoying him was how bad his skills were, how he had got them was pretty easy to guess : he had spent most of his bored time swimming in the lake since he was a kid and he had often sneakily trained by hitting a tree when his grandfather was absent or busy.
Remembering where the old man had pulled the skill book [High grade Analysis] he looked at the book shelf greedily.