"James? James! Wake up! We've landed."
A hand shook his shoulder. James' brain slowly rebooted, after suffering immense damage from Mo's music. He grabbed his luggage and slowly walked out of the plane. Even a few minutes after he'd gotten off of the plane, he was still a bit groggy.
"Still sleepy, eh?" Jack clapped James on the shoulder. "We'll grab dinner and then head straight to the hotel."
The boys decided to settle for a fast food restaurant inside the airport. After devouring their burgers and fries, they walked outside with their soft drinks in their hand. Jack, who had gone on trips like this before, took the lead, and called a taxi that would drive them to the place they would stay for the night. After putting their luggage in the back, they clambered into the car.
"I've never actually ridden in a real taxi before," said Mo. "It's always one of those mobile ride apps for me."
"Yeah…why didn't I order a ride from one of those apps? Oh well. Doesn't really matter."
"New technology, plus the fact that a lot of people are poor, made those apps big."
This was James. He had somewhat recovered his wit at this moment.
"Deep, man. Honestly, I should hire you to work at the company in the future," said Jack. "You could be my right hand man. And then, Mo could be the head of the advertising department. We could make it big."
Jack's dad's company, Monarch, was a major technological company that was known for selling high quality, technologically advanced products at a cheap price. At least, it was cheap for those types of goods. They sold goods mainly related to computers and phones, but dabbled in other things as well.
"I mean, as long as I don't have to do paperwork, I'm down. Advertising seems kind of fun, actually," said Mo.
James remembered the music he'd listened to on the plane. Then, he imagined attempting to watch videos online, and seeing an ad for the Monarch XG77 graphics card while that music blasted in the background. He shivered.
"Do you even have knowledge of that? I think you could do something else. Like researching. Yes, researching fits you better." James desperately attempted to dissuade him, even though he knew none of them was being serious. At all costs, he had to avoid Mo's music. If by any chance Mo did design ads for a company as big as Monarch, James' life would be over.
The boys talked until the taxi arrived at their destination. Jack paid the driver, and the boys walked into the hotel with their stuff. For a moment, James wondered how 3 underage boys were going to check into a hotel room, but apparently Jack's dad had it covered. All Jack had to do was say his last name, "Anderson," and the receptionist practically tripped over herself to offer the best service possible.
They were quickly shown to a room. It was actually more of a suite. It was massive and also had separate rooms for each of them. Even the toothbrush provided made James feel as if he was being wasteful
"Man, when I'm talking with you, I never realized it, but you really are a big-shot, huh? I mean, just mentioning your dad's name does that." Mo said as he put his luggage in his closet. Actually, Monarch was a massive company, so this treatment wasn't excessive at all.
"Shit I just realized! We're in Oregon now!" James suddenly exclaimed. "We're not in Arizona anymore!"
"My guy, it's been like 2 hours since we got off the flight. Is your brain still asleep?"
"It might be."
"Well, try and turn it on by tomorrow. We'll head over to the campground somewhat early, so try and get some good sleep."
Jack said goodnight, and walked into his own room. James and Mo did likewise.
James took a shower, and then went to bed. The bed was about 3 times wider than his bed at home, and James felt somewhat uncomfortable.
"Hehe. Before, I might've tossed and turned on the bed for a while before falling asleep. But, times have changed! Now, I have a fast, shortcut path to eternal sleep!"
James thought to himself triumphantly. He was about to enter the dungeon when he realized something was wrong with his word. Eternal sleep meant death. He most definitely did not want a fast path to death! Maybe his brain really was still asleep.
James entered the dungeon and ran through it. His speed was increased by a fair amount using the Hermes Kicks, and his knife throwing skills had also improved to the point where he could deal with almost all of the goblins with a single throw. As such, his clearing speed increased drastically. 2 weeks into his dungeon exploration, his status looked like this:
{James Lu: Dungeon Explorer
Cleared 1st Floor
Points: 898
STR: 20
DEF: 2
END: 2
AGI: 2
INT: 42
LUK: 27*$!9
Skills: None }
His increased speed was reflected in the increase in points he had, but his rate of collecting orbs didn't increase by too much. He was just unlucky this week, he thought. James did understand, however, that his rate of collecting orbs was ridiculous compared to other explorers. He didn't have an explanation for it, but just attributed it to his fucked up luck stat.
James ran into a goblin, and stuck it with a knife. His philosophy "stab enemies until dead" might need some modifications. Perhaps he could change it to "Wound enemies until dead." Technically, since he was throwing the knives, he wasn't stabbing them.
James quickly darted through the floor and entered the boss room. He did his usual thing: he crippled the first goblin, threw potion vials at the boss goblin's eyes to blind it, and then killed the first goblin.
Then, the boss goblin's aura rose by a notch, as it always did. When it went berserk, it temporarily raised its level to the 3rd tier. However, this mana pulse startled James for a bit today. However, once the goblin started attacking the air, James cleared his mind and focused. He camped it out and threw knives at it, killing it without a problem.
Once the goblin was dead, James realized why the feeling of mana had startled him. He had detected mana earlier today, when he was not in the dungeon. How had he forgotten about something so important? His brain really was asleep!
He'd determined the source to be from Mo's music, but James had no clue why the music was infused with mana.
"Is it the music itself? Or is Mo's phone , which played the music, the true cause? I haven't seen him in the shop before, but there's a possibility that Mo's also a dungeon explorer. But I can't just ask him. If he isn't, who knows what he'll think."
James thought about it, but he simply didn't have an answer.