Azaan slept in his bed. The heater was on and the room had just the right amount of chill that made sleep indescribably comfortable. Rays of sunlight came in through the window landing directly upon his eyes. The rays provided just the right amount of heat making him want to keep sleeping but their light kept disturbing him. He rolled on the mattress to run away even though it was impossible. In the end, he cycled through periods of lucidity and unconsciousness as he could not find the determination to get out of the warm embrace of his mattress.
After gathering all his willpower, he finally got up, turned off the heater, and went to the bathroom, taking a cold shower. As the cold water struck his body, he felt a shock as sleepiness was exorcised from his body. After quickly drying himself up, he wore his clothes as he felt his body start heating up. Suddenly, a warmth spread across his body from his stomach, heating his body even faster.
He sat on a stool thinking of what he should have for breakfast. Wanting something different than usual, he finally decided.
"Halwa puri it is."
He took out whole wheat flour and semolina. Taking out a pan, igniting a fire, he started the process for halwa while he kneaded the flour for puris. After the kneading was done, he started frying the puris in oil. His mouth salivated as he gulped. By now, the halwa was ready so he started making tea.
He really liked the winter, there was no sweating when cooking, no sweating when working and the cold was manageable with clothes. He placed all the things on plates and placed them on a sheet that he had spread on the floor. Basking in the cozy sunlight, he ate his breakfast silently, slowly. It was relaxing and what little tension was remaining in him after the dive was gone.
The dive, though it had been painful, was over as was the pain that he had experienced in it. For him, it seemed like a dream had ended and whatever had transpired in it did not affect him. Mostly. He was starting to take a liking to that feeling of near-death, however painful it was, when his heartbeat with vigor, adrenaline coursed through his body, and when the world had just slowed down.
He ate his breakfast, his eyes unfocused, just focusing on the taste of the food. The sweetness of halwa, the crispiness of the puri, and the creamy tea. He felt satisfied and a little bit disappointed when it was finished.
Cleaning all the dishes and pots, he took his wallet and key and left the building, greeting the guard on the way. His destination was landa bazaar. With every dive, he shredded a whole suit so he was here to buy some cheap clothes. He searched across the market, checking different shops. His main requirement for the clothes was durability and ease of moment. By the time he had 10 suits, he decided to go back.
The first thing he did after returning was cleaning the apartment. As he completed the task, he quickly ran into the bathroom. Until now, he had been bearing with the sweat but now that the cleaning was done, he took a shower and changed into one of the newly bought clothes.
"Enter dungeon."
He tried to shorten the phrase to see whether it would work.
Enter the Endless Dungeon
Y/N
He kept his eyes wide open, wanting to see what actually happens. As he selected 'Y' he was in the white hall. One moment he was in his room and then the next, he was in the white hall. Shaking his head at his failed attempt, he sat down on the floor with his back to the statue.
He sat down in the white room and started browsing through the equipment section. It was a boring task but this time he had decided to actually sit down and check what was available in here.
Taking out his laptop from the inventory, he started searching through the list of available weapons. There were swords, spears, daggers, guns, bombs and missiles, and more. As he only skimmed through the list, he only had the prices to base his opinion of the weapons on. Unsurprisingly, as magical as this whole thing was, there were swords and similar cold weapons that were even more expensive than some of the missiles.
He found a particularly interesting thing as he was searching through the list of poison and medicine.
Body Enhancement (Level 1, 2) - Low: CP 4
Description: Enhances Level 1 and Level 2 Body stat by 30 points for 1 hour. No side effects.
There were enhancements drugs for other stats also. All of them were available in three variations: low, medium, and high. Low provided 30 points of enhancement, medium for 40, and high for 50. All of them had the same duration and similarly, none of them had any side effects.
He searched for Level 3 equipment but nothing came up. This was the second time that he had seen the mention of levels. There were no experience points though so he was wondering how the levels were handled.
"What are the levels? Please take 'F' grade achievement as payment."
His back was still towards the statue but the light that flashed from its eyes was visible as they cast a blue hue on the white floor.
"Hundred points in a stat constitute a level for said stat. For example, 1 to 100 constitute Level 1, 101 to 200 Level 2 and similar projection follows ahead. A Level is acquired when all stats are at said Level."
Its eyes flashed again at the end and it stopped talking.
Nodding his head he continued looking through the equipment while making a list of items that he was going to buy. The sword and the poison were a must. He was physically very weak and it was only due to the poison being so powerful that he was alive at all. With them though, he also added a pistol and some grenades to increase the firepower. They were the normal kind with no magical shenanigans that made their price sky-high.
He had never used any firearms before so he would have to learn on the go, hopefully, the little archery he had learned would help him in precision.
"Heck!"
He suddenly remembered that he had to go to the gym and the archery range. His usual schedule was going thereafter he was done with the morning prayer and other routine but today sleep had taken him in its grasp.
As he bought all the things, it cost him 11.7 CP in total. The most expensive was the low Body enhancement drug. Two of the doses that he had bought took nearly all his savings. The pistol cost 1 CP, each grenade cost 0.5 and so did the crate of bullets.
After buying his equipment, he continued his search through the equipment list searching about random things ranging from phones and laptops to games to cars to cement. Everything was available, some with very high prices that set his expectations high. After all, the poison, Slumber, that he had been using was the only thing that gave him the ability to actually do something. If not for the poison, he certainly could not have accomplished much with his weak body.
He kept skimming through random stuff until he was completely bored and could not continue onwards.
The equipment that he had just bought was on the floor. There was a sword, a jar of poison, two injections, he frowned as he saw them, a pistol that reached nearly to his elbows and a box full of bullets.
He picked up the pistol and started checking its body. Anyone who had played games at least had played some FPS games and thus he played with it and opened the magazine.
There were 25 bullets in it. He fired a shot.
Bang
He had gripped the pistol with both hands but felt numbness. He fired another shot and then looked ahead where the nozzle was pointed at. There was no change at the walls and neither were the remains of the bullets.
He then opened the bullet box and refilled the magazine. There were 10 smaller boxes and each had 100 written on them calculating to 1000 bullets in total.
His inventory currently had 2 quivers and a crate of ration. He took out the quivers and placed the poison, bullet crate, and the two enhancement drugs inside. Seeing as how the two small and thin drug injections two a whole slot, he thought about buying a box to put them in but the money here was literally earned using his blood so he had no thought of wasting it on superficial stuff that could be bought outside.
He equipped the remaining equipment and trained towards the statue as he stood up. He was just going to start the dive when a question popped up in his mind.
"How can I get information on the dive beforehand? 'F' grade achievement as payment."
As the light flashed his heart started beating furiously. Thankfully though, he had carefully kept his eyes away from the statue so nothing actually happened.
"A diver needs to request the information about his dive and it will be provided to them."
It was at that moment Azaan knew that he was stupid. Though he did not think so for long. The incident from before kept him away from the statue as much as he could.
"Dive information?"
He released an arrow in the dark hoping to get a reply and it did hit.
"Mission Type: Extermination
Minimum Requirements: 100 Kills
Base Payment: 2 CP
Successful Dives: 2
Additional Payment: 14 CP
Total Payment: 16 CP"
Now that he could pay attention to the mission statement, without considering his safety, questions came up in his mind. For example, what was base payment, successful dives, etc? He did not ask the questions though, already as it was, he had little achievements left and he wanted to save them when he had to purchase t powers.
"Dive."
-----
As he came to himself, he was not greeted by a lovely and calm forest with sunlight filtering through the canopy. What greeted him was a dark forest, full of uncomfortable silence with occasional moonlight being able to escape the thick canopy above. He rubbed the goosebumps on his arms and started moving forward.
As he crept through the forest, he heard some faint noises. He readied his pistol and spread the poison across the sword and slowly made his way towards the sound. The forest was full of patches of light and dark. In some places, the light was able to pass through and he kept to them because otherwise, it was impossible to see.
The goosebumps intensified as he got nearer and the sounds became more distinct. He could hear screaming and he could hear faint laughter that was lazily drifting over them. He grabbed the pistol with both hands ready to fire at any moment while he slowed down, even more, to not create any sound.
By the time he could clearly hear them, his heart had started sprinting at full speed making him wonder whether it would explode. At that moment a warmth flooded out from his stomach and it calmed him somewhat and refilled his energy.
He slowly peeked from the trees and then moved ahead, ever so slowly cutting his distance. There stood a single goblin, the smallest type. All around him were other goblin heads floating all around it as it crawled across the forest floor. And it did crawl because he had not seen him take even one step as he was moving.
Sometimes laughter sounded from it and Azaan considered what he should do. Not that he was prepared for whatever it was that was occurring here. He repeated a dua and then started observing it, only moving when it was going to leave his limited vision.
He noticed that the heads were all making individual, unique movements. He looked at them, then at the little goblin, and slowly brought his pistol and positioned it for a headshot. It moving so slowly helped in this endeavor. Just as he pulled the trigger, the being turned and laughter echoed and he felt lightheaded but then in an instant, he recovered.
Bang
Its head splattered but one of the floating heads flew on its neck and started fusing but he did not give it any time and started shooting. The remaining heads that were floating were a bit harder to hit as they floated up and down. Even after shooting all the heads, the body stood ramrod, not intentions of falling down. He shot at its legs and spine, requiring multiple shots to eventually hit them. Afterward, he went closer with a sword in his grasp and started slashing at the body. He kept checking the mission details as he cut the arm away, then the remaining arm, then the torso, then the legs. In the process, he was drenched in sweat and blood. Even his head hairs had stood up, nearly all of them standing vertically. His heart was going even faster.
Then suddenly, he felt better, his mind clear and as he looked at the mission details, one kill had been registered.