Back in the dungeon, I stuck to the same plan as yesterday. Firearms on the way down. Cold weapon on the way up. I found an empty area on the first floor. And changed my clothes. I was now wearing my 1965 marine uniform with a flack jacket. The helmet was replaced with a boonie hat. M14 and M1911, my machete and a few HE grenades and I was good to go. I didn't want to waste ammo on the low level monsters so I just hacked and slashed my way through them. The Jack bird was found on the left side of the first floor. 'Maybe the dungeon changed the spawn point, or it just ran around on it's own.'
If one draws a straight line on the map of the floor from entrance to exit, then for the last 3 days, I'd been finding and killing the Jack Birds on the right side of that line. Today the bird was to the left of that line. 'I will check thoroughly, later.' With that the decent continued. I came across a few parties of adventurers. They gave me weird looks, based on my clothes and unusual weapons. I just told them I'm going to be testing out a few artifacts and weapons I'd made and was looking for an empty spot that wouldn't bother beginners and wouldn't cause a stampede. Showing them proof from the guild got them off my back.
Nothing major really happened until I hit the sixth floor. The machete worked fine halfway into the fourth floor. Then machete and pistol all the way down to the sixth. On the sixth floor the number of War Shadows and Frog shooters went up sharply. 'So the fifth floor is a transition floor.' There were no goblins, kobolds and drop lizards on the sixth floor, but the high number of war shadows and frog shooters was more than making up for it. 'It's the dungeon testing your basics, training, tenacity and temperament.' I mean even a group of war shadows is pretty easy to handle if you keep calm and create distance after every hit you land.
Genryusai's tutorial of basics was actually more enlightening than I realized. Taking a deeper look at what he showed us, it may seem like simple basic techniques, but as every experienced professional knows, it's the basics that you need to develop. Kicking and punching in any martial art is the same, it's the young ones that have only been at it for about a year that do stupid shit. The master who practice for years keep it simple, kick your ass and keep drinking like nothing happened. I also need to work out. I mean I still look like a lanky-ass scarecrow. 'Maybe weight training in the dungeon will help with that.' I took off the flack jacket and put on the plate carrier. Replaced the boonie hat with a helmet. I put the flack jacket back on and kept going. The added weight of the plate carrier would take a while to get used to.
Using my M14, I took the sixth floor in two hours. The major problem was the groups of war shadows. The MAP would pick them up its just that when you shoot one, the rest are attracted to the noise so they all charge at you. The frog shooter being the little bitches they are chose the exact moment you're engaging the war shadows to try and sneak up on you. This is when I split weapon purpose. M14 for taking out war shadows at range. M1911 for the sneaky fuckers.
I stayed on the sixth floor to familiarize myself with the new types of monsters. I also uploaded a tutorial for engaging targets at range for the group. The price of information for the group was not that high individually but all together was $810,000. I had to tell them that more information would cost me more and I'll have to get that to them later. They were happy with the general overview however and told me not to sweat it. I mean I'd like to leave it at that, but I've always paid my debts.
*****14:00*****
After my lunch break, it was time to make the switch. Spear and shield in hand went around the sixth floor hunting the monsters. The frog shooters were getting easier to sense and dodge as time went on. The war shadows are only dangerous up close. If you're fast enough, you can deflect the initial strike and stab them in the core or head. I also noticed that any monster I kill in under 3 seconds always has a drop item, if applicable. the amount of war shadow finger blades I had was insane. I still had the plate carrier and flack jacket on, so it was quite a work out. I had to take several water breaks.
I've noticed that I'm not feeling the pant-shitting fear I normally felt in combat. Maybe the current monsters are too easy. I'll enjoy it while it lasts. I'm sure Murphy will eventually rain on my parade.
On the fifth floor, went spear and shield for large groups, and sword and shield for smaller groups. That went pretty well all things considered. A few hairy situations, but manageable. 'You had to tempt Murphy didn't you retard?' I thought to myself. I spent a couple of hours here, then moved to fourth floor.
It was purely the xiphos on the fourth floor. I repeated the same training as yesterday. getting more familiar with the techniques. Still nowhere near the others, but I felt I had improved a lot from 2 days ago. I mean before I was a little child swinging a stick around, now I was at least a teenager swinging a stick around. A very sharp stick.
For the third floor I wanted to use the M7 bayonet. I simply used it as knife. It worked pretty nicely. Just stab and push. the key when fighting these monsters in close quarters is to keep moving. I got a few scratches here and there, but that was to be expected. I continued on regardless. I incorporated the lessons the others had given me and the hand to hand lessons from the masters were very useful when applied with my previous hand to hand training. Deflect, stab, move and repeat. I continued with this all the way to the first floor. Where I investigated the Jack Bird spawn change. Indeed there was a switch. I think over hunting the bird triggered the change. Not like that makes a difference to me. I still shot the little shit.
At 20:30 I called it a day. Went back to my room, got cleaned up and went straight to sleep. I jerked awake, 'I forgot to practice my Runemaster skill! Fuck! Tomorrow.'
*****The next day*****
Back in the dungeon, I was kitted out same as yesterday, Marine 1965 battle dress, plate carrier and flack jacket. I first checked on the Jack Bird situation. It was again on the left side. One golden egg later, I went deeper into the dungeon. Used the bayonet on the upper floors. Machete and pistol on the fourth and fifth floor. Unsuppressed MP7 and machete on the sixth floor. Took a couple of hours to make my way down. I was thorough in my extermination. The machete is very versatile but is getting dull after two days of use. 'I wonder if I can sell my old gear to the SHOP? Or I can use them to practice enchanting them with runes. Problem for later.'
I was standing on the corridor of the seventh floor. I would encounter, war shadows, frog shooters, killer ants, purple moths, needle rabbits and the rare blue papilio. It's the moths I'm concerned with. They can poison adventurers the initial contact isn't so debilitating. It's just that staying in contact with the powder and getting more and more of it on you can slow you down and possibly kill you outright. I changed my load out. M14, M1014, M1911 and a few grenades. With that I entered the seventh floor.
*****15:00*****
Holy shit! The seventh floor is hectic. It's the sheer variety of monsters that show up. Sometimes it's just a group of a single type of monster. Other times it's a large horde of them. It's as if they form their own 'party' against adventurers. The feeling of actual combat is coming back, and god it's exhilarating! I spent seven hours going around fucking up shit. The M14 is still too powerful for the upper floor monsters, but its nice to stay current on the weapons you have. The M1014 with bird shot was more than enough to deal with the moths and papilios of which I found three. The INVENTORY was auto-sorting the drops and cores. 'I love the Chat-Group functions!'
Using the MP7 instead was actually faster and easier. I had to buy more magazines for it though. 4x45 rounds weren't enough to quickly mow down the monsters at the speed I was going. The ammo regenerates using the excelia from the monsters I've killed. My box of grenades is still going strong. It takes more excelia to regenerate the grenades, I can speed up the process by using monster cores. I left that option alone for now.
*****15:30*****
Break over, I switched weapons and made my way up. The seventh floor was an entirely different clusterfuck without guns. The moths were getting more poisonous powder onto me. Which slowed me down, which made me take more hits. I practiced the wind rune circle to push the powder away. Even a normal breeze was enough to redirect the poisonous powder away from me. It was a very useful rune circle to know. I will also learn the other basic rune circles for the rest of the elements. Water would be very useful. To create drinking water, to clean off dirt and grime, to use as a high pressure stream to saw through monsters.
Continuous use of the wind rune cluster made me feel dizzy. I got a basic mind potion and drank it. That improved my mental state immensely. 'I'm not using a lot of Mind to power the spell right now, but even then the strain in building up. I'll try putting more power into the cluster on the upper, easier floors.'
On the sixth floor, I switched out the spear for the xiphos. On the fifth, I removed the shield. On the fourth floor I went lefthanded with the xiphos. It didn't go too well, 'again upper floors for trying stupid shit.' I then switched to my bayonet and made my way up. On the first floor I tried all the ideas I had. The wind rune-cluster powered using more Mind was enough to push a group of kobolds back into a wall. The xiphos was back in my left hand. Baby steps, I'm still learning. it is not possible to perfectly mirror the movements made with the right hand with the left one. There will always be quirk that will exist. Instead of trying to eliminate it, work with it and use it to your advantage.
'I will study and train in the morning and try the rune-clusters in the dungeon in the afternoon.'