Lucian pulled his warrior's garb into place, he still found it weird to dress himself, he had grown used to having his caretakers dress him every day, they were so neat and efficient.
What would take his caretakers a minute to do was easily taking him ten to fifteen minutes, there were literally a dozen different pieces that each needed to be tied down individually before the next piece was placed.
Lucian climbed out of his tent while reminiscing about his bed that he was starting to dearly miss for its comfort and made his way to the dead campfire where he scooped up the leftovers from the previous night.
Then he grabbed his gear and headed back to the dungeon with a rare look of determination.
Lucian stepped in with a torch already lit, the dark cave greeted him then the orange glow of the flames ate away at the darkness, before heading in deeper he took a quick look at the walls to check for eggs.
It took a few seconds before he spotted a little crack in the wall with a light blue glow coming out of it, upon closer inspection he found several eggs the size of his fist growing out of the wall.
His first instinct was to crush the eggs, but he decided against it, he wanted to learn how many days it would take for the eggs to hatch, it was like Diego said he first needed to learn about the spiders.
Lucian walked over the corpses of the dead spiders from the day before, and made it to the next section, he held the torch forward and found layers of webs.
He sighed seeing that his handy work from the day before had gone to waste, but at least he wouldn't make the same mistake twice, he pushed the torch forward and pressed it into the web setting it on fire.
This time he didn't run but took a few steps back before waiting, several screeches rang out and he could hear the scampering of the eight-legged creatines, but nothing came out.
Lucian rubbed his fingers together and transparent energy climbed to his fingertips, several runes tied together to form a node then a wind rune attached itself completing the array.
A thick gust of wind hit the torch and carried a thick pillar of flame across the room, catching most of the webs in the room, the screeches echoed as several big spiders dropped from the ceiling and burning webs, all turning their eight-beady eyes onto him.
Lucian stabbed the torch into the ground and pulled out both daggers, he used up a lot of energy for that jet it would be at least 5 minutes before he restored enough energy to start casting spells.
As the first spider charged him he opened with a 'strike' just like last time, his dagger slipped between the spider's fangs and sliced it in half, he jumped forward not allowing the other spiders to act.
Lucian directed his strength straight into the next kata and executed a 'pierce', his blade sunk through the body of the spider.
Two spiders jumped at him from the wall, as the firelight showed the two blobs of black, Lucian stepped back rooting his feet in the ground, and executed a 'Scissor chop' it was a duel sword technique but it worked just fine with the daggers as they tore through the pedicel, the part connecting the two segments of the spider's body.
He kicked off the ground and pulled his head down to avoid scraping the roof of the tunnel as a fifth spider charged his feet with its two fangs thrust forward like a set of horns.
As it missed his legs Lucian thrust the dagger down and through the spider's head pinning it to the ground, as he settled back down he looked around with alert, his gaze only relaxing when he saw nothing remaining, but a few spiders that were scampering around with their bodies on fire.
Lucian planned to finish the 'fireballs' when they turned and fled into the tunnel which was actually welcomed by Lucian, the fire allowed him to get a look at the deeper parts of the dungeon.
Lucian wiped away the sweat on his sleeves and took a short ten-minute break to catch his breath before going in deeper, the katas did put a lot of strain on the body especially when doing so many consecutively.
The dungeon grew a little wider and more spacious as Lucian went further in, as one of the smouldering spiders drew its last breath the flames on its corpse grew giving Lucian sight into the next room.
Lucian saw dozens of wiggling cocoons of web accompanied by larger spiders than before; the spiders were frothing at the mouth as they looked at the large piece of prey that was approaching their lair.
This time before he could attack the web almost a dozen spiders as tall as his knees, with eight hairy legs as thick as steel rods, came out.
Lucian charged executing a 'Charging Thrust' on the first spider that reached him, it reared on its back legs at the last moment but that only made it easier on Lucian who got a clear shot on its exposed abdomen.
As it fell the others started to close in on him, forcing him to use his strongest attacks, but these spiders were stronger than before, they managed to leap out of the way using their webs like chords, they even smacked the daggers around with their legs.
After cutting down three Lucian was forced to take on defensive forms, using parries to deflect their fangs and barbed legs.
The daggers shrieked as little cracks and chips appeared on their surface, Lucian wasn't very fond of duel-wielding styles, but he found himself forced to start thinking of new ways to combat the spiders.
He parried with one hand and executed a 'Slash' with the other, with each passing moment it became more apparent that he was lacking, he started to miss some of his strikes, and others that he dedicated to cutting down the spiders were leaving him wide open to attacks.
His warrior's cloth garb was thankfully not for show, while it looked stylish and soft it was designed to take a punishment, several times already the spiders managed to successfully hit him with their barbed hairy feet and their fangs, but so far none of them managed to pierce the outfit.
Lucian forced himself to calm his breath, just like all those times he received beatings, the pain he was feeling right now was nothing compared to the pain he was used to, although the threat of death was much higher.
He shivered as he forced himself to pull himself straight, he tightened his grip on the daggers and felt his muscles tremble with each breath, he drew on his strength and focused on the blades as he tried to bring out the hardest kata he had learnt the Kata of Sharpness.
He rotated his wrists building up momentum in his arms then he moved, no longer executing the other sword techniques and maintaining his focus on one.
He moved his arms and cut through all four legs on one side of a spider, it slumped down and squealed clanking its fangs together.
Lucian twisted his body around and did a slice in the air, his dagger cut through a dozen strands of spider silk that were restricting his movements, it gave him a window to cut three of his remaining opponents down.
As another strand of spider silk tried to latch onto him Lucian waved his hand and a transparent barrier appeared blocking the silk and making it lose its momentum, but Lucian wasn't done he dashed forward plunging the dagger into the spider and pinning it to the wall.
He fell back and looked around with exhausted eyes, he'd lost count of how many times he used the kata techniques in that battle, but he surprised himself, he managed to pull off the 'Sharpness' for a full 30 seconds, he'd never even managed to do it for more than 5 in the past.
But most importantly he killed 11 spiders, almost double his estimate, and each of the spiders was bigger and stronger than those at the beginning.
He pulled himself up after a 30-minute breather, before leaving he entered the room all the spiders came from and started to light up the webs.
As the smoke built up he turned around and pulled his battered body out of the dungeon, he made his way back to the tent and almost passed out the second he hit the ground, but at the last moment, his subconscious took over and pushed him into a trance.
The trance gave him the effect of sleep while keeping him partially aware of everything around him, it was vastly superior to ordinary sleep.
As he fell into the trance the voice arrived again, '… find me…' but this time he didn't pay it a second thought, he was far too exhausted, yet he couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement at his achievement.