That night Lucian enjoyed a proper meal, it wasn't nearly as good as the food he was used to, but it was better than rations any day.
When the morning came, he ate leftovers for the first time in his life and returned to the dungeon portal.
Before entering he pulled out five torches and lit them, this time he wasted no time and looked for the largest clumps of webs and threw the torches directly at them.
He might not have had the energy to cast spells, but why use energy when you have other means at your disposal?
Lucian worried for a second when he threw a torch at one of the webs on the ceiling, but the torch was easily caught by the sticky webs allowing the flames to spread with ease.
The fire was spreading but it was slow, and with all the air being burnt up he was finding it hard to breathe, so without further waiting he jumped out of the portal and took a long hour before stepping back into the dungeon with a single torch lit and a dagger drawn.
As the firelight licked the tunnel walls Lucian smiled at his success the webs were gone and the walls lay bare, his feet crunched on some charred corpse, he looked down to find a spider's dead body.
"Screeeee," a shill screech played in the tunnel as a large spider, that came to his knees, raced across the floor, its screech was like that of a war cry.
'Guess I really pissed it off,' Lucian thought, spiders weren't the type to attack first, they always let their webs do the work and came in once their prey exhausted itself trying to escape.
Lucian thought of the first kata he ever learnt, it was the kata of the strike, the larger the sword the more power the kata could display, and the inverse was true the smaller the blade the weaker the strike.
The spider charged him with reckless abandon, Lucian displayed the power of 'Strike' with a single slash he split the spider in two, its body split and ground to a halt on either side of the dungeon tunnel.
As that happened he heard movement from above, and a massive black body larger than his head, came crashing down, he turned the dagger upwards and used the kata of 'Pierce', the dagger sunk into its body piercing its heart.
The spider let out a shriek as its leg curled inwards.
Lucian pulled his hand back before those creepy hairy legs could touch him and held the torch aloft to brighten up the tunnel ceiling, as the light fell on another spider, it whipped its abdomen around and fired off a jet of webbing.
Lucian dropped the dagger and let his energy flow into his palm, several runes of order joint together and the rune of wind attached to the node, it released a gust of wind, that proved ineffective, just moving the web a little of course.
The web hit Lucian's hand that still held the torch, at the same time he used his free hand to grab his second dagger and tossed it at the spider, it sunk into the spider's head and was accompanied by the sound of glass shattering.
Lucian did a quick scan of the tunnel finding no more living spiders and a number of torched spider corpses, he breathed out a sigh of relief and collected his two daggers.
When he pulled it out of the spider he saw a red crystal quickly turning white, as wisps of energy escaped the cracked core.
Thinking of the cores Lucian cut off the heads of each of the spiders and checked, there were 9 corpses in total, with only the biggest three having energy cores.
Lucian looked at the webs still on his hand, he knew that he would have to leave, but first, he decided to check what was ahead.
He walked ahead burning the webs that remained and stepped through the tunnel, it was a little tight with space but as he went ahead he found more spiders and even more webs.
'Well I can't go much further, but I can make things easier for tomorrow,' he thought and started tossing a couple of torches into the thick of the webs.
He threw as many as could before he noticed the spiders that were emerging, their red eyes filled with murderous intent as they screeched.
'Well that's my cue,' he thought and raced back to the entrance.
---
Entry 397: The Journal of a Slothful Prince
Date: 12th of Ignos 106 996 P.C
The second day of this ridiculous assignment has passed…
The spiders are going to be trouble to deal with that much I'm certain, I've only dealt with the small ones so far and their creepy factor is ridiculous…
And with how thick those cobwebs are I can only begin to imagine for how long those spiders have been breeding there…
There are some questions I must ask Diego, he seems to have had some experience with the dungeons so he may have answers for me…
So far the plan to use fire has worked, I shall have to add torches to the list of supplies the coachman brings from the noble estate, I just hope that this method continues to work, but it would be foolish if I do not start thinking of where things can go wrong…
Perhaps there are some webs that will break down when fire touches them, but they won't catch alight, I have heard that the mutations humanoids and beasts experience through cultivation can make strange things possible…
There is also the chance that one of the spiders gains an innate ability through evolution, although extremely rare it's impossible to determine the effects of the mutation before facing it, and by then it could be too late…
I have much to think about but at least there is time for me to consider my options…
I keep thinking that I should have brought my cultivation techniques with me, this would be made a hundred times easier if I just reach the red…
But that feeling refuses to settle, every instinct tells me that it will be a mistake to begin my cultivation…
Also, and I cannot stress this enough cultivation is such a tiring task, it would be much more fun to fall into a trance…
---
Lucian closed his journal and looked at its cracked spine that was slowly reaching its final pages, before heading to Diego.
"How long will it take for the beasts to regrown in the dungeon?" he asked after finding him in the woods with a bunch of dry twigs in his hand.
"It depends on the type of creatures you're facing, some spawn faster than others, but since you're dealing with spiders look out for spider eggs, they will creep up through the walls in the areas you've cleared out,"
"You can crush the eggs when you find them, but just remember you won't get any cores from an egg," Diego explained.
Lucian nodded, "That's fine we've come to claim the dungeon core and whatever resources it drops," he shrugged.
"How have you been holding up against them? You don't seem to have sustained any injuries so far," Diego asked.
"I can probably handle about six at once but that's only once I remove them from their webs anymore and things will go bad," he said carefully evaluating his own chances.
"That's better than I hoped for," Diego replied, "You still need to adapt to the style of the spiders, it will take some practice, but within a few days you should be able to double that number,"
"Take it slow and study them, everything you learn will only make it easier to go forward," he explained.
"What are the chances that I would have to deal with mutated breeds?" Lucian added.
Diego paused and shook his head, "I've never heard of a mutation appearing in an E-rank dungeon, the biggest challenge you'll face is the final creature of the dungeon,"
"Sometimes they achieve the orange core, if that happens you are dead unless you can draw it into a deadly trap, the other scary possibility is you dealing with a monstrous ranked creature, they are born much stronger faster, and smarter than the others of its kind,"
"It also might have tactics that are different from its lesser species counterparts, dealing with it will be a lot of trouble but still possible," Diego said with a thoughtful look.
"What if it's a monstrous beast with an orange core?" Lucian asked.
"Then you'll understand why destroying those cultivation tomes was a big mistake right before you die," Diego said sympathetically.
Lucian left Diego to his task of picking up firewood and sat down with a look of concentration, he started to run simulations of how he expected things to go in the coming explorations, and once he was done he came to a conclusion, in his next entrance he had to push himself to the limit of his ability to determine exactly where his capabilities stood.
It wasn't a pretty idea, but it was necessary if he hoped to survive this ordeal, he'd rather discover his limits now than play it safe all the way only to lose when it mattered because he overestimated himself.