Slash!
As Lu Chen approached the Tempestphant, he swiftly slashed his dagger. The blade, incredibly sharp, cut through the thick skin like butter.
Phaaaaa!
The Tempestphant trumpeted, jumping and attempting to escape. Its long tail thrashed, swiping at anyone who dared attack it.
Lu Chen's senses were keen, and he leaped at the exact moment the tail neared him, successfully dodging the strike.
He rushed towards the elephant and leaped onto its back. Seated on its back, he plunged the dagger into its neck.
Using all his strength, he drove the blade through the other side of the neck. The Tempestphant collapsed to the ground. Lu Chen jumped off, swiftly pulling out the dagger. Performing a backflip, he landed gracefully.
In that instant, the Tempestphant's corpse disintegrated, leaving behind a small stone.
"Nice." Lu Chen picked up the small, red stone.
[Strength Core: +1 strength if used. Can be placed in System Inventory]
"I can put it in the system inventory!" Lu Chen's face lit up with excitement.
His backpack hovered above his head, invisible and flying.
There were five types of cores: red for strength, blue for mana, green for defense, yellow for stamina, and purple for speed.
He absorbed the energy from the stone, a process that was simple—just sucking the energy into his mouth.
After doing so, he continued to explore the area. After walking for a mere two minutes, he found himself surrounded by five Tempestphants.
Phaaaaa!
They trumpeted as they raised their legs and stomped the ground.
The earth shook as they raised their trunks to attack Lu Chen.
Lu Chen moved with incredible speed, attacking the Tempestphant in front of him. The trunk of the Tempestphant moved towards Lu Chen, but Lu Chen skillfully maneuvered his dagger.
The trunk and dagger collided. As soon as the trunk touched the blade, it instantly retracted. However, Lu Chen used his other hand to grab the trunk. With a firm grip on the trunk, he pulled.
His muscles bulged as veins popped on his forehead. The Tempestphant was dragged towards him.
He immediately stabbed the dagger into the Tempestphant's forehead. As the dagger pierced the Tempestphant's forehead, he released his grip on the trunk and pressed the dagger with both hands.
The Tempestphant let out a wail before disintegrating, leaving behind another red core.
Rolling and swiftly grabbing the core, Lu Chen absorbed its energy. All these actions happened within a minute.
The other Tempestphants, unable to save their comrade, let out a loud trumpet.
Their tails moved, and trunks slammed onto the ground. The earth shook as Lu Chen jumped around, skillfully dodging their attacks. He stood on the head of one Tempestphant.
As their intelligence was pitifully low, both the ally and the Tempestphant itself used their trunks with full force to strike Lu Chen.
Lu Chen's speed was incredibly fast compared to the Tempestphant, so he jumped and skillfully dodged the trunks.
All the attacks hit the Tempestphant, and its skull cracked. The combined force was so terrifying that the ground sank by 2 meters.
Leaving behind a purple core, Lu Chen rolled on the ground to grab it and dodged another attack.
He absorbed the core in 10 seconds, and his speed once again increased. As his speed increased, the Tempestphant appeared incredibly slow in comparison.
In just less than 5 minutes, the Tempestphants all disintegrated, leaving two yellow and one red core on the ground.
The core drop rate was 100%, so each death gave him a core. He absorbed the cores.
There was a limit to core absorption as well. An F-rank hunter could only absorb 20 F-rank cores. After that, the cores would be ineffective, and they would have to use E-rank cores instead.
Due to this, many wealthy hunters directly bought cores from the market. Except for cores, nothing else dropped from the monsters.
[Ding!]
[Killed 6 Tempestphants]
[600 EXP gained]
______________
[Name: Lu Chen]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Dungeon Owner]
[Level: 4]
[EXP: 3850/4000]
[Dungeon Coins (DC): 0]
___
[Strength: 23]
[Defense: 14]
[Stamina: 22]
[Speed: 14]
[Mana: 10]
(Remaining Stat Points: 0)
___
[Active Skills: (Astral Blade - 2), (Gale - 2), (Dissolve - 2)]
[Passive Skills: None]
[System Skills: Evolution, Command, Temporarily Takeout]
(Remaining Skill Points: 0)
____
[Dungeons]
System Dungeon - The World
____
Other functions are locked.
__________
He looked at his stats. "I am so close to leveling up again. I will put all my stats into mana next time." He nodded as he moved on.
It hadn't even been 10 minutes, and he found himself surrounded by a horde of Tempestphants. Not just five or ten, but a whole twenty of them glared at him with anger.
"Hello." Lu Chen waved his hands as ten blades hovered above his head.
Stab!
Wails of Tempestphants echoed.
[MP: 60/80]
He glanced at his MP and let out a deep sigh. As the final sword stabbed the final Tempestphant, it finally fell.
It took around 5 to 8 energy blades to kill one Tempestphant, and he had used the skill 10 times. He even had to resort to using his dagger to defeat the enemies.
He sat on the ground to take a rest as a horde of motivations bombarded in front of him.
[Ding!]
[Killed 20 Tempestphants]
[2000 EXP obtained]
[Level up!]
[Level: 4 -> 5]
[All stats increased by 1]
[5 stat points, 1 skill point received]
[Level 5 exclusive reward: Infinite Mana Buff]
[Infinite Mana (Exclusive Buff): Your mana will never deplete. You are now the sovereign of mana. Lasts for 2 hours.]
"I-Infinite mana!" Lu Chen's eyes lit up. Infinite mana was the greatest reward one could obtain.
"I am simply invincible now!" A big grin appeared on his face.
First, he allocated his stat points to mana, increasing it from 90 to 140.
Then he continued to rush around. It didn't take more than five minutes before he encountered his next enemies.
"Gale!" He cast his skill.
A strong wind blew from his palm. It wasn't just strong, but sharp. As the wind touched the Tempestphants, scratches appeared on their bodies before they were filled with injuries.
With just one casting, it gravely injured the Tempestphants. He used the skill again and again, killing the horde of Tempestphants easily.
He jumped and cast the skills repeatedly, effortlessly killing hordes of Tempestphants.
He used the skill point to upgrade Gale from level 2 to level 3.
And this time, the wind simply overwhelmed the Tempesthant. Their whole bodies were riddled with holes as the skill was unleashed upon them. They couldn't do anything but succumb to the power of Lu Chen's attack.
From the first to the second floor and then the third floor, there were a total of five floors in this dungeon. The first floor housed normal Tempesthants, while the second floor had blue-colored ones, which were at least twice as fast as the normal ones. However, in the face of Lu Chen, whose speed was at the peak of E-rank, they seemed as slow as turtles.
The Tempesthants on the third floor had a brown color and possessed sturdy defenses. It took two casts of Gale to defeat them.
The fourth floor was significantly more dangerous, with Tempesthants that were three times faster than the average ones, had four times greater defenses, and moved in groups of ten. Lu Chen relied on a combination of Gale and Astral Blade, unleashing powerful winds and swift strikes to defeat the Tempesthants.
Whenever the Tempesthants closed in on him despite the onslaught, Lu Chen would immediately activate Dissolve, allowing him to slide away from their attacks. Then he would reappear at a safe distance and resume his skill spamming.
"This feeling... Now I understand why some people go to extremes, like meditating in front of lava, to become stronger. The sensation of overpowering monsters... It's simply exhilarating!" Lu Chen exclaimed, his excitement evident.
Upon reaching the final floor, Lu Chen leveled up three times. The first floor granted 100 EXP per kill, the second floor 150, the third floor 200, the fourth floor 250, and finally the fifth floor.
The fifth floor consisted of a long corridor leading to the boss room. Lu Chen checked the time and realized there were still 10 minutes remaining before his buff would expire. Given the immense size of the dungeon and the strain on his body, he had only explored half of each floor before finding the stairs and ascending. His main objective now was to defeat the boss and complete the dungeon.
Even on the fifth floor, Lu Chen found no other hunters. Each hunter was assigned their own private dungeon, as this F-rank dungeon, like some others, was a multi-space dungeon. This meant that each person had their own exclusive dungeon. If a group entered as a party, they would have their own exclusive dungeon as well. While it may sound beneficial, it also meant that if a single person entered the dungeon and was overpowered, death was not the end.
To escape the dungeon, one had to either locate an exit on each floor or defeat the boss.
"Now... It's time for the boss!" Lu Chen pushed open the massive bronze door, revealing a towering Tempesthant in his line of sight.
"This... This is simply outrageous!"