The goblin's body has disappeared, disintegrating into a blue light that vanished into the floor, leaving behind a blue crystal the size of a finger.
He picked it up and examined it.
'Mana cores, this world's main source of fuel, and most adventurer's main source of income.'
These crystals, made of crystallized mana were what drove all of technology in this world, and while most of the major forces had their own private dungeons, the adventurer's guild was the main source of it for a great part of the world, which is why they could enjoy privileges unknown to the common man.
Reed weighed the core, then slid it into one of the bags he was carrying.
He then walked straight into the arch at the end of the room.
Once he entered, he could feel that he could go two ways, up, and down. If he went up, he would leave the dungeon, so he chose down.
The second level was also a cave, but this time, it was much smaller, only two meters wide, and three meters tall. Behind him, was another arch.
'Too small room to use these comfortably.'
Reed swapped out his swords for daggers, then started walking.
He heard a sound, and paused, he removed he helmet and listened carefully.
A moment later, he put it back on and started moving again, now with the daggers in front of him.
He came across a large room, and inside were...
Giant... Bats.
[Giant Bat] [Level 1]
Each of them was about a meter or so large, with visible finger-sized fangs, and there were 6 of them.
Changing back to his swords, Reed sighed.
'This helmet is a great help for this.' He thought, and charged into the room.
Immediately, he was assaulted by the loud shrieking of the bats, as he caught them by surprise, successfully killing one, as they others flew at him at high speeds.
The following fight, was a whirl of sound as Reed tried to hit his fast-moving opponents, as they tried to rip into his flesh, only to fail, hitting his helmet and bracers, as he also moved quickly back into the small path, keeping them all in front of him, as he started to cut them down easily with the advantage of them all being in front of him, with no way to surround him.
It took 14 seconds since he charged into the room for it to fall silent once again, except for the sound of deep breathing.
When Reed saw the corpses start to vanish, he quickly wiped his sword on them, and then pocketed the cores.
'I need to get used to dual wielding as soon as possible.' Reed thought, dissatisfied with his own performance.
He looked around the room, and saw nothing of note except the way forward.
He gazed at the path, before smirking.
'Onwards, To Victory!' A commonly used phrase by his best friend came to mind.
'I hope you're safe, I want to go through this with you.' Reed worried about the fate of his companions again, before sighing and continuing forwards.
'Nothing I can do for now, just keep getting stronger.'
...
It took 3 minutes of walking for him to reach the second room, this one three times as large as the previous one, and instead of holding giant bats, this one held giant spiders.
[Giant spider] [Level 5]
Thankfully, there were only three of them, and it appeared as if there only means of damaging him, were their teeth, he only had to watch out for any webs they could shoot.
'Best not risk it, especially since I have no means of removing the webs from me.' He thought as he took aim.
Three loud sounds later, Reed picked up their mana cores and advanced.
The third room held three human sized goblins, like the one on the first level.
[Goblin] [Level 6]
'These are a level higher.' Reed noticed.
'Do I want to do it?'
Having a good amount of experience in sword-fighting made Reed itch with the want to kill them with his swords.
'They appear to be weaker than an average man anyways.' Reed ran his eyes over their skinny bodies.
'Ah fuck it.'
Reed walked straight in with his swords at his side.
The goblins spotted him and shouted, before charging towards him, as he put up a defensive stance.
The first goblin raised it's sword and slashed at him diagonally, which he side-stepped to the left while attacking it's belly.
It screamed and fell to the side, clutching it's side, as a second thrust at him, which he swatted to the side and countered with another thrust, stabbing straight into its neck.
The third tried to attack his side, which he parried and pushed back, causing it to fall on it's back.
'They're so weak!' He remarked mentally, surprised at their physical ability.
'Even untrained teenagers would be stronger than this!'
A moment later, he stabbed his sword into the shrieking goblins neck, before quickly wiping his blades using their loincloths.
'I'm going to wash these once I leave this place.'
He glanced across the room spotting the door that lead to the boss, before collecting the cores and walking over.
Inside the boss room, was a two meter tall, two meter wide, blue ball of slime.
[Water Slime] [Level 10]
It had two white spots placed closely together.
'Are those it's eyes?'
It did not appear to notice him as he entered, as it just moved around the room.
'Is it not hostile?'
He approached it slowly, ready for any sudden attacks.
It did not move, even when he was two steps away.
'It'll only attack if I attack it first.' He came to a realization.
'Well then, sorry about this.' He raised his swords and thrust into it, then pulled his arms apart, cutting a great part of the slime and exposing it's insides.
The slime turned towards him, and Reed backed away.
It shuddered, and he immediately darted to the side as a jet of water pierced through his previous location.
'Thought so!'
Reed maintained his distance, waiting for the slime to make another move.
It visibly compressed, and Reed darted to the side, as the slime shot out a large amount of water.
'That's a lot of water.' He noticed, if he had been hit by it, he would have been knocked down.
'What else you got?' He mentally asked the creature, which started to move towards him at a child's pace.
'Too slo-oh shit!' He rolled to the side to avoid being crushed by the slime that had somehow managed to jump 5 meters into the air.
He quickly leapt up and thrust into it again, repeating the same thing he did before.
He panted slightly, and watched the slime disappear.
"Haah... that was fun!" He declared to the vanishing slime.
After he caught his breath, he picked up the core.
This one was a fist-sized, dark blue ball.
[Mana crystal] [Water]