DMS Chapter 78

Flinx observed the multitude of paths on the 10^th floor of the dungeon of Mara. When the book stated that the paths were straightforward, it meant that once adventurers selected a path, they just had to continue traversing it, battling the dungeon monster they encountered until they reached the final section, where a more powerful elite dungeon monster was placed by the dungeon. Once that monster was dead, the gates to the next floor or outside of the dungeon would be available for the said adventurers.

If, for some reason, the adventurers were not willing to continue, like they were injured or had bitten more than they could chew, all they had to do was turn back until they reached the gates that they entered from to leave the dungeon.

That meant that the paths were not like some of the other dungeons, where they were like a maze, and adventurers would have to find their way. Another thing was that the spawn rate of the monsters in the dungeon of Mara was extremely fast, so it wasn’t advisable to remain on the 10^th floor for longer than a day. If adventurers tried to camp for the night inside the 10^th floor for some reason, there were only two things that would happen. First, was that the nearest monster they had killed would spawn and attack them while they were sleeping, or second, another group of adventurers would arrive and see them.

Normally, it was fine for adventurers to encounter other groups inside the 10^th floor since they would only tend to ignore each other, but according to rumors, fights were too common, and the reason for that was simply greed and the knowledge that if adventurers died inside the dungeon, all the corpses would be eaten by the dungeon which make finding proof of malfeasance almost impossible. Besides, if adventurers really ran out of time, it was easy enough to return to the entrance gate and leave the dungeon, so why take the risk of staying inside?

It was one of the best advantages of the dungeon of Maro over other nearby dungeons. All floors, up to the last floor, could be completed within 12 to 14 hours.

Flinx hoped that the dungeon of Mara would be enough to last him a while in terms of earning experience to level up his Wizard class. He liked the idea of entering the dungeon in the morning and leaving it to get home by the end of the day.

Flinx counted the paths on the 10^th floor, and there were more than 10 of them. Before selecting a path, he chose to test something first. He wanted to test if he could teleport outside the dungeon directly to his Galder’s Tower using his 7th-level spell Teleport.

Before Flinx left the Galder’s tower with the others, he made sure to fully imprint on his mind the tree beside his tower, thinking that it was the best place that he could easily remember. He also took pictures using his Android Tablet, just in case he needed them to remember the place.

Now, Flinx was memorizing the entrance area of the 10^th floor and started taking pictures using his Android tablet. After he was sure that he could remember the place, he cast the Teleport spell and was extremely happy when he found himself beside the tree just outside Galder’s Tower. After that, he waited until the Teleport spell was available and teleported back inside the 10^th floor of the dungeon of Mara and was ecstatic that he was successful in doing so. That meant that he could use his 7th-level Teleport spell even when he’s inside dungeons. He grinned when he thought of the fact that being able to teleport in and out of the dungeon meant that he would be able to bypass the guild and avoid paying the entrance fees.

Flinx decided that he would minimize teleporting in and out of the dungeon just to avoid paying, since he liked what the guild was doing for the adventurers. Yes, they were a little greedy, since aside from entrance fees, the adventurers were required to pay 20 percent of their total loot from the dungeon, but in return, members of the guild would receive many perks. Just the safety of the nearby areas was one of them.

After he had settled the fact that he could teleport in and out of the dungeon, he chose one of the paths and started walking. When Flinx saw clumps of spiderwebs in the distance, he sighed. That meant that the first dungeon monsters that he would encounter were going to be spiders. As a matter of fact, he saw a few of them already.

The spiders were only as large as calves, but their numbers were a little terrifying. After counting that there were more than ten, Flinx just stopped and cast his first spell towards the monsters as his opening salvo. He first cast the 1st-level spell Grease, and then followed with the 3rd-level spell Fireball.

The clump of oil that flew from Flinx’s hand hit around six or seven spiders, and when the Fireball hit the oil, the accompanying explosion was surprisingly tremendous. More than likely, other adventurers on the 10^th floor would have heard the resounding explosion.

Flinx thought that he would need to cast more spells, but after the Fireball devastated the area, he saw there were no survivors.

He started searching for mana stones using his 5th-level spell Telekinesis since Flinx didn’t want to rummage through the spider corpses using his hands. After finding some of the mana stones, which sadly were all low-level mana stones, Flinx saw that some of the places were a little dim. He first thought of casting the cantrip spell Light, but then, the cantrip needed to be cast on an object, so he decided to just cast Crown of Stars.

Bright light flooded the area, and Flinx discovered one amazing thing. The mana stones resonated with the light from the Crown of Star spells. The mana stones lit up like tiny blue stars on the ground, and even if they were under a corpse or a stone, their light shone through any objects covering them.

That meant Flinx would be able to find all of the mana stones and not miss even one of them. He wondered if the cantrip Light would also have the same effect, so he dispelled the Crown of Stars and cast the Cantrip Light, and sure enough, the mana stones glowed. He dispelled the spell Light and retrieved his solar camping light to check if the mana stones would resonate on all types of light, but when the light from the solar camping light lit up the area where some of the mana stones were located, the stones didn’t resonate.

That meant that the mana stones would only resonate on lights produced by spells. Once his Crown of Star was ready, Flinx cast it again and started retrieving all the mana stones in the area. He put them in a separate compartment so he could count his total earnings once he completed the floor.

He looked at the spiders’ bits and pieces and decided to leave them there. According to the book provided by the Adventurer Guild, the spider's limb, venom, and silk could be sold for coins, but he felt icky rummaging through the corpses to harvest those things. Once he had gathered all of the mana stones, Flinx continued forward.