Shallow, ragged breathing. An uncomfortable half-sitting position. Wet, cold ground, the chill of which slowly seeped through his entire body. It was not cold enough to cause illness, but enough for every gust of cold air to send shivers through him.
"What... where am I? And why the hell is my soldier at large? Did they kidnap me?"
Krystian's pulse began to quicken.
He looked around nervously. He was completely naked and was in a tunnel that deceptively resembled a natural, wild cave. Its ceiling was high above him — so high that even at one meter eighty tall and jumping with all his strength, he would not be able to reach it.
The cave itself looked rather peculiar.
The ground appeared to be solid rock. It was not perfectly even, but years of natural erosion had smoothed it enough that one could walk across it freely. The walls, however, were almost entirely covered with moss. It formed a thick, dense layer resembling green wallpaper, though instead of a uniform surface, it consisted of thousands of tiny blades.
The most disturbing things, however, were the torches.
There were numerous, and they were attached to the walls at almost perfectly even intervals. Their flames cast trembling shadows across the damp rocks, making the entire place seem even more unnatural.
"A satanist cult in Poland... What the fuck?"
Krystian swallowed.
A young man with a slim build slowly rose to his feet. He swayed slightly, but after a moment regained his balance. With each subsequent glance, his unease grew.
He looked in both directions.
The corridor stretched both in front of him and behind him.
In one direction, there was absolutely nothing to be seen except torches and a long, stone passage whose end disappeared somewhere beyond the reach of his sight.
Only after a moment did he notice something else.
Several objects lay in the middle of the path, several dozen meters away. They were far enough away that Krystian could not determine what they actually were. From his perspective, they merely resembled small, square blocks arranged at equal intervals.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to make out more details.
Without success.
He had no idea where he was.
He did not know who had brought him here.
However, he knew that remaining in a place where the people potentially responsible for his kidnapping had simply left him was not the best idea.
After a few steps, his gaze stopped on one of the torches.
He did not know whether some enemy was lurking around the nearest corner. Just as easily, he could turn around and see starving dogs or a group of hostile people armed with weapons. All sorts of scenarios came to his mind, most of them taken from movies, games, and other creations of pop culture.
Nevertheless, one thing remained certain.
He needed a weapon.
Even a primitive one. Anything that would allow him to feel at least a little more confident and give him a chance to defend himself in case he encountered someone who did not have good intentions toward him.
So he approached the torch and carefully examined the way it had been attached to the wall.
Taking it down proved surprisingly simple.
The torch was held in place by oddly shaped roots that, like natural handles, wrapped around its lower part. Krystian grabbed the wooden shaft and pulled it upward.
To his surprise, the torch almost immediately slipped out of its holder.
At least now he had something with which he could defend himself.
However, as the space between the young man and the peculiar "objects" began to grow smaller. The vision of the kidnapping and the theory about the Cult and this entire place began to fall apart.
"It's alive..."
Now that he was closer, he could clearly see what the objects were. From his current position, he could make out the distinctive shape of a clay flowerpot, roughly somewhat larger than a basketball. There were three of them, all lying flat on the ground with the bottoms of the pots facing him.
However, one of the plants, the one located furthest to the right and at the same time closest to his location, was different. Krystian noticed this irregularity purely by chance, even before he noticed the movement of the third pot.
The third pot, or, as it turned out, a creature of rather peculiar nature, began as if sensing his presence, and wooden vines, or rather plant-like small limbs, emerged from the bottom of the pot. It lasted less than two seconds, but after a moment the plant creature stood upright, and the sight seemed to shatter Krystian's worldview.
As already mentioned, the plant creature consisted of a pot from which four vine-like plant limbs emerged, their strength lifting the pot several centimeters above the ground.
When the peculiar plant began to turn, and Krystian, gripping the torch more tightly, was able to get a better look at the monster, he began to have truly conflicting thoughts. The plant possessed a thick stem, slightly resembling a green human throat or a truly narrow neck with the texture of a cactus or rose stem.
However, it was the flower, the bud, the face of the plant monster that evoked a mixture of emotions in him.
The bud had the shape of human lips; it looked abstractly tempting. The lips were disproportionately larger than the bud serving as the plant's head. The best word to describe the shape of this plant monster's bud would be "tempting." In the depraved sense of the word.
Krystian, who already possessed numerous deviations in the psychological meaning of this field of human psychology, could not help but now have thoughts of testing the plant monster's lips.
"Hehe... Oh my God!"
When Krystian was immersed in a perverted fantasy and an internal conflict over whether to realize his fantasy, the plant monster took exactly a few small steps in his direction.
An interesting element was the plant's manner of movement. During the first two small steps, two of the plant's limbs seemed to pull the entire rest of its body forward, while the remaining limbs were dragged along the ground like a sack of potatoes. Then, after what seemed to be a few centimeters, it froze in place for half a second and then, using all of its plant-like limbs, lifted the entire weight of the pot and raised it above the ground.
Then, for a fraction of a second, the plant seemed to sway in a rather peculiar manner, and Krystian could have sworn that barely visible pink smoke was coming from its mouth.
The smoke tried to move in his direction, at a truly barely perceptible speed to the naked eye. However, before it reached the intently staring monster that was Krystian, the peculiar smoke encountered the torch, specifically its flame. The flame seemed to neutralize, incinerate the smoke like a flammable gas upon contact with fire. But without an explosion or any other effects apart from a strange sound audible for a fraction of a second.
When the plant monster noticed the ineffectiveness of its action, a row of razor-sharp teeth instantly appeared from between the plant's lips. The sight seemed to snap Krystian out of his perverse thoughts, which were immediately replaced by fear and pure instinct.
The entire situation lasted several seconds, and the plant monster shortened the distance and jumped to the height of Krystian's chest, its sharp teeth heading toward his neck.
Being completely naked, however, the prospect of being bitten was even more terrifying. But instinct, combined with the torch held in his hand, kicked in. Krystian, like with a baseball bat, struck the bud, or head, of the plant monster, and the force of the blow sent the monster flying into the nearest wall.
As a result of the impact, the monster's head shattered into pieces, releasing a sticky juice that immediately reacted with the flame of the torch and caught fire. As a result, the juice and fragments of the plant that had been thrown against the wall continued burning for another minute, illuminating the walls of the corridor even more.
The pot along with the stem, which had also been thrown against the wall by the force of the momentum, suffered similar damage. The pot shattered upon contact with the stone wall, while the stem quickly became covered in flames. After a moment, the fire also consumed the roots and the soil, exposed after the destruction of the protective layer in the form of the pot.
Krystian, despite his accelerated heartbeat and uneven breathing, did not take his eyes off the burning remains of the monster. Nor did he take his eyes off the other two, located several meters away and still in resting mode, unmoved by the entire situation.
After a minute, when it seemed that only fragments of the pot and tar-like sludge created as a result of the burning remained of the monster, a change occurred whose sight shocked Krystian. All the fragments of the dead monster, even the smallest pieces of the pot, began to shimmer with a dim neon-green light. After a moment, they transformed into smoke that was absorbed into the stone floor of the corridor.
Leaving behind, in the place where most of the fragments of the plant monster's body had been, a small light-green gemstone and one small fang.
The sight caused Krystian's brain to short-circuit, setting off an avalanche of thoughts and theories about his current situation.
And although most of the theories were abstract and impossible for a normal person, after eliminating theories such as a dream or hallucinations, for Krystian, whose emotions seemed to change within seconds, it was clear.
He, a twenty-five-year-old single man with numerous complexes, disorders, and a somewhat dualistic psyche, had received a gift that most people who had come into contact with novels, anime, etc. dreamed about. He had undergone transmigration, in a somewhat unconventional style.
He had expected to be summoned to a castle, meet a god and receive three wishes, or at least appear in his clothes in a city or somewhere without any explanation. Just like his favorite protagonist from an anime series.
And although he was not sure whether this was another world or his own world that had gained some supernatural aspect, causing people to appear in dungeons, having no other choice, he came to terms with the situation and excitedly thought about what he should do now.
His first instinct was to recite popular phrases in order to check whether he possessed the popular "golden finger" such as a System.
However, there were still two plant monsters in front of him, which fortunately were still asleep, as if just moments earlier one of their kind had not been killed.
Krystian had a certain talent. Even in the worst overload of sensations, he was able to notice seemingly insignificant, sometimes almost invisible details. Sometimes they were gestures, facial expressions, irregularities in objects, and much more. In his past life, this ability had been of little practical use, or he himself had not used it properly.
However, now, in this environment and in a situation so unusual for him, this little trick seemed to be his greatest advantage.
Because from that nearly fifteen-second fight, his mind had picked up many rather significant pieces of information, which he decided to analyze before making any move.
The first thing he had previously managed to notice peripherally was the moment of awakening. One step with his bare foot, and the plant monster began to move and develop plant-like limbs.
Krystian remembered this because his instinctive reaction had been to step backward, somewhat awkwardly. His left leg moved back one step, while his right foot made a simple mark in the shape of the letter "I."
Now, looking at the floor, whose stone surface had a layer of dust, sand, or dirt on it, he could clearly see exactly where that mark was based on his footprints. It was less than three steps in front of him. He did not intend to approach any closer for now.
But this thought led him to remember another observation, the moment when the plant monster already seemed to have noticed him. He remembered the thought that had compared the plant monster's limbs to crab legs. As well as the fact that some of the monster's limbs were being dragged by the hostile creature.
Based on the marks, he could see the traces of the limbs when all of them were already firmly on the ground, and this place was only roughly 5 meters away from him. He could not determine visually down to the centimeter, but he more or less understood where the detection boundary was and the place where the plant monster stopped to emit that peculiar greenish smoke, which headed toward his face.
Krystian only managed to remember the moment when the greenish smoke burned. He had been far too absorbed in other thoughts at that moment. Thoughts which were interrupted by the aforementioned burning process of the aforementioned spell, special attack, or whatever it had been.
Krystian was curious whether these monsters moved according to patterns. This thought was supported mainly by the fact that the other two plant monsters had not joined the fight.
The rest had happened too quickly, but he suspected that the monster was not very strong. And even a weak weapon such as a torch had been enough to kill the creature with a single blow.
The last thought before Krystian began developing a combat strategy was the fact that the plant possessed truly flammable sap, and if he had any kind of bottle or container, it would be a really good ingredient for a Molotov cocktail. And then, if the theory about the monster's weakness to fire-based attacks was true, eliminating a larger group of these monsters would be ridiculously easy.
The other two monsters were also positioned in a more irregular, spaced-out manner. Therefore, Krystian gripped the torch like a baseball bat, angling the end only enough so that the flames would not cause him discomfort.
With his feet, he tried to take small steps and make impressions clear enough to compare them with the previous ones later. In this way, he was testing his theory about the monsters' systematic method of attack and behavior.
When his feet aligned with the mark he had made when he had been startled by the monster's movement moments earlier, nothing happened.
However, after moving his feet a short five centimeters, one of the plant monsters, one of the remaining two monsters, detected his presence.
When Krystian noticed the creature move, he stepped back several times. Mainly to check whether the monster would return to its resting state or move toward him. In both scenarios, he would either start over or move the fight away from the last sleeping opponent.
The plant monster performed a surprisingly identical range of movements to its now-dead predecessor. Its first instinct was to take a few steps and stop roughly five meters from Krystian. After a moment, it began making a rather sexual movement with its mouth, as if it were trying to suck something out, or desperately wanted to receive something. The impression was different depending on the person.
However, when the green mist once again flew toward Krystian, the moment the aforementioned mist came into contact with the flame and caught fire, Krystian did not wait but made a short charge, unexpectedly for the monster, and struck it directly in its bud. Once again splashing the wall with the burning sap of the plant and fragments of the bud.
"By a hair..."
Krystian, feeling in control of the situation, seeing the patterns and dominating the fight, felt an incredible rush of dopamine and excitement. Although the last step had brought him too close to the opponent's activation zone.
The fight with the last one went almost identically. He noticed that the plant monster seemed to have a cooldown before beginning its charge or extending its fangs after registering that the attack with the peculiar green mist had failed.
However, in the end, most of the plant monster's body turned into greenish smoke and was absorbed by the ground. Leaving behind something that could be called loot.
However, if the first plant monster had dropped a small green gemstone and a fang, the second dropped literally nothing, while the last one only dropped two fangs without a gemstone.
This gave Krystian the theory that the items dropped by monsters were not always the same. He speculated that there was some kind of rule behind it.
However, when he held three fangs in his left hand and now looked at the gemstone, something appeared in his field of vision. A small, dark-purple screen with rather sparse information, which, despite the poor range of information, filled him with excitement.
[--------------]
Name: Minor Plant GemstoneRank: FInformation: Supports plant cultivation
??????
[--------------]
"System... Okay. Let's check... Status, Status Window, Menu..."
However, none of the phrases produced any effect. He came up with increasingly unconventional activation formulas, but none of them had any effect.
When verbal activation failed, he tried other tactics, such as imagining the strongest possible power, all the techniques that were supposed to strengthen his intention and desire to open the system. But nothing.
After many attempts, one theory remained: he did not have a system.
Only a peculiar appraisal ability, which was either an inferior version of the one he knew from pop culture.
Although knowing the names of objects was useful, even invaluable when buying or selling. Or when classifying various objects and determining whether they were harmful or not. Simply learning the name provided quite a lot of information.
The rank, without comparison, did not say much. However, because of the weak strength of the monster and the rank of the gemstone, he guessed that the place he was in was either a low-level Dungeon or that the floor of the Dungeon he was on was one of the first. And that meant that one of the two directions led to the exit, which was his current goal. And although leaving the Dungeon naked was not encouraging, considering that he had no idea where the given Dungeon was located, as its location could just as easily be in the center of a city or anywhere else.
"Information." This was undoubtedly something worth paying attention to.
Although the information that it supported plant cultivation was not particularly useful to him at the moment, obtaining this information was more than interesting.
He did not know how to make the gemstone actually support cultivation. This ability did not provide such information. And the question marks clearly indicated that there were more uses for this gemstone.
He wanted to experiment, but he did not know where to start, and his current situation did not even give him the opportunity to consider it.
[--------------]
Name: Alluring Bud-Biter FangRank: FInformation: Absorbs organic substances
??????
[--------------]
Krystian possessed three fangs, and although the name initially amused him slightly, the retrospective moment when the Bud-Biter bared its teeth at him caused an unpleasant shiver to run through him.
The information was both simple and complex. Most likely, these fangs served some important function in the organism of the Alluring Bud-Biter. His first association was with vampires; perhaps these fangs served a similar function.
However, even though the fangs most likely had value, and if there was a civilization outside the Dungeon, he would need funds, at present he was not even able to transport them without inconvenience and having to collect his loot before every fight.
"Let's think..."
Krystian looked around at what he had within reach, and although his supply of materials was limited, he came up with an idea.
First, he extinguished the torch he was holding, rubbing it against the moss covering the cave walls until the flame went out completely. Inside the torch, he briefly caught a glimpse of something red. However, he ignored it for now, having an idea in his head that he could not let go of.
Next, he took down the second torch and repeated the process of extinguishing the flame. Then, using the second torch like a hammer, he began driving the fangs into the upper part of the torch, just beneath the peculiar tar-like material.
When he looked at it more closely, he noticed that the torch's head was wrapped in it. He already had another idea, but left it for later.
Now he hammered the three fangs in such a way, close together, that they would be positioned where they could inflict greater damage on an opponent upon impact. Thus creating a makeshift spiked mace, although they were not spikes but rather bone-like protrusions, since the sharp parts of the fangs had been driven into the torch.
"It's a shame I don't have more of these."
[--------------]
Name: Flaming Trident Mace
Rank: F+
Information: Exhibits thermal influence
??????
[--------------]
The name was rather complex as well as simple in his opinion. The word "Flaming" referred to the fact that it could still be lit and would become a torch again, or perhaps there was something more to it.
"Flash..."
For a moment, he set his new weapon down on the ground and began striking the extinguished torch against the stone floor until it cracked. It required quite a lot of effort, but what he saw explained the bright red flash he had witnessed for a fraction of a second while constructing it.
Inside the torch was a Minor Fire Gemstone. This would explain why, among the numerous torches within his field of vision, there was not a single one that had burned out. Apparently, the Dungeon used these gemstones to power the lighting, which was why the torches did not go out.
It was interesting information. Krystian speculated whether, if the Minor Fire Gemstone was worth anything, collecting torches might be more profitable than killing monsters on this floor.
Although there was a theory that taking too many could cause the Dungeon to send stronger monsters here, or that darkness itself could become the enemy of whoever collected these torches. Without knowing the way to the exit, this plan was risky.
Thermal influence probably referred to heating this Dungeon. After all, it should have been cold, and he was naked. So theoretically, being in such a cave, he should have been experiencing unbearable cold and shaking from it, or at least feeling some kind of discomfort. Yet he stood relaxed, as if the thermostat were set to twenty-two degrees Celsius.
"Well... maybe once I find the exit."
His final idea before moving on was to collect at least enough strips of material from the torches to make a simple loincloth. Just in case, after leaving this Dungeon, it turned out that he was surrounded by people.
However, the fact that these strips were highly flammable, combined with the fact that fighting Bud-Biters carried the risk of releasing plasma in an almost uncontrollable direction, which reacted with fire quite easily, was a problem. And without igniting his makeshift weapon, he could not repel the attack of the green smoke.
rystian covered the rest of the distance with rather enthusiastic ease, but he did not let his guard down. He tried to remember everything, because if this was a Dungeon whose location would be convenient for him in the near future, he knew he would have to return here sooner or later. And if not to this Dungeon, there was a good chance that other Dungeons might operate according to similar principles.
Along the way, Krystian encountered several more groups of monsters. Unfortunately, the distance between them did not follow any fixed pattern. The differences varied unpredictably, sometimes 50 meters, sometimes 20, and sometimes there were barely 5 meters between two groups of monsters.
This made it impossible for Krystian to eliminate the Bud-Biters individually, but their reaction time after activating the green smoke was more than sufficient to eliminate them without the slightest risk.
The number of monsters in the groups slowly decreased. Initially, there were several groups of three Alluring Bud-Biters, later two, and then one. This convinced him that he was approaching the beginning of the Dungeon, if his logic that the number of opponents increased the deeper into the Dungeon one went was correct.
As for the drops from the monsters, after killing more than twenty, Krystian concluded that the pool of possible materials and items obtainable from eliminating an Alluring Bud-Biter was considerably larger than just a Fang and a Minor Gemstone.
And while Krystian continuously incorporated the Alluring Bud-Biter Fangs into his makeshift mace, he had to collect and hold the handful of twelve Minor Green Gemstones in his hands, putting them down on the ground every time he had to fight.
However, a completely new variant of a possible drop from a Bud-Biter appeared when he was eliminating the last individual monsters.
Instead of a gemstone or a fang, in the place where the greatest amount of the Bud-Biter's remains had been, there was a small ring. The design was rather simple: a golden ring with a silver band running through its center. It had no patterns or mystical runes.
But only after using his ability did Krystian realize that he had managed to obtain something valuable.
[--------------]
Name: Ring of Life-Giving Fragrance
Rank: E+
Information: Plants located close to the user grow slightly faster.
[--------------]
It was not a ring focused on combat, support, or defense. Unless a given mage's or druid's arsenal revolved around attacks based on plant magic. But in reality, it was more of a support item for gardening or alchemical professions.
However, it was a magical item, and such a thing could be worth something. And even if he could not sell it, if he were forced to survive in a forest, the ability to grow food faster was not a bad thing.
Therefore, without much further thought, he put the ring on his finger.
It was only a shame that the Ring had no hidden properties, judging by the lack of question marks beneath the only available piece of information.
At the end of the corridor, to Krystian's surprise, he found no doors or light at the end of the tunnel, only a monolith with green runes. He did not understand them, but he speculated that it had to be either the exit or a boss chamber. He was not one hundred percent certain, however, not wanting to risk public exposure, he began collecting strips of material from the nearby torches.
He extinguished them, collected the strips of material, and put them back in place. After collecting an appropriate amount, he braided them into a simple pattern and created something resembling a blackish loincloth. It looked rather ridiculous. However, if this was a Boss, it could easily tear it off and throw it aside.
When he was ready, gripping his weapon in one hand and the collected Minor Gemstones in the other, he touched the monolith, and for a moment, a bright green light enveloped him.