ShanDeRad
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Chapter 51
🕑 Added 2024-04-20 18:18:51 +0000 UTCThe moment he was deposited into the dungeon, his fears were confirmed, he was in the middle of an ocean, when looking around in every direction he couldn’t see land at all, there were just the swells of the water, moving him up and down as they reached him. He had hoped that he would be deposited on an island or something where he would be able to fight on land against the monsters in the water, and only if he really needed to, would he enter the ocean. But no, the entire dungeon was going to have him swimming around and fighting aquatic monsters in their home turf.
He didn’t know if he was going to have to go under the water to find the monsters or if they were going to come to him, it was a big ocean after all, and having to swim around and try and find the boss would take forever if there wasn’t some clue as to what he was supposed to do or where he was needing to go.
Not seeing any clues above the water he gathered enough air around him and swam below the surface, he could see beneath the water but the further he tried to look the harder it was to make anything out. His echo was helpful, but it didn’t give him any indication of monsters in the area, so unless he decided to just swim around and keep using the skill he was out of luck with it helping him.
He stayed underwater for a while, just thinking about how he should approach the situation, if he swam above the water the chances of him finding anything were pretty slim, unless he stumbled upon something by pure luck. Under the water he could get a better feel for if anything changed, but it still meant he would need to go back up to the surface every time he ran out of air.
The temperature of the water close to the surface was comfortable at least, and if he stayed close to the surface it wouldn’t be too hard for him to rise up, gather more air and then swim back down. With that decided on he decided to pick a direction and just swim around, hoping he found the first set of monsters. It was boring work, and after the first hour of doing nothing but swimming, finding nothing to give him a clue as to where he should go, he started to get frustrated. After another few hours of this he was furious, he should have left this dungeon till the very end, at least then he would have already gotten the reward for the earth dungeon, but no, he was stubborn and thought that he would be able to complete the dungeon like any of the others.
Once it had been nearly twelve hours of no change, Shaun couldn’t handle being in the water any longer, humans were not supposed to be in the water for longer than a few hours, and being submerged for such long periods of time was starting to screw with his head. The next time he came up for water he decided he would attempt to get out and into the air. He swam as fast as he could to give himself a boost once he hit the surface and as soon as he broke through he gathered air into compressed platforms that he used as hand holds to pull himself fully out of the water.
When he was completely free he switched to running on the air rather than climbing on it, he had done this enough that he was comfortable in compressing air and running around for as long as he needed, or until he had run out of mana, which would be a while with how high his soul stats was.
Shaun moved higher and higher into the air, just allowing himself to be free of the pressure from the water, he needed this for a while, just to help him reset. He didn’t know how anyone was expected to complete this dungeon, especially if you didn’t have any affinities or a class that would greatly assist in fighting underwater, or even finding where you needed to go.
He spent at least 30 minutes just running in the air, by the time he was done he had dried out completely which just made it that much harder to turn around and drop right back into the water. Before he decided to get wet again though he looked around, trying to see if he could spot any differences in the ocean from a higher vantage point. He didn’t really see much, it all just looked like water to him, but one thing he did notice was that the water appeared to be darker in some spots compared to others, he didn’t know if this meant anything, it could simply mean that some areas were deeper than others, but he had nothing else to go on in being able to find monsters so he decided to run towards the closest dark spot in the ocean before going back down into its depths.
The closer he got to the dark area of the ocean the more he started to hope that he was on to something. He was able to see a little bit more as he approached, it wasn’t just darker, the ocean was also a bit more turbulent as well. It was a promising sign, one that he prayed would turn out to pay off. Once he was directly above the area, just hovering above the water, he searched out with his echo and he almost let out a scream of joy at what he found, he had located a singular monster within. He had finally had a bit of luck in this god forsaken dungeon.
He didn’t hesitate in getting back into the water after that, he launched himself directly into the depths with his sword now in his hand. As soon as he was in the water he found himself directly across from his foe.
*Tide Shark – Level 21*
Why is it level 21? It should be level 19! Only the first mini boss and the second set of monsters were level 21! He had either skipped the entire first monster or gone straight to the boss, either way he was pissed at the entire situation all over again.
The shark immediately started swimming directly at him, its jaws open wide. The thing was huge, at least three metres long and chunky. The only good thing about it was that it could really only attack with its teeth, the bad news was that it moved so quickly that he didn’t really have an opportunity to move out of its way, the water causing resistance to his movements as well.
He didn’t know what element to use in the current situation, fire wasn’t going to do anything underwater, there was no earth or nature to use, doubting it would do much to harm the monster either, which really only left him with air. He powered up an elemental strike infused with air, having no other choice as he couldn’t throw anything and the resistance in the water making all of his ranged attacks nearly useless.
He didn’t bother even attempting to dodge the shark, he waited for it to get as close as it could, its mouth side open ready to eat him, when he launched the strike straight into its mouth. The resulting burst of air sent him flying back through the water and sending the shark back the way it had come. It wasn’t the most exciting explosion or attack he had ever done, definitely not the most powerful, but the end result was fine. When he finally was able to right himself in the water he looked back to the direction of where the shark was sent and saw the water coloured red.
*You have defeated (Tide Shark – Lvl 21). Experience gained. 210 TE awarded*
He hadn’t expected the shark to die so easily, especially given that his attack was nowhere near as strong as usual, but the level difference between the two must have really come into play, especially given that he had launched the attack straight into its mouth.
He started swimming towards the body, or what was left of it, but when he had only gotten half way there he started to feel more monsters enter the radius of his echo. It didn’t take long for them to come into view, and to his surprise they were all sharks, 8 of them at level 21 and one of them at level 23.
He had in some way managed to skip the first monsters completely, he was going to need to back track and find them before being able to move forward and find the final boss, it was a waste of time but he needed to kill all of the monsters and within three days if he was going to get the A grade on this dungeon.
Fighting 9 of the sharks at once also wasn’t ideal, he would need to be more careful, but he also didn’t know how they were all going to attack him at once as they would just end up swimming into each other. He guessed that the blood of the dead shark is what drew them in, which was great as it meant that he wouldn’t have to find them, but it again raised the question, how was anyone supposed to survive in this dungeon?
He guessed he had about 5 more minutes before he would need to get more air from above, and he didn’t really want to do that in the middle of a fight, so he was just going to go on the offensive from the beginning and get this over with before it could drag on into something more dangerous.
When the first shark reached him, he just repeated the same process as the first, the downside of this was that he was sent flying directly at another one of the sharks, he was upside down when it tried to bite him but he again just repeated the air strike and was sent back the way he came, this time going straight past a different shark.
It was a ridiculous situation, he felt like a ping pong ball getting hit back and forth across a table, the only difference being that he was underwater and now trying to control his breathing so as not to drown. After taking out an additional five sharks in this manner he started to get completely disoriented as to which way was up and down, if it wasn’t for his echo and knowing where each of the monsters were he would have already lost the fight and been torn limb from limb.
Eventually he wasn’t able to right himself for an attack in time and was bitten by one of the sharks on the leg, it didn’t do too much damage, the monster even struggling to puncture through his skin, there was a large gap between a level 21 monster and a level 28 E grade human, one that they struggled to breach.
Rather than using another air strike he just stabbed this one through its head, ending its lie rather efficiently, after that he didn’t bother with using powered up strikes to kill them, he would let them get in close and get in a bit, now using stone skin to make it even harder for them to actually hurt his body, and just kill it with his sword. The only one he was really careful of was the boss, like every other boss this one had more power and a different sort of attack. As it swam at him it opened its mouth wide and it started to suck in all of the water around it, straight into its mouth, like a vortex consuming everything around it.
Once he realised what it could do he didn’t worry as much, the worst that could happen was that it got so close with its giant mouth that he resorted to an air strike to send it away. The closer it came to him, the more he realised that the shark was truly massive, it was three times the size of the others and he would easily get swallowed in one bite. It completely put him off any risky moves, instead he just sent an air strike at it that consumed half of his mana, overkill if he was fighting a normal monster, but he wasn’t to make sure that even with the water interfering with the attack, it would be enough to kill it.
When he let the attack go, he was sent flying through the water at breakneck speed, when he eventually stopped the first thing he did was go up for air. He could still clearly see where the bodies were given the amount of blood in the area so wasn’t stressed about looting the bodies, and the notifications confirmed he didn’t need to worry about any more attacks.
*You have defeated a (Tide Shark – Level 21). Experience gained. 210 TE awarded*
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*You have defeated a (Tide Shark – Level 21). Experience gained. 210 TE awarded*
*You have defeated a (Great Ocean Shark – Level 23). Experience gained. 230 TE awarded*
He wasn’t shocked about not getting any levels, he also doubted that the loot would even be that good, which it didn’t take him long to confirm when he went back and finished with all of the bodies, teeth and fins, not the most useful materials, but loot was loot.
There was one upside to having skipped the first area, even though he was going to have to backtrack and fight them later, he was now pretty confident that there would be plenty of water mana around for him to bond his fifth, and probably for a while, last element. The only thing he questioned was where he should do it. He would need to fully focus on the bonding, and having to worry about breathing at the same time wasn’t an option, that meant he would need to do it while on the surface of the water.
Swimming up to the surface again, he moved so he was floating on his back with his arms and legs spread out to either side like a starfish. It took him a while before he could let his mind relax and stop fearing that he would sink and drown if he wasn’t focusing on staying on the surface, but when he was he slipped into his meditative state and searched for the mana in the area with his mana sight skill. There was no water mana in the air but he felt it in abundance beneath the surface, so much of it that he would have no issues gathering the required amount, so without delay he got started.
