Chapter Sixteen: The Shadow Caverns (2)

In the end, Pixie was convinced to stand guard outside the dungeon, keeping an eye on the food supplies while also farming points on the side.

“Remember to save some AP for me!” Lanys reminded Pixie.

‘Hmm, looks like there’s another internet-addicted girl now. At this rate, even starting a new account wouldn’t be too much. Maybe next time I should just ask Artoria if she can give me another phone,’ Zhao Tianhe mused inwardly.

Once they entered the dungeon, the environment immediately darkened.

This was one of the defining features of the Shadow Cavern: extremely poor visibility.

It put Shadow Cavern among the most challenging E-ranked dungeons, ranking in the top hundred. For Kentor to be able to solo this instance with a rookie healer in tow spoke volumes about his strength among the novice heroes.

A faint sound of breathing could be heard. Zhao Tianhe gestured to Lanys, who was holding a magical lantern behind him, pointing upward before drawing his longsword.

Lanys didn’t have high perception and hadn’t sensed any danger, but she trusted Zhao Tianhe implicitly. She raised her staff and fired off a zero-level cantrip: an illumination bolt.

Light instantly flooded the entire stone spiral staircase and several hundred meters around. Dozens of emaciated, hunched little dwarves could be seen creeping toward Zhao Tianhe on the stairs; the nearest one was less than three meters away.

Their eyes were covered by thick membranes of flesh, making them appear sinister and grotesque.

Lacking the ability to sense light, the troglodytes hadn’t realized they’d been discovered and continued to inch forward cautiously.

Zhao Tianhe calmly stepped forward and, before the troglodyte could react, struck it from the stairs with a single slash of his sword.

“You have slain Troglodyte Lv1. You gain 2 experience points (50% allocated to Artoria’s class system).”

The troglodyte crashed to the ground, its screams abruptly silenced as Zhao Tianhe gained the experience.

“Looks like I can level up again today… It’s nice to change up the dungeon every now and then,” Zhao Tianhe said, smiling as he swung his sword.

Gaining experience from killing monsters wasn’t guaranteed. Generally, only the first time one entered and killed a certain dungeon monster would ordinary monsters award experience. Repeated grinding in the same dungeon diminished the odds, which explained why, after over a year spent clearing the first floor of the Slime Cavern, Zhao Tianhe was only level two. Mutated elites, however, were the exception: repeated kills of the same type still granted full experience. That was why Zhao Tianhe had been leveling up so rapidly these past few days.

As for quickly training high-level heroes by running multiple dungeons—well, that was indeed how things were done at first. The problem was, leveling up too quickly left many heroes lacking in combat experience, and most met their end soon after leaving the novice phase. D-ranked and higher dungeons became exponentially harder, and without substantial combat experience, the attribute boosts from the hero system just weren’t enough to survive.

Of course, a handful of geniuses and the other heroic spirits—Zhao Tianhe excluded—were different. They continued to power-level this way, born with the talent to adapt to high-intensity dungeons.

After the first class advancement, however, this problem vanished. The main reason why repeated kills didn’t grant experience was because the hero system hadn’t fully synchronized with its host, so the life force absorbed couldn’t be completely converted into usable essence—most of it simply dissipated. After the class change, synchronization improved drastically, allowing for full absorption. Naturally, the experience required to level up increased dramatically, but that was another issue altogether.

Upon realizing they’d been discovered, the troglodytes let out shrill cries and charged. Several below the stairs started throwing stones at Zhao Tianhe, but their aim was poor and the damage negligible.

‘Perfect, this will let me save some of my battle mode time,’ Zhao Tianhe thought, pleased as he watched the troglodytes surge forward. He couldn’t handle a mob all at once, but picked off one by one, they were no problem. The staircase was narrow—two troglodytes side by side was already cramped.

As the illumination bolt floated downward, Zhao Tianhe took advantage of the bright light, standing ready on the high ground. With a horizontal slash, he split open the head of one troglodyte!

Another completely ignored its companion’s death, hurling its wooden club toward the source of Zhao Tianhe’s sound. Its mouth, full of sharp teeth, gaped open, drool streaming as it lunged.

Unfortunately, the sound it heard was a decoy—Zhao Tianhe had deliberately stomped his foot. The club flew past him, and he hammered the creature’s head with his sword’s pommel, knocking it from the stairs.

The troglodytes’ strength didn’t compare to Zhao Tianhe’s. Agile as they were, their dexterity was only about seven points; with his ten, Zhao Tianhe overpowered them completely. In the flurry of battle, not a single one managed to touch even the hem of his clothes before being sent tumbling down the stairs. A few, not cut down outright, still survived the fall, but with broken bones and torn muscles, they could only writhe on the ground in agony, utterly incapable of fighting.

Yet most monsters felt no fear of death, surging toward the stairs in a relentless wave.

After five minutes, the light of the illumination bolt faded as it drifted to the ground.

A sharp crack sounded—Zhao Tianhe finished off the last troglodyte that hadn’t died from the fall, beheading it as a coup de grâce.

“Twenty-three, twenty-four… That’s about right. There are usually just about this many on the first floor,” Lanys said, counting the corpses with a perfectly calm expression—she was long used to the sight.

“I didn’t expect you to be the same level as me, Zhao, but your combat ability is so much higher! With skills like yours, how could you be rated as… um…” Lanys trailed off, realizing her words were a bit insensitive. She awkwardly lowered her head, fiddling with her fingers.

Once the hero system’s party mode was activated, teammates could see each other’s levels directly.

“A useless heroic spirit, right?” Zhao Tianhe smiled. “My skills are just the result of stacking agility, and a bit of training. But honestly, you haven’t seen the heroic spirits with real combat talent. Compared to them, I really am useless.”

Thinking back to the monsters he’d met at the Hero Academy, Zhao Tianhe felt no resentment—not even envy. Talent wasn’t something you could wish for.

‘Some of those humanoid octopus types—keep your talent, I don’t want it even if you give it to me for free! I have no desire to be a tentacle monster…’ Zhao Tianhe shook his head and continued, “But my real talent isn’t in combat. It’s in my old… well, in forging relationships and cooking!”

He almost said “wife.”

“Oh, Zhao, your cooking really is amazing, but…” Lanys sounded confused—what did cooking have to do with fighting?

“You’ll see soon enough. Let’s head to the second floor.” Zhao Tianhe smiled, not bothering to explain further, and nodded at the map to indicate they should move on.