[Welcome to Floor 1!]

[Mission: Hunt 50 Cerberuses. Have Fun!]

According to the small guide, he would only be able to leave after completing the mission. Everything else was optional. Including defeating the enemies, well not in this case.

So far, the place looked exactly the same as what he had previously seen. The difference being that instead of a wave of Cerberuses there were packs of them.

Each pack contained about 5 dogs. Josh didn’t feel threatened one bit.

Some had grey names and were level 1. There were also others with various name colors all level 2.

****

The guide classified monsters in such a manner:

-Creeps = Grey name, weakest enemies, best for farming XP.

-Uncommon = Green names, slightly stronger.

-Elite = Blue names, can be dangerous if many.

-Mini-bosses = Orange names, require one to be extra careful.

– Bosses = Red names, extremely dangerous, best for getting items.

****

Josh quickly approached a group.

He bashed 4 Cerberuses, feeling their skulls getting crushed under his hands. He then led the remaining creature toward a nearby pack.

He had to figure out if or when they would join the fray. They quickly jumped toward him attracting one more pack at the same time. This was reality after all.

Josh couldn’t help but wonder how many newbies died this way, ganged up by an overwhelming number of monsters.

Then he murdered them all.

Slowly wiping the blood and hair sticking to his hands, Josh couldn’t help but wish for a weapon.

Still, he had other priorities.

“Status!”

The only change was a new mission tab.

[Hunt: 10/50]

Josh couldn’t help but think how easy this was. Most would have probably coughed blood had they known his inner thoughts.

Josh started walking peacefully.

-Crushing bones

-Crushing skulls

-Crushing spines

Overall crushing it!

[Mission Completed! Teleport Out Available!]

“No thanks.”

He kept going until, finally, he came across his target. There stood a big massive Cerberus, five times the size of the normal ones.

<Cerberus Lv2☠️ >

“Hey there, big boy. Wanna play?”

To which it only growled back before charging. Josh didn’t lose any time.

He simply went for an old but proven tactic.

He went for the eyes. Scooped one eyeball entirely with ease. Something he had done in the past. Then another, and another, then the last one.

Before long, the creature was left howling in pain completely blinded. But it still had other senses.

Josh simply dodged its attacks, then he started violently kicking the 2 noses. Until both broke down sending blood everywhere.

There was one last step remaining. Josh slapped both ears of one head at once. The creature kept thrashing around, but Josh did not care.

Before long he had done the same to the other head.

After that came the fun part. To bash it until it died. It did relatively quickly. In the most painful way.

As the beast laid there defeated, Josh simply waited. After a while, the body started volatilizing into red particles. Somehow the blood, the fur, and the eyes were still there.

Nothing else had happened. Josh would have to patiently stay here until respawn. Surprisingly that was a thing. At least according to the guide.

To kill time, he walked some more. Eventually, as he defeated a random enemy he heard *TING*!

There laid something on the ground! Quickly pocketing it he realized it to be…

[- Dog Collar. No effect.]

“…”

[Would you like to equip: – Dog Collar?]

Whoever designed this system was clearly having a blast, at humanity’s expense too!

Still, Josh simply went back to killing the boss. It seemed like it would respawn every hour or so.

Josh had no way to check the time. His UW did not work in the Tower for some reason.

He vented all his frustration on the poor Cerberus Boss. Each repetition getting more and more violent and cruel. When he had killed it for the fifth time something finally happened.

*TING*

[- Weapon: Cerberus’s Claw]

[Would you like to equip?]

This time Josh accepted.

Then the claw in front of him transformed into a small dagger. A new menu also opened on his status, an equipment one.

It only showed an equipment slot for a weapon. He could also see the icon of the claw on his status screen.

“Store!”

The dagger disappeared. With but a thought it was back in his hand.

“How OP! HAHAHAHA”

Josh didn’t let happiness cloud his judgment and kept farming. Every hour he killed the Boss. With his new weapon what took a few minutes before now took less than 30 seconds.

He simply drove his dagger into both heads one after the other. Then the creature died instantly. He kept repeating it until he started to lose track of time.

He was getting extremely bored and somewhat sleepy. Mostly from the boredom.

He killed the boss as usual, except this time something special happened. He saw out of the corner of his eyes something leaving the corpse. Something that seemed ethereal.

Josh got the feeling he only saw it because he wasn’t intently looking. He couldn’t exactly figure it out, so he simply kept killing the boss.

Over and over again. Whatever it was seemed to be the target’s life essence escaping. Perhaps mana?

Josh couldn’t help but try and capture it.

A few repetitions later a change finally happened. Josh managed to absorb it somehow.

+100 XP.

On his status screen now appeared a new window.

[XP: 100/1000]

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Josh couldn’t help but laugh maniacally. There was a way for him to level up! There was a way for him to become stronger!

Josh didn’t even wait anymore. He simply started hunting. Before he was destroying Cerberus left and right unarmed.

With a dagger in hand, he simply started running across the floor, sending dog bits flying all over.

He then started absorbing all of the XP. Absorbing it while dodging other enemies.

He quickly figured out a pattern.

Grey: 1 XP

Green: 5 XP

Blue: 25 XP

Orange: Unknown.

Red: 100 XP

“Status!”

[XP: 475/1000]

Then he had to wait for respawn. A few hours later the message he had been anxiously awaiting finally came!

[Level up! 4 Stat Points Acquired! 2 Skill points acquired! X2 for First Level Up!]

Stats points? Skill points? Josh loved the sound of it!

“Status!”

[Status!]

Josh Malum Lv2

#STATS# (8)

HP: 200

Mana:200

Magic Ability:20

Strength:20

Agility:20

Defense:2

Magic Resist:2

#SKILLS# (4)

-F Weapon Mastery

Somehow all his stats had doubled from their initial values. Josh decided to first assign his stat points. He had a choice to make.

HP: Would make it so he could take more blows before dying.

Mana: Would help using special abilities.

Magic ability: Would potentially be a game-changer.

Strength: Would clearly be needed to boost his damage.

Agility: Would probably be his best bet

Defense and Magic resist: Would increase his survivability too.

Josh felt that there was no way the current monsters would pose any real danger. He could kill any of them in seconds. He decisively put everything into Agility to be even faster!

Agility: 40 – Stat points remaining 6.

Apparently, there was a cap. Was it based on level? Josh left the remaining ones untouched; he would do more research first.

As for the skill points Josh had no idea where to start with that. He tried to click on the status screen. There was no change whatsoever to be seen.

Perhaps he had to acquire a skill book or something? Perhaps he would need to level up more. In doubt, Josh simply did the only thing that seemed logical to him.

He kept killing.

With that, he could confirm that the monsters were truly soulless. There was no way any of them would have ever charged at him otherwise. Not after how many he had killed.

While others outside were busy joining guilds, Josh simply kept decimating Floor 1. At a pace that would have left anyone jaw slacked, well at least for a Newcomer. Also as far as his life expectancy was concerned…it really didn’t seem to be an issue, at least for him… [Life Expectancy: 11 Days.]

[Status!]

Josh Malum Lv 2

#STATS# (6)

HP: 200

Mana:200

Magic Ability:20

Strength:20

Agility:40

Defense:2

Magic Resist:2