Venerable Chapter 13: Chapter 13: Beginner Dungeon

Read chapter 13 of Venerable by Jade_White on NovelPedia.

DING. [ TUTORIAL UPDATE ] [ The period of the tutorial has been increased by 10 days. ] [ Special events may occur during the next few days. ] [ All alive participants should stay prepared. Good luck to everyone. ] "What now?" Dustin muttered. He looked at the newly popped up screen in front of him. This so-called tutorial was already a deadly nightmare. It was supposed to be fifteen days long, and now they were increasing its duration. Not only that, but a special event was going to occur. All of this made Dustin sigh internally. The system really did not want to make things easy for anyone. He pushed the screen away and decided to stick to his efficient energy management philosophy. After eating his food, Dustin took a quick nap. It was highly recommended by his own lazy logic to rest whenever possible. He laid down on the hard stone, but he kept his perception bubble active. Because he had just leveled up after killing that Level 16 Sweating Dog, his stats had jumped massively. His perception bubble now covered an area of forty-five meters in radius instead of twenty-eight. That was a huge upgrade. But he was still paranoid. The dog had completely bypassed his perception bubble earlier and sneaked up on him while he was resting. Because of that memory, Dustin was not actually fully asleep. He stayed half awake and kept his guard up the entire time. Several hours passed quickly in the quiet dark of the cave. 'Guess the only thing I can do now is just go deeper and find some other way out of here before this new special event starts,' Dustin thought while stretching his stiff body. 'Otherwise I might die a miserable death in a stupid cave.' He picked up his daggers and started walking deeper into the tunnel. As he walked, his mind started to wander. 'Why the hell am I even doing this?' Dustin thought. 'I have always been lazy. I never wanted to do any work that required intense physical labor since I was a kid.' He kicked a small stone and watched it bounce away in the dark. 'Is it because this is more interesting than the things in the real world?' he asked himself. 'Back there, you study very hard and then compete with thousands of similar people for a single job. Then you get one and do it every single day for your whole youth, and then you just get retired. All of that just seemed way too boring to me. Anyway, even if this survival thing is slightly interesting, who in the world would want to die by some monster or die without achieving anything in his life?' He shook his head and quickly threw those thoughts to the back of his mind. He continued walking down the winding tunnel for another two hours. The walls slowly started to widen, and the ground became more level. DING. A large, glowing blue screen appeared directly in his path. It illuminated the rocky walls around him. [ You have found a Beginner Dungeon ] [ Minimum level required to enter: Level 8 ] [ Max people can enter: 5 ] [ Rewards: 1000 points, Experience based on performance ] [ Enter: Y / N ] "A thousand points? That much?" Dustin said in excitement. "I can actually buy that cool Dagger with this many coins. And maybe I can also get some fast level ups." He reached out toward the 'Y', but his hand stopped halfway. He was a practical guy, and his gamer instincts kicked in. "But this is a dungeon," he said to the empty cave. "If I use the logic from the games I used to play, a dungeon must contain way more than one monster. And if it has some boss level monsters at the end, then I am surely dead meat." He looked back over his shoulder. The darkness of the tunnel stretched endlessly behind him. He knew he could not go back the way he came. The corpse of the Sweating Dog was blocking the only exit, and its highly corrosive acid was probably still eating away at the floor. His only way out was forward. "This is just a beginner dungeon," Dustin said to himself after assessing his situation. "The minimum level required is eight, and I am level ten. There is a soli