Honestly, the second I saw the note, I kinda already made up my mind, but it’s still good to talk about it just to make sure I wouldn’t miss anything.

  First off, Surging Step is far too important of a skill for me right now, and it has proven its value time and time again. Unless the skill I’m getting not only improves upon what Surging Step can provide, but also adds new effects, then it probably won’t be worth it to even look its way.

  Next, there was my new skill Piercing Tide. Seeing as it’s my only pure attack skill, getting rid of it for a skill that doesn’t provide any pure attacking ability just wouldn’t be a good idea.

  Which, of course, left Ripple Shroud.

  A defensive skill.

  I can’t say that it’s a bad skill per se, since it’s definitely been vital in my survival so far, but Water Cloak is also a defensive skill, and one that I think would offer a bit more overall protection since it’s the entire body that gets covered.

  Whereas Ripple Shroud required me actually blocking an incoming attack.

  Needless to say, the choice was obvious.

  I made my selection now that I was 100% certain of my choice, and there was no weird feeling or anything else at all to show that I had not only lost a skill but gained a new one.

  It was only after checking my status to see the results that I saw Ripple Shroud had now successfully been replaced with Water Cloak.

  Nice.

  Upon returning to the waiting area, the first thing I did was look at the leaderboards.

  1.  Fred - 16 - 00:01:45:21

  2.  Terrance – 10 – 00:00:50:54

  3.  Derrick – 2 – 00:02:35:47

  Hm. I don’t see Rakeon or Grandpa here, but I can only hope that meant they were still in the Dungeon and advancing through battles instead.

  Nothing I can do except pray and hope that is the case.

  I left shortly after that and found Uncle Terrance waiting outside. He looked mostly fine, just a few scratches here and there.

  “Glad to see you made it out, Freddy. Wait, what happened to your eyes? You alright?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry. It doesn’t even hurt all that much anymore.”

  He looked a bit skeptical but decided to move on to something else. I’m sure if it was Mom that was here instead, that conversation would’ve gone a lot longer.

  “As long as you’re alright. How far did you make it this time?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I stopped after 16. I fought something called a Sun Boar, and it’s the reason why my eyes are like this. I’ll tell you about it in detail later when everyone is together. What about you? I see you stopped after 10 instead.”

  “Yeah, it was a lot to fight all those battles back to back like that, but it was interesting to see some of the different beasts in there. Makes me wonder if things like that are going to start showing up here too.”

  “Maybe. I can definitely see a few of them showing up, but others are like completely alien. Anyway, why’d you stop at 10, Uncle? You look mostly fine.”

  “I felt like I was in there for way too long. Who knows if they attacked again, so I decided to call it quits just in case.

  “But when I exited, I didn’t see anyone else out here waiting to call us to fight, so I decided to just wait out here for everyone else.”

  “Ah, makes sense. Well, what did you choose for your reward?”

  He then held up a small pouch.

  “Coins. We were running low on medical supplies. Oh yeah, I didn’t see anything about a skill, Freddy.”

  “Alright, then it’s probably because of that difficulty thing I mentioned. Which kind of confirms that going up in difficulty will unlock more stuff. I’m sure if you completed the next battle, then the Skills option would’ve showed up for me like it did for you.”

  I was going to wait until we were all together to talk about all the battles I faced in my latest run, but after a couple of minutes passed and there were no signs of either Rakeon or Grandpa, I just kept talking with Uncle Terrance. We discussed his battles and how he handled them, and I did the same.

  He actually had a much better time than I did for the first 10 battles, which he attributed to the fact that he knew what to expect while I didn’t. Which will probably remain the case if I keep outpacing everyone.

  I think it was about 30 minutes after that when I learned I would no longer need to worry about outpacing everyone.

  Grandpa came out of the Dungeon before Rakeon, and he looked rugged. A lot of wounds covered his body, but he was still standing and not wincing at all.

  The old man made it all the way to Battle 21 before he was forced to quit.

  Rakeon came out not too long after that, and he revealed he was forced to stop at Battle 18.

  Both of them had passed me.

  Since everyone was back, Uncle Terrance checked to see if either Rakeon or Grandpa had chosen coins, but neither had, so he took what he had over to the nearby shop and purchased those medical supplies he mentioned.

  After that, we returned home, and while some people were asleep, there were a couple up around the compound keeping watch.

  Grandpa decided not to wake anyone up, so a smaller family meeting was held with whoever was available.

  Both Rakeon and Grandpa went over their experiences in the Dungeon, detailing what they fought and how they beat it. There were some interesting things after the Sun Boar, and honestly, I don’t think I would have a problem with anything else that popped up.

  It wasn’t until Grandpa explained the 21st battle that I had to seriously consider if it was possible to beat it. The conclusion I came to was that I shouldn’t even attempt it. Not yet, at least.

  Even if the reward Grandpa got for completing it was better than I thought it would be.

  Traits.

  Battle 21 marked another increase in difficulty like Battle 11 did, and the list of available rewards increased alongside it. Traits were now an option, and according to Grandpa, they felt far more premium than the ones available in the first two selections we were presented with.

  That was important. Very important.

  And all it did was reinforce what we already knew. Advancing in this Dungeon would be our great equalizer. This is how we were going to not only match our red invaders but also surpass and remove them.

  Because who knew what else the Dungeon would offer us?

  It wasn’t lost on me that all of our Skills, Traits, and Classes shared the same Rooted tag. And if I had to take a wild guess as to what that meant, I would definitely guess it was some sort of rank or rarity value.

  Assuming I’m right, then I wonder if it’s reasonable to assume that this Dungeon would eventually offer things above that level, whatever they may be.

  Either way, the entire family would now have no choice but to enter the Dungeon. Even the rest of the community needed to know about it as well.

  The more people we had that were strong, the better off we would be.