Appearing safely outside the Dungeon in the middle of the street with all of our rewards sitting around us should’ve been a breath of relief, but we were instead crowding around Uncle Robert who was kneeling down with blood leaking from his head.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Just a little blood.”
“That’s more than a little blood. Stop moving and let me help.”
“It’s alright, Renee, I’m good.”
“Are you now? So if I called Abigail here would she agree with you?”
The mention of his wife seemed to shut Uncle Robert right up, and Uncle Terrance just chuckled.
Yep, let’s stay clear of that.
While Aunt Renee applied first aid, Uncle Terrance and I decided to pack up the rewards we received. Stonefang Scales, vials of Acid Water, and a small round gray shield. The latter being for the Top Contributor. Of course we got the standard amount of Coins as well. Although it got a bit risky at the end, it was a good run.
Once Uncle Robert was patched up, we made our way home.
Three days had passed since we officially kicked the red people out of Lagia. And as a result, there were far more people walking around nowadays.
In fact, not only were people walking around, but the actual meaning of being in a community was coming back in full force. People were bartering and trading with one another.
The Shop was there of course, but it was simple. The Dungeon rewards on the other hand? People genuinely got a variety of rewards.
It only made sense that the natural progression of such a system was the exchanging of said rewards for goods or money. Coins, that is. USD wasn’t really worth much these days.
But that was only the beginning.
The Shop contained a crafting book, and a lot of people have apparently been trying their hands at crafting things.
Both Uncle Lenny and Uncle Mack in particular seemed to be really into it.
They were already trying to figure out how to build a makeshift forge or something.
Anyway, things were happening, and this was sure to be a massive transition period in our lives. At least for the time being. We weren’t stupid, nor were we oblivious to the fact that this whole Subjugation thing was still happening, and while we freed all of Lagia, they could still be in a neighboring town not far from here.
So, we hadn’t dropped our guards per se, just taken advantage of the opportunity. Everything would probably be perfect if not for the fact that I was currently stuck. I was Level 42 when we began our attack on the red people, and by the end of it, I had reached Level 50.
As with all battles so far, plenty of notifications were waiting for me to look, and it was only after reaching the safety of my home did I finally read through everything. Of course, there were the usual ones about gaining XP and getting more Levels, but a few I either hadn’t seen in a while or were brand new showed up as well.
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Please Choose Your Third Trait!
System Alert: Maximum number of Trait slots has been filled. Please discard a Trait to accept a new one. Otherwise, the new Trait shall be rejected.
Probably should’ve seen that coming, but I didn’t know that I would be receiving a Trait at Level 50 so planning for it wasn’t really an option. I suppose it makes sense though. One Trait at Level 1, another at Level 25, and then finally, at Level 50, we receive our last Trait.
At least that is the case in the F Grade, where Level 50 is the peak.
Level 50 Threshold met.
System Alert: You do not meet the requirements for E Grade Evolution.
I remember staring at the notification for a few seconds before deciding to ignore it and shifted my focus back to the list of available Traits. It was more important at the time. Unfortunately for me though, not a single Trait that I found after spending a couple of hours going through the list drew any interest from me.
I’m sure if it was from before attaining the Hydro-Adapted Muscles Trait then yeah, this selection would’ve been very important, but it just goes to show how beneficial the Gauntlet Dungeon was.
So apart from not finding a Trait worth replacing the ones I already had, the only other thing I did after reaching Level 50 was place my Skill Points where I wanted. I received a total of 21 and applied them in batches to avoid that crazy burn.
My Status was now as follows.
Status
Name: Fred Williams
Born World: Earth (ENWPI70059)
Race: Human
Age: 17
Grade: F
Level: 50
XP: 17007/-
Mana: 130/130(30)
Stat Points: 0
Traits
Trait 1: Oxygen Efficient Lungs (Rooted)
Trait 2: Soaked Pulse Membrane (Rooted)
Trait 3: Hydro Adapted Muscles (Rooted)
Class
Current Class: Tide Initiate
Class Grade: F
Class Rarity: Rooted
Skills
1. Surging Step
2. Water Cloak
3. Piercing Tide
Attributes
Strength: 34
Dexterity: 20
Vitality: 20
Endurance: 22
Mana: 26
Willpower: 12
Perception: 17
Intelligence: 12
All of this was good and dandy though except for one little problem.
I don’t know the requirements to reach the E Grade.
I read the book on Grades, Classes, and all that multiple times to see if I missed anything, but there was nothing at all on the things I needed to accomplish to reach the E Grade.
So, unless I or someone else in the family or just someone else in general figured out how to reach the E Grade, my current state would be it for a while.
Dungeon runs, training with my spear and mana, and well, just chilling with my family was the plan for now. There was a chance that the Dungeon would be able to provide an answer or a solution of some kind to the situation. Really, that was my main focus.
And since we brought back plenty of information regarding the third and fourth Floors of the Snake Dungeon, which completes the task I needed to do, I now have some time to prepare for another attempt at the Gauntlet Dungeon.
It was high time I went back for another bout with the Ashen Direwolf, and to finally see what was beyond it.
This was an F Grade Dungeon after all, and since I stood at the peak of the F Grade now, in terms of Levels at least, then I’m hoping that meant I could go pretty far and secure something that can help me reach the next Grade.
And it wasn’t just me that needed this. A few of my family members were already Level 50, and I’m sure the rest of them will soon catch up after enough Dungeon runs. While I’m sure if the same group of red people came attacking us once more, then we would likely win once more, but I highly doubt a group that could subjugate an entire planet would not have other tricks up their sleeves.
Stronger beings would eventually come.
E Grades, shoot, maybe even D Grades, might show up on Earth at some point. And if I’ve learned anything from situations like this from any of the books I’ve read, then it is to expect that if you win against someone, someone stronger will soon come find you.
So we had no choice but to figure it out.
