After walking for an hour, the group reached a point in the desert where a scorpion appeared to attack them pretty much all the time. Against melee attacks, Alert was warning Jake, but the skill still was at a low level to warn him of the danger of the ranged attacks.
"I suppose that I can only be patient about this…" Jake thought.
Passive skills take a while to level up, but they were the best for someone like Jake, who liked to fight at full power while using only a few skills.
After fighting against numerous scorpions for several minutes, the group finally had the chance to proceed onward and climb a certain dune. Thanks to that, they managed to see the tallest dune they had seen in the desert. At the top of it, they could see a cactus, but after looking for a while, they noticed that it wasn't a cactus. It was some sort of statue. Naturally, that was supposed to sink in the sand unless it had some sort of strong base holding it. Most likely, that statue was standing at the top of the dungeon.
"That is our destination," Jake said.
"I can't see an entrance to any dungeon there," Lana said while she was trying to focus her eyes on that dune.
Jake couldn't see either, but the entrance was definitely there. As if it was confirming his suspicion, the scorpions began to March in that same direction toward the party. Once again, they had to fight fiercely for another hour before they could reach the dune and then walk around it to find the entrance of the dungeon in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, the entrance of the dungeon made Jake recall those Greek temples he saw in some books. It was a pretty big and stylish entrance for a dungeon.
"Another dark dungeon…" Lana said and then sighed.
"Well, if we succeed again, the next map will be pretty cold," Louise said.
If Jake had to choose between cold and heat, he would choose cold, but he couldn't see the romance that so many people could see in snow. It was just plain boring, making everything wet and dangerous. Nevertheless, it wasn't time to think about that. So, Jake stepped forward, but then he stopped when a group of ten scorpions left the dungeon. It was the same pattern they found in the beehive… the monsters leave all at the same in high numbers to cause problems. Unless they defeat them as soon as possible, another group will come in one hundred seconds…
Realizing that, Lana used Hermes' Blessing and Thor's Blessing on Jake. Meanwhile, Louise used Cold winds to slow down the monsters. While Jake entered the range of the spell, he finished off the slowed monsters before he could suffer from the same effects.
Without wasting any more time, the group entered the dungeon and frowned since the interior was well illuminated despite the lack of a source of light. The interior also didn't seem that old, even though it was buried in the sand. Still, those pieces of information became irrelevant to Jake when he saw the massive stairs going downward in front of him.
"There is only one path… that being said, keeping going downward can't be a good sign," Jake said.
"I am starting to hate the eerie atmospheres of this game," Lana said while she was holding Louise's right arm and hiding behind her.
The path toward the last part of the dungeon was also pretty large. It probably could fit a large group of at least eight players walking side by side.
After eliminating the next group of scorpions, Jake had a surprised when he saw some weird iron boots near one of the corpses. The boots had a spike on the top of them, so it could cause snot or pains if used in a bad way. Still, it probably could cause of a lot of damage to some types of monsters.
Spike Boots
Bleed (0$), master this item to obtain this skill permanently.
Durability: 15/15
Bleed: when causing physical damage, it makes the enemy bleed for five seconds, making them lose one point of health per level.
"What an interesting skill…" Jake thought.
"The design of those boots is lame," Lana said. "
"I couldn't care less about it," Jake replied while looking at the color and design of the item.
The boots had some green parts, and they looked like the skin of a lizard. That was probably due to the fact that the previous user didn't look after the gear, or perhaps it was due to the fact that the forger was a fellow idiot. Nevertheless, it was weird that a boot could give an offensive skill, but when one thinks of the boot as a weapon due to the spike, it was easy to understand. Nevertheless, Jake immediately equipped it.
When the next group of scorpions appeared, Jake decided to do some tests. After attacking a scorpion two times while holding back a little bit, he saw the two wounds bleeding at the same time, and the health was decreasing by two points per second.
"Perfect… the negative effects can stack with each other," Jake thought while smiling.
Now alongside Poison Bullet that Louise could fire, both of them could cause damage over time. While her damage was at a higher level, Jake will catch up pretty soon since each of his attacks added the effect, so it would level up much faster.
After a while, even though the scenario around them was basically the same, the group noticed that the dungeon was way longer if compared to the others. Like, they had to walk for twenty minutes, and they didn't find the last room… was that some sort of gimmick to increase the difficulty of the boss by making the players use their consumables. Such thoughts disappeared from Jake's mind when they found a huge door after a couple of minutes. That dungeon was really different from the others…
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