Entering the Dungeon

"Consultant Su, I'm going to start my Class Change!"

After Song Shige came out, he stood where he was and spent some time sending messages. Then he told Su Luo about the Dungeon and finally nodded to him.

Su Luo nodded back and watched Song Shige use the [Class Change Certificate] and vanish from where he stood.

The World Channel suddenly fell silent again. No one sent any more messages.

Su Luo sent Qin Lang a brief message.

Ten minutes later, a survivor teleported to the entrance of the Dungeon.

"Sorry for the trouble, but please take these supplies back." Su Luo pointed to several packed boxes beside him. "There are also some blueprints and Skill Books I can't use inside. Take those back too."

"Yes, sir!" The newcomer gave a crisp salute and said nothing more, silently and efficiently putting the boxes away.

He then stepped aside and stood quietly without disturbing Su Luo, patiently waiting for the approaching Monster Tide to automatically end the remainder of his permitted stay.

Su Luo paid no further attention to the outside world, immersing himself once again in the fine control of his spells. Flames danced at his fingertips, now transforming into circling birds, now forming spinning spears, changing unpredictably.

During that time, the day-six rankings were settled as scheduled. Su Luo casually put the Experience Stones he had accumulated into the [Diamond Sutra].

[Diamond Sutra (green) Level 20 (MAX)]

[Strength: 11.2 (↑0.1)]

Before entering the Dungeon, Su Luo used a [Food Voucher of Choice] to get a table full of food and invited the man to eat with him.

As soon as the Dungeon's cooldown ended, he stepped back inside without hesitation.

His objective this time—the [Class Change Certificate]!

[Dungeon: Wizard's Abandoned Experimental Field]

[Recommended level: 0–5]

[Enter?]

"Yes!"

[You have entered the Dungeon: Wizard's Abandoned Experimental Field]

[Maximum permitted stay: 48 hours]

[Possible rewards: Skill Books, Wizard Manuscripts, Class Change Certificates...]

[Clear condition: Kill Experiment Subject 003]

[Teleporting...]

As the white light faded, the familiar fresh scent of trees and damp earth enveloped Su Luo once more.

Eager to test his now formidable physique, Su Luo tapped the ground lightly with his toes and shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow, covering a hundred meters in an instant.

With a thought, Mana surged and the air currents around him grew docile, winding around him like invisible silk. He slowly rose into the air, then drifted silently toward the gate like a ghost.

The gate opened, revealing the Dungeon's first-floor hall, as empty and gloomy as ever. Seven Armed Skeletons stood silently within, clad in rusted iron armor and holding Bone Blades. The eerie blue soul flames in their eye sockets lit up at the same instant Su Luo entered, locking onto the intruder.

Su Luo's gaze was indifferent, and he did not even break stride. The seven fireballs circling him moved at his will, instantly stretching and taking shape as seven dazzling, searing blades of flame.

"Go."

The flying blades shot out silently, not in straight lines but along three devious arcs through the air. They precisely bypassed the Bone Blades the skeletons raised to block them and burrowed into the soul flames in their eye sockets as if alive.

The skeletons' movements instantly froze. The soul flames in their eye sockets flickered violently before going out altogether, and their frames clattered to the floor.

The fight ended cleanly in a matter of seconds. Su Luo's control over flame was growing ever more refined; against minor monsters like these, he could now kill them with precision without wasting Mana.

He did not linger, heading straight through the hall. Several small chambers lined its sides, their doors long since rotted and fallen.

Su Luo swept his gaze over them and found a half-destroyed laboratory table in one, with several scorched, yellowed sheets of paper scattered across it.

He picked them up and saw that their contents had been completely ruined. Even the system could no longer translate them.

At the end of the hall was a passage leading downward. The moment he entered it, a thick, rotten stench hit him. With a low roar, a huge black shadow lunged out from the side.

It was a bloated monster covered in pustules and stitch marks, seemingly pieced together from multiple corpses. It swung a twisted, swollen claw down at Su Luo.

A Level 3 elite.

Su Luo's expression did not change. The air behind him warped as several fireballs instantly condensed and transformed into javelins, which shot out with a howl and waves of scorching heat.

The tremendous force of the flame spears sent the monster's massive body flying and pinned it hard against the stone wall behind it. Flames burned with a sizzling sound, soon reducing the ugly body to a charred skeleton.

Without picking up the drops, Su Luo entered a room to the side. In a badly corroded metal drawer, he found a scroll made of an unusual material that was still legible.

[...Seventh injection of [astral radiance] powder. The subject's muscle tissue showed abnormal proliferation, and its strength increased significantly, but its sanity declined sharply, and it began attacking indiscriminately...]

[...Attempted to add [tranquility flower] extract for balance, with poor results. Experiment Subject 003 appears to strongly reject the components of tranquility flower...]

[Astral radiance], [Tranquility flower], experimental drugs...

Su Luo continued onward, searching rooms and dealing with monsters.

After all, if he did not enter the rooms and deal with the monsters himself, they would come out after him once he passed.

[You have leveled up!]

Hearing the level-up notification, Su Luo looked up at his panel, then lowered his head and continued reading the notes.

[Experiment log—Kailai Calendar, *th era••]

[...Incredible recovery speed! A severed limb finished regenerating in three minutes and seventeen seconds, and the strength of the new bones increased by thirty percent...]

Su Luo was somewhat speechless. The system's translation was so considerate that it had even converted the units, leaving him unable to learn about the units used in the note's author's system of knowledge.

[Some unknown variable—it actually knows me! Heh, perhaps it will accompany me on the path of a wizard...]

He continued deeper, clearing rooms and collecting manuscripts. The process was uneventful; his formidable strength made the exploration efficient and straightforward.

Finally, he arrived before a massive door cast from some kind of dark metal. Twisted runes covered the door, but at its center, in stark contrast, was an unknown design. The instant Su Luo looked away, he forgot it.

He stood quietly before the door for a moment, regulating his breathing and ensuring both his mind and Mana were at their peak.

According to Song Shige's information, there was one Level 5 elite and four Level 4 elites beyond the door. The Level 5 elite appeared after a certain amount of time, so he needed to fight quickly and avoid being surrounded and drawn into a protracted battle.

He took a deep breath, and the wind pushed the metal door open for him.

Unexpectedly, there was none of the chaotic, or rather, extremely disgusting scenery he had imagined.

The light was bright and soft, and the room was spacious, with none of the bloody mess he had expected. Only a pool in the center was filled with thick red liquid that seemed alive, with a humanoid creature curled up quietly within it.

Around the pool stood four skeletal guards with exceedingly horrifying forms.

Their spines curved unnaturally backward over their skulls, the sharp bone spikes at the ends piercing back into their own lower jaws, forming terrifying humanoid shapes.

With a grating sound of bones rubbing together, they lunged at him.

The monsters arrived in an instant, taking less than half a second to cross the small room.

A vast amount of Mana had long been poised to unleash. Countless fireballs instantly emerged around Su Luo and struck the floor like rain, spreading with a roar into a churning, burning sea of flame.

Immediately afterward, the flames on the floor seemed to be seized by an invisible hand. They shot upward and intertwined in the air, instantly forming a huge, complex wall of fire.

A powerful restraining force descended, firmly blocking all the twisted skeletal monsters lunging toward him.

At the same time, Su Luo flicked his fingertips, and more than ten threads of flame flowed out, each as fine as a hair and so deep red it was nearly black. They wrapped precisely around the temporarily restrained monsters. The threads burned with a faint but deadly sizzle, steadily eating away at their bones and cores.

The number of fireballs around Su Luo began to multiply wildly. They rapidly changed shape, stretching and condensing into flame swords that seemed to flow with lava.

The next moment, the flame swords shot out in an unbroken barrage like bullets from a machine gun! With a screech that seemed to tear through everything, they struck the four skeletal monsters with precision.

They also exploded on impact.

The explosions continued without pause. Su Luo's fireballs seemed endless as they kept condensing into flame swords, firing out and exploding, just like a machine gun.

Finally, Su Luo pointed, and dozens of flame swords reduced them to bone fragments.

The battle did not stop.

Su Luo swept his arm, and the flame swords embedded in the floor burst apart, turning into even more turbulent liquid flames that swept through every corner of the room like a tide.

The walls, floor, ceiling... all were instantly covered in scorching, burning flames.

Within seconds, the entire room had become an enclosed, blazing inferno, its intense heat warping the air.

Only after doing all this did Su Luo slowly raise his head. His gaze passed through the leaping curtain of fire and settled on the pool of blood in the center of the room.

At some point, the humanoid creature that had remained curled up in the pool had quietly stood.

Red liquid ran down its body, revealing a pale, lean and muscular physique.

It had no facial features, only smooth skin, yet it seemed to be gazing at Su Luo, as if enjoying a splendid performance.

Su Luo stared at it.

The air seemed to freeze, with only the crackling of the flames breaking the silence.