Only His Fifth Day as an Adventurer
The next morning, Hestia brought back an old key.
When the owner of the potato ball stand where she worked heard that the two were looking for a long-term place to stay, he introduced her to an abandoned church. The ground floor of the church had not been used for many years, but the basement was still relatively intact and only needed regular cleaning. The rent was also much lower than that of a hotel.
Lin Yuan followed Hestia and looked through it once.
The basement contained only one room with a bed, sofa, and an old table. A fire could be lit in the corner for cooking, and there was a small bathroom at the back. The furniture was old but not seriously damaged.
"We'll stay here for now," Lin Yuan said.
"When the Familia increases, we must move to a bigger house," Hestia announced, holding a broom. "Ideally, everyone should have their own room, and there should also be a large hall where we can eat together."
She had already begun to imagine a settlement for her Familia that was far more spacious than a basement.
The two didn't have much luggage and moved out of the hotel before noon. Hestia stayed behind to clean the room, while Lin Yuan took the newly bought map and went into the Dungeon.
This time, his goal wasn't to hunt more animals, but to pinpoint the route to deeper levels.
Starting from the fifth level, the passages in the Dungeon became significantly more complex. Lin Yuan did not follow the guild map exactly, but instead used his spatial perception to simultaneously take in the side paths, dead ends, and adjacent passages on the other side of the walls.
The guild map records the paths taken by predecessors. Spatial perception reveals the structure of the entire area.
Every time Lin Yuan passed a major fork in the road, he would leave a very faint spatial trace in an inconspicuous corner of the wall. These traces could not directly open a teleportation portal, but they allowed him to quickly confirm his direction on his return journey.
The sixth floor contains more monsters than the previous floors.
Several War Shadow leaped out of the shadows, but Lin Yuan did not stop. Before Nameless was fully drawn, the scabbard struck their necks one by one. After the corpses fell, he quickly took out the magic stone and put the remaining loot into his backpack.
The Killer Ant on the seventh floor will call for their companions.
Lin Yuan deliberately allowed the first Killer Ant to make a sound. Cracks appeared in the nearby walls one after another, and more than a dozen of its kind swarmed into the passage from different directions.
He didn't use spatial True Magic, relying solely on his physical strength and swordsmanship to meet the attack.
Each time Nameless drew his sword, he only slashed at the joints and neck, avoiding the magic stone on the monster's chest. The dozen or so Killer Ant didn't slow him down for long; instead, they helped him confirm the range within which this monster could summon its kind.
Continuing downwards, Lin Yuan also recorded the passages where the Purple Moth were active, the areas where Needle Rabbit were most likely to appear, and several return routes that could avoid areas densely populated with monsters.
He stopped at the entrance to the ninth floor and did not go any further.
There's enough time left today to venture deeper, but we might not be able to return to the surface before Hestia finishes work. Since we've already agreed to live together, confirming the route doesn't have to be done entirely in one day.
Lin Yuan returned along the spatial traces he had left behind. He no longer wasted time on the side paths that would have required repeated map readings, and returned to the surface before evening to hand over the magic stones to the guild for gold.
After hearing the floor they arrived at today, Eina glanced at the date.
"You were only familiar with the fourth floor yesterday."
The route from the fifth to the eighth floor has been confirmed.
"You even memorized the areas where the monsters were active along the way?"
"Most."
Eina paused for a moment, then marked the several forks in the road that Lin Yuan had added on the map copy. She didn't advise Lin Yuan to slow down, but only asked him to report his location each time he returned.
When they returned to the abandoned church, Hestia had already lit the magic stone lamp in the basement.
The room was still small, but the accumulated dust had been cleaned away. Two dinners brought back from the potato ball stand were placed on the table, and a makeshift bed had been laid out next to the original set of bedding.
Welcome back.
Hestia took Lin Yuan's coat and urged him to renew his Falna.
The divine blood fell on his back, and five abilities quickly manifested.
Strength: H 165
Durability: H 138
Dexterity: G 202
Agility: G 238
Magic: G 215
Hestia held the status sheet, repeatedly checking the numbers on it.
When it was updated yesterday, these abilities hadn't reached their current level yet. Gaining over a hundred points in a day still far surpasses that of ordinary newbies, but it didn't directly unlock high-level ability values.
"The Falna didn't recalculate your previous strength," Hestia, looking up. "These are all growths you've gained since becoming an adventurer."
"The deeper Dungeon, the more experience you should be able to accumulate."
"But you've only been an adventurer for five days."