Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1) Jonathan Brooks (book recommendations txt) 📖

“Is this how it felt for you, Arcen?”  Jeska knew that her brother was the only one of them to have a small increase in his Health and Defense when he gained his Class; she explained what she was experiencing, and he slowly nodded.

“Sort of; I was already a bit…uh…enhanced in terms of my physical condition, so there wasn’t a huge change.  Talking with some of the other Fighters, though, I’ve learned that they went through a similar transformation to your own.”

Great, so every time we increase in Tier, it’s going to hurt.  It didn’t last long, however, and they’d all felt horrible injuries while going through the dungeon – so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

The only other change to her Hero Status was in her Class Skills – it said (New) next to it, which was a surprise.  Opening it up, she found that there was indeed a new Skill there, which must have come with the increase in Tier: Ice Barricade.  Concentrating on it, she found that it was a spell that created a thick wall of ice 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide, and she could place it anywhere within 30 feet of her position.  It would last for 2 minutes or until it was destroyed, and it had a 3-minute cooldown.

It wasn’t necessarily something that could be used to kill monsters; but thinking about hallway #2 and the room at the end of it, she could certainly see some possibilities….

Chapter 31

As Clay had hoped, his new rooms were working spectacularly.  His “easy” room was working as intended, giving the groups of Heroes the items they needed to improve themselves, while also giving them enough of a challenge that it wasn’t necessarily a waste of their time.  Theoretically, everything they did within his dungeon was supposed to prepare them for the future – but they also needed to have a firm grasp on their basic skills as Heroes in order to get there.  By having access to basic Tier 1 items by the dozen as they constantly cleared out the initial trio of rooms and his “easy” room, they were gaining those much-needed items that only he could provide.

It was almost like he was back in his family’s store, “selling” all of the staples that most people bought every week.  Loaves of bread, bottles of milk, packages of dried fruit – all common sundries that were their most common purchases and the groceries that Clay remembered delivering day in and day out – were like the Tier 1 items that the Heroes were obtaining in his dungeon.  Once they finally acquired those items (their basic needs), then and only then could they look towards the future and obtain more expensive “luxury” items.

Those luxury items would be costly, though, either through hard work and luck by killing thousands upon thousands of 1-Star monsters, or through the expense of multiple deaths when trying their hand at something harder.  Two weeks went by from when he had constructed his easy, average, and nightmare rooms; he was now beginning to see a real push of the Heroes to attempt his average room, as most groups had finally acquired enough Tier 1 Class Orbs to ascend to Tier 2.

They seem to be progressing quite well, but I can’t seem to shake the feeling that we’re running out of time.  Clay had no way to judge the progress of these Heroes compared to if they had been on the mainland, but he thought they were doing an excellent job.

Dwight seemed to concur.  “I have to agree; you have set this up perfectly with how they can easily access the tools they need to get stronger, but I can see that some are becoming a bit complacent.”

Clay had seen a little bit of that, as well.  Well, can you blame them?  Now that they finally have what they need to feel powerful, they want to just…what did you call it?  Grind?  They just want to grind through my easier monsters and keep acquiring the less-powerful items that way.  It’s “safer” and almost a guaranteed win, after all.

To label all of the Heroes as complacent was a bit unfair; out of the 6 Hero groups, only 2 of them had barely even attempted the “average” room, instead electing to continue grinding through the other 4 rooms at an ever-faster rate.  When all of the members of those 2 groups reached Tier 2 in their Classes, they were able to almost speed through the rooms without stopping; they all did more damage from their skills, their Fighters could withstand many basic attacks without suffering too much in the way of injuries, and Clay’s monsters rarely ever differed in their attacks and strategies.  In fact, they got to the point where it took longer to wait for the dungeon to reset itself while they stayed outside than to actually clear all of the rooms.

It had been beneficial for them to continue doing that, as they managed to find enough Skillbooks to fully equip their group members with all of the Skills they could acquire for their Tier 1 Classes, as well as some for their Tier 2. Their equipment was a scattering of Tier 1 and Tier 2 armor pieces and weapons, from lucky drops from Chests, and they had enough Potions of different types to keep them alive in most easy battles, even without their Healer healing.  For all of that, though, they were soon to reach a point where they would only progress if they got extremely lucky in their Drop Chests, or if they accumulated enough Class Orbs to reach Tier 3.

If his overheard conversations gave him accurate information, then they would need to acquire 400 Tier 1 Class Orbs to create 20 Tier 2 Class Orbs; those 20 Tier 2 Orbs then could be used to create a