Going through his first fast clear run Eli was just working at a jogging pace, he didn't particularly push himself just yet, he was still getting a grip on his new conjured weapon and wanted to test it out in some fights. The problem was that this first floor wasn't really a fight, he was already so much stronger than when he was clearing the first floor that he was able to make quick work of it. Moving through the second floor, he was fast enough to dodge the tongue attacks entirely and move at a nice brisk pace using the same strategy as his first time on the boss, but when he smashed the head and gave it some of his own magic while boosted by his light spell. The boss just kind of died with almost half of its body being crushed, he did however level up from this to 25.
"Floor 2 cleared"
"Experience gained"
"Your magic level has increased from 24 to 25"
"You have stat points available"
"You may now select a class advancement"
"Your class is locked so you only have 2 choices"
"1 Chaos War Bringer - Epic - 1 stat to intellect or wisdom, 2 free stats"
"2 Chaos War Bringer - Supreme - 1 stat to intellect or wisdom, 2.5 free stats, skill upgrade"
It only showed the differences since he was locked into this path and thought it was an easy choice and didn't understand the downsides, but he knew the system wouldn't give him a choice if there wasn't so he decided to ask. Eli looked up and said, "why give me a choice? What is the downside to the better option?"
"Higher rarity classes increase the amount of experience needed to level"
"By how much," Eli said crossing his arms thinking that can't be the only thing.
"A very noticeable amount"
"I know you're holding out on me, but I can't use you as a crutch." Eli mumbled while shaking his head and selecting the supreme version of his class.
"Your class is now Chaos War Bringer - Supreme"
"You gain 2 to all stats"
"Your skill - Chaos Blink - Epic, is now Chaos Blink - Supreme"
Eli looked at his stats to see just what he gained from all this.
"Magic level 25"
"Stats: Strength 13, Reaction 13, Vitality 13, Intellect 14, Wisdom 14, Resistance 14, Will 87"
Next he looked at his new skill and his jaw dropped in shock at its increased power.
"Chaos node - Chaos Blink - Level 1"
"Spell - Supreme - instant cast"
"Picture yourself where you want to be and blink"
"This spell has no cooldown, it becomes unreliable after multiple uses."
"Supreme ranks and higher greatly increase reliability."
There were some nice changes, he really wanted to level that skill, but understanding chaos magic's workings is no easy task, but he vowed to himself that he would level it to three before he left this dungeon. So he moved on to the third floor and rushed through the traps and first 2 monsters to get to the boss. Here he took his time, working on his skills, really trying to understand them and what his skills actually did with his magic to make it work. He didn't learn anything fighting the first guy but when the two came out he really focused on hitting the shield lizardman with a smash and he was starting to understand the skill so it leveled up to three. Then while he was fighting the three he kept them out of stealth and worked on his fighting skill to hopefully level his weapon skill.
Eli was also conjuring and dismissing his weapon a lot, getting ones with a different shape and weight each time which ended up hurting him more than helping since he had not practiced this yet and it threw him off more than the lizard men. He kept at it and pushed himself to learn to fight better, changing his timing to match different weights and shapes. At one point he tried to dual wield using the bone mace in his inventory, it did not go well, everything was off so he put it away. He wasn't getting away unscathed, they were getting hits in but he was just getting the hang of how to do this more and more as the fight went on. He went from getting torn apart to holding his own in only three minutes of fighting, but as the monsters started to get tired and make mistakes he quickly ended it and quickly touched the stone to reset again. He was not going to look at anything until he was done running this place, the third floor especially had a lot to teach him.
On his 5th attempt, he changed his conjured cudgel to just a stick with no weight to see if he could focus on skill. He only made it about 45 seconds in before he gave that up, since the weight was gone it was an easy target to knock aside and without being speed focused it just wasn't going to work. During his 9th attempt he tried to fight without a weapon and managed to beat the first lizardman with the spear by letting it hit him and then punching it with a smash. Round after round went and Eli felt he was starting to zone out so he took a nap before starting his 13th run to clear his head. Perhaps, with a fresh mind he can go in looking for different aspects of his skills to try and focus on.
He woke up a few hours later, feeling refreshed, but anxious at the same time. If he didn't gain anything soon he would need to leave this dungeon so he could look for more difficult threats to keep pushing his skills. He had been in this dungeon for over a month and it was so familiar that it felt safer than the outside right now. The next 10 runs consisted of him using chaos blink as much as he could without risking the blink landing him inside a wall on accident. During that time he leveled it once by noticing that he didn't disappear and reappear at the same time, there was a delay. He guessed it was the time his eyes were closed, but never wanted to test it while in combat. It took eight more runs through the dungeon to level it again when he noticed that the magic around him turned to all chaos flavored magic when he blinked.
Another nap was needed then he decided to go for pure speed in one run, just going through it as fast as he possibly could. He stopped himself for a minute and tried to plan out how each floor and fight would go for the best time possible. The biggest part of this plan was to use blink to clear bosses as fast as possible, but he wasn't really trying some fancy strategy, it was just blink then smash its face. He gave it his all and pushed himself, using blink on the first two bosses to end their fight in seconds. For the third floor he didn't even bother with traps just running through them, then for the last boss he pushed his charging speed to its limit ending the fights quickly and using blink again also drained him since he put extra magic in everything to make it go faster. After he was done he touched the stone and chose to leave the dungeon.
Once outside, Eli took a deep breath and looked up to the sun overhead. It's warm and comforting light made him feel relieved. He could feel his shoulders relaxing and some tension leaving his body, but not all of it, he was still on guard in case there was a monster nearby. He decided to take a minute and just enjoy being outside. He felt like he needed to let his mind reset and return to more of human sensibilities, instead of just pushing for strength as fast as he could. He went to check on his record on the podium and was happy with his results.
"Fastest run"
"1 Elias Konzak - 2 hours 43 minutes"
"Most runs in 24 hours"
"1 Elias Konzak - 5.1 runs"
He stared at it scratching his chin and wondered if having his name on something like this was a good idea. People might end up looking for him and leaving his name in a place like this might give them a clue to his name which might end badly for him or anyone close to him.
"Can I change what version of my name I leave on stuff like this?" Eli asked out loud, hoping that the system would respond.
It didn't use a system window to converse with him but his status screen opened and his name highlighted then a new window opened. It had a privacy setting and what name would be displayed on public lists and when planetary achievements were earned. Eli immediately made his setting to the most private option, meaning unless someone was much stronger than him they will only see his race and level when they focus on him. Then, for the public display option, he changed it to EKGG, something he had used as a gamertag whenever he did play video games. It was a play on his initials and an EKG medical machine and the gamer term GG meaning good game. Some of those from his squad would know that it was him but everyone else would be clueless.
Happy with this setting he closed his system windows and decided to check on his level and skills since after all that work he did on them. He put all his stat points in, being able to continue to keep them even made him happy, although it was tempting to give himself more of a focus, he just didn't know how to do that. He could dump everything into strength but then he would start to slow down and he would break his bones when he strikes without enough resistance. The only thing he could think of would be to focus on physical or magic and not both but he wanted to be able to do everything so he kept them even for now.
"Magic level 31"
"Stats: Strength 17, Reaction 17, Vitality 17, Intellect 17, Wisdom 17, Resistance 17, Will 98"
Eli had not checked any of his skill leveling windows so he checked his skill sheet with great anticipation.
"Skills"
"Weapon Skill: Hammer - Novice 6 - Balance"
"Weapon - Hammer - Novice - Passive"
"Increases damage with all blunt attacks by roughly 14%."
"Will Skill: Empty"
"Node Skills:"
"Earth node - Smash - level 8."
"Node Skill - Earth - Common - Passive"
"Increases damage with blunt weapons or objects by roughly 19%."
"Light node - Lights purity - level 3"
"Spell - Uncommon - instant cast"
"Flood your magic, nodes, and body with purifying light magic
"Death node - Bone cudgel - level 3."
"Spell - Rare - Conjuring"
"Conjure a bone cudgel, form depends on image when conjuring"
"Chaos node - Chaos Blink - level 3"
"Spell - Supreme - instant cast"
"Picture yourself where you want to be and blink"
"Supreme and greater versions of this spell have increased reliability"
"All other nodes, unopened and empty"
Now that all that was taken care of and he had a little over 2 weeks left, he needed to test himself against something strong. Judging his own strength had been a difficult thing for Eli to conceptualize since this all started so having a strong enemy to fight would help. But before all that, he noticed the map tab and selected it.