Dungeon sixth floor.
"Hah~"
Kuro wiped the cold sweat from his forehead there were still two more.
In front of him were two War Shadows, their entire bodies pitch black, about five feet six inches tall with arms and legs, cross-shaped faces with round mirror-like parts in the center, and three sharp claws on their long wrists.
After exploring the fourth floor for five days, his continuously soaring endurance made it so he could even beat low-level monsters to death with just his hands, without even needing a sword.
Exploration gradually became easy, and conversely, attribute growth kept declining.
Even last night during the blessing update, except for endurance, the highest increase in other attributes didn't even exceed five points.
So today Kuro decided to go to the sixth floor to start exploring.
How to increase attributes quickly... what needed to be done Kuro understood this very well.
Initially everything went smoothly. Even though on the sixth floor the number, types, and spawn frequency of monsters increased compared to the fifth floor, with Kuro's perception he could attack first and kill them all one by one.
Until Kuro first encountered War Shadow, and immediately four appeared, surrounding him from all directions.
Right now, Kuro rushed at one of them, tilting his body to avoid the War Shadow's attacking claws, his whole body gripping the long sword, slamming into the War Shadow's chest, the long sword piercing through it hard.
Without looking at the result, Kuro decisively rolled forward, trying to avoid the other War Shadow's claws.
Unfortunately both his dexterity and agility were too low he was still scratched on the shoulder by the last Shadow.
The claws passed through his shoulder, tearing clothes and bandages, leaving three bleeding wounds.
The wounds on Kuro's legs and back were the result of how he finished off the other two War Shadows.
Enduring the pain in his shoulder like being cut by an electric drill, Kuro hurried to adjust his posture.
Both hands gripping his weapon, facing the last Shadow directly.
The War Shadow pounced toward Kuro. Kuro wasn't intimidated at all both legs used force like a bullet and charged, the sword slashing vertically downward.
The two crossed paths, the last War Shadow was split in half from the middle, turning to ash.
Compared to other monsters, even though War Shadows had very high attack power and movement speed, their defense was very weak.
As long as an attack could hit, even beginner adventurers could easily kill them.
This fighting method of trading wounds for lives was the way Kuro had researched as most suitable for dealing with War Shadows.
Because of the "Suffering Mask" skill's effect, plus the old diseases and wounds all over his body being magnified without limit, it could be said Kuro's endurance was constantly updating its upper limits.
But his other attributes were very ordinary—in fact, because of endurance's influence, they increased even more slowly.
On the fifth floor and above of the dungeon, with Kuro's current endurance it was like shooting fish in a barrel.
But reaching the sixth floor, most monsters that spawned here had agility exceeding that of Kuro, who had just become an adventurer.
So Kuro used this fighting style of trading wounds for lives.
Judging from the results, the effect was very satisfying.
Even War Shadows, nicknamed rookie killers, only left a few wounds on Kuro's body before all being killed.
Having just picked up the magic stone that fell to the ground, Kuro again sensed monsters spawning behind him.
So Kuro immediately turned to adjust his posture, facing a new wave of monsters.
Even though he could gain experience on the upper floors too, the growth was still too slow.
Kuro definitely couldn't level up relying only on endurance meeting standards. As his endurance attribute continued to increase, Kuro realized his sick condition was improving.
The feelings of weakness and lethargy disappeared, the itching and pain also subsided!
His malnourished body would recover completely sooner or later, and that critical point was when he leveled up.
At that time Kuro would just become a tank adventurer with serious weaknesses.
And then don't even talk about getting revenge on everyone who hurt him—he couldn't even handle the slave trader who sold him.
So Kuro went down, coming to the sixth floor of the dungeon.
Kuro wanted to make good use of his early endurance advantage and maximize its usage.
To become strong quickly, the simplest way was adventuring.
That is, cross-level challenges against stronger monsters.
This was common knowledge everyone knew, but the price of adventuring was that only one in ten people succeeded and survived.
In dangerous places like dungeons, cross-level fighting was no different from suicide.
But Kuro could get rapid growth getting injured would also increasingly improve his endurance. Next he just needed to be careful not to die in the dungeon from wounds that were too severe.
After another wave of monsters passed, Kuro leaned against the wall, bandaging a wound that had just been scratched on his thigh.
His brow furrowed as Kuro sensed a monster appearing, so he immediately dropped the half-finished bandaging, grabbed his sword and looked toward where the monster was spawning.
Only the expected monster didn't appear.
In front of his view was a large crystal.
Crystals providing illumination like this could be found everywhere in the dungeon.
Carefully looking left and right, Kuro found there really was no other path leading to the other side of the wall.
"Don't tell me..."
Dealing with the wound simply.
Kuro gripped the long sword and stabbed the crystal hard the long sword easily went into the crystal.
Crack!!!
Where the long sword stabbed, cracks kept appearing and spread throughout the crystal, finally shattering with a crash.
As the crystal shattered, a goblin emerged from inside, pouncing on Kuro.
After swinging his sword to kill it, Kuro carefully entered through the hole.
'As I thought, unexplored territory!'
Kuro had never heard of paths on the upper floors being blocked, requiring breaking stone walls to enter.
So the only possibility was this was unexplored territory that no one had ever set foot in.
Before Kuro could go far inside, many cracks appeared in the surrounding walls, and goblins kept falling from them one after another.
Monster party!
Kuro was shocked inside.
This was a phenomenon of monsters spawning in large numbers that only existed on the tenth floor and below of the dungeon.
Fortunately, even though there were many monsters, they were all goblins.
With Kuro's current endurance, even if he stood still, low-level monsters like goblins would find it very difficult to break through his defense.
Spending dozens of minutes to clear out all the spawned goblins, Kuro again explored deeper into the cave.
Just reporting the location of unexplored territory to the guild would get a considerable reward, and if he could explore the details inside clearly, the reward would only be greater.
But before Kuro could go too deep inside, another monster party occurred again many goblins appeared.
"Did I stab a goblin nest?"
All afternoon, he didn't know how many goblin-specific monster parties he'd experienced.
Anyway, the bag Kuro carried was already full, looking bulging from the outside.
Even goblin drop items... Goblin Fangs had accumulated quite a lot.
Seeing the time wasn't early anymore, he had to reluctantly return, leaving this easy farming spot with some regret!
Coming to the guild, exchanging all results for valis, totaling twenty-three thousand valis.
This almost equaled the results of a ten-person team in one day.
Especially several drop items contributed half of it.
Getting this much money, on the way home Kuro not only bought lots of delicious food, but also bought a white cloak.
Now the Hestia Familia, after Kuro joined, no longer had problems with daily life.
But weapon maintenance and such weren't cheap. After deducting this and that, besides his weapon, Kuro's only equipment was bandages.
So that night, seeing the new wounds constantly increasing on Kuro's body, the next day Hestia went to find Granny Lan, borrowing the small potato ball cart Kuro used to use to make money.
During the day Kuro went to the dungeon, Hestia sold goods, trying as much as possible to ease the familia's funding problems.