"Lightning Shock! Wind Blade!"

  My magic struck the wings of the boss, but neither spell pierced. The lightning did at least cause a visible burn, but it didn't seem to impact the boss at all.

  It launched another cloud of dust, melting another row of trees. Thankfully, it didn't melt me on account of the way I'd desperately dodged to the right.

  It took another flap of its wings to change direction to chase me. A big, slow flap that had no business keeping the thing in the air, let alone cornering. Thankfully, the flaps took time. More than enough for me to turn again, and let off another counterattack while I was at it.

  "Lightning Shock!"

  As usual, it had no apparent effect. Whether I struck wing, head, body, or one of the oozing holes that its spawn had burst from, nothing caused the boss to so much as flinch. Maybe I was doing damage. Something had caused the boss to change behaviour, after all, but for all I knew, it was simply pissed at all the noise my thunder was making.

  "Lightning Shock!"

  As I drew away from the dungeon's centre, closer to the edge, the pools of acid shrank and grew less numerous, making it easier for me to run without falling into one. Things would be different were any mobs still alive, but I'd already cleaned them out. My lead didn't really grow, because I was staying ahead through evasion rather than speed, but it did give me some leeway.

  Of course, I used that leeway for more magic.

  "Lightning Shock!"

  Despite my winding path, [Mapping] let me know exactly where the dungeon's exit was. I was almost there. Another dodge, another turn, another cast of [Lightning Shock], another...

  I hit the brakes so hard that my feet left ruts in the soil. Quite deep ruts. My Dexterity-enhanced speed was no joke.

  It died?

  I spun around, half concerned there was some trickery going on, but surely a dungeon wouldn't fake up System messages. Sure enough, the acid moth matriarch was falling from the air, dissolving into motes of light as it dropped. It had halved in size by the time it struck the ground, at which point the entire thing burst apart.

  The thousands of light motes all shot away at high speed.

  Darn.

  Now I was going to have to backtrack back to the centre to see if any treasure spawned, or if it was just a teleporter. At least I wouldn't need to come back to the entrance.

  Besides, those Marks were just as interesting as any potential physical reward.

  A nice experience boost to add to my already enormous pile of boosts, but not anything special. As expected, I had 'cleared' it rather than 'conquered' it. Nothing had struck me as an obvious extra challenge. It could have been something as simple as killing all of the boss's spawn before killing the boss, or not killing any of them. It could have involved not killing anything else in the dungeon, which would be quite hard considering the crawlers' habit of dropping on my head. Or it could be a tough challenge like slaying the boss with melee only, or something silly like going for a swim in one of the acid pools. Heck, for all I knew, there could be a completely separate island somewhere out in the acid ocean, with its own tougher boss.

  I may have cleared the dungeon, but I wouldn't be attempting to conquer it anytime soon.

  What about [Dungeon Pioneer]?

  Really? No-one had ever cleared this dungeon before? Why not? It wasn't as if it was far into the jungle, nor was it high rank compared to many of the jungle's denizens. Or perhaps the low rank was the reason. I was a special case, but if someone like the Enshrouded was here, would they be interested in a 'mere' C-rank dungeon?

  I didn't see why not. It was worth it purely for the Mark, and the Enshrouded probably could have got in, reached the boss, and killed it in half an hour.

  Maybe no-one had been this way, but the jungle couldn't be completely uncharted. At the least, someone had hung around the place for long enough to write the bestiary.

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  And as for the perk... What sort of additional information? I'd have to poke my head back in once I got out. It would be nice if it told me the challenge task, or at least gave a hint.

  I was also left wondering what the final Mark could possibly be for. It wasn't as if I'd tamed anything.

  I peered at the message box, but the words remained constant. That was, to put it succinctly, bloody amazing. Utterly useless back home, of course, unless there were extra dungeons hiding somewhere that no-one knew about, but here in the unoccupied Jungle of Braccus it would presumably let me know about every single dungeon in the area. I could go on a full tour!

  Depending on effective range, of course. If the range was only a few metres, the Mark would be utterly pointless. Certainly I couldn't detect anything right now, but I hoped that was simply because I was still inside another dungeon.

  There was only one way to find out, so I made the trek back to the centre of the dungeon, now completely unbothered by monsters. How long would they take to respawn? Were they on a timer? I could rule out them reappearing overnight, given that I'd already spent the night inside. Maybe they'd respawn immediately the moment I left?

  Back at the centre, the central lake of acid was gone, with no sign of the spawned acid crawlers. I hadn't had kill notifications for them, but maybe they didn't count as mine if the pool had suddenly been replaced by soil and crushed them all, or poofed them out of existence.

  Or perhaps they were still under there, waiting to melt my feet off...

  I trod a little carefully after that thought, but there was no response from [Danger Sense], and an appreciated lack of foot-melting.

  There was indeed a treasure chest at the foot of the central tree, with a glowing teleporter in front of it. The chest contained a few ingots of metal, which was rather disappointing. [Blacksmithing] informed me they were valuable, and not regular steel, but value was meaningless out here in the jungle, where I could neither sell nor use them. I just stashed them in my storage ring and stepped toward the teleporter.

  And then I paused.

  I'd only once been on the other side of a teleporter, at which point I hadn't been in a fit state to pay attention, but given people's reactions when I'd used them, it was obvious that they were rather flashy. I'd been in here for a time that was fast approaching a day. What if other monsters had moved in outside, taking over the territory occupied by the acid crawlers and acid moths I'd slain? What sort of beasts might have been attracted by the noise and spilled blood?

  Perhaps I would be better off retracing my steps after all and using the regular exit. Or, at the least, resting for a bit and recovering my Mana, which was almost spent. It would give me time to buy [Archmage] and try out the new spells, too.

  Speaking of, as promised by [Patient Traveller II], beating the dungeon had earned me [Dungeoneer]. I already knew I wouldn't be taking it, but having it accessible was interesting. Having killed enough monsters in the dungeon with [Wind Blade] to have earned [Wind Mage], I was up to five Paths. Would that be enough for [Patient Traveller III] at my next growth milestone?

  Yup. Exactly as advertised. It would increase my power within dungeons significantly while stripping me of power outside them. Although I had to admit the name [Dungeon Manipulation] was interesting. That sounded almost like it would let me control the dungeon. Rather weird, but no way was I the first person with [Mana Manipulation] to earn the Path, so if it was horrifically overpowered in some way, someone would have noticed.

  But if beating a C-rank dungeon had earned me [Dungeoneer], perhaps it was also a requirement for other Paths. Was there now anything else that was only a single step away?

  Yes, and it was one I'd not heard of. [Solivagant]. It wasn't as if I'd read everything in the Path compendium, but I'd certainly read every name, and that had not been one of them. I couldn't completely discount two pages getting stuck together, or somehow missing it some other way, but it seemed unlikely. Something unique to me, then?

  Would it be better than [Archmage]?

  Something in the hidden depths of my Memory, an echo of my past life, threw up a rough translation. It referred to a lone traveller. A solo adventurer. That had the potential to be interesting. Any drawbacks were likely in the area of parties and team coordination. I could deal with that. The bigger concern was what the positives would be. Obviously it encompassed Skills useful for travelling through hostile territory, given my missing requirement, but what other requirements had I already met? Would it boost [Dagger Mastery]? [Mana Manipulation] and my spells? In the best case, it would do both. After all, someone adventuring alone would need to be good at both.

  That perhaps went some way toward explaining why it wasn't in the compendium. What sort of fool would solo clear a C-rank dungeon before taking a Path? I'm sure plenty of overpowered individuals had done so afterwards, but by then it was too late. You could only ever pick a single Path.

  I didn't have plans to advance [Adept Foraging], but evolving [Danger Sense] was the very next thing on my list after getting [Archmage], and [Mapping] would come soon after, perhaps after advancing my evolved spells a little. I'd planned to evolve [Danger Sense] before making my way deeper into the jungle, if not to get it to its final stage. Swapping the order around wouldn't hurt. If, after reading the full description of [Solivagant], I decided it wasn't for me, I could just take [Archmage] then.

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