"I'm not scared at all..."

Unlike before, I was certainly feeling a lot more confident, knowing how strong I was currently. Maintaining my vigilance and shivering from fear were two different stories, after all.

Ding!

~You have entered a high level dungeon gate~

In front of me was a massive tower with a ginormous gate. I didn't even ado anything, yet the huge paid if doors began moving as the hinges issued loud creaks.

Slam!

"Huh?" I muttered with a fluster.

Despite having my Divine Thread skill active and heightened perception due to my Intelligence, I couldn't sense a single presence of monsters from beyond the castle gates.

"There are no Shadow creatures?"

I had been worried about precisely the absolute opposite situation happening to me and getting swarmed by this bastards immediately.

"What is the meaning of this?"

Not getting bombarded by Shadow creatures the minute the gates opened made it feel like all my efforts were in vain and this dungeon was somewhat not as dangerous as people play it out to be.

"I don't have to underestimate this hell scape..."..

Feeling somewhat dumbfounded, I stored the Cobra's Tongue back to my inventory and entered the Castle like structure.

Then, it didn't take more Ethan a few seconds till I summoned the dagger again as the mechanical beep rang inside my head.

I initially thought it was a notification from the Divine Thread skill, but turned out to be an alert to let me know that a new message has arrived.

"Uh?"..

~A new quest is available~

I tilted my head slightly and confirmed the message.

"Confirm..."

Then, the information in the quest appeared before me.

~Normal quest: Collect the Anti-arcane energy from Shadow creatures~

~Shadow creatures are everywhere within this dungeon. Kill the demons and collect their essence to increase your Arcane output~

~One stone can be retrieved from a single Shadow creature, but on higher dimensions, there are Shadow creatures with multiple Anti-arcane stones~

~Quest Generation Condition:~

~Entry into a high level dungeon gate~

~Quest clear condition: Collect 20,000 Anti-arcane essence~

~Reward: +20 bonus stat points~

~Automatic Metamorphosis completion of New Arcane pet Cacoon~

"Shadow Creatures can have multiple Anti-arcane stones?" That was the first thing that peaked my interest.

And the quest was to kill abd retrieve 20,000 negative essence. I knew this task was supposed to be difficult but the rewards were just too tempting, and that being said, that would mean a minimum of 20,000 Shadow creatures are jam-packed in this dungeon... I see why it do feared by many.

On top of everything, I get to automatically open the Arcane caccon for my newest addition of Arcane pets.

I was genuinely elated now and thought about finishing this quest real fast to receive those rewards.

I had no idea what kind of monsters these Shadow creatures would be, but hell, twenty thousand was a scary high number, indeed.

Still, a slight smile crept up on my face.

Currently, the number of Arcane pets I possessed were four in total.

If each killed 5,000 each, this quest would be cleared. If I pushed my pets to work hard, surely this sort of quest would prove to be nothing but a cake walk.

~Do you accept this quest?~

"Of course..."

I had no reason to refuse.

~You have accepted the quest~

The penalty for failing this quest would be me wasting a bit of time, that'd be all.

But I have everything to gain, including the possibility of finding out what happened to my parents.

As soon as I accepted the quest, a dialogue box that I hadn't seen before appeared in the air, just above my line of sight.

~Anti-arcane essence collected: 0\20,000~

A butter chuckle leaked out of my mouth once I got to physically confirm the number that had been floating inside my head as nothing but a vague notion until now.

Finally, I had a leeway to take a closer look at the interior section of the dungeon

My eye widened immediately once I did. Inside of the dungeon's interior was a ruined landscape that burned with hot scorching fire. Literally hell, like the people outside had described.

"So, where should I go now?"

Not seeing any Shadow creatures up until that point was starting to feel really suspicious.

My gaze scanned the surroundings and the distant horizon. Thankfully my dilemma didn't last too long.

In the far off distance, there was a faint, beaming purple light that twinkled as cloud of smoke passed my eyesight.

Ding!

~Dungeon Checkpoint~

~Description: This dungeon has multiple dimensions, the light on the distance makes the end of this dimension and the beginning of another~

Just then-

Ding!

~Divine Thread Skill Detected Negative magic threats~

~HookJaw Shadow Creatures~

~Difficulty: Low ranked Shadow creatures~

I immediately recognized what they were from my days in the Border Cleanup Group.

They were monsters with smallish physical sizes and they began creeping out from the gaps of ruined boulders, one by one.

They looked like gargoyles, but without wings or anything they could use for flight and also they had this shadowy mist enveloping their entire body surface area— much like every other Shadow creature.

Seeing them, the corners of my lips arches up.

"Well for starters I got myself a few several negative essence..."

Right away, I dashed through the air and the Cobra's Tongue pierced deeply onto the forehead of one of the creatures.

~You have killed a low-ranked demon.~

~You have collected 1 Anti-arcane essence~

The moment the Shadow creatures attention had shifted to the one with the dagger stuck to its forehead, I rapidly approached another rone to separate its head from its body and consume its Anti-arcane essence from its magic stone.

Slice!

This one also gave me one negative essence.

And I needed to collect a total of 20,000.

The remaining Shadow Creatures were taken care of in the blink of an eye.

I had collected ten essence so far, and the stat points earned were very much appreciated too.

"Hey, this is not too bad... Why do people fear this dungeon so much? I'm probably lenient because I'm still at the beginning stages, it'll probably get tougher as I progress..."

They said, the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step, my eyes began sparking brightly as I began searching for my next prey.

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