Daman
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[CC] Chapter 13
🕑 Added 2025-04-21 10:05:15 +0000 UTCIt’s my first attribute upgrade.
Shouren checked the message again. His Intelligence was the first of his attributes to reach E rank.
The boy tapped his head. He didn’t necessarily feel smarter or wise. Although, he did sense that the speed of his thoughts had gone faster.
Does the world seem clearer?
Shouren muttered, experiencing an imperceptible fog clearing from his sight. Or was it just in his head?
“Look at that sweet, juicy lumen!”
The boy crouched down and smacked the dead snake’s flat scales in excitement. Shouren glanced at the monster’s dead eyes awkwardly. He’d just goaded this Tier 0 beast and then used a giant boulder to pulverize its insides. It was a sad way to die.
Hope you get to eat lots of eggs in the afterlife, friend. Are there even eggs in the afterlife? Well, just eat whatever you can find.
The young boy shrugged after patting the dead snake and returned to his excitement with the new lumen capacity.
His dreaded 5 lumen was now bursting with 15 lumen. E rank Intelligence had doubled his base lumen from 10 to 20, and with the Dimensional Vault occupying a constant 5 lumen, Shouren now had 15 lumen that he could actively use.
“If I knew increasing my Intelligence would solve my lumen issues, I wouldn’t have been so hesitant with equipping the [Rare] card in the first place.”
The boy brushed off the meat paste from the scaly hide and stored it inside the vault. The snake hide had a gorgeous coloring, and the merchants would pay a nice purse for it.
Shouren inspected his attributes again. Except for Intelligence, all of them were F ranked. Increasing the attributes to E rank should be relatively easy, but the boy didn’t know how to reach D rank Intelligence. How much lumen would that give him? Would he get there by tricking more monsters? He had an inkling that it wouldn’t work.
He’d constantly on the run since he’d entered the dungeon, and yet his agility remained at F rank. His first kill, the pink worm, had also been an ambush and yet that didn’t raise his attribute.
“Well, 15 lumen is still good. I wonder what the other attributes will do?”
Shouren picked up the intact shard from the pit. He made his secondary goal to raise his other attributes to E rank as well. Strength and Agility should be straightforward, but he had no clue how to train his Constitution.
“Give me something good, you stingy dungeon.”
Setting aside the attribute matters, Shouren turned his attention to the task he’d been delaying. The 5 glowing cards on the ground.
He purposely shuffled the 2 green cards to the back and started with the gray cards.
The first two were [Common] class cards.
Tier 0 - Warrior Class [Common]
Tier 0 - Merchant Class [Common]
“This sneaky guy actually dropped the Merchant class card.”
Shouren raised his eyes appreciatively. It was a [Common] version of the class card, but the Merchant classes generally sold for a decent amount of chronas. It was one of the relatively valuable [Common] class cards, unlike the Cardsmith.
He stored the class cards in his vault. He had plans for them.
Then, he looked at the last [Common] card.
Tier 0 - Lumen Shield [Common]
Create a 1 meter wide lumen barrier in front you, blocking attacks within Tier 0.
Cost: 3 lumen per second.
“You’re starting to like me, aren’t you, dungeon?”
Shouren cheered. He finally had a defense spell card that he could use to save his life. It was a lowly defense spell that only covered a small area in front of him, but it essentially gave Shouren an added layer of armor in case something went awry.
He put this card in a specific zone within the Dimensional Vault, allowing for quick access.
Shouren stared at the first [Uncommon] card in front of him. Once again, it was another class card.
Tier 0 - Thief Class [Uncommon]
“This is troublesome.”
The boy squinted his eyes in frustration. It was a superb class card that was high in demand. An [Uncommon] Thief in any party was instrumental in safely clearing a dungeon floor or find hidden treasures.
The problem was that it was too eye-catching for the weak 10-year-old Shouren to openly sell it. [Uncommon] class cards were an expensive commodity in the markets and if someone spotted Shouren with one, the consequences of that were unimaginable.
Rather than selling it, I want to trade it for more [Common] class cards.
Shouren reflected in his mind. He already had enough items he could sell for chronas. What he urgently needed to do was to accumulate a 100 [Common] class cards to upgrade his class to [Uncommon].
With his Corrupted Cardsmith trait, any new class abilities would have an additional corrupted ability. Shouren looked forward to that day.
“This is okay as well.”
Shouren placed the Thief class card inside his vault and looked at the final card in his hand.
Tier 0 - Disguise Self [Uncommon]
Replace yourself with an illusory appearance. Illusion unaffected to Tier 1 and above.
Cost: 10 lumen per activation.
Unlike the Tier 0 - Hide Presence spell card, Disguise Self only altered the person’s appearance. It would make no difference to the monsters as they’d hunt any living being. It was a shame Shouren couldn’t use this card but if he could find a reliable merchant, he now had 2 [Uncommon] cards to trade.
No, I had the other [Uncommon] card as well.
Shouren almost forgot his first [Uncommon] spell card dropped by the alpha. It was a card he threw aside because of its absurd lumen cost.
Tier 0 - Sonar Pulse [Uncommon]
Discharge an attack wave made of invisible sound. Ignore armor.
Cost: 12 lumen per wave.
Now that Shouren’s lumen capacity had hit 15, he could effectively use the offensive spell card. Out of all the cards at his disposal, the Sonar Pulse was his strongest attack card. It could forcefully ignore a monster’s armor and directly target its vulnerable flesh.
“I have a trump card for both offense and defense now. I should reset this pit pronto before another monster comes through.”
Shouren quickly disposed of the broken branches and replaced them with the fresh branches he had in his vault. Once again, he was delighted at the usefulness of the [Rare] Dimensional Vault card. It wasn’t a combat card, but its versatility was unmatched.
Appeased at the reset pit, the boy carefully placed the shard on top and retreated to his original spot.
“Shucks, I forgot about the skewers.”
Shouren chided himself at the blackened scraps of charcoal which were once stringy cuts of badger meat. With everything sorted, he opened his notifications while he waited for another monster to take the bait.
[Floor 1 Clear Conditions: Kill 3 Tier 0 entities]
[Current Kills: 5/3]
[Updated: Kill count exceeded clear conditions. Increased floor rewards will be distributed upon exit or new floor.]
“I still can’t believe it.”
Shouren slapped himself in elation. A mere few days ago, he was agonizing over how to get a single Tier 0 monster kill, and now he was sitting with 5 kills in his pocket. Strangely, he wasn’t even afraid of the monsters anymore. They were not invulnerable and as long as they bled, Shouren could kill them.
And he wasn’t just talking about the monsters.
The boy tightened his fists, his hazel-green eyes bore into the fire with a fervor blaze. He would protect his grandma from now on and let no one trample on them ever again. He never wanted to see the despaired look on his grandma when that merchant had extorted her shards away from her.
Shouren knew those shards meant another month of food and roof over their heads. Yet, that merchant had heartlessly snatched it away from her. Those shards didn’t mean anything to that man. But in that one moment, that merchant had the power over both Shouren and Rhea’s lives in his hand.
Krrtt.
A weird monster’s call shook Shouren out of his dreary thoughts. This time, the creature was straight in front of him. It was a sunset-colored ferret. If not for the razor serrated fangs attached to its mouth, Shouren found the creature quite cute.
Its twitching eyes darted between the fire, Shouren, and the glowing shard near it.
“Oh no, my shard!”
Shouren fumbled out his seat and reached out his arm as if going after the shard.
Che!
The ferret sniggered with a wave of its bushy tail and bounced over to the shard. The dumb human was too far away and it would reach the delicious shard before him. The nimble monster breezed past the surrounding branches and arrived near the shard.
It gave a final gloating glance at Shouren before snatching up the shard with its teeth.
Seeing the pained expression on the human’s face, the ferret began dancing in joy. It was too small to contend evenly against the human, and the fire made it nervous. But it had still come out victorious in this clash and stolen the shard away.
Crash.
The branches splintered at the pressure, causing its furry paw trapped in the crack. The ferret shrieked in panic, but it was already too late.
“Got ya.”
Shouren bolted to the creature with a grin plastered on his youthful face. Before the monster could break free, a giant boulder mashed it into pieces.
“This little guy was actually cute when it danced.”
Shouren sighed at the splattered bits of the monster in the pit. It was a bit of an overkill killing the tiny creature with a massive boulder, but Shouren didn’t want to take any chances. He was sad about the lost shard, though. It was already lost the moment the creature ingested it.
Shouren chuckled as the light from the new cards in the pit ricocheted through his green irises.
“I could get used to this.”
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“…8 … 9… haah… 10!”
A small figure could be seen holding a rock the size of a melon over his shoulders as he repeated squatted with it. Trails of sweat poured down his face, neck and chest, his muscles convulsing under the weight.
“Without lumen, I might as well have the strength of a toddler.”
Shouren gasped out of breath, heaving the rock away from him. If someone didn’t know him better, they’d think he’d ran for 20 miles, done hundreds or squats or underwent an extreme physical training.
However, he’d collapsed after sprinting for less than a mile, and 10 squats had nearly collapsed his body. If Shouren channeled the lumen, he would have been able to easily dwarf those numbers, but the point of the training was to increase his other attributes to E rank.
Status
Name: Shouren
Tier: 0 [Synchronization: 3%]
Class: Cardsmith [Common]
Spell Card Slots: 1/1 - Dimensional Vault [Rare]
Lumen: 15/20 (-5)
Strength: F
Agility: F
Constitution: F
Intelligence: E
Class Abilities <Corrupted>:
1 - Card Forge <Writ of the Forgotten>
2 - Sharding <Devourer’s Rite>
3 - Card Sacrifice <Oblation Pact>
Traits:
1 - Corrupted Cardsmith [Unique]
2 - Locked
3 - Locked
“Tch, neither Strength or Agility increased. At least, the synchronization went up a few points.”
Shouren commented in a disgruntled voice. His training over the past six days had amounted to no change in the attributes. The boy’s fitness levels were in the drain. If Shouren had to guess, he might have started at the bottom of the F ranked attributes.
Only his Intelligence might have been close to the upper threshold of F rank.
These past 6 days, the boy had constantly been slaughtering monsters that came across his traps, and had to often use his Cardsmith class abilities like Sharding and Card Sacrifice, bringing his synchronization up to 3%. Shouren had yet to try his Card Forge ability yet.
Rustle.
An almost inaudible noise rang in the forest glade. Without taking his eyes off his status, the young boy dashed to the source of the sound and raised his hand.
Crunch.
A looming boulder descended on the poor creature, obliterating it in a fraction of a second.
In a series of practiced moves, Shouren retrieved the boulder and swiped the hovering cards into his vault. All of them were gray [Common] cards. In the 6 days, he had accumulated a countless number of [Common] cards and a few [Uncommon] ones, but not a single [Rare] card had dropped. Shouren had really gotten incredibly lucky with the bear’s drop.
He didn’t even bother to collect the monster’s hide. His [Rare] Dimensional Vault was full of these corpses and he needed the space for the boulder. Shouren peeked at the monster’s remains from the corner of his eye.
It was a medium-sized variation of an iguana-like monster with a fiery pattern on its back.
Ignoring its mangled carcass, Shouren opened his notifications.
[Floor 1 Clear Conditions: Kill 3 Tier 0 entities]
[Current Kills: 16/3]
[Updated: Kill count exceeded clear conditions. Increased floor rewards will be distributed upon exit or new floor.]
[Exit: Yes/No]
[Enter Floor 2: Yes/No]
The young boy walked over to the river bank and scooped some refreshing water into his palms before swallowing it down. Today was his last day in the dungeon and over the week, he’d racked up an impressive 16 kills, finally pushing past the 15 number mark with today’s kill.
He was averaging around 2 monsters a day. There were a few rare times that the traps failed and he had to activate <Oblation Pact>, but the boulder did the majority of the heavy lifting.
“Let’s see what I have.”
After finishing his drink, Shouren opened his vault with eager excitement. This was his favorite habit during the past few days: checking the number of cards he had.
Class Cards:
[Common] x14
[Uncommon] x3
Spell Cards:
[Common] x11
[Uncommon] x5
Shouren was hoping for another [Rare] card, but it was already a miracle that one had dropped in Floor 1 of the dungeon in the first place. However, the boy’s luck wasn’t too terrible.
Just as Shouren was about to run his hands through the cards, a dangerous rumbling thundered through the still sky.
“Huh?”
Shouren crouched to the ground, his senses on full alert to detect the anomaly. His mind was hovering over the button that let him exit the dungeon. It was his safety measure.
Crackle.
A bolt of scorching lightning exploded in the sky above Shouren. Before the young boy could dodge, a blazing lightning missile blasted the ground foot away from him, destroying the reinforced pit there in an instant.
The boy yelled in pain. One of the smaller chain of lightning in the vicinity had managed to land on his right leg. The smell of seared flesh drifted into Shouren’s nose. A small brush against the lightning had roasted the skin on his leg.
At that moment, the lightning in the sky parted in the center, revealing the origin of the tumultuous lightning. It was godly winged creature the size of a small house. Its sparkling golden wings fluttered angrily over the horizon, its burning eyes boring down on Shouren.
“Oh hell no.”
The young boy sputtered in shock, and with no time to spare, quickly selected the option to leave the dungeon.
[Cannot exit dungeon. Hostile Tier 0 monster in area.]
Donkey’s balls, that thing is a Tier 0!
