Logan tightened his grip on his glaive as he looked at the massive tunnel ahead. In his other hand, he conjured a fireball the size of a tennis ball.
'Enough to push them away if they come from a blind spot,' Logan thought, carefully advancing through the tunnel. 'There's another three hundred feet to go before I arrive at the dungeon's land pocket.'
Logan advanced step by step through the long tunnel.
After taking a sharp turn, he finally understood why people called this the dungeon's land pocket.
A beautiful forest spread out as far as he could see. The leaves on the trees were a deep blue color while the bark had retained its original brown.
On the ceiling, a few hundred feet up, countless blue mana crystals bathed the forest with mana-infused light like some kind of artificial sun.
'The plants and trees down in dungeons adapted and evolved to accept the mana from the crystals instead of the sunlight,' Logan recounted what he'd read when he was young.
'No one told me it was such a majestic sight though,' he thought, smiling.
Hearing rustling in the distance, Logan quickly snapped out of his thoughts and dismissed the fireball in his hand.
Grabbing his glaive with both hands, he carefully advanced to the tree line.
Pushing aside some leaves, Logan found himself face to face with a boar the size of a bear.
As Logan spotted the boar, it spotted him too.
The boar immediately raised its head and charged at Logan without hesitation.
Logan quickly stepped aside, letting the boar run past him.
Covering his glaive in mana, he waited until the boar charged at him again.
The boar, however, seemed confused, not having noticed where its target had gone.
It started running once again; however, instead of searching for Logan, it disappeared deep into the forest.
"..."
Logan stood there, his mouth wide open while his glaive glowed from his mana.
"Did it just run off?" he whispered, no longer sending mana to his glaive.
Lowering his glaive, he scanned the treeline for movement.
Logan knew chasing after it wasn't a smart idea, thus he decided to keep on walking.
'Let's forget about that,' he thought, pushing aside a bunch of leaves.
Walking deeper into the forest, Logan found the clear path walked by the countless people that had gone here before him.
'I probably shouldn't follow the path,' he thought, remembering what kind of creatures were inside the dungeon. 'Goblins will no doubt try and ambush me somewhere along the road.'
While weak individually, the goblins presented a threat if they ambushed him in a group.
Knowing that, Logan followed his map and found a large underground river.
'The perfect place to hunt,' he thought, walking carefully along the waterline.
Walking several hundred feet, he finally found a lone boar drinking from the river.
'Great,'
Instead of acting impulsively, Logan waited for the boar to retreat slightly into the forest.
Then, he took his chance and jumped forward. His glaive's edges glowed in an orange light as it cut a clean slash across the boar's shoulder.
A high-pitched squeal sounded through the forest as the boar jumped to the side with its injured leg.
Even with its leg on fire, the boar turned around and charged at Logan with full speed.
Logan reacted quickly. He jumped to the side and let the boar crash into a large tree behind him.
With no hesitation, he turned around and stabbed his glaive deep inside the creature's neck.
Still hearing the boar squeal, Logan poured more mana into his glaive, causing fire to burn it from the inside.
'That was it, huh,' Logan thought, looking at the boar emotionlessly.
He'd just ended another life. Granted, it wasn't human or intelligent. But it was still a living being.
'None of that matters,' Logan thought, taking his glaive out of the boar. 'Inside a dungeon. No, in life in general. All that matters is survival.'
Thinking back to his youth, every single day had been a struggle to survive.
'If it had found me off guard, it would've killed me without any hesitation,' he thought, searching its body.
Finding the right spot, Logan slashed through the boar's hide, cutting straight towards its heart.
Finally finding its heart, he started searching around. After a few seconds, he dug out a small, raw mana core.
'That's around 25 dollars,' Logan thought, pocketing the core with a smile.
'Now I need to get out of here,' he thought, looking around. 'It won't be long before other creatures smell its blood.'
Logan took a slightly different route on the way back, paying attention to everything around him.
'I should clean the blood off me too,' he thought, summoning a small flame on the tip of his finger.
As he walked, he slowly cleaned his glaive and clothes with the tiny flame.
Suddenly, a vine on the ground wrapped itself around Logan's foot.
Stunned, Logan swiped down with his glaive, cutting himself free from the vine.
A long blue vine started moving around, aiming several of its vine branches toward him.
Summoning a quick fireball, Logan hurled it straight at the tree the vine was attached to.
The fireball connected with the tree with no issue and lit it on fire in seconds. The flames quickly spread across the tree, burning the living vine that had attacked him.
The vine branches that were coming toward him before no longer moved after the main vine died.
'Didn't expect that,' Logan thought, observing his surroundings more carefully. 'I need to learn a technique to sense mana signatures around me.'
He immediately made a mental note, cursing himself for not having learned such a basic skill.
Meanwhile, on the outside, Silas sat in front of the dungeon, drinking a coffee as he read through some documents on his watch.
'Around three hours have passed,' he thought, bored. 'He should be fine in such a simple dungeon.'
Sensing something, Silas looked into the distance.
"I didn't think people would actually try," he said, turning down his hologram while placing his coffee on the ground.
"But I guess I am pretty bad at judging people," Silas muttered, grabbing his longsword.