Free Web NovelChapter 8: [8]: The Ashen Crypts, Breaking the Level Gap
The entrance to the Ashen Crypts wasn’t a grand dungeon door or a magical portal. It was just a massive, jagged fissure ripped into the scorched earth, leaking a thick, heavy necrotic mist into the air.
Levi stood at the edge of the crack and peered down. He couldn’t see the bottom, but the stone steps carved into the side of the wall looked stable enough. He equipped his Arachnid’s Fang Scythe. The silver blade gleamed, cutting through the dark mist around him.
He climbed down into the cavernous dungeon. The moment his boots hit the stone floor, the ambient temperature plummeted. The air was freezing, biting at his virtual skin. The UI flashed, changing the zone name on his minimap to [Ashen Crypts - Floor 1].
The silence of the underground tunnel lasted exactly three seconds before it was violently broken by the harsh, clicking sound of rattling bones.
The dirt floor ahead of him shifted. Five skeletal figures clawed their way out of the ground, dragging rusted iron swords behind them. Their eye sockets burned with a faint blue light.
[Decaying Skeleton] [Level: 8] [HP: 400 | ATK: 35 | DEF: 25]
Levi immediately ran the combat math in his head. He was Level 5. The skeletons were Level 8. That 3-level gap meant he suffered a flat 20% Level Suppression damage penalty.
However, his Silver-tier scythe had a passive effect that ignored 15% of enemy defense.
Math breakdown: The skeleton’s Defense of 25 was reduced by 15%, dropping it down to roughly 21 Defense. Levi’s raw Base Damage was his 85 Attack minus that 21 Defense, equalling 64 Damage. Finally, applying the 20% Level Suppression penalty: 64 multiplied by 0.8 resulted in 51 Final Damage per basic strike.
It wasn’t a one-shot, but for a solo player fighting a mob three levels higher, 51 damage a swing was absolutely monstrous.
The five skeletons lunged in unison. They didn’t have complex AI; they simply rushed him, raising their rusted swords for heavy, downward chops!
Levi didn’t retreat. He gripped his scythe and stepped directly into the dead center of their chaotic formation.
"Reaping Arc," Levi said.
His mana bar dropped by 10. The silver blade of his scythe erupted in a brilliant, blood-red light. He twisted his torso and unleashed a massive, sweeping cone attack that cleaved through all five skeletons simultaneously!
Five massive red numbers exploded into the dark air.
[-105] [-105] [-105] [-105] [-105]
The sheer force of the AoE strike shattered their ribcages and sent all five skeletons staggering backward, interrupting their attack animations.
Levi didn’t stop moving. He relied entirely on his 13 Speed to dance between them. The skeletons were heavily penalized by their slow, highly-telegraphed sword swings. Levi slipped past a clumsy thrust, stepped to the side of a horizontal slash, and systematically focused down the skeleton on the far left.
He unleashed a rapid chain of basic physical attacks, aiming specifically for the joints and the neck to trigger the game’s hidden critical hit modifiers!
Slash. [-51] Slash. [-51] Slash. [-51]
Three hits delivered exactly 153 damage. Combined with the initial 105 from the skill, the skeleton’s health bar plummeted. Levi’s scythe effortlessly triggered its innate bleed, but before the bleed could even tick, Levi spun his weapon and cracked the skeleton across the skull. The skull detached from the spine, and the monster shattered into glowing blue polygons.
One down. Four to go.
The remaining four skeletons managed to adjust their pathing and swarmed him. Levi’s stamina was draining rapidly. He dodged two more sword swings by inches, but the tight quarters of the crypt made perfect evasion impossible.
A rusted sword clipped his thigh, and another scraped across his back!
The pain engine delivered a sharp, blunt sting. The skeleton’s 35 Attack against Levi’s 10 Defense resulted in 25 damage per hit. He took two hits, dropping his health by 50 points.
[-25] [-25]
His HP fell to 150/200. Levi didn’t panic. He had the health pool to trade blows. He simply drank one of his basic mana potions to keep his fuel topped off, waited for the 5-second cooldown on Reaping Arc to end, and swung again!
[-105]
Another massive red wave of energy carved through the four remaining enemies. He methodically ripped them apart one by one. It took him exactly thirty seconds to clear the entire five-man mob. The last skeleton dissolved into pixels, leaving the dark tunnel completely quiet once again.
[System Notification: Slain 5x Decaying Skeletons. Gained 750 XP.]
Levi looked at the XP drop and actually laughed out loud. 150 XP per skeleton. This was the beauty of soloing a party zone. In a normal 5-man group, that 750 XP would be divided evenly, leaving each player with a meager 150 XP total. Because Levi was alone, he absorbed the entire pool.
He walked over to the loot piles and picked up five small, glowing black stones. [Undead Cores]. He only needed 95 more to complete Silas’s quest. He also drank a single health potion, waiting ten seconds for his HP to tick slowly back up to 200/200.
"Alright," Levi muttered, cracking his neck. "Let’s clean this place out."
He pushed deeper into the first floor of the crypt. Unfettered by a party that would normally argue over loot or need breaks to restore stamina, Levi turned into a highly efficient, one-man harvesting machine.
He fell into a flawless rhythm. He would sprint down the dark corridors, purposefully drawing the aggro of entire skeleton packs. He would bunch them up, trigger Reaping Arc to deal massive AoE damage, and then use his 13 Speed to kite them backward while picking them off with basic strikes.
He kept his mana potion buff rolling constantly. The skeletons dropped enough copper coins and junk loot to easily offset the cost of the consumables he was burning.
An hour passed. Then two. Then four.
The sensory isolation of the VR helmet made time blur. Levi just kept swinging, dodging, and drinking potions. The repetitive, violent grind was exactly what he lived for in his past life. He slaughtered exactly 50 skeletons across the sprawling first floor.
The golden light of leveling up washed over him twice during the brutal session. He blew past his XP thresholds with terrifying speed.
[System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 6.] [System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 7.]
Levi stood at the bottom of a stone staircase leading down to the second floor, surrounded by piles of bone dust. He opened his status screen. He had 10 new free stat points to allocate.
Because the Level Suppression penalty was dropping as he leveled up, he needed more raw damage to clear faster, but he also needed more agility to avoid the increasing number of mobs per pack. He split the points evenly. He assigned 5 points to Strength, bringing it to 25. He assigned the remaining 5 points to Agility, pushing it to 18.
He ran his updated math. His new Base Attack was 50 (from 25 STR). Adding the 45 from his scythe brought his Total Attack to 95. His Speed was now an impressive 18, making his avatar move with almost unnatural fluidity.
He closed his menu, checked his inventory counter which read exactly 50 [Undead Cores], and looked down the dark staircase. He was halfway done with the quest, and he was hitting harder than ever. He gripped his silver scythe and moved to the next floor.
