"He—he jumped into the lava hole!" Amy shouted in panic as she began pacing around.
Alice's face was dark at the moment. She clearly hadn't expected Max to do this. "All of this for what? Just a stupid skill?" She sighed.
"That lava hole hasn't been active like the others, so I think he will be fine," Alice said coldly. "We'll wait for two hours. Anyway, it's not like we'll make it to the Storm Canyon in time."
Amy nodded, her expression full of concern.
---
Meanwhile, Max felt like the fall was lasting too long. He had been falling for several seconds now, yet he still hadn't hit the ground.
Crash!
Just when he thought he would keep falling, he suddenly crashed into the ground. His back hurt from the fall, but he was overall fine.
'Strange, I fell from such a great height, and all I have is back pain?' Max mused as he inspected his surroundings.
He found himself in a strange cave, with markings of flames and smoke carved into the walls. In the distance, he could make out three level 8 golems—just like the one from before—heading toward him.
"This place has a lot of caves, strangely," Max muttered as he fired tens of magic bullets from both of his hands.
The magic bullets tore through the air like blue laser beams, hitting the three level 8 golems one after another.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The magic bullets struck them, and before the golems could even react, their bodies were shattered into pieces.
A moment later, the golems glowed with red light before disappearing, leaving behind a pile of items. Max went ahead and collected them all.
After that, he began searching the cave for the skill mentioned in the extranet. But while searching, he found many other interesting things.
On the cave walls, he saw more carvings—some depicting rocks, others depicting lava, and some showing the golems he had just killed.
'What do these carvings mean?' Max wondered as he followed them deeper into the cave, eventually discovering what appeared to be some sort of laboratory.
'Laboratory? No, it's more like a junkyard,' he mused as he began to examine the place. He noticed many strange items, including a lava pool, a cluster of rocks placed carefully on iron crates, and a tomb.
"Seriously, what is this place?" Max muttered in surprise. He hadn't seen or heard of a secret chamber like this before. To him, it appeared to be some kind of research facility where someone had been experimenting on something.
Just then, an open box placed at the center of the cave caught Max's attention. It was positioned in such a way that it was impossible not to notice it.
'Strange.' Although Max felt a little suspicious, his curiosity got the best of him, and he approached to check it out.
Reaching the box, Max immediately poured its contents onto the ground and began inspecting them.
'So many things? And some of them don't even look like they belong to a dungeon...' Max's suspicion grew as he examined the items.
There were books upon books about rocks, mana paths, runes, and so on. In addition, he found some level 6 cores, a diary, a hexagonal token with a black lotus flower etched on its surface, and a scroll.
Max didn't care about anything except the scroll, so he set the other items aside and focused on it.
[Flame Creation (Common)]
"Flame Creation skill, but it's a common rank..." Max frowned at the skill's rank. The Burning Wilds was an F-rank dungeon, so the skill obtained in its secret chamber should have at least been Uncommon rank, but what he got was just a common rank flame elemental skill.
"This secret chamber is strange, and the skill I got here is low rank," he muttered in dissatisfaction and sighed. "It doesn't matter, I guess. If I master this skill to a high level, they'll think I have a flame-oriented class," he mused.
Generally, one would only practice skills related to their class. It helped them increase the mastery levels if their class and skill were aligned.
Otherwise, it was proven that using random skills not related to one's class made it difficult to progress in those skills.
For instance, if someone had a class called Frost Wizard, they would find it easy to master ice and water-related skills. On the other hand, practicing skills like flaming arrows or other fire-related skills would make it almost impossible to progress.
But Max was an exception. With the help of his Dimension of Time, he could practically master any skill to level 100 if given enough time.
'They won't know,' Max smiled as he opened the skill scroll and placed his hand on it.
[Congratulations to Max Voidwalker for obtaining the skill — Flame Creation.]
---
[Flame Creation (Incomplete)]
– Rank: [Common]
– Level: 0
– Description: A skill created by a mad scientist for his experiments.
—
"Is this for real?" Max was stunned as he read the description of the skill. "Damn, I was right! This is indeed a place where someone conducted research and experiments, but how did they do it?"
As far as he knew, a dungeon would give everyone an hour after the boss was defeated to exit. It would also send a portal to anyone far away in an isolated place, helping them leave before the dungeon reset.
However, the reset didn't affect everything. For example, if someone from outside the dungeon came and died inside, their remains would still be visible after many resets. Any changes made inside the dungeon would also remain after resets, though the only thing that would change was the availability of more monsters.
'But what would happen if they didn't leave the dungeon after the one-hour time limit?' Max wondered, then shook his head. "All I know is that this mad scientist, whoever he was, managed to stay in this hidden chamber for years, conducting research here and this skill happened to be created by him."
Although he didn't know how the mad scientist had managed to pull it off. But he didn't care as long as the skill worked.
"This is a good place to level up quietly." Max muttered before taking out all the cores he had and began absorbing them.
After minutes of all the level 6 cores and level 7 cores, Max didn't level up. "Damn, what's the problem with me." He frowned before absorbing the few level 8 cores when the level up notification popped up in his vision.
[Congratulations to Max Voidwalker for leveling up to level 5 of Novice Rank.]
---
[Max]
– Rank: [Novice]
– Level: 5
– Class: [Dimensional Keeper]
– Physique: 6.5
– Soul: 7
– Energy: 10
– Skills:
—» Class Skills: [Three Dimensional Body, Dimension of Time]
—» Acquired Skills: [Magic Bullets (Lvl-100), Basic Sword Arts (Lvl-100), Swift Dash (Lvl-100), Flurry Strike (Lvl-100), Flame Creation(Lvl-1)]
—» Comprehensions: [Sword Aura (Lvl-1)]
– Bloodline: [Black Dragon Chaotic Bloodline]
—» Draconic Essence: [10]
—» Dragon Scales: [1]
---