The drive to the dungeon was going to be at least three hours, giving Diane plenty of time to research anything she needed. Along the way, I took the chance to observe the beasts of Pyrrhos as we passed by. Well, the ones that were flying through the air, at least. There were… a surprising number of dragons in the area. A worrying number of dragons, even.

  As we continued to fly, I would see numerous dragons flying over the forest, needing to be careful not to hit them with my car. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure where they were based, until we began to pass over a mountain range. At the heart of this mountain range, countless dragons were working with smaller, humanoid lizardfolk to assemble a great city.

  Seeing this, I couldn’t help but purse my lips, understanding the situation. I knew that my old player had a ten star trait, qualifying him to establish his own kingdom. However, I hadn’t expected it to be along this path, or that he hadn’t finished creating it yet.

  Though, given the number of dragons flying around, I could guess that he had received the backing of the other dragons that he lived with. “We’ll need to remember this place later,” I muttered, glancing down as we flew over the city. “If it’s the other Drake establishing a nation, that means that dungeons will probably spawn with anti-magic skills.”

  “The other Drake?” Bella asked curiously, before Diane’s Chosen took the time to explain my connection to this dragon. As Bella listened, her eyes widened in surprise, turning to look at the disappearing city behind us.

  Not long later, Diane’s Player logged back in, and she let out a long sigh. “How’d it go?” I asked, and she nodded her head.

  “I found a couple variations,” she answered after a moment. “There are two main style for gauntlet dungeons. We’ll be able to tell which one it is once we get there. If there are monsters running around outside the dungeon, that means we’re probably dealing with a dungeon that has a set number of waves, followed by a boss. Otherwise, it’s an Unlimited Wave dungeon.”

  “That sounds… ominous.” Bella muttered.

  “It is,” Diane confirmed. “An Unlimited Wave dungeon gives you the chance to leave after every round. However, each wave provides stronger monsters and better rewards. Unlike normal dungeons, the loot received from an Unlimited Wave dungeon isn’t randomized. Everyone receives the same standard for the reward, but they can only keep their rewards if they safely leave the dungeon. If they die in it, any items or skills they acquired in the dungeon will be lost.”

  “Unlimited Wave dungeons are also rather rare, or at least hard to find, because they don’t leak monsters out into the outside world. There’s never an overflow, so it is easier to miss the appearance of the dungeon. And because there is no boss, there is also no key to control the dungeon.”

  After she said that, Diane glanced down, as if looking at a message window. She looked back, grimacing. “Dragon nation? My Chosen just told me.”

  “Yeah,” I confirmed, gripping the steering wheel. “I’m not entirely sure that I like how close it is to Fallcry, but there’s not much that I can do about it. If they have the backing of the dragons, that means that they probably have at least one or two people on the same level as Kelly. Even if you gave me a hundred lives, I wouldn’t be confident in fighting her right now.”

  Diane nodded her head in agreement, shifting in her seat. “How far are we from the dungeon?”

  “Not sure. I don’t really have a way to track distance accurately, so I’ve just been trying to keep the speed at two hundred and fifty kilometers an hour.” As I said that, a new message window appeared in front of me.

  I couldn’t help but blink, seeing a glowing pillar of light that suddenly sprang up in the distance. “Okay… looks like we’re not far now,” I said, turning the car towards that pillar of light. The other two looked at me curiously, but didn’t question it.

  It only took us a few minutes at that point to reach the dungeon, which took the form of an obsidian arena. I could see the swirling portal of the dungeon at the arena’s exit, so I pulled the car up to park outside of it. After letting everyone out, I buried the respawn anchor just outside the dungeon while the other two looked around.

  “I don’t see any monsters leaking out,” Bella noted, earning a glance from Diane.

  “In that case, we’re probably dealing with an Unlimited Wave dungeon. There are a few things that you need to know before we go in,” as she said that, Diane turned to face the two of us. Taking a deep breath, she continued. “Once we get inside, each of us will get sent to our own room. We will be given the loot from the first wave prior to the wave itself, and have the chance to use that loot to clear the wave.”

  “However, like I said, if we die in the first wave, that loot is guaranteed to drop. Also, you might get a choice for the loot, or you might only have one option. It varies from dungeon to dungeon. Only once all of us have received their loot will we be brought to the main arena. Then, after each wave, we will be sent to the same room as before to select whether we wish to leave or advance. And if we want to advance, we will be able to pick the item we want for the next wave. This will continue until either we die, or we choose to exit.”

  “Are the waves really unlimited?” Bella asked curiously, looking at the arena behind her. “What happens if we just keep going?”

  “According to a post from Karlson, the highest recorded wave of an Unlimited Wave dungeon was over one hundred and thirty. However, this didn’t mark the end of the dungeon itself. Instead, the challenger at the time gave up because they had acquired too many valuable materials that they didn’t want to risk losing, and had no guarantee that they could continue. When you return to an Unlimited Wave dungeon, you don’t restart from the beginning. Instead, you start from five waves below your highest record.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “In other words, if you wanted to farm the dungeon, you could only farm five waves of rewards, and had to make sure that you got out before dying,” she finished, looking at the two of us. “For now, Bella and I are here to gain experience, and Drake is looking for his new skill. However, we may be able to get suitable weapons or armor here, and there may even be other skills we could take.”

  With that said, she turned to enter the dungeon, gesturing for the two of us to follow. “Let’s go see what this dungeon offers for its first wave.”

  The three of us passed through the portal, and I found myself in a luxurious bedroom. Well, it would be more luxurious if it wasn’t on fire, but that was probably considered luxury for this realm. The curtains were made of embers, and a wall of smoke formed around the bed. The table was made of cracked obsidian, and a weapon rack hung from the wall.

  Looking at the weapons on the rack, there was an axe, a longsword, and a spear. I shrugged my shoulders, taking the sword and putting it in my inventory. It was a black sword with a burning gemstone in its pommel.

  Moments later, I appeared in a wide arena, together with Bella and Diane. The arena was well over two hundred meters wide, the floor made of black stone. “Drake, Dragon King Blessing and Ghost Zone!” Diane shouted out, taking a defensive stance with her daggers while Bella retrieved her pistols.

  I nodded my head, immediately deploying my Ghost Zone as I transformed. My blessed breath covered the duo, drastically boosting their abilities.

  Seconds ticked by, until finally, one of the many doors along the circular wall opened up. From within, a pair of humanoid creatures emerged. For the most part, they looked like normal people, though they were wrapped in an aura of black flames. Each of them carried a simple staff, which the flames also surrounded.

  I didn’t need to appraise them to know that these were the Black Flame Monks that the system told me about. The monks calmly walked towards the center of the arena, their eyes sweeping out to try to find us. Good, they don’t have any detection skills.

  “We’ll take this wave,” Diane muttered under her breath, looking at Bella, who nodded her head and pulled out her rifle. Bella took a firing stance while Diane faded from view. “I’ll take the one on the left.”

  A few seconds passed, the monks coming closer and closer. When they were only thirty meters away, Bella pulled the trigger for her rifle. A loud bang echoed out, her bullet directly piercing the head of the right monk. Its skull exploded, alerting the other monk, but Diane was already behind it. Her draconic form came into view, eyes narrowed into slits as her blades pierced into its neck.

  Bella let out a low sigh as the bodies dropped. “I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to this blessing…” She muttered, Diane looking like she was about to speak before I simply reappeared in the burning bedroom. Thankfully, the room seemed to have grown to match my dragon form. Furthermore, there was a black portal along one wall, the word ‘EXIT’ written above it.

  This time, there were three pieces of chest armor on the wall. One was heavy, made of cracked stone with red energy flowing through the cracks. One was made out of burnt leather, the studs glowing with a burning light. The last one was a fabric that seemed to be woven from smoke.

  I took the medium armor, equipping it for now. It was far better than the level eighty armor that I had been wearing until now, and I would almost certainly use a mimic embryo on it if I didn’t get a better chest piece during this run.

  Once again, the three of us emerged in the center of the arena. Going by Bella’s altered outfit, she made the same decision that I did, though Diane’s appearance had not visibly changed. My Ghost Zone was still active, so we waited to see what threat we would face in this wave.

  I counted the seconds, noting that one of the gates opened as soon as thirty seconds had passed. This time, four monks emerged, though they seemed identical to the ones that we faced before. “Is it just adding two per wave, or doubling?” Diane muttered to herself. “If it’s the latter, this could escalate very quickly.”

  Even in my dragon form, I couldn’t help but shudder at that possibility. The idea of fighting a thousand monks at the tenth wave was something I did not want, thank you very much.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked, looking down at the two of them.

  Bella hesitated, shaking her head. “I can only confidently take out one with my rifle. At this level, they’ll be able to reach us and counterattack before I can aim my second shot.”

  “I might be able to take two, but that would be pushing it,” Diane added. “For safety’s sake, I’ll take the far right, and Bella takes the far left. Drake, you’re in charge of the central duo. Unless we get suitable combat skills in upcoming rewards, we’ll plan for Bella and I to each take one at a time, and only grab more if you can’t kill the others in time.”

  With that deal reached, the girls got ready for battle again as the monks approached. I knew better than to use any of my flame skills here, since I knew the details of their skill. Instead, I condensed two thick spears of ice out of Water Intent-X, and studied the monsters with Greater Detect Weakness.

  Thankfully, they had all of the natural humanoid weak points, so I waited for Bella to fire her shot. As soon as she did, I launched my own ice spears. One of them cleanly pierced through the chest of its target, while the other target managed to swing its staff in time to shatter the spear.

  It began charging towards me while Diane silently assassinated the final monk, leaving me to improvise. Although it couldn’t see us, it could tell where the attacks had come from, readying its staff to strike anything in front of it.

  Thus, I created a wall of projected energy for it to strike, and another on either side of it. When it felt its staff hit that wall, it struck out, easily shattering the projected wall. However, the ones beside it slammed in, spikes growing on them and skewering the unprepared monk.

  Before I could say anything, we were once again returned to the reward room, this time to pick leg armor. I clicked my tongue, realizing that there wasn’t going to be any loot from the actual monsters themselves, and picked the medium armor again.

  Thankfully, the next wave only had six enemies, rather than eight. Furthermore, I had learned my lesson from the previous encounter, and decided to make far more ice spears than was needed. The more targets I had to hit, the more likely there were going to be some that could defend against me. If one ice spear wouldn’t work, I’d hit them with two. If two wouldn’t… I would keep pelting them until there was nothing left but frozen gore.