Chapter Thirteen: Tidying Up

The situation before him startled Liu Zong as well; he hadn’t expected the dungeon to be this difficult. Looking at the four people in front of him, Liu Zong felt a bit embarrassed.

The hunter, who was tending to his pet nearby, saw Liu Zong’s expression and understood what he was thinking. Smiling, he said, “Don’t worry. This is a dungeon—it’s a place where lives are wagered. This boss is actually on the easy side; it only has a petrifying gaze and a horde of minions, nothing else. As long as you can take out its followers quickly, it’s really not that hard.

“The next few bosses won’t have such large-scale battles, but they’ll be much more dangerous.”

The recently revived rogue came over and patted Liu Zong on the shoulder, saying, “Hurry up and deal with these corpses. Once you’ve cleaned up the area, we can set up camp and rest. We’ve got another big fight ahead of us tomorrow.”

Liu Zong turned to look and saw that the mercenaries had already busied themselves, seemingly unconcerned about the fierce battle they’d just gone through.

At this moment, Liu Zong nodded inwardly. He realized that, despite being something of a prodigy at school, he was still lacking compared to these mercenaries—especially when it came to mentality. What he’d learned and imagined at school had all been too idealistic. Even when using himself as bait, he fell far short of their level.

After quietly adjusting his mindset, Liu Zong immediately set to work processing the corpses strewn across the ground.

He first carefully counted the number of jackals that had died in the final battle. Excluding the largest boss, there were no fewer than 137 jackal corpses of all sizes.

Among these, three jackal corpses were obviously different from the others—anyone could see they were on the verge of becoming bosses themselves.

The rest, over a hundred in total, were not creatures Liu Zong could handle on his own. Normally, just one of them would require him to act as bait, drawing it to a designated spot for stronger teammates to finish off.

But now, all these corpses had been tossed in front of him, free for him to deal with as he pleased. Whatever he managed to extract from them would belong to him alone. Such a stark contrast left Liu Zong at a loss.

Fortunately, Liu Zong’s mentality had improved, and with his previous insights, he only hesitated a moment before getting to work.

Jackal corpses were no different from others he’d encountered before. For Liu Zong, the most important parts were the skulls with intact fangs, the bloodshot eyes, and the hearts that symbolized the source of their strength.

After collecting these items, Liu Zong turned to process the jackals’ skins, flesh, bones, and organs.

During this process, he occasionally came across small items—mostly level 1 gray or white gear, including weapons and armor. To a level 1 player, they might not seem like much, but for a beginner like Liu Zong, even the most ordinary piece was better than what he currently had.

He didn’t keep these items for himself, instead placing them aside. Before him now lay a short sword, about the length of his arm, and a shield that looked like it had been fashioned from jackal hide and bone.

Both items had been dropped by the boss jackal. The short sword appeared to be crafted from the boss’s tailbone, and the shield was made from the entire face of the jackal.

[Broken Tail of the Lizard-Jackal King (Chain Sword)]
[Quality: Level 1 (Blue)]
[Attack: 5-10]
[Attributes: +1 Agility, +1 Constitution]
[Usable by: Rogue, Assassin, Warrior, Swordsman...]
[Required Level: 1]

[Shattered Mask of the Lizard-Jackal King (Shield)]
[Quality: Level 1 (Blue)]
[Defense: 9]
[Attributes: +1 Strength, +1 Constitution]
[Usable by: Warrior, Knight...]
[Required Level: 1]

In addition, there were ten pieces of level 1 green gear, but just like the blue equipment, they were all for melee classes—none for magic users, let alone necromancers.

This left Liu Zong rather frustrated. Such a good opportunity, his very own dungeon, and yet he couldn’t improve his own combat power. It was a bitterly ironic situation.

While Liu Zong pondered how to handle this, the hunter noticed what was going on and came over to take a look at the nearly processed corpses. Casually, he asked, “What’s wrong? The gear you just got isn’t suitable? Well, that can’t be helped. Every boss drops gear for various classes, but most of it is transformed according to the boss’s own class. This one was a combat-type, so it’s unlikely to drop gear for spellcasters.”

Liu Zong smiled, letting go of the issue, and asked, “Hunter, if you were in my position, what would you do?”

The hunter sat down in front of him. “If you can’t use it, then trade it for something you really want. For low-level players like us, every chance to improve is crucial—converting gear into personal strength is the key.”

Hearing this, Liu Zong seemed to understand something. He got up, gathered all the equipment cards he’d just made, and walked over to where the jackal bones and hides were piled.

His actions left the others, who were setting up camp, astonished. None of them knew what Liu Zong intended to do.

At that moment, Liu Zong began drawing a magic circle among the jackal bones and hides, placing all the weapons on the hides and all the armor on the bones.

Once everything was arranged, Liu Zong produced a potion that looked like liquid mercury and poured it over the two piles of materials. Under the effect of the potion, the jackal bones and hides slowly melted and began to transform.

The bones became fangs as thick as an arm, bone pillars as tall as a person, and giant bricks pieced together from skulls. The hides merged into a massive tarp of faces and ropes made of interlocked hands.

All of these quickly assembled themselves into dozens of half-man-high chests—over sixty in total. Most were white, with four or five green and two blue among them. Each bore the word “Supplies” on its lid.

After converting these chests into more easily stored cards, Liu Zong finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Only then did he turn his attention to the jackal meat and organs.

Everyone watching was stunned by his decisiveness—he’d used up everything, including the two blue items, which were quite valuable. Although he couldn’t use them himself, he could have traded them.

But this time, Liu Zong had clearly made his choice, trading equipment for a better future.

Such decisiveness earned the respect of the hunter and the others, who began to speak to him with more courtesy.

The shaman, who had always looked after Liu Zong, smiled and pulled him aside to teach him the finer points of setting up camp in a dungeon.

Compared to camping in the wilderness, camping inside a dungeon was even more demanding. In a dungeon, once monsters detected an enemy, they would pursue relentlessly.

Thus, it was crucial to pick a campsite that was guaranteed to be free of monsters, and to secure all entrances and vulnerable points.

The most important aspect of camping was, of course, the tent—a skill every player had to master. Beyond that, finding and preparing food was essential, and each person had their own methods.

This particular team was led by the hunter, and with a druid and a rogue among them, their survival skills were strong, so most of their food came from what they could forage on the spot.

This time was no different. Even though the jackal corpses weren’t safe to eat, the team found food nearby—a kind of wild grass resembling reeds, plenty of tuberous roots like potatoes, and two wild rabbits that had somehow survived the fight.

The team handled the food with practiced ease. As the shaman explained, they had worked together many times before. To ensure quality and effect, they usually avoided cooking meals with special effects while in a dungeon, instead preparing dishes that used common ingredients.

This time, the reed-like wild grass served as vegetables, the potato-like roots provided starch, and the rabbits were used as the meat. Together, they made a supply meal—salted meat rice—instead of something with special buffs, like roasted rabbit heads.

Boiled together, these three ingredients produced something like salted meat rice—small in portion but filling and warming, leaving one feeling re-energized and full of strength.

[Supply Ration: Salted Meat Rice—Restores 100 HP and 100 MP over 3 minutes. If consumed over 5 minutes, all combat skill cooldowns are refreshed, and sleep quality is improved by 15%.]