"You are a new student, right? How long has it been since you entered the university?" one of the Magic-class professionals asked.
"A couple of days," Ethan replied as he sat still, allowing his spiritual energy to recover on its own.
"Hmm... your profession, Necromancer, this is the first time I'm hearing about it. Is it a new profession? And judging by your summoning and debuff skills, it should be a high-grade profession, right?" the leader of the raid team, Jonathan, asked.
"Yes, it's a new profession," Ethan agreed, saying nothing more. Seeing that Ethan wasn't willing to elaborate, Jonathan also chose not to press further.
"Do you guys know anything about the [Dwelling of the Snake Lord] dungeon?" Ethan asked.
"It's one of the three hardest tier-1 dungeons in the university. If you solo-clear it on Hell difficulty, you're guaranteed to receive a profession-specific skill card, and you'll definitely awaken a profession-specific skill," Jonathan explained. Then his eyes widened in realization.
"You're planning to challenge it, aren't you?"
"Yes... I want that profession-specific skill," Ethan replied, as if it were simply obvious.
The others who overheard were equally surprised.
While profession-specific skills are very powerful, they are also much harder to obtain. Because of that, most people choose any skill that is easier to acquire rather than aiming for profession-exclusive ones.
"Well, if you're planning on challenging it, you should be extremely careful and well-prepared… It's a very dangerous Tier 1 dungeon. Although, like other dungeons, you can leave whenever you want, it's not uncommon for awakeners to end up dying inside. And if you exit the dungeon before clearing it, you will have to start all over again."
Then he began telling Ethan everything he knew about the [Swelling of the Snake Lord] dungeon.
Soon, everyone around joined in, sharing what they knew about that dungeon.
It was a world-type dungeon, meaning that once you entered the gate, you would find yourself in an open mini world where thousands of monsters lurked in every corner.
This particular dungeon was filled entirely with countless snake-type monsters.
The dungeon contained all kinds of monsters: normal monsters, elite monsters, and the boss monster.
There was only one condition for clearing it, which was to kill every single monster inside without leaving even one alive.
As for the monsters themselves, the snake creatures came in all forms, sizes, and abilities.
Their poison-type skills were especially dangerous.
"Poison-type skills, huh…" Ethan rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
He did not possess any passive abilities that increased his resistance to poison, nor did he have any self-healing skills.
He could only rely on his summons.
"Summons… I can do that, right?" Ethan's eyes suddenly widened as he thought of a particular strategy.
To begin with, it was not impossible to solo clear the [Dwelling of the Snake Lord].
The main problem was the time it would take.
World-type dungeons were difficult to clear, but they had one major advantage: space.
Since world-type dungeons were structured like open worlds, they had vast areas, and not every part was filled with monsters.
This allowed challengers to rest and recover their energy before continuing their hunt.
This might make them seem easy, but they were not.
These open-world dungeons contained thousands of monsters, not to mention elites and boss monsters, which were extremely hard to kill when soloing.
It might even be impossible without enough offensive power.
Even high-grade professionals would need days, if not weeks, to hunt every monster inside such a dungeon.
Mental exhaustion was also a serious issue.
Many would simply give up midway, making the entire attempt nothing more than a waste of time.
Therefore, the advantage of having a large space became meaningless if one did not possess both the power and the mental endurance needed to persist through the entire dungeon.
Ethan had just thought of a way to make full use of the dungeon's vast open space.
"How long until we move on to the second stage of the dungeon?" Ethan asked.
"Fifteen to twenty minutes..." replied the support-class professional who had cast the [Field of Recovery] skill.
That was the duration of the skill.
"Let's see..." Ethan activated his summoning ability.
[Summon Undead Spirits: Skill Activated]
Five undead magic circles manifested on the ground, and from them, five dragon spirits shaped like western dragons with greenish blue skin shot out, spreading their wings wide as they soared toward the ceiling of the cave.
"Raaaa!"
With a savage, ear-splitting roar that tore through the air, they descended and landed around Ethan, forcing the other teammates to step back in wary caution.
All spirits possessed high-level battle instincts, almost comparable to true intelligence.
Ethan suspected that once he enhanced [Summon Undead Spirits] with a [Skill Enhancement Card], his summons might even develop actual intelligence.
With his current spiritual energy reserves, he could only summon five spirits at a time. He would need to recover his spiritual energy before he could use the skill again.
Also, unlike his Undead Knights, these Undead Spirits could not be stored inside his [Undead Graveyard].
It seemed he needed to acquire a different skill to store summoned undead spirits, something similar to the [Undead Graveyard].
His [Undead Graveyard] skill functioned similarly to his regular summoning skills.
Only summons of a particular nature could be stored within that skill.
You could say Undead Knights were human-like summoned soldiers, while Undead Spirits were simply spirits.
They were fundamentally different in nature, so each required a storage skill that matched its type.
Ethan looked at the raid teammates who were standing at a slight distance from him, concern in their eyes as they watched the five dragon-shaped spirits floating around him.
"Don't worry, I was just checking something," Ethan assured them, letting the dragon spirit remain behind him while he recovered his spiritual energy using the boost from the [Field of Recovery] skill.
After a few minutes, his spiritual energy was fully restored.
[Summon Undead Spirits: Skill Activated]
He activated his skill once more, this time summoning three Undead Fire Spirits and two Undead Lightning Spirits.
The Fire Spirits took on human-shaped forms, their entire bodies covered in green-tinted flames as if they were beings sculpted from living fire.
The Lightning Spirits had yellowish-green humanoid bodies, clothed in crackling yellow lightning.
Thick bolts of lightning formed their hair, and arcs of electricity danced constantly across their bodies.
Just like before, he entered a recovery state, letting his spiritual energy replenish.
After a few minutes, he activated his summoning skill again.
This time, three Undead Fire Spirits and two Undead Ice Spirits emerged.
The Ice Spirits were pale blue, similar in shape to the flame spirits, but appeared as though they were carved from pure ice, living sculptures given form.
"Fifteen spirits should be enough for this dungeon, right?" Ethan muttered to himself as he once again rested, recovering his spiritual energy in preparation for the upcoming battle.
All the spirits he summoned were Magic-class spirits.
A spirit's true strength lay in its elemental attacks, and using Combat-class spirits would not have brought out their full potential.
There was also the concept of elemental effectiveness.
Different elements had different class advantages.
Each of the four classes corresponded to a different aspect of battle.
Even though he could summon any of the four class spirits, and since spirits were beings made of pure energy, their greatest power still came from elemental attacks.
He assumed that Magic-class spirits should be the most effective.
Ethan looked at his teammates. "Can we enter the second stage?"
"Yes… You can summon spirits?" Jonathan asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"Nothing. I was just wondering, if you can summon so many spirits, why didn't you do it from the start?" Jonathan asked curiously.
"No reason," Ethan simply replied. "Let's enter the second stage now."
Ethan smiled confidently as they all stood up and walked toward the entrance of the second cavern, where the second battle of this dungeon would take place.
"Remember, everyone, the second stage will have Elite Skeletons," Jonathan said as he glanced at Ethan, who looked far more confident than before.
It was as if everything was under his control.
Judging by the number of summons at his side, it even seemed like he could clear this dungeon alone.
And Jonathan did not know whether Ethan could summon even more.
...
[A/N: If you enjoyed the chapter, please consider adding it to your library and supporting it with some Power Stones. Arigato!]