Kael blinked a few times, staring at the notification that popped up in front of his eyes. He just couldn't believe what he was seeing.
The speed at which he was leveling was quite astonishing. He was alone, not having to share any EXP with anyone else. That was why he strongly believed he would reach level 3 before everyone else.
But he didn't. Someone else had achieved it first.
Kael immediately opened the ranking ladder to check, and there it was—the nickname of the player: demigod01.
"Someone with the nickname demigod? Is it just a coincidence, or what?" he thought.
Kael was pissed that someone had stolen his achievement, but that only ignited a flame inside him. He wanted to be the first to reach level 5—or at least level 10—since those were important milestones.
Without wasting more time, he stepped deeper into the cave and searched for the first stone crab. When he found one, he activated Beast Claw and lunged at the creature. Just like before, it took three uses of Beast Claw to bring it down.
The stone crabs only dropped coins—no items—but that was fine for Kael. More money was always welcome.
He kept going, killing a few more stone crabs until, finally, a notification appeared. He had reached level 3!
Kael quickly opened the ranking again. There he was—ranked number 2.
The first thing he checked was the requirement to reach level 4. It had gone from 500 EXP to 750.
It wasn't a massive increase, but the real problem was the EXP he gained per kill. The stone crabs were level 4, and their EXP had been great simply because Kael was two levels behind them. Now, being just one level below, the gains were lower.
That meant leveling up wouldn't be as fast anymore. Still, this was the best spot he had.
"If I leave to look for another spot, I'll just waste time. I need to focus on this place first," Kael thought.
That was the best approach in his mind, and that's exactly what he did. Kael continued exploring the cave, carefully luring and killing the stone crabs one by one.
He didn't want to get surrounded like last time. Even at level 3, that wouldn't make much of a difference if he got swarmed.
Now the stone crabs were giving him 30 EXP—way less than before. But it was still decent. Kael believed he could reach level 4 in about an hour, at most. The only thing slowing him down was the need to stop and recover his MP, which took quite some time.
Even so, Kael steadily ventured deeper into the cave. Now that he was prepared, he managed to avoid being surrounded.
Then, at one point, he noticed something different. A tunnel. A narrow pathway leading somewhere. It stood out easily because it didn't match the rest of the cave.
While the cave was a natural formation, this tunnel was clearly man-made—or at least built by someone or something intelligent.
Curious, Kael moved toward it. His steps quickened as he made sure not to aggro any more stone crabs along the way.
He reached the tunnel without any problems. It was dark inside. Thankfully, his torch lit the way.
The tunnel was narrow—tight enough that squeezing through wasn't easy. On the ground, Kael spotted a few mining tools scattered around.
"Was this a mine, then?" he pondered.
The tunnel looked quite hard for anyone to go through. Kael couldn't even imagine what it must have been like to work under such conditions.
He pressed forward, and eventually, the narrow tunnel opened into a larger area. Scattered around were even more mining tools and a few old sleeping bags. This was clearly the place where people used to work.
Then, Kael heard a voice.
"Help, help, someone help!"
It was a cry for help. The voice sounded human—but Kael didn't drop his guard. He moved carefully, step by step. It could easily be a creature faking it.
The open space made it difficult to pinpoint exactly where the voice was coming from. Echoes bounced off the stone walls, sending the sound in every direction.
Besides the voice, Kael could also hear the sound of water dripping from the ceiling. There were leaks. He noticed a few small animals too, like spiders crawling along the walls.
He was relieved to see they were just normal spiders, not monsters with mana. The thought of a giant spider in a place like this was more than enough to make him uncomfortable.
Another thing that caught his attention were some stones with different colors embedded in the walls. Those were the ores from the mine—still untouched, waiting to be collected.
Kael only spared them a quick glance before continuing his search for the source of the voice calling him. It took him a while, but eventually, he found it. It was a man, trapped beneath a pile of rocks.
"Please, help me," the man pleaded the moment he saw Kael.
The man looked pretty young, and didn't seem like a miner who might have gotten trapped in an abandoned mine. In fact, he was wearing expensive clothes.
"Who are you?" Kael asked.
"I came here looking for rare ores, but the ceiling collapsed and now I'm stuck. Please, get me out of here."
Kael asked again, "Who are you?"
"I'm someone important. That's all you need to know. If you help me, I'll repay you somehow."
[New Quest Acquired]
[A Man in Trouble]
[Objective: Help the mysterious man trapped in the abandoned mine]
[Reward: ???]
The quest was pretty vague. It didn't even say what the rewards were. Even so, Kael wanted to complete it. The only problem was—how the hell was he supposed to get the man out of there?
The rocks were completely blocking the path, and they looked extremely heavy. There was no way Kael could lift those by himself.
That's when he noticed—peeking through a gap in the rocks—that there was actually another path behind the man.
"How am I supposed to get you out of there? I can see there's another way behind you," Kael said.
"Yes, but there's a powerful creature guarding that path… I can't get out through there. You'll have to go around the abandoned mine, defeat the creature, and then come get me."
Kael quickly realized what this meant: a boss fight. That so-called "powerful creature" the NPC mentioned had to be a boss. That was a problem.
Kael was alone. Fighting a boss like that would be difficult—and the worst part was that he had no idea what level the boss was. For all he knew, it could be impossible to beat.
The quest gave him a time limit of two days. Not a lot of time, but Kael wanted to give it a shot.
"Alright. Stay there—and try not to die. I'll go around and find a way to reach you."
Kael left and started exploring the rest of the cave, searching for the correct path.