The dungeon filled with a cacophony of noise as the horde of ants rushed at me. My heartbeat quickened as I felt my Qi shift in anticipation of what was to come.
Now, when outnumbered, how do you win?
If they were goblins then I would have just plowed through them and fought them no matter what.
Unfortunately, that strategy relied on the monsters being unable to hurt me. Considering that the ants were on the seventh floor, and other monsters on this floor had hurt me before, I didn't want to take a chance. So that was out.
That left me with only one option, huh?
My feet began to move as a plan formed in my head. I heard the ants screech behind me as I ran, but the sound of my footsteps drowned them out as I rounded a corner.
Luckily, the dungeon didn't spawn any monsters in my way as I dashed through the labyrinthine halls. The ants were hot on my heels, never letting up, never being silent.
I could hardly hear them. The roar of my heartbeat in my ears drowned out all sounds as my mind raced. I just need to get to the start of the floor.
I smiled as I reached the area that I had in mind. It was at the beginning of the floor, a giant circle with paths crossing in the center.
Rooms of various sizes formed at the intersection points of the paths, creating a loop with plenty of room to move around. I had gotten lost when I first got down here for a solid ten minutes before I figured out I was going in circles.
I skidded to a stop in the center room, five paths branched out in front of me while the way I came from quickly filled with ants. A few feet around a corner were the stairs, a way out.
It was the sensible, smart choice. Run away and come back after the ants dispersed. This wasn't like when I saved Ouka from the goblins.
There wasn't any reason to be a hero.
But just like when I saved Ouka, I had the chance to run away after he left, and I didn't.
Faced with a similar decision, I made the same choice. I turned heel and ran away from the tunnel that had the stairs.
I never planned to leave the dungeon. I wasn't keen on being such a loser.
Why would I leave? This was what I wanted when I came here. I wanted the dungeon to push me to my limit. I needed it if I wanted to progress in my cultivation.
I had been underwhelmed with the dungeon for the past few hours. Now, I had finally gotten what I asked for. Why the hell would I run away?
No, the reason that I came to the beginning of the floor was for this exact network of winding circular tunnels.
When faced with an overwhelming amount of opponents, how do you win?
Break the group up into more manageable sizes and kill them off that way. That combined with hit-and-run tactics would be key.
For that to work, I needed a way to break the ants into groups in an area I was familiar with. Otherwise, I was guaranteed to run into a dead end and get mauled to death.
So, step one in my plan was to get to an area in the dungeon that I had already mapped out and explored, which is why I came here.
I needed to run the ants around in a circle a few times and by that point, they would have been separated enough for me to jump in and pick them off. And thanks to the way the area was laid out, I had a getaway route no matter what.
Now, time to kick these stupid bugs asses.
The ants had entered the main center room before they dispersed. The majority followed the way I went, while a few broke off into the surrounding paths.
Perfect.
I smiled as I ran around the circle and saw three ants block my way. They screamed as they ran at me and aimed for my legs. If I tripped, I was as good as dead.
Good thing my footwork had been the thing I worked on the most since I came to this world. The only thing their charge did was make them easy targets for me to crubstomp.
The first one got punted like a football, and the second got stomped on by the same foot as I brought it back down and planted it on the floor. Just in time for the third to jump at my chest.
Using the second ant's corpse as a foothold, I used my opposite foot to meet the ant's middle and drove it into the wall. It curled into a ball as its insides leaked out.
Three down. Too many to count to go.
I turned down the hall that the three ants came from and made my way back to the central room.
There I encountered five more stragglers who all clocked me at the same time and attacked.
I didn't stop running as I punched one out of the air, booted another into the wall, and stomped the third into a paste before I splattered the fourth's abdomen. All in time to knee the fifth one into a goopy mess.
Not once did I break my stride. The blood rushed in my ears and my heavy breathing started to drown out the ant's screeching the longer I ran.
I chose a hallway that led to the opposite side of the circle and saw four ants down the tunnel. Two clung to the left wall, one to the right, and the last one was just on the floor.
I jumped and landed on the floor ant, feeling it squish underneath me like an oversized gusher as I pushed off and ran toward the others.
I ducked under the right one as it launched at my head before I punched up and heard it splatter on the ceiling. I didn't even let the ants on the left wall react before I rushed forward and shoulder-checked them.
They both went splat, like a bug should. I felt their goop coat my left side and suppressed a grimace at the feeling. Gross.
I pushed off the wall and kept running, the horde behind me shrinking in size as ants left to try and flank me. Good, exactly what I wanted. The more split they became, the easier it was to take them down.
I made my way to the end of the corridor and turned left. An ant jumped at me from the ceiling while another went for my legs.
I jumped over the ant below me before I grabbed the one above me and slammed it into a wall. It screeched and thrashed as I pinned it before I balled my other hand into a fist and punched its head off.
I watched with mild amusement as the head sailed through the air and hit the other ant right on the head. That didn't deter it, though; it kept charging as if it wanted to avenge its fallen comrade.
I put an end to that vengeance when I jumped and crushed it underneath me. Sorry ant, but you ain't the main character.
The main horde had taken the time I had stopped dealing with those two to close the gap. I punched an ant down as it tried to soar through the air and eat my head. I felt its shell cave in where I punched it before it fell dead.
I did a full loop around the outer edges of the circle, killing off three more ants in the process before I plunged back into the center again.
The horde had been cut down to less than half, about 8 ants remained in the main group chasing me while the rest had dispersed into the hallways.
I saw four ants down another hall and rushed down there. I jumped and landed on one, smashed two against the wall and ceiling, before snatching one out of the air and ripping it apart.
I did a loop-de-loop around the outside again and smashed two more stragglers before I arrived in the center room again.
I peered around and saw six ants left alive. That was it. Everything else had been killed and now littered the hallway.
I looked at the remaining six ants and smirked. I swear the ants stopped for a second and glanced at each other and the surroundings before charging again.
Did…did the ants just have a moment where they accepted their fate before rushing in against the big bad?
Respectable. I shall honor their courage!
I kicked off the ground and met their charge.
I booted one up into the ceiling before bringing my foot down and smashing another. I turned and dodged an ant's jumping attack before elbowing it out of the air and onto my knee.
The body dropped onto the floor before I turned and punched two more. They flew and hit the wall, leaving me with just one.
It looked at me. I looked at it.
It gave out one more heroic screech of defiance before charging me. I nodded, understanding its resolve before taking a stance.
It lunged, like so many of its comrades before. Only this time, I did not dodge, no. I brought my hands together and caught it by each of its mandibles. It thrashed and struggled before I twisted its head off with a pop.
"You were a formidable foe with your comrades. However, alone you were never enough to face me," I explained to the head before the absurdity of what I was doing hit me.
I stared at the head in my hands, the ant's face still as expressionless as ever before giving a little laugh.
I was humanizing these things too much. They are monsters. Literal bugs. They exist to die and kill people. And to give me magic stones.
I scanned the surroundings after my little battle. There were ant bodies everywhere, and all of them had some juicy magic stones just begging to be harvested.
I licked my lips at the thought before I knelt and got to work. I found the magic stone of the relatively intact ants easy enough. It was when I got to the ants that I smashed into a pulp that things got tricky.
Hmm, I'll have to be cleaner with my kills in the future. It would save me the mess.
After I'd removed all thirty magic stones from the ant's bodies I resumed exploring the seventh floor. The dungeon didn't spawn any more monsters. I wonder if the dungeon has a limit of monsters it can spawn on a floor.
No matter the reason it did allow me to make it to the next set of stairs leading down. I turned and gave a final wave to the seventh floor before making my way down.
The eighth floor was a complete scenery change from the rest of the dungeon. The glowing green lights of the ceiling were replaced with bright lights. It was so bright I had to shield my eyes for a moment.
The ceilings had expanded almost to double the size of the floor above, while brown walls had moss covering them. The floor that I stood on was no longer rocky terrain, but nice soft grass like you would find on a plain.
I felt a grin split my face as I saw the change of scenery. I noticed a pattern with the dungeon. When the surroundings changed, monsters tended to get harder. Meaning there was about to be a jump in difficulty again.
Alright, let's see what this floor's got in store for me. With a cheerful hop in my step, I made my way deeper into the dungeon.
After a couple of minutes, I concluded that the eighth floor was weird. It had short corridors that led to huge rooms, as opposed to the long corridors and small rooms that had been the norm until this point.
It made it both easier to navigate since there weren't as many paths, and harder to navigate since the floor itself had expanded significantly in size when compared to the previous one.
The other weird thing was that the dungeon wasn't throwing any new monsters at me. Instead, I was running into goblins and kobolds again, along with lizards, shadows, rabbits, frogs, and moths.
The difference is that these variants were a lot tougher. The goblin's attacks could scratch me, the kobolds had stronger bones that were harder to break, lizards were sneakier, the shadows had better teamwork, the rabbits were faster, the frogs had a longer tongue now, and the moths…
Well, the moths were making my nose itch and my eyes water with their dust. So they got upgraded from non-threat to annoyance.
The walls may be taller now, but now that I was actually trying to kill them I could just chuck a monster corpse at them or climb the wall up to them and they were dead.
It was a mishmash of everything I had encountered so far, except for ants, cracked up to eleven. In other words, it was perfect for me since I had already familiarized myself with the way the monsters moved on my way down here.
The fact that these monsters were just higher-level versions meant I was getting bigger stones. All without having to waste time learning how to read and fight a new monster.
After I go back up and eat the magic stones I've collected, I'll know exactly how much better these lower floors are compared to the upper ones, but I can see myself coming down here to farm when I don't want to push myself.
However, I do want to push myself most of the time. I could only see myself doing that when I just wanted a little top off or if I was recovering from some injuries and wanted to take it slow.
I elbowed another goblin in the back of the neck, finishing it off with a sickening crack before I went around and collected my last batch of magic stones for this floor. I had mapped out the whole floor, it was time for floor nine.
Here I saw the reintroduction of ants, but nowhere near the horde size of what I fought last time. Maybe six at a time, which made them much more manageable.
The ninth floor had the same scenery as the last one. Something that I was expecting since it seemed like the dungeon operated in stages.
The floors were grouped by difficulty, the first four being around the same challenge with a slight bump up in difficulty between floors before you reached floor five and the difficulty jumped up significantly.
The pattern then repeated with the fifth through seventh floors, and now we had the eighth floor and ninth floors having the same environment.
After I figured that out, I decided that I would speed up exploring the ninth floor. Up until this point, I had made sure to map out each floor completely since you never know what secrets are hiding.
But, after being disappointed with the lack of anything, and feeling confident in the pattern of difficulty, I've decided to change up my exploring method.
Whenever there is a scenery change, I will quickly fight the monsters on that floor and get a feel for them before deciding if the floor I was on was at my level.
If it wasn't, like the eighth seemed to be, then I would focus more on finding the stairs and not waste time wandering around and fighting monsters that didn't help my cultivation.
That way, I could avoid getting tired and worn down while also saving myself some time. It's been hours at this point and I don't know when the adventurers are going to come back or how they would react to me being down here.
Rose said it was against the rules to come down here without a blessing, and I had a feeling they weren't going to be happy with someone unknown coming in and stealing their kills.
I came down here just after sunset, so assuming it was around six or seven pm, then I'd say it was just after midnight right now.
I could have made it down here in three hours or so if I hadn't explored everything and only searched for the stairs. Now that I know where the stairs are though, I could see myself getting down here in half that time or less.
I was mildly annoyed at that, but I don't think I would have done anything differently. Besides, if I didn't do that then I would not be smashing through the enemies on the ninth floor as easily as I had been.
I took a deep breath and circulated my Qi. Every time it made contact with my muscles I felt the fatigue lessen somewhat. Not enough to be back at full, but enough that I felt a mild difference.
But I had to admit, I was getting tired. Both from fighting monsters for the past five or six hours and from how long I've been awake at this point.
Hmm, just a little longer. Another hour or two. Then I would call it. I wanted to see what the tenth floor had and what the next jump in difficulty would be before I felt okay to call it.
With newfound determination, I pushed my exhaustion from my mind and kept going. The dungeon spawned monsters, I killed the monsters and continued at a slow but steady pace.
My new strategy worked, I made my way to the stairs quicker while fighting fewer monsters saving both time and energy.
I made my way down to the tenth floor and was greeted with a scenery change. The floor was still grass and the walls were still covered in moss, but now a mist covered the entire floor.
It drastically reduced how far I could see and I was instantly on guard.
I was expecting another floor or two that was the same as the eighth and ninth floor but it seems like the dungeon wanted to speed things up as well.
I entered the mist and felt it coil around me. It felt cool and moist as it brushed up against my skin and entered my lungs. Yep, it's just a normal mist. I was worried it was like poison or something.
With that confirmed, I ventured deeper into the tenth floor. The mist did a good job at obscuring my vision but it did nothing to muffle my hearing.
So when I heard the whooshing of something cutting through the air I jumped out of the way and observed the new monster.
It was a small black humanoid, about three feet tall or so. It had wings on its back that it used to fly.
Each flap pushed the mist away from it, which gave me a clear view of the tiny horn on its head and its crooked smile. A sharp knife-tipped tail swung behind it.
It kinda reminded me of a little demon. I'll call it an imp.
Another thing I discovered, it wasn't alone. Three more gathered around and surrounded me in the time I was distracted by it. My heartbeat picked up as it gave a screech and all of them dived at me.
I jumped out of the way before decking one in the stomach. I felt its ribs crack at the force before it tumbled to the ground.
The others used the opportunity to lunge at me again. I stomped the ground to get out of the way but they were able to graze me. A cut appeared on my right thigh and shoulder while the third one missed.
I jumped at them as they tried to fly away, catching on by the tail before bringing it down and slamming it to the floor. Its head cracked against the ground and I followed up with a stomp for good measure.
The two other imps chose this time to do a pincer attack. One came from the right, the other from the left. I lashed out with my hands and caught each of them by the head before bringing them together.
The heads cracked like eggs in my hands which made me grin in satisfaction. These things were like flying faster goblins. They were slippery to get a hold of but they were easily broken once I did.
The stinging of my newly acquired cuts broke my thoughts. A quick inspection found that the cuts went surprisingly deep. Deep enough that my right leg was weaker and my side ached every time I breathed.
"Damn, they got me good," I muttered after I inspected the damage. I could still fight, but that had significantly reduced the amount of time I could stay down. Unlike all the other scratches I had gotten, these were not scabbing over anytime soon.
Grimacing, I took out some cloth I had in my storage ring and tied it around my leg and torso to help stop the bleeding.
I debated if I should keep going or not as I extracted the magic stones from the imps. They were bigger than the ones on the ninth floor and had a silvery hue to them.
On one hand, my effectiveness in a fight had finally gone down, meaning I was going into the unknown less than my best. On the other hand, I wasn't going to improve if I just played it safe.
I came here to find new and harder monsters, not to find something that matched my level. I needed to find something that pushed me. That was the goal and I haven't accomplished that yet.
So, until I find something that can do that, then I'm gonna keep going. These little setbacks only made it more exciting.
Hence, I ignored the little voice in my head and kept going. The further I got the better since I'd gather the most information that way.
I kept going, running to a few more imps but not taking any more hits from them. They were frustratingly slippery now that my leg was hurt but I managed to get them.
Then, as I was finishing off the last imp from the group I was fighting I saw a new monster break through the mist.
It was about eight feet tall, had a huge fat body covered in thick greenish-gray skin, and had a pig-like face. I had run into an Orc.
The orc also had a club. Where it got the club, I don't know but it had it and it swung at me with a burst of speed.
I scrambled out of the way, dodging right into the imp I had been dealing with before the stupid pig decided to make itself known.
The imp slashed at me with its tail, but I couldn't dodge which left me with no choice but to try and grab it. The tail went past my wrist and cut my forearm, but I was able to grab the imp and smash it on my knee.
The orc had recovered from its swing and reared back, lifting the club above its head before bringing it down on me.
I rolled to the left, quickly springing back to my feet as the club made contact with the ground. There was a resounding thud and cracking as the club splintered from the force.
I covered my face as wood chips pelted me. I felt my skin sting as they struck but nothing got into my eyes. The orc wasn't so lucky.
It roared in pain and it brought its hands to its face. I saw blood drip from between its fingers as it started thrashing around and clawing at its face to get the splinters out.
I fought back the urge to cover my ears with my hands and started rushing at the stupid pig. It had its back turned to me, giving me the perfect chance to strike.
I reached the orc and gave a violent kick to the back of its knee. I felt the joint dislocate and the orc bucked. It gave out a new shout of pain causing me to wince but I didn't stop.
I jumped and planted my foot into its lower back as I grabbed it around the neck. Its arms failed wildly as I pulled down using its back as leverage.
I heard a crack and felt its back give way as its spine snapped into two and I brought its head down to my level.
Its face was covered in blood and splinters littered it. I saw both of its eyes were swollen shut from the damage. I gripped its lower jaw and the top of its head before I gave its neck a sharp twist.
It was a lot harder to break than the other monsters up until this point but I gave a grunt of effort and successfully snapped it.
The orc went limp in my arms as it dragged me down and I shouted in surprise. I quickly let go and got out from underneath it.
I tried to calm my breathing as I glanced around, ready to dodge in case any more monsters just spawned in. Once the coast was clear I quickly broke into the orc's chest and grabbed the magic stone.
It was a decent size with a golden hue to it.
Another thing I noticed was that every different monster type had a tiny difference in hue.
No matter what floor they came from, the same type of monster had the same color in their magic stones. Interesting, I wonder what the colors mean.
I tried to press the stone to my ring but dropped it because of how much my hand was trembling. The imp had managed to land a good blow on my arm and the cut ran deeper than I would like.
My hand wouldn't stop shaking as I put the stone in my ring and took out a piece of cloth before I wrapped it around my arm.
I was lucky that the orc didn't manage to land a hit. The force behind those swings would have been enough to take me out of commission by breaking a few bones.
I pursed my lips as I looked around, the mist still coiling around like ghostly tendrils. Hiding who knows what, beckoning me to venture deeper.
I know it was a bad idea. But I was so close to figuring out where the stairs to this floor were. Once I do that then I can go back. Just one more floor. That's all.
I took cautious steps into the mist, tense for more imps or orcs or another new monster. Nothing came as I kept walking for a few minutes.
However, just as I saw the stairs in sight, the dungeon showed its hand. From the mist, a shape appeared. No an orc or an imp. A new monster had arrived.
It was about five feet tall, and its head resembled a lizard's with fin-like ears and red eyes. Its body was long, from the tip of its head to the tip of its tail was around thirteen feet, and all of it was covered in orange scales.
My breath caught in my throat as I saw it. That was a really big lizard. My heartbeat began racing as I gazed at it and met its eye.
It roared and charged at me. Its head was low to the ground as it approached me.
I quickly got into a stance and got ready for the fight. But as my breathing picked up again and my heart continued to race I realized something.
This was it. This was the fight I'd been searching for since I entered the dungeon. Excitement rushed through me at the thought.
I grinned as the beast reached me. It reared its head back before opening its mouth and swinging it back at me.
I pounded my foot against the ground and shot forward, the beast missing while I got in close to its long scaly neck.
I gave it a sucker punch, but the scales seemed to have blocked it before the beast roared and violently turned.
Something hit my ribs and my vision began to swim as I soared through the air. I turned and tumbled, barely managing to get my feet under me before I landed.
I landed in a crouch and slid on the ground for a moment before finally stopping. I coughed and wheezed as I tried to catch my breath from getting the wind knocked out of me.
I held on to my ribs and flinched. The spot was radiating pain and aches with every breath. They weren't broken, but they were absolutely bruised.
I looked up to see what exactly hit me and saw the beast pulling its tail back behind it. So that's what it feels like to be on the other side of a tail whip. Fucking sucks.
Through the coughing and tears, I saw that I had managed to hurt it as its scales were cracked and bent inward where I landed my strike. Not enough to break through to the skin though.
I coughed a few more times before I rose to my feet. I ignored the pain as it shot up my side and got into a stance. I didn't need to close the gap. The beast had taken the time I was recovering to do that for me.
The beast lunged forward, this time putting its claws forward as it raked down on me from above. I managed to get out of the way but barely.
I focused on my breathing and willed it to calm down and get back to normal. I couldn't fight to the death when every move made me wheeze and hunch over.
I took in a breath and held it. The rest of the world faded as I counted five heartbeats before I released my breath and took another. Each time I repeated I took just a little longer to breathe.
I fell into the rhythm that had been the staple of my cultivation since I started. As I did the pain in my side began to fade, the monster's roars grew more distant, and my heartbeat calmed down.
I couldn't fight in top shape. I wasn't going to be able to heal all the wounds I'd gotten until this point.
But I could push them out of my head for the moment and focus solely on how to kill this bastard.
I'll worry about the pain later. For now, I needed to fight and the only way I could do that was to wait and strike when the time was right. No reckless charge, no aggression.
It'll come to me. I just need to wait. Pure reaction. The beast will slip and give me an opening. It will provide the rope, I only need to wait to tie it into the noose.
Just focus.
The world slammed back into focus after I finished the thought. The pain in my ribs had dulled, the shaking in my arm had calmed, and my breathing came out in steady breaths.
The beast had closed the distance, this time going for another bite. It wasn't moving slower, but it was predictable. I calmly sidestepped it before launching back, dodging the tail-swipe follow-up.
The beast growled in frustration. It wanted to bait me. But I would not let it.
Its arms tensed and I dodged the incoming swing of its claws by stepping closer before ducking under the swing.
The air screeched in my ear as it flew over my head, but I still did not attack as I saw its neck tense.
I jumped back, dodging its bite and repositioning at the same time. It had far too many tells, how could I have gotten hit before? Every twitch in its muscles, the way its scales shifted and bristled, it all gave away its next move.
I felt…no, I let my breath pick up in time with my heartbeat as I continued to dodge its attacks. I knew how I had missed it, I wasn't focusing.
Too distracted by my pain, my aches, my excitement. None of it had any place here.
I hadn't focused on it or my body. I had let my lungs get disputed, let my heartbeat pick up, and had gotten out of sync, out of focus, because of it.
I jumped over another tail swipe before pushing off the ground and landing a strike on the beast's neck. The scales cracked but it did not hide the tensing of the muscles underneath.
I planted my foot where I had just struck and kicked the beast, dodging out of the way of its follow-up bite and inflicting more damage.
I landed on my feet before going forward again and stopping. I wasn't going to attack where it was, but rather where it was going to be. Sure enough, the beast's head ended up at the perfect level to strike its eye.
I tensed my arm and struck. I felt the eye beneath my strike pop like a water balloon before the beast pulled back and roared with pain and began thrashing around.
I stayed back and waited. It had its rhythm disrupted now. The carefully chained strikes it had been doing were no longer possible.
Its limbs now moved independently of each other, no longer supporting each other in attacking.
I moved forward, weaving through the flailing of limbs now that they had ample space between their attacks.
Its claw flew past my head, its tail flailed wildly behind it, and its head thrashed from side to side. All of which left the beast's body and neck wide open.
I darted forward and landed a strike on the same spot as before. The scales finally broke and fell off. I struck again, its skin easily gave way as my fist went through it and into its windpipe.
I felt it shatter, the beast's roars turned into gasping breaths as I quickly jumped back and out of its range.
It coughed and sputtered, trying and failing to regain what it had lost. It kept flailing, slowly eating away its now limited oxygen supply before it collapsed onto the ground.
It tried to raise its claw to attack me, to swipe its tail at me, to bite me. But even as I walked closer, my breathing was slow and steady and it could do nothing but lie there.
I didn't wait or give it any more chances. I raised my hand and made eye contact with it. Hatred and anger burned brightly in it before I plunged my fist into it and snuffed the life from its body.
Once it had died, I felt my focus slowly fade and the rest of the world bleed into my senses. My breath caught again as the pain in my side made itself known again as my muscles ached with exhaustion.
I let out a little laugh as I saw the dead beast before stepping forward and sitting down next to it.
I placed my hand on it and felt the scales, cold and rough underneath my hand despite the burning spreading through my body.
"You were exactly what I wanted. Thank you," I whispered before leaning back and resting.
I had much to do still. I needed to collect the beast's magic stone. I needed to climb up get up and leave the dungeon. I needed to figure out what happened during that fight and see if I could replicate it.
But for now, none of that mattered. I was alive and had gotten what I had come here for. A good foe and an excellent fight.
And for now, that was enough for me.
=================
Yay! Leon finally got what he wanted and he didn't bite off more than he could chew, yet.
The infant dragon is the unofficial floor boss of the upper floors, so I felt it made a good end piece.
Side note, I am going closer to the novel description of infant dragons, not the anime version. They made it way bigger in the anime when Lili was running away from it lol.
Leon meanwhile has discovered his little bloodthirst problem hasn't gone away. Good news he has just now discovered a way to tame it.
The bad news, he just discovered the beginning steps and still has a long way to go before he actually overcomes it.
Moving on, thank you to everyone who mentioned drop items. I had completely forgotten those existed but in the story, we will just say Leon didn't notice them and had gotten extremely unlucky.
I also noticed some nice speculation on the difference between falna and cultivation. I will say this, falna improves everything whenever you level up. Cultivation improves something very well at one stage and then something completely different at another.
We will explore this a bit more in the future, but make of that what you will for now.
Till next time friends!