Izuku stood over the corpse of the [Duke of Rats], [Steelbringer] in hand.

Holding his palm out, he summoned his lesser menu to take a look at his stats after going through the first floor. He had tried to use as little Stamina or Mana as possible on this run, focusing his efforts on the Sub-Boss.

And it really showed.

Izuku "Deku" Midoriya

HP: 73/90

Mana: 58/60

Stamina: 88/100

With a smile on his face, Izuku sheathed [Steelbringer], and stepped out of the boss fight room, into the Floor 1 Warp Chamber. He was doing really well! His inexperience showed in the fact that he had gotten hit once or twice, even over levelled for Floor 1 as he was, but to use so little of his reserves and still defeat Floor 1 was amazing!

He swiped away the screen and sat down, leaning up against one of the walls of the Warp Chamber. He was doing a lot better than he ever imagined himself doing, but it still wasn't enough for him.

He was being… too cautious. If that existed. He would never become the strongest adventurer around if he just stuck to the first floor. And now that he had [Steelbringer], he could probably take Floor 2 with relative ease.

He raised his head and looked over at the Warp Pads, the one of the left leading out of the dungeon, and the one of the right leading to Floor 2. You couldn't leave the dungeon without finishing the floor you were on, meaning that if he went down another floor now, he would have to face the first true Boss of the dungeon before he could come back up.

Was that something he was ready for?

Surely he was, right? He was a Level 11 [Earth Quaker]! He was over levelled for Floor 1, so Floor 2 should be just as easy! It wasn't like each floor doubled in difficulty, or due to the rules of exponential growth, it'd be almost impossible to get to Floor 20!

He opened up his menu again and frowned as he saw that it was still morning. He'd only been in here for around an hour and he was already up to what had taken him a full day on his first try.

He pushed up off of the wall and smiled to himself, heading over to the Warp Pads. Turning right, he reached the Warp Pad that would take him to Floor 2, taking a deep breath to steady himself.

"Alright, you got this. You've read about the first few floors. You know what the Boss is, and you've got your new abilities, and [Steelbringer]. You can do this, Izuku!"

His voice echoed out through the empty rooms, and he took a step forward, stepping onto the Warp Pad. There was a loud 'ding', like a menu opening, and Izuku's vision went white for a moment.

A moment later, and he had arrived on Floor 2.

Melissa sat at Mei's workbench, fiddling with a gadget she had been working on, while Mei finished reinforcing the straps for Izuku's shin guards.

She hummed a tune to herself as she pried open a panel on the side of the box, seeing the low level [Fire Crystal] sitting in its chamber, with one of the fittings slightly melted.

Frowning, she held her hand over the melted material and summoned a rune, [Water] Magic flowing into her hand.

"Summon Rune: Water Cutter."

A jet of water shot out of the rune, and the pressure from the water cut through the melted material, freeing the warped fitting from the gadget. She yelped a little as some of the water nicked the finger she was holding it with and frowned.

You have taken [3] damage!

Holding out her hand over the cut across her finger, she summoned another rune this one filled with [Light] Magic.

"Summon Rune: Minor Regenerate"

[10 HP Gained!]

As the [Light] Magic did its work, stopping the bleeding and pulling the skin back together, she pulled out some tools from her bag and got to work on some of the regular steel she had brought with her, making a new fitting for the crystal.

"Soooo, what's that you're building?"

Melissa was startled a bit as she heard Mei's voice in her ear, sitting upright. Mei was a lot closer to her Quirk than normal, and she had to push her back a bit to lift her arm out from in between the girl's chest.

She hummed, tapping her chin. "To be honest, I don't have a name for it yet. I'm trying to figure out how to make it so the [Fire Crystal] can be… activated, let's say, with the button on the front, for a set period of time."

Mei nodded, her face scrunching up a bit as she thought. "Ok, ok. Why? Do you just want… a toggleable crystal? That's kinda pointless."

Melissa smiled. "Just that would be pretty pointless, yes, but once I've finished with the control system, I plan on connecting it to a box on top of it, allowing for it to heat the box up. I noticed the other day that neither you nor Otto actually has a proper oven, so I'm trying to make a, uh... mini oven for you, I guess?"

Mei's smiled grew at that, and she wrapped an arm around Melissa's shoulder. "Well ain't that the sweetest thing! What are you going to call this mini oven when you complete it?"

Melissa returned Mei's side hug, smiling at the confidence her friend had in her ability. "I'm not sure. Make a Micro Oven? A Hotbox? I'll have to workshop some names."

Mei nodded. "I'm sure you'll figure something out. But hey, when you do, it's making families who are unable to get a proper oven able to at least have you're smaller one!"

A laugh escaped Mei's mouth, and she squeezed Melissa in the hug a bit more. "Seems to me like you're just trying to upheave established ideas left and right! Good on you!"

Melissa laughed at that as well, blushing slightly and sighing as Mei rested her head on her shoulder, and continued to fiddle with the gadget.

Floor 2 was… underwhelming.

Not that he wasn't super excited to have finally taken another step to becoming an amazing adventurer, but it was so similar in looks to Floor 1 that he actually had to double-check that the Warp Pad had worked.

"I guess the books were right about every two floors sharing a theme."

He had read a lot of books, as many as he could find around his village when he was a kid, but very few talked about dungeons, and even less about the UA Dungeon specifically.

And even when he had found one that did, it only had basic explanations of where the dungeon was, some facts about the floors, and the name of the first actual Boss of the dungeon.

It had obviously been written by a fairly low-level adventurer, but Izuku couldn't judge, being a low-level adventurer himself.

The first Boss of the UA Dungeon was known as [The Great Mole], but Izuku had very little information other than that about them.

He was about to turn a corner in one of the hallways when he heard a soft 'ding', similar to the spike trap from the previous floor.

Almost on instinct, his body dodged to the side, only to jam right into a square puller jabbing into his side from the wall next to him.

10 [Impact] Damage!

He fell to his knees as the wind was pushed out of his lungs, and coughed a bit. Ok, so the hallways had gotten a little more dangerous. He should have expected that.

He would just have to keep his ear out for more of those 'ding's as he went along. Hopefully, he could remember the ways they came from to avoid them in future. Rubbing his chest, Izuku continued on through the hallway.

He spotted a room coming up from around the corner, and stuck himself to the wall, peeking into it. From where he was, he could see six, no, seven goblins, as well as a…

"Identify"

"Hobgoblin"

Hobgoblins are bigger and stronger than their cousins and are more durable

HP: 45/45 | Stamina: 60/60 | Mana: 15/15

Izuku nodded. Hobgoblins were fairly common alongside goblins, usually either taking the role of leader, if they were the only one in the pack, or the role of guard if there were more than one.

And from the way this one was strutting around and knocking the small goblins over, which gave Izuku flashbacks to a certain Flame Knight, it was fairly obvious that he was the only Hobgoblin in this pack, and therefore the leader.

Izuku was about to step into the room when he heard a soft 'ding', from above him, and his knees bent instinctively, dropping him down under a spike that shot out from next to his head.

"Woah, that was close."

RAAAAAAAAAAHHHH

Izuku froze as he heard something from the inside of the room, and looked over to the goblin pack, locking eyes with the Hobgoblin, who must have heard him hitting the floor. Shooting back up to his feet, Izuku yelped as an arrow landed in the wall next to him.

He turned back to see that the Hobgoblin had a [Goblin Archer] on his shoulder. Seeing the other goblins charging his way, Izuku readied [Steelbringer], and took a deep breath.

"Lunge! Double Strike!"