When Max woke up in the morning, he was extremely intrigued, but still wary of the fact that he was still in a dungeon. Clearly he hadn't been on some type of drugs, that would've worn off by now.

What that did mean, however, was that some sort of strange RPG bullshit was going on.

Because he had clearly heard a voice in his head say that he had gained some sick classes and abilities.

"Warrior, level 3. Got lesser dodge as an ability. Probably means that it'll be harder for things to hit me, especially if I keep moving around. That's definitely going to be useful, especially in a dungeon like this. Then we got the survivor class, level 1. And the skill, animal skinning. Clearly i'll be a little bit better at that. Maybe I should pursue some sort of leatherworking? Maybe I can make my own armor? Maybe a sheath for this sword."

It was worth the thought. Max wondered how this leveling system worked out. Maybe if he did something enough, he gained the necessary experience in order to gain levels in it? That might make sense. Although, it didn't make sense why he had only levelled when he had.

Perhaps one could only gain levels when you were about to go to sleep? Basically as a means of ensuring that you had gone through a full day's worth of experience. But then why had he not gained anything from that first monster that he had killed?

Max thought that was weird. If doing actions caused levels, then why had he not gained levels as a [Rogue]? He had clearly kidden from the two fighting monsters and killed the remaining one once it's back was turned. Although that was more based off of the idea of survival, rather than an inherent need to be stealthy. So it makes sense that he'd gain some [Survivor] Experience, even if it hadn't put him over the cap for a single level.

Yesterday he had fought a giant rat, as well as something as powerful as a normal lion, and had come out on top. Gaining the [Warrior] class made sense, even if all he had on him at the time was a knife. He hadn't run from the fights, and had taken the beasts head-on.

If he was going to be fighting more often than not, as he presumed from being in a cave, then he needed to work on his defenses as well as his agility. With the [Lesser Dodge] ability, Max presumed that he'd have some sort of passive bonus to dodging. But that didn't mean shit if he wasn't actually physically able to avoid attacks.

While he at least had some dexterity from his daily runs on earth, that just meant that his physical endurance was decent. He wasn't sure about his natural ability to dodge all the time in a fight in his current state, and couldn't believe how incredibly lucky he was that the leonir hadn't taken him out.

Max ceased his musings and drank some more from the fountain, finding that it relieved tension in his shoulders from sleeping in a chair. Clearly the water had some sort of healing magic, and he was intending to fully abuse it as long as he could. He had no idea if there was a limit on how much water was in the fountain, but he knew that it would be sufficient enough for now.

He glanced at the spoils of victory. A mysterious potion, a ring with blue gems, what could be a bag of holding, and a book on magic. He wasn't sure what he was going to do with the potion, but figured he'd eventually get around to using it somewhere.

The ring was intriguing, and Max slipped it on to his right ring finger. A faint blue glow shone from the gemstones that lined it, before fading. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but he was certain that he had some sort of magical passive on him, and would find out what it was when it was relevant. Hopefully it wasn't a debuff, he had enough to deal with than cursed items.

The bag of holding was definitely going to be useful, and while Max wasn't sure how much exactly it could hold inside, he was going to keep this on him as much as he could.

That left the magic book. The tome looked like it had plenty of spells listed inside, although that had been only at a cursory glance last night. Maybe when he had free time he could spend a little bit of time studying magic? Who knew, maybe he had an aptitude for it!

Max put the book back into the bag of holding, and tied the bag to his belt, right by his knife. He looked around the room one last time, before making his way into the leonir den.

The leonir lay dead still, a small pile of blood pooling beneath where he had left it. It's skin was off to the side, and coming to a quick decision, Max opened the bag and stuffed the skin into it. Maybe he'd be able to work with this later. Until then, he'd better hold onto it, just in case he got lost or couldn't come back here.

The leonir den had two pathways leading out of it, the way that he had come from, which led through a small maze that he had encountered the giant rat in and back to the room with scrolls and clothes, and towards the den of the Idex.

The other direction, however, seemed to head further into the dungeon. Max wasn't sure that he wanted to explore further down. It seemed intuitive to him that the more that he went down-the further from the entrance of the dungeon he went. That is, if there even was an entrance to the dungeon.

The map that he had found was severely incomplete, and in many spaces the tunnels just trailed to the edge of the paper and didn't continue. Max wished that he had found a bigger map, but he supposed that there might be others in other rooms around the dungeon.

What the map did show, however, was that going upwards in the dungeon meant that he would be walking right into one of two groups- the demons (Which he definitely didn't want to encounter for as long as he could), and the Ants.

Max wasn't sure why ants was capitalized on the map, but he figured that they must be a real danger in the dungeon if they were noted, especially since he had seen the Idex, and had only barely taken down the leonir with pure luck.

If the Ants were anything like ants on his planet, he didn't want to antagonize them, especially if they had a hive mind. That could get him swarmed. He certainly didn't want that to happen.

So Max made up his mind. The only way forward was to delve further down into the dungeon. And if that meant that eventually he would have to encounter a Hydra, then well. At that point he'd rather just come back and risk it with the Ants.

But first things first, this area that he had slept in wasn't safe. He needed to clear the surrounding area of any and all monsters if he wanted to rest easy. Max figured that if he spent a couple of hours doing just that, then he could return here as a sort of safe zone without having to worry about getting attacked in the middle of the night.

Right as he was about to pack up his things and head out, his stomach rumbled, and frowned. Eating was not something that he had been thinking of. He certainly needed to leave some easy to kill monsters alive, just in case he needed to go hunting for food in the future. In the meanwhile…

A half an hour later and some more leonir meat cooked and eaten, and Max was headed back towards the maze. It would be the first thing that he set about trying to clear out, and hopefully he could explore most of it before the end of the day.

Within minutes of stepping into the maze like area, he was beset upon by a swarm of bats. They bit at his arms and legs, and he definitely felt his energy sap at the heavy hits. He took his sword in his hand and swung at the swarm, many of which had not yet gotten at him yet.

His sword struck true, and he cut a few down within seconds. The rest of the bats were more wary of him now, but came at him again. This time some hung back, however, so their attacks weren't quite as strong as when they attacked him the first time.

He was at half strength already, and he cursed his luck. He could fight against a leonir on pure luck and take it down without a scratch, but brought low by a horde of bats? He didn't think so. He swung up and killed a few more bats, and there was little more than a third of the original swarm left flapping around.

They swooped down once more on him, but this time he wasn't having any of that shit. He rolled right under the bats and struck out with his blade as he came out of the somersault, but missed the remaining bats.

That was the trouble of taking down a few of them already, Max mused to himself as he readied himself for them coming once more. He watched as they flew in the air, and his eyes narrowed as he found a small pattern in their attacks. The swarm always tended to attack as a group, and after flying away would disperse for a few precious moments so as to minimize their losses to his sword swings.

But that just meant that he needed to strike them as they attacked him. He waited for the swarm to gather again, and ducked under the swarm as they dove on him again, barely able to retaliate. Shit, it was hard to swing a sword while dodging attacks!

They came down on him once more and tore at him bare arms, and he lashed out with his blade again, this time surprising himself as his broadsword cut through the bats as they left. There were only two left, and he went after them this time, not giving them time to regroup before he cut them out of the air.

He was seriously hurt, though, and needed the healing waters of that fountain, otherwise he was sure that he'd be bleeding all over the place. It was lucky that he was so close to the lion's den, as it were.

He cleaned himself up and after a little bit his body was healed again. That magic fountain was going to be his saving grace, and as soon as he found bottles, he was going to try and bring at least a little bit of it's healing magic with him into the dungeon.

He made his way back into the maze, and delved a little bit further in this time. He knew, by the map, that this way led to a dead end. But he had to make sure that it was clear of monsters.

And lo and behold, at the dead end, Max saw thick webs, trailing from the ceiling to the ground. He was on alert, and found the spider before it saw him. He recognized it as a giant version of earth's wolf spider, and made an attack on it before it could retaliate.

He was a bit unlucky with his strike, since while he had never realistically used a sword before, it swerved a bit in midair and cut at the spider's legs, lopping a few of them off.

At least he had managed to hit the spider. And without the cutting off of some of its legs, Max was certain that the beast would have been able to strike him back. As it was, when it lunged for him, it swerved way off to the side, and he was able to swing out at it as it passed him by.

He was even more unlucky with this strike, as he barely managed to clip the spider's spinneret before it spun back on him. This time it managed to strike at him, biting his ankle, and Max could feel a little bit of venom enter into his ankle, inhibiting his movement slightly.

He swung down at the spider while it was still attached to his leg, and cut neatly through it's abdomen with his blade. The spider clung on to his leg for a moment, before releasing its hold on him.

Max tried to move, and found that it was hard to walk on his leg for a minute or two, before the venom seemed to fade from his system, the paralyzing agent in it having seemingly faded away. That was useful information, that the spiders around here didn't have deadly venoms. At least not the giant wolf spiders.

Max tore through the webbing with his sword, making certain that there were no hidden egg sacs before returning to camp once more. He really needed to see about getting some sort of jars or bottles to hold the healing water in, as it was time consuming to keep returning to the fountain every time that he got hurt.

After a few hours of exploring and killing some more minor beasts in the maze, he finally retired to camp, and opened the bag of holding to get out the magic tome. He took it out, but also considered something, and a stroke of genius seemed to take hold of him.

He had a lion's hide from the leonir, and back when he had been in boy scouts, he had something called a camelbak backpack, which was a portable water holder. If he had sufficient enough time, he could maybe make one out of leather. It wouldn't take too much effort, all he had to do was get some sewing supplies to tie it all together.

Which, now that he thought of it, there had been some sewing supplies in the closet of that first room that he had come across. All he had to do was make the hour's journey through the maze to go and get the materials, and he'd be able to sew the leather together.

That is, presuming that he could even make leather with the leonir hide. He tried to remember the process of tanning hides and removing fur, but didn't remember much after the skinning process.

So instead of reading a book on magic, and instead of going back to the room to get sewing supplies, Max sat himself down by the fire and took out his knife and the hide.

For the next few hours, he made small gains on it, slowly cutting the fur off of a stretch of the hide, and finally came up with something that he was proud of. It wasn't perfect, but he couldn't exactly remember the next step in the process. He thought it had something to do with getting the skin wet and then drying it, letting the hide shrink to size.

He definitely wasn't an expert, and made sure to feed himself once the skin was drying by the fireside. Today had been an exhausting day. Maybe tomorrow he'd go back to that room and get the supplies he needed, and then with a little bit of work, he'd have a leather camelbak backpack to carry around the magic water in.

He fell asleep quickly, barely hearing the voice as it told him that he had levelled up again.

[Warrior Level 4!]

[Skill - Sword Proficiency Obtained!]

[Survivor Level 3!]

[Skill - Leatherworking Obtained!]