As the rays of the sun pierced through the window to Valyr's room, bringing light to it, the young man had a slight frown on his face while he was sleeping, prompting one to wonder what was going on within his mind to warrant such a frown. Fortunately, that frown disappeared once the rays made contact with Valyr's skin, jolting him awake as he felt the heat of the sun on his skin.
Letting out a light hiss at how scorchingly hot the sun was at the outpost, Valyr moved to the side of the bed where less sunlight was making contact before staring into nothingness to give his consciousness time to become fully alert. Once done, he went through his usual routine, wearing the Nascent Wyvern Armor over his usual set of clothes before heading to the inn's dining area to get some breakfast.
'There's a lot of people here.' Surprisingly, unlike the previous inns he had been to, the number of people that were in the dining area at the moment seemed more like the number of people he would meet on a day-to-day basis back in the cafeteria at the Astarto Village barracks. With that, he swiftly found a vacant chair to sit on before proceeding to engorge himself in the food he got.
'Pretty sure all of them are here for the dungeons, just like me.' While munching down on his food, Valyr looked at the other people in the dining area, noticing that the weakest person among them had a level of strength that was not lower than the peak of Rank 1.
As for the strongest person within the dining area, that title went to a woman that looked to be in her late twenties, her hair a dark shade of burgundy, which formed a contrast to her light blue irises as the aura emanating out of her made even Valyr feel a slight chill.
'Probably Rank 3.' Deciding to mind his own business from that point onward, Valyr swiftly finished the breakfast he had ordered before putting on his helm, leaving the inn not long after while the others who were still eating their food briefly stared at him.
While walking through the dirt streets of the outpost that led to the dungeons, Valyr watched as a couple of people set up stalls for the wares that they were going to sell beside the prominent buildings, prompting him to think that they had placed them there in order to shelter their stalls from the elements. Aside from that, he thought that they had set up stalls in those areas since the buildings beside them were hotspots for human activity.
Continuing to admire the unique charm the outpost had to offer as he continued to make his way towards the dungeons, a thought popped up in his mind, causing him to think about how many Skill Keys he would need to either upgrade his skills to the next grade or unlock the bottleneck on their levels.
'Hmm…' With the thought now lingering in his mind, Valyr went ahead and commanded the system in his mind to bring up his current skill list, to which the system quickly complied as a screen containing all of his skills appeared in front of him. Counting the number of Common and Uncommon grade skills he had on his list, he eventually got the figure he needed. 'So, I would need a total of 34 Common grade Skill Keys and 6 Uncommon grade Skill Keys.'
'Well, if I think about it, it would have been 7 if not for Julian giving me a key for [Enhanced Polymorph],' thought Valyr to himself, only to realize that he would need the same amount of Uncommon grade Skill Keys once he had used up all of the Common grade Skill Keys to evolve the Common grade skills.
'In short, I actually need 34 Common grade Skill Keys and 40 Uncommon grade Skill Keys.' Feeling a slight headache at the thought of having to grind in the dungeons for Skill Keys for a long time, Valyr took a few deep breaths to compose himself before heading to the dungeons at a slightly faster pace than earlier, arriving around 20 minutes later.
…
"Before I begin my explanation, welcome to the Lesser Meltierre Mountains." By the time Valyr had arrived at the entrance to the dungeons, a group of people had already been waiting to enter, only being barred by a single person that had a level of strength far greater than what Valyr or the others could hope to unleash. Fortunately, with Valyr's arrival, the person moved to the side as he welcomed everyone to the dungeons.
"I'm sure all of you have come from various places in the continent, all for the sake of obtaining a lot of Skill Keys from the dungeons," said the man as the others could only nod in approval. "With that, let me tell everyone that you're only considered to be 'safe' in the dungeons if you have a level of strength greater than the peak of Rank 1 at the very least."
At those words, the few people who were at the peak of Rank 1 slightly frowned, causing them to wonder whether it was worth heading to the Lesser Meltierre Mountains in the first place. Nevertheless, as they had already gotten this far, they decided to continue listening, even if it meant they were risking their lives doing so.
"Of course, whether or not you choose to heed my words is not my problem." The man shrugged his shoulders before continuing. "Anyways, there are three entrances available that would lead you to specific dungeons found in these mountains."
"To your left is the entrance to the Common Caves, which generally has a high chance of dropping Common grade Skill Keys, though there's also a small chance to obtain Uncommon grade Skill Keys from this place a well."
"To the right of that is the entrance to the Uncommon Depths, where the Uncommon grade Skill Keys have a higher chance of dropping, while the chances of Common grade Skill Keys dropping are lower."
"And lastly, to your very right is the entrance to the Rare Abyss, the only dungeon that drops Rare grade Skill Keys in this place. However, do be warned that you might spend a lot of time in this place due to its low drop rate."
"I don't really have to explain anything else to you guys aside from the fact that you should make sure that you stay vigilant at all times," said the man to Valyr and the others. "Also, keep in mind that the monsters are considerably stronger than the ones you find in the wild, so don't get overconfident."
"And with that, you're now free to go ahead and enter any dungeon of your choosing."
