DMS Chapter 5

  “The best spell that one could purchase if you’re a Wizard, Warlock, Sorcerer, Bard, or Artificer is the Prestidigitation spell. That level zero spell will allow you to flavor your food to anything you want. It will also flavor your water as well. Not only that, you can use it to clean things, like your body, your teeth, your clothing, your bedding, everything. If you want to know more about how the spell works, go ahead and check it out on the tab where we purchase the spell, since it contains some of the information you will need. Aside from Prestidigitation, you should choose an offensive spell and a spell that will allow you to defend yourself or help you escape. Since both of you are intelligent, I recommend that before you purchase any of the spells, please review them thoroughly, since you can’t undo any of the choices that you will select,” Hector said, and after a few seconds, he continued.

  “Now don’t be too scared of buying the spells even though I scared you earlier. Since we’re mining mana stones, once we reach our quota for the day, the rest of the mana stones will be ours and you can use them to purchase the spells in the level 0 tab so, to be honest with you, most of the slaves here have access to all the spells in the cantrip level,” Hector said then the veteran slave laughed.

  “Our quota is 10 low-level mana stones each per day during the first year, and thankfully, the veteran slaves' quota will be the same as the newbies. In the area on the first level dungeon floor that we’re assigned, the monsters that we will encounter are goblins, slime, rock wolves, and vampire bats. All of them are equally dangerous, so don’t think of the slime as those round jelly things one can see in a computer game. The slimes here looked like a moving snot, sort of like an amoeba, capable of dissolving the enemies that it enclosed or even touched. The goblins look like the typical green goblins that you can find in games, but uglier and more vicious, sort of like the smaller version of an unintelligent Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. Hector paused for a bit to let the information he just told them sink in, then he continued.

  “Rock Wolves looked like dogs made of rocks, and Vampire Bats were just a bigger version of a regular bat, but more vicious. Since we only had 3 level 0 or Cantrip slots, that means that we can only cast 3 offensive spells at a time, and typically, a group of monsters would consist of 3 to 6 monsters. Good thing that the cantrip level spells only had a minute of cooldown before you can use them again, so we still have to carry weapons with us,” Hector drank some water from his waterskin, then continued.

  “Regarding our mana stone quota, I’ve said that each of us is required to submit 10 low-level mana stones. The problem with that is, only 1 to 2 mana stones were produced every 10 dungeon monsters, so the three of us would need to kill at least 300 monsters per day. You will know in the next few days how tiring that will be. Regarding the weapons you will carry, if you’re not familiar with any weapon, I recommend a spear since that will hold off a monster in range, somewhat, until the cooldown of your spell is over. One good news, though, normally, our level 1 cantrip spells are powerful enough to one-shot dungeon monsters from the level 1 dungeon floor.”

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  “What will happen if we don’t meet our quota for the mana stones?” James asked.

  “If you don’t meet the quota five times in a month, you will be killed, but I haven’t seen anyone who was killed because of that. Those who gave up because they’ve become mentally ill or succumbed to depression usually kill themselves immediately by attacking the wizards or trying to escape the dungeon. Regarding anything that can prevent anyone from hunting the monsters, there’s no such thing. Every week, a healing potion will be given to each of the slaves, and since the first-floor monsters are weak, hardly anyone gets injured. The healing potion is also capable of curing any sickness. Some claimed that they had AIDS or some other supposedly non-curable diseases like cancers, and said that they were cured by the potions. Allegedly, since we really don’t have any proof, but personally, I believe it. Before I transmigrated, I had asthma and needed to carry my inhaler with me, but after I drank my first healing potion, I feel healthy as a bull!” Hector looked at Flinx and James, possibly to check if both men were listening closely.

  “The healing potions, if not used, can be accumulated up to three times, so usually most slaves have three healing potions in their storage ring.” Hector then showed Flinx and James the ring that he was wearing.

  “What’s with the spatial ring? You mention that our 4th tab in our system is some sort of inventory,” Flinx asked.

  “Our collars locked that as well, so the wizards gave each slave a spatial ring that has 1 cubic meter of space where we can store our low-level mana stones, healing potions, food, and water. The slaves are guessing that the 1 cubic meter space ring is extremely cheap in this world.”

  Hector then handed the spatial rings to them, and when Flinx followed Hector’s instruction, he saw a healing potion inside.

  ‘Why did they lock our 4th tab space?” James asked.

  “We don’t know for sure. Some thought that the lock function of the collars was programmed to lock several functions at once, and the inventory couldn’t be excluded. Some said that since we could increase the size of the 4th tab space using mana stones, the wizards of this world were wary of the power that our inventory could provide the slaves from Earth.”

  Hector paused from explaining, and both Flinx and James contemplated everything that Hector had said. After a few minutes, the veteran slave caught their attention again.

  “Now listen closely. Don’t forget that we are slaves and that the wizards are our masters. They are extremely cruel. All the women who arrived and even some of the men were used by wizards either as sex slaves or for experiments. The life expectancy of women is usually just around 2 years or even less due to what the wizards kept doing to them, so I advised you not to form any relationship with them, since those who did usually ended up dead. When their partner is inevitably captured by the wizards to be their plaything, their partners, of course, would try to prevent it, which would always result in their immediate demise. Not only that, the wizards regularly patrol where we all sleep and sometimes will choose a slave at random to be punished using the collars for no reason at all. There were even times when all the slaves were punished, and the wizard would just say that it was to remind everyone that we are all under their power. No matter how strong-willed you are, the punishment inflicted by the collars is not something anyone can weather for more than a few minutes. In my opinion, the pain is soul-deep, so I fear them to my very core,” Hector said fearfully, and Flinx thought that he could detect a glimmer of madness in the veteran slave’s eyes.