I stared into the entrance of The Acid Grove, but nothing moved.

  Nothing at all. I hadn't noticed at first, because it wasn't exactly windy outside, either, but the leaves weren't rustling in any wind. The inside of the dungeon was completely still.

  So, points against going inside. One: I didn't know what was in there. Given the monsters around, it seemed likely that the mobs would only be acid crawlers and acid moths, but I didn't know that for certain. I equally didn't know if the place would contain traps or other threats. Two: if the dungeon was C rank, the boss would be B-rank. I didn't exactly have a great track record in fights with B-rank monsters.

  Points for. One: potential treasure and a new Mark. I wasn't certain what the Mark would do, but extrapolating from other dungeons, a twenty percent experience boost when killing crawlers and moths seemed likely for clearing, or more for conquering. I wasn't even considering trying to conquer the dungeon, but even the lesser clearing boost had the potential to add up to a lot of extra experience, given how populous the relevant monsters were in the jungle. Two: thus far, I'd never cleared a dungeon on my 'own', so to speak. I'd always relied on information from the adventurers' guild. The closest I'd got to a blind run was when I'd accidentally found myself in the bonus room of The Goblin Den. Given the way Paths worked, as well as Marks at growth milestones, it might do me some good to clear this dungeon before hitting the third growth milestone. Or at least start it—I was close enough to the end of level sixty that I might well hit it before finding the dungeon boss.

  I hung around considering it for a while, but it wasn't as if dungeons locked you in, aside from some boss chambers. I'd already been in and out of this one, even if it was only a couple of steps. I could sneak in, have a look around, and make a more informed decision later.

  The inside of the dungeon was silent and still. I'd been wondering about the name 'grove', which seemed a little inaccurate when I was inside the jungle, but it turned out to be spot on. After stepping through, there were no trees behind me. There was also no land. Only a gently curving ocean of green.

  Not green as in dirty, but a bright, practically glowing green. A green that was suspiciously similar to what the acid crawlers had been spitting out.

  Their spit had hissed and sizzled on contact with soil, while the ocean showed no reaction at all at its earthy shore, but even so, there was no way I was about to take a dip in the stuff. It was probably just more dungeon shenanigans that stopped it eating away at the scenery, and it would have no difficulty at all eating away at me.

  The trees started not far from the shore, and given the convex curve of the shoreline, the dungeon was probably an island. A grove of the giant trees on an island surrounded by an infinite ocean of deadly acid.

  The inside of the dungeon was also uncomfortably hot. The real Jungle of Braccus was warm, yes, but not uncomfortably so. Then again, it was mid-November. I could imagine that the jungle in the middle of summer would have been more like this. Thankfully, my Constitution should protect me from any ill effects.

  One thing my brief look around didn't reveal was where the monsters were hiding. However, I did have a suspicion. One that I confirmed by taking a few steps forward, stepping beneath the canopy of the next tree.

  An acid crawler tried to drop on my head, falling from where it had been hiding above the leaves. It was almost nostalgic.

  It seemed unlikely that this dungeon was simply a copy of the outside jungle, though, so I crept carefully among the trees, keeping eyes wide open for anything out of place.

  The small pool of acid a few trees in was certainly not something I'd come across outside of the dungeon.

  I carefully stepped around it, slaying more skydiving crawlers and the occasional moth. Thankfully, [Mapping] seemed to work just fine inside the dungeon, so I had no worries about getting lost, but I was worried about the increasing amounts of acid. As I advanced, the puddles grew larger and more numerous, until they merged and safe land was reduced to a small island around each tree, with narrow, winding paths between them.

  The landscape was getting dangerous, and the monsters weren't even all that dense. Despite the distance travelled, I hadn't even killed ten crawlers. In terms of experience efficiency, this dungeon was worse than outside. Admittedly, it had the advantage of no braccus tyrants turning up if I made too much noise, or random death coming from above or below in the form of fortress eagles or colossal worms. As long as I didn't engage the boss, it was still safer than outside.

  Probably.

  Maybe further in, the land would run out completely. Although, if the acid built up toward the centre, presumably that was where the boss was. In that case, the sensible thing to do was head back further out, and do circles where there was more land to work with.

  Happy to trade monster density for safety, I did just that, retracing my steps until the acid puddles grew sufficiently sparse, then heading off parallel to the coast. An acid crawler immediately celebrated my decision by dropping on my head.

  That trick of theirs was starting to get old. It hadn't worked the first time, and it certainly wouldn't now. Alas—or maybe thankfully, depending on point of view—the things seemed rather set in their ways.

  Being set in their ways meant I faced no risks or surprises as I circled the perimeter of the dungeon, slaying the bugs until the next level—and with it my third growth milestone—rolled around. Not that I needed to complete even a single loop: a dozen more monsters was sufficient.

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  Losing [Perfectly Balanced] was expected, given that my Memory was now lagging far behind everything else. Perhaps, had I brought up Stamina and Mana to the same point as my primary Stats, I'd have got a downgraded version of some sort, but even that was doubtful. With the physical Stat malus from [Archmage], it was unlikely I'd ever be seeing that Mark again, whatever I did.

  The [Patient Traveller] upgrade was unexpected, but, in hindsight, not a surprise. I'd earned three Paths now, even if I intended to take one of them and only hadn't due to a lack of skill points.

  Uh...

  That new effect was considerably more surprising than the Mark itself. So much so that I immediately forgot about the third mark, out of a desire to see what information it would give me.

  That was... rather disappointing, actually. It didn't give me information on the effects of the Paths, but I remembered them all from the guild's library, so it didn't matter. There was nothing in there I didn't recognise. [Wind Mage] and [White Mage] were identical to [Lightning Mage], except for the differing element. [Storm Mage] was a more advanced 'element', combining air, water and lightning. [Weapons Master] was focused on face-to-face combat using a range of weaponry. [Scout] was similar to [Pathfinder], except was more geared toward locating people and monsters rather than exploration. [Rogue] required a Skill like [Lockpicking] or [Pickpocket], and came without any sort of combat bonus, so I'd removed it from consideration. [Killer] would specialise me in killing humans rather than monsters, which wasn't what I wanted. [Dungeoneer] was the same: it would give some nice bonuses fighting monsters in a dungeon, but would be useless outside of one.

  I was kinda hoping there'd be some new Path that had never been documented before. Alas, it seemed that Paths weren't much more interesting than the lower rank Skills I already had.

  That did raise the question of where the Enshrouded and others like him got their power. If Paths broke through the barrier to B-rank, how, exactly, did one get hold of A-rank Skills? [Chosen One] would let me evolve B-rank Skills to A-rank, but that wasn't an option for everyone. I wasn't convinced it was an option for me. Furthermore, there was an S-rank dungeon, sitting above A-rank. Did that imply S-rank Skills, too? Not to mention that if the boss of a dungeon was one rank above the dungeon itself, what rank was the boss of the Deep? Just how high could a human climb?

  Anyway, with that disappointment out of the way, I still had my third Mark available to inspect.

  That was rather interesting. The penalty was nasty, but it wasn't as if I had anyone to group with here in the jungle. Of course, I'd still have the Mark when I returned to civilisation, and losing it would presumably require partying with someone and then waiting for the next growth milestone. But honestly, I spent most of my time alone, and would likely continue to do so. I'd probably be better off keeping it.

  The maximum party size reduction was a little interesting, too. In hindsight, it was obvious that parties were an official System function, and not something the adventurers' guild invented, since they affected experience distribution, but I'd never seen a Mark or Skill affect them before. What if two people with this Mark joined a party? Would the maximum size drop by two?

  The upside was yet another experience boost, combined with a nebulous improvement to attack and defence. The 'five percent' was precise, but not particularly meaningful. What did it mean to do five percent more damage to something? It wasn't as if monsters had hit-points. Giving an exact figure was a slight improvement over the armour piercing effect of [Strong II], but I still wasn't sure what it meant. Still, I would welcome a damage boost, however nebulous the effect.

  And that seemed to be everything, leaving me two levels away from being able to afford [Archmage]. While I doubted I could manage it today, given the sparser monster density inside the dungeon, tomorrow, I should finally be able to get my hands on the firepower needed to bring down a braccus tyrant.

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