The First King of Beasts

-Good evening everyone, hope you are all enjoying yourselves, and I can only pray you have all been growing stronger.

"What is this again? This voice-"

"It's this voice."

"Something bad is about to happen again."

-I won't say much this time. Tomorrow marks the beginning of the second trial. The information will be sent to everyone via the system interface.

"It's done."

"It's here again. Another forced quest?"

-I wish you all goodluck.

..

Everyone was a little shocked at the news, as unlike the first time around, even with the numbers, not many were enthusiastic about this at all. Everyone suspected these quests to be compulsory, so they knew there was no other way around it. There was no choice to reject and not participate, they had to.

Dustin on the other hand was among the people who had half been waiting for this day to come, and it was finally here. Of course, they couldn't check the contents of this next quest as the next day was yet to reach, so they had to wait. The thing was, in such a state, who would be able to sleep and wait for tomorrow to come, many were going to have sleepless nights. Dustin who was now away from the town couldn't even be disturbed by the commotion happening even if he wanted to, so he just went to sleep peacefully.

..

"The next quest is starting tomorrow. Have you replaced the missing parts?"

"Yes I have. I have also readied extra, just in case. Just like you asked me to."

"Good. He's causing us this much stress already, I guarantee he's going to be even more troublesome later on."

"We might need a special solution for this sir."

"We just might."

..

[Proceed to the specified location]

[Enter the dungeon there]

[You can go about this however you like, but remember, two heads are better than one]

[Clear condition is to reach the dungeon's final floor]

[Penalty for not completing quest, 10 years taken from lifespan]

[Time limit, one month]

..

As Dustin read what was written, the system automatically opened a map before him showing the location of the dungeon. Getting there was absolutely no problem, the problem was what would be in the dungeon.

Dustin just as always went into town and stocked up on edibles and some other things he needed for this trip. He would wait for the girls to come first, and maybe then they could form a team and go through the entire thing together, but there was no need for such unnecessary things. He was more of a lone wolf to begin with, plus them there would only restrict him from using this skills fully, as he didn't want to be showing his cards to everyone.

Dustin set out for the quest after stocking up, and after crossing the mountain to the other side, he couldn't believe what was before him. Merely looking down from the mountain top, Dustin could tell just how many beast were present, and their number in just one area was twice as much as what he had seen before. Of course, he thought of taking all this experience for himself as he looked at the moving bags of EXP, but-

There was no but! Dustin immediately rushed down the other side of the mountain and after he had gone half way, he summoned the tigers and the sea serpent. The sea serpent might have not been in it's natural advantageous area, but that didn't mean it became weak at all. On land, the serpent would be something between E rank and an E+ rank, so it was fine as long as nothing serious happened.

Dustin of course would be there in case anything threatened his tamed beats. Before he began descending the other side of the mountain, Dustin stole a glance back to make sure that others had not started coming yet, just to make sure. There was no need to show that he had such a monster, it would only drag unnecessary attention.

After continuous killing for a month, Dustin was now close to levelling up again, but he still left the EXP farm before him, the tamed beasts and monsters are still important, and can only become more useful if their level is high enough.

After about 20 minutes had passed, and Dustin was just lying down by the side of the mountain, the two of his tamed animals came back to him, this time the tiger had combined, but both of them were still E+ rank. It was enough for now, after killing a few hundred monsters and beasts, Dutsin was sure the coast was clear. In a way, he was being patriotic and saving the others the stress of having to face so much monsters later.

Dustin took the serpent back in, and rode on the tiger towards the destination dungeon. Normally he would stop and finish with the beasts outside before approaching the dungeon, but this time he wanted to at least leave some beasts for the one's to come, so he completely ignored them and headed straight for the dungeon.

On getting to the location where the dungeon was marked on the map, Dustin reached in front of an old looking structure that looked like it would fall anytime if he were to throw a stone at it. 'Is this the dungeon start point?' He asked himself. The place looked like some kind of cathedral for some weird religion, but then again, he had no other option than to approach it.

Just to be on the safe side, Dustin activated his illusion skill before entering, and also activated his taming skill to scout for monsters in the area. The monsters outside seemed to be avoiding this place and staying a couple metres away from it as Dustin could tell, and within the structure, there absolutely was no monster.

Dustin explored the cathedral, but couldn't find anything. In the end it turned out to be just a cathedral, just as he had thought. There was an alter and everything, and even some sections that were new to him.

Not believing that there was nothing here, Dustin went around the cathedral again looking for any clue like a trap door or something similar. Since the quest said a dungeon, it meant that the whole thing would descend underground floor by floor, or level by level. Also, the fact that there is no extension upward, meant that there was only the cathedral and the underground place.

Victor went round and on the second round of checking the place, he found what looked like a magic circle at the centre of the alter. The circle looked like something one would see back on earth as a demonic summoning circle, only that this time the colour was neither red nor white, but black. Victor approached the circle, but with everything he knew which could go wrong, he wasn't about to step into such a circle, especially one that is in a world where strange powers exist.

Dustin wasted more time around waiting for others to come so that he would then use them as experimental subjects. This, was what Dustin planned to do, but after waiting for more than half an hour and no body had come yet, he was starting to see the disadvantages of being a speedster.

'I guess I'll have to be the rat then.' He said while approaching the circle.

He didn't enter the circle immediately and just went round it checking it out to see if he would find something else, maybe that place would be the hollow space. With no progress, Dustin finally decided to step into the circle, if anything was to happen, it would happen.

With the magic circle there, Dustin was thinking maybe it was the way to move people through the floors, and this idea wasn't a bad one, as it was literally the only thing that would be able to connect both floors. Dustin stepped on the circle using one leg, but nothing happened, then some seconds passed before he then stepped on the circle with both feet.

"That's it? To think I was so careful earlier, heh.." Dustin said.

The circle remained the same as nothing changed with it, and he wasn't sure anymore if something was going to happen, and just when he thought that was it, the circle lit up with a red light. Dustin reacted to this immediately and tried to jump out of the circle, but as he tried he felt his body slow down, as though the time around him had paused, or at least was slowed down. As his body floated backwards mid air slowly bit by bit, the light around him got brighter and brighter and then it got so bright he couldn't see what was around him.

When the light finally cleared, Dustin's body flew off mid air into a hard surface like some sort of projectile, which he rightfully was at this moment, but then he was alright.

"Urgh!" Dustin grunted as his body slammed the surface.

'So dramatic. All to take me to another floor.'

"This place better have good stuff, if not..."