Dungeon Diver: Stealing a Monster's Power

Chapter 27

I was feeling pretty good about this dungeon. After that first battle I have these monsters completely figured out.

We kept walking further into the cave.

"Hey Jay, it'll only get harder from here. You sure you want to keep going?"

I smirked.

"Yeah these Bats are a piece of cake now. That first fight was a warmup, I doubt I'll even get hit once in our next fight."

I strolled along next to Abby with my sword out occasionally activating my inspect skill to scan the area.

I checked my status to see how much MP it was using up. I was at 550/570, looks like every inspect uses 3-5 MP. Not bad, but not great.

As I was closing my status the new skill I recently absorbed caught my eye. Enemy Detection.

I shrugged and activated it to see what would happen.

Bad idea....

I dropped to my knees with my hands on my head.

"CLANGGGGG"

I even dropped my sword. A horrible unexpected sensation came over me.

"Jay!! What's wrong??? Hello???"

Abby was waving her hands in front of my face frantically.

All I could do was stare forward. I could feel the presence of ever monster in this cave. There were thousands of them... all very close by...

"T-They're everywhere..."

I was slowly adjusting to this new ability. It was still very unsettling, but I stood up and closed my eyes to try and master it more.

They were scattered everywhere. Bats were behind rocks, on the ceiling, and even gliding around above our heads.

The longer I closed my eyes and concentrated the more clear the movements of each Bat Creature became. The further away they were the more I had to concentrate to feel their exact location and movements.

It seemed like they were all clustered in certain areas of the cave. They traveled in groups, maybe 20-30 in each cluster on average. Some would leave the group to scout out the cave for food while the others stayed together hanging upside down.

The deeper I concentrated, the further into the cave I could see. The clusters became bigger and bigger. Some had hundreds... the deeper parts of the cave were much more active.

Then the biggest cluster appeared in my minds eye. A cluster of too many presences to even count. A massive cluster at what seemed like the caves end... this must be what Abby meant by it getting harder the deeper we go in. I tried to get a better feel for how many there really were.

All of a sudden I lost my balance. The clear feeling of the monster's exact location in my mind faded quickly.

"Thudddd"

I fell to the ground.

"Jay!!!! What's wrong with you???"

Abby was very close to my face. Her big concerned green eyes filled my field of vision.

I checked my status in a daze, it read out 0/570 MP.

"D-Damn. Sorry, I used up all my MP. I didn't realize I'd feel so weak."

I drank an MP potion leaving me with just 1 left and sat up. I checked my status moments later and my MP rose to 500/570. For some reason it wasn't full, but I decided not to think much of it right now.