‘I hope I get at least some Mithril pebbles out of this,’ John thought as he entered the random Floor I.D.

He had gotten a few of those (with the number of enemies killed, it had been an inevitability) and one was now the Loot Focus. He could have gone with the Elementium Pebbles instead, but he could produce that with his elementals (in theory, at least) and he had reason to believe that Aclysia would eventually be able to enrich that material inside herself. After all, she was already creating S and L-Baelementium, all the elements were already present.

As for the rest of what had been in the Loot Basin, he wanted to go through it in some detail later. After hours of fucking, he craved some danger. Doubtlessly, bad influence from his girlfriend.

‘I do wonder if I would have gotten these enrichment options if I didn’t also have contracts with the elementals. My different areas of power do cross over at times.’ He rolled his neck and checked his surroundings.

He was standing in a cage of sorts. Wooden logs and withered trees were bound, bent and crossed into crude shapes resembling bars, themselves covered with tattered cloth. It was all very primitive. There was an exit, an arch created by two young trees bound together, but John ignored that for now. Instead, he walked to the right, aiming at the bars of his cage-like starting area, lifted the drapes and looked outside.

It was an ocean of clouds, stretching and shifting endlessly around. Its pure white drifted towards one location somewhere to John’s left. With the little view he had, he couldn’t make it out yet. During their travel, they split around large stone pillars, each beset with gnarly trees or cages like the one he was currently inside of. Most of them were connected via wooden bridges. Halved logs, with their centre carved out to create something resembling sure footing. They seemed about broad enough for two people to walk side by side.

John felt confident enough in his sense of balance that he didn’t care much about how wide it was. The problem here was that it had no railing, making flying off it more than easy. ‘Lucky me that I have some support,’ he thought, looking over to the Mandala Sphere. Before his eyes had finished wandering, the sphere of rotating plates already began morphing, and John found himself face to face with his double.

Just because he was alone didn’t mean he had to do this with his own two hands. Without the elementals, he just had to rely on Possession more. ‘Note to self, buy some mechanical birds to keep with you at times like this,’ he thought. ‘That’s a good idea in any case, lets me keep tabs on the surroundings while I am out in the mundane world… Should have realized that earlier. As necessity creates ideas, I guess this just goes to show how much I rely on the elementals usually. And how little I interact with the mundane world.’

In absence of better possession targets, John grabbed some rocks off the craggy floor and threw them into his inventory. They would disappear when he left the Instant Dungeon; unlike his Loot, they couldn’t exist outside this made up space. Not that he would mind, he wasn’t particularly attached to random rocks.

He sent Jack out first, the double hovering ahead. No horrible or cruel creature showed itself the moment the safety of the spawn area was left behind. John then followed. ‘I’ll have to weigh my safety, MP and HP against the Mandala Sphere’s durability,’ the Gamer continued to analyse his situation. While his own resources regenerated much quicker than the Mandala Sphere did, this whole thing would be a failure if he died. Given that clouds weren’t known for being a place one could land on, comics and cartoons aside, he guessed that falling down at any point would be a game over.

Especially at the start, he was best advised to play it safe.

Even after John left the spawning area, no enemies showed themselves. He proceeded to cross the first bridge. The entire time, he expected some kind of harpy to show up and try to throw him off. Nothing of the sort happened. For now.

Outside of the bridges, John felt confident enough to take charge himself, and so entered the first cage before his double. Immediately, he found himself charged by an enemy.

The monster looked somewhat regal, the well-groomed feathers making the little light reflect on it like a black armour, but the way it assaulted him from the dead angle created by the door was anything but honourable. Its large sword was shaped like a giant quill, only a thin edge surrounding the greyish-white core.

John caught the weapon in his left, more than willing to experiment in his first encounter, especially since Jack guaranteed him that no further enemies would approach.

There were good and bad news. The good was that Purgatory continued to be a ridiculously reliable protection. No matter how hard the Corvus Knight pressed, its blade didn’t cut through the obsidian scales. The bad was that the pressing very much worked. John’s arm was forced lower and lower by the opponent. In the long term, that would bring John into a bad position. In the short term, he was already in range of the Corvus Knight’s beak. It let out a victorious purr.

John raised his right. Anticipating a punch, his enemy raised its shield. It looked like overlapping feathers forming a circle. The Gamer hadn’t gone for the physical assault, however. His open hand made contact with the shield, then arcane energy started pouring out in a penetrative ray. A thousand MP spent on Mana Blade, the spell ripped through the shield, then the body behind it.

In pain and confusion, the monster’s attack weakened, and John let go of the sword. In a quick follow-up, he threw a well-placed hook at the Corvus Knight. He felt feathers give and bones break under the hard surface of Purgatory. Light as the enemy was, this had the satisfying side-effect of catapulting it backwards. The monster turned into dust mid-flight.

“Huh.” John shook out his hand. He hadn’t expected the enemy to die immediately after two hits. Then again, he hadn’t expected either of the two attacks to be that successful. “Well, the enemies are supposed to scale with group size,” he monologued and turned towards the exit.

Once more, he set foot on the wooden path, still paying attention to the surroundings. ‘If this is the tutorial section for the Instant Dungeon, then they’ll throw the next thing at me immediately,’ he thought and was proven correct. Three four-legged, winged shapes peeled out of the dense clouds below. Being prepared, he immediately used Jack to throw an Observe their way.

The three Magryph’s flew around Jack, ignoring him entirely. They were quick, black and white streaks that cut through the air. With extended talons, they headed for John. The quickest reached the Gamer while he was still on the bridge, the intent to push him off it clear.

Talons rammed into John, and the Gamer turned on his heels, unfazed. As if it had just ran into a brick wall, the Magryph came to a violent halt, only to be thrown back when the Gamer’s fist slammed into its black face. While the monster was busy tumbling away, John pointed his open palm at the enemy and shot out an Arc Lance. He missed his intended target, the head, thanks to the monster desperately beating its wings. However, he still hit one of said limbs, ripping a sizable hole into the left one. Robbed of its ability to fly, the Magryph soon sunk under the clouds.

John needlessly adjusted his collar. The great thing about Particle Skin was that it hard-countered situations like this. As long as there was an instance of damage that was blocked, all associated physical effects of shoving were also countered. The potential counter to this was grabbing him, but Particle Skin also had a shockwave defence against that, if he so desired it. A weak shockwave, someone with Strength around his Intellect level could overcome it, but a shockwave regardless.

The remaining two Magryph’s backed off, not intent on falling prey to the obviously ineffective tactic themselves. John could have sent Jack after them, but they were too fast to make that a worthwhile endeavour. ‘Let’s just hope the dungeon won’t spawn more if the old ones are still active,’ the Gamer thought and moved on.

This Instant Dungeon would usually be a pain in his sides, but for today’s goal it wasn’t too bad. Since he was doing this alone and for a Quest, the goal of clearing this Floor wasn’t to completely explore it and get every last secret it had to offer, but to clear it as quick as possible and get back to more effective forms of grinding (or to the next Quest).

After he cleared a few more Corvus Knights out and was certain that the Magryph’s would leave him alone, John sent Jack ahead to scout. He already had a pretty good idea where he had to head in order to find the boss room. The direction the clouds drifted to seemed like a pretty dead giveaway, so he followed whatever path went the same way.

Things got a bit dicey once when a Corvus Knight spawned up as a buffed up version (or a Horror, as the Advanced I.D. Settings liked to call them), but aside from that, it wasn’t too difficult. It reminded John of his first Dark Souls playthrough. Shortly after he had learned that the enemies were designed to be fair, not hard, and that he just had to give them the necessary respect, the game turned out to be surprisingly medium in its difficulty. Aside from some very much ‘designed to kill’ passages.

Thankfully, this was more Sen’s Fortress than Anor Londo, so he had to deal with less stunlock gimmicks and more positioning issues. As he was also largely immune to knockbacks, he had little to worry about. When the Magryphs had discovered they could still annoy him with non-offensive wind magic, the type that only caused gusts but nothing that sliced or was otherwise directly harmful, they became a bit more of a problem. Weathering heavy winds with his Physical Stats was completely doable though.

He found the boss platform quickly and, after 20 minutes of carefully advancing, he arrived there as well.

The boss was visible from a distance. No cage was blocking the view of what was on top of that platform. Instead, a large central tree had grown to be some sort of deadwood throne, upon which the boss resided. Around him, four Corvus Knights stood guard. Even standing, each of them was only half as tall as the seated boss.

The first issue was that there was no pathway between the island he was currently on and the boss island. Which meant that John had to rely on something else. “Well, this is going to be fun,” he mumbled, with a glance at the Magryphs still hanging around. Their count had gone back up to three, but aside from occasionally throwing gusts of winds his way, they had been of no large concern. Once he was up in the air, however, they were bound to take advantage of it.

Not like he had any other choice, though. Since the boss could fly, using an Arcana Strike on the platform would, at best, kill the Corvus Knights. The boss itself would doubtlessly be triggered by the spell and attack John wherever he was. At that point, he would have had to fight the Corvus Lord entirely without mana. Not the best path to go about this.

All he could do was make sure he had his mana topped off and then go ahead.

The Magryphs’ continued circling in the distance while John picked himself up and began hovering forwards. Being in his own arms always felt weird, no matter how practical it was. Once he was halfway over the large gap between his origin point and his destination, the flying enemies suddenly all turned into his direction.

‘Figures,’ John thought and started sending mana to Jack to burn in the name of flying quicker. Even at top speed, Jack wasn’t quick enough to outpace the Magryphs. Furthermore, they were already in perfect position to intercept him, so a confrontation was inevitable.

The first monster narrowly swooped by them, the second slammed into Jack’s upper body. John got rid of that enemy with a quick Arc Lance. Just in time for the falling-apart body to make room for the third assailant. The impact sent all three bodies downwards. Jack didn’t have Particle Skin and was, as such, completely beholden to the laws of kinetics.

The Magryph’s main goal seemed to be to separate John from his carrier. In a quick call, and to the surprise of the monster, John decided to oblige. Throwing himself with Jack as best he could, he fell. They were still a good means above the clouds . While his double finished off the second Magryph, the Gamer waved his arms to fall forwards as best he could. He would have missed the boss platform by a good eight metres, were it not for Shifting Momentum.

One moment he was falling towards the clouds, the other he stood firmly on the craggy stone platform. He still felt the shock of the fall in his legs; the impact was there regardless of the way he had come to contact with the ground.

Immediately, one of the Corvus Knights came running forwards. He was fast, but his movements were predictable. John sidestepped the thrust, grabbed the arm and executed a seamless throw over his shoulder. The monster was sent flying over the edge. John heard something behind himself, saw it through Jack’s eyes and immediately dived to the side. The ground shook, a massive halbert cleaving into the stone. Much like the swords, most of it appeared like an oversized quill. Only the head was some sort of black crystal, taking the shape of an axe, a spike and a hook, all conjoined into one formation.

The Corvus Lord raised his weapon and let out a series of caws. Not the most intimidating of war cries John had ever heard, but it did the job for the monster’s subordinates. The third Magryph rose into view again, John splitting his attention to deal with it and the three Corvus Knights at the same time.

Jack extended his hand, a purple ball forming in his palm. Taking the three swipes directed at him willingly, John sacrificed his mana in favour of an attacking opportunity. The Magryph rose past Jack, to observe the situation, robbing him of a clear shot. The Arc Lance continued to charge instead. John crushed the skull of one of the Corvus Knight’s with another left hook, a winning strategy that had no need to be changed. Having decided on its target, the Magryph dove down, now past Jack. A gamble that didn’t pay off for the monster, as a sudden Mana Blade turned its path into a laser cutter, more reliable than an Arc Lance.

As ash and dust rained down on John, he used a newly gained stack of Shifting Momentum to carry himself forwards, escaping the next two strikes from the Corvus Knights. They turned their gaze inland, away from Jack. One of them paid with its head for that, as the still-charging Arc Lance was unleashed at the easy target.

John had also miscalculated slightly. The Corvus Lord reacted to his teleportation quicker than he had anticipated. Instead of a confused boss, the Gamer was met with giant talons gripping him. He was raised and smashed into the floor. Particle Skin’s shockwave charged and unloaded, breaking him free but taking the last of his available mana.

The good news was that he was at two stacks of Arcane Whisper, so he regenerated 55 MP per second. It could have been more, had he not decided to leave all the elementals back at base in their corporeal forms. A slight inefficiency that he felt confident enough wouldn’t matter by the end of this. To regain some mana for offensive purposes, John deactivated Particle Skin.

John rolled to the side before he could get grabbed again. Sure, he rolled right into the last Corvus Knight, but a stabbed shoulder was preferable. Especially since Jack was right on the scene and kicked the monster in the back. That didn’t quite do the job, but it sent the raven noble off balance. With two quick moves, John pulled the sword out of his right shoulder and then grabbed the thin leg of his opponent. A strong tug, and the Corvus Knight fell.

Jack landed, stomped on the monster’s face and took out the last add that way. Simultaneously, John got back on his feet. Just in time to jump over a low swipe of the massive halberd. At the height of his jump, he was picked up by Jack, and both rose up into the air.

‘This would be so much easier if I got the necessary Rising Destruction stacks,’ the Gamer thought. With that, he could have just nuked the boss. He still could have, but that would put it on a 24-hour cooldown. Arcana Strike was also an option, but he didn’t think he would profit from using it with his current mana. It would take too long to charge into anything meaningful.

He didn’t see many other ways to win this though.

The Corvus Lord beat its massive wings. Not to fly, more as support to his jump. First his beak snapped at John’s feet, a narrow miss, then the point of the halberd threatened to impale the Gamer. It would have succeeded as well, had he not activated the Vergopunk Shoes to create a sudden explosion of steam that carried him and Jack further upwards and out of range.

Jack let go of his original, and John dropped down on the four-metre goliath of a humanoid. He landed on the Corvus Lord’s shoulder; his impact accompanied with a punch. It felt like he was punching a bag of wool, all of the energy was lost in the fluffy feathers. If that hadn’t been the big obstacle to his last easy avenue to victory, he would have thought it to be quite comforting to scratch.

As it was, the Corvus Lord's hand was coming to swipe the Gamer off its shoulder. “Alright, fine!” John shouted, more to himself than the boss. He raised his left and activated Arcane Ascension. Any Mana Blade he would have summoned with his current mana would have been too short to even reach the enemy. With Arcane Ascension, that wasn’t an issue. 35’000 mana worth of Mana Blade poured out, ripping through the boss’ eye socket and the presumed brain behind. Just to make things extra certain, John moved his arm slightly downwards, using the whole 3 seconds to create as large a wound as he could.

The boss soon faded under him, and John had to catch himself once more. “That’s a 30-minute cooldown turned 24 hours,” he grumbled. Without the environmental destruction caused by his elementals (primarily Salamander), stacking up Purgatory was a lot harder than he had thought. “At least I did it,” he sighed as he put his feet on the ground.