My Level Zero System

For the first time, Kain entered the second floor of a medium-sized Dungeon.

Information about the second floor, even at the Adventurer Guild in Whesling, consisted of only a few brief descriptions. It wasn't because no one had explored it before, but because this area was an inverted version of the Dungeon's first floor.

This meant that the first place Kain set foot on the second floor was a swamp area.

Kain stood on a stone path that stretched forward, crossing a moss-green swamp covered with floating algae. This wasn't the only stone path; it branched off into various other routes, not just straight but sometimes zig-zagging, creating a peculiar, overlapping structure.

In this world, the larger a Dungeon's size, the more... unwelcome it was. Partially because the danger level increased, which went without saying, and partially because most people didn't feel comfortable living inside a Dungeon for extended periods.

Small and micro-sized Dungeons attracted the most Adventurers. In medium-sized Dungeons, those who entered usually only roamed the first and second floors. The reason it's known that medium-sized Dungeons have a maximum of ten floors is due to individuals with special functions, such as scholar Magus from the Tower of Magus, who deliberately explored to investigate and record, rather than regular adventurers completing a Dungeon.

This was primarily due to profitability; the longer a journey had to be, the higher the costs. Secondly, there was the difficulty, of course.

As for large-sized Dungeons... currently, only five floors have been recorded in large-sized Dungeons, and even now, no one knows how many floors a large-sized Dungeon can have in total.

Adding to Katie's previous hint about Grand-class Magus, beings at the pinnacle of Magus, having an unwritten rule against entering large-sized Dungeons, shrouded the Dungeon—something once thought to be well-understood—in many more layers of mystery.

Thinking about this, Kain couldn't help but recall the strange experiences he had encountered in various Dungeons. From monsters gradually awakening subjective consciousness to seemingly immutable rules within Dungeons slowly shattering.

"Truly concerning..." Kain murmured. With his mind, this was hard to ignore.

Especially his last confrontation with the humanoid "monster king." Its power was formidable, but Kain wasn't too worried, as he could now defeat it without expending too much effort. What was terrifying was the intelligence it displayed; though newly born, that monster's ability to develop strategic thinking grew incredibly fast, almost catching up to Kain at the time.

Fortunately, he still won.

"Well, I still need to focus on getting stronger first..."

Temporarily setting aside his worries, Kain took a deep breath and activated the magic skill [Seek].

[Seek], a magic skill belonging to [Spirit Magic], allows the user to detect the spiritual wavelengths of surrounding creatures.

This swamp terrain didn't require [Imitative] to recreate its structure; he only needed to locate the monsters.

"Quite a lot, huh?" Kain smacked his lips. It seemed this place wasn't too different from the Slime and Zombie swamp on the first floor. However, the type of monster sleeping beneath the swamp this time was Skeletons.

Many Skeletons.

[Thunder Descend]

And then, a lightning bolt, pulled down by Kain using his magic skill, directly overturned a section of the swamp. Very soon after, the rattling sound of bones clashing together appeared, and not just in isolation; the sound emerged from all directions, on a large scale.

If other Adventurers saw this scene, they would absolutely curse Kain as "crazy." Indeed, to them, only a madman would provoke the sleeping Skeletons in this swamp.

Skeleton, Zombie, Slime – three of the most common monster types in the Dungeon ecosystem, and also the ones people found most annoying. Not because these creatures were strong, as they were inherently the weakest. The reason people were annoyed by these three monster types was because they were... too useless, offering no valuable resources whatsoever.

If a formation was well-organized, a high-level Adventurer party could defend against and eliminate an army of Zombies or Skeletons, but the profit would be zero, so no one was foolish enough to do that.

Zombies were one thing; these wandering monsters were easy to provoke, and combat was hard to avoid. But if Skeletons were sleeping, all one had to do was not wake them. Furthermore, unlike Zombies, Skeletons were entirely made of bones, extremely difficult to kill with only melee weapons. And after killing them, one would still have to maintain their weapons, as the sword blade might be bent or warped.

Therefore, Kain's actions, in the eyes of ordinary people, were no different from those of a madman.

However, for Kain, the swarming monsters approaching were a gold mine.

Before the monsters could even reach him, lightning bolts began to appear around Kain, pulled from thin air.

[Thunder Summon].

Although [Thunder Magic] had advanced to mid-class, Kain did not forget the foundational aspects of this magic system.

Compared to [Thunder Descend], using [Thunder Summon] in this situation was more convenient. The summoned lightning bolts would not be scattered haphazardly; under Kain's control, they quickly formed a network of electricity.

From [Thunder Navigation] to [Thunder Control], Kain's ability to manipulate lightning bolts had significantly strengthened, but this was merely in terms of ease. To utilize it effectively, he still had to use his mind to create patterns.

For example, this electrical network.

What exactly is this lightning network? Is it just a few lightning bolts Kain patched together into a space he could control?

Of course not.

Or rather, that was only the initial stage when Kain first developed this chained magic skill combination.

Now, under Kain's hands, the lightning network was complete.

Kain constructed it with a spiderweb-like structure, but it was a multi-layered web stacked upon itself, capable of rotating both horizontally and vertically. He could freely add layers to increase its intensity, or expand the distance between layers to cover a wider overall range.

So, why would he do this? To attack multiple enemies at once, wouldn't it be simpler to just activate numerous magic skills around him and fire away?

If anyone not familiar with Kain were to ask him this question, he'd think they were foolish. But if someone close to him asked, Kain would answer as follows:

The issue here is efficiency, time, and convenience.

Regarding efficiency, a magic skill requires two steps to activate successfully. The first step is controlling it to create the lightning source. The second step is controlling it to mold that lightning source into the desired attack. With the lightning network, the lightning source is already present, so Kain only needs to perform the second step of the process to continuously unleash magic skills.

As for time, that goes without saying; increased efficiency is equivalent to reduced time. And in combat, time is an invaluable factor.

Concerning convenience, this aspect might seem simple, but Kain didn't think so.

Revisiting the original question: if he just wanted to attack multiple targets around him simultaneously, why wouldn't Kain simply create many magic skills around him and activate them?

To answer this question, Kain would use a piece of paper as an example.

Imagine placing a dot in the center of the paper, representing his position. Then, randomly place many dots around the center, representing the enemies surrounding him.

When Kain uses the traditional method, which is creating many magic skills around him and then activating them, on the paper, this would be equivalent to many arrows spewing forth from the central origin point, aiming directly at the other points around it, which symbolize the monsters.

This method is certainly effective; otherwise, it wouldn't be used by so many Magus. Kain didn't deny that.

But what if there are more enemies? And multiple layers of enemies?

On the paper, besides the central point representing him and the surrounding layer of enemies, Kain continued to add a second layer of enemies encircling the first.

At this point, if he wanted to eliminate all enemies using the old method, Kain would have to repeat the process twice. This would cause the number of arrows spewing from the center to overlap.

He could still handle it, but what if there was a third layer of enemies, a fourth layer?

That's not even mentioning that this is just an ideal, hypothetical scenario. Enemies almost certainly wouldn't arrange themselves neatly in layers for Kain to systematically eliminate them. Their attacks would be far more intense, and having to repeatedly go through multiple magic skill activation processes would be like slowly pushing himself toward death.

That's precisely why the lightning network was created.

Now, with the same piece of paper, take the central point representing Kain's position, but now draw evenly spaced vertical and horizontal lines across the paper. These will symbolize Kain's lightning network.

Each intersection point of the vertical and horizontal lines is a point from which magic can be released.

Now, set up three layers of enemies surrounding Kain in random positions. What will happen?

That's right, for each corresponding enemy, the corresponding intersection point—meaning the intersection point closest to that enemy—will activate a magic skill to attack that enemy. It no longer needs Kain, the center, to activate it from there. And this happens across the entire paper, which also means the entire battlefield. Each intersection point releasing a magic skill only needs to deal with a few enemies, but all intersection points together will deal with all enemies. Represented on the map, these intersection points will have a few arrows pointing towards the nearest enemies. This way, Kain, at the center, doesn't have to bear the entire burden anymore.