Level: 20

Experience: BLOCKED

Healing: 520/520

Stamina: 630/630

Mana: 890/890

Class: Tier 1, Adult Human (Blue)

Effect: Increased Skill Acquisition (+10%), Increased Learning Speed (+10%), Increased Stat Gain (+10%), Increased Physical Gain (+10%), Increased Mental Gain (+10%)

Vitality: 52 ()

Endurance: 63 ()

Strength: 42+20 ()

Agility: 50+20 ()

Perception: 42 (+2)

Mind: 170 (+2)

Magic: 69+20 (+3)

Focus: 62+20 (+1)

Free Points: 200

Tier 1 (13) (35+): Dwarven Etiquette (100), Eldarin Etiquette (100), Elven Etiquette (100), Dancing Skills (100), Pulse Strike (97), Drawing Skills (96+2), Wrestling Skills (95), Dagger Skills (93+3), Pugilist Skills (88+4), Bow Skills (79), Whip Skills (57), Stillness (50+3), Driving (39)

Tier 2 (70) (15+): Mana Sense (100), Danger Sense (100), System Sense (100), Soul Sense (100), Speed Reading (100), Mana Vision (95+2), Focused Monster Processing Skills (84+3), Darkness Vision (82+1), Critical Thinking (81+1), Focused Deflection (76+1), Shadow Vision (76+2), Demonic Lore (65+8), Focused Dodge (62+2), Time Sense (60

+2), Monster Analysis (60+4), Spatial Sense (57+5), Depth Sense (52+8), Focused Combat Tactics (52+8), Trap Detection (51+1), Focused Shield Skills (44+1), Focused Throw (44+4), Poison Sense (42), Sweet Teeth (42), Focused Cooking Skills (41+2), Focused Rage (40+3), Dwarven Lore (36), Eldarin Lore (36), High Vostner Lore (36), Focused Spear Skills (35+2), Elven Lore (34), Low Vostner Lore (30), Focused Axe Skills (20), Soul Vision (10+4), Focused Armor (7+4), Focused Speech (2+1)

Tier 3 (123) (5+): Empowered Will (100), Mana Manipulation (100), Fear Resistance (88+3), Empowered Gestures (87+3), Eldarin Runes (81+1), Light Orb (80), Empowered Meditation (70+2), Silent Casting (69+2), Skill Control (69+2), Hidden Status (69+2), Lightning Resistance (61), Cold Resistance (65+4), Clean (60+2), Fireball (58+3), Flame Blade (55+2), Ward (55+2), Empowered Breathing (50+4), Empowered Writing (47+3), Sleep (43+1), Empowered Running (45+3), Lightning Beam (45+5), System Control (42+2), Physical Resistance (36+1), Status Analysis (36+1), Arcane Resistance (32), Empowered Sword Skills (30+6), Cure (28), Soul Strike (28+4), Dwarven Runes (27+1), Elven Runes (27+1), Calculus (24), Advanced Geometry (24), Empowered Stealth (22+2), Demonic Runes (21+1), Social Resistance (20), High Vostner Runes (20), Low Vostner Runes (18), Alchemy (12+2), Sonic Resistance (10), Empowered Toughness (8+2), Soul Shield (8+4), Demonic Hunter (5+5)

Tier 4 (36): Experience Siphon(C), Gnomish Silence(C), Soul Link (81+7), Poison Immunity (35), Multi-Casting (29+2), Vibration Blade (23+2), Soul Immunity (22+3), Pain Immunity (13), Healing Immunity (6), Fire Immunity (5), Ritualism (4)

Equipment

Gloves: Gloves of Magic (T3) (+20 Magic)

Boots: Boots of Agility (T3) (+20 Agility)

Head: Helmet of Clarity (T3) (+20 Focus)

Body: Heavy Armor of Stability (T3) (+20 Strength)

Ring 1: Ring of Alarm (T3) (Gem turns red if other Mana interferes)

Ring 2: Ring of Force Deflection (T3) (Reduces impact force by a quarter)

Amulet/Bracelet: Experience Blocker (T4) (Prevents all experience gain for primary level)

Weapon 1: Reforged Beginner’s Blade (T3) (Sharpness-T4, Durability-T3, Self-Repair-T2)

Equipment 1: Runic Writing Set (T3) (Write Runes T3 and Below)

Equipment 2: Monster Processing Set (T3) (Processes Level 150 and Below)

Equipment 3: Ring of Remote Awareness (T3) (Allows for remote viewing from companion ring)

Equipment 4: Wand of Explosion (T3) (Rechargeable, single-use wand with T4 Explosion spell skill)

Winged Serpent

Level: 59/462

Experience: 876/50,328

Healing: 1,400/1,400 Stamina: 700/700 Mana: 1,800/1,800

Class: Tier 2, Winged Serpent (Green)

Effect: Alchemy Skill Growth (+10%), Alchemic Skill Power (+400%)

Vitality: 140 (+8)

Endurance: 70 (+8)

Strength: 87 (+8)

Agility: 119 (+8)

Perception: 73 (+8)

Mind: 131 (+8)

Magic: 180 (+24)

Focus: 80 (+8)

Free Points: 0

T1:Spark (1+1)

T2: Alchemic Vision (100), Danger Sense (100+5), Health Sense (31+5), Stamina Sense (29+5), Focused Dodge (12+12), Heat Vision (7+7), Shadow Vision (5+5), Blood Sense (3+3), Focused Smell (1+1)

T3: Cure (100), Purify (100), Refresh (100), Alchemy (87+4), Poison Insight (78+3), Fire Insight (49+2), Cold Insight (46+2), Arcane Insight (44+2), Spatial Insight (37+2), Soul Insight (27+2), Healing Insight (19+2), Anatomy Insight (15+2), Atmospheric Insight (12+2), Empowered Bite (13+8), Empowered Toxic Breath (11+8), Ward (9+9), Harden Scales (4+4)

T4: Soul Link (81+7), Flight (65+3), Alchemic Bounded Field (63+3), Greater Cure (36+2), Greater Purify (29+2), Greater Refresh (26+2), Petrifying Gaze (25+4), Fear Aura (3+3)

Ozy had finally woken up and was noticeably larger. While it was a few days before I would normally check our status, I couldn’t resist.

I looked at his status first.

He had gained several new skills. The tier 4 skill, Fear Aura, was surprising to a certain degree, but the demon had something like that. At least I thought so. I had leveled up Fear Resistance from his attacks.

There was no long-range tracking skill, unfortunately. A tier 4 Aura skill, tier 3 defensive skills, and tier 2 sensory skills. The tier 1 skill, Spark wasn’t a spell skill. I could tell that much through our bond.

It was something else. Ozy was more alert and focused on his surroundings and on me. His red eyes gazed at me. My best guess was that it meant a spark of sentience. Would he eventually transform into a demon? I had no idea. Demons were not common.

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While I had run into them on the beastkin continent and my mother had died to one, they weren’t things that were running around or researched on the Eldarin continent. I was probably the foremost expert alive on demons, having fought and killed one.

That also meant that a demon core was unique. Ozy had eaten other monster cores before, but something like this had never occurred.

I also looked at the tier 3 skill I had gotten. I hadn’t even felt this skill latch onto my soul, which made me frown. Demonic Hunter sounded like an amazing skill, but I couldn’t tell what it did, which was unusual. With most skills, I could sense what they could do with my supporting skills.

But Demonic Hunter seemed more like a title or honor, not a skill. It still took up space in my soul, which was frustrating. There were other skills that I wanted. It wasn’t a skill I could level unless it involved hunting demons. No matter how much I focused on it, I couldn’t pick up anything from the skill.

I had gained 413 skill levels, which was decent. It was nice, but nothing to get me overly excited. I was far more interested in my plan to break out of this section of the dungeon. Now that Ozy was awake and more powerful, it was time to act.

Ozy remained in the passage chamber as we cleared chambers moving away from it. I could feel the link with Ozy at a distance and a vague sense of his position in relation to mine.

As we went through a tunnel to another chamber, the monsters were from the 6^th layer, like they were supposed to be. I could feel the Soul Bond skill straining against an invisible pressure at this distance.

We entered a tunnel, and the pressure increased, but it wasn’t unbearable. We ran into more 6^th layer monsters and cleared them out. I called Ozy back towards me. The pressure reduced as he quickly flew through the dungeon towards me.

I focused on my Depths Sense skill. I could feel a faint trace of the passage in the distance. As Ozy came towards me, that feeling shifted, and my Depths Sense locked onto a new direction.

Once Ozy returned, we began heading in that direction, and I let out a sigh of relief. We were no longer stuck on that one damaged passage, since we kept running into 6^th layer monsters.

Ozy’s combat ability had greatly improved. Especially his Alchemic Bonded field. His class going up a color gave him a tremendous amount of power. Previously, altering space would just slow a monster down. Now it could lock them into place.

If we fought, I would probably win, since he lacked staying power and his Flight consumed Mana. He had a lot of strong burst damage, but in a prolonged fight he would struggle.

That was a big reason I had a melee combat option. Spamming spell skills was stronger and a great way to kill things, but if you couldn’t fight in melee once your Mana ran out, you would be asking for death.

My Tier 3 Empowered Sword Skills were lagging behind other core skills. I was more focused on runes than on combat. The melee combat I was engaged in didn’t push me. Like the fight with the demon. I had ended it with the wand, not by fighting.

If I had fought it with my sword for a long time, putting my life on the line, I would have leveled up the skill a lot more. But it wasn’t worth the risk. It was improving, albeit slowly, for a core skill.

I wanted to get Slice and other sword-specific spell skills, but if I worked on them now, my sword skill would level up even slower. That was why it was important to maximize Empowered Sword Skills first before considering other supporting weapon skills.

As for the rest of my weapon skills, I had spare weapons in my spatial pouch and occasionally rotated through them with weaker monsters. But that didn’t level them up much.

That was going to be a long-term problem. My weapon skills had fallen behind where they should be. I was supposed to get Weapons Mastery, a tier 4 skill, combining several tiers 3 empowered weapon skills. That and Runic Mastery were critical long-term skills for my build.

My mother had emphasized this, and she was right. One for melee and one for more complicated situations, with spell skills filling out the range requirement. I only had to protect Lanner against large groups of monsters.

If I were by myself, then I could fight in melee with more ease. But now that I had an actual team member, I couldn’t adjust my fighting style that much for safety reasons.

He wasn’t slowing me down, but he was affecting how I would fight and clear the monsters in the dungeon. Which would cause long-term issues as the weapons skills would become harder to level up later on through fighting.

It was something I could see coming, but there was nothing I could do to fix the issue. Once I returned to the Eldarin continent, I would have to spend some time with some weapon-focused tutors to improve them or do some solo descents with just that weapon in question.

I had to push myself to see how far I could go with each weapon and maximize it before I ascended to take a break and switch out to increase their level. It was just that even after using a sword for so long; the skill hadn’t maximized at tier 3.

Once I was back, then I could worry about fixing my build and skills. There was a lot more work I had to put in.

“We did it,” I said with a smile once we stopped for the night.

“So, we descend now?” Lanner asked as I prepared our dinner.

“Yes. There is no point in going to the surface. Now that we can break free of that one passage that had trapped us, we can do it again. Ozymandius, you did a great job,” I said to my pet.

He lifted his head and flicked his tongue at me before going back to rest on his cushion.

“Can’t you use the same technique to get us to your Eldarin continent?”

“The situations are completely different. The passage is a single chamber, but we are siloed in a completely different section. For the passage, we just had to move away. But I have no idea which way we would need to go and how to keep the dungeon from turning us around.”

It was unfortunate, but the trick to break free of that damaged passage here in the dungeon wouldn’t work for getting back home. It was a clever idea, but it wasn’t clever enough. Once the distance grew too much, the dungeon might have done things.

Like it could have removed the chambers between us, and then I would have had no idea how finding Ozy would work at such a distance. I knew from my mother that the deeper one went into the dungeon, the more limited one’s sensory skills became because of the density of Mana in the air.

“So, we just keep fighting monsters?”

“Yes, work on improving your skills. This is what the life of an adventurer is like. What did you think it would be like?”

“Something…more?”

I shook my head. “Get used to this for years at a time. Fighting and killing monsters. That is the goal. The passage we ran across was something dangerous down here, but we handled it.”

Lanner nodded, but I could tell he was buckling under the mental pressure.

That is why people needed spa days and sweets. Most people would break. The rare few who did break but put themselves back together were like my mother. In the past, I would have said she had never broken, but now, looking back, I could tell. She might have been insanely strong, but her heart was fragile in so many ways.

I served up our dinner stew. It wasn’t great, but it was warm and filling. The beastkin didn’t have a wide range of culinary options to pick from.

“You didn’t want to check out the surface?”

“You saw it for yourself. The only things up there are snow, rocks, and hostile beastkin. Remaining down here is the best option. And I am working on a way to get us out of this section of the dungeon. I will just need more skill levels, more time.”

Lanner had more ideas, like using runes, a long rope, and other nonsensical ideas. While I appreciated his thoughts, they weren’t useful. There was another reason I didn’t want to go to the surface.

We were most likely untethered to a specific entrance passage now. Since we had run into that damaged passage and got away from it, the chances of ending up somewhere else were much higher.

Descending, fighting for a while before coming back up to the surface would hopefully put us somewhere completely different. At least, that was my hope. Ascent and descending took time. We could spend the time doing other things more effectively.

But it was worth trying at least once in my mind. Once we got down to the 11^th layer, I would have us try to move away from the passage we came down and find another to go back up. Normally, a series of passages would direct someone back to their entrance, but accidents occasionally happened.

That was why the Adventurer’s Guild was across the entire continent, even between different nations and races. Like the beastkin, no one wanted to return to a hostile place. If that were true, only the insane would enter the dungeon. Then legends would emerge to fight.

Apart from the Eldarin and Beastkin, the Great Ocean concealed other continents. I believed it was impossible to cross, yet the Eldarin Empire had done so.

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