“Stop,” Jessica said, and I immediately stopped moving. She had adjusted our formation, so I was in front after a month down in the dungeon. “Look around, what do you see?” she asked me.
I looked carefully, trying to spot anything, but I couldn’t see anything. Even with my improving vision, it was still quite dark, which made everything look black and white. It made it hard to notice small details.
While it was tempting to ask Jessica for help, I knew she wanted me to check the area carefully, otherwise she wouldn’t have said anything. I carefully scanned the floor first but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Checking the walls, nothing either. But the current tunnel had numerous imperfections, which created shadows, making it hard to see a trap trigger.
Very slowly, I moved my hand forward and Jessica didn’t say anything. When my Danger Sense triggered, I paused and looked carefully around my hand. I saw a thin string going through the air.
“The thin line of string through the air,” I said.
“It is a wire. In these upper layers, it is weak like string, but if you rush down levels, you can cut yourself on them, if you aren’t careful. The best way to disarm a trap in the upper layers is to trigger it ahead of you. Once you get past the 10th layer in the dungeon, it can get more complicated than that, but for now, nothing to worry about. There is a tier 3 Trap Disarming skill, but you need Trap Detection at a high level first before even thinking of that,” she explained as I backed up.
“The dungeon just makes all of this?” I asked. It seemed weird.
“The traps, layout, monsters, and the occasional treasure. To see a treasure on the first layer here is beyond rare. They mainly start showing up at the 5th layer.” Jessica drew and swung her blade, so fast, I couldn’t see it. The wire broke and a large stone block detached from the ceiling and fell into the middle of the tunnel just in front of me.
“The wire didn’t even go up that way,” I said, confused.
“Traps are complicated and lethal. That is why Trap Detection is so important. If you can’t figure out a trap, don’t be afraid to backtrack,” Jessica explained.
“And the dungeon won’t change?” I asked as I continued onwards around the fallen stone.
“Never when someone is near, but most sensory skills and the Perception stat helping them are stifled in the dungeon at long range. It gets worse the deeper you go. I can sense everything clearly out 500 meters on this level and another 1,500 meters vaguely. Occasionally when we move back and forth, I have the vague sense something has moved at the edge of my range,” she explained.
“Since the dungeon is everywhere, why not just dig straight down?” I asked.
“You really are full of questions. Last two for today. The dungeon is everywhere, but the entrances on the surface of our world have been curated as much as possible. Occasionally one opens up in the wilderness, releasing a bunch of monsters. As for digging, there is weird spatial effects between each layer in the dungeon.” I was moving slowly while I listened. That was probably why she was cutting down on my questions.
“Adventurers have tried to tunnel next to a staircase, the spatial effects ripped them apart. Now, no one risks trying to go between levels outside of the set paths. And before you ask, the dungeon gets more complicated the deeper you go. Just like the traps,” she finished her explanation.
I had more questions of course. How was the Last Bastion set up if the dungeon were everywhere? Were they bigger than the surface of our world? I held back the questions while I focused back on the tunnel we were moving through. I wanted to try and spot the next trap, even if they were incredibly rare.
That seemed like the kind of achievement to get me the tier 2 skill. The higher the tier of the skill, the harder it was to get it in one’s status. The system had hidden prerequisites. For tier 1 skills, it was about doing the task while focusing. This requirement increased the higher the tier, which was related to mana use.
My previous tutor hadn’t gone into depth on this. Teaching mana skills at a young age came with a lot of risk, since they tended to be higher tier. Mana Sense was the safest and easiest mana related skill I could get early on. I had asked Jessica about leveling it, but she told me not to worry about leveling tier 2 skills for right now.
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“You are still too young and weak to get higher tiered skills safely. Focused leveling up tier 2 skills will put too much pressure on your soul. Better to focus on the basics and build up a strong foundation.” I didn’t like the explanation, but it made sense. I wanted to be able to use spells like Jessica did, but there were safety concerns.
I would also focus on leveling up the spells in exclusion to other skills. I knew this, Jessica knew this, and my mother probably knew this as well. Magic was amazing. Just a single spoken command and a gesture.
The spell Clean was too useful to ignore. Also, Light Orb, which made training my mental stats each night easier. It was impossible to tell night and day down in the dungeon without Jessica’s guidance.
She had also told me that there were more natural light sources the deeper one went as the level of ambient Mana increased. But it was better to depend on one’s own skills rather than what the dungeon gave. It was too easy to be tricked in the lower levels.
The next set of monsters we came across were blue slimes, surrounding a shallow pool of water. “A weak magical type monster,” Squire Jessica said.
“Magical type?” I asked.
“They rely on a special skill more than their physical nature to kill adventurers. What do you think the problem is?” she asked. I focused on the blobs in front of me and considered the question carefully.
“They will either shoot some goo or can’t be easily damaged with physical attacks,” I replied.
“Nothing is completely immune at the higher layers to any damage type, but in the lower layers you can encounter monsters with a specific immunity. For the slimes, what do you think is the best way to fight them?” she asked another question.
“Bow and arrow, at a distance. That way any magical skills can’t reach me,” I replied, and she nodded.
“Good choice. You are getting better at this. Slimes are like cups. You need to shatter the outside of the cup to kill them. Stronger slimes can have their outsides heal more quickly. Normally I would suggest fire based spells since they tend towards water. Ah, don’t worry, we can discuss the elemental chart another time,” she said while she got out a bow and quiver that were my size.
I had the strength to pull back the string at least. Letting out a breath, I shot an arrow at the nearest slime. It hit the top of the slime at a slight angle and bounced off. The slime began to jiggle its way towards me along with the other slimes. I pulled out another arrow and fired again, aiming lower.
This time I struck the slime in its center. Fluid gushed out dissolving the arrow and part of the floor. That was nasty. I fired off more arrows, killing off seven more slimes with ten more arrows. I needed to work on my Bow Skills.
“You need to work on your Bow Skills,” Jessica said, echoing my thoughts.
“I know. It was hard to hit them since they are so small, smaller than my head,” I replied, and she nodded.
“Small monsters are annoying like that. Now for the processing. Magical type monsters, especially those with weird body effects mean you need to be careful. While the effects of their melting will have gone way down after their death, some of it lingers. If you try to get their cores with your raw hands, they won’t disintegrate but will start bleeding. The best tool are gloves,” she said and pulled out a pair that were slightly larger than was comfortable.
“They are a bit bigger so you can grow into them. They are rated up to the 5th layer of the dungeon. Don’t use them beyond that. Always replace your pair after ten years. If the enchantments fail, well losing a hand is very bad and costly to fix,” she explained, and I nodded at this while putting them on.
I wasn’t about to make stupid mistakes like that and was grateful for Squire Jessica explaining all these little details. I knew I was incredibly lucky. Compared to most other people, who could only learn as they went along or from the occasional tidbit based on by their seniors.
“Does the Adventurer Guild teach this?” I asked.
“They have a book explaining best practices. Most people never read all of it. It is quite boring and dense. Having people die down here is a waste. While most adventurers won’t get their hands held like I am doing for you, they aren’t left completely clueless,” she explained. I nodded at this, feeling a small sense of relief.
The pouch with the tiny finger tip sized red cores was filling up. While it might be worth a lot to others in terms of coin, for me it was more about the sense of accomplishment. With my mother and father, I had nothing to worry about.
While my mother could earn a lot of money and could have probably afforded a child on her own, my father did more than just provide the coin, he tried to provide a safe environment for me to grow up in. Even if he had recently failed, I was sure there were other threats out there looking to take me out to strike at my mother. It allowed me a place to grow up and progress my skills in relative safety.
I also knew that my mother planned on spending more resources on me. While she hadn’t said this exactly, she had said she was looking for more treasures for me in the dungeon. If I didn’t become the absolute best, I would feel like I had wasted this opportunity that no one else had.
It was hard being so smart. While other kids were playing, having fun, I was down in the dungeon fighting monsters to improve my skills. But I had made my choice, and I wasn’t going to change it now. I was going to become a spellblade and a named supreme legend at the same immense height as my mother.
This wasn’t an immediate decision, but one that had grown the longer I had remained in the dungeon, fighting, getting stronger. I would keep pushing and see how far someone like me could go and the view was like from such a lofty vantage point. What did my mother see at her lofty level?