We moved away from the direct route between the entrance and boss chamber, to get a bit of experience working together. The first few floors didn't involve much in the way of teamwork because the monsters went down in one hit. Floor four and five got a little more interesting, and it quickly became obvious how much Xander's party had been covering for me in those first days of my training. It was odd how much better that party was at working with an inexperienced delver like me, given that they weren't that much higher level than Vyre's team. His members were all at sixteen or above, and Vyre himself was at nineteen, only one away from rank three. Maybe Xander was often tasked with training newbies? I would have expected him to be a less oversightful teacher if so. Some other more advanced training task, perhaps?

Fortunately, these floors were rather low level for Vyre's squad, and my missteps didn't cause any problems. By the time we finished floors six and seven, we'd grown more accustomed to working together. I even picked up a wisdom increment, and a level of [Dismantling] from stripping out cores. That skill had been rather short on levels, probably because of the small range of monsters I'd worked on and parts I'd extracted.

I'd thought their party composition unbalanced the first time I'd seen them, and watching them in action made it even more obvious. All four of them were melee fighters, two with the [Warrior] class and two with [Scout]. No magic, no healing, and while one scout carried a bow, I didn't see anyone make ranged attacks on this run. All four were dexterity-heavy dodgers, with no-one carrying a shield or using obvious defensive skills. It seemed to work though; they didn't struggle at all, not taking a single scratch by the time we made it to floor eight.

Both scouts could outright see the assassins, presumably using [Monster Perception], and even the fighters knew when they were around from their smell, but we decided on the setup that I would be the one to detect and fight them, and they would only say something if I missed one and let it get within five metres of us. I'd been attempting to rotate mana around myself while walking the whole time in the dungeon, like I was standing in the eye of a very sedate cyclone, and by now I'd got the hang of it. As impressive as it sounded, that was only the easy bit. Now came the next part of trying to spot the goblins hiding in my wind. And then the next next part of trying to actually fight them in that condition...

We picked off a couple of rooms of orcs before I spotted my first goblin. Despite the mana flows I was causing, there was a patch of my [Mana Perception] that looked exactly like the normal dungeon background. I sprang into action, launching a heavy attack with [Far Reach]. It failed to impact, not because I'd misjudged the position of the goblin, but because my [Far Reach] didn't emerge where I'd aimed. The goblin, alerted that it had been spotted, pounced.

Acting on instinct, I attempted to dodge with [Far Step], but even before I'd landed I knew it had gone wrong. The floor wasn't where it should have been, and I'd emerged a metre higher than I'd aimed. My landing was messy, twisting my ankle and leaving me stumbling. I also hadn't taken the distance from the goblin that I'd intended, and I could perceive it starting a swing. Bluvre rushed forwards, but he wouldn't make it in time. I was still off balance and had no hope of dodging, so I did my best to parry, my inability to see the goblin leaving me to guess on the positioning. There was a clang as something glanced off my staff, before a burning sensation on my side made it obvious I'd only been partially successful. Before the goblin could move again, Bluvre stabbed it through the neck, killing it instantly.

"What the hell was that?" Vyre complained. "You were a complete mess! Did you suddenly forget how to fight?"

A good question. What was that? "My spells didn't work properly. I have no idea what happened. These assassins can't interfere with magic, can they?"

"No, not at all."

Then what went wrong? Neither of my spatial spells emerged where I wanted them to, like they'd been pushed. Or maybe... Like they'd been blown off course. The goblins may not interfere with magic, but I did. Had my miniature mana tornado messed up my own magic? I'd been stupid again. Of course mana control could mess up spells; I'd already used that fact as a defence in the tournament! I did a couple of experiments and confirmed it was my own fault. Dammit, I'd practised 'seeing' with my mana on the higher floors, but I hadn't tried using my spatial magic at the same time.

"It looks like I can't use spatial magic while keeping watch for the assassins. Now I'm really glad I didn't risk doing this solo," I admitted, before a flare-up of the burning sensation along my right side reminded me that I'd paid a price for that fight. The pain was spreading quickly, making it obvious that I'd taken a dose of poison. I reached to the hooks at my waist for an antidote. This was going to be an expensive lesson, if I kept messing up like that. Xander wasn't kidding when he said this stuff was hard to purge; not only was it more difficult to cure with skills than the monster levels might suggest, but potions would gradually lose effectiveness against it too, with each poisoning needing a higher dose to cure. It would take a few days of not being exposed to the poison to reverse that effect.

Trying to fight the assassins without spatial magic was tough. Without the advantage of range, and without being able to properly see their movements, I ended up taking another two cuts. Running low on antidote, I tried switching up my strategy, and instead of giving up on spatial magic I tried stilling the mana briefly each time I needed to make an attack. That took some getting used to, leading to a fourth dose of poison, but after a few attempts I found myself able to head-shot them reliably. The finesse required to manipulate the ambient mana that finely came with its own rewards, too.

ding

Skill [Greater Mana Control] advanced to level 11

Skill [Greater Mana Finesse] advanced to level 11

And so went the rest of the day. Being able to reliably take out the assassins with a single swing, I didn't take another scratch, and picked up a level of [Mana Perception] to add to my other gains. The only problem I had was that I couldn't do my mana funnelling trick at the same time as keeping watch for goblins, needing to let Vyre's team take over from time to time while I recovered mana. I'd need to be careful with mana expenditure if I was here solo, unless I was able to overcome that restriction. Doubly so if I was making a run to complete my quest, in which case I'd have to fight my way through rooms of orcs too, even if I took the direct route from entrance to boss.

Actually, there was something I could do to help that, given my soul point bounty from last night. I hadn't spent the points immediately because I equally wanted [Enhanced Stamina Recovery], but so far on this run I hadn't had any shortage of stamina, so I hit the metaphorical button.

ding

New skill acquired: [Extended Mana Pool]

Skill [Enlarged Mana Pool] consumed by superior skill [Extended Mana Pool]

Skill [Extended Mana Pool] advanced to level 2

My maximum mana jumped up by a little more than seven. I'd already looked the skill up in the library and knew it provided a hundred percent boost plus another twenty percent per level. Not a huge improvement right now, but it would level, and it would give me a little more leeway for fighting my way through this floor without running dry.

The day's work over, we headed to the boss chamber to make our way out of the dungeon, which on this floor contained a bit of a crowd. Even worse, it included more assassins. With my ridiculous new staff and my combat skills I was confident I could win a straight up fight, but if the assassins started turning invisible on me I was going to have trouble. Especially with the ranged mages. I needed to attempt this with a group at my back, before trying it solo.

"Vyre, do you mind if I try to solo the boss?"

"Try to what?" Vyre exclaimed with scepticism. "You're good, I'll give you that, but you aren't that good."

"Yes, it will be pushing myself, but that's how you grow the fastest. And I have to do this solo at some point, so best to try for the first time with a group at my back in case things go wrong."

"You're mad, you know that? Well, go ahead, but the first scratch you take, we're rushing in."

"Thanks," I said, before turning away from the group and closing my eyes. The scepticism would no doubt be raised to outright incredulity if I'd admitted I intended to fight with my eyes closed, but I had a good reason for it; the assassins could stealth themselves at any time. There was no point in using my normal vision until one vanished, because I might not see them vanish if they were out of my line of sight. There also seemed to be little point in watching one group with one sense and the rest with another. I needed to use my mana trick from the very start.

Furthermore, while [Mana Perception] on its own couldn't pick up iron or steel, my active scanning version could, picking up the shadows cast by the mana resistant materials. I could even 'see' the floor and wall. My accuracy may not be as good as with vision, causing difficulties parrying, but conversely it gave me three-sixty degree perception, which was great with a crowd of this size; I wouldn't need to try to stay to one side of them all. I just needed to make sure I dodged, rather than parried.

I walked to the edge of the arena and took a deep breath. Here goes nothing... I activated my buffs, started the ambient mana spinning, and crushed the head of the first assassin, one of the three armed with a bow. The others reacted as expected, moving straight into attack mode despite me being a step outside of the arena, but I took out two other ranged assassins before they got close. The group of sages launched their first round of spells, which were blown sufficiently off course that they either missed or impacted another goblin, who interpreted it as an attack from behind and broke off their charge.

I tried to keep my distance from the pack, sniping individual goblins as I got a chance, but unfortunately, like all the boss groups with a leader of some sort, these goblins weren't completely without intelligence. It didn't take them long to grasp how my [Far Reach] worked, and to spot the signs of me using it. I thought I'd be fine, because with no mana sense of their own they couldn't see where I was aiming. They couldn't even follow my line of sight, because I still had my eyes closed. And that was all true, for a few more swings. Then the goblin sages stopped slinging their useless spells, and started shouting out warnings instead, with some guttural vocalisations that didn't sound like words to me, but which the others seemed to have no problems interpreting. Apparently, they had a perfectly functional mana sense, even if the melee fighters didn't.

That turned the tide of battle pretty quickly, with me missing a few blows, and failing to hold off the incoming crowd, of whom more than half were still left. I got out of the way damn quickly, because I'd have stood no hope if they all made it to melee range, using [Far Step] to jump off to the side. I jumped again to engage the sages at melee range, in the hopes that taking them out would allow [Far Reach] to be effective again.

That was a foolish move. My mana manipulation needed time to blow their spells off course, and there would be nothing I could do at point blank range. Given the spells they'd used so far, I didn't think that mattered; they had lengthy casting times, and I'd have plenty of opportunity to back-step. Of course, just because they were the only spells they had used, that didn't mean they were the only spells they could use, and in fact my idiot self had read the complete list in the library only yesterday. One of the sages waved a hand, and before I could react to the build-up of mana, a fireball impacted me full in the chest, blasting me backwards. The other four followed, but I'd been pushed far enough back that I was able to evade.

I was damn lucky there. The faster spell was, as might be expected, considerably weaker than the magic they had been using earlier, and despite the direct impact I hadn't been stunned or incapacitated. Had the five sages been more synchronised in their attack, I may well have been knocked out by the combined blows, and it would be unlikely Vyre's squad could have rushed over in time to save me. As it was, I could perceive them rushing in the moment I'd taken the hit.

The remaining heroes and knights broke off to face them, putting up a shield wall against their charge. The general stood behind them, and from the flow of mana he seemed to have activated some sort of skill, or the monster equivalent. The library called them 'innate abilities'. Thinking back again to what I'd read yesterday, I think it was a defensive boost, but it would leave the heroes and knights mostly immobile. That left me with the last remaining assassin and the five sages. They launched another round of fireballs, which I didn't even need to dodge given my distance, while the assassin just stood there.

While it was nice of them to give me a chance to get my breath back after being winded by the fireball, I had to wonder what they were up to. They were more intelligent than that, and must have known the fireballs wouldn't do anything. I opened my eyes and looked for the assassin, but he had indeed turned invisible at some point. Then I was distracted by the sages launching another round of magic and was slow to react to the assassin twitching an arm. By the time my perception caught the dagger in mid-air, it was far too late to dodge. I made a last-ditch attempt at parrying, but missed, and I heard rather than felt the dull thud as the dagger impacted me in the thin armour below my breastplate.

It took a couple of seconds for my brain to catch up with what had just happened, before pain blossomed from my stomach. It was another foolish mistake; I'd assumed that because I'd taken out the goblins armed with bows, it was only the sages who could make ranged attacks. The sages launched yet another round of magic, and this time it took all of my concentration to deflect it. I caught the assassin stooping and realised with horror that he was next to another corpse. He was trying to rearm himself! I made a desperate swing to take him out, and a sage called out a warning.

Rather than attempting to dodge, the assassin swung an arm again, and I knew he'd thrown another dagger. His decision not to dodge meant that I scored a direct hit, killing him, and I still had time to dive out of the way of the dagger, just as another barrage of magic came my way. And it really was my way; having had this long to watch how I was manipulating mana in a simple circle, the sages had adapted and deliberately aimed their spells upwind. Off balance from dodging the dagger, I couldn't evade, and two of the spells impacted me, blowing me clear of the arena. Even worse, as I rolled across the floor the impact tore the dagger from my stomach, leaving a horrible wound, and streaking the floor with my blood.

Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, I felt the poison kick in. My consciousness flickered, and I lost control over the ambient mana. Luckily there were no more assassins, but unluckily that meant I was defenceless against the sages. I forced my eyes open, despite how my body was insisting it should sleep, only to see that they were no longer facing me. Vyre's team had taken out the other goblins, and the sages were all that were left.

The fight was over then, thank goodness. Pain blossomed again, triggered by my loss of tension, and I realised with horror that blood was literally spurting from my wound. Even worse, my health was already down to seven, far below where it needed to be to survive [Endurance] wearing off. I fumbled desperately for the potion vials at my waist, and now I knew why they'd never be made from glass even if glass became widespread; my rolling would have smashed all of them. I drank both of my health potions and the remainder of my antidote, managing not to spill any despite my shaking hands, and felt the itch as my stomach scabbed over. My health was still far below full, but it was enough that my life was no longer in danger. Neither did I have enough antidote left to completely cleanse the poison, leaving me with sapped stats.

Vyre stalked over to me, looking down not with the expected disapproval, but with something that looked like a mixture of respect and amusement. "I take it back, I was wrong to call you mad," he said, smirking. "You're utterly insane."

Laying on the floor, panting, poisoned, and needing to keep [Endurance] up just to stay conscious, I didn't feel like I could disagree.