Apparently going up seventeen levels in a few days wasn’t normal, especially at his level. He answered all the questions the same way: “Many of my Techniques were on the verge of advancing, I guess. Fighting the undead must have pushed them all over at once.” One of the students in his Elvish class had suggested that they’d also fought the undead and hadn’t seen gains like that. Duncan had shrugged, and said, “You fought zombies. I fought Bone Knights.”

His new Understand Languages passive Technique, even at rank one, was a significant boost to his comprehension of his Elvish lessons. I must get some exposure to other languages.

He had to explain his advances in a little more detail to Master deBouteville. “I fought my way through the catacombs to the Lich but had to flee, then spent three days killing Bone Knights, Bone Guardians, and Undead Animators, plus thousands of lesser undead. And then I delved the Sawiskin dungeon again to regain a sense of normalcy. There was a rare monster inside that dropped an insane amount of gear, including a new Technique.” He demonstrated his Cage of Blades Technique. “I think it’ll help a lot when I’m facing more than one strong opponent at a time.”

He showed off his new Dragonskin armor, too. “I don’t know if it counts as plate, mail, or leather, though. I’m just going to train in it to get more comfortable with it. It heals when I feed it mana, the same as my truesteel plate.”

Master deBouteville was duly impressed by the armor. They tested it in combat and found it more effective than his truesteel plate against her sword blows. It repaired itself faster than the truesteel when fed mana, as well.

“You’ll surpass me in levels within weeks, I suspect,” she told Duncan. “Your skills aren’t keeping up with your Technique advancements, though. I would really like to see you at rank eight in your sword, shield, and armor skills, and you should try to improve your non-combat skills as well. You are progressing your Techniques so fast that your skills are falling behind, and that will bite you in the ass at some point. I know you’re making an effort to train skills – it’s why you’re here, after all, why you’re working with me. But if you’ll take some advice from an old master, slow down your leveling until your skills catch up.”

“Honestly, I’m not really trying to push my Techniques. I’m just delving while I train. Ok, I do feel a need to advance, with the undead attacking and a sense that there’s more danger to come. My roommates are trying to get a spot in the Academy training dungeon, so I’ll escort them through it a few times – maybe that will be enough delving in the short term. I still have some low-ranked Techniques that will probably level up when I practice them, but I will try to focus on skills for the rest of the school year,” Duncan replied. With that, they went back to working on dual sword challenges.

“When fighting with two swords, one is typically offensive, and the other defensive. You parry with the right and attack with the left. Mastery dictates how well and how often you can switch the roles. As you improve you will be able to switch each sword from offense to defense independent of the other. This requires that you split your attention and is excellent training for being able to maintain multiple active Techniques at once. Your Blade Sense helps tremendously with this. Right now, your rudimentary Blade Sense tells you where my blades are. My own Blade Sense knows where every blade within thirty meters is, and in a fight, I can taste the intention of your blades. I know when your thrust is a feint, when your parry is an envelopment, and when you switch from defense to offense with each hand. I know where your blades are, and where they are going.”

“What happens when two masters of Blade Sense fight, then?” Duncan asked.

“The one who is better at changing intent has an advantage. Raw strength, dexterity and agility all play a role as well, as does your skill. I may know what it is you intend, but if you have control of my blade, knowing that you’ll hit me doesn’t stop you from doing so.”

Master Guilford had much the same to say about Duncan’s advancement. He was more philosophical, though, and focused more on the longsword training. “I see you’ve passed me in levels. Sadly, your skills are lagging far behind, and I can still beat you easily with a sword. Stop dropping your tip when you step with your right foot.”

Classes returned to normal, and it was a week before Duncan received permission to take his roommates and their healer into the Academy dungeon, which was actually well outside the city. It took them two hours to get there on foot.

Amelia’s cousin Paul was a Level 27 Healer in his final year at the College of Healing. He was a slender man who wore mail armor and carried a mace and shield. “I have a ranged single-target heal and a healing aura,” he told Duncan. “And an assessment technique that will let me know who needs healing the most urgently.”

“Very good,” said Duncan. “Everyone else, a brief explanation of your abilities, please, so everyone knows what everyone can do before we go in. Cassandra?”

Cassandra said, “I’m a lightning and air mage. I deal good damage from range and have an armor technique I can use for defense, but I can’t attack when channeling the armor.”

Amelia said, “I’m a longsword fighter. I have metal armor I can produce – it’s an active Technique to summon it, but it remains until I dismiss it without requiring concentration, so I can use weapon Techniques to attack.”

David said, “I’m a water and decay mage. I have a ranged water jet attack and a melee-based decay attack. I have water armor, but I can’t attack when I’m channeling it.”

My turn. “I’m a melee fighter with a sword focus. I have a self-heal, so don’t waste any heals on me. I have a teleport and an area effect attack. I will only intervene in your fights if you seem to be getting overwhelmed, or if a powerful rare spawn shows up. If I call you off, retreat and cover each other until the fight is over.”

They approached the dungeon, which had its own little compound surrounding it. A wooden palisade surrounded a courtyard containing the dungeon entrance, a barracks and cookhouse, and a large bathhouse. The guard at the gate said, “State your business.”

“We have special dispensation to run the dungeon overnight,” said Cassandra. Duncan presented the permission slip he had received from the headmaster.

“This dungeon’s rated level thirty. Most of you are too low for it. We normally see groups of ten at your level. Still, you have permission. Just be aware there’s no duty healer on call overnight, nor any rescue team. You’re on your own in there.”

“Thank you.” Duncan herded his companions to the dungeon entrance. “Don’t worry about what he said. I was soloing level thirty-five dungeons at twenty-two. You can handle this just fine. A group of ten would be getting in each other’s way.”

His companions were pulling out large rubber waders from their storage devices and pulling them on over their boots. Amelia passed a jar of ointment around, and they all dabbed a little under their noses. Duncan could smell it from two meters away. “What are you doing?”

“You didn’t even research what kind of dungeon this is, did you?” Amelia laughed.

Duncan shrugged. “It’s a training dungeon. How hard could it be?”

Amelia gestured to the entrance. “After you, then, esteemed protector.”

Well, I can’t appear hesitant now. Damnit, I should have researched the dungeon. Duncan strode forward and entered the dungeon. A pungent odor of sewage nearly overwhelmed him. He was standing on a dais in a small room, with tunnels leading off in two directions. The tunnels had a foul liquid slowly moving through them.

His companions appeared beside him, wrinkling their noses at the smell, but partly protected by the ointment they’d used. “So, dungeon leader,” Amelia said, “What can you tell us about the dungeon we’re about to delve?”

Duncan winced. “I am sorry. It’s been a long time since I had a group with me in a dungeon. I totally forgot all the protocols.”

“Do you really just wander into dungeons willy-nilly?” asked Paul.

“I usually find out the name and what’s in them from the local adventurers guild, but if I happen across a dungeon entrance? Yeah, I just go in,” said Duncan. “I’m pretty hard to kill.”

“Well, there’s a reason this dungeon is available for us to use as a training dungeon,” said Amelia. “It smells like shit, you have to wade through shit, and the monsters are giant rats and insects.” She tossed the light globe she was carrying over her head and it hovered there, providing light for everyone.

Duncan dropped a sword and stood on it. “I’ll be flying just behind you. I can have three concurrent active Techniques, so I’ll still be able to fight if needed.” He was wearing his Truesteel armor and changed his weapons to have his new Beastbane sword in his left hand and his Dragontooth sword in his right. No need for my shield unless I fight something huge and need the momentum nullification.

The group advanced down the tunnel on the left, Amelia leading with David behind her, then Paul and Cassandra. The sewage was about knee deep, and every step they took wafted unpleasant odors up to Duncan’s nostrils. The tunnel opened into a small room, and Amelia halted at the entrance as she spied two rats rooting through the sewage.

“Two rats, holding two steps into the room,” she said. As she entered, the rats looked up and charged. They splashed through the sewage as the rest of the team entered the room behind Amelia. Cassandra fired a Wind Blade enhanced by her rapier and it tore open a deep gash on the left rat. David’s Water Jet hit the rat on the right, doing less damage as it was a much lower rank Technique.

As the rats closed the distance, Amelia stepped forward and thrust her sword into the one Cassandra had struck. The rat ran right up the blade as she impaled it to bite at her arms. Her summoned armor withstood most of the attack, but she winced as the bite drew a little blood. A green haze rose from the wound she’d inflicted as her Inflict Poison Technique took effect. The second rat leapt at David, biting the arm he raised to protect himself. His leather armor did little to blunt the attack, and he screamed as the rat tore at his forearm.

Everyone’s so very slow, Duncan thought. Paul used his Healing Technique on David, but the rat was still biting his arm, so the heal couldn’t take full effect.

Amelia’s longsword was buried in the rat attacking her. She stepped back, pulling her sword out of the body with a draw cut. Blood gushed out of the wound and the rat lay still. Cassandra stepped forward to get a clear line of sight to the rat attacking David and her Wind Blade opened a deep gash in its side. It released David’s arm as it spun to get away from the new attack. David cut down at it with his axe, inflicting a small wound, but infecting it with his Touch of Rot Technique, which synergized nicely with the rot effect the axe’s enchantment provided. The flesh around the wound immediately looked inflamed and infected.

The rat struck at David again, but its wounds slowed it enough for him to step back and avoid the attack. Amelia’s sword and Cassandra’s Wind Blade struck it simultaneously, and it died. Paul healed David but left Amelia to regenerate on her own – her wound was negligible. They looked around for additional threats, then relaxed.

Amelia glanced at Duncan, then moved to the far doorway when he said nothing. The rest of the group followed her. “Nice work, everyone,” said Paul.

Duncan touched the corpses of the giant rats and used his new Extract Resources Technique and was not surprised to find they had nothing an alchemist or enchanter would find useful. He was surprised that the Technique gave him their skins, removed with greater precision (although not much) than his own rank one skinning skill would have provided. At least there was no extra mess. He stored them in his necklace, to take advantage of the stasis effect it offered. They wouldn’t rot or spoil while they were in there.

“What did you do?” asked David.

“New Technique, lets me harvest stuff,” said Duncan. “That’s the first time I’ve used it. I expect I can rank it up on low level monster corpses since it’s only rank one.”

“That seems like a strange Technique for someone as combat-focused as you,” said Amelia.

“Depending what he gets with it, it could be a good money maker,” said Paul.

“Meh, he’s already filthy rich,” said Cassandra.

“I am reliably informed that it will eventually help me acquire the rare materials for any number of enchantments,” said Duncan. “The enchanters back home always said enchanting was easy, it was getting the material components that was the problem. If everyone’s still good on mana, let’s move on.”

Amelia led the way down the passageway to the next room. It had two more rats. As did the next three rooms. They got slightly better at killing the rats, with Cassandra and David focusing on the same rat each time and Amelia taking the unwounded one. Amelia and David were both wounded several more times, and Cassandra once, but Paul was able to heal them all with no difficulty. They consider this dungeon suited for four level thirty adventurers? That’s just embarrassing.

Eventually they came to a room with no rats. They entered, looking around, but seeing nothing. “That’s weird,” said Cassandra, just as two giant centipedes dropped off the ceiling onto the group. The centipedes had very strong pincers, and Paul, Amelia, and Cassandra were all wounded in the fight. All three showed as poisoned to Duncan’s Assessment Technique.

“I can heal the damage from the poison, but not the poison itself,” wheezed Paul, grimacing with the pain from the poison.

“Let’s not waste your mana,” said Duncan. He touched each one in turn, removing the affliction.

“Thanks,” said Amelia. “You must have the strangest build ever. Or was that an item?”

“No way to tell,” said Duncan with a shrug, ignoring her glower.

The centipedes yielded poison sacs to his Extract Resources Technique. He stored them with the rat skins.

The next room had three rats, which increased the number and severity of wounds they took. Paul said, “Mana is going to become a concern soon if I have to keep healing this much – we may have to turn back.”

“I’ll limit the rats attacking you to two at a time, then,” said Duncan.

The next room had four rats. Duncan encased one in his new Cage of Blades and decapitated another with a single swing of his sword. Once the team had disposed of the first two rats, he released the captured one (a bit wounded from trying to get through his cage of blades) and they finished that one off, too.

The next room was empty and significantly bigger than the previous ones had been. The group immediately checked the ceiling, but there were no centipedes hiding there, either. Amelia gestured to the group to stay back and edged her way towards the center of the room. Maybe I should investigate, Duncan thought, just in case there’s a nasty rare spawn in here.

Something rose out of the muck in the center of the room, sending Amelia flying across the room. She crashed into a wall and fell to the floor in a heap. Duncan’s Assessment showed she was critically wounded. He Blinked to her and used his Regenerate Other and Destrin’s Recovery Techniques simultaneously. Amelia regenerated to full health in an instant. I am so glad that does what I thought it did. It’s quite expensive in terms of mana per health recovered, though.

He Blinked back to the monster as it stood fully upright. It looked like the golems he’d fought in the low-level golem dungeon so many months ago, but it was made out of… mud. Let’s call it mud. He cut at its knee with his dragontooth sword, and five echoes followed. Oh I like that! He dismissed his Beastbane sword and pulled out his spirit sword. Let’s see if I can incorporate two completely different fighting styles.

The mud golem’s leg was severed at the knee by Duncan’s attack, and it lurched sideways. It brought a massive fist down at him and he interposed a fold in space to block it. His assessment showed he’d done significant damage to it by removing the lower leg, but it was already healing. “Ranged attacks only, from the doorway, in case it has an area effect you need to duck out of,” he shouted as he cut at it again with both swords. His dragontooth sword impacted the creature’s mud flesh with satisfying force and his spirit sword passed right through the creature with barely any resistance. It was difficult to reconcile the two, and he kept expecting more resistance to his spirit sword’s passage.

The monster retaliated with heavy swings from its arms, which Duncan blocked with folds in space as he continued to attack, constantly cutting at its legs so it couldn’t move away from him toward his companions. Occasional Wind Blades and Water Jets began to strike the creature as Cassandra and David joined in.

The mud golem vomited a huge amount of mud at Duncan, blinding him and encasing him in mud. He Blinked out of it behind the golem, removed his blindness, and continued to hack away at it. He was staying ahead of its regeneration rate, but not by a significant margin. It was going to take a while to whittle it down.

After a minute or two, the spells from his companions petered out. “No more mana,” called Cassandra.

“Use your bow,” Duncan replied as he continued to fight. The monster suddenly exploded, sending mud everywhere. It didn’t do much damage to Duncan, but the others were all wounded or worse in his Assessment. “Or maybe wait in the tunnel,” he added. Paul activated his healing aura as the four lower-level people stepped back into the passageway.

The monster reformed out of the muck on the floor and Duncan continued to cut it to pieces. The creature only had its vomit and explosion to complement its melee attacks, and neither of those was a threat to Duncan. As long as he was precise in his placement of folds in space and kept the pace of his attacks up, he’d win the battle of attrition. It took him an additional twenty minutes, but he finished the creature. It sank back into the ooze, leaving a gem floating on the surface. Duncan stored it and called out to the group, “It’s dead.”

His companions entered the room. “So that’s what a high-level fight looks like,” said David. “I could barely follow your movements.”

“Sorry it was boring to watch,” said Duncan. “It had a fast regeneration rate, so I was only just able to keep ahead of its healing.”

“Not boring,” said Amelia. “Fascinating. You never got tired, you never missed a block, you never missed a cut. The concentration requirements… And it hit so hard – that first strike almost killed me. Didn’t you say you could only heal yourself? You healed me from almost dead to full health in a second.”

“I picked up a Healing Technique that applies to others before this run. It’s only rank one, so it’s expensive mana-wise, and it’s touch-only,” Duncan said. “I can’t do it too often and still be an effective fighter. But I’ll have to do it more often to advance it.”

“You added a Healing Technique so you could heal us?” Cassandra sounded surprised.

“Not just you. It has occurred to me that I won’t always be delving solo, or fighting undead alone, and it’s pretty selfish to have a good healing affinity and not use it on anyone else,” said Duncan. “My Technique build is unusual, and so are my affinities, so it made sense in my case to take what’s normally considered a weak healing Technique. Once I rank it up, it’ll be very useful. But that could take a long time.”

“Anyway, you’ve all had a nice rest while I killed that, so you should be good on mana for a little while yet. Let’s keep going. I got a Technique Stone - well, a gem that’s probably a Technique Stone - off that golem, so our loot total is now slightly above none. Let’s see if we can’t find something else worthwhile in here.”

“Paul, if you want to handle the in-combat healing, I’ll try to top people off after the fights to help preserve your mana and maybe train my heal a little bit.”

They continued as they had, with Duncan restricting the number of creatures that could attack the rest of his group to two at a time, and the group continuing to improve their teamwork.

About an hour later, they reached what Paul told them was the final boss room. “It’s a nest of rats. Maybe twenty of them, with a bigger rat as the boss.” They entered the room, and Paul said, “This isn’t normal.” The room had a large dais raised out of the muck, and in the center of it was a throne. The throne was occupied by some sort of humanoid rat in leather armor, and several other leather-clad members of the same species were scattered around the throne.

“Don’t engage unless I say so,” Duncan said, and Blinked to the throne. Attacking the boss should get their attention so they don’t attack my group. He used his Beastbane sword in one hand and his dragontooth sword in the other, attacking the boss with both weapons. His first attack struck true, and his blade echoes ripped into the creature. Duncan’s assessment showed the boss as “wounded.”

All the creatures leapt to attack him, and they were fast. He blocked some attacks with his swords, another with a well-placed fold in space, and was struck by others. His Truesteel plate parted like butter under their attacks, and he had to Blink to the other side of the throne and heal himself. He took a moment to swap his Truesteel armor out for his Dragonskin armor, then re-engaged the monsters.

He Blinked behind one, struck it, Blinked behind another, struck the boss through a fold in space, and Blinked again. One of the monsters looked like it was going to head towards the entrance he’d arrived from, so he dropped a Cage of Blades around it and kept Blinking and attacking. The monsters adapted quickly to his strategy, guarding each other’s backs so that when he appeared behind one, others were ready to strike at him.

A green miasma rose from each of the monsters, and he felt queasy as he breathed it in. His Assessment told him he was diseased, but it didn’t seem to be affecting his health or mana, so he didn’t remove the affliction right away. They’ll just re-establish it the moment I cure it. He parried, blocked with folds in space, Blinked, attacked, Blinked, attacked through a fold in space, healed from time to time, and cackled like a madman. He removed the affliction, just in case it had a timed effect.

The rats started dropping, and with each one that died, the fight got just a little easier for Duncan. Fewer blades to dodge, parry, or block meant more time to attack, and the monsters started to fall faster. When the final one dropped, he felt almost disappointed. That was the best fight ever. He removed the disease affliction one last time and called out for his group to come over.

“I’m sorry I robbed you of a boss fight,” he said as they approached.

“That was amazing,” said Amelia. “I think my skills advanced just watching it.”

“It was too fast to understand,” complained David.

“It really was,” agreed Cassandra.

“I didn’t see your health drop almost at all,” said Paul.

Duncan grinned at them. “That may have been the most fun fight I’ve ever had. They were fast and clever, and they hit hard enough to hurt me. No room for errors in that fight.”

“You gonna loot them, or what?” asked Cassandra.

Duncan laughed. “Check behind the throne. There’s almost always a chest under or behind the throne. But be careful of traps!”

David was already rushing toward the throne, but slowed down at that, remembering the gas trap that had gotten them when Duncan opened a chest in their room at the Academy. “There’s a chest!” he confirmed.

Duncan looted the bodies, storing everything in his arm band, then approached the chest. “You guys should probably stand back when I open this.” When everyone had moved to the entrance of the room, he flipped open the lid – and felt a massive pain in his chest. He Blinked backwards and healed himself, shocked at how much mana the heal took.

He looked at the big ball of black that had replaced the throne and chest. A few seconds later it flickered and vanished, leaving the chest sitting innocuously on the floor. There was no sign of the throne. Or the front of his armor. He switched to his truesteel plate – he’d have to repair the dragonskin armor when he had the mana to feed it.

His group rushed forward, “What the fuck was that?” asked Amelia.

“Void magic,” said Paul. “One of the guys in the Mage Academy has it. It just obliterates whatever it touches. I’ve never seen a field that big before. Justin generates marble-sized spheres.” He looked at Duncan, “Your health dropped to under five percent. Then you healed completely in under a second.”

Duncan shook his head, “I’m gonna have to find a better way to open chests.” Maybe use a long staff through a fold in space. “My healing Technique boosts my Regeneration Technique. At high ranks, it’s a very cost-effective self-heal.” He scooped the contents of the chest into his storage device without looking at it. “I’m really looking forward to using that bathhouse outside the dungeon.”

His companions laughed and agreed. The dungeon stink was something you could learn to ignore after constant exposure, but no one was likely to get used to it.

They took a different path out of the dungeon, killing another dozen or more monsters on the way out. Once outside, they headed straight to the bathhouse only to find it locked. “Oh nooooo,” breathed Amelia.

Duncan just shoved harder on the handle and something in the lock snapped. The door swung open. “It was just stuck,” he said. No one complained about the property damage – they just surged past him toward the baths. He followed them in, stored his foul-smelling gear and got to work with the soap. Once he was clean, he moved to a tub at the side and cleaned his armor. Even after he’d cleaned it twice, he thought he could still smell sewage. I really hope that’s just my imagination.

Once they were all as clean as they were going to get, Duncan re-equipped his dragonskin armor over a new set of clothes so that he could repair it on the way back, then they set out for the Academy, which was a little closer than the city. Duncan would have flown, but he didn’t feel it’d be wise to let his low-level companions travel alone at night. As they jogged back to the academy, he asked if they wanted to meet at the Adventurers Guild at first light to have their loot identified and split.

“Can it be a bit later than that?” asked Cassandra. “Some of us need to sleep. How about ten bells?”

“Okay, ten bells is fine with me. I can meditate on the fights from tonight.” They reached the academy without trouble and the low-level folks went to sleep, Paul taking a guest room.