The pillar crashed down atop the ogre, knocking it to the ground and spraying it - and Levi - with its bubbling orange goo.

Level 1+

(Cave Ogre)

Health 2%

The enraged aura around the ogre faded as it went into recovery mode. In better circumstances, this would be where Levi went berserk on it in turn, slashing through its health with his team.

But his team was dead, and he was limited to one-legged crawling.

“I don’t suppose you want to submit to me?” Levi asked wearily. “I promise, the benefits package is better than what you’re getting now.”

The ogre got to its knees, shrugging off the broken chunks of stone as though they hadn’t just almost killed it... then slumped back against it, immediately belying the seeming ease of the action.

Levi searched through the system, trying to find his class abilities. He remember getting the official Tame power when he chose Tamer as his class, but hadn't gotten around to actually locating it. Fortunately, unlocked powers were significantly simpler to find than locked ones.

Tame Tier: 1 Cost: 5 mana

5 stamina Attempt to convert a creature into a minion. Can only be used on creatures with less than 5% health remaining.

Levi cursed softly. The massive boss still sat with its back to the shattered pillar, swaying drunkenly. Its ‘exhausted’ state after a rage, coinciding with the head injury and massive impact damage, left it perfectly receptive to being subdued. Its head and torso were covered in blood. One arm gashed and swollen from the impact with the pillar, the other slashed and bleeding freely from Skarm’s reckless suicidal final attack.

The ogre was as vulnerable now as it would ever be. This would be the perfect opportunity.

Except for the fact that Levi had no mana and no stamina remaining.

Mana he could recover with his potion, but it would take five minutes to recover enough stamina.

There was no way he could survive waiting for five minutes. The ogre would only be vulnerable for a half minute at most. Levi knew from experience that the exhaustion recovery state would rapidly refill the creature's stamina and add a decent boost to its health regen. It provided a vulnerability window, but if you missed the window the ogre would come back fresh and ready. At higher levels, it would take multiple berserk-recovery cycles to wear down its health.

All of which meant, he didn't have time to waste. Without extreme mobility Levi wouldn’t be able to outlast it. His health was draining fast enough, even if the ogre didn’t manage to slice him open, he’d bleed out himself before recovering enough stamina to activate the ability.

Back to plan B: Just kill the thing.

He dragged himself toward the ogre as fast as he could, then started stabbing it in the legs, aiming for major arteries, making the cuts as jagged and deep as he could manage.

The ogre grunted in pain and staggered upright, grabbing its cleaver as it wavered unsteadily.

Levi stabbed faster.

1%. 0%.

The ogre raised its cleaver to strike one final blow, then toppled to the side instead. Its massive body landed atop one of the corrosive puddles of the distilled destruction essence spilled freely across the floor with a faint squelch.

Congratulations, Levi Morrison!

You have reached level 3.

You have 1 level available.

Levi didn’t wait for the query. “Verify.”

Tamer level increased to 3.

+5 health, +5 mana, +5 stamina Unassigned Stat Points: 1

The sudden influx of power and wellness snapped his broken body back into perfect condition, his leg straightening with an uncomfortable wet snick, health, mana, and stamina all refilling in an instant.

For a moment he lay there, panting with the aftereffects of the fight and leveling and sudden relief of being alive and whole and well. But his training wouldn’t let him relax for long in enemy territory. He wouldn’t put it past the dungeon to spawn a horde of gremlins and throw them at him in the last moments.

Levi got to his feet and crossed to his minion’s body. The gremlin hadn’t disappeared like the boss had (taking his giant cleaver with him, unfortunately; Levi wanted that cleaver), Skarm’s body still lying crumpled on the ground.

Skarm: Level 2

(Horned Gremlin)

Dead

Revive Unbind

Levi frowned. There was a revive option, though it was currently unavailable. Clearly he had to meet some condition before it could be used, but at least it was an option. He’d feared Skarm might be gone for good.

He was more than a little fond of the gremlin. While he could always unbind him and tame another to replace him, it wouldn't be the same. Plus Skarm was already level 2, which gave him a head start on any other minions. But either excuse was only a rationalization. In truth, Levi was done letting people who fought beside him be abandoned and forgotten. It didn't matter if it were a level 84 veteran or a one-day-old minion. If there was any way to get Skarm back, Levi was going to find it.

Returning to his own stats, he put his stat point into Spirit. Stamina depletion was too common a problem and he needed to fix that ASAP. He was used to being able to casually perform inhuman feats of agility. Being slow and vulnerable to even mundane injury made him twitch. It would take another dozen levels before he felt remotely secure, but it was a start.

His minion limit had increased with his levelup, which confirmed that the 'tamer level divided by two' formula rounded up.

Levi Morrison Unassigned Levels: 0 Stat Points: 0 Ability Points: 0 Primary Class: Tamer Tamer Level: 3 Subclass: None Strength: 0 Health: 110/110 Health Regen: 1 /minute Psyche: 2 Mana: 40/40 Mana Regen: 3 /minute Spirit: 1 Stamina: 70/70 Stamina Regen: 2 /minute Abilities: Mana Ping Tier: 1 Cost: 10 mana Fire an unfocused burst of mana in all directions, returning location details about mana entities nearby. Tame Tier: 1 Cost: 5 mana

5 stamina Attempt to convert a creature into a minion. Can only be used on creatures with less than 5% health remaining. Mana Push Tier: 1 Cost: mana (variable) Fire a focused burst of mana at a targeted location. Minions 1 of 2 Name Level Type Strength Psyche Spirit Health Mana Stamina Skarm 2 Horned Gremlin 0 0 2 0/50

(+1/min) 0/0

(+1/min) 0/70

(+3/min)

Satisfied with his choices, there was nothing more to do for the moment. Levi picked up Skarm’s tiny body, looked around for something to carry it with, then finally tucked it under one arm. He should probably look into buying a backpack or something to carry loot in, if he was going to continue delving dungeons.

With one last look around the destroyed boss room, Levi made his way between hissing bubbling puddles and fallen pillars to the exit door.

The small treasure room beyond held two restoration elixirs, another of mana, a single Destruction token, and a pair of shoes. He stashed the potions immediately, then examined the shoes.

Shoes (Footwear, Basic)

Abilities: None

Power stone: N/A

Upgrade Slots: 0

Basic armor with no special abilities, but they'd still be sturdier than anything humans manufactured. Dungeon gear, being mana-formed, innately resisted mundane damage.

He left his uncomfortable work shoes for the dungeon to eat. He'd not need them again.

The Destruction token he turned over in his hand for a moment. Dungeon tokens could be used in crafting, to upgrade items or create new ones. Within a few years they’d become a primary global currency. While level 1 dungeons tended to only drop a token every three to five runs, at higher levels you could expect a handful every time. Destruction tokens were the most commonplace and used in forming basic items. Specialty tokens like Lightning or Nature could be used to alter and improve those items or in crafting more specialized gear.

Tokens could also be combined into power stones, or slotted into manablades or other mana-based equipment. Multi-form items often had token slots for upgrades, with various tokens providing different benefits.

But he’d also need them for a different purpose.

Classes evolved naturally at level 40, but could also be triggered sooner with a class evolution orb. From what he’d heard crafters complaining about, each class evolution orb required a specific collection of ingredients, and the recipe would only become available once you had all necessary ingredients in hand.

Class evolution orbs thus held a very prestigious place, even the recipe for one being incredibly rare. Some rare crafters had access to two or three different orb recipes, and they were in high demand - at least for the year or two when the world had tried to pretend things would ever go back to normal, and that they weren’t going to be progressively overrun by demons that never stopped coming.

Somewhere around the fourth year, a group of crafters had pooled their resources to unlock a vast number of evolution orb recipes, which were then released to public knowledge.

Levi remembered casually discussing them with his companions of the time, but none of them wanted to take the power hit by devolving and re-evolving their classes. Levi had been a Swordsman by then and quite satisfied with his class.

He still had a good idea of the basic requirements for the class orbs, but that conversation had been so long ago and so unimportant to him at the time that he didn’t remember the exact combination of tokens used in the crafting process for any specific class.

He knew he’d need Control tokens for sure, practically all minion-based classes required that, and Fire felt right. The others, he didn’t know. He’d have to collect a full set to be sure he had everything he needed.

He slipped the token into one of the belt’s pouches, then began the sequence of cleaning and repair spells that were standard practice when leaving a dungeon.

Insufficient mana.

Right, he kept forgetting. Everything about him was too low level. Even simple 50- or 100-mana spells were far outside his current reach.

Shaking his head, Levi stepped out the final door. He had no intention of staying at this low level for long. With the familiar disconcerted lurch of momentary wrongness, he emerged from the patch of shimmering air out into the evening park.