They reached the end of the first room without incident, stepping into a short hallway between. Levi didn’t relax, checking each inch for tripwires or pressure plates. It was clear and safe, apart from a few small sinkholes that could trip an unwary person but they were hardly worth bothering about. Unless they had to retreat through this hall at speed, the holes were more a nuisance than a threat.

But they did tickle Levi’s memory.

“Cynomis,” he murmured, then raised his voice. “There are burrowers in the immediate vicinity. They could attack from any angle, so be prepared.”

“Did you say ‘Cynomys’ just now?” Gordon asked.

“Yes.”

“As in… prairie dogs?”

Levi’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

Gordon snickered. “So we’ve got big, scary… prairie dogs in the walls?”

“They have very sharp teeth, and they’re dungeon-enhanced versions. Do not take them lightly.”

“I’m sorry, man, I know this is all serious life and death but…” Gordon couldn’t hold in his laughter. “Really? Prairie dogs?”

“I’ve gotten in trouble too many times for underestimating a dungeon,” Levi answered grimly. “We’re already down one gremlin. I don’t want to lose anyone for real.”

“Fair point, but… they’re basically squirrels.”

“That will bite your face off if you underestimate them.”

“I think I can handle a few oversized prairie dogs.”

As if in answer to his challenge, two Cynomis Burrowers flew out of the walls, mouths open, big flat front teeth bared to strike.

Gordon wasn’t prepared.

Levi’s sword moved in a blur, slashing one in midair as he pushed mana into the blade. Beast Bite's spectral jaws snapped down, tearing the burrower in two.

The other cynomis collided with Gordon’s shoulder and bit down, tearing through his clothing and flesh alike. Gordon shrieked and punched the burrower. His blow sent it flying, Gordon’s blood spraying out in an arc behind it.

Levi stabbed down at the burrower, but he was too far away. It had already dived down into the stone floor, leaving nothing but a slightly-disrupted mound in its wake.

“Ogh, rrrh, damn.” Gordon clutched his shoulder with gritted teeth. “You weren’t kidding about those teeth.”

Levi shrugged, turning to keep an eye on the walls and ceiling for any slight disruption that may herald a return of the second burrower. “Just because these are the weakest monsters a Stone dungeon will ever have, doesn’t make them trivial.”

“Shouldn’t we be winning easily? I’m level 3, you’re level 5, the dungeon is only level 1. We shouldn’t be having any trouble with it.”

“That’s not how it works. Dungeon levels and human levels are basically nothing alike. An average dungeon’s level 1 creature, individually, will be weaker than a human. But only by a little. And dungeon creatures are single minded. You’ll be worrying about your own survival, about your comrades. They’re focused only on tearing you apart any way they can.”

The second cynomis dove from the ceiling over Skarm’s head. Levi shouted a warning just in time. Skarm whipped his head around, skewering the falling cynomis on his sharp horn. The gremlin charged at the wall, driving his horn all the way through the furry burrower’s body and out the other side, then with two swipes of his claws tore the creature apart.

Gordon groaned behind him. “I suppose you’re going to refuse me a potion this time too?”

“I only have one left, better to save it for an emergency. I should be able to make some basic restorative elixirs once we collect more ingredients, but treasures are so unpredictable it could be a while.”

“You can’t buy the ingredients?”

“No. Mana saturation is a key component of system crafting, and right now nothing outside of dungeons has the necessary saturation to give plants special properties.”

“Is there anything about earth that isn’t going to be inferior compared to these dungeons? Our weapons won’t work, our ingredients aren’t magical enough, what next?”

“Technology will stop working, as long as it’s based on micro electronics. Mana accumulates wherever there's electricity and interferes with it working right.”

Gordon threw his hands in the air, then winced as the movement aggravated his injured shoulder. “Of course it will! Why not get rid of every possible advantage humanity has against these monsters.”

“If it were easy to win, if it were possible to win, we wouldn’t have been wiped out the first time. You know how hard we’ll fight, how creative we’ll be with every possible resource. If there were any way to win with the resources we already had, someone would have found it.” Levi took a deep breath. “That’s why I’m doing all this. Because humanity is the weakest factor here. If I thought sending more people into dungeons to level higher would be enough to win, then I’d be doing that. If I thought we could set up factories to mana-inscribe bullets and tank ammo, then I’d be pursuing that. But if there’s one thing that’s been consistently true, it’s that everything else out there levels faster and grows stronger than us.”

“You really think your little gremlins are going to be more valuable than training more people like me?”

“I’m not sure about the gremlins specifically, but minions in general? Yes. They’ll be stronger.”

“So I should become a Tamer too?”

Levi hesitated, then slowly nodded. “Probably so.”

“And you should include the suggestion front and center on your wiki. So everyone else can do it too.”

“You could be right.” If every human could come to battle with their own personal army, that would put a dent in the invaders’ forces. But the plan wasn’t without drawbacks. There was a reason hardly any Tamers had survived the first time. “There won’t be enough time or resources for everyone to evolve to Summoner. And Tamer is physically one of the weakest classes. Even unevolved, Fighter gives better stat gains, this class is very bad for direct conflict. There’s a reason the average fighter survived when most other classes didn’t. It’ll only get increasingly dangerous to try taming things without any levels to your name.”

The thought of newcomers trying to subdue higher level creatures and getting themselves slaughtered wholesale flickered across Levi’s mind. He would hold out on making that decision just yet. He didn't want to be responsible for widespread death.

“So how do I go about it?” Gordon's voice brought Levi's attention back to the moment. By now Gordon's health regeneration had begun on sealing the shoulder wound, leaving it raw but no longer bleeding.

“Easy enough. Next time a cynomis jumps at you, grab it and subdue it. Once it’s absolutely helpless, keep it that way until it submits to you, and you’ll unlock Tamer as a class. You can devolve your Fighter levels if you want Tamer as your primary, or you can take Tamer as a subclass. If you do choose to subclass, I recommend keeping it very low.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Devolving your class means you lose all benefits of those levels and have to start over at the beginning, but lets you keep all benefits of the new class as it would become the main class. A subclass provides all primary class effects, but does not increase health, stamina, or mana for any levels assigned to it. It’s always better to have a single class that you evolve higher and higher, unless you absolutely need to have the benefits of a secondary subclass.”

“What if I make the burrower submit and then don’t put any levels into tamer?”

“You won’t have control over your minion’s leveling, and it won’t be properly bound to you. You won’t be able to revive it if it dies, and… I’m honestly not sure how it would work. Can non-minion classes have minions? Your minion might unbind itself over time, or it might not remain substantial once leaving the dungeon without a direct connection to you to maintain it. I haven’t heard of any non-minion classes successfully keeping dungeon creatures as pets. Monsters taken from dungeons without being bound usually disappear after a few days.”

“Hmm." Gordon continued staring at the blank air where his interface hovered. "If Tamer is such a bad class for stats, couldn’t I keep Fighter as a primary and use Tamer as a secondary? If Fighter is the one I’ll get health and everything from, then I’ll end up with more over time than if I switched.”

“Yes, you can. But you only gain those benefits for levels you apply to Fighter. Any levels applied to Tamer won’t count, and the difficulty of future levels will continue to increase. The scaling benefits of high levels means that even five levels set aside for Tamer will cost far more than what it seems in the moment. Fighter increases by how much, 2 every threshold? By the time you hit level 50, that’ll be over 100 health, mana, and stamina that you’re sacrificing in order to have a subclass.”

“And that makes it sound bad from a numbers perspective, but you’re giving up fighter levels entirely to focus on minions. Doesn’t that mean that the advantage of having minions could far outweigh the cost in health?”

“You won’t be able to invest enough into either class to make meaningful progress. If having one powerful minion is worth a trade of 100, wouldn’t two powerful minions be worth a trade of 170? And by that logic, which I believe is correct logic, going all in on minion classes is the ideal option. Any minimal gains you might get from fighter levels is outweighed by the cost in minion count.”

“How many minions are you expecting to have?”

Levi smiled. “Just with the abilities I know about and can access right now, I should have over seventy minions at level 50.”

Gordon’s eyes widened dramatically. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. Tamer it is. How do I reset my levels?”