"We're going to stay inside the dungeon for days?" Gordon asked. "Not go out to other ones?"

"I don't want to grow too much stronger yet. I want to be able to level with Irene and Peter, not be so far ahead of them that neither of us gains anything."

Gordon looked around the room skeptically. “It doesn’t look like a comfortable place to live. You sure this is a good idea?”

“If you want to find the nearest bed and breakfast and wait there, go for it. You’re strong enough now I should be able to detect you by mana ping, so I’ll come get you when we’re ready to leave.”

Gordon considered a moment, then let out a long breath. “Yeah, I’ll do that. It’ll be nice to have a break from all this. Thanks.” Then his expression turned serious and he poked Levi in the chest. “But you had better not forget to come get me. If you go running off again I swear I’ll never forgive you.”

“I won’t forget. Don’t worry.”

Gordon nodded. “Good. Then I’ll see you then.”

Gordon headed for the exit. Frosty paused, skittering first toward Gordon, then toward Cen, turning her head back and forth.

“You want to stay and keep leveling?” Gordon asked, as he noticed her antics.

Frosty bobbed in agreement. Flomper hunched slightly on his shoulder, then nodded.

Gordon held out his arm for her. “You can stay here, then. I trust Levi to look out for you.”

Flomper hesitated, then ran down his extended arm and dove into the floor, surfacing beside Frosty.

“This’ll probably be better anyway, I won’t have to explain why I’m checking in with a giant spider in tow.” He waved. “Have fun.”

Frosty waved back with her two front legs. Flomper looked miserable. Skarm grinned at them both.

“I’m always surprised by how your minions act,” Laurence commented. “They’re much more human than the dungeon ones. Those ones just follow patterns. Yours have personality.”

“It’s something to do with the connection between us,” Levi said, but the comment had spun his thoughts off in another new direction. If dungeons were normal soul-having beings, what did that mean for the monsters they created? Were they actually as mindless as everyone assumed, or were they more like children?

It was a whole uncomfortable line of considerations that he’d never had to worry about before. He wondered if there was any way to communicate with the dungeons directly. If the system could translate their creatures’ abilities, could it also translate words? Was negotiation possible? Could they convince dungeons to… stop killing people, maybe, or provide specific equipment in trade? What would dungeons want in exchange?

No. He pushed away the thought. He wasn’t going to go down that line of inquiry. If and when the dungeons proved themselves to be reasonable, then he’d start thinking about it. Worrying about it in advance would help nothing. For now, he’d continue as he always had. Fight, survive, and protect whoever he could.

Unfortunately, 'wait around for someone who may show up' did lend itself to thinking more than action. To distract himself, he walked over to where Laurence stood practicing his spell.

"Could you teach me?"

Laurence looked surprised. "Teach you? Don't you know more about magic than I ever will?"

Levi shook his head. "Spells and abilities are very difficult to do without the system, and I'm no mage. You can sometimes unlock the base form of an ability by figuring it out on your own, but more often it'll be very weak until you put ability points into it. It works fine for things where you can afford to do it slowly and at a high mana cost, but I never thought it was worth it for the actual attack spells. But right now, I have nothing better to do, and they do say the best way to learn a thing is to teach it so it might help you too."

"When last we met, I was but a learner. But now, I am the master." Laurence grinned, waiting for a reaction. When Levi said nothing, Laurence awkwardly cleared his throat. "I suppose the place to begin is..." he trailed off, uncertain suddenly, and furrowed his brow. "Huh. I know what to do and how to do it, but..."

Laurence cast Gust, wind blasting out from his extended hand in a cone of slashing fury that could smash scarabs out of the sky (Levi had seen many wizards use the spell at higher levels in the past), but then frowned down at his hand.

"You're right, I don't really know it. Haah, good thing you brought this up or I may have reset my class before I was really ready to cast it again on my own. I thought I was almost there, but..."

Levi stood beside him, hand extended, mana focused. He could emit the mana from any point on his body at will, or from every point as he did with Mana Ping, but shifting pure mana into elemental energy or direct force was beyond his knowledge. He used weapons and equipment to shift his mana to its active form, shape it, and direct it, rather than doing it internally like a wizard. The spells he'd been taught for detection, repair, etc. were all mana-neutral, requiring no shifting or shaping, only guiding intention and plenty of raw mana.

"Gust," Laurence whispered, casting the spell again, more slowly this time, focused and intent.

"I can push mana out," Levi demonstrated a brief Mana Push as he spoke, "but not do much with it."

"Oh, well, that's about where I'm at too..." Laurence trailed off, then he shook his head and his expression firmed. "If I'm going to start a magic academy, I can't expect to do so without some hurdles. I can do this."

"Anything you need?"

"No, I can do this. Give me a few minutes." He paused to breathe slowly and deeply, then started casting Gust again and again, at different speeds, the blades of wind slashing violently out in front of him before fading away. Then he sat down with his notebook, scribbling furiously. Every few minutes he'd cast the spell again, then resume writing or sketching.

It really was a useful spell, Levi found himself sincerely hoping he could learn it. Even if it ended up being too mana-intensive to be feasible in normal everyday use, having an area attack available to deal with swarms until he got his hands on the right combination of equipment upgrades would be a big help.

"Can you show me what your ping spell works like?" Laurence asked, after several repetitions of his practice. "I think I understand the spell, but I'm not sure I can explain it to someone who doesn't."

"It's basic, you push mana out around yourself in a wave, then pull it back and interpret the echoes. Anything with a high mana density will leave either a hole or a resonance, depending on what type of thing it is. People tend to leave absences, objects give a resonance, and if you feel both at once it's probably someone with serious equipment."

"Walk me through the casting steps?"

Levi did so, and Laurence repeated it several times until he could get it to work. It still wasn't as smooth as his own spell, and he failed more than half the times even after his initial success. He cast it several times in a focused arc in front of him at the target wall.

"Alright. I think I understand it," Laurence finally said. "At least enough to start. Stand here."

Levi did as instructed.

"What I want you to do is pretend that you're casting Mana Ping, but instead of firing it out in all directions, concentrate it into a cone from your hand."

Levi did so. It was easy enough, midway between the ping and push.

"Oh, wow. You're fast. Alright, uh... step two. Do the same thing, but compress the mana into blades."

Levi's brow furrowed as he attempted this, sending a variety of directed pings in blade shape. They did not look or act like the wind blades of Gust, but behaved like an ordinary ping shaped strangely.

"Ah... hummm." Laurence mimed pressing his hands together with something invisible between them. "Compress them. Not just the emission. The whole nature of them."

Levi tried again, a bit bemused by now. It still didn't do anything but bounce back, returning the information that the dungeon wall was full of mana. As was the air. And the floor. Mana Ping wasn't very useful inside a dungeon due to their extreme mana saturation. He could tell that a human-shaped person was probably beside him, but not much beyond that. He couldn't even detect his minions patrolling the edges of the room for any stray monsters that may show up.

"Do it again, slower."

Levi did so.

"Ah! You need to make it colder."

"Colder?"

"Yes. It's too warm, it comes apart. You need to chill it, just a little. Wind is colder than still air."

Levi didn't think that was how wind worked, but with magic... who could say? "Alright, I'll try it, but... how."

Laurence gestured, a curving motion and a quick push out away from himself, but he looked uncertain. "You can feel your mana before you cast the spell, right?"

Levi nodded. "It's flexible and responsive, I can put it into any equipment or weapon I'm touching."

"Well, before you put it into the spell, make it colder."

Levi had no more of an idea how to cool mana than he did how to control the temperature of his skin. But it was clearly possible, so he sat down and closed his eyes and focused.