As it turned out, the vast majority of the books within the chest had been copies. After scanning them over, we’d discovered that across all of them, there were only two distinct spells: Illumination and Brilliant Aegis.

The first was thankfully a novice spell, and I’d grabbed it up greedily, intent on reading it as soon as I got a chance. As the name implied, Illumination allowed the caster to light up a dark room by creating a ball of light. With my freakish level of Perception, I already had great low-light vision, but in complete darkness, the spell would still come in handy.

Brilliant Aegis, on the other hand, required a higher skill level in light magic. Of the three of us, only Cal could use it, which she happily did. The spell allowed her to cast a stationary shield of light at a target location, particularly useful for blocking ranged attacks.

Hartha, for whatever reason, had declined to take one of the Illumination copies. Considering light was necessary to grow plants, I’d thought the school of magic would appeal to her, but even when I pressed her, she remained adamant. Though I was more than a little curious as to her choice, she didn’t offer a reason and I didn’t pry.

Buried beneath the debris, we’d also found a few odds and ends, but nothing as fancy as Cal’s new scepter. For my part, I’d ended up with a slightly rusty silver bracelet that gave +1 to Intelligence and Wisdom, but that was it.

None of that, however, was the most exciting part.

The following day (after sleeping in considerably), I awoke and immediately launched into reading my newly acquired spellbook. Hours later, its information was lodged into my mind, bringing me up to a solid four schools of magic I now had access to.

While I found this pretty thrilling in its own right, it turned out my class found it significantly more so. No sooner had I learned the first spell than a new notification had appeared.

Class Quest Completed: Learn a new basic school of magic (Repeatable)

+1 Class Point

+2500xp

It wasn’t the first time I’d completed this particular quest, but the level of experience still staggered me. On thinking it through, however, it made more sense: Not only were class quests supposed to be the main way people leveled once they hit level 10, but also, it wasn’t normal for a level 7 to have a serious combat class like this. The experience gains were set assuming I was a level 10 at the lowest.

Because of this, I was met with one final notification, the best of any I’d received so far:

Congratulations! You have reached Level 8!

+3 Constitution

+1 Strength

+1 Endurance

+1 Intelligence

+2 Wisdom

+2 Charisma

+1 Luck

It looked like half of my free points had gone into Charisma and Luck this time around, which truthfully was a bit of a letdown, but a level was a level! And besides: The hefty +3 to Constitution made me feel much safer. I brought up my character sheet, appreciating how vastly it had changed since the day I’d been dropped in the woods.

Name: Tess

Age: 26

Race: Human

Class: Arcane Arsenal

Level: 8

Experience: 324/9250

Prestige: 775

Health: 220/220

Mana: 240/240

Stamina: 210/210

Constitution: 22

Strength: 22

Endurance: 21

Dexterity: 18 (+1)

Intelligence: 26

Wisdom: 22 (+2)

Perception: 26

Charisma: 19

Luck: 24

It certainly wasn’t how I would have allocated my points if I’d had the choice, but in a way, there was a certain thrill that came with having everything be evenly split: In a few more levels, I was likely to hit the 25 mark in many of my stats all at once. Once I did, who knew how strong I’d be?

Notifications out of the way, the next thing on my agenda was to explore my new light magic. The spell itself was nothing too wild, but I’d yet to see how the magic school would affect my class skills.

I wandered off into the forest, stopping when I was a fair distance from the camp, and began to cycle through my skills.

First up were my weapon enhancements. I summoned the plain mana bow, a graceful and translucent blue, and fed my newly awakened light mana into it. Its sleek curvature rapidly grew more angular and faceted as its color changed to a radiant yellow. When the transformation was complete, the bow I held appeared as if it had been cut from a single glistening gemstone, with its string nothing more than a thin ray of light.

Its description was the same as the standard mana bow, save for two new lines.

5% chance to temporarily blind enemies.

Glow: Enemies are more likely to focus on you when using this bow.

That was truthfully a mixed bag. The blind, I would happily take. If I was attacking from a distance, however, the extra attention would most likely be unwelcome.

Moving on, I dismissed the bow and summoned my mana armor, immediately filling it with light mana. Much like the bow, it too grew to resemble a cut gem, and while the sight was impressive, I had to admit I felt uncomfortably gaudy wearing it.

Much as expected, it offered resistance to dark spells and had the same Glow effect as the bow. Additionally, it had one extra effect.

Dazzle: Reduces accuracy of all enemies within melee range.

Despite its stylistic deficits, the armor was probably the best out of any I had so far. Not only would the dark resistance come in handy if I went into the dungeon, but also, the dazzle effect could potentially be pretty powerful depending on how much it reduced an enemy’s accuracy.

Dismissing the armor, I channeled light mana into my feet, the last of my three enhancements. Less overwhelming than the other two, the skill simply coated my soles with light. The sight brought back memories of wearing light-up sneakers in my childhood, and I chuckled at the image of me fighting monsters in a pair of magical light-up shoes.

Improved Mana Feet - Flash Feet

Increases the base effect of Mana Feet by 1.5x

Mana cost increased by 2x

The description had me both delighted and disappointed at once. On the one hand, the extra speed was no small joke. Especially once I hit the 25 mark in Dexterity, I had to imagine the improvement would make me absurdly fast. On the other, I’d been hoping to get a Flash Step ability that would let me teleport to a target location. My existing Jet Step wasn’t bad, but something faster would have been a big plus, and if anything would give it to me, I’d figured light magic would.

At the end of the day though, it was probably for the best. While the dungeon dives had helped me hammer some of my skills into muscle memory, I was still getting a hang on them. Adding too many new skills to my repertoire at once was more likely to hurt than help at this point.

I played around with the skills along with my new Illumination spell, getting used to my increased speed and getting a feel for light magic as a whole. Once I decided I’d practiced enough, I headed back to the camp and into my tent, one final item still on my to-do list.

For the third time since I’d gained my class, I slipped into my class space. Thick gray fog surrounded me, and when it dissipated, I found myself in the now-familiar armory.

I did a cursory overview of the three rooms, ducking into each one and checking that I hadn’t somehow unlocked any new options since last I’d visited, but as expected, I hadn’t. On the plus side, however, I did have more choices than on my first visit: Grabbing the Mana Feet skill had unlocked the second step of the Arcane Augmenter path, and grabbing Overload Weapon had likewise granted me partial access to the fourth step of the Arcane Weaponmaster path.

Unfortunately, it had only granted me partial access. Most of the pedestals on that step were dark, evidently requiring some additional prerequisites I hadn’t met yet.

In addition to my original options, then, I only had two new choices: Arcane Vision, and Enhanced Weapon Skills. The first was from the Augmenter path, a pair of monocles sitting on the skill pedestal. As expected, it would enhance my vision, and similar to the Mana Feet skill, the effects would vary based on the type of mana used.

For its part, Enhanced Weapon Skills would enable me to spend some mana whenever I used a weapon ability. I was guessing the skill could be pretty strong, but as all of my weapon skills were below level 10, I hadn’t even learned any special abilities or attacks yet. There was no sense in wasting a class point on that yet, then.

With that in mind, there were only four options that spoke to me. Arcane Vision was the one I wanted the most, as it would play to my strengths of having high Perception, and if Mana Feet was anything to go off of, it would be highly versatile.

Arcane Armaments was pretty high up there too. While I’d already spent two points on it getting my spear and my bow, that only took care of medium range and long range fighting. Adding a dagger to the mix would give me more versatility.

The other two skills I was considering were both defensive: Arcane Armory, and Resist Magic. The prior was currently at three points out of five and was giving me about as much defensive power as a set of heavy leather armor. That, however, wouldn’t do much against a serious sword strike, and I was eager to level it up completely for better protection.

Having barely won my fight against the Ice Mage, Resist Magic was also an appealing choice, especially considering I might be up against dark spells if I ever went into the dungeon. Having been hit with all the mana bolts in the Drawgin archery range, I was also unpleasantly aware of how little magic resistance I had.

I weighed the pros and cons of each option for a while, torn, but at last came to a decision. Begrudgingly, I had to take the defensive skills. My magical defense was pitifully low right now, and while enhancing my set of heavy leather gave me respectable physical defense, it still wouldn’t be good enough against a serious strike.

I made my selections and winced as the class points disappeared.

Arcane Armament has reached Rank 4: Summoned armor now grants a base defense on par with chain mail.

You have learned a new class skill: Resist Magic

While armor is summoned or enhanced with mana, decreases all magical damage taken by 5% plus a flat Intelligence/5 reduction.

While the extra 5% reduction was appreciated, it was the flat reduction that I was most happy about. Once I started fighting more serious enemies, it wouldn’t do me much good, but for now, it meant that if someone hit me with a large number of low-level spells, I’d be able to shrug them off without too much of an issue.

Class points depleted, I exited the space and returned to my tent.

“Cool cool. What to do now, though?” I mumbled to myself.

We still had just under two weeks before the village had enough energy to open the dungeon. Considering how hectic and life-altering the last few months had been, I was of half a mind to use the time to enjoy some rest and relaxation. I could hit the bathhouse, go on some walks, maybe pick up some crafting skills as a hobby.

At the same time, however, I knew that wasn’t really an option. I was hoping that once we got all the energy we needed, Ephesis would wake up, and everything would magically be fixed. Barring that, if there was any fighting to do, there were far better qualified fighters in the area than I.

Sadly though, things didn’t always go as planned.

I was hoping to be proved wrong, but I had a niggling worry that as the settlement owner and a Protagonist, I might have to do something. If that something ended up involving fighting at all, it was best that I fully prepared myself. Especially after seeing how much stronger I could get from completing class quests, it was clear that doing so was the most prudent choice right now.

With a sigh, I opened up my quests and moved through them, deciding on my best line of attack. Almost at once, I found what I was looking for.

Quest: Raise a weapon skill to level 10 (Repeatable).

I pulled up my character sheet, finding that both my Spears skill and my Archery skill now sat at level 8. Could I raise both by two levels in only two weeks?

Well, only one way to find out, I suppose.

For now, it was time to train. And come two weeks’ time, I’d be ready.

Ephesis would awake, and he’d vanquish the darkness that infested the deadlands. And at last my quest would be complete.

Stat & Level Updates:

Light Magic 0 → 1 Illumination 0 → 1 Constitution 19 → 22 Strength 21 → 22 Endurance 20 → 21 Intelligence 25 → 26 Wisdom 20 → 22 Charisma 17 → 19 Luck 23 → 24

Character Sheet:

Name: Tess Age: 26 Race: Human Class: Arcane Arsenal Level: 8 Experience: 468/9250 Prestige: 765 Health: 220/220 Mana: 220/220 Stamina: 210/210 Stats: Constitution: 22 Strength: 22 Endurance: 21 Dexterity: 19 Intelligence: 26 Wisdom: 22 Perception: 26 Charisma: 19 Luck: 24

Skills:

Weapon & Armor Spears: 8 Archery: 8 Small Blades: 4 Unarmed Combat: 4 Swords: 3 Hammers: 2 Staffs: 2 Axes: 1 Medium Armor: 5 Heavy Armor: 1 Movement Dodge: 3 Magic Life Magic: 5 Water Magic: 5 Fire Magic: 4 Light Magic: 1 Spells: Minor Healing: 6 Conjure Water: 6 Flameploof: 4 Illumination: 1 Resistances Trauma Suppression: 9 Poison Resistance: 6 Heat Resistance: 2 Detection God's Eye: 6 Detect Trap: 5 Detect Secret: 4 Tracking: 2 Social Drinking: 4 (+5) Conversation: 4 Trade: 3 Flirt: 2 Deception: 1 Gambling: 1 Craft Woodworking: 6 Jewelry Making: 5 Herbalism: 2 Alchemy: 2 Construction: 6 General Reading: 1