Rudolph’s face was green as he sat down and gasped for breath. “Not so easy compared to hitting wooden dolls in the academy, huh?” the warrior leader said as he leaned against his sword stuck in the ground. Rudolph nodded. A few feet away was the corpse of a zombie with no head. The group of guards had let Rudolph lead the expedition, only helping him when he was about to die. “I can feel myself getting stronger. It’s amazing, although the smell could be improved,” he said while scrunching his nose.

The thief nodded. “When you kill things that have mana, you get a bit of that power to strengthen your body. Wait until we get back to an adventurers guild and you can inspect your stats.” Rudolph nodded. He wanted to ask what their levels were, but he knew it would be rude.

“Alright, Johann. Let’s kill lots of zombies and level up!” Rudolph said.

Johann puked out a corpse and shook his head while whimpering. Rudolph sighed and said, “Why don’t you just bash them with a tree trunk?”

###################################################################

“Isn’t this too easy, Gabel?” asked Loffel.

Gabel shrugged and stabbed a slime’s mana core. The core exploded and the slime evaporated. “It’s supposed to get harder,” he said.

“Less talky talky, more stabby stabby,” a voice called out. The sounds of children soon turned into the sounds of squishing as slimes disappeared left and right.

“Mr. Doofus, when do we get to actually fight things?” Loffel asked. The surrounding kids stopped and turned to look at the big man who was standing at the entrance to the cave illuminated by a yellow glow.

“When you reach level five. Then we’ll move on to the next floor with bigger slimes,” Doofus said.

“Ugh, more slimes,” a boy with red hair said. “I don’t think I can eat my mum’s pudding ever again.”

“Is this not good enough for you, Darkon? Our ancestors fought a war over this mana source and you want to go somewhere else?” Doofus asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“No, no problem, sir. It’s just a little… lame?” Darkon replied. “Our ancestors fought over a slime spawner?”

Doofus glared at the boy and then let his arms drop as he sighed. “Yeah, I know it’s lame. That’s what I thought too when I first started. But if you keep it up, you might become an SSS ranked adventurer like me,” Doofus said as he pointed to his face with his thumb and smiled, “and it’s not only slimes. I’m only allowed to let you guys kill slimes.”

“But humans get to go to actual dungeons for their first time,” Gabel complained.

“Yeah, but you’re not a human,” Loffel said. Gabel frowned and stabbed a slime.

###################################################################

Lindyss watched the naked boy eating a raw bear corpse in her mini boss room. How did things end up like this, she thought. The basilisk popped its head out from the stairs and looked at Vur and then Lindyss and then back to Vur and back again. His eyes asked, “Why is he still here? Where do I sleep?”

“Hey, Vur, do you know what this is?” Lindyss said as she pointed at the basilisk. Vur looked up and shook his head.

“He tried to hurt me with his eyes, but then ran away and played dead,” Vur said while chewing.

“You shouldn’t talk with food in your mouth,” Lindyss said with a frown. “It’s not polite.”

Vur tilted his head and continued to chew. “So, why did you ask me a question?” he asked. Lindyss stared and him and shook her head.

“Never mind,” she said. “Just in the future, try not to talk with your mouth full. Dragons don’t do that.”

Vur thought back to all the times he remembered his family eating and nodded. After he swallowed he said, “Thirsty.”

Lindyss sat there and asked, “What’s the magic word?”

Vur scrunched up his eyebrows and shook his head. “I don’t know the word. I don’t need words though,” he said. His eyes glowed and a massive amount of water materialized in the air all around the cave and crashed to the floor soaking Lindyss and the basilisk. He cupped the water in his hands and drank it.

Lindyss spluttered. “Never do that again,” she said as she coughed out water.

“Master! What’s going in? Is it storming?”

“I’m wet. I hate being wet.”

“Stop touching me with your wet wings. No, I don’t care if you’re drowning!”

“I’m drowni- glub, master, h-help.”

Snuffles oinked and climbed on top of Vur’s head.

Lindyss glared at Vur. “Why’d you summon so much if you were only going to drink so little?” she asked.

“I don’t know how else to do it,” he said.

Lindyss sighed and said, “I hope you didn’t dilute my fountain. Who taught you magic?”

Vur tilted his head. “No one. I just do it,” he said. “I asked Grimmy once and he told me to do what I felt was nice.”

Lindyss covered her face with her hands. “I’ll kill Grimmoldesser. I’ll kill him. Just do whatever you feel is nice? That’s the kind of advice given to a child with a near infinite amount of mana?” she mumbled. She looked at Vur and said, “Right now, you are a disgrace to every magical being in existence. I’ll show you what it really means to be a dragon. Dragons are intelligent, arrogant, greedy, and prideful pieces of shi-not, pieces of snot. You, you are just a lizard with a really big stick.”

###################################################################

Tafel watched as Dustin chanted and summoned thirty earth golems in the field in front of them. “Phew, alright, Tafel,” Dustin said as he took a deep breath, “you’re going to use these for target practice. They’re fragile in human vital spots, you have half an hour to take out as many as you can.”

Tafel nodded and began. Thirty minutes later she was lying on the ground panting for breath. Six piles of rubble were in the field of golems. Dustin nodded his head. “Not too bad for your first try; you need to find the right balance of mana to take them out efficiently.” Tafel looked at Dustin as he pointed his finger to the sky to build up mana. He lowered it and pointed towards the golems and twenty four lightning bolts struck them each on the head, reducing the golems to rubble instantly.

“Wow, that’s amazing,” Tafel said.

Dustin shook his head. “Any competent mage should be able to do this,” he said. “I actually met someone whose mastery over magic was far greater than mine once.” He sighed.

Tafel’s eyebrows raised. “Who was it? How come I’ve never heard of him?” she asked.

He smiled. “It’s actually a her,” he said. “She’s the vampire guarding the fountain of youth. She stomped our butts and made us cry.”

“How’d you get away if she was stronger than you?” Tafel asked.

“Our beast tamer raised a basilisk and we traded it for our lives. He’s retired now; last I heard he runs a stable in Fuselage,” Dustin said.

“Fuselage really exists?” Tafel asked. “How can a town like that not be a story?”

“Oh, it exists alright. Maybe you’ll see it one day,” Dustin said while smiling.