One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”

Zach took the last sip of healing potion out of the clay bottle. The healing potion tasted like a strawberry smoothie with an aftertaste of old gym shorts. Swallowing a sip of water hoping that the rank taste would go away, Zach pulled up his character screen to view what he needed to spend his points on.

Character ScreenTrue Name:Zachary Alan LeeRace:HumanHouse:RidhurjaLevel:5Exp till Next Level:2/1300HP*:148Mana:398BodySoulSTR*:17INT:27DEX*:13WIS:24CON*:16CHA:11END:18LUCK:10*If creatures are smaller or larger then you stats may change depending on size during combat.Skills Appraisal Lv. 9 (27%), Arcane Inscription Lv. 19 (13%), Awareness Lv. 10 (22%), Camp Creation Lv.15 (15%), Core Creation* Lv. 15 (68%), Core Creation Subskill Core Expansion* Lv. 4 (16%), Foraging Lv. 4 (15%), Golem Creation* Lv. 18 (23%), Golem Creation Subskill Imprint Ability Lv. 1 (0%), Golem Creation Subskill Imprint Attribute Lv. 1 (0%), Golem Creation Subskill Imprint Skill* Lv. 3 (12%), Light Armor Lv. 22 (57%), Mana Manipulation Lv. 27 (5%), Mana Reinforcement Lv. 19 (13%), Mana Theory* Lv. 24 (2%), Observe Lv. 26 (1%), Running Lv. 29 (13%), Small Party Tactics Lv. 1 (0%), Sneak Lv. 5 (13%), Spear Lv. 27 (17%), Spell Imbuement Lv. 3 (13%), Trade Lv. 10 (0%), Ward Construction Lv. 22 (39%) *Inheritable SkillsSpells Clear Air (9% Mastery), Clear Water (48% Mastery), Flaming Arrow (51% Mastery), Grow (95% Mastery),Light (36% Mastery), Mend Tier 2 (35% Mastery), Purge Poison (13% Mastery), Shadow Strike (2% Mastery), Shape Stone Tier 2 (22% Mastery), Spark (35% Mastery), Summoning Grimoire (6% Mastery)EnhancementSilent Shadow

Divine Notice (Tier 1)

Minor Disease Resistance

Aura: Terror (Rat)AbilitiesHideWeapon TechniquesThrust (Spear)Golem ContractsMana Pylon (Tiny Sand Elemental Unnamed)

Bronze Utility Golem (Medium Shadow Elemental Hayze)

Zach looked at his character screen and felt a little saddened by it. Since creating Hayze he had only increased his endurance and strength back up to his original scores. What little practice with the spear he had, was to get Hayze to pick up the skill and so his dexterity had lagged. However, when he looked at his intelligence and wisdom it seemed like they were growing with every spell he cast. With a sigh, Zach told Grim to increase his dexterity by three and his luck and charisma by one. A small flow of power traveled through his body as his attribute points were spent.

“Excellent.” Grim said, “Now what about your class advantage?”

Zach stopped for a moment, “Wait… my what?”

“Your class advantage? Every five levels you get a class enhancement or ability that helps you with your profession. So let me see what is available in the store for us.” Grim said nonchalantly. While Zach waited for Grim to finish up what he was doing, he had to say if he had known obtaining level five would have given him something useful, he would have focused on killing more Horned Rabbits. In fact, now that he thought about it he must be getting close to the hundred mark on them, just as he was about to ask about his kill counts and why the hell Grim hadn’t told him about the class enhancement or ability, a blue screen appeared.

A review of your actions has taken place. Based on the recordings from your Grimoire, Personalized Class Enhancements and Abilities have been chosen instead of your standard Class Advantages. You may choose one of the following as a Class Advantage.Divine Store Item:Ability: City Core ServantItem Description: You are the City Artificer of Schoner’s Creek. When creating a Golem you can make contracts on behalf of your City Core. Your City Core will now be able to store attribute points in which you can use to summon golems, instead of buffing creatures in the dungeon, on its behalf. Choosing this ability will unlock new city core menu items. Should you stop being Schoner’s Creek City Artificer you may choose another class advantage. Divine Store Item:Ability: SynchronicityItem Description: You have found an unusually high number of hidden quests. Whether by some guiding hand or random events, hidden information seems to find itself attracted to you. Once per day you can spend 100 mana and feel a physical pull to the closest hidden quest or item. This pull will last for one hour and will be in a direct line to the target. If this ability is activated within ten feet of a hidden quest or object, you may spend half of your mana pool to receive a clue as to how to complete or receive the quest/item.Divine Store Item:Enhancement: Golem Beacon (Defender)Item Description: You have trained a Golem in a weapon skill for your defense. Any golem learning combat skills from you will take 20% less time to learn. Any golem within 20 feet of you will increase its ability to dodge blows by 5%. You may purchase this Enhancement multiple times to increase the dodge and learning bonus. Divine Store Item:Enhancement: Golem Beacon (Mana Guide)Item Description: You have worked at helping an Elemental with their ability and created a new golem. Any golem using abilities or spells within 20 feet of you will decrease its cost to use that ability or spell based on your cultivation level of the element. At level one, or Attunement, spells and abilities will be decreased by 2%. At level two, or Foundation, spells and abilities will be decreased by 6%. You may purchase this Enhancement multiple times to increase the range.Divine Store Item:Enhancement: Golem Mana TransferItem Description: You have worked with balancing mana between your golems and yourself. You can transfer mana to or from any contracted golem’s mana pool to yourself with a thought. When a Golem has zero mana, it will stop functioning and you may be in violation of your contract. You may purchase this Enhancement multiple times to reduce the transfer rate cost. Current cost is for every 2 mana transferred 1 mana is lost to the connection (2:1) Divine Store Item:Enhancement: Golem RestoreItem Description: You have worked with repairing a golem’s body. You can transfer HP directly to any contracted golem. The cost to restore one hp for the golem is based on the rarity of the material and level of craftsmanship. Review of your current golem’s shows that Hayze would require 10 HP for every 1 HP you wish to restore. While the mana pylon would require 1 HP for every 2 HP you wish to restore. By using this method of repair, any repair will be at the maximum level of craftsmanship when the golem was created.Divine Store Item:Enhancement: Spell FocusItem Description: Your focus on creating a more efficient ability for your golem has shown your dedication to magic. When choosing this ability, your mana channels will slowly shift based on your most heavily used spells. You will receive 25% reduction in the mana cost for your top five used spells, while all other spells with have a 25% increase in mana cost. Upon casting one spell 1000 times it will become an ability where the mana cost will decrease by 50% and you will only have to think to activate the spell. This Enhancement may be purchased multiple times, each additional purchase will decrease the mana cost for your top five spells and open one more spell to become an ability.Divine Store Item:Enhancement: Skill: Core CreationItem Description: Your invention of the Mana Pylon and new use of a Mana Core has lead you to push the skill of Core Creation and its subskills. Should you choose this Enhancement a one-time bonus of +20 will be added to the Core Creation Skill. Every core you create will act as if your skill level is +5. This Enhancement can only be purchased once for every skill you possess.

As Zach read the list for his Class Advantage, he realized that having Grim had changed his choices from standard Artificer Class Advantages. “Grim, what are the associated cost of each advantage, if I was to buy them in the store.” Zach asked as he looked over to Alexa and found that the blue soft light of her Grimoire was out as she worked her own screen.

“Well Zach, Synchronicity is a hundred and fifty DP, the Golem Beacons and Spell Focus are around thirty DP, the Skill enhancement is twenty-five DP, Golem Mana Transfer and Restore is fifteen DP, and the City Core Servant is five DP.” Grim said.

Zach really had to think what was best for him at this point. He had been careless as to his choices before and if anything the litrpg light novels he wrote taught him; he needed to have a long-term plan. Synchronicity is a high cost and has great rewards, but if the hidden quests are higher than my class level or ability to fight, then I could be led into a trap and killed. The City Core Servant might be nice for unlocking more menus and being able to create more golems, but that does absolutely nothing for me right now or the next month in the dungeon. Besides, I could just buy the Ability later. I have to admit that the Golem Beacons really appeal to me. It would be pretty awesome surrounded by a bunch of my golems casting spells in the middle of a battle. The problem is that I have one golem right now and the bonuses aren’t enough to see a noticeable improvement quickly. You would have to get Defender Beacon several times for the dodge bonus to be noticeable in a fight, and the spell one requires a great deal of cultivation. The skill enhancement is great for a crafter, but I will be in combat so pass. Likewise, with Mend I can restore Hayze with some bronze so Golem Restore is redundant. So that leaves Spell Focus and Golem Mana Transfer. Zach sighed as he looked at the two Advantages closely.

Golem Mana Transfer allows me to use multiple golems as batteries in battle, or I can juice up Hayze so he can do his shadow strike more often. The problem is that the amount of mana consumed in the connection. If I was to dump a hundred points of mana into him, he would only get fifty. I could buy the enhancement a couple of times with DP, but that would prevent me buying a spell or live saving item if we need it. With Spell Focus, I only have eleven spells so the increase in cost for the other spells isn’t a terrible burden. I can always focus on the combat spells to increase them and if [Flame Arrow] becomes ability I could spam it creating a magical gun. Not seeing a better option to improve his combat ability quickly, Zach selected the Spell Focus Enhancement. A sense of raw energy flooded around him as a small motes of light, like fireflies lighting up at night, blinked into existence. As the last light died a blue screen appeared.

You have chosen [Enhancement: Spell Focus]. Your top five spells and spell counts are:

Mend Tier 2 (Cast Count: 176) Shape Stone Tier 2 (Cast Count: 146) Grow (Cast Count: 98) Flaming Arrow (Cast Count: 49) Clear Water (Cast Count: 48)

It will take 24 hours for your mana channels to realign, the reduction in mana cost will occur slowly over the next day. Thank you for your patience!

Zach shrugged at the message before looking up to see that Andy was waiting for him a few feet away. Zach thought it was nice that this world expected privacy when looking over the World Prompts. His first reaction had been to share everything until Grim had told him that people believe the prompts came from the Gods and Goddesses and were meant to be private if it dealt with your class or choices. “Thanks for letting me choose my Class Advantage. So what do you want to talk about?” Zach said.

Andy grunted as Zach mentioned his Class Advantage. “Aye, Lad, I am glad you had time to think about it. Anyway, I wanted to talk about some loot items we received. From the list you gave me, we received a Trophy, several grimoire upgrades, and a City Core Shard?” Zach nodded at Andy to confirm that they had received those items.

“Hmmm, well I would have you and Alexa use the Compass and Clock upgrades. Should help the both of you with your companions as for the Trophy and City Core Shard I would like to inspect them.” The way Andy said it, made Zach think it wasn’t really a request. Holding out his hand, a glass sphere the size of a baseball appeared. Looking closer Zach saw the three broken pieces of the Rat King’s Crown suspended in the glass. Reaching out Andy picked up the sphere and with another flash of light a small gem appeared in Zach’s outstretch hand. The crystal was a dark purple that formed an octahedron with small indented triangles on its faces.

As Andy closely studied the glass sphere, a blue mana prompt jumped up in front of him. Making Zach look closely at the sphere and activating his own [Observe] skill.

Divine Store Item:Trophy [Broken Rat King’s Crown]Divine Store Cost:N/AItem Description:

This item is not for purchase. A Trophy exist as a record of the fight between an elite dungeon creature and an individual or group. When a trophy is placed at an Adventurer’s Guild Hall with training rooms, the creature will become available to fight and train against. If placed in another building, different benefits may occur (Increase your skill level in Mana Theory for more information).

Zach was a little surprised to see the first item ever that you couldn’t buy at the [Divine Store]. Curious about what the dungeon core had to say; Zach looked down to his hand.

Divine Store Item:City Core Shard: Dungeon Enhancement Divine Store Cost:80Item Description: A City Core Shard is an upgradable crystal for a City Core. By placing the core next to City Core this item will enhance one Dungeon. Depending on the Dungeon this can include new quests, items, puzzles, traps, or mana creatures. If no dungeon has been created by the City Core, this Enhancement will create one.

Congratulations! Your Arcane Inscription, Core Creation, Core Expansion, Mana Theory and Spell Imbuement have been used to identify this object. By using three or more skills in identification of an item, additional information was obtained.

Arcane Inscription and Core Creation: It is possible for you to recreate this object using your current skills. By creating a ritual circle and placing various objects and mana core’s around the circle you can draw in their mana to create an exact copy of this item. Items must be infused with enough mana to exceed 33,000 mana points. Review of your Skills and Attributes show you have a 3% chance of success and will require 4 weeks to channel enough mana.

Arcane Inscription and Core Expansion: Besides creating a copy of the core shard, you can try to increase the shards knowledge of items, quests, intelligence, or creatures. By creating a ritual circle you can access the shards drain and learn feature to sacrifice items or cores to it. Depending on the level, quality, and uniqueness; multiple items may be needed of the same type for the core to learn.

Core Expansion, Mana Theory and Spell Imbuement: By accessing the core learn feature you can cast any spell you know in the general area of the shard and have a chance for the shard to learn the spell and offer it to creatures or as loot. All spells have a 0.1% chance of learning regardless of a user’s mastery.

“Holy crap!” Zach said as he read about the dungeon core.

Zach saw Andy look up from the trophy and smile. “What quality is it?” Andy asked as he handed back trophy to Zach and Zach gave him the core.

“Quality?” Zach said.

Andy smiled and examined the crystal until his blue screen popped up. “Being able to read an items quality takes the third level of cultivation, Movement or Circulation. The first three realms of cultivation are; Attunement or Sensing, Foundation or Formation, Movement or Circulation. To first attune we had you mediate and slowly sense the mana in you. As you build your island into something more and practice basic spells your mana channels began to strength against the use. As you circulate your mana through your mana channels, your body will hardened allowing new pathways of energy to exist and grow. These new pathways feed you perceptions about the true nature of an object, person, or place. Hmmmmm… low quality, still enough for a gold.” Andy handed back the core to Zach and Grim placed them both back in his inventory.

Zach felt a wave of air from Andy clapping his hands together before speaking up, “All right Alexa and Zach, one of the most important rules of being in a dungeon is never assume your safe. Time to get up and move we have slimes to kill!”

Zach dusted off his clothes and waited as Alexa stood up. Alexa seemed to have a thoughtful look on her face as she turned to her father. “Mother and you have taught me about mana and cultivation since I was five, but I think that's the first time you have mention the third level.” Alexa said as she pulled her sword and readied her shield.

Andy bit his lip slightly as he turned from Zach vision to face Alexa. “I suppose you’re right. Let's start walking and I will give you my reason for it.” Andy said as he motioned for Zach to lead the way. Zach pointed back from where they had come from and the party walked watching for anything dangerous. It was strangely more quiet then Zach remembered as they entered the Rat’s Nest, instead of hundreds of rats squealing or chittering their teeth, the nests around the rim of the basin were abandoned. Slowly, the party made their way across the basin to the exit.

“The third level is perhaps the most dangerous level in cultivation.” Andy said in a hush voice as they continued forward. “The best way I can describe it is like a child learning to walk. At first the babe does not understand how to move, they are just picked up by their parents and placed where ever. Eventually by seeing enough and feeling their own strength, they began to try to move. Slowly they build up the muscles and began to kick or try to stand on their own. If their muscles are strong enough, they stand up or push themselves around on the ground, if not they fall over….” Andy quieted down as they exited out into the pipe. Water was once again filling the pipe slowing down their speed as they walked through it. By the time, they were out of the pipe, Zach saw a giant blob of something on the corpses near the entryway.

As a child, Zach had gone to the VR aquarium to see the thousands of extinct fish that had died in the early parts of the 21st century. What had struck him as a child was seeing the jellyfish float about without a real mouth, eyes, or recognizable organs. The large barrel size creature in front of him looked just as much of an alien as his memory of a jellyfish. Slick liquid covered the transparent shell of the slime as white internal organs seemed to move. Looking down at the corpse, Zach saw that where ever the slime covered it, anything organic was dissolving, as a purple bioluminescence seemed to travel throughout the slimes body. Raising his hand to shoot a [Flaming Arrow], he felt Andy’s strong grip upon his wrist forcing him to lower it.

“Slowly back into the tunnel, two other Slimes have seen us.” Andy said in a hush tone, using a simple nod to make Zach turn his head and see several other slimes moving to them. Unlike slimes rolling towards their prey, these slimes seemed to use their flexible membrane to push itself forward, almost as if the mana monster was using its internal mass to fling itself in the direction it wanted. As the group retreated backward, the slimes picked up speed as they waded into the water and bubbles formed around them.

“Give them everything you got Zach!” Andy cried out.

Raising his hand, Zach felt, in his mind, the words of the spell vibrate down his arms, as his fingers moved. Heat and light formed in front of Zach’s hands and with a final gesture the ball of energy formed into an arrow leaping from his hand into the closest slime. The streak of fire lit up the pipe they were in as it hit the center mass of the slime. Just for a second the flames spluttered before the air surrounding Zach briefly sucked towards the slime and its entire coating caught on fire. The water around the slime splashed and steamed as it tried diving its body into the shallow current.

Seeing that the slime on fire had stopped its forward momentum, Zach cast another [Flaming Arrow] at the other one. Flames erupted from the other slime that had just entered the pipe’s entryway. “Retreat!” Andy said as orange and green flames licked the pipes ceiling. Green tinted smoke filled up the pipe as the party splashed back into the basin. As Zach left the pipe, the smell of burning tar and rotten eggs hit him.

It was that smell that made Zach’s eyes water as a harsh cough left his throat. Zach felt mucus come out of his nose as the burning in his throat became painful. The coughing continued as Zach felt his legs give out. I need to breathe! Rough hands grabbed his head and pushed it back painfully. Zach widely fought the person as liquid was being poured down his mouth. Trying to inhale, Zach felt the cooling liquid rush down his air pipe before it disappeared. Zach gulped the strawberry liquid down and gasp for breathe. Sweet air filled his lungs as he opened his eyes to see Andy over him. The pounding of Zach's heart blocked the yelling that Andy was saying, so Zach weakly raised a hand.

It was a few seconds before Zach settled down enough to look around and realize that Alexa, Andy, Hayze and himself were on the edge of the basin as black smoke came out of the pipe into the ceiling. Zach looked around for a moment wondering how the hell he had even gotten up on the edge to begin with. Looking over to Andy, all Zach could do was say, “Thanks!” in a rough voice.

Andy nodded and then spoke, “Well the good news is that we know that the Slimes are flammable. The bad news is that we cannot hunt them in their nests with fire, if the smoke nearly kills us. Also, we are out of healing potions.”

“Shit,” Zach said thinking Andy really buried the lead on that one, “What are we going to do now?”