The group of four made their way over to the cafeteria. It was located in the building they were in, so it was close by. On the walk over, Kyle did all he could to stop himself from calculating how much mana he would have if he used the two enhancement crystals. Watching his mana increase was like an addiction, and he kept having to slap himself mentally to stop feeding that addiction.

Unfortunately for him, others had different plans.

While they were walking over Sarah sidled up to him.

“Oh man, look at these lovely enhancement crystals,” Sarah said as she admired the two crystals she was holding. “Imagine all the things you could do with them. You could increase your health, you could increase your physical power, you could increase your magic power, you could even *gasp* increase your mana.”

Kyle was trying his hardest not to look at the crystals Sarah was holding, so of course his eyes were completely focused on them.

In the background Li and Walt were snickering uncontrollably, although Kyle was oblivious to this. He was practically being led by the nose as Sarah held the two crystals in front of him.

Kyle swallowed. He must have been really hungry because he seemed to be salivating quite a bit.

“Let’s not be hasty here,” Kyle said. “We still *gulp* need to discuss what to do with these crystals.”

At this point Li had collapsed against the wall and was desperately trying to contain her laughter. Walt was making that awkward twitching face where you are trying to hold your laughter in, because it is polite to do so, but everyone knows you’re laughing anyway.

Luckily no one else was in the hallway with them to witness Kyle’s misery. But if there had been anyone else, they would have seen Kyle’s eyes going back and forth as Sarah tossed the crystals between her two hands.

“I don’t really need these enhancement crystals, since I am so much better than you scrubs,” Sarah said, holding in laughter. “But you three could all use them. Hmmm. Having a good tank is very important. If the tank isn’t there to draw aggro, then the party would definitely be in trouble. But it’s also important to have good CC. After all, if the tank is floundering, someone can just CC the enemies and save the situation.”

By this point they had all stopped walking and Li was on the floor gasping for breath. Walt appeared to by trying to calm down by taking long deep breaths, but instead it looked like he had a bad case of the hiccups.

Sarah’s lips continued to twitch upwards.

“Actually, those two things seem to be the only things we are lacking. I can’t think of anyone else that…”

This was the point that Sarah lost it.

Kyle had the same look on his face that Mickey had on his when Sarah put him down after running around with him held over her head. The undisguisable yearning was all too apparent.

Kyle finally realized that the other three were rolling on the floor with laughter and he flushed a deep, dark red.

By the time the other three had stopped laughing Kyle had almost fully calmed down. You couldn’t be friends with Sarah and not get used to stuff like this after all.

Once she got up, Li finally took pity on Kyle.

“Oh boy, I haven’t laughed that hard in ages. But seriously, I think we are all in agreement that you should get the enhancement crystals. We have all done the math. I am claiming dibs on a good magic skill if we get one though.”

Sarah nodded while Walt said, “Yeah, if you (translation: healbot) have more mana it also helps out the rest of us too (translation: helps me level my skill).”

Sarah brought the enhancement crystals over to Kyle.

“While we will need to increase Li’s mana to at least a hundred, but in the short term giving the enhancement crystals to you helps the party the most,” Sarah said.

Suspecting a trap, Kyle cautiously reached out to take the crystals. No trap was forthcoming though, and Sarah gave Kyle the crystals. Under the expectant gazes of the group, Kyle absorbed both crystals, putting both points into mana and raising his maximum effective mana up to 490.

Before I could regenerate about a hundred and fifty mana during our ten minute rest times in the dungeon. Now I should be able to regenerate over two hundred!

It took until the cafeteria for Kyle to get the goofy grin off of his face. He had completely forgotten about how Sarah had made fun of him. The joy of increasing his stats vastly outweighed any embarrassment he had felt.

The cafeteria more than satisfied the group’s expectations. After eating his aunt’s cooking, Kyle suspected that the cafeteria here had someone with some sort of cooking skill. Lasagna just didn’t taste that ungodly good.

While in the cafeteria, Thomas and the two from back home came to say hello. Out of the three of them, Derrick had been the only one to have gone into a dungeon before coming here since he had a rare healing skill. They quickly left to get back to farming though. They were all over twenty, so a bit older than Kyle and Sarah which is partly why they did not interact that much.

After finishing dinner, Kyle and his group set off back to go ogre farming. On the walk over, Sarah and Li sectioned themselves off and started whispering to each other. Kyle knew that they had been in touch over social media, but talking to someone in person is very different than chatting online. Kyle suspected they were talking about boys based on how Sarah was acting. While Kyle and Sarah were very close, that was one thing that she would never talk to him about for some strange reason.

Kyle and Walt quickly fell into talking about video games after discovering they both played a popular online fighter. Unsurprising, really, given its popularity. They started comparing their abilities to characters in the game. Kyle thought he was most like a blue skinned mage character who had lots of mana, and Walt insisted he was like a gemstone paladin character. Kyle was skeptic, but Walt’s healing ability even had crystal in its name, so Kyle eventually relented.

They quickly reached the dungeon and started farming the ogre again. Since Kyle had more mana, he was able to heal Walt with eighty mana instead of fifty, and it seemed to make a difference as Walt’s skill gained a level before the night was out.

Kyle was hoping his Mana Pool Extension would level up, but only his Mana Bolt leveled up to nineteen. That was still exciting, as getting a skill to level twenty gave you two skill points, unlike the one you got for level ten. With all the mana Kyle had now, he might even be able to quickly level Mana Bolt to level thirty and get three skill points.

The four of them ended up defeating the ogre another ten times before calling it a night.

They only got one skill crystal and one enhancement crystal from the runs. The skill crystal ended up being Basic Health Regeneration, which Walt ended up learning since he did not have a health regeneration skill even though he was a tank.

Kyle insisted Li get the enhancement crystal, as he had received the previous two and he would have felt guilty if she did not get anything despite being a lynchpin of their ogre fighting strategy.

It had been a long day, so after coming back they all just wanted to shower and go to bed.

Kyle normally had trouble falling asleep anywhere other than in his own bed, but he was so tired he fell asleep before he could finish calculating how much mana he would have when he leveled up his Mana Bolt and Mana Pool Extension.

They decided the next day would be a rest day. Li and Walt did not have the advantage of living with Sarah’s dad, so their knowledge of dungeons was lacking compared to Kyle and Sarah. There were a few lectures today about dungeons that the two wanted to attend, so dungeon diving was called off for the day.

Sarah decided she was going to solo the ogre a few times, since even though it would take longer she could still handle it by herself.

Kyle decided to go grind his skills in the level zero dungeon. He felt like Mana Pool Extension was close to leveling up. For anyone else, it would truly be a junk skill and would take them forever to level up, since it seemed to level based on mana regenerated in the extended pool. Mana Pool Extension and Exponential Mana Regeneration truly were a match made in heaven.

The level zero dungeon was a bit farther away, so Kyle had to wait for a trolley to take him there. The level one ogre dungeon and the level two dungeon were closest to the cluster of buildings, but the other three needed a trolley system in place to take dungeon divers there expediently.

There were more people in line to enter the level zero dungeon than the ogre dungeon, but the line moved quickly and there was no entrance fee. Kyle soon entered the stone room and then entered the dungeon proper.

This level zero dungeon was a slime dungeon. When entering it you spawned on a hill overlooking a field full of colorful slimes. It was truly reminiscent of a noob starting zone.

The slimes were not at all violent and only had ten health. There were about two hundred of them scattered around the field, so if Kyle could fire one Mana Bolt per second and hit his target one hundred percent of the time, it should only take him less than four minutes to clear them all.

He didn’t have that much mana though, so in actuality it took him more than twenty minutes to clear all the slimes with his regen time factored in. It was still a phenomenal clear time. The slimes really only dropped mana crystals though, and from his first clear of the two hundred slimes, Kyle only got four small mana crystals.

Still, grinding was grinding, and the allure of what lay ahead when his skills leveled up overcame any disappointment Kyle had over the abysmal drops.

A little over four hours later, when Kyle really should have left already to go get lunch, he finally had some progress. First his Mana Pool Extension reached level four, and shortly after with the extra mana he had to work with, Mana Bolt reached level twenty.

Kyle now had 810 mana. And with that, a potential mana regeneration rate of over two hundred in five minutes.

Since Kyle was late to lunch, he missed the others. He ended up just wolfing down the ungodly good food and heading back to the dungeon.

He didn’t level up anything else before dinner, but during his final run before he had to leave, he found a skill crystal. He figured it was probably some junk skill so his expectations weren’t high when he went to get it identified.

Except it wasn’t a junk skill. It was anything but.

He stared at the paper the woman behind the desk had given him.

Li is going to be very happy.

Skill: Dual Target

Effect: When the user activates a skill with only a single target, this skill allows the user to select an additional target. If two target are selected, the skill used costs three times as much mana. If Dual Target is used to select an additional target, the skill used to target cannot use Dual Target’s effect for ten minutes. This cooldown time is reduced by ten seconds for every level of this skill.

Dual Target had never been sold in the market, so it could be put up for auction starting at a thousand points. Kyle figured the skill would be put to better use in Li’s hands though. If she used it during the tournament, she could put two people out of commission for over ten seconds! Granted, unless she had over a hundred fifty mana, she would then be out of commission too, but that was a small price to pay.

By the time Kyle got to the cafeteria, the other three were already at a table. Before Kyle even had a chance to start eating, even before he had sat down really, Sarah picked up on the fact that something was up.

“Looks like level zero dungeons are not useless after all,” Sarah said. “What did you get? I’m guessing a skill crystal, right?”

Once Kyle fully sat down he wordlessly took out the skill crystal and the printed description before setting it in front of Li. It then took them a bit to fully read and digest the skill, especially Walt who had to read it upside-down.

Li was stunned, while Sarah had a shit-eating grin on her face as she sang under her breath, “gonna stomp some noobs, yeah, gonna stomp stomp some noobs.”

Walt just let out a long, slow whistle.

“I think the skill would be better in your hands than if I sold it,” said Kyle. “And now you owe me so I can take all the good spell skills we find.”

Li very slowly reached out and absorbed the skill crystal. For a minute it looked like she was going to take the situation seriously, but then with a yell of “thank you!” she almost jumped across the table to give Kyle a hug, drawing more attention to them than Kyle was comfortable with.

It turned out that Sarah’s run had not been fruitless either, as while she didn’t get any enhancement crystals, she did get a skill crystal that Walt had already used. It was called Firm Mana Shield, and allowed the user to create a shield made out of mana much like Sarah’s Mana Blade skill.

After dinner, the group killed the giant ogre ten more times, although as if to make up for their good luck before the best thing it dropped was another Basic Mana Regeneration skill.

The next three days were spent grinding the ogre dungeon. Since Li acquired Dual Target, Sarah, who was by this point the actual group leader and their planner, had decided they could up the date of trying the level two dungeon. The rewards for level one and level two dungeons were completely different, so the sooner they could safely and efficiently farm the level two dungeon, the better chances they would have in the tournament.

While level one dungeons only really gave basic skills and more generic skills, level two dungeons were where you could start finding skills like passive enhancements that stacked and rare skills that could increase your stats. Artifacts could only be found in level four and up dungeons, but artifacts were banned in the tournament because of how overpowered they were.

Enchanted gear was good, and highly sought after since it was so rare for enchanting skills to drop, but artifacts were in a whole other league. Someone found a necklace artifact that doubled the wearer’s regeneration. That meant both health and mana regeneration, not just one.

On their fifth day at the dungeon school, Sarah had the group stop grinding and instead rent a regeneration room and work on their teamwork and pure skill grinding. Regeneration rooms could be rented for ten points an hour, and while you were in them, you regenerated an extra ten health and mana every five minutes.

When they had been fighting the ogre, they didn’t really need any teamwork. Sarah basically did everything. That wouldn’t work for the level two dungeon though. Not only would it take at least two days to run it, but they could not leave without completing it or using an escape crystal. They would also be facing intelligent enemies.

The level two dungeon was a kobold dungeon. That may not sound that scary, but the kobolds used magic. So instead of kobolds mindlessly charging at you in a small horde, it would be kobolds firing spells at you from a cliff while they were protected by mana shields.

So Sarah set aside this day to make sure their teamwork was up to snuff and their skills were usable. In addition to utilizing the regeneration room, everyone but Kyle was going to use mana crystals to constantly refresh their mana so they could spam skills.

Small mana crystals restored fifty mana, medium ones restored two hundred, and large ones restored a full six hundred mana. Unfortunately, if a mana crystal restored more mana than your mana pool could fit, the extra mana went to waste. So they made sure to have a lot of small mana crystals to use since no one had a pool big enough to make use of the medium crystals, let alone the large ones.

Everyone had made major gains the past few days, and by the end of their training, Sarah was confident they could easily handle the dungeon. There were two reasons for this.

The first was one of the hardest things about this particular level two dungeon was the boss fight. You had to fight a pair of kobold shamans that buffed up two kobold warriors and let them do the fighting. They were both able to heal, and were both able to cleanse CC, so Li having Dual Target was the main reason Sarah felt so confident of their success. If you did not take them both the shamans out at the same time, the one you did not target could heal and buff the other one.

The second reason was the shielding skills they bought for Kyle. They both cost the party a pretty penny, but the skills should make the run much safer than it would be otherwise. The first skill was one that allowed Kyle to invest more mana into a shielding skill to shield for more. This was an obvious combo with his large mana pool. The second skill was one that allowed him to use a shielding skill that normally he could only use on himself, on allies instead.

The combination of those two things made Sarah sure of their success when she looked over their stats and skills that night.

Tomorrow they would no longer challenge a safe dungeon they could easily farm.

No, tomorrow, they challenged a real dungeon.

Name: Kyle Anders

Health: 20

Mana: 140

Physical Power: 2

Magic Power: 2

Skills:

Exponential Mana Regeneration, level 9: Actively meditate to regenerate mana equal to .25 of the user’s current mana with an additional .025 per skill level every five minutes.

Mana Bolt, level 26: Fires a small bolt of mana that deals magic power plus one per odd level of this skill in damage. One second cast time. Costs two mana.

Small Fireball, level 20: Fires a small fireball that explodes on impact. This fireball deals two times the user’s magic power plus two per skill level in damage. Three second cast time. Costs five mana.

Mana Pool Extension, level 5: Creates an extended mana pool that is attached to the user’s original one. This extended Mana pool is equal to two times the original mana pool times this skills level. The extended mana pool can only be filled by active regeneration skills. The extended mana pool cannot be filled by mana crystals. The extended mana pool must be drawn from before the regular mana pool. The extended mana pool cannot have mana transferred to it or from it by any outside source and can only be channeled by the user.

Basic Health Regeneration, level 6: Passively regenerates health equal to ten plus one per skill level every five minutes. Does not work if you have taken damage in the last sixty seconds.

Fortified Mana Shield, level 14: Creates a shield around the user that blocks magic power plus X plus one per skill level damage, with X being the mana spent to cast this skill minus ten. Costs ten plus X mana. One second cast time. Expires in five minutes.

Ally Shielding, level 7: Instead of shielding the user, you may instead use a shield skill to shield a target less than ten feet per skill level away. The shield costs an additional twenty mana to cast and shields the ally for an additional two damage per skill level.

Name: Sarah Bailer

Health: 80

Mana: 50

Physical power: 16

Magic power: 2

Skills:

Improved Physical Speed, level 10: Doubles the effective speed of physical power and increases physical power by one per skill level.

Basic Slash, level 27: Deals damage equal to your physical power plus one per skill level. No cooldown or cost. Cannot be combined with other active attack skills.

Basic Health Regeneration, level 12: Passively regenerates health equal to ten plus one per skill level every five minutes. Does not work if you have taken damage in the last sixty seconds.

Basic Mana Regeneration, level 15: Passively regenerates mana equal to ten plus the level of the skill every five minutes.

Mana Blade, level 16: For ten mana you can form a blade made out of mana. This blade lasts for ten minutes. Any attacks made with the blade deal an additional one damage per skill level. It takes five seconds to summon a blade.

Extended Mana Blade, level 10: Creates an extended blade of mana from the user’s weapon. The extension length is up to one foot per level of this skill. Costs five mana per one second duration. This skill is passive and can be combined with other active and passive skills.

Name: Li Chang

Health: 20

Mana: 150

Physical power: 2

Magic power: 4

Skills:

Shadow Suppression, level 7: Shadows prevent an enemy from taking any actions for a number of seconds equal to twice the user’s magic power plus one per skill level. Cannot be used on the same target within 120 seconds. Costs 50 mana. Five second cast time. Can target anything within sixty feet of the user.

Mana Regeneration, level 18: Passively regenerates mana equal to 20 plus the level of the skill every five minutes.

Mana Bolt, level 12: Fires a small bolt of mana that deals magic power plus one per odd level of this skill in damage. One second cast time. Costs two mana.

Basic Mana Shield, Level 14: Creates a shield around the user that blocks two times magic power plus one per skill level damage. Costs ten mana. One second cast time. Expires in five minutes.

Dual Target, level 1: When the user activates a skill with only a single target, this skill allows the user to select an additional target. If two target are selected, the skill used costs three times as much mana. If Dual Target is used to select an additional target, the skill used to target cannot use Dual Target’s effect for ten minutes. This cooldown time is reduced by ten seconds for every level of this skill.

Basic Health Regeneration, level 4: Passively regenerates health equal to ten plus one per skill level every five minutes. Does not work if you have taken damage in the last sixty seconds.

Name: Walter Drussel

Health: 120

Mana: 50

Physical power: 2

Magic power: 2

Skills:

Self-Healing Crystal, level 11: Creates a crystal above the user’s head that after five seconds heals the user for one health per skill level per ten mana channeled into the crystal. The user or others are able to channel mana into the crystal. Spawn time, instantaneous. Cannot be reactivated for 30 seconds once activated. No cost.

Basic Mana Regeneration, level 14: Passively regenerates mana equal to ten plus the level of the skill every five minutes.

Basic Health Gain, level 8: Gain ten health for every odd level of this skill.

Basic Health Regeneration, level 12: Passively regenerates health equal to ten plus one per skill level every five minutes. Does not work if you have taken damage in the last sixty seconds.

Firm Mana Shield, level 8: Creates a shield made of mana that can be used to block. When blocking, prevents an additional ten plus one per skill level damage. Costs ten mana to summon. The shield lasts for ten minutes. It takes five seconds to summon the shield.

Basic Shield block, level 5: Block an attack with your shield. When blocking an attack this way, you prevent an additional ten plus skill level damage. No cost.

Basic Blocking Damage Reflection, level 3: When using an active blocking skill, you return damage equal this skills level as reflected damage. The reflected damage ignores all armor and resistances. This effect cannot be stacked with another passive blocking damage reflection skill.