54 minutes and 7 seconds later, James reappeared outside the dungeon’s cave. And it was like breathing in fresh air for the first time. She hadn’t realized how stifling the dungeon’s green mana was to her Mana Sense. While it still lingered around her, that oppressive feeling of moving through corn syrup that she had subconsciously adapted to without realizing it was removed. Finally, she could sense the world again.

Remembering her lessons from the dungeon, James tried to observe the world around her for threats. Despite feeling some lifeforms, though, it seemed like either the quantity of mana or its type that the dungeon was releasing deterred any large animals. Or at least any with an overly large mana pool, which she assumed meant that those she felt weren’t overly dangerous. A bit of a dangerous assumption, but the only one that she could act on in her battered post-Dungeon state.

Feeling a lot more secure now that her Mana Sense became useful again and she didn’t feel anything alarming, James began to make her way back to the treehouse. While the original intent of her trip to the dungeon was scouting, she figured she could continue on another day. When she was feeling better.

That was James’s perspective, at least, but if anyone were watching they’d probably be confused. After all, she was a young woman in a forest wearing a flowy skirt with an intricately knitted cream sweater. While the outfit did work, it seemed James at least did have some sense of style, it didn’t work in this setting.

After all, she was in a forest. A wild, untamed one. Not one of those where you took a short walk to settle down for a picnic.

But as she walked, the sight became even more strange. Picking up speed as time went by, and occasionally with mistakes, James was switching clothes. Or rather, making them appear on her out of thin air at the exact moment her other clothes disappeared. Flowy skirt, to leather pants, to a dress, to a tight top, it was like she was on a runway. In the forest. With the model slightly limping. She was, after all incredibly bruised and injured.

She couldn’t have appeared stranger if she tried. Well, she probably could, this was James after all, but not much stranger.

Filtering her way through the trees, James considered what she had learned from the dungeon. Because she couldn’t pretend the near-death experiences hadn’t changed her. For one thing, when she had started the Tutorial, she was still keeping track how many times she almost died in a day. These days she couldn’t find the point to such an endeavor. She was still alive, wasn’t she?

Her approach to death overall had evolved. Just days ago, she had promised herself to never forget the type of sledgehammer her Mana Blast was. Told herself she wouldn’t experiment needlessly. And she held by that. But what fishing experiments she had conducted made her better able to survive in the dungeon. If she hadn’t learned how to reduce the cost of each Mana Blast, she would have surely perished in the second dungeon level. Without the Skill a lot of things would have ended differently.

As far as lessons from the dungeon, there were probably too many to truly count. But even her constant vigilance now was a byproduct of it. So was her insistence on going back to her tree house to rest instead of persevering through her original scouting mission. James wasn’t in any position to fight, and she wasn’t going to force the issue if she didn’t have to. This Tutorial was a marathon, not a sprint. And she was going to make it to the finish line.

She wondered how Arthur and a team from the clearing would have done. They were certainly better trained than her, and presumably used to working as a group. The first level would have probably been fine, especially if Arthur took on the largest of the nutria. To be fair, she didn’t really know anyone else’s ability, or Arthur’s if she was being honest. She just knew he was the strongest. And that that was strong.

On the second level, they probably wouldn’t have had as much trouble as she did, assuming their endurance was as high as she estimated it was. Besides having a base stat that was surely higher than hers based on what Arthur had told her about the average physical stats in the clearing, their classes also tended to award primarily physical stats. On top of this advantage, they would have attempted the dungeon in a group, most likely, so their own individual endurance levels wouldn’t have mattered too much. One person gets tired? Another person steps in.

The third level was the only one where she thought she was probably more equipped in dealing with it than a group from the clearing. That ultimate nutria had been tough, being both incredibly physically intimidating and harboring magical attacks. Its size would have also hindered a teams’ plan of attack: there just wasn’t a lot of space in that small boutique. A group of people would have just gotten in each other’s way, no matter how much they were used to each other.

People in the clearing were also used to a different style of fighting when fighting together. All the goblins she’d seen were in groups and a much lower level, so she doubted they would have been used to fighting a single enemy, or one with its abilities and stats.

For all that she gave herself better overall chances for that third level of the dungeon, James knew it was only possible because of her Mana Blast Skill. She certainly wouldn’t have survived the dungeon without it. It was so overpowered that as long as she rationed her mana usage, she would have been fine. She did need to find out if there was cool down period for the Skill, some time after activating it that she had to wait before using it again.

Finally, she got to her tree, coming closer and seeing its weird mana patterns with her Mana Sense. They had gotten slightly brighter and more defined while she way away, making her excited about how the tree would evolve during the Tutorial. As much as she wanted to just climb up to her treehouse, though, she forced herself to continue on to the river. It was probably smarter to clean herself off in the river before she stank up her tree house.

Changing into her underclothes in an instant thanks to all her practice as she jumped into the River, she let out a full body shudder as she registered the cold water again. Her shorter hair was easier to wash though, and the coldness of the water did reduce the pain she felt throughout her whole body.

Stepping out and getting some clothes on, she went back to her treehouse. Grinning a little despite the soreness still permeating through her body, she climbed up to her space. With a twinkle in her eyes, she took out some pillows and a blanket she found in the boutique.

None of them were completely clean, either with dust or with some small splattering of blood from her fight with the nutria, but she couldn’t really complain. After all, she was finally going to be able to sleep comfortably! She had never been camping before the Tutorial, but whatever she was doing before now, it certainly wasn’t very cozy. And while all of these items were really meant for decoration, they were all better than nothing.

So, James took a nap. She figured she deserved it.