The newborn pudding cube was fast on their tracks. While its corners and edges were too rounded to call it a real cube, the center area of its "faces" were flat and parallel enough to remind them of the geometric figure. Of course, trying to dodge a bouncing ten feet cube of murderous acidic slime left little time for geometrical musings.

Nero revved his clockwork sword into full motion, swapped shields, putting the half-dissolved pile of metal plates that were his spiked one on his backpack.

"Altia, I'm going to distract and lure it. Discharge all your mana on it, convert some Stamina, discharge everything again and use two mana potions."

Nero moved around the cube, using the timing between bounces to adjust his heading. The cube's jumps took three to four seconds from when it took off to when it stabilized itself enough to jump again and during this time it couldn't steer. Since it was attracted to the nearest meal, he could draw its attention away from his wife as long as he danced near the blocky monster.

Holding her right wrist with the left hand, palm facing forward, Altia unleashed [Magic Arrow] after [Magic Arrow]. She felt a sharp pain in the inner corners of her eyes as her mana drained too fast but the barrage of glowing conjured arrows was something to behold. They peppered the cube everywhere but she aimed mostly near the edges, where the momentum of the projectiles would tear two holes in the monster's membrane instead of floating inside and becoming food. This way the monster would lose more of its sludge and become less of a threat to Nero's safety.

Meanwhile, the young Adventurer was trying hard to avoid death by smothering. The cube jumped and sputtered acid everywhere Altia's arrows pierced it. Nero had to move and pay attention to two fronts, the monster and the terrain that was growing more dangerous at each arrow. The sludge was slippery and the soft ground did nothing to absorb it. If he fell, he'd be a bounce away from death.

He didn't attempt to slash the monster, fearing what the sludge would do to his main weapon. While he had no doubt the sword's teeth would turn the monster inside-out, it would also cause a deluge of sludge on him. He couldn't be careless. The vibrations of the sword could be felt resonating with the membrane and sending ripples through it, drawing even more of the monster's limited attention to him.

"[Potion Toss]!"

Altia shouted to let him know she was recovering mana. He could see the blue haze around her through his goggles. The monster did too and bounced away from Nero. He gritted his teeth and formed a crazy idea. Nero ran along the now focused on Altia monster and readied his sword. It was time to bottom out his stamina.

He prepared an attack, waiting for when the monster was about to bounce upon his wife. He felt the tingle that indicated the window of opportunity for him to use [Intervene] to block an attack on her and slashed the monster at the same time he triggered his Skill.

The sword had no problem bisecting the rather thick but frail membrane. He counted on it.

"[Intervene] - [Mobile Strike]"

He finished his pre-Skill strike and let [Intervene] propel him toward his wife from the monster's left side, keeping the sword in contact with the monster's membrane. At the end of the contact, he used his second Skill to strike at its edge, opening another gash. he reached Altia, leaving a trail of acidic droplets shed from the sawing teeth of his sword. The Skill let him move her one yard away from the monster's path and block the attack.

The accelerated movement of the Skill allowed him to avoid the flood of goo that shed from the edge-to-edge large rift he opened. The upper edge on that side flattened and wrinkled as the monster lost its inner tension.

"[Shield Bash]" His new shield, in pavise form, had no spikes. The Skill sent shockwaves into the monster, countering some of its forward momenta and disrupting whatever mechanisms its body used to gain propulsion. He recoiled the shield, afraid it would pass through the membrane. The monster was stunned.

"Altia, Run away from us! [Dash n' Slash] - [Mobile Strike]."

"Okay!"

Nero turned around and ran again, targeting a point in space at the back of the monster. The attack from the former Skill would be wasted but he wanted the fast movement only. The damage came from the latter's bonus attack. He opened a wide seam on the other side of the monster and ended behind it. Nero kept moving, not waiting to see the condition of the monster. The pools of goo weren't dissolving into motes of light, it wasn't dead.

Once he put more than one bounce-worth of the distance between them, he turned around to see the effect of his attack. The cube had flattened more than half of its height and now looked more like a rectangular pool of ooze than its namesake. It wiggled its lower edges but all it did was to flap its excess membrane at the top. It wasn't jumping. The acrid smell of dissolving grass and earth was overwhelming.

He saw a pebble bounce on the upper membrane and traced its trajectory. Altia was putting her staff-sling training swings in. He wiped his damaged sword on the grass and joined her.

"Is this doing anything?" He asked as he jogged next to her.

"Yes. It is doing damage, even though its damage threshold for blunt trauma is high," she replied. "Are you hurt?"

She was visibly concerned. While this one wasn't the Dungeon boss, it was a good enough simile. The lore of this Dungeon prison was full of stories of adventurers that returned missing whole limbs, eaten by this monster.

"My equipment took the damage for me. I moved too fast and the ooze is viscous. I was away by the time it would hurt me."

"Showoff. I'm glad you are hale. Now sit back and let me finish it."

Altia kept shooting the now immobile monster and Nero noticed the membrane was shrinking with each stone that pelted it. It became taut and the monster shifted its base, raising the center until it became a smaller cube. Once it regained its shape, it deftly bounced in their direction. While it lost more than half its volume, its dimensions were a little less than seven feet across. It was twice as fast though.

"That's unfair! Why is it still this big?" Altia whined.

She wanted to finish the monster and brag to Nero. She wanted to feel useful. The right answer to her question would be the linear variant of the cubic-square law. None of them had formal schooling though.

"I think it is thinner!" Nero pointed out. "Did you recover some mana or stamina? Blast it to death. Let's split up. I'll taunt the monster."

Altia converted the last dregs of Stamina into mana and fired a barrage of nine arrows. Nero was right. The arrows' impact opened bigger holes and traveled further inside the sludge. The monster leaked more and longer before recovering. It once again flattened.

Using the time for more than catching his breath, Nero was sawing off a tree limb big enough to use as a club. He wished Daisy was there to remove the bark but he could heal the bruises in his hand easily now. He sheathed his badly damaged sword and went to do his best primitive people impersonation as he drove the makeshift weapon on the corner of the monster.

A few holes from Altia's arrows weren't fully closed. Sludge gushed from these holes and covered a few meters around the monster in a cone away from Nero in a drizzle of goo. Altia moved away, circling the monster and watching the surroundings for any wandering critters. Nero lifted his club and pounded two more times before the wood dissolved.

It must've lost two-thirds of its volume. The pools of acidic goo were merging into a pond now. Altia kept pelting it while Nero fetched more pebbles for her to shoot.

"This is ridiculous," He vented his frustration.

"It is reforming. Look, I think it has less than five feet now."

The stress from fighting an undying enemy that did more damage to his weapons than himself was driving Nero into a corner.

"What? All this work and it is just half its original size?"

"I think it is less than that. Heya!" Altia shot one more pebble and the rock pierced the cube's membrane. "More pebbles!"

It took fifteen more rocks for the five-foot cube to deflate again. While fetching pebbles for Altia, Nero found a rather large rock. While the cube was reforming, he heaved the rock on it, clipping the front half and making it burst out from the back.

The whole small lake of goo, a thousand cubic feet of green sludge dissolved into motes of light. The couple had to shield their eyes. He missed the glow of his Arbitrium's screen but not the message.

Compatible Boss Anima detected. Grade blue. Energy absorbed above the threshold. Processing upgrade. Weighing Attribute strain.

For defeating a foe fifteen times your level, you gained +2 Dexterity

Altia squealed while he checked his notification. "I got two points of Willpower!"

"Whoa! It said it was a blue-grade level fifteen boss!"

"What did it drop? Maybe it's under the rock!"

They lifted the rock. It had three cards, one of them face-up and silver, and a big crystal. Nero measured the crystal and retrieved the cards.

"Eleven hundred and fifty Essence. Two [Egress] cards and a Class card."

[Monster Tamer] - blue Class, tier-I. Requires level fifteen. Requires Willpower +10. Charisma +10.

+3 Vigor

+5 Endurance

+5 Dexterity

+5 Willpower

+1 Perception

+5 Charisma

"Feed the beast without."

Special: Add a fifth (round down) of your Attributes to your pets. Requires at least 7 non-consecutive hours of training with the pet summoned per week for each pet.

Special: You can have 1 additional active combat pet for every 15 points of Charisma.

Special: You have a chance of converting a monster into a combat pet if you subjugate it in non-lethal combat. Based on Charisma.

Special: You can see the Attributes of your combat pets in your Arbitrium display.

"That's a rare Class," Altia commented. And not because it is blue. See how its Attributes are above-average for a blue card?"

"Yes, it has four more points than it should. I wonder who would wait until level fifteen to select a class, though."

Nero fiddled with the card, wishing it could be his. There was one problem though. As part of the agreement to delve, they agreed to turn in all loot obtained at the exit.

"Too bad we will have to give it up at the exit."

He thought of what was considered 'loot' then voiced it out loud. "Is a card we used inside the Dungeon considered loot?"

"I guess not. They might search us though."

Nero opened his Class slot and swapped the cards. With his boosted Attributes, he wouldn't faint but he still felt light-headed when he activated the new Class. He wondered if he could use the rather wide slot to squirrel two cards and placed both Classes together. His device complained.

Error. Multiple entries for tier-I Class. Discarding conflicting entries. Class set to [Warrior].

He removed the cards and inverted their order. The same message happened but now it showed the other Class. Nobody would think to look inside the slot. He swapped back to [Warrior].

"You need to check with the teachers to see if doing that will cause any harm," Altia warned. "But how many Classes do you think will fit in there?"

"No idea. It is pretty wide though. Maybe we should rest a bit before we move on. I don't think this boss counts for the black card."

Altia sighed. She checked the time, they had more than fourteen hours to finish this Dungeon. Which meant killing the boss, as they already had the [Egress] cards.

"Maybe we should try to make more of these cubes. What if they count for the card?"

Nero shook his head. "The card said, 'different bosses'. I think killing the same Dungeon boss is too easy. It might be useful for farming the boss once we can kill it with the resources we have. Without relying on consumables or gimmicks, you know?"

"True. Let's sit by those rocks over there and rest for one hour. Then we continue."

While they rested, Nero checked his Attributes, then asked for Altia's. Discounting the bonuses from gear and his Classes, it became obvious that Nero had surpassed Altia in the amount of Attribute points he had from all the solo accolades and the Anima crystals. He had five more Attribute points than her.

"The next Anima crystal is yours," He declared as he showed her the values.

"I don't mind. I'll be able to use better gear when I level up. And eventually, get my tier-II Class and Skills."

"And when that happens I can delve into any Dungeon ranks I through V and just rake kills until I get more Accolades. I realized that getting stronger will only be easier going forward. Even though one Attribute point will mean little at the higher tiers. No. You are using the next five Anima crystals. I got the strain-measuring cards from professor Tinkwezilsky. There's little risk you'll get a level up and it matters less. We are delving in a rank-II Dungeon and just killed a blue boss."

For some strange reason, she hugged him and gave him a lot of kisses. In Nero's mind, he was just being fair.