“That’s it? That’s the whole floor!” Ty exclaimed.

Allen glanced over at the Defender. His armor was scratched up but still in good condition. His shield, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t survive the dungeon. He kicked the Gloom Caster’s corpse absently. He didn’t really seem angry or upset though, just disappointed.

“We’ll probably get more floors if they’re all this size,” Allen said, “I’d guess about ten maybe.”

“I agree,” Christopher added.

Amelia was still healing Camila who was still slowly coming down from the effect of her skill. The two were sitting near the door in silence. Seeing that the healer was occupied, Allen chose to get Christopher and wheel him to the door with Ty.

“Either of you need a heal too?” Allen asked. He probably had a few cracked ribs himself, and Amelia still needed to fix his shoulder, neither were too serious though.

“I’m good,” Ty began. “The fucker got through my armor in a few places ain’t nothing serious.”

“I’m perfectly fine, just a low on mana,” Christopher replied.

“We should wait here for a little while then,” Allen suggested. Then a question popped into his head as he stepped through uneven floor of the cavern. “By the way Christopher, how did you manage to create such a bright light with nothing but pure arcane mana? Arcane invocations give off light, but its not really supposed to be bright.”

Christopher hummed as his chair was pushed a little less than gracefully over the rocky surface of the dungeon. “You’re right. Arcane mana is a little like white light in the sense that it includes all the possible aspects,” he explained. “However, unless the mana is shifted towards a specific aspect it won’t have nearly as much of an effect. I was only able to use Arcane Shaping to create a bright light by brute force, which used up relatively astronomical amounts of mana. I could have simply attacked the monster with my mana, but I currently don’t have any skills that can do much damage. You dealt with it anyway.”

“Hmm… So, does that mean you could theoretically use your Arcane Shaping skill to create lightning or fire or some other element?”

Allen stopped as he came close to Amelia and Camila. The former was almost done with her healing, so he waited to get her attention. Ty just sat down with his back against the iron door and took his helmet off.

“Theoretically yes, but it’s not that easy,” Christopher said, running a hand through his grey hair. “When you shift aspects, everything falls into place and you can cast magic using that aspect without having to think about it. Without shifting aspects, I would have to actually create the entire spell myself, including the element.”

“Can you?” Allen asked, unable to keep a grin from creeping to his lips. “I’ve talked to a lot of top-level mages but none of them had taken the Arcane Sorcerer route. They all said it was weak as shit. This is hilarious.”

“Yes, but only with some higher tiered skills at level one hundred though. When I had the Arcane Grandmaster Sage job, which is from the Scholar class, I could manage as much as creating matter from pure arcane mana by reverse engineering it from the subatomic level. Water is fairly simple to create, but I could never get the same level of control over it as even a mediocre hydromancer.”

Allen had to stop himself from laughing out loud. “I guess, but the Arcane Sorcerer job tree is supposed to be for support and enchanting. You’re not supposed to be able to use it to create elements from scratch, who even knows how to do that… You said you were a math professor, right?”

Allen’s enthusiasm only partly transferred to Christopher as he nodded. “Indeed. Though my degree is in theoretical physics.”

“Alright… so maybe that explains something… but elemental creation skills aren’t even available until the two-hundred threshold!”

“Ugh, Can you guys keep it down,” Camila said with a groan. “I already got out of damn school, don’t give me flashbacks.” She let her head fall back on the stone behind her and squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t be in any pain since Amelia had already finished with her and moved on to Ty.

Allen smirked at the Berserker. “So, you get hungover and grumpy after Rage dies down?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s okay, Dead Calm makes me kind of hyper when it starts to wear off, as you might be able to tell… So, you have my sympathy.”

“I don’t want your fucking sympathy, just shut up,” Camila barked back.

Allen chuckled to himself and pulled up his status. The first thing he did was put three points into vitality and two into focus. His dexterity and speed dropped as a result, of course, but he needed the vitality more. Improving his body’s ability to fend off things like illness, aging, and poison was more important at the lower levels.

Status:

Jeremiah Allen Durand

Human – Rogue – Level 16

XP: 1952/4435 (37185)

Stat Points: 0, Skill Points: 1, Job Points: 0

Jobs:

Assassin

Basic – Tier 1

Striker

Basic – Tier 1

Stats:

HP: 184/260

Regen: 30/min

SP: 535/600

Regen: 13/min

MP: 189/225

Regen: 25/min

Primary:

STR: 30

INT: 15

VIT: 9 (13)

WIS: 16 (15)

END: 16 (20)

FCS: 25

Secondary:

DEX: 68 (57)

PER: 13

RES: 10

STB: 20

SPD: 40 (37)

LCK: 7

---

Then he opened the list of his skills. He only had one point to spend so he didn’t really think to long about it. It didn’t really make sense to get yet another skill when he still had so many at tier one and two, so he decided to upgrade one of those.

Skills:

Job: Assassin

Tier 1 – Active: Silent Step – Category: Martial Arts – Stalk quietly on your feet, unheard until it’s too late.

Tier 1 – Active: Surge of Pain – Category: Channeling Magic – Channel damaging mana into an enemy on contact.

Tier 2 – Passive: Killer Instinct ­– Category: State of Mind – Estimate the success of your moves before you make them.

Tier 3 – Passive: Dead Calm – Category: State of Mind – Become like a true assassin: Dead inside.

Tier 5 – Meta: Assassinate – Category: Martial Arts – Deal more damage when your enemies are unaware.

Job: Striker

Tier 3 – Active: Strike – Category: Channeling Magic – Channel mana into a single strike to deal devastating damage.

Tier 2 – Passive: Mana Shroud – Category: Miasma Manipulation – Move your miasma around your body or your weapons.

Out of all of the skills available to him, Mana Shroud seemed the most appealing at the moment. It wasn’t just because of his talk with Christopher though, Silent Step and Surge of Pain were just not really helpful in a cave full of mindless undead monsters that didn’t feel pain or react much to sound. “Mana Shroud allows me to use channeling skills through my knife, which greatly improves the damage that Strike is able to deal. If tier three can help with the mana cost then maybe I can even use the first part of it.”

Skill: Mana Shroud

Move your miasma around your body or your weapons.

Category: Miasma Manipulation – Type: Passive – Tier 2

Effects: Move your miasma around inside your body or pull it outwards to shroud you or a weapon. Miasma shrouding your body will absorb a portion of damage in exchange for a portion of mana.

Cost: MP proportional to damage absorbed.

“Here it goes,” he told himself.

Skill: Mana Shroud

Move your miasma around your body or your weapons.

Category: Miasma Manipulation – Type: Passive – Tier 3

Effects: Move your miasma around inside your body or pull it outwards to shroud you or a weapon at your direction. Miasma shrouding your body will absorb a portion of damage in exchange for a portion of mana.

Cost: MP proportional to 90% of damage absorbed.

“Damnit, that’s not what I was hoping for at all.” Allen sighed to himself. “It’s just a proportionality upgrade and… hmm, what does ‘at my direction’ mean?”

Allen activated the skill and a white cloud of magic slowly pooled around him. The miasma swirled before it clung to the outside of Allen’s body. He stopped the flow when fifty MP had been used.

“That’s interesting,” Christopher said. “It looks like Veil of Mist, Mana Shroud, or maybe Arcane Obfuscation.”

“Yeah, its Mana Shroud. I just upgraded it, but it didn’t really do much,” Allen replied. “I can now direct it though.”

Allen tried focusing on the shell of mana around him. Nothing happened though. With most invoked spells, there would be a sense of control that came with it, almost like a phantom limb. The Mana Shroud didn’t have anything like that though.

Groaning, Allen released the spell, allowing the miasma to dissipate. “There goes fifty MP,” he thought.

“I doubt you can control invoked mana without a specific skill,” Christopher said, eyeing him from under his brow. “Try directing the invocation instead.”

“Stupid vague language.”

Allen tried again invoking Mana Shroud again, but this time he focused only on his left hand in the same way he would focus only on his knife to cover it in miasma. At the expense of another fifty MP, the result was a glove of mana forming on his hand, except it looked more like an oven mitt. It was much denser than the full-body cover though, but it still didn’t seem like it would provide much protection.

Curious, Allen punched the nearby cave wall with his shrouded hand. It was just a jab that barely used any of his strength, but with thirty strength it would still be enough to hurt a regular person. The spell acted like a boxing glove and cushioned the damage to his hand.

Since he felt nothing from the punch, Allen hit the wall again with his weight behind him.

“Ow, fuck.”

Ty laughed and got to his feet. “A’ight dumbass, my stamina is back. We can leave whenever.”

“I still need to heal him,” Amelia said, walking over Allen.

“Tch, yeah,” Allen replied with a grin as he shook out his hand and let the spell dissolve. His wrist was broken. “Did you forget about my injuries?”