Arthur groaned as his back cracked, he felt sore from his neck to his heels, maybe sleeping on the stone floor hadn’t been such a good idea. “Come one get ready, we're leaving.” He was roughly jammed back into the center of the group as they set out again. It had only been a few hours but their fearless leader Tobias was getting antsy, it wasn’t that bad at least he had gotten some sleep in.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped. The adventurers in front weren’t that eager to set foot outside the relative safety of the stairs to be the first picked off by the wolves. After a bit of shouting and more than a few threats, they decided that they were more afraid of the group leader than the dangers of the dungeon.

To Arthur’s surprise, the first enemy they encountered was not in fact the wolves but rather goblins. Three of the green child-sized creatures were ambling around between the trees of the dungeon, Arthur carefully began molding his spell, it was slow but it was the only one he knew how to cast. Stealth swiftly became irrelevant as someone stepped on a twig with a sharp snap, three sets of beady eyes swung around, and the goblins came shrieking and howling at them.

The adventurers bunched together trying not to present an obvious target to the charging monsters, but the goblins threw themselves heedlessly into the packed ranks of the adventurers. The first goblin was felled quickly as spears, swords and a hammer came down with a vengeance on it. However this allowed the other two goblins to slip into close range, a shriek of pain sounded out as one of the goblins jumped onto the hammer wielder's face, the unexpected weight bore him to the ground as the goblin bit and clawed at anything in range.

Arthur's spell finished forming and he flung it at the goblin, it struck the monster like a punch and sent it flying off the man. The goblin lay stunned on the floor a few feet away for just a second too long before a spear came down in a fatal arc skewering the monster. Arthur briefly glanced over at the mauled man and saw that he was still breathing, he gave a small sigh of relief he didn’t have the best aim with his spells so that had been a risky shot at best. Turning back to the rest of the fight he searched for the last goblin and gagged.

It seemed it was too late for the unfortunate victim of the monster as the goblin lay with a crushed head over the torn-out throat of an adventurer. Arthur had seen quite a few people meet their end in the dungeon but he still couldn’t get used to it. It reminded him too much of... fire screams blood on the ground... things that were better left forgotten.

The goblins were blessedly uncommon as they made their way through the eighth floor, but the occasional childlike green monster would still stumble upon their group. The goblins were vicious and completely fearless, and even when no one died there were still injuries caused by them. Those injuries were then capitalized on by the wolves who were omnipresent on the floor, however, they seemed to be getting a little smarter than before. Instead of attacking the adventurers directly the wolves carefully went after those weaker and slower than the others, the weak links that were just a little too vulnerable to survive.

The change in tactics frankly terrified Arthur, he wasn’t physically strong like a chi user. His class type revolved around spells and he didn’t know any defensive spells at all, thankfully he was still placed near the center of the group which had probably saved his life. He almost sobbed in relief when they found the stairs leading to the ninth floor, and the fleeting safety they offered.

Hey, Magnus I just noticed something. He frankly felt like an idiot for not noticing sooner it was really obvious once he found out. Why am I getting a truly ridiculous amount of experience from humans?

Ah, I’m surprised you didn’t ask sooner quite a few of them have been killed already. So you know how we were talking about different racial tiers a while ago right?

Yes, I remember higher tier means stronger and such.

Right, well higher tier also means you get more experience from them. It might not seem like it at first glance but humans are a tier-five race.

Valens metaphorical jaw dropped. Are you kidding me? They can’t be tier five they’re getting killed by my tier one monsters, how could they ever be considered tier five?

Magnus grinned wickedly at the core’s confusion. They are indeed tier five but the reason they are so weak as a race is because of their ability to survive in literally any mana environment.

What is that supposed to mean, and that doesn’t sound that useful at all as far as racial strengths go. Didn’t dragons get elemental breath weapons or something equally ridiculous?

Most species can only propagate in a narrow range of mana concentrations. Most tier five races wouldn’t be able to thrive on this continent because the mana concentration is only around tier three at most, but humans are all over the place because the low mana doesn’t bother them. Theoretically, they could even survive somewhere with absolutely no mana. With me so far?

Valens nodded slowly, he got what the drake was saying for the most part. Right so humans are also very reliant on their classes a lot more so than other races even those similar to them. However, by living in low mana areas they can thrive because there aren’t any really strong monsters around to wipe them out.

Valens checked in on the adventurers and found them sprawled out on the stairs to the ninth floor gasping with exhaustion. You sure there’s no monsters around that could kill them off? Despite what you said about the leader they still seem weak.

Yes, I’m sure, but let's get back on topic. The important thing here is that humans will be a great supplementary experience source until you get to tier five. You won’t be getting their template anytime soon though.

Valens plotted greedily, maybe he could make sure the humans ran into a few more goblins on the next floor or all of them. Also Valens you still need to stick to the ecosystem plan, humans might be great for short-term growth but if you get all the way to tier five without keeping up your ecosystem you’re going to be stuck there for a very long time.

Fine, fine Magnus I know how important the ecosystem is. I'm not going to turn into a crazed lunatic hungering for human blood. Maybe he would only send a few more goblins, he needed some to repopulate the floor anyway. I wish they would hurry things up, I want to see them fight Aspen already. Magnus nodded in agreement and they both fell silent and watched as the intrepid adventurers wandered deeper into the dungeon.

Things weren’t going too well for the appraisal party, the ninth floor was horrible. They continued to run into increasingly larger groups of goblins, which were slowly wearing down their numbers. Arthur would almost prefer the wolves, the goblins just seemed too stupid to run away, always throwing themselves at the adventurers trying to do some sort of damage. However, there was an upside to all the monsters running around, levels. Two of the tier ones had managed to make it to level ten and evolve their classes, they now had two more tier two squires which was a big help.

Arthur himself was getting close to evolving his class as well but he was still level nine, just one more level until he could evolve. He was rather excited to see how his powers changed after his evolution but that excitement was tamped down by the sheer carnage of their delve. They had started with two dozen tier one adventurers of that number less than half remained.

Throwing out another spell Arthur launched a wolf that was trying to sneak up on one of the adventurers. He was getting faster at least as far as he could tell, leveling gave him more mana to play with which was a big help too. As the numbers of the party dwindled so too did Arthur’s meat shields, Tobias was still having the higher tiers hang back which wasn’t very helpful for anyone, eventually the inevitable happened. One of the goblins slipped through the front lines and rushed him, he wasn’t completely unprepared having scavenged a rather sizable dagger off a dead adventurer, but mentally telling yourself you could do something and actually stabbing the tiny green humanoid were two completely different things.

Arthur hesitated briefly taking a half-hearted swing at his enemy, his wimpy attack didn’t faze the goblin who dashed into the strike receiving a shallow cut across the chest but also reaching the squishy mana user. Nails like claws dug into Arthur’s arm and he desperately lashed out again trying to dislodge the goblin from his arm, the monster however was not having it, shrugging off Arthur's attacks and bringing its other hand around to go for Arthur’s throat.

Desperation fueled ingenuity and Arthur called on his mana, he didn’t have enough time to form his usual spell, instead, he just flung compacted mana at his enemy like a water gun. The close quarters worked to his advantage for once and the goblin was staggered by the force of the blow. Knowing his life was on the line Arthur swung out again with his dagger this time going for the exposed throat of the monster. The goblin’s eyes widen fractionally as the knife sank into the green flesh of its throat, Arthur let go of the dagger as the goblin collapsed to the ground heedless of the slowly ending battle around him.

Arthur stared in morbid fascination as the goblin’s twitching slowly stilled, a hand clapped him on the shoulder making him look around in surprise. The battle was over, but the cooling bodies of three of their number also joined the goblins on the grassy floor of the dungeon. “Come on kid time to get going.” Jerkily nodding, Arthur reached down and pulled out his dagger from the goblin, flinching at the spray of red blood that followed. Arthur straightened and followed after the other adventurers towards more danger and hopefully survival.

As they made the final push towards the boss room the tier ones continued to be whittled down, accumulating injuries and eventually falling to something in the dungeon. However, all those that remained were warry and had gotten used to fighting off the sporadic attacks, and so most of the remaining adventurers managed to make it to the boss room at the end of the tenth floor.

Arthur almost burst into tears after he finally managed to get to level ten after finishing off a wolf. The boss was going to be far more dangerous than any of the previous monsters and if they sent in the tier ones as they had before, mana class or no mana class he would have been in trouble. Shakily he triggered the evolution, there was only one choice as was typical for low levels, he became an acolyte. He took a moment to relish the sensation of evolution as they stopped just before the boss room which didn’t look ominous at all like a black hole in the wall of the cave.

“Everyone stop, we're taking a rest before taking on the boss. Make sure you’re good and ready when we do, anyone who's managed to make it to tier two speak up before we go in.” Arthur happily trotted over to say that he had gotten to tier two and was waved off to go rest after speaking to Tobias or Blood Fang as he liked to be called. Laying down on the stone floor of the dungeon, Arthur thought it might just feel a little less uncomfortable than before as he slowly drifted off to sleep.