When the group was down to just two rats, and the healer was looking like an ambulatory corpse, Dix headed back off down the tunnels. He was still shaking his head at their stupidity as he had his weaker rats spread out to search for another group to fight. He kept his strongest Risen by his side in case of ambush. There had been no improvements amongst the teens while he had been watching, and he expected few differences in their future. Despite how ineptly they fought, the thing that concerned him the most was their skills.

The healer had a myriad of skills that had healed small and large amounts, both instantly and over time. It wasn’t that he had them, but that they were skills that was the problem. During his testing Dix had been given a number of healing spells that did the exact same thing, and didn’t take up valuable skill slots. Well, theoretically valuable skill slots. He was working under the assumption that the number of skills someone could get was limited. If that was true, and all healers used all of their available skill slots on healing and shields how were they meant to actually kill anything? In Dix’s mind, anyone who couldn’t defend themselves and fight back was just waiting to die. Besides, having three skills dedicated to making your eight healing spells more powerful, efficient, and faster casting left you far more room to work your skills into something more effective for combat. Sure you could still only use one spell at a time, but in the times you weren’t healing you could throw out a skill that would do damage, reducing the amount of time you or your party were in combat.

As for the tank, Dix figured he was a lost cause. The boy was supposed to be absorbing blows and attracting attention, neither of which he had been doing. Perhaps he wasn’t actually the tank, and was instead just a heavily armored damage dealer, but that made him just as useless. He had only used a single skill with his hammer that Dix had noticed, and he had missed when he used it. As for the number of shield based skills he had, they were going completely to waste. Why would anyone ever use a two handed weapon when almost all of their skills were based on using a shield? If he had used a lighter weapon and armor he could have been more mobile, and actually hit something with his shield. Using heavy armor only works when you can get everything to come to you and ignore the rest of the party attacking them, but the fool charged in blindly instead.

The damage dealers were a whole different problem. They may as well have been a bunch of lazy berserkers. He had seen numerous openings they could have exploited to attack their targets with a normal strike, but they insisted upon only using skills. He was beginning to truly hope that they were just over excited teenagers, as opposed to having been trained to do things that way. Certainly the interfering with each other's fights was most easily explained by their age, but the attacking only through skills had some slightly ominous possibilities. The most benign was that they were using their active skills so heavily in an attempt to train them to higher levels. The problem with that was that their normal weapon use skills would not grow at the same rate, but they could be trained through sparring more easily than the actives. The more dangerous option for Dix, was that at higher levels monsters could only be damaged by skills, or even just elemental damage. Somewhere in the middle was the possibility that the people of this world simply relied on their active skills for combat, whether through ignorance, vanity, culture, or something else entirely.

For the time being the explicit reason behind the behavior of the teens was unimportant, so Dix put it aside. One of the rats had just found another room full of monsters, and was guiding him there. The other rats were also making their way to the same location. He was curious how well they would fight in their new undead condition, particularly compared to how the strongest of the Risen did. Perhaps the most important aspect to their current combat potential was that they were no longer just a group of giant rats that shared the same room. Now, despite being smaller and having lower stats, they were truly weapons. His weapons. While they may be physically less than they were, with their attachment to his mind they would be extensions of his will, able to exhibit true teamwork and coordination.

The new room was exactly the same as the last had been. Five rats, one in each corner, and the last in the center. His Risen could smell the two in the corners closest to the door, despite not being able to see them. This time he would try to stick to portions of his list. He made a quick plan, even knowing nothing would work exactly how he wanted it to. The four weaker Risen bunched up near the door as he cocked back his arm, spear ready to fly.

Just to make sure it actually worked, he used all three modifiers from Enhanced Throw. Despite them all working perfectly together, he still ran into a problem he hadn’t anticipated. Apparently he needed to spend some time getting truly acquainted with a weapon he planned to throw, shoot, or swing. Even Precise couldn’t account for a mostly straight spear if he hadn’t spent the time figuring out how exactly it flew. As a result it was off target.

Instead of driving through the open, yawning mouth of the central rat and into its brain, the spear went slightly wide, missing the head completely. Fortunately, the body of a giant rat is significantly bulkier than that of a normal sized rat. Dix’s mostly straight spear struck the rat between its neck and shoulder, blowing a fist sized hole completely through the beast. The Power modifier made a lot more impact with a heavier weapon, and a spear was much heavier than a knife.

Surprised by the variations in his spear’s flight or not, Dix still had a fight to finish before he could bother thinking things through. A simple thought sent two pairs of rats streaking towards the farthest corners, and a larger rat bounded forward before making a sharp turn to the right. Trusting his back to his strongest Risen, Dix pulled his hammer pick from his belt, and whirled his arm up and over in a massive swing, once more running all three Enhancements. The rat leaping in from his left never had a chance as the blunt head of his hammer shattered its skull, and a fair portion of its body, into blood splatter.

Even mid swing, his mind was still handling the movements of his Risen. Each of the pairs made shallower jumps than the rats they were attacking, slashing their long teeth through the rear legs of their targets, severing them completely. The impact also knocked the rats off kilter, disturbing their flight and causing them to land awkwardly. Without their rear paws, they never managed to get back upright before his Risen tore them apart.

As for his largest Risen, it fought differently. Instead of slashing with its teeth, it simply head butted its target in the chest as it sailed overhead. Knocked off course, and slightly stunned, the rat crashed to the ground near the center of the room. The Risen then sauntered over and snapped its jaws closed around the spine, just shy of the skull, holding it down with its front paws as it gnawed through the vertebrae.

Dix, looking over the aftermath of his latest battle as he gathered his spear, was both impressed and disappointed. Impressed by the fact he had not lost a single Risen, nor gained any new wounds himself. Disappointed because it was far too easy. Despite the ridiculousness of it, he had been hoping he would lose at least one of his Risen so that he would have a reason to test out his theory about Touch of Death boosting the power of a Risen. Perhaps the only thing more impressive than clearing the room without a single injury was the ridiculous amount of damage his Enhanced skills did with heavier weapons employed correctly. Admittedly, giant rats weren’t exactly tough, but he truly hadn’t expected the amount of physical devastation he had unleashed.

Shrugging, he sent the rats out again, not even bothering with a formation this time. He still kept the larger Risen with himself, but he spread the others out to find enough enemies to keep him moving. He’d handled the original grouping of rats well enough that he wasn’t too worried about needing the help of the four smaller rats in future fights, so they were relegated to scouts. As for the larger one, whom he decided to refer to as Ratso until it died or was replaced by something stronger, it was strong enough to handle a rat on its own, two if he kept a careful eye on it.

As he walked through the halls of the dungeon he thought back over his spells. Despite the number of times he had cast Discharge during the testing, it wasn’t the spell he recalled most clearly. That honor went to Wind Blade. The general bolt spells were also fairly easy to remember, as they were all similarly constructed and had been what he worked with the most while trying to figure out Overload, as well as gain his resistances. He was disappointed to realize that he didn’t remember the vast majority of how Multi Bolt worked, but it had been an absurdly complex spell, particularly for a bolt spell. Flamethrower also made enough impact to be remembered well enough he thought it could work. Earth and Ice Spikes were a loss for now, as were Water Slicer and Force Pulse.

The other spells weren’t as easy. Despite his love of, and reliance on Conjure Weapon and Shield, their runes were very complex. He was fairly certain that he had never actually correctly formed the runes for either spell on his own, instead relying completely on the implanted knowledge he had been given. None of the summon spells had ever really been something he paid that much attention to either, and they were even more complex.

The stat buffs were pointless, as he had Empower to cover that side of things. Despite his disparaging of Healers earlier, he never saw turning three buff spells into a skill as a bad thing. Not only would the skill grow and evolve, it was also a more or less permanent effect, requiring no recasting.

Healing was a different issue entirely. He hadn’t ever spent much time with Light Heal, or Heal, so not knowing them wasn’t much of an issue to him. Summon Healer, like the elemental summons, was simply far too complex to cast without the ingrained knowledge. Regeneration and Rejuvenation, despite being his favorite healing spells, were going to be issues for him to cast. They were each on the upper end of complexity of what he thought he might be able to handle at this point, but he was worried about something else. His memory of how to create the spells was clear enough that it was on par with some of the damage spells he was willing to try working with, but he was still too nervous to try.

The problem was actually Empower. As he had structured the skill around how Rejuvenation worked, he was unclear how an incorrectly made version of the spell would interact with it. Dix had a very clear idea of how dangerous uncontrolled mana rampaging through your body could be thanks to the Galaxy. With a spell that created mana batteries inside a body, along with other constructs that were to use that mana to repair injuries, even the slightest mistake could have catastrophic after effects. Unlike the attacking spells, healing was based inside the body. A body he wouldn’t be able to repair if he screwed it up. For now, healing would have to be all natural, or through Touch of Death.

With his spear in one hand, he started tinkering with mana in the palm of his other hand. The valves really didn’t do anything for him now, but he still used them as a focus for his work. It also helped that he had been using mana from his hands before, so he could recreate those experiences to help him remember. The first spell he was going to attempt to recreate was Fire Bolt. All of the bolt spells used a shorter string of runes than anything else, as well as needing only a small amount of mana. As he expected there to be a large amount of trial and error to the process, he figured he ought to use the less expensive spells first.

As he wove the first rune into existence in his hand, there was a sudden flash from the second screen in his mind, along with a burst of knowledge. It was such a distracting experience that it caused him to stop his spell creation with only a single rune created. Unfortunately for Dix, the rune he had created was fire, one of the few runes that didn’t actually need anything else to become reality. The subsequent burst of fire in his palm only did a little damage, but the blisters would complicate the next few days if he didn’t get them healed. Cursing quietly to himself, he called his Risen back to their formation while he read the notifications he had just received.

Racial Skill: Runic Memory Updated!

Description Added!

Perfectly recall any correctly made rune you have seen, made, or interacted with in any way. May store and recall more than one version of a rune. Different versions of runes may have varying costs and uses.

Rune stored in Runic Memory: Fire

Dix slowly drifted to a stop as the implications sank in. Every rune he could find through combat, enchanting, training, or even old dusty tomes would be permanently inscribed in his mind. He would never have to keep notes of how each rune looked, or what it was for. Leaning his spear against his shoulder, he quickly formed the rune for water over his blistered hand.

Rune stored in Runic Memory: Water

Laughter bubbled out of his mouth before he could stop it. While barely keeping himself from screaming out in sheer joy, his mana started weaving together in his hands. On one hand a Lightning Bolt, and the other hand grew a Water Bullet. The flash of knowledge and light was enough to let him know he had succeeded. Looking at the mana structures in his hands, he could now easily recognize the different portions of the spells. There was a basic structure to all of the bolt spells, something that actually reminded him of a gun. Not that the structures were similar looking, but simply that they had similar functions. With either one, you load something, a bullet or element, in one end and death comes out of the other. With the help of Runic Memory, he could now easily distinguish where the dividing line was between the Runic form of a Bolt spell, and the element that he had added.

The tendrils of mana that supported the spells formed in his hands were soon joined by a few more. The new tendrils gently separated the elements from their bolt spells, and then started transforming them. Lightning turned to Air, and Water to Earth, before plugging the new elements back into the runic formations. Once more knowledge flooded into his mind, but he kept the spells under control. Separating the elements out again, this time he changed Air to Fire, and Earth to Ice, then waited for the knowledge to flow in again. Finally he changed them both to Force, before releasing the bolts down the corridor. Glancing at his notifications, he was mildly surprised by the changes.

Racial Skill: Runic Memory Updated!

Description Changed!

Perfectly recall any correctly made rune or spell you have seen, made, or interacted with in any way. May store and recall more than one version of a rune, or spell. Different versions of runes may have varying costs, leading to different costs and effects for the spells composed of those runes. Spells stored in Runic Memory can be recreated without focusing on doing so, as long as you have successfully cast them previously.

Rune stored in Runic Memory: Lightning, Air, Earth, Ice, Force

Rune stored in Runic Memory: Contain, Compress, Release, Direction

Spell Formula stored in Runic Memory: Bolt

This time he couldn’t stop the roaring laughter that came bursting out of his throat. He had been quite worried that he wouldn’t be able to gain any of his spells again, and yet here they were. It wasn’t all of them by any means, but even just the basic bolts would be enough to make a huge difference in how he fought, as well as how quickly he could kill his enemies. Now he was really excited to be in this dungeon.

A quick thought spread out his Risen rats again, once more searching for more enemies for him to hunt. As they worked, so did he, quickly creating Wind Blade, and Discharge. Discharge had a few runes that he had to tinker with, making small changes to the structure of each until they finally sunk into his mind. When he got the final one corrected the entire spell structure was saved into Runic Memory. Thankfully, a couple of the runes used in Discharge were also used in Flamethrower, which eased some of the issues he had with the spell, but by no means did it fix everything. Fully half the runes involved in the spell were ones he would have to either fix or find, if he ever wanted the spell to work.

For now, though, it would be neither, as his Risen had found him more rats to fight.