Bell stared for a long time at the blue, translucent screen that hovered in his vision. He slapped himself with his pseudopod just to make sure that he wasn't dreaming.

He had thought the dungeon was very game-like but to think there was- hmm, no, maybe he should've expected something like this from the beginning. Every game that he knew of had one. Regardless, the potential implications of this discovery were racing through his mind.

---

Bell Moondrop (Level 1 - Slime, no class)

Strength: White Stage (Low)

Endurance: White Stage (Low)

Agility: White Stage (Low)

Stamina: White Stage (Low)

Dexterity: White Stage (Low)

Magic: Pre-initialization Stage

Innate Abilities: None

Class Abilities: None

---

"Potootoo apologizes. He was sure that you knew about the status window." Sitting in front of the four children, Potootoo tore off a chunk of chewy, white meat from the dead fish held between his wings. "Ohoho, this is fantastic. No. Incredible! Are you sure Potootoo can have this?"

"Yes, of course. Thank you for your help," Bell replied earnestly. It was a small price to pay for the guide's help. He had only asked Potootoo for a more detailed description of what a power-up potion did, and been told that it would increase one of his attributes by one minor advancement level. When he asked what that meant, the bird had been baffled to know that Bell wasn't even aware of attributes. Potootoo had then proceeded to teach the children how to access their status window.

It was quite simple, actually. They just had to say it out loud.

As for his actual attributes, he didn't know what 'white stage (low)', 'pre-initialization stage' or 'class' meant yet, but it was clearly evidence that he could get stronger. Maybe if he trained like Day and Leah had in the past year, he could increase his attributes.

Ever since he had learned that there were people in this world with superhuman strength, he had always been curious as to how one might go about obtaining such power. Perhaps they just had high stats, and maybe he could get there eventually too.

"Bleh, no change since last month," Leah muttered, eyes clearly focused on something in front of her that Bell couldn't see. A half-eaten, purple fish laid on her lap. Leah had called them 'purefish', which Bell found to be quite ironic. The last thing he would associate with these screaming atrocities was the word 'pure'.

But what she said was curious.

"You knew what your attributes were already?" Bell asked.

"Mhm, we get them tested at the school before the summer break," Leah said. "It's cool that we can take a look whenever we want, though."

"What do white stage and pre-initialization stage mean?" Kana asked, tilting her head slightly to the side.

"White is the first stage of physical advancement, and pre-initialization means that you don't have a mana core yet," Day said, reaching for his own fish. It was a nasty puke-colored green and still wore an expression that looked like it died being smashed to death by a rock. Which... was what happened, Bell supposed.

Day bit off a raw piece of the fish's cheek and chewed on it thoughtfully. "You'll get your mana core when you hit level two, so there's not much point thinking about that one now. You guys might want to consider doing some physical training though, while we're here. If you can reach the intermediate white stage in agility, that'll probably help when we're running for our lives."

Bell sat up straighter. Though running for their lives didn't sound like an enticing prospect, Bell could feel excitement bubbling up within him. As he suspected, he could get stronger through training. He was already envisioning a future where he could run as fast as a bullet train and smash through walls with his fist.

"No way. They're too young for training, aren't they?" Leah frowned.

"Rea made us start our training when we were about their age," Day said.

"Yeah but Rea's a demon in disguise."

"She is?" Kana's eyes widened.

"It's just a figure of speech," Leah hastily assured her, and then turned back to Day. "Even if they did start training now, it'll take them weeks to break through to the intermediate white stage."

"It's not like we're in a rush. There's plenty of food and water here, and we were planning to stay here for a while to begin with. Didn't Bell also say that there are experience potions in the store?" Day asked, gouging his purefish's eyeball out and popping it into his mouth. "I know for a fact that Kain uses those potions to speed up their training. Once we get those credits, buying some of them might not be a bad idea. It's only 25 credits per bottle. Bell and Kana can try to raise their agility stat to intermediate while we can try to push for our next stage of advancement in magic."

"I mean, a red core wouldn't hurt to have, sure, but that's gonna be a month of training at the bare minimum." Leah grabbed her purple purefish with one hand and bit off its head. She chewed angrily and grumbled a few times. "Ugh. Fine, it's better than having no plan at all. The stream water might speed things up too. We won't have a problem with mana recovery at least."

"Yeah. Imagine how Rea and Ella would react if we got out of here with red cores." Day grinned, revealing pieces of eyeball that were stuck between his teeth.

Leah recoiled a little at the sight. "Gross. Nah, imagine how they would react if we got out of here alive. That said, I doubt that we can clear the dungeon with just red cores. We might have to try for orange or higher."

Day continued chewing thoughtfully. "Is it even possible to get to orange at level two?"

"I don't know, but it's not like we can get to level three on our own."

"What do we need again?"

"A spirit seed, an elemental contract, an enhancement construct… anything that'll augment our core once we hit the peak of the red stage. That's the only way to reach level three as far as I know. Where the heck are we going to find one of those?"

"Potootoo knows! Potootoo knows!" Potootoo said excitedly, spraying bits of fish and spittle on the children's faces. "You can find them in the store. Yes, yes. Potootoo can show you." He adjusted his bowtie and whispered something into it.

Krrrrrrrrrr.

There was a rumbling noise, and four short columns rose out from the ground carrying what looked like glass cases. The four children scrambled forward to look within.

Each of the cases shimmered with a golden sheen and held distinct objects inside it.

"Ooo, what are they?" Kana asked, pressing her snout against the glass. Inside, placed atop a purple cushion, was a small, red bean that was flickering with phantom lights as if there were tiny fires dancing inside of it.

"That, is a flame spirit seed from the world tree," Potootoo said proudly. "It can give you the fire enhancement, or strengthen your existing fire enhancement to the next stage of advancement! Fantastic, ohoho."

"A flame spirit seed," Day repeated with a look of wonder. "I've always wanted to be a fire artist. It would feel so good to burn that smug smile off of Kain's face at school."

Potootoo placed a wing on the glass case. "And it's only 15,000 credits," he said, immediately wiping the look of wonder off of Day's face.

"15,000?!" Day gaped at the bird. "How are we supposed to earn 15,000 credits?"

"Most explorers earn around that much by the time they clear the dungeon," Potootoo said. "There are plenty of credits around, don't worry ohohoho."

"What about this one?" Leah pointed at the second case, which held a swirling vortex of water that hovered in mid-air. Through the vortex, Bell thought he could see the tiny silhouette of a sleeping person, though it could just as well be his imagination.

Potootoo hopped behind this case and leaned in so that his misaligned eyes poked out from other side of the vortex. "A water elemental, obviously. If you buy it, the case will remain closed until a contract is established. If you can't form one, then the store will give you a full refund and take it back."

"And how much is it?"

"25,000 credits," Potootoo replied.

Leah sighed, and Bell empathized with her. With these prices, there was no way that any of these items could help them in the dungeon itself. If they were lucky, it might help them with the last floor. Potootoo might as well have been dangling a dream in front of their eyes.

The guide made his way behind the third case, which held a metal, grey cube the size of Leah's thumb that had countless tiny gears slowing grinding and turning on the inside. The some parts of the air around it was blurry, as though there were invisible bands orbiting it. "A wind core construct. Stick it inside your core and it'll integrate itself automatically, becoming a part of your core and giving you the wind enhancement."

"How does that work? How would you get that into your core in the first place?" Bell blurted out. He'd seen simple constructs before, like the fire construct they had used to cook the hotpot at home. He couldn't imagine how intricate and complicated a construct would have to be to not only consider putting it inside your body, but to enable it to integrate itself into your physiology. Did it have an artificial intelligence or something?

"As a slime, it is probably as easy as eating that fish, ohoho," Potootoo said cheerily. "Potootoo hears that humans have to cut open their bellies, shove it in, and use a healing potion to fix the hole."

"I... see."

Bell winced at the thought of committing seppuku to stick something inside his body. Maybe he should count his blessings that he was reborn as a slime in this world. As much as he missed having limbs and fingers, there was something to be said about the advantages of a slime body. And it wasn't like he would be limbless or fingerless forever. Level 2 couldn't come fast enough.

"I'm guessing this is just as expensive as the other ones?" Leah raised an eyebrow at Potootoo, who looked offended.

"Ohoho, how could such an item compare to the flame spirit seed and a water elemental? No, no. The wind enhancement construct is 100,000 credits."

"One- one-hundred thou-" Day tried to say, seemingly with great difficulty.

Leah grimaced. "Yeah, this is a waste of time. There's no way we'll be able to afford these in time for them to be useful for us. We should just focus on doing the best we can at level 2."

"Hold on now, there's still one last option if you want to augment your core," Potootoo said, strutting over to the final case. Behind the glass, Bell could see a stone tablet that had a strange character etched into it. Whatever language it was, it wasn't High Haven, because he didn't even recognize the character's structure, much less the character itself. Etched beneath the character, Bell saw four small symbols that looked like the bare outlines of different animals. "Behold! Ohohoho. The Spiritual Trial Tablet."

Leah squinted closely at the tablet with skepticism. "And what's this supposed to do?"

"It manifests a trial inside your mind that will naturally augment your core with the best enhancement to match your affinity, ohoho," Potootoo replied. "It can be reused up to four times, and it only costs 8,000 credits!"

Day immediately leaned in closer to look at the tablet. "That sounds like exactly what we need! We might not be able to afford or use it now, but with any luck, we'll probably able to use it well before the end of the dungeon."

"Yeah, but it sounds too good," Leah noted. "What's the catch?"

"Ah. Yes, yes. The catch. Potootoo always forgets. The trial is dangerous. To pass the trial, you must have a strong spirit and demonstrate that you can overcome yourself. If you cannot pass, your mind will be stuck inside the tablet forever. Fantastic."

"So we can augment our core for cheap if we take a risk, or we can pay more to augment our core without taking any risk," Leah reasoned. "Why is that not surprising to me?"

"It should be fine, right?" Day shrugged. "We overcome ourselves every time we train. It'll be a piece of cake."

"Sure, let's roll the dice on our lives and potentially risk suffering for eternity on a whim." Leah rolled her eyes. "But I guess it's not like we have to choose now. We can take our time. We need to reach the peak of red stage before we can use any of these anyway."

"Yeah, at least we know that we have these options."

Potootoo tapped his bowtie, and the pillars and the cases all sunk back into the floor. "Any of those items can be purchased at any time if you have enough credits, ohoho. Just let Potootoo know."

Leah nodded appreciatively, and took a deep breath. "Look at us, talking about augmenting our core when we haven't even reached the red stage yet."

"It's... probably a bit premature, yeah," Day agreed. "But look on the bright side! Now, we might have orange cores when we get out of here." Day wiggled his eyebrows mysteriously.

"Rea might be willing to let us rest during a summer break for once." Leah giggled lightly, then added, "She'd be proud of us, I think. There's no way she's expecting us to be training inside of a dungeon."

"Mhm, she'll definitely be proud, though Ella might make fun of her if we trained harder when she wasn't around."

"Yeah, haha."

Both Day and Leah fell silent, and Bell heard Leah sigh.

"I miss them so much." There was a hint of melancholy in her voice.

"Hey hey, we're going to see them again," Day reassured her. "The harder we train, the sooner we'll get to see them. And the sooner Kana will be able to see her father too!"

Kana nodded fervently, and Leah reached out to rub her head. Kana let her do so, and it seemed to comfort Leah a bit.

Day clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Well then. Bell. Kana. Rea always says that you should never wait to start training once you decide you do it. You guys ready to start?"

Bell and Kana looked at him with fire in their eyes.

"Yes!" "Un!"

...

Woong.

A bright light hovered inches in front of Leah's palm, pulsating with power. Sweat beaded on her brow as she kept her magic missile immobile. She had packed it with most of her mana, and while she didn't need to expend any more mana to keep it steady, she did need to continuously hold the spell together to prevent it from leaking energy. It felt as though she was trying to hold a tightly bound sleeping bag together with an exhausted body as some of the edges kept trying to flare out.

The purpose of this exercise was fairly simple. The longer and more tightly you could hold a magic missile together, the less energy it would lose before it made contact with the target. It was one of Rea's bazillion shaping exercises that Leah hated doing.

Why? Simple. It made her spirit ache, her head ache, her arm ache, her- everything ache!

Her frustration distracted her for a moment, and she felt the magic missile lose a chunk of its energy as it leaked through her mental containment. Dammit. She felt herself lose control of the spell, so she quickly launched what remained of it down the tunnel. It dissipated like white smoke in the wind.

"How's it coming along, sis? Your shaping is looking real good." Day's voice came up from behind her, just dripping with sarcasm.

Leah scowled as she glared at her brother. "I can usually hold it for a minute or longer. I just got distracted this time."

"You're too serious sometimes. You should relax." Day sat beside her and peeked under the bandages on his leg. She took a peek too, and gasped. Even though the gash in Day's leg was no longer bleeding due to the effects of the bandage, there was still clearly a number of deep incisions that cut deep into his thigh, and the area around them was swollen and purple.

Leah's arm wasn't much better, she knew, but at least she didn't need her arm to walk.

"You relax. You shouldn't be moving with that leg," Leah said.

"Oh, really? I didn't notice." Day chuckled. "Don't worry, I didn't move that much. I just taught the kids the routine Rea always gets us to do. I even scribbled it all down on the wall using a rock."

"Eh? But I thought you were just going to get them to work on their agility."

"Yeah, that's what I was intending to do at first. Then I figured, why not go all the way?"

"Uh, because a two-year old and a three-year old won't have the strength to do a circuit that we only managed to do when we were six? What were you thinking?" Leah tried to get up onto her feet to change Bell and Kana's training regimen, but Day held up a finger.

"Hold on, sis. You saw how eager they were just now about training, right?"

"Yeah, but-"

"How eager do you think they'll be once they actually start to do it?"

Leah paused to think, and realization dawned on her. "Probably quite a bit less."

"Exactly. And how long do you think they'll last if we make them run or swim for hours on end just to improve their agility?"

"They'll probably quit within a week." Leah had no doubt in her mind about that. She had already been planning to take on the whole dungeon with only herself and Day anyway.

There was no way she'd put that kind of responsibility on her younger brother and a three-year old girl. In her mind, the two were training just to distract them long enough for her and Day to clear the dungeon. Though, that didn't mean that she cared nothing for Bell and Kana's advancement. It would definitely be a load off her mind if they could at least raise their agility stat to the intermediate white stage.

"Once they realize how difficult it is to train, we'll ease up on the exercises and get them to rotate them so that they can do an hour or two a day. This way, they'll last a lot longer." Day was smirking as though he had figured out the solution to a very difficult problem. "They'll never know that they've been dancing in our palms from the beginning."

"I never thought I'd say this, but you're quite the genius, bro." Leah patted her brother on the shoulder.

"And don't. You. Forget it." Day grinned widely.

"There's no slacking off for us though. You know that right? To break through to the red stage of magic advancement, we're going to have to expand our core a lot. Rea said it'd take us at least a few months of daily training. Even if the experience potion works like we expect it to, we won't have much time to rest outside of sleeping."

"Just like Rea taught us, right? Shouldn't be a problem."

"I wish I had your optimism sometimes."

Leah got up and reluctantly walked over to the stream, and lifted a handful of water to her lips. The liquid trickled down her throat and refilled her channels with power. She allowed the mana to circulate through her body, allowing her to take control of it.

Just a moment ago, this mana was foreign and separate from herself. It was only something that could be sensed with her mana perception. But now, it was a part of her body.

Leah started circulating her mana again, and readied her palm for another round of shaping exercises using magic missile.

The next eight hours were going to be torture.