Mana users had a sort of new organ in their body. It wasn't physically there but on the mirror side of the body from the heart, there was a core of mana attuned to the person that would empty as the user casted spells and regenerate from ambient mana in the air. Working out muscles was a process of breaking them down so they would come back stronger and the same applied to the mana core as well, if you casted spells until your core was completely drained you it would be able to hold a small amount more. You could also increase your mind stat to gain more room in your core immediately and increase the rate it regenerated mana from the ambient mana that already existed. Meditation was also an option, where you close your eyes and block off all your senses to focus purely on mana and breathe, feel, taste mana into your system to help speed up the process of refilling your core as well.

After five minutes of meditation Kal felt his core was full and he prepared to enter the dungeon. He had very little to prepare, but what he did do was take his phone and walled out of his makeshift towel pocket and lay them down under a park bench. It just hit him that they could fall out while he was fighting and he would most likely never see them again so he took the precautions to mitigate that risk.

Entering the portal, Kal found himself in a dank, horrible smelling sewer system. This is the dungeon he remembered, the first one he ever cleared. It was a tricky dungeon, the sewer water was slightly acidic and could damage you while also having sewer piranha to finish you off. On the walkways to the side of the water wasn't much better, as the rats were sometimes accompanied by small, ugly, green creatures that any fantasy enthusiast would call a goblin. With goblins came traps of course, luckily the low leveled goblins did not have a good knowledge when it came to traps, but it was still going to be a problem.

Twenty years of dungeon delving made Kal as sharp as a razor, and he mostly jogged through the dungeon. Jumping over tripwires like hurdles and easily dispatching the small groups of rats. Near a certain wall, Kal's instincts tipped him off to something as he stopped to inspect the stone wall. One of the bricks looked different, where every other brick looked rough and cut into place one of them looked like it had more wear and tear on it than a simple stone brick should have. Getting closer to it Kal carefully pressed it down like a button, and it clicked while he heard noises of stone moving, and the sloshing of water a past the next corner.

Carefully peeking his head around the corner, Kal saw that in the middle of the stream of acidic sewage water, a small hole opened up with a bridge connecting it to the walkway. There was a ladder on the side of the whole, and water changed its course to go around the wall like there was an invisible barrier stopping it from falling in. Three rats started walking down the hall to the new source of noise, and behind them was the first goblin that Kal had seen when he entered the dungeon. The goblin had a blowpipe in hand, and a dagger on his belt while being mostly unarmored except for the loincloth that covered anything indecent. Kal had a brief moment of self-reflection when he noticed he arguably looked worse. Not only was he also one piece of cloth away from being fully "unarmored", but he was also covered in mud and blood. Not really a good look, and Kal in this moment realized he should get clothes sooner rather than later.

Stopping himself from getting too caught up in his thoughts, Kal quickly came out from the corner, firing a single soul arrow at the goblin. The rats spotting him, charged, and one ended up getting in the way of the short goblin and the path of the soul arrow, causing the vermin to take the arrow. Two rats got closer to Kal, and the goblin sent a dart his way, flying out of the blowpipe. The creatures were still weak by Kals standard, even the blowpipe the goblin used was barely harder to dodge than a rock thrown by a toddler. One semi-graceful dodge past the dart, and Kal brought up his knee on the rat who jumped at him, and stepped towards the other rat kicking it with his other leg. The rat who got kneed was twitching, unable to get up, and the one who was kicked made an audible crunch before being sent into the acidic water system. About 10 feet away, the goblin dropped his blowpipe in favor of the dagger, and snarled at Kal waiting for him to make a move.

Move Kal did, with more speed than the goblin expected. A fist was about aiming to crush the goblins skull in a straight punch, and the goblin raised his dagger in a block. Before the first connected, Kal pulled his punch and with a flick sent a very small soul arrow through the air, piercing the goblin in one of his eyes. Before he had time to recover, Kal grabbed the goblin by the back of his head, crushing it into his knee. He was pretty sure it was dead, but just to be sure he slammed the goblin into the ground head first, before sliding him off the walkway into the waters. He backed up his steps, also giving the convulsing rat a burial at sea.

Before he was going to go down the ladder, he checked his status sheet again. Notifications filled his screen.

[Death confirmed - Level 1 rat. rewarding 20XP]

[Death confirmed - Level 1 rat. rewarding 20XP]

[Death confirmed - Level 1 goblin. rewarding 40XP]

[User has now reached level 3]

Kal must have levelled up on one of the other small rat packs, he didn't remember hitting level 2 but he also wasn't constantly checking his status. He didn't really feel the need to, but he found the "Sub-dungeon" of this dungeon, which had higher rewards but also held greater risks, and even though he was confident in his skills he did not want to die due to his own overconfidence. The system's leveling system was weird, and had some weird rules. At level 5 you didn't get the free points, and instead chose a "class" that would level independently of your level, and would provide additions to statistics per level. At level 10 you would get a "sub-class", that in reality could have nothing to do with your class and was more like a hobby. Something like weaponsmith, cook, tailor, etc.

The other part was that once you got your class, each class had it's own page you would have access too and therefore more menus to navigate for skills. Teleportation as a skill for example, was only available through the "Space Magician" Page, and so no other classes could get access to the skill. There was rumored to be hidden links to certain class specific skills, but even the scholars who spent weeks looking could find nothing, even jumping page after page.

There was also the existence of hidden classes, he personally knew and trained someone who had the "Blade Diety" class, which granted him access to hidden skills, but also skills of other classes as well. While Jin, the Blade Diety never told him exactly what skills he had, Kal could tell he had skills from fighters but also the ability to fly on his sword and control it, sending it through the battle field on its own like a heat seeking missile. Jin never said how he got the class, but he assumed it had to do with a sub-dungeon or some sort of title. Sub-dungeons only existed once in a dungeon, every dungeon had one but once it was cleared it would stop existing, stopping anyone else from getting the bonuses from within it. Kal closed all the notifications and pop-ups about his kills and levels to get to his status.

[User: Kal Walker

Level 3 (0/300)

Stats: (3 Free points)

Strength: 10

Endurance: 9

Dexterity: 12

Mind: 9 (-1)

Skills:

Soul Arrow

Titles:

First one in

Last one standing]

Kal put one point into endurance, one into mind, and kept one free before slowly descending the ladder, deeper into the sub-dungeon.

[Now Entering - Labyrinth of G'althric]