“Uh, sorry man, but I can’t help; I’m helping prep the house for the Christmas party…” I sighed at the rejection and then frowned… of course I couldn’t get help. “Nah man, it’s alright. Thanks anyway, and have fun.” I said, ending the call and scratching my hair at what Matt said…

Well, it was the day before Christmas, and of course most of the group couldn’t help me here… Emilia had been dragged along with Alice to go get things done, Michael was visiting his girlfriend of the month (though it looked like they’d be breaking up soon and he’d be back to sobbing and feeling like the world was ending, then a week or so later he’d be fine) so he was also gone…

And John and Matt were both at their respective homes helping get things done over there. So yes, nobody was going into the dungeon with me today… and why would I go into the dungeon today?

Well, see, four days ago, I finally had to get Angelica from her friend’s house… she couldn’t stay there forever, despite what I might wish. I had arranged a deal that I’d pay them for her food and such, and they agreed, but only after Christmas, as apparently Angelica was very depressed and crying a lot these days… understandably… So I was going into the Dungeon… to make a present.

Sounds stupid, but when you can literally create magical items, it seems better to do that much when giving someone a gift. I had made everyone something with what small enchantments I was capable of… I had a rank of E in the skill after all…

It turns out that the actual enchanting was similar to engineering, which I had luckily been studying. Just, instead of fuel sources, machinery and physics I worked with magic and intent, as well as having to balance the enchantments and ensuring they wouldn’t blow up in your face.

Of course, even if I had a rank S (the highest I can assume) in the skill, it wouldn’t change the fact that I could only provide certain enchantments due to my magical affinity… specifically, lightning was my magic affinity.

I was hyped as heck for the whole ‘I can shoot lightning!’ part, and I wasn’t disappointed… much. I mean, I can’t shoot lightning. The one time I tried I felt like I had an asthma and heart attack at the same time, and passed out. Apparently, I didn’t have enough magic for it (pissed me off really, I got the vague sense that I’d need around five times my current amount of magic, which would amount to roughly one hundred Intelligence just to use it once)

As for enchantments, I had knowledge of every enchantment type, but due to my affinity I could only use lightning currently… luckily affinities can grow and be earned, though they depended on stats…

Like I’d only be getting another element once I had over one hundred points from both Intelligence and Wisdom (for example, fifty Intelligence points and fifty Wisdom points) but before that I had to try what I could with my current affinity… because no matter how many more elements I earn, Lightning will always be my best apparently. It just worked like that.

One problem involving enchantment was that if you didn’t have that element, you couldn’t use that enchantment (this was if it was combat based, if it was a party trick, it would work either way apparently… it was weird like that)

I luckily managed to check up on an elemental chart which explained which possible elements existed, their opposites, their weaknesses, and their strengths… said elemental chart was copied out of the Tome. I still had it, but it would no longer grant the enchanting skill to anyone else… as in, no one else could read it, it wouldn’t open to any pages for them, though I could revise, the rank wouldn’t rise.

So, as a user of lightning magic, the opposite magic for me was wood magic and I had a synergy effect with metal and was strong against water. I was mostly happy for the synergy for metal (it was highly likely to be my second affinity according to the book)

The elements were: fire, air, water, earth, metal, lightning, light, darkness, wood, and mind (though this could be easily replaced with the term Illusion, since that’s what it was).

Each element had an opposing element, though all could be learnt, you were more likely to earn affinities in a certain order based on your first affinity. For me, as a lightning user, the most probable chain of affinities was: lightning, metal, fire, light, air, earth, darkness, water, mind, wood… for some reason, mind was opposite of metal…

As for numbers, if I were to put it that way, say I push one hundred magic points into a spell for each element… for lightning, I’d get one hundred damage points out of it, so it’s a perfect affinity.

Next, for metal I’d have a nine out of ten in affinity, then for fire an eight out of ten and so on and so on, until wood would (puns are fun) only have an affinity of one out of ten. Of course, if I pushed in a thousand magic points into a spell I could still make my wood magic equal to my lightning magic, it just wasn’t worth it when I could rather send ten shots of equal strength using lightning magic.

…Wow that was a massive info dump huh?

…Right, I believe that before I explained all that I was busy thinking about how I was enchanting gifts for everyone. Well, with lightning affinity I could only grant four possible enchantments (I could have gotten more if Lightning was a lower element like fire, wind, water and earth, but instead it’s a middle element, like metal, mind and wood… for light and darkness, the two higher elements, I’d have only been capable of one or two enchantments)

One of the enchantments I could make made the object light up. That’s pretty much all it did though I later discovered that if I pump some extra magic and used a Petty Soul Gem instead of a Worthless one in the creation of the enchantment, I could create something similar to a static field that caused a tingly feeling on the skin and hair to stand up.

Seeing as Angelica has long hair, I think she’d enjoy having that happen. The problem was that I’d need a Petty Soul Gem if I wanted to make an enchantment that strong.

Yes, Petty Soul Gems were actually kind of expensive at around fifty dollars for one (I don’t like spending), no; I was not buying one from anyone seeing as I wanted to get it myself…

It was a point of pride. To get one though, would mean having to fight a Lantern Brute. Alone… sigh, why were Soul Gems necessary?

…yeah, I really wasn’t enjoying today… with a sigh, I stood and grabbed my latest equipment I had created using enchantments… they looked surprisingly normal, due to having been casual clothes before I enchanted them… I couldn’t get armour yet, as I couldn’t find any that weren’t clearly fakes.

There was my usual shirt (I almost always wore long sleeve shirts, I was starting to wear short sleeves more often due to the sudden change in weather making it hot too though… this was a short sleeve one) that had some military print, and was enchanted to provide a flat plus two to Dexterity.

My pants (I couldn’t fight in jeans as much as I wished I could, so instead I compromised and got something similar to suit slacks, more casual though) were plain black and enchanted with an effect to make my Vitality points double if I was near death (how it knew that, I wouldn’t know, I never tried and I don’t want to… knowing whenever you are about to die is terrifying, despite its necessity) and would end after one minute.

My shoes had nothing on them at the moment, but I had swapped to boots after the incident with the brute, so there was that change.

With my strange outfit done, I walked out and towards the dungeon gate, having not used my motorbike in a while… I’d have to go for a ride some time later…

After a while I got to the dungeon entrance, noting that almost no one was there, except that girl that was normally there (by this point I learnt that her name was Danielle) and she blinked at seeing me as I willed my Cloak into existence.

“Ah, Mr Clive, this is an odd time to be going into the dungeon, isn’t it?” she asked and I had to agree… I woke up late due to it being the day before Christmas, so it was currently around two in the afternoon… considering I usually entered around nine or ten in the morning and left around two or three in the afternoon, it was pretty late, never mind the day it was.

“Yeah, I actually needed to get a specific Item from the dungeon for a gift I’m planning, and while I could buy it, I’d rather just get it myself, makes it more personal.” I admitted making the girl giggle as she looked at me from her booth.

“What, a special someone in your life? Is it that blonde girl in your group?” she asked as I shook my head with an awkward smile.

“Nah, it’s for my little sister. She’s been depressed since…” I didn’t need to mention the day for Danielle to understand that I meant Red Sky Day as she nodded with a sad look.

“Yeah, many people were hurt that day… well, I’m obligated to remind you that typically it’s supposed to be six people going into the Dungeon, but I’m sure you know that and will be going in anyway… good luck, by the way.” She said and I smiled and nodded, walking towards the Dungeon Entrance.

Hm… it was the first time I had entered the Dungeon alone honestly, it felt weird… I finally noted what a gratifying presence my teammates were, when I wouldn’t have Matt defending me, Michael killing my enemies before they reached me, the team of Alice and Emilia destroying all who got close as John kept us all alive…

Instead, it was just me, my Cloak, my Dagger, and my will… then I encountered a Slime and sighed, stabbing it with the Dagger and watching it die with a bored look.

[6 EXP earned!]

…huh? I blinked at that and just stared… did a slime just give me slightly more experience than a Lantern? No, no way… it wasn’t possible…

Except it totally was now that I think about it… I mean, if you think about it, when teams are formed they get an option called the experience distribution ratio, that’s usually set to one sixth of all experience to everyone equally… now I’m alone and I should be getting six times the experience I’d normally get from a monster…

“Holy… a Goblin is worth eighteen experience? A Lantern is worth thirty…Brutes are worth one hundred and thirty two…” I…I… I had to tell my team… but… wouldn’t they just kick me out if they realized that I was mooching off of their Experience? No, I’d tell them… after I got out of here and finished my quest… which should earn me a good couple thousand Experience points…

Personal Information

Name:

Arthur Clive

Level:

21

344 EXP

Rank:

L

Anima:

Traveller’s Cloak

The Nameless Dagger

Stats:

Strength: 23

Dexterity: 26 (22.6)

Intelligence: 16

Wisdom: 26 (36.4)

Vitality: 23

Constitution: 16

Skills:

Shooting (H), Blade Wielding (D), Tactician ©, Recovery (F), Close Combat (H), Enchanting (E)

I hummed in appreciation as I continued walking, a grin on my face… hey, a couple thousand experience points would go a long way apparently…

I was right and yet oh so horribly wrong… because while the experience gained was immensely fun… see, I had no healer… let me say that again, I had no healer. And what started happening around floor four and five?

In case you forgot (and I couldn’t not after today)… Groups, upon groups, upon groups of Lanterns… five in a group, all were trying to kill you… it’s horrible. It’s survivable if one is quiet, cautious, and carries a big sword… well, bigger than my Dagger anyway… and you know what else was insane? I started noting that I’d get extra experience points when I started killing Goblins…

That’s what my Dagger does, remember? I had totally forgotten because no one refuted that the Brute gave only twenty experience points, and I’d only noticed now that the ratio of extra experience earned was plus ten per cent experience earned… meaning I’d only get the experience points if I got ten or more in one go… if I had only known this… by the way, the ratio was now an extra fifteen per cent experience earned.

Nonetheless, I had begun to try and pinpoint certain moments where my Dagger would be capable of getting a kill shot in, earning me more experience than normal (with Lanterns it was an extra three points, negligible, but when killing five at a time it added up to fifteen, and killing ten groups would get me an extra one hundred and fifty experience… just saying)

Still, I had grown insanely quickly all of a sudden, and I was actually feeling sore all over from the stat boosts I had gained… so now I knew that was a thing… growing too fast was actually a problem.

Growing four levels in one dungeon run was a new experience, though I had grown two levels in one run around when we first got into the fourth floor… still, I was in a state of almost constant near dying…

By the way, the enchantment on the pants was a lifesaver… you never knew how important a stat Vitality was until you’re about to die and it suddenly jumpstarts to 46 points and you heal… in fact… it was increasing my Regeneration Skill at an unreasonable rate… a notable rate…

My Vitality stat wasn’t huge, but it meant that I could go from ‘near dead’ to ‘slightly injured’ within a few minutes with the enchantment active.

Personal Information

Name:

Arthur Clive

Level:

25

130 EXP

Rank:

L

Anima:

Traveller’s Cloak

The Nameless Dagger

Stats:

Strength: 26 (28.6)

Dexterity: 30 (34.5)

Intelligence: 19

Wisdom: 30 (43.5)

Vitality: 26

Constitution: 19

Skills:

Shooting (G), Blade Wielding ©, Tactician (B), Recovery ©, Close Combat (E), Enchanting (E)

… my word… this, this is what happens when you’re in a constant state of near dying, having to plan your way out of a pinch, wielding swords to kill your enemies and sometimes even wielding your enemies to kill your enemies…

I totally grabbed a Lantern and swung it into another one to kill both… I regret nothing. I’m also roughly seven times more flexible and precise than a normal human being, roughly eight and a half times as wise (I don’t see how that works other than me being calmer)

…This was insane… my growth in… three hours, was more than my growth for the past week, skill wise. I guess skills really do get better through use… though the Shooting Skill somehow ranked up when I used my knife to kill something from the distance…

“Really though… how had I even gotten this far…” I asked, looking at the stairs towards the sixth floor, innocently hidden slightly by the body of a Lantern Brute… yeah, some creatures kept appearing in certain areas, this whole floor was a Lantern den for groups of five, but this guy always, without fail, would appear here.

“I don’t know… at this point if I got hit I’d be out for the count forever… on the other hand… I’ve got my objective right in front of me… I’m not stopping just before the finish line.” I psyched myself up and held out my Lantern Blade… oh yeah, remember how I said there were four enchantments I could do? This was one reason why I was capable of fighting this far alone.

The ‘Enchantment of Blitzkrieg’ is what it was called, and it boosted the damage of the weapon it was used on by five per cent for every consecutive blow using the weapon, as long as I didn’t take longer than five seconds between each swing… I would have placed it on my Nameless Dagger, and I would, it’s just that Enchantments don’t work on Anima just yet…

Apparently I’d need a higher rank of the skill… which made sense, I’d essentially be enchanting a person’s soul… and if their element wasn’t lightning, it wouldn’t work as well as it could, maybe not even at all if their element was wood… so yeah, I wouldn’t be enchanting Anima soon, and even if I could, I’d only enchant my own Anima, no one elses.

Nonetheless, this enchantment was incredibly useful, the only actual issue with the enchantment was that I didn’t have the stamina, nor ability to swing a piece of metal at such a high constant speed while dodging and keeping myself alive…

In other words, the enchantment was perfect for me, but I wasn’t perfect for the enchantment… guess that’s why I was a lightning user… each element user was usually denoted by their personalities actually…

And lightning users apparently ‘see the perfection in others and the imperfection in themselves’… basically, lightning users would be harsh on themselves.

And of course I was… despite how much I blame Chronos, a part of myself kept blaming myself for not being there, and I couldn’t help it… it’s just how I was… I knew it wasn’t healthy, but it is what it is.

And I was about to show just how unhealthy it was when I’d fight this Lantern Brute, kill it, and walk out of here to make a shiny princess tiara that let my sisters hair float as if she was going to fly.

…I think I’ve mentioned this, but my life got weird… “Eh… I’m too tired to care.” I softly complained as I stepped forward, the Brute noticing me as its assistants stepped out first for some reason… didn’t matter to me, dead was dead.

As evidenced when I killed the first one in only two hits… wow, so this is what my Strength stat actually does when I have a weapon that can use it… of course, Dagger kill though.

Then I turned and in one smooth motion, dodged the attack of the other Lantern, and ran it through with my sword before ripping it out and thrusting my Dagger in with a quick jab, ending both lives.

[Earned 68 EXP!]

And so I turned to the Brute and glared at it… I was slightly bleeding pretty much everywhere, and I was tired, cranky, and I really, really wanted to go home… but I couldn’t get that right unless I killed this thing and went home…

“You know, I’ve been to the seventh floor, you guys are still pretty rare there… there are these guys called Lantern Knights down there… they’re pretty much better swordsmen versions of the Squires you have with you… and they grant about half your experience points… so why is it that I can fight two of them at once, but you alone versus me alone and I have so much trouble?”

I was pretty much just complaining as I dodged, and dodged, and cut, and cut… and other than the small stab wounds in its glass plated chest, nothing really happened… the more I stabbed the deeper the wounds were, but it was like trying to make an ice sculpture using a toothpick… difficult and annoying.

The only reason I got this thing the last time was because I had assistance in the form of Matt and his springboard assistance… now I didn’t have that… but I shouldn’t need that…

But I did… because I wasn’t all that strong by myself… I mean, yeah, I got down to the fifth floor by some manner of luck and brute forcing my way through while abusing my enchantment that doubled my Vitality for a minute (it took a good twenty minutes before it could be used again though, so it wasn’t omnipotent)

But beyond this? I wasn’t anything surprisingly special… I mean, I had higher than average Wisdom, so what, didn’t mean I was strong, just that I kept my calm longer than most… but when it came to doing things for myself, I just… I always felt so helpless… ever since my parents died.

I’ve… I’ve felt helpless since then. The only times I’ve felt in control since then had been those small moments in a fight where we won and we celebrated together… when I celebrated alone?

It made me realize how, when I was alone, I did so little… but when I was in a group, I could, somehow, do so much more than before… I could be better than I was now, if I was with my friends… such a cheesy line, but it was true…

So… was I fighting this thing, around five in the afternoon, practically night time due to it being winter, because I had to prove myself to my friends? Were my friends the kind of people I had to prove anything to?

No… they were… they were my friends… they were my friends because, in spite of the caring, they didn’t want me to prove myself if it meant me getting hurt.

That had been a complex of mine for so long… if anyone cares about what you can do, you need to prove yourself to them, you need to show your best to them… normally I’d ignore that feeling, because I didn’t (want to) care about what others thought of me… except…

I cared what they thought of me, because I cared for them… through some strange, twisted part of my heart, I cared for them in spite of that twisted part of me that urged me to leave them behind… huh.

“…Ha…” It was a slow build up, but I could feel the laughter building as I realized how much of an idiot I was being… I am strong! Not because of levels or stats, but because I can let my guard down around people I trust.

“I guess I’m getting out of here… so how do I do that?” I asked as I dodged another swing… or so I thought, getting clipped on the shoulder as I flew into the wall and coughed blood… did anyone get the number of that truck… sorry, suitable joke… though internal bleeding is making that joke kind of… pointless.

How was I getting out of this situation? I could run? Yeah… I could. Nothing said I had to kill this thing. That was just my pride talking…

“Why… am I standing up…” I asked myself through wheezing breaths and what might be cracked ribs as I stood, holding my side with my right arm, my left was apparently just dangling there while I cursed at having my left shoulder either broken or just dislocated…

I guess I stood because my pride spoke very convincingly… I’m such a strange person… I looked at my Dagger, willing it to not drop to the ground, because I needed to trick the system into not taking away the… wait… I have an idea.

I dropped the sword, and willed the Dagger into existence within my right hands grasp, and then concentrated, because I had to get this right… magic is about will, and intent, and focus. You must know what you wish to achieve, you must have the will to achieve it, and the intent to grasp it, and the focus to keep it in sight.

With a strange pulse I felt that warm feeling in my chest I had begun to associate with magic (or mana, as it is called in video games) drain a bit, and I absently noted light coming from below me… that was fine, it was part of the spell… I guess, an accurate name would be Echo step?

Unlike skills, spells could not grow in ranking… which meant this wasn’t the best spell for movement I could achieve with lightning… obviously, I wasn’t moving as fast as Lightning, was I? I was coming close though, at least I think I did… and then I moved.

[Spell Created: Echo Step (B)!]

And the world stood still.

It was a wonderful feeling, I could see the Brute trying to swing, but I wasn’t there anymore, I was behind it, stabbing into its back as I took a strange sword stance by instinct…

I stood with my right hand forward, elbow forcing my Dagger to sit above my own heart at the hilt, and my body facing the left, narrowing my stance, and my feet moved like… like the lightning flowing through my veins… and I felt invincible…

Then I noted that the mana I had was draining away quickly and I cursed… right, lightning spells had very high mana consumption. Curse my choice to increase Wisdom instead of Intelligence… at least I could slightly feel my mana regaining as it left… yeah, this wasn’t working.

The spell was right, but it took to much mana to keep active… I had to, as much as I regret the idea, slow down… and so I did, little by little, the world snapped back into movement, until my mana consumption matched my mana regeneration… roughly.

I was slower than before… but I was still faster… much faster… this could be… Jolt Step.

[Spell Created: Jolt Step (G)!]

Right, so I could only maintain G ranked abilities of lightning for now… fair enough, it’s not like I was a genius in magic all of a sudden, despite my good understanding of it.

Still, this Jolt Step was only one part of the plan. I now couldn’t be hit… but my hits didn’t damage the enemy too much… and I had to use the Dagger, because the sword would slow me down.

So now, I had solved the movement problem, and I was slowly regenerating my mana while having increased my speed… by the way, I couldn’t feel my left side right now… a small trick that I learned during biology in high school, signals are sent to the brain using electrons which are practically the base form of electricity or lightning… more the flow of electrons, but that isn’t important for magic.

What is important, is that I was intercepting the electrons and glitching them out, making my brain unable to feel what was happening to my left side to being unable to feel it. It also meant that my lung and a piece of my heart wouldn’t work right if I did that for too long, so I let some come through every few seconds, just so I didn’t lose all functions in that side of my body…

I’m pretty sure that I’m going to need a hospital and not some witch doctor (as I jokingly called John occasionally) because of nerve damage…

That was beside the point, I was having a very difficult time right now… because I was trying to dodge something, maintain a spell, keep myself from falling due to pain, and create a new spell… thank goodness Wisdom had a small amount of assistance with multitasking (more like keeping the mind in order, but that was also causing calmness and allowed multitasking to be done more easily)

And I had succeeded… theoretically… I mean, if this worked I was definitely winning. If it didn’t, well, that was that.

I focused on this final moment, ducking under a swing, and then jumping up to the glass plating on the Brute, prepared my spell… and fired.

[Spell Created: False Lightning (B)!]

The spell was extremely taxing and my mana dropped to next to nothing, and I instantly cancelled my Jolt Step to wheeze on the ground as the Brute toppled over and turned into black mist… because seriously…

Having what amounts as a Dagger shot by a rail-gun going through your chest must kill you. The spell was done by the same idea as a railgun, however I used the space between my right shoulder and wrist to store the electrical energy as I dodged, and then jumped, and released it all into the Dagger, which forcibly ejected it out of my hand at just under the speed of sound to actually shatter that annoying glass plating…

It died in one good hit… of course, I can’t feasibly use this technique often, it drained nearly all of my mana, and that hurts a lot actually… plus, it had a preparation time which could be interrupted if I got hit, which was why I kept using Jolt Step as I went.

[Earned 138 EXP!]

[Level Up!]

I smiled then I felt a strange change go through me… wondering what it was, I went to my status… and smiled.

Personal Information

Name:

Arthur Clive

Level:

26

1756 EXP

Rank:

K

Anima:

Traveller’s Cloak

The Nameless Dagger

Stats(5):

Strength: 26 (28.6)

Dexterity: 30 (34.5)

Intelligence: 19

Wisdom: 30 (48)

Vitality: 26

Constitution: 19

Skills:

Shooting (F), Blade Wielding (B), Tactician (S), Recovery ©, Close Combat (D), Enchanting (D)

“Yeah!” …You’ll never see me do such a thing in public, but forgive me if I cheered in happiness at what just happened… but I lived through such a harsh experience… I think I earned the funny moment…

And so I stood, walked over to the Petty Soul Stone (I chuckled thinking how I risked my life for something ‘Petty’) and turned… then I began walking back… man, my Vitality boosting enchantment couldn’t come soon enough…

As I stepped out of the dungeon I blinked at the night sky, and chuckled, walking forward, ignoring how some people openly stared at me as I walked towards the exit booth noting Danielle. She stared as I gave a tired smile.

“Would you understand if I said I don’t feel like selling anything right now? And that I just want to get healed, go home, sleep, and let tomorrow’s me do something about my problems?” I asked as she nodded.

“O-o-of course… we have a healer here, just wait a moment.” She said as I nodded, waiting a bit as she came back with a man with a ball of light in his hand as he held it to me, and I winced a bit at the painful feeling.

“…How the heck are you still moving around? You have a shattered shoulder, cracked ribs, and your lung is slightly punctured… for some reason, this seems to be better than you were before you got here.” The man said as I looked at him.

“I move through my own will.” I said simply and waited… the healing finished a while later. he had to rest quite a few times… sad really, I mean, I was only a beginner magician really, but my mana regeneration meant that I could go from completely empty to fine in twenty one minutes… not that going empty was a good thing ever apparently…

Seeing that most spells, even G ranked spells, cost a huge amount of magic, I’m guessing that was the reason for the fast regeneration time (compared to magic in most forms of fiction which usually took quite a while to regenerate)

“Thanks for the healing… I’ll come sell some things next time I get here, but right now, I just want to go home and sleep.” I said, walking out of there… I ranked up… I’m too tired to care much though.

By the way, I got scolded out when I got back to Michael’s house by Emilia and Alice (and Michael who came back after hearing that I was missing)… sorry… Angelica loved the tiara by the way.