John, barely holding onto consciousness, stared up at the smug Gorilla standing over him. His foe was not bothering to cloak itself as it saw the pitiful state John’s body was in. It drew back a fist, preparing to smash in John’s skull, when it felt an immensely overpowering presence at it’s back. Under the pressure, the pitifully weak gorilla couldn’t even move as it felt this tyrant’s arau press down on him.

It stiffened, hearing the undefyable presence speak, “I suspect it’s time for me to step in now Jo-”

On the line between life and death, John grasped on to something he wasn’t able to wield moments prior. Magic. He felt it surge out from his body into his own. The insatiable need to take down any spirit beasts he could find was reignited and burned fiercer than ever. All the pain in his body was merely a distraction, what he needed to focus on was taking down that which stood between him and the dungeon's core.

An inhuman scream belted from John as he poured all he had into the bubbling shadow around him. He didn’t have time to consider why the gorilla was seemingly paralized, so he focused on the only thing that mattered. Extending from John’s shadow, five showy tentacles emerged. Each tendril move like the limbs of an octopus ended in menacingly sharp points. John was aware of his innate ability to control them like extension of his own body. With nearly all of John's spirit energy shoved into these new weapons, the shadowy tendrils grew both darker and denser in response.

From Arther’s vantage point, he could clearly make out a small hole in the back of the Gorilla with a trickling of blood running down its back. The spirit beast slumped over and its whole weight fell onto John knocking him out. The shadowy tendrils pulled back into John's shadow while the gorilla was absorbed by his unconscious body as it turned into a bright silver light.

While Arther was certain that John felt as though he had unlocked some kind of dark hidden skill, he recognized it as the simple manifestation of a shadow manipulating power. Albeit not unheard of, it was indeed an exceedingly rare skill to manifest, especially as one’s first power. In the later stages of advancement it might have a very fruitful advancement path, but right now John was merely a middle tier D rank Spirit-man.

Arther chuckled to himself as he kneeled next to his downed trainee. He found it amusing how he had, only moments before, been so certain that John would be one of the many who never awakened a power despite the immense stress of fighting an enemy stronger than themselves. He would not have allowed John to truly die, but the fear of death is what often leads to one’s awakening if they had the talent to do so. While John’s victory was in impart due to the gorilla’s surprise when he manifested his shadow magic, it was largely because of Arther’s aura suppression upon the creature. Regardless, the battle ended with John as the victor and he would walk away from this harsh experience stronger.

He mentally planned out the next few days of John’s life. Incrementally fighting the stronger and stronger Sub Bosses until challenging the main boss at the center of the dungeon. Since Vincent estimated that the absorption of power would be with the standard average of a 50% reduction, he rationalized that becoming the boss of this weak dungeon that was only at the beginning stages of it’s cycle would put John at the peak of D class spirit beast. He would have a pretty good surprise for John that would help him break into C class, though he was certain John wouldn’t enjoy it much. But, it was for John’s own good. After reaching the level of C class, John’s real combat training would begin under his own instruction.

Arther jumped up to the branches of one of the towering trees in the area and removed a small pearl hidden away by Tina. She had discovered this Sub-boss and placed this beacon to alert Arther of its location. Beside the pearl was ashen remains of a one time use spirit tool. It had effectively prevented the sub-boss from leaving the area using a field of aura that extended half a mile. Both items were costly but finances were one thing that Arther was confident in.

He jumped down and landed lightly on his feet. John was waking up and he was certain he’d have to answer a lot of questions.

------------

John came. Standing over him was Arther, grinning like a five year old on christmas morning. Immediately John panicked and ran his hands over his body to assess the damage. His chest seemed fine, his bruised fist was healed and John thanked whatever great power it was that had grown him back a new set of teeth.

He got to his feet and looked inwardly. Whatever reserve of spirit energy that was converted into magic was refueled when he defeated the gorilla. He pushed the energy into his shadow and watched it grow darker and bubble up like molten tar. Honestly, he thought it looked kind of gross. Five thick tendrils rose from the shadow and the bubbling seized as they became solid. He looked at Arther who was still smiling and decided to give himself a work out.

“You ditched me!”

John wielded the shadow tendrils, aiming to attack, but failed entirely when Ather skillfully avoided the attacks of all five. John hated to admit it, but even though controlling these tendrils was intuitive, focusing on more than two at a time proved extremely difficult. His brows hardened in frustration as Arther, still smiling, smugly doged every single strike. He seemed even more amused at his friend's outlash and skilfully moved out of the attack's way by only a hair's width.

“Dear cherished disciple, while I understand your frustration, I needed to let you fight and suffer on your own or else you wouldn’t have been able to tap into magic. I assure you, this is all very standard” he responded with cheer.

John sighed and recalled the tendrils. He knew he wouldn’t have been able to land a strike on the advanced tier adventurer, but couldn’t help his outburst of anger. Honestly, this was out of character for him. Or was it? John felt like in his previous life he was pretty calm, at the moment it was becoming hard for him to remember much of what happened before he came to this world. He tried to picture the faces of his friends, his family, but it was like a heavy fog covered the memories. As he was trying to focus, something internally diverted his attention and he forgot what he was so adamantly trying to remember. No matter, he had a new power to explore!

“While impressive for having just unlocked this power, there many nuances to fighting you could have implemented while attacking me just there. You are relying on your inherited strength, agility, power, and battle instincts to fight but you can’t forget that you are wholly untrained. Conquering this dungeon should give you enough spirit energy to endure my training so until you reach that point you need to be aware of your shortcomings.”

John immediately felt remorseful for his outburst. “ I understand... and sorry about attacking you, however futile it was. Honestly, I feel myself changing both physically and mentally. There’s a new rage that keeps seeping up and I’m not used to having the need to hold back emotions like that” John said.

Arther looked like he was about to say something but hesitated. He looked at John with a reproachful look. John flexed his arm and found a new strength there. Honestly, it felt great and he was pretty sure he would be able to punch down a tree if he was inclined to do so.

“My body feels different, but better. It would have been amazing if I could absorb the gorilla's cloaking ability, even just half of his strength was nothing to scoff at. I was actually a little nervous that when I absorbed it, my muscles would grow to the size of an ape’s!” John laughed.

“Well, your musculature is definitely a bit more defined after that battle” Arther nodded approvingly “Though it would have been amusing if you returned from this dungeon the size of Joana.”

Deeper into the Aerlohrn Forest Dungeon, the tall trees grew closer together and one couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead through the thick fog that coated the area. Having just placed the one time spirit tool into the tree’s branches, the quarter giant sat in the treetops as he activated the homing beacon. He looked down at the mutated spirit beast and wondered how John was doing so far as he progressed into the dungeon.

“Achooo” Joana sneezed.