JJ ran to get the key as quickly as she could and headed directly into the mage dungeon. Once inside, she walked to the first room full of monsters before conjuring up a wand and called out to see if M was there, which he was.

"M, let me try this again. I think I can do it by myself now," JJ said as she began to prep herself into casting some magic.

"Alright, whatever you say. Remember to limit the amount of mana that you have so that you won't overdo it like you did last time," M lectured JJ.

"Ok, ok, I get it, let me try it out first."

JJ stepped inside the room after taking a long deep breath and came face to face with a couple of giant spiders. She pictured a small flame inside her mind and aimed her wand at one of the big creepy crawlies. A bright flash of light later, one of the spiders had fallen over burnt to a crisp like a french fry. There were 2 more who witnessed the death of their roommate and rushed at JJ together.

However, now that JJ knew what to do to cast magic, she killed the other two with no sweat, just like the first. One of them got whirled around and crashed into the ceiling with a wind spell while the other one was done in by a lightning strike.

"Hoh, well done. I didn't think you would be able to get it down so fast. I mean you only shot one fireball yesterday, you are starting to become one of my favourite projects."

"I am, am I? Do you have a mental ranking or something in your mind?"

"As a matter of fact, I absolutely do. Right now, you are about 500th place. Hmm, wait, that might be a bit too high. But you are definitely in the top 1000. Out of like 15,000."

"Dang dude, only 500?"

"Well, you were the one that asked."

"I was just joking, M, I didn't really think you really had a ranking in your mind."

"Don't be jealous, most of these guys at the very top of my list are all dead. So if you keep on living and doing great things, then you'll surpass them eventually."

"I'm not jealous you twat. Anyway, I'm going to head to the next room."

"Do you want my help in getting to the exit as fast as you can?"

"Nah, I think I'm good, I want to complete the entire dungeon by myself."

"Ah, as a big girl should!” M said as if he were encouraging a child to tell the truth.

“...Don’t patronize me.”

“Be that way, just a heads up, there is a fantastic beast as the boss of this floor, but I'm sure you will be able to finish it no problem."

"What is the monster?"

"Find out yourself."

"What? You aren't going to help me?"

"Nah, what's the point of me telling you if you are going to find out anyway? Just keep going at whatever pace you feel like and enjoy the journey."

"When did you become so wise?"

"I'm always wise, I just don't feel like acting it sometimes. It gets tiring just as you get tired of socializing with anyone."

"That... is a valid argument," She said as she continued to kill one monster after another. After another little while, she asked, "how come you understand English? Do you have some universal translator?"

"No-"

"A super-advanced dictionary downloaded into your brain?"

"No, I-"

"Did you just learn English?"

"No! Would you let me fin- Oh wait, yes to that last one. I did learn English, and just about every other important language on your planet and a few hundred others."

"Wow, is it difficult for you?"

"It isn't too difficult as the language of my people is also infinitely more complex and I have managed to become a master of my language. It is one of the highest awards given to linguists of my people and of course anyone who is willing to learn it."

"Alright, you don't gotta brag about it all day. How many languages do you know?"

"I thought you didn't want me to brag? But to answer your question, in excess of 500."

"I... SEE," JJ said as she cast one last spell to end the last monster before the boss room. She was now breathing a bit heavily and went to go check her stats windows to see where her mana was.

"Looks like you only got 15 out of 120 mana points left, I don't think you will be able to finish off whatever is in that boss room if you only have that much mana in you. Here, a little gift from me," M said as a vial of blue liquid appeared in front of JJ.

"A mana potion?"

"Yea, yesterday you unleashed all of your mana in one go and asked for a mana potion, I denied it. Today, you proved your skill and I think you deserve one. Don't worry, I've got a lot more so drink up."

"Ok," JJ said as she drank the bottle in one gulp. She looked at the stats window again and it showed 115 mana points out of 120. Not only that, it seemed as if her mind was refreshed since she felt like she was at a mental capacity of 100% again.

"Be careful when you fight this monster, it will be quite difficult unless you can find a way past its defence."

"Yea-yea, I think I can handle it." She said as she stepped into the room only to see a giant salamander with deep crimson scales like that of a really, really red rose. JJ was not unfamiliar with salamanders, in all the games that she had played, they portrayed them as fire breathing lizards. For now, she had to scope out and see if that was the case. If it was, then it might be immune to fire magic and she had to think of some other way to defeat it.

As soon as she stepped in, she had her answer. A fireball came hurtling right at her from the mouth of the overgrown lizard. The armour that she had on was just basic armour and not very useful for this fight so she ran away while simultaneously making her armour disappear. This move was so that she would be able to move out of the way quicker if another fireball came at her. Even if she did have a bit less protection now, she thought that the tradeoff was worth it.

Just to test out her theory, she sent out a small shot of fire at the beast which didn't even flinch. That meant to defeat it, she needed something else to kill it. While dodging the seemingly endless fireballs coming towards her, she tried a few times to cast a few different spells. The water attack seemed to be quite effective, the wind as well, the lightning was not too bad, and obviously, the fire was not effective at all. With this knowledge, she shot off a few water missiles at the lizard in hopes of killing it quickly.

Unfortunately, once the beast saw the water missiles, he ran right towards JJ preparing to chomp her up. The beast was fast and managed to outrun 2 of the 3 water missiles, but the one that did hit slowed it down considerably. However, the hurt lizard continued rushing JJ as fast as it could manage in its damaged state. JJ was fairly fast, but there was no way to outrun the salamander. She could only meet it head-on.

"I should probably tell you that you can make shields out of your magic too, it will just be a bit difficult while you are under pressure."

"Thanks for the tip," She said as she instantly cast a shield just as the salamander was about to take her head off. Thankfully, it was strong enough to stop the beast dead in its tracks. JJ used this chance to fire a few more water missiles onto the hulking figure in front of her and it worked wonders.

"Looks like the salamander is on its last breath. You still have quite a bit of mana left, just end it quickly so you can do some more dungeons.

"Ok, don't rush me. I know how this works," She said as a small hurricane picked up from right in front of her and followed a path straight to the salamander. The beast knew that it would not be able to take it head-on and instead decided to try and outrun the small hurricane. Which it managed to do, but it would not have the strength to do it for much longer.

"Looks like it will end soon."

"Not soon enough," She said as she summoned 3 more small hurricanes and willed it to chase the salamander as well. Now that there were 4 chasing the beast, it only took a couple of seconds to trap it into a corner and that was the end. A very windy breeze flowed throughout the room stopped within seconds. The only thing left was a carcass once the dust had settled.

"That was kind of alarming how sadistic you sounded, JJ. Are you sure you aren't, you know, a little cuckoo?"

"...Shut up."

"Not gonna lie, that was kinda hot."

"...Shut up," JJ smiled as she saw the carcass disappearing from her sight. "Let's try another one."