Karzaia managed to awaken, her emerald eyes bleary as she made her way up the stairs to the receiving room, where the amused innkeeper directed her to a door on the wall to the right. When she passed through the door, she found herself in a stone-floored cafeteria, where men and women in their late twenties or early thirties in matching gray tunics and trousers served food at the tables with brisk efficiency.

Upon seeing Karzaia standing in the doorway, one of the older men pointed her to an open spot at one of the long tables and placed a wooden cup of water in front of her when she sat.

“We have Forever Soup or braised orc steak on the menu tonight. The Forever Soup is covered by what you already paid, but the orc will cost an extra copper but comes with a free ale,” The man said briskly without bothering to wait for Karzaia to speak.

With a sigh, Karzaia withdrew another copper from her ring, recalling how much she loved orc steak. She tossed the copper to the waiter, who took it without comment before walking to the slot near the back and yelling, “An orc steak for the customer in room B2-7!”

There was no reply, but the waiter moved on with an expression of disinterest.

Some of the other serving staff were obviously negotiating ‘other services’ with various customers, but Karzaia was fresh out of a clanhold, so she had no understanding of what a prostitute was. That was the primary reason her waiter hadn’t been interested in her… she wouldn’t be a source of easy coin for the older man, and he felt no need to bother giving excess service to someone too young to be seduced.

Forever Soup was… well, whatever was available to be added to the ever-boiling soup pot that kept people alive during the winter. Generally, Karzaia was not a fan of Forever Soup, but then, nobody ate Forever Soup if there was a better choice. Forever Soup was filling, but that was about all the good that could be said about it.

The orc steak arrived in the hands of a waitress a few minutes later, on a wooden plate with an iron knife and fork set beside it. It sizzled juicily as Karzaia carved into it, eagerly devouring the unbelievably tender meat of the tastiest of all goblinoids.

Most of the other people in the cafeteria were also eating the steak, but a few shabby adventurers and down-looking younglings were sipping at the soup with glum faces.

Once it was finished, Karzaia downed the ale in moments, frowning a bit at the sourness of the brew before shrugging and setting her fork down on the plate. She rose to her feet and left the cafeteria. The receiving area was empty, and the mana stone lamps were all dimmed, which probably meant that the old innkeeper had gone to bed. Karzaia decided to take after her example and sleep until morning, to get ready for the next day.

_____________________________________________________________

The next morning, Karzaia exited her room feeling refreshed. She immediately went up to the first floor and paid the innkeeper twelve coins for the next three days, leaving her with twelve after what she used the previous night. Hopefully, the Dungeon would provide.

She replaced her mask, in order to cover her face. The inn seemed to be a neutral spot, but Karzaia’s blond hair and emerald eyes were the signature features of Manthein. Better not to risk trouble.

She asked directions to the Dungeon from the innkeeper and set off.

In the early morning, there were few people on the dirt streets of the town. Given adventurers’ tendency to drink themselves into a stupor every night, this wasn’t much of a surprise. Most of them would either still be asleep or dealing with hangovers at this time of the morning.

No one spoke out to Karzaia as she made her way through the streets, glad she didn’t have to deal with the crowds from the day before. Her staff was in hand and ready if she needed it, and she had placed her spirit sword in its sheath on her belt at her left hip. She was unlikely to need it, but it was of no use to her in her ring.

The entrance to the Dungeon could be found inside the local temple to the gods, the only stone building in the town. She bowed to each of the statues of the gods as she passed by, going deep for her patron, the Wanderer, before moving to a circle laid into the stone behind the statues. When she stepped on it, it glowed and a question appeared before her eyes.

Do you wish to enter the Ogre’s Barony (Recommended Tier 6 or above)?

She answered yes mentally, and a moment later she was standing inside a cave, a statue of the Wanderer looking at her from her right, the hands of the Maker reaching down from the ceiling. She noted the dimensions of the corridor leading out of the room and placed her staff in her ring with some regret. She didn’t have sufficient room to use it to its full potential with corridors as narrow as the one before her.

She drew her spirit blade, the edge of the weapon glowing with a silvery mist that represented its connection to her affinity. The weapon had altered slightly in appearance after her emergence from the Trial, a star representing her passage appearing on the flat of the blade near the guard. From what one of the other smiths explained, every Trial she passed while the blade was intact would strengthen it, which is why so many who went into blacksmithing tried to forge one before they went on their Journey.

She also took the sheath containing her hunting knife out of her ring, clipping it to her belt behind her back so that she could draw it under-handed with her left hand if needed.

She took a look at her status for the first time in a week, confirming what she already knew.

Karzaia Manthein

Title: Heir of the Hooded King, Mark of Manthein

Affinity: Soul (Tier 6)

Talents: Soul Sight (Level 6), Soul-Tempering (Level 6), Soul-Forging (Level 7), Mana Well (Level 6), Qi Sense (Level 6), Meridian Purification (Level 3)

Cultivation: Path of the Crushing Soul (Early Mortal Formation Stage)

She was a bit surprised her Soul-Forging had outpaced her affinity. She didn’t recall it leveling up, but the last few days had blurred a bit in her mind, due to the stress of remaining on the move and sleeping in places vulnerable to beast attacks.

The work of cleansing her meridians of impurities was ongoing, though she had to stop once she was in town. Nobody wanted that smelly black gunk sticking to their boots, after all.

She returned her thoughts to the Dungeon and began moving forward cautiously, listening more than looking as she went.

The first goblin she encountered coming around a curve in the tunnel, the creature springing from the shadows, dagger in hand. She swept her sword across her body, removing the goblin’s dagger hand before jamming her elbow into its ugly face, knocking it over on its back. A thrust of her sword to its neck ended the battle, and she sighed deeply. If she hadn’t been using her soul tendrils, she likely would have taken a wound from the creature.

After a few seconds, the creature vanished, leaving behind black and green magic stone (most likely darkness and earth) and a copper bangle that one might put around their wrist… if their wrist was half the size of an adult woman.

Goblins in the Realms were long-nosed creatures with green or blue skin, roughly the size of a ten year old child. They were about as intelligent as a five-year-old, and they could use tools, even if they weren’t good at it. They were carnivores that thought of humanoids as particularly good-tasting delicacies.

The next encounter was with three goblins, two with spears and one with a gnarled staff that glowed at the tip. Upon coming into range, Karzaia launched a soul dart through the caster’s head, causing it to collapse like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She then launched herself at the nearer spear wielder, gutting it with an upward slash before grabbing it by its shoulders and kicking it into its partner.

The creatures squealed as they fell into a sprawl, the first one’s guts entangling the both of them as Karzaia lept at the prone caster. The caster managed to come back to himself long enough to fire off a green dart of what was probably poison affinity at her, but she jerked her body aside just in time, rolling on the floor as she shot him with another soul dart, dazing him again.

Unlike the Trial of Manthein’s lizard-creatures, the goblins in the Dungeon had nearly-whole souls, so they didn’t fall apart as easily from attacks using her affinity. She gathered her strength, bending her knees as she launched herself at the prone caster, thrusting her sword deep into his belly before twisting it, ripping it out his side a moment later.

The surviving spear-wielder managed to untangle himself just in time to be decapitated by a sweeping strike from Karzaia, sending his head rolling across the stone floor. Karzaia took a deep breath and released it slowly, settling her nerves.

The caster had almost injured her. That was a problem… a mere goblin caster shouldn’t have been able to get that close to harming her, and she berated herself for letting down her guard, thinking her dart would disable him long enough to strike him down without retaliation.

The caster dropped another small magic stone, this one a noxious green, and a fetish of feathers and polished stones. The two spear-wielders dropped a total of five coppers.

With a sigh, Karzaia tossed the drops into her ring and continued deeper into the Dungeon.

Gradually, the cave walls from early on turned to shaped stone, the corridors widening significantly, to the point where she felt comfortable sheathing her sword and bringing her staff back out. Most of her encounters up until now were single goblins, though she had encountered two pairs since the group of three early on. She’d managed to gather fourteen coppers, another fetish, and seven more magic stones. The magic stones could be used to power various mana-based devices and the dust from shaping them was used heavily in enchanting, so she imagined she would be able to get some coin for them in town.

It was in the hand-shaped corridors that she encountered her first orc.

The orcs of the realms were pig-faced creatures that stood around seven feet tall, with muscular bodies that could smash stone with their bare hands. They were the mainstay of the beast waves of the Lands, along with the undead, and so every child in the Nine Lands knew their favored tactics… as well as how tasty they were.

The orc was wielding a cleaver-like sword that was taller than Karzaia in one hand, and a heavy kite shield in the other. The creature’s skin was green, marking it as a basic orc (yet to evolve), but Karzaia didn’t let down her guard.

Orcs were, at their base evolution, equivalent to a Tier 8 creature, meaning Karzaia would be facing off against an enemy two tiers above her.

The creature roared before charging her with its shield forward, the cleaver sword held behind it, ready to sweep across and bisect her body once she was knocked back. Karzaia fired off three darts, two of which were blocked by the shield, the third one going through the creature’s knee, causing it to collapse onto its side.

A burst of air erupted from Karzaia’s lips as she brought her heavy staff’s end down on the creature’s temple with a loud crunch, caving it in and ending its life in an instant. She sucked in another breath and let it out, calming herself once again.

If her dart hadn’t temporarily disabled the orc’s leg, she would have had to retreat. None of her tools at hand would have been able to get past the shield to end the creature’s life, otherwise.

One might not have thought it possible, but for Karzaia, the drake from the Trial had been an easier opponent than the orc she just fought, in the sense that she had a number of ways to hurt it. The large shield and sword combination the orc was wielding made it dangerous in a different way, one she was less capable of handling given her size and the nature of her affinity.

So far, the creatures in the Dungeon were significantly faster than the creatures in the Trial, which she should have expected, in retrospect. The Trial was meant for those at Tier 5, one tier below the Dungeon, but Dungeons had looser rules when it came to the strength of their monsters.

Moreover, the creatures in the Trial were tailored to her abilities. It made sense that a Dungeon would not be so accommodating.

Karzaia frowned as she hefted the cleaver sword, which was apparently her reward for killing the orc. It wasn’t a weapon she could use, but maybe someone in town would want it. She tossed it into her spatial ring and promptly forgot about it, refocusing on the task at hand.

Goblins and orcs rushed her at alternating intervals after that first orc, until she reached an area with marble walls, where she could sense orcs walking the hallways. She had about nine pounds of orc meat in her spatial ring, as well as five more magic stones and a hideous silver helmet from a goblin warlord.

She peaked around the corner of the corridor and saw orcs in plate armor, usually accompanied by two axe-wielding regular orcs. The next room was a massive battlefield where orcs in two different types of livery fought each other viciously over what looked to be a temple in the center.

The creatures raged and roared as they fought, axes plunging into bellies, swords removing heads, and general chaos quickly convincing Karzaia she had no business trying to make her way through the mess. If she had some companions she could trust to watch her back, she might have spent some time hunting the edges of the battlefield, but things were simply too dangerous for her with that many orcs wandering around… not to mention she had no means to reliably take down an orc in full plate.

She turned back the way she came and hurried toward the entrance.

___________________________________________________________________

The goblins in the first areas of the Dungeon had respawned by the time she returned, but they were easily dispatched, now that she knew their patterns. Goblins in the outside world could learn, but Dungeon Goblins were essentially copies of an original pattern. Their combat styles and tactics were set in stone and could only be altered by the presence of a Dungeon Avatar… and that wasn’t going to happen, since she didn’t break any of the rules.

When she exited the Dungeon, she found that it was late afternoon. She’d spent over nine hours delving, and she could feel exhaustion weighing heavily on her shoulders.

She headed for the trading post, one of the few solid structures in the town. Upon entering, she was greeted by the rare sight of a pureblood (or nearly so) gnome sitting behind the counter, examining a goblin fetish with a scope of some sort. The gnome was dressed in colorful clothing that almost hurt her eyes, his head bald and shiny, and he had a thin black mustache that drooped to either side of his mouth.

Upon her entrance, the gnome looked up and gestured for her to approach, “A child of the clans on their Journey? I guess you delved the Dungeon then? You have goodies for Sasratchallnifaralaka? You have coin you wish to spend?”

Without speaking, Karzaia waved her ring over the counter, and all the loot save the coins and the cleaver sword appeared there. In total, there were five goblin caster fetishes, one goblin warlord’s helm, several odd bits and ends, and thirty-nine magic stones.

The middle-aged gnome examined her haul and praised her, “Very good for the child’s first delve. You wish to sell? Do you wish to buy?”

“Sell, for now. I don’t need any of this. I have one more item, a cleaver sword from an orc,” She said hesitantly, unsure if the gnome would have a use for it.

The gnome’s eyes gleamed, “Ah, a rare drop indeed! Please bring it out!”

She pulled the cleaver sword from her ring carefully, setting it against the counter. It was an oddly well-designed weapon for an orc. While it was of iron, the iron was polished and well cared for. There was no rust, and the edge was surprisingly sharp for such a large weapon.

The gnome’s eyes gleamed blue for a second as he looked at the sword, “Self-repair enchantment it has. For large sword wielder, this will be ideal. One gold, thirteen silvers it is worth. I will give you ninety silvers for the sword, twelve silvers for the rest.”

The sword, to her surprise, was of greater value than the rest of her haul. Moreover, it also put her over a gold, which was the equivalent of what a clansman could earn after materials for the forging of weapons for a year in the clanhold’s forges. It was more money than she’d seen in one place in her entire life.

She nodded in affirmation and he happily handed her one hundred and two silvers, which she quickly slipped into her ring. Now she had no need to worry about coin for a time… which meant she could spend some time training before she challenged the Trial. She also wanted to try to complete the Dungeon… but the innkeeper’s words about the boss and the memories of the orc battlefield made her hesitate.

She wasn’t the type to think deeply about what she did. Instead, she tended to force her way through sheer stubbornness. She listened to others’ advice, but in the end, she only really followed her the path laid out by her will.

Something within her didn’t regard others as the same as herself. She often caught herself dismissing perfectly logical advice simply because it didn’t fit with what she thought was her path, and it was only much later that she realized that most people would have had doubts.

This was one of those times. The core of her self demanded she face the odds and overwhelm them, the part of herself that was raised lovingly by her clan demanded that she preserve herself above all other things.

Normally, these two parts of herself were in sync. However, now the core of who she was demanded she go back into the Dungeon and teach the monsters within that they were but dust beneath her boots.

She somehow knew that she would never be able to give into fear or despair. It was not a matter of strength but rather an aspect of her soul. Her affinity only made it worse. She was fairly sure she would not be allowed a peaceful life, even if she found a peaceful place to live it in.

This enlightenment only lasted a moment before she decided to head back to the Dungeon the next day. In the end, she was only a child, and she was not yet enough of a cultivator to value enlightenment to the degree she should.

_______________________________________________________________________

The next morning, she headed for the Dungeon once again. There was no longer any uncertainty in her. Though she knew it not, the influence of her soul’s previous lives had burned away what it perceived as weakness. Whether it was weakness in truth was left up to interpretation, however.

If she was still capable of being cautious about the matter, she might have sought to join a party of adventurers or fellows on their Journey. However, as a side-effect of what had happened, she had become narrowly-focused on entering and completing the Dungeon.

Once inside the Dungeon, she quickly swept through the early areas, her understanding of the goblins’ patterns making it easy for her trained body to put them down in seconds. This was a mark of her talent, for her analysis of the goblins’ patterns had needed only two passages through their territory.

The normal orcs in the second part of the Dungeon were more difficult, as she had not yet analyzed their patterns fully. Nonetheless, she passed through their territory easily, gathering a more loot in the process.

She slowed as she began to near the battlefield, the higher-tier orcs close to it requiring her full attention to defeat. She felt her Talents and affinity growing, and she felt the moment her affinity crossed the line to Tier 7 clearly only a few short rooms short of the battlefield.

There was a marked increase in her body’s strength and speed, as well as in the power of her soul darts, which she had to use liberally when dealing with orcs. Orcs that had regained use of their limbs in seconds before now stayed down long enough for her to finish them. Others were knocked fully unconscious instead of dazed when a dart passed through their heads.

Invisible to her, rough edges were shaved away from her soul, every time she used her affinity, what remained somehow becoming purer, cleaner, and stronger. She only felt the pain, without understanding what every use of her affinity did to her. Just as the Maker intended.

________________________________________________________________________

The Wanderer looked on, his feelings mixed. The girl was and wasn’t his old friend, she was an innocent child being placed on a path so terrible that a lesser deity would have shuddered just to imagine it. The other ‘immortal seeds’ were experiencing a similar harrowing in their own Birth Realms, three to each Realm. Most were cultivators, as it was the path most likely to lead to immortality. The others would be guided to cultivation in time, if it was possible. If two reached the Immortal stage and could be ascended into the ranks of the lesser deities, the Maker would be satisfied that the threat of the Hooded King’s resurrection was prevented.

Karzaia, ironically, was the only child of the group that he served as patron to. As such, he could justify watching over her when he could afford the time. The rest of the time, one of his older servants kept an eye on her from the heavens, providing him with reports on her actions and their results.

The suffering her Talents put her through was refining her more quickly than most would have anticipated. Already, the most frightening aspects of the Hooded King’s nature, his indomitable will and ability to endure, had made themselves known. Most holders of the Soul affinity would have broken the first time they fired off a Soul dart or forged a weapon using the Talent. It proved just how abnormal Karzaia was that she had endured with few ill effects and now used it as easily as breathing.

She was about to reach one of the most dangerous areas of a Dungeon meant to test the caution and intelligence of young people on the Path of the Adventurer. Most would turn aside and never come back after seeing the battlefield. They would see the risk as too high for the rewards. They would be right.

The Dungeon’s Tier was deliberately deceptive, meant to be a trap for those who could not learn caution. It pained him that one of his favorites was falling into the trap, but all he could do was watch and hope she made it through.

______________________________________________________________________________

Karzaia crept along the edges of the battlefield, staying clear of the heaviest fighting and the most powerful fighters. She had been taught the basics of stealth, and, not for the first time on her Journey, it was keeping her alive.

Thankfully, orcs did not have enhanced senses that would allow them to sense her behind rocks or hidden in the shadows. Toward the rear of the battlefield were two fortresses, each of them held by one side. Forces sallied from each on a regular basis, trying to take the other. However, this only resulted in the orcs being tossed from the battlements or slain atop them, followed by a sally from the other side.

It was quite apparent that the orcs were respawning exactly as quickly as they died, with no way for either side to gain an advantage on their own.

This sparked a rather nasty idea from Karzaia… one that might just pay off and let her get past the fortresses without getting caught in their farce of a war.

She selected the fortress on the left and got within sight range of it, hiding in a trench some distance away. She had to kill two plate-armored orcs in the process, each of them taking almost a minute. She managed it by disabling their legs repeatedly as she used her sword to bleed them to death by puncturing their flesh in the spots unprotected by the armor. She knew she would not survive fighting a unit of such creatures at this point.

Her sword almost was able to penetrate the armor on its own, but it was not yet powerful enough to do so. The armor matched the Tier of the orcs, so it as yet resisted her Tier 7 weapon.

Once in position, she called up four dozen soul darts, attached to her by strings. This was the largest number she could manifest at present. As long as they were attached by strings, the pain would be manageable, but she knew from experience that she would be unable to think for a time after releasing them.

She took aim at the orcs on the walls of the left-hand fortress. As the other side’s assault force set its ladders against the walls, and those on top prepared boiling oil and stones to deal with them, she fired off a dozen of the darts, each of them aimed for the head. Eight of them hit, knocking their targets unconscious, causing them to topple from the walls. Because of this, the sallying force pushed up onto the wall and began fighting the confused defenders. Once the sallying force was atop the wall, Karzaia sprinted across the battlefield, focusing her qi in her legs, hips, and lower back to accelerate her movements.

It took precious seconds for the orcs on the walls to realize she was there, then change their pre-programmed priorities. In that time, she managed to sprint past the two fortresses, her lungs screaming at her with every step. She heard roars behind her as the Dungeon creatures broke off their fighting to pursue her in tandem, but she managed to reach a set of double doors before they could even begin to catch up to her.

She pushed the doors open and slipped inside, pulling them closed behind her. Happily, she noticed the clean, miasma-free scent of a Dungeon Safe Zone and slid to the floor, panting with exhaustion.

She suddenly shivered, holding herself as she realized how close she had come to death out there. While she was traversing the Dungeon, the battlefield, she hadn’t considered the odds. She had only considered her objective. It was like all other avenues of thought had been erased when she decided to attempt the Dungeon again.

She wasn’t… frightened exactly. She was pretty sure what she had done was within the realm of who she was. However, she was disturbed at her sudden lack of self-control. She had been taught to measure the odds, but all those teachings had disappeared for a time.

The uneasiness vanished moments later, as she considered her goal. She wasn’t done yet. She needed to finish the Dungeon.

She wasn’t capable of recognizing the desire to impose her will, to seek greater power, was a relic of a being who had a much greater sense of self-control than a mere child was capable of.

However, she was still practical… so she considered the battlefield behind her, a new idea causing a smile to curve her lips and her emerald eyes to gleam. She checked her ring and confirmed how much she had in the way of supplies, then apologized mentally to the innkeeper.

She put her hand on the double doors and slowly shoved them open.

As her uncle put it, there was no greater crucible for growth than battle.

________________________________________________________________________

The next week was spent with Karzaia constantly going out into the battlefield, taking on small units of orcs, testing her abilities.

At times, she was forced to flee, and at others she received injuries that pushed her to rest. Her tempering meant that she healed faster than most at her tier, but broken bones still took a day or more to repair themselves.

She learned about what her affinity could and couldn’t do in battle, and on the fourth day she felt her affinity rise another tier, taking her to 8. Her Talents also rose, but the qualitative difference was more difficult to detect.

The constant pressure of combat was pushing her past her limits, and it was with a great deal of happiness that she slumped to the floor on the morning of the eighth day and looked at her status.

Karzaia Manthein

Title: Heir of the Hooded King, Mark of Manthein

Affinity: Soul (Tier 8)

Talents: Soul Sight (Level 8), Soul-Tempering (Level 7), Soul-Forging (Level 9), Mana Well (Level 8), Qi Sense (Level 6), Meridian Purification (Level 4)

Cultivation: Path of the Crushing Soul (Early Mortal Formation Stage)

It was no surprise that her Qi Sense had not grown, given how little she had used her qi during that time. Replenishing it in the qi-poor environment of the Nine Lands was difficult, at best, requiring a great deal of time spent cycling and refining what little existed naturally.

The sight of Soul-Forging at level 9, still a level above her affinity tier, made her happy. The density of her constructs had improved by leaps and bounds, even her darts able to do some physical damage when they passed through flesh. As a result, the weaker orcs died when a dart went through their skull.

Her spirit blade now was able to cut through the orcs’ plate armor, albeit only when she struck accurately and with force. Being able to brute force fights against the well-armored creatures had changed the dynamic greatly in the past few days. Her swordsmanship was also improving, as she had to think less and less about how best to strike an enemy accurately and edge or point on.

Her training was combining with her battle experience to make her a better fighter, and she was happy with herself… as well as determined to finally finish the Dungeon.

The boss, from the innkeeper’s account, was likely too powerful for her Tier, but all she felt was eagerness when she thought of fighting it. She wanted to test herself against something she wasn’t supposed to be able to defeat. A creature supposedly nine Tiers above her would not be killed by her darts, and any disabling that occurred would be brief. She knew this from her testing, as she had tested her darts carefully against creatures of the Tiers above, below, and the same as her own.

What mattered was Tier. Her Talent’s level did not effect how disabling the darts were, her affinity level did. Those below her Tier died if struck in the head and did not regain functions in their limbs if struck. Those at her Tier could be knocked unconscious or disabled for several minutes depending on where they were struck. Those above her Tier would only be dazed if hit in the head, and the disabling of limbs only lasted a few seconds.

If she concentrated enough of her affinity to make the darts an actual physical object, then things were dfiferent… but the crystallized Soul weapons she made were not meant for penetrating the flesh of the living. They were meant for dealing with spirits and undead. As such, they were more brittle than iron, with a tendency to shatter like glass on hard surfaces.

If she spent a few days working on forging a weapon with her affinity, it would turn out differently, though.

It was pointless to wish for that, though… and it would be wasteful to the extreme. Making a weapon that would last out of her affinity often left her disabled for days afterward. The pain of forging her soul into weapons wasn’t something she ever really got used to.

High Ogres are as intelligent as humans or elves, with some having the ability to wield sorcery or enhance their bodies with mana. They are one of the few goblinoid races capable of making something resembling true civilization, and there have even been a few that were blessed by the gods with access to the system, She recounted from her memories of a monster encyclopedia in the clan library.

She frowned. It was likely that a High Ogre dungeon boss would be more dangerous than something at the Dungeon’s Tier would normally contain. Moreover, the fact that its Tier was reported to be at least several higher than anything else in the Dungeon meant it was incredibly dangerous to consider facing it.

Unfortunately, Karzaia felt a surge of joy identical to what she’d felt when she decided to challenge the Dungeon again, erasing any qualms the more sensible parts of her might have felt. Because it came from the depths of her soul, she didn’t even consider doubting that feeling.

However, she decided to prepare a little more for the fight. Her sword would probably be able to damage such a creature, and she was fairly sure her staff would still break bones if she hit hard enough. She needed a reliable way to harm it from a distance though.

Her eyes fell on some rocks nearby and she looked at them, wondering why her attention was brought to them. It took her a few moments to recognize the inspiration welling from within her, but when she did, she immediately rose to her feet and gathered as many rocks the size of her fist or larger as she could.

Once she was done gathering them, she used her sword to cut them into the shape of darts, like those she often formed her affinity into. Once she had them in approximately the correct shape, she began infusing the stones with her affinity, a silver mist flowing from her hands into a stone dart.

She realigned the grain of the stone as she went, making it so the point was the strongest part of the weapon’s structure, then she forced her affinity in between the grains, reinforcing them, increasing the natural density of the stone. After about a half an hour, the held a smooth, sharply-pointed dart of dark brown stone with silver streaks. She looked at it with satisfaction for a moment before tossing it into her ring and moving on to the next.

She made a total of three dozen stone darts, infused with her affinity, before she decided it was enough. Hopefully, they would give her the advantage she would need in the coming battle.

She then settled down and meditated, slowly pulling mana into her Mana Well to increase its size by as much as possible before the battle. At the same time, she gradually purified her meridians, cycling her qi and infusing it with more of her soul energy, compressing it as she went. While she couldn’t fill her dantian at the current qi density, she could still undertake the task of purifying it. She occasionally stopped to spit black impurities into a stone bowl at her feet, ignoring the stench as she went. She was grateful she was able to control where the impurities were expelled, as the idea of ruining her clothes every time she used the Talent was unacceptable.

When she felt it was getting deep into the night, she pulled her cloak around her and closed her eyes, going to sleep.

_________________________________________________________________________

The Dungeon boss, the high ogre, was surprisingly small. At only eight feet in height, he was only slightly taller than an orc king, and he lacked the hideousness of lesser orcs. His face was refined, and while his body was well-muscled, it was not the unbalanced and oversized muscle of a lesser ogre.

In the ogre’s right hand was a scimitar, a heavy mithril gauntlet shining silver on the left. A steel cap protected his head, and fierce orange eyes gleamed beneath its rim. He wore no armor other than the helmet, but he wore a light blue linen tunic and brown trousers. His feet were bare, but the impression was of a man at ease in his home rather than of a wild monster prepared for slaughter.

The powerful monster, the height of goblinoid evolution, looked at Karzaia with contempt. Anyone who came this far had ignored the subtle and less-than-subtle warnings built into the Dungeon’s design. In the creature’s mind, anyone who came this far was foolhardy at best, a true fool at worst.

Unlike the other Dungeon creatures, the boss, named Namaik Arphen, was fully sentient, his soul intact. When his tribe was destroyed by the clans centuries before, he fled into the Dungeon and made a deal with the core to become its guardian. Since then, he had only been killed a dozen times, with each death having a decade or more between them.

His arrogance was justified, for Namaik had been one of the greater warriors of the greatest goblinoid race in his time. That his Tier was limited to the minimum for his race wasn’t as much of a hindrance as it might have been for others, as he had the skill to make up for his weakened state.

If he had a soul sense, he might have known fear, though. Karzaia’s soul was blazing with the intensity of a sun as she approached the point of no return.

He stood on the sandy stone of a small coliseum’s arena, the stone seats above it filled with the ghosts of those he had killed in the past. They watched with an odd mix of emotions, some showing hate, others despair, and yet others eager bloodlust as they hoped for the death of one or the other.

Some of those souls were from a thousand years or more in the past, bound eternally to the core until it decided to convert them into a monster or a special item to reward an intrepid adventurer. Their identities were only maintained because Namaik desired it, and at his whim or that of the core, they might be extinguished entirely at a moment’s notice, for no better reason than they felt like it.

Karzaia slowly entered the arena, her sword on her hip, her staff in hand. The stone darts were hidden in her ring, waiting to be called forth when needed.

“Humanoid child, why have you come? This is a place of death for the foolhardy and the ignorant. That you made it this far speaks well of your skill and determination, but it also says you lack the caution of a true adventurer,” Namaik said in a surprisingly mellifluous voice.

Karzaia considered her answer to his question for several seconds before slowly putting forth her reasons, “I desire to challenge myself and surpass my limits. I do not desire to be ruled by caution when opportunity is before me.”

Namaik chuckled mockingly, “That is a new motivation. Most come here motivated by greed or because they had just enough power to pass the battlefield. Some thought that surviving the battlefield meant they could defeat me. Still others didn’t even recognize the warnings for what they were. In the end, they all died. I wonder, what are you? A fool? A madwoman?”

“Who knows? I don’t even know why I’m so driven to challenge you,” Karzaia replied, her voice wry and self-mocking.

“Ah, but it is a more pleasant motivation to my ears than that of many I have fought in the past. Maybe you will be one of those destined to give me the joy of defeat,” Namaik said, not really meaning it. To him, Karzaia seemed to be just another child of the clans on her Journey, destined to die by his blade.

“Shall we begin?” Karzaia asked calmly, widening her stance as she brought her staff into position, twirling it once with her hands to confirm its weight.

“Indeed,” He nodded briefly before vanishing, appearing in front of her only to slash diagonally downward in an attempt to bisect her at the left shoulder.

She hissed a breath of surprise and leaped backward, using the force of the blade impacting her staff to shove her back faster, though it knocked her slightly off-balance anyway. She launched a soul dart at the high ogre’s knee, but Namaik only faltered for a moment before once again reaching her in an instant, this time punching with the gauntlet.

Karzaia ducked beneath the straight punch, then tossed herself to the side to evade the follow-up cleaving blow from the scimitar. A kick followed and scraped her left shoulder, causing her to tumble backwards. She used the momentum to reach her feet, digging the staff into the ground behind her to regain her balance.

Namaik was fast… terrifyingly so. She recognized him using a sub-Talent that Fan’ar preferred to use in sparring matches, ‘shukuchi’. The Talent essentially allowed one to move in incredibly quick bursts at the moment their designated opponent blinked. Like all sub-Talents, it had no level and thus couldn’t be strengthened, but it was highly-effective in melee combat.

She managed to lash out the next time he surged for her, scraping his shoulder with the tip of her staff. To her surprise, it broke his skin and a few drops of emerged before the wound sealed itself shut, Moderate regeneration… but he isn’t as tough when hit as I thought.

It was excellent news, as it meant the weapons she had could kill him, if she managed to land a blow that would be fatal to a humanoid.

She continued to be on the defensive though, as he had completely mastered shukuchi. Every time she blinked, he was suddenly before her, forcing her to evade or parry his strikes instead of countering them. Worse, his scimitar was heavily enchanted, each strike digging divots into her staff, albeit shallow ones.

Namaik was enjoying their combat in truth, as she had surprised him with her skill with the staff. He was accustomed to most battles ending quickly, even against skilled adventurers. Most simply couldn’t react to the combination of his shukuchi and the swift cleaving blows of his scimitar. It wasn’t uncommon for him to kill two or three members of an adventuring party in the first seconds of combat.

If she had some damage dealers backing her up, she would likely have managed to defeat him, but he was absolutely confident that their one-on-one battle would end in his favor. The idea of claiming her soul for his harem, perhaps manifesting her in the body of one of his race, was highly attractive. Such a female would make an ideal partner to ease his boredom and loneliness.

For most people, his sudden mental diversion would not have been a true opening. However, Karzaia was trained by a true weaponmaster, a lord of war. She lashed out and smashed his right wrist with her staff, causing him to drop the scimitar with a roar of agony.

She attempted to then sweep his legs out from under him, but a kick broke her left shoulder and sent her flying backwards to roll head over heels until coming to a stop with a thud against the wall of the arena.

Her blow had pulverized his left wrist, the complexity of the damage ensuring that his regeneration would take time. Namaik resolved to stay back until he could pick up the weapon once again, believing that Karzaia would not be able to rise due to the pain from her broken shoulder.

However, he severely underestimated Karzaia’s resistance to pain, as she rose while his attention was focused on his broken wrist and launched three stone darts in quick succession, two of them lodging in his right arm, the last punching into his sternum, puncturing his diaphragm.

He clutched his chest, suddenly unable to breath, his distraction growing worse as Karzaia ran at him, her sword drawn in her right hand, her left flopping at her side, sending jolts of agony through her body with every step.

He managed to regain himself just in time to take the sword on his gauntlet, deflecting the first slash, only to take a thrust that severed the tendons in his right shoulder. He punched, trying to cause her to retreat, but he was slowed by the pain, allowing Karzaia to easily evade the blow, ducking under and moving forward, slashing across his belly in a disemboweling strike.

His guts, purple and pink, flopped out of the wide cut on his belly, and he desperately tried to gather them and shove them back inside, once again growing distracted. This time it was fatal, as Karzaia had managed to get behind him, preparing for a thrust of her sword.

The blade surged forward, puncturing his heart from behind, and Namaik roared in rage, even as his body slumped. Karzaia twisted the sword, shredding his heart even as she sent a surge of her affinity through the blade, temporarily forcing his soul to warp around his heart. His regeneration disrupted at a time that proved fatal, the light went out of Namaik’s eyes, and he fell forward off her blade.

Namaik’s corpse melted away, and a pair of mithril gloves and several gold coins sat at her feet. She swept them into her ring before turning to look at the crystal orb, the size of her head, rotating above the sandy stone at the center of the arena. It had appeared the moment Namaik vanished, and now it awaited her hands.

She knew what she had to do and approached it, placing her hands on the Dungeon core.

The world fell away, and she found herself in the gray mists, facing an ancient Oni woman.

“Well, that was unexpected. I created this dungeon to teach you whippersnappers caution, and you managed to turn all my expectations on their head. Most adventurers who make it to Namaik die in seconds, unable to deal with his shukuchi and blade skills. The more capable and talented adventurers don’t even try to get this far. You are officially the first person to defeat him solo since he became my guardian,” The female spirit of the core chattered excitedly, amiably, not allowing Karzaia to answer.

“Now, you have three options of a reward for clearing my Dungeon. One a sub-Talent that fits your build, the second being an artifact that suits your affinity, and the last a pouch of forty gold pieces. Feel free to pick any of them. Any would be an appropriate reward for your accomplishments,” She finished after several minutes of chatter that completely ignored Karzaia’s attempts to interrupt.

Karzaia looked a bit drained, but she perked up when she heard her options. Dungeon rewards were generally more materialistic than those of a Trial or Tribulation. That was a given, seeing as adventurers were usually as interested in money as in seeing new things.

She decided against the gold immediately. The five coins she’d gotten from Namaik would hold her for some time. She could always find a way to get coin later, seeing as there were bound to be more Dungeons between her and her final destination.

Sub-Talents were non-leveled Talents that couldn’t grow but provided a specialized advantage to crafting or combat. They tended to be hit or miss if given as a random reward, but the sub-Talent would be tailored to her current build, so it was unlikely to be useless.

Artifacts were soul-bound items that could only be used by their owner while the owner lived. Their value varied greatly and they generally necessitated that the user’s affinity match theirs, otherwise they could not be bound or utilized. Her sword was one such item, though the simplest of such. She couldn’t imagine what kind of artifact she might gain from this Dungeon.

After considering it for some time, she selected the artifact, and suddenly a silver crystal orb appeared in front of her, falling into her hands.

“That’s a Soul Qi orb. It converts local mana into Soul Affinity Qi and purifies it before allowing you to draw it into your dantian. It can only convert so much in a day, but it should let you cultivate while on this continent,” The core spirit explained casually.

Karzaia looked at the small orb with awe as she considered what a boon it would be for her in the coming days. She could sense that the qi being produced by the orb was more than she’d managed to gather in the arrays in Manthein over the course of the last few years and of a much higher purity.

“I used to be a cultivator myself, so I know the pain of not being able to cultivate in this land… it’s why I took up the Wanderer’s offer and became a core. I didn’t want to Fall like the rest of my brethren,” The former Oni explained.

Karzaia didn’t know what to say. She was too young to be able to appreciate the core’s pain and too innocent of the world to truly understand what the spirit was going through.

“Now, it’s time for you to go. Put the orb in your ring for now. If the wrong person sees it and understands what it is, they’ll try to kill you. I’ll send you back to the entrance. Now that you’ve completed my Dungeon, you can’t return… so this will be our last meeting. May your Journey be fruitful,” The ancient Oni said as Karzaia was swept away, teleported back to the entrance.

______________________________________________________________________

The ancient Dungeon spirit sat in its virtual home wearily and looked at her guest with more than a little irritation, “Was that what you wanted, old friend? You know I hate manipulating those few who make it to my sanctum.”

The Wanderer nodded, his expression apologetic, “I’m sorry Zeneia. However, I’m limited in how I can intervene in her favor without gaining the anger of the Maker. Merely ‘advising’ you on what rewards to offer her falls within the range of what I can get away with, but any more than that…”

“… and he’ll slap you down. You really got the shit end of the stick, didn’t you? He still hasn’t forgiven you for not stopping the first generation gods when they decided to get themselves killed, has he?” She asked, her voice gentle and understanding despite her irritation with him. They were old friends, and she understood him perhaps better than any of those still living. This wasn’t the first Dungeon he’d placed her core in, after all.

“He shouldn’t. I was arrogant. I didn’t understand how… limited my siblings were compared to me. My aegis always required more of me than it did them, so I had a much wider view of matters of life and death than they did. If I’d known, I would have tried to warn them before they crossed the line,” He said, old regrets raising their head for the hundred-thousandth time since the fall of the first pantheon.

“The girl will definitely benefit from the orb, but I have to wonder why you want to accelerate her cultivation so much. I know the Maker wants to prevent the rebirth of the Hooded King, but this seems a bit roundabout as a way to reach that end,” She remarked.

“I cannot speak to the full motivations of the Maker. However, it would be… inconvenient if her qi system were excessively polluted when she arrives on another continent,” The Wanderer replied.

The ancient Oni’s eyes narrowed as she focused on him contemplatively for several minutes, but she decided not to press, “I’ll leave it at that, then.”

“Please do,” He replied, relaxing as they drank tea companionably in her spirit realm.