Adulthood for a mind flayer means the acquisition of all stats and powers from their victims. Is it any wonder that the mind they hunger for the most is that of their master’s? The mind that binds them and holds them back is the mind that they crave the most. Memories were downloaded and the brains they devour become nothing more than hard drives and microprocessors containing skills and abilities any that are incompatible are rejected.

The hair like tentacles of a mind flayer determines how powerful a mind flayer may become. The longer and thicker the tentacles the stronger the mind flayer. Certain mind flayers who have extremely long tentacles can act during the day and even use their psychic powers. If these unique mind flayers reach adulthood, then they may be a match for any hero.

Trixie knew of the fear mages had for her kind. She brushed her tentacles back in her ribbon. Markus was still asleep, he fought a dungeon for most of the night, he deserved his rest. Often, she played in bed wrapping her tentacles around him. For hours before he awoke his hands moved through her tentacles gently brushing them. An affection that she enjoyed.

She was growing hungrier lately adulthood was approaching. Markus was in danger of her. It was time to hunt again to relieve her cravings.

His eyes opened she was gone again. It had been a week since staying here and she left often early in the mornings. The sun wasn’t up, and he didn’t think sleep would come with Trixie gone. Getting up to his feet, he avoided the shower and brushed his teeth.

Markus bought a book on the life cycles of well known dark monsters. He knew about mind flayers. It wasn’t hard for him to guess what she was doing. It was his choice to act oblivious. It was her honor as his partner to act in his interests.

Pulling his sword out of his closet, he looked it over. The blade glinted silver and had a heft that no normal man could hope to use. Nearly seven feet long and two inches thick the blade was a monster. In the tight corridors of pestilence dungeon, it was worthless. So, he took his axe and a cheap bow with him.

The city was quiet in the early hours of the morning. It was considered bad luck to conduct business before the sun was up. The king’s psychic power was absent. Perfect for an assassin after the king’s life. Not that he was one.

Near the palace he opened a hatch and leapt down a familiar iron ladder. He was almost certain there were three other entrances like this. There was a question of why four dungeons would emerge so close together. Pestilence, death, war, and famine four dungeons that spewed mana tainted with dark.

What were they for? Four powerful dark dungeons in the same place couldn’t be a coincidence.

A swinging hammer slammed down, and he rolled to the side. The first time he saw the trap it nearly got him. The walls were covered in a fleshy substance with pustules lining the walls. Get too close and boiling puss will explode covering your body. Melting through your skin and to top it off maggot eggs would infest your wounds.

Three bands of crawling ghouls spotted him and charged on his location. Markus took his bow and fired on the pustules. They exploded covering the ghouls. After a few minutes of writhing in agony, they charged at him again. Their bodies slowly falling apart from the maggots eating away at their sinews.

Markus ran around the ghouls letting the maggots do the work. In these tight corridors it was hard to move weapons or no. He let them fall apart and collected the points. Something like fire would be great here. Too bad really. Ice made the fire ability unreachable. Every new breakthrough in ice increased the cost of fire.

He went over the dissolving bodies and claimed a few amulets. Item drops were the only things disease free. Dungeons wanted victims and making things fair was important. He took a left avoiding the grisly end the right tunnel would provide. Rats covered the ground he never knew if they were alive or dead. Taking a spear from his inventory, he began stabbing his way through the rats.

A few bites to his ankles was enough to convince him to buy one from one of the local merchant stands. He started hearing screeches, as he went through. That meant this spear had paid for itself. Each rat was worth 2points and killing 20 payed for the spear.

Another band of ghouls showed up crawling from a hatch in the tunnel. This was the throat if he passed below he would reach the next part of the infested dungeon, the stomach.

Markus ran up and started kicking them back down. The tunnel squeezed them pulling the ghouls deeper. Markus leapt over the opening behind the throat was a secret boss worth 2000points.

A sarcophagus burst open revealing a mummy. It was named Imhotep. Named monsters in dungeons were worth far more than unnamed. For bosses that counted even more. For secret bosses it was excellent. There was a trick to the fight.

Imhotep opened with a salvo of flesh eating scarabs Markus ducked under the wave used freeze on his sword and thrust in Imhotep’s chest. The mummy froze, and Markus took advantage. He sheathed his sword and took a hold of the mummy. He slammed it back in its coffin.

Picking up the sarcophagus the mummy banged on the lid trying to get out. It was iron and copper, the coffin slid into place rather well. He pushed against the lid until it warped now there was no opening it. Using chains, he wrapped up the coffin for a hand grip.

Quest 22 Use a Secret Boss to Slay a Boss

Reward 10kpoints

Now, the real test was to see if this counted as killing a boss with a secret boss. He went to the throat and jumped through holding the coffin. After a horrible squeezing sensation, he found himself on the second floor. The stomach, massive zombies with skin made of dozens of layers layers charged at him. They had a natural armor that deflected blunt damage. He put the coffin to the side and took out his sword.

He slashed through the knee of one and split open the neck of another. Putrid black blood rained down as he made his way through the larger zombie variant. When the first room was cleared he took the coffin and made his way through to the next one.

Fast moving ghouls and slow moving callused zombies trudged towards him. Markus took the coffin and smashed the first ghoul and slammed it through the line chasing him. He put it down took his sword out and spun delivering a horizontal slash that bisected everything in its path. Guts, heads, and the waists of ghouls that tried to get the jump on him littered the ground. Their guts and blood gave the ground the perfect lubrication for something he wanted to try.

He kicked the coffin forward and leapt on it. Using a leg, he picked up speed sliding on guts with his sword raised for beheading callused zombies. He couldn’t help letting out a whoop as he slid forward.

Markus held a head on the flat of his blade, as he watched the boss pace. It knew he was coming. The corpses of zombies, giant roaches, and ghouls covered the ground slowly dissolving. He would need to collect the loot later. A few pieces of armor caught his eye. They hadn’t dropped the last few times he walked in. When the giant zombie’s back was turned Markus tossed the head up and hit it with the flat of his blade. The head hit the back of the giant’s head causing the zombie to stumble in shock.

Sheathing his sword, he ran up mostly crushed coffin in hand. The zombie had enough time to turn to look at him when the coffin hit it in the jaw. The giant zombie stumbled back, and Markus took his sword and slashed through the zombie’s knee caps. A crunching sound echoed, and Markus leapt back as the creature fell catching itself with its hand.

Setting the coffin aside Markus sliced through one elbow then the other. Arms bigger around than him fell leaving the zombie on stumps. Markus sheathed his blade and took the coffin in hand. The zombie roared at him while Markus slammed the coffin into its head.

Turning his back on the boss he left it with the coffin inside its head. The sweet 10k was his, just a few more and he would buy a new book. Things were looking up. The next way was open, and he left for the surface. Any deeper and he would have an actual fight on his hands. That would defeat the purpose of farming a dungeon.

The sun had just risen when he made his way to the merchant district. He had around 30 amulets, 90 sets of disease resistant cloths, 200pairs of fungus resistant socks, hundreds of fungal extracts, 400masks of plague bearers, and 1 ring of misfortune.

“Ah, Markus what do you have for me.” He started piling the merchandise in the stalls. The anti-fungal socks were a hit seller. “I can only give you 1000 points for the lot of it.” Cletus said.

Markus gave the merchant a look.

“Markus, you have to understand you’ve over saturated the market. 1000 is good for the amount already in circulation.” His first haul had gotten him 10k it had grown less with every trip. Markus calculated how much he earned from the dungeon just killing monsters. In a few hours he made 80k, he could afford tuition next year, buy the books he needs, and gather more abilities. He packed his hard-earned loot back up. “I’ll give you 5k for it don’t go.” Cletus said.

“Maybe when the market is less saturated I’ll trade with you again.” Markus said and left.

He went to the admissions office and paid for the next year. Then with 40k remaining he went to the book store and bought what books he could.

With the day now fully here, he took a shower and went to class. His first class was mathematics of magic. He walked into a pitch-black classroom, except for thousands of white seals covering the walls and ceiling. The seals moved changing exposing their intricacies without conveying their meaning. It was beautiful.

“Hello, I’m Professor Dracul, and this is mathematics of magic 101. In this class you will explore the mysteries of magic and how it functions. As you can see magic is always in flux and unless you understand the underlying principles of why it changes, you won’t understand magic not truly.” The teacher’s red eyes glare into them as he speaks. There is a sadness to the man and strength. Markus has a feeling he’s going to like the class.

“If magic is always in flux and never static how will we study it?” One student asked.

The teacher looked over a written list. “Mr. Risley right.” The student nodded. “Those seals are spells made static. Yet time still passes around them and so they move. In a way magic is like time itself.”

He tapped a blank space on the wall and created an uncomplicated design. It moved much slower than the others. He wrote 73 under it and moved on to others. “Who can tell me what elements make up these seals?” Markus drew a blank and waited for someone else to raise their hand. “How about the young of Might.” Shit!

Markus stood up. He starred at the seal. “Well go ahead there is no harm in getting it wrong?” He continued glaring at the seal looking for something in his thoughts that might divine the answer.

“Are there two elements?” The teacher nodded.

“There are in fact only two elements in this seal. But can you guess what they are by the numbers alone. Can you look at the seal and tell me why 7 and 3 where the numbers.

A large circle stood on the outside with a large triangle and a seven-pointed shape in the center. “Do you read from the center going out?” Markus asked. The teacher smiled and nodded his head. The shape in the center changed shape but always held the same number of points.

“Wind and fire,” Markus said unsure.

“Psychic and fire two very different elements. When combined fire gains direction that it would never normally have. Psychic is one of the elements good with any spell. This spell is commonly referred to as fireball. The psychic element in the spell supplies the explosion.” Dracul said.

Markus nodded his head and sat down. Another student was called, and Markus took what notes he could.

The next class he didn’t bother learning the teacher’s name. Formulaic language of magic was boring. They went to work writing down the 10 basic seals. There was no darkness seal Markus learned and this class was needed to understand Mathematics of magic.

Bestiary 101 had gruff former knight as a teacher named George no last name. He monologued about goblins, snatchers, and ogres. He spoke a little about their tribal societies in the forest and how you never want to stumble upon a snatcher tribe.

Monster care was all about goblins and how to care for them. Markus didn’t have a goblin and when he asked about how to care for a mind flayer the teacher looked at him blankly.

Economics was interesting. He learned a little about the points system. They were constantly inflating and deflating. When points are used for abilities the market deflates and prices change. The price of gold normally determined how much points were worth.

History class was about what book we needed to get and to make sure we get the book the teacher wanted because he only taught from that book and sources were only accepted from that book. Mordred’s history of the kingdom went for 2kpoints and Markus would have to by it soon. They had a reading assignment due in three days.

Battle magic, he walked in class spars were had and he was asked politely to leave. Apparently using the opponent as a club was considered misconduct. The teacher took one look at his light hammer and turned him away.

Phantasmal beasts 101, was fun. The teacher spoke about visiting castles filled with ghosts and they were going to go on a field trip to study the ghosts up close. No book was required for the course.

Potions, he was handed a cook book and began mixing health potions. The teacher was selling them to a knight order. They didn’t get a cut. By the end of class Markus had the potions skill up the beginner 50.

He walked up to his room exhausted. Trixie was asleep in the bed and he scooted right beside her. It was his first real day at the academy and he wasn’t disappointed. If he was right, then he would learn how to identify spells and counter them from mathematics of magic. Language of magic would teach him how to enchant items hopefully. He noticed that a lot of artefacts were tied to life. But there were as many as 20 sided seals on some of the rare drops. They moved constantly just like the ones at the classroom.

Full stats and skills 3

Psychic

Telekinesis: Journeyman 5 Telepathy: Initiate 20, Empathy: Initiate 50

Willpower +5,000,000% Intelligence +20% Willpower +50%

Intelligence +50,000% Charisma +0.2% Intelligence +0.5%

Defense +500%

Slash +5%

Pierce +0.015%

Life Support: Journeyman 1 Flesh Puppetry: Apprentice 30

Willpower +1,000,000% Willpower +30,000%

Vitality +10,000% Vigor +3000%

Recovery +100% Mobility +30%

Mobility +1% Recovery +0.3%

Phys resistance +0.01%

Dark

Tentacle: Novice 50, Eye: Novice 10, Familiar: Initiate 10

Willpower +5000% Perception +1000% Willpower +10%

Pierce +50% Dark Resist +10% Dark Resist +0.1%

Vitality +0.5% Miasma +0.1%

Ice

Freeze: Journeyman 1

Willpower +1,000,000%

Ice Resist +10,000%

Spell Damage +100%

Fire Resist +1%

Reflect Magic +0.01%

Light

Chains: Apprentice 10

Willpower +100,000%

Defense +1,000%

Light Resiste +10%

Dark Resiste +0.1%

Monster Tamer

Communicate: Novice 90

Charisma +9,000%

Mental Resist +90%

Spirit Resist +0.9%

Misc

Farming: Beginner 70 Mob Slayer: journeyman 1 Hunter: Beginner 10

Intelligence +0.7% Intelligence +1,000,000% Agility +0.1%

Willpower +10,000%

Endurance +100%

Vitality +1%

Luck +0.01%

Movement: Novice 13 Eating: Initiate 50 Axe Mastery: Novice 7

Mobility +1300% Nourishment +50% Strength +700%

Dexterity +13% Vitality +0.5% Dexterity +7%

Agility +0.13% Vigor +0.07%

Sword Mastery: novice 50 Graple Mastery: Beginner 40 Potions: Initiate 1

Strenth +5,000 Vitality +0.4% Intelligence +1%

Dexterity +50% Willpower +0.01%

Vitality +0.5%

ASI(Abilities/Skills/items)

Stats base +points% +ASI% = Net stats

Vitality x50 100 10.132k 10.232k

Endurance x50 100 230 330

Strength x3 100 5700 348

Dexterity 1 100 70 4.6

Agility 1 100 0.2 2

Intelligence 1 100 1.050m 21k

Willpower 1 100 6.140m 122.802k