Having received the groups answer Zerah nodded solemnly and led them into the building. Once inside the students stopped to stare at what they found in front of them in shock. The building looked fairly badly damaged from the outside, but the inside had been completely gutted and in the centre of the space this had created there was a sinister pit that spewed a purple mist like it was the mouth of some giant monster.

“Wait, that’s the entrance?!” Hal exclaimed as Zerah ignored the fact that they had stopped and continued towards the pit with a calm expression on her face.

“Yes,” she replied calmly. “What exactly were you expecting? A massive gateway with carvings of demonic beings and people undergoing some sort of hideous torture?”

“Well no,” Hal admitted. “But I was kind of expecting something more than a big hole in the ground.”

“Why?” Zerah asked dark humour dancing in her eyes. “This is a place that gives birth to more of the things that destroyed our original worlds by all rights we shouldn’t even be entering it in the first place.”

Dungeons functioned somewhat like factories, they created new monsters in their depths and those monsters would fight to be closer to the Dungeon’s Core eventually ending up pushed into certain areas making it so that the upper levels were filled with less powerful monsters that got steadily more powerful as you went deeper into the Dungeon. If a Dungeon was left alone too long these monsters would eventually be forced out of the Dungeon and into the surrounding area creating roving bands of monsters that were usually more powerful than the local variety. By feeding on the souls of the people the monsters kill the Dungeon can create more powerful monsters in greater quantities. Often when the monsters from a Dungeon start to spread the Adventurers Guild calls in its elites to wipe them out and either destroy the Dungeon Core or set up a base nearby depending on how high the danger level of the Dungeon is.

A Dungeon’s danger level is ranked using a very simple system with SS being the highest and most dangerous rank and E being the lowest, when a Zone formed a Dungeon it would always start off as an E ranked Dungeon but this would change very quickly if left for any length of time as the Dungeon sent out its weaker monsters to attack the nearby wildlife and settlements in search of food. The moment a Dungeon reaches S rank it must be destroyed but even if all the most powerful Adventurers worked together they wouldn’t be able to reach the Dungeon Core of an SS ranked Dungeon before they were wiped out leading SS ranked Dungeons to be classed as a natural disaster that was impossible to do anything about and any settlements within 50 km had to be evacuated or wiped out by the hordes of monsters already. The Twisted Forest was a D ranked Dungeon that was kept fairly well in check by the groups of Adventurers that raided it almost constantly.

Kyle shrugged before following Zerah to the entrance.

“It doesn’t matter what the entrance looks like,” he said as he walked up to the hole. “We’re here to grow stronger not look at the thing.”

“That’s true,” Hal sighed as he walked up to his friend and looked into the pit seeing that there was what looked like a ramp heading down into its depths.

The others followed them Sasha revealing a bemused expression on her face as Amy watched them curiously. It was always interesting to watch these two interact as despite their different personalities they often ended up feeling the same way about most things.

“Alright,” Zerah said as the group formed up around her. “Let’s get a move on.”

As they made their way into the depths of the Dungeon a small figure appeared behind them floating a few metres off the ground.

“Jeez, it’s about time he did something interesting,” Puck grumbled. In the entire time that she had been watching him Kyle he had spent almost all of his time doing boring old training day in, day out. It was beyond her understanding how he could keep that up for as long as he had. She hadn’t even had much of a chance to cause any trouble because a few of the teachers were powerful enough to detect her if she did anything other than watch but now that he was entering a Dungeon there would be too much going on and she could finally complete her mission to see what he was capable of. And maybe have a bit of fun along the way.

The pixie giggled to herself in a way that would’ve sent chills down the spine of anyone watching and turned invisible once more before following Kyle and the others down into the Dungeon. The weak monster that he was going to fight in the levels close to the surface were too weak to be a proper test as far as she was concerned so she was going to go on ahead to find Kyle something that would really test his skills.

Once they reached the bottom of the ramp, they were greeted by two things; a dark tunnel filled with roiling mist and the screens that appeared in front of them suddenly surprising Kyle and Hal who hadn’t asked their companions to do anything. The others weren’t as surprised as they were, but they still stopped and stared at the unexpected screen in shock their eyes widening as they finally realised why Adventurers spent so much time fighting in Dungeons.

Merit System Activated!

As you defeat monsters in a Dungeon you will earn Merit Points which can be used to purchase a variety of rewards including Skill Points and Experience through the Rewards Screen.

The number of Merit Points you receive will depend on the Level of the monster that you fight. Defeating a monster, the same Level that you are will earn you one Merit Point. Defeating monsters that are a lower Level than you will decrease the number of Merit Points that you receive when you defeat them. Likewise, if you fight a monster that is a higher level than you are you will receive more Merit Points if you defeat it. You may also receive extra Merit Points if you meet certain requirements (e.g. fighting against groups much larger than your own.)

The number of Merit Points that you can spend on things other than experience are limited to 20x your current Level.

Kyle frowned as he noted the limit to the number of Merit Points, he could spend on rewards. He didn’t know how much most of the things that he could purchase would cost but that seemed like a pretty low limit, especially at lower Levels but would quickly become a massive number to spend at higher levels and asked Zerah about it.

“Yes, well as you increase your Level the number of things that you need increase as well, as does the amount of Merit Points you have to spend to obtain them,” Zerah explained calmly. This was a common question to be asked so she was well prepared for it.

Kyle cocked his head to one side this was true, but it still seemed like it was a bit unbalanced but as he was still only Level 2, he supposed there was still a lot he had to learn so just decided to go along with it.

Taking up the formation they had decided on in advance the group made its way into the tunnel. Hal, as the only member of the group in the Tank Classes was naturally in front. He was also the only one who had more than a few pieces of armour and was currently wearing mostly chainmail backed with leather and a simple open-fronted iron helm, which combined with having the highest HP in the group made him the best option for the vanguard. As per usual he was armed with his two handed Warhammer which was a bit of a odd choice for a Tank as most of them used a one handed weapon and a shield but Hal had the gauntlets that he had made to show Yuliah so that she would consider him for the Crafting courses as well as the normal Adventuring courses provided by the school and if he was in a situation where they didn’t provide enough protection he had two plain iron shields in Herman’s Inventory, one each for him and Sasha.

Behind Hal’s left shoulder was Sasha who despite the recent additions to her arsenal was still mainly focussed around melee fighting so they had decided that with her addertongue which had been modified by Hal so that it had a normal spearhead on the other end which made it more useful against targets with higher defence due to the natural fragility of the weapon. She also had a simple padded leather chest piece for protection over which she wore a simple coat for added warmth in this cold weather.

Next to her was Kyle who was wearing Scion’s Guard and the new leather gloves that Hal had made for him. Currently he was only using one of his chains to the confined nature of the tunnel, choosing instead to keep one hand free for casting magic.

Fi was wrapped around his neck as normal ready at any moment to take flight, she was the only one who was capable of using healing magic in their group, Sasha did have some syringe darts that were filled with healing potions and other restoratives but she could only carry a limited number at a time and although Fi did have some spares in her Inventory they would still be trying not to use too many of them although this was dependant on what sort of enemies that they encountered.

And finally, Amy was following from the rear, this was because she was the only one in their group who lacked a true melee fighting style preferring instead to fight with magic from the Earth and Mana Schools as well as her Mental Energy Skills. Amy was also the only one not wearing any armour or carrying a weapon. Geodes normally refused to wear armour because of how their form of ‘vision’ worked, they ‘saw’ by using a combination of Mana and Mental Energy to create a picture of their surroundings but as their entire being was in fact a small crystal that was usually located in their torso like Amy’s was if they wore metal armour they would essentially be blinded with cloth and leather types only making it harder for them to see. Not only that but as their ‘body’ was formed from crystal that they controlled with their Mental Energy only their core had HP and the rest of their ‘body’ instead had Durability like an object so damage was calculated differently; attacks that only dealt a small amount of damage to members of other races would barely scratch them but higher damage attacks would shatter their body and damage their core. This also meant that healing magics would only affect their core and things like potions wouldn’t work at all, instead to repair her body she had to absorb certain minerals. This also meant that the way her physical Stats like Strength and Dexterity worked was slightly different even f the outcome was at least similar instead being a measure of how much of her Mental Energy she could use to control her body in different ways. Her body’s Durability mostly came from Constitution, each point increased her core’s HP by a small amount while simultaneously increasing her body’s maximum possible Durability which she could reach by absorbing more minerals.

“Create Party!” Kyle called out and Fi quickly brought up a scree allowing him to send invitations to the rest of the group which they then accepted. While it was possible to work together without creating a true Party, creating one would give them certain advantages such as allowing them to sense each other’s whereabouts. Normally it would also allow them to split experience evenly between them but as they were in a Dungeon the Merit Points they earned would be distributed instead, this function was there to prevent people with Classes less suitable to killing monsters such as Healers from falling behind the rest of their group. They had decided that Kyle would be their Party Leader which meant that he was able to see what sort of state they were in at all times which meant that Fi could see this in turn which would allow her to heal them more efficiently and also because he was the one with the most experience fighting monsters in their group.

Zerah nodded calmly as she followed her students down the tunnel which was lit by a combination of a Mage light conjured by Amy and the same purple mist that had been billowing from the Dungeon’s entrance, she was confident that despite her and the other teachers’ effort to provide every group with a challenge that this one would find it only a small obstacle to completing the test which was to make it to the ‘second floor’ of the Dungeon without Zerah aiding them in any way. It was easy enough to figure out when they reached the second floor as the tunnel would open up into a small forest with monsters ranging from Level 5 to Level 10 having been chased there by the more powerful monsters.

The group made its way through the tunnel carefully, occasionally stopping to either avoid or disable any traps that Amy detected which usually involved tripping them on purpose from a distance as none of them had a Skill which would allow them to disable them the normal way. But it wasn’t very long before they encountered their first monsters, Amy calling for a halt as she sensed movement at the edge of her sensory range.

“There’s something there,” she said calmly preparing a Mana Bolt. “I didn’t get a good look at what it was, but it wasn’t very big, and it moved fast.

The other’s nodded and began to prepare for combat, they had all memorised the list of monsters commonly found in the Dungeon but the information that Amy had been able to give them wasn’t enough to identify the monsters right away even when they considered that it had to be a weak variety of monster because they were still only on the first floor.

Suddenly Kyle saw movement ahead raising his hand as Amy cried out a warning reaching past Hal and unleashing a Mana Blast sending several shapes flying backwards as the shockwave made out of Mana struck drawing pained squeals from the monsters.

Amy reacted almost as fast conjuring several more Mage Lights so that they could see what they were facing.

“Shit! Scorprats!” Kyle shouted as he finally got a good look at the monsters.

Scorprats were individually the weakest monsters in the dungeon as well as the weakest monsters that Kyle had ever fought, the problem was they always hunted in packs. A pack of Scorprats could tear Adventurers much stronger than themselves to shreds if the Adventurer let their guard down. As one might expect from the name Scorprats looked like a giant rat with a tail like a scorpion, the poison in their tails wasn’t very powerful especially when the Scorprats were Low Levelled but it was enough to slow their prey down allowing them to bring their vicious teeth to bare. It was easy to see the teacher’s logic in choosing this entrance for their group if these were the first monster that they meet upon entering the Dungeon, if Kyle had to name their groups main weaknesses it was their lack of a true healer and area attacks. Even though he had managed to gain a couple of area attacks recently the only other person in their group who really had any was Amy and he’d be hard pressed to call most of them attacks as they were mostly based around controlling the enemy rather than attacking them so large groups of enemies were a bad match up for them especially considering the poisonous nature of these particular ones.

Hal swore loudly as he knocked away several of the monsters with his hammer, even with the extra light provided by the Mage Lights it was hard to see them until they were almost on top of him due to the way their dark grey fur blended into the darkness of the tunnel. Sasha had no such troubles sweeping one that he missed out of the air with her addertongue, she had the ability to sense body heat due to one of her Racial Skills and could tell that this group was made up of about ten individuals which was a bit on the smaller side for Scorprats and that the majority of the members were about the size of a cat meaning that they were Level 1 with a couple of slightly larger members and quickly reported this to the rest of the group.

Hearing the size of the group Kyle nodded before casting Mana Skin on Hal, the increase to his defences making him almost impossible for the weaker members of the pack to injure before activating his Lash Skill just in time to knock one of the larger Scorprats out of the air.

Amy cast a spell that caused a large number of tiny spikes to form on the ground in the hopes that they would slow the rats down before using a Mental Energy Skill that caused some of the Scorprats to feel such an intense wave of dread that they attacked each other in an effort to get away. This Skill was fairly weak against foes with a high Willpower or Intelligence which made it perfect for the Scorprats.

Seeing this reaction Kyle grinned, “Nice! They seem to have a weakness to that sort of attack Amy, let’s keep it up!”

“Right!” Amy replied as she used a different Mental Energy Skill that once again caused havoc in the ranks of the monsters just before a swirling ball of energy ripped into them causing them to scream in pain. This was Kyle’s Mind Storm Skill and those that were caught in it received serious injuries by the time the whirling ball of telekinetic energy was finished with them. It wasn’t enough to kill any of them, but it did leave them wide open to be finished of by Hal who slammed his hammer down on top of the pile of disoriented monsters with enough force to render them unrecognisable.

“That’s four down!” Kyle shouted. “Another six to go!”

Naturally both of the larger individuals were still alive although one of them was looking decidedly worse for wear due to receiving a nasty cut from Sasha’s addertongue early on in the fight. By now those monsters that had been caught in the wave of fear Amy had unleashed earlier had recovered and were manoeuvring around the stone needles she had created as best they could while Kyle attacked them with both Mana Darts and his chain.

Zerah was quite impressed with how they were handling the fight, being outnumbered two to one like this when it was their first real fight for most of them would break some Adventurers and she had seen a few of her own students react poorly to similar situations so seeing them working together as well as they were made her feel quite proud of this group.

Firing another Mana Blast at two of the remaining Scorprats Kyle quickly checked how his friends were doing, Hal seemed to be holding up well, but he had seen the familiar flash of light earlier that occurred when Fi used her Restore spell, so he knew that he had taken a few hits. Sasha was keeping her distance as best she could, stabbing at the Scorprats that Hal missed with her addertongue, Kyle nodded in satisfaction as he noticed that she had yet to use any of her syringe darts which was good because while they did have a few spares they didn’t know what was going to happen next and Kyle was hoping that she would save them for more powerful opponents than these. Amy was also doing well, and Kyle ducked reflexively as a stone spike shot past his head impaling one of the monsters, he had sent flying earlier.

Turning back to the remaining Scorprat Kyle cast his Minor Soul Syphon spell and activated his Slam Skill bringing the weighted end of his chain down on its head with great force finishing it off.

“Well at least I got one new Soul Stone out of this,” he muttered cringing at the grisly spectacle that followed the monster’s death but still picking up the gore covered crystal that resulted from it.

Hal looked over as he stomped on the head of the last monster, as Zerah congratulated them on a job well done.

“So how was your first fight as a group?” she asked.

“I think we did pretty well,” Kyle said to a chorus of agreement from his friends. “But I’m not sure that it would’ve gone as well against a bigger group.”

“No, it wouldn’t have,” Zerah agreed. “You would’ve still won the fight if it wasn’t too much bigger, but we won’t find bigger packs than that this early on into the Dungeon.”

“Just out of interest how big can a pack of Scorprats get?” Hal asked as he tried to clean the grime of his face with a cloth that Herma had given him.

“Normally they don’t get much bigger than fifteen individuals,” Zerah replied. “But there are exceptions.”

“Alright, well we should probably rest and recover,” Kyle said once Zerah had finished. “I don’t know about you guys, but I used up quite a lot of Mana and Stamina in that fight.”

The others all agreed, and Hal came around checking their gear for any damage while Sasha went to harvest the venom sacs and skins from those few Scorprats that were still in good enough condition to do so.

Kyle sat down to take advantage of his Meditation enjoying the relaxed sensation using the Sub-skill always gave him. Amy did much the same floating a few inches above the ground next to Kyle.

Opening his eyes, he looked to Fi who was curled up on the ground in front of him.

“Well Fi, should we go over everything from that last fight?” Kyle asked calmly.

“Sure, that’s probably a good idea, where do you want to start?”