“Hey Kyle, guess what,” Fi teased as she wrapped herself tighter around Kyle’s neck.

“What?” Kyle sighed as he walked back towards the other students who had formed up around the main building so that Yuliah could heal any small wounds that they had.

“You Levelled Up again.”

“Seriously?” Kyle said coming to an immediate halt.

“Yup,” Fi giggled. “The second time in one day, that’s pretty impressive.”

“Normally I might agree,” Kyle muttered irritably. “Except for the bit where if I Level Up one more time I have to graduate from the school.”

“Yeah that’s true,” Fi admitted with a smirk on her face, despite the way that he was acting she knew that Kyle was actually secretly excited by this turn of events despite the issues that came along with it. “But it does make things a bit easier doesn’t it?”

“Right now, maybe,” Kyle grumbled, a smile beginning to break through his irritated expression. “But I still want to spend more time at the school you know.”

“Well then you should talk about it with the teachers, this is a bit of a special situation, maybe they’ll bend the rules a little?” Fi suggested. “After all I’m sure you’re not the only one who’s Levelled Up today, you might not even be the only one who’s Levelled Up more than once.”

“Yeah I think I remember Zerah saying something about that,” Kyle admitted. “Alright I suppose we should sort out our Stat Points and your Ability Points.”

“Right!” Fi replied as she brought up their Status Screens. The other students watched bemused as the two sat down on the steps in front of the main school building and started to have a conversation about how to best distribute their Stats like they hadn’t just been fighting for their lives. In fact, the only person who wasn’t amused by the situation was Yuliah who understood that it was precisely this aspect of their personalities that would keep them from going crazy from the stress that could be caused by being an Adventurer.

Eventually Kyle decided on how he was going to distribute his Stats and asked Fi to place two points into his Willpower to increase the effectiveness of his Mental Energy Skills as those Skills had proved to be extremely useful today and Kyle would argue that they had even saved his and his friends’ lives multiple times so while increasing Willpower didn’t have as much effect on the rest of his Stats like increasing something like Intelligence or Wisdom he was quite happy with his decision. He also decided to spend the final point on his Constitution, as far as he was concerned it was always a good idea to increase you HP when you had the chance but sadly it wasn’t one of the Stats that was increased by his Class so he had to spend his Unassigned Stat Points to do so. Once she had done as Kyle asked Fi showed him how things had changed.

Statistics

Name: Kyle Fergusson

Race: Aethereal Human

Level: 4

Class: Chain Fighter

HP: 99/154

HP regen: 1.4 p/s

MP: 23/165

MP regen: 6.7 p/s

SP: 42/158

SP regen: 7.5 p/s

Str: 12(8)

Dex: 20(10)

Agi: 23(12)

Con: 14(10)

End: 15(11)

Int: 14(12)

Wis: 11(11)

Will: 13(11)

Exp to next Level: 11%

Unassigned Stat Points: 0

“Hmm, something seems a little off about my HP and SP, did my Physical Conditioning Skill Level Up?” Kyle asked.

“Yeah, do you want to go over your Skill increases or my Stats and Abilities first?”

“Let’s go over your stuff first,” Kyle decided and Fi nodded before bringing up her Stat sheet, in the end she had decided to increase her Wisdom so that she could keep using magic for longer.

Statistics

Name: Fi Fergusson

Race: Quetzalcoatl (Divine Beast)

Level: 4

Companion Type: N/A

HP: 50/50

HP regen: 0.5 p/s

MP: 130/130

MP regen:6.5 p/s

SP: 40/40

SP regen: 4 p/s

Str: 4

Dex: 5

Agi: 12

Con: 5

End: 4

Int: 13

Wis: 13

Will: 8

Exp to next Level: 11%

Unassigned Stat Points: 0

“Right so shall we move onto your Abilities now Fi?” Kyle asked.

“Yeah,” Fi replied and brought up her Abilities screen, after scrolling down both Kyle and Fi blinked in surprise as they realised that she had new Abilities available and ones that would be quite useful in their current situation at that.

“Well they both cost two AP so you can only get one right now,” Kyle said once they had finished reading through the descriptions of the new Skills.

“I’m thinking of unlocking Umbral Fog, but I might save the other Ability Point for now,” Fi replied and Kyle nodded his agreement, so she went and spent the points on her new spell.

New Spells Unlocked!

Umbral Fog- Creates a cloud of poisonous fog that deals 2 darkness damage every three seconds. Area of effect: 2m. Duration 2 mins. Costs 35 MP. Casting time: 10 seconds. Cooldown 5 mins.

“Alright can we move onto my Skill increases now? Kyle asked now that they had finished with Fi’s stuff.

“Yeah,” Fi chirped happily as she brought up the requested notifications.

Skills Increased

Chain Fighting-Mastery: Proficiency Level 8-9% to next Proficiency Level

Increases damage dealt with Chain Weapons by 12%

Increases accuracy with Chain Weapons by 7%

Acrobatics-Mastery: Proficiency Level 6-34% to next Proficiency Level

Increases dodge chance by 11%

Physical Conditioning-Mastery: Level 10-5% to next Proficiency Level

Increases HP by 10%

Increases SP by 5%

Psychic Prowess- Mastery: Level 3 -13% to next Proficiency Level

Decreases MP and SP costs of all Mental Energy Skills by 3%

As he had expected he had indeed Levelled Up Physical Conditioning again which explained why his HP and SP had been higher than expected, it was also good to see that his Chain Fighting Skill had increased again after he had been struggling to Level it up for so long.

“Are there any new Sub-skills?” Kyle asked once he had finished reading the notification.

“No, there aren’t,” Fi replied. “What, don’t you think you got enough after that fight?”

“I was just checking, jeez,” Kyle muttered causing his partner to snigger at him in amusement. After what she had told him, there was no way that he was going to ask about his spell mastery when he had just unlocked two new spells.

“Are you two done,” an amused sounding and very familiar voice asked from behind them.

“Yeah we’re done Sonia,” Kyle replied turning around to look at his old friend. “How have you been?”

“You idiot!” Sonia growled placing her hands on her hips as she glared down at the two. “Do you know how worried I was when I heard that you guys hadn’t made it back and then I find out that you’re doing something as reckless as this.”

Kyle blinked at the young woman’s words, they hadn’t really talked in almost a month and this was the first thing she had to say to him?

“At least Hal had the common sense to put on some proper armour, but no, you had to just go out there and try and hold off swarms of monsters who all have a higher level than you so that other people can attack at range,” Sonia continued to scold him.

“Hey, leave me out of this,” Hal interrupted. “This suit isn’t exactly a masterwork.”

It was true, while the suit was almost finished he still didn’t have any of the padding that was normally worn underneath it which he still needed at his Level, he wouldn’t later on which would allow him to wear armour that was completely fitted to his body which would allow greater freedom of movement. As he didn’t have any padding the unfinished edges and gaps cut into his skin whenever he moved and if he was hit by a magical attack chances were that he would take the full brunt of the damage.

“Be that as it may,” Sonia said turning to glare at the red head. “You’re still better protected than Kyle.”

Hal raised his hands in defeat and shrugged at his friend. There was nothing more he could do about the situation; Kyle would have to deal with Sonia himself. It was quite amazing to the two boys just how much Sonia had changed over the past few months. Back in Farholt she had been a quiet girl, even when she had started singing at Al’s inn but ever since they had left the village, she had been thriving and her personality had changed accordingly. She was now far more confident than she had ever been and her talents as both a musician and a singer had quickly made her both the star pupil of the Bard’s Guild and incredibly popular with the younger members of the Guild. However, this newfound confidence had led to her confronting Kyle and Hal several times recently when she had found out that they had been doing something reckless.

“Now then,” the irate girl continued as she returned her attention to Kyle, who felt a bead of sweat run down his forehead as her eyes met hers once again. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Kyle broke eye contact and stared desperately at Yuliah who was smirking at his current situation. With a sigh Yuliah decided that as she had been the one to give him permission to protect the other students that way that he had she should probably try to take at least part of the blame.

“Sonia, dear I gave Kyle permission, so if you want to blame anyone blame me,” Yuliah said, placing a hand on the irate young woman’s shoulder that was quickly shrugged off as Sonia spun towards the older woman angrily.

“Yes, you gave permission which I bet means that he was the one that came up with the idea!” Sonia snapped. “Well, am I right?”

“Well yes,” Yuliah admitted. “But it’s not like we had a lot of other choices!”

Sonia deflated slightly as she took in Yuliah’s words glancing anxiously at the obviously badly injured Reginald. This simple statement was enough to take the wind out of her sails almost completely, as she couldn’t come up with something that they could’ve done other than what Kyle had suggested. While Yuliah could probably weather the attacks of the monsters better than Kyle or any of the other students thanks to her higher Level, she was still a caster that focussed on healing and protective magics which meant that she was better suited to keeping them all alive in ways other than standing in between the monsters and her students so that she could take the brunt of the damage. In the end Sonia’s shoulders slumped and she turned back towards Kyle and wrapped him in a tight hug.

“I was just so worried,” she sobbed. “You looked so beaten up and exhausted and all I could do was stand there and try and encourage you.”

“You did plenty Sonia, that song was just what we needed then, you and your friends helped plenty,” Kyle told the girl as he gently wrapped her in his own arms. “Just remember that this is what Hal and I trained for and the other students as well. What sort of Adventurers would we be if we couldn’t handle a few monsters?”

The other students all nodded their agreement at his words, a few of the young men present were more than a little jealous of Kyle right now but that didn’t mean that he was wrong. Just then Resald who had only been half paying attention to the argument noticed a new swarm of black shapes heading towards them.

“Guys, we have incoming!” Resald shouted and the students quickly started preparing to hold the monsters back once more. Hearing his words Fi unwrapped herself from Kyle’s neck and flew into the air to try and get some information on the new group monsters flying towards them.

“Kyle, Hal come here,” Yuliah said as Kyle disengaged himself from Sonia as carefully as possible. “I need to cast some buffs on you.”

“Alright,” Hal said and they both went and stood in front of Yuliah as she placed a hand on each of their shoulders and started chanting under her breath making their eyes widen in surprise. Only high-level spells required something like a chant and Yuliah was currently casting such a spell on both of them, this would of course have a massive MP cost, but the spells effects were usually great enough that it was an easy cost to pay.

Yuliah’s brow furrowed in concentration as she continued to chant the words required to cast her Goddess’ Sanctuary spell, this spell covered a target in light magic that increased their resistance to all types of damage other than darkness by a considerable amount. Normally this spell could only be cast on a single target but Yuliah had a Sub-skill that allowed her to cast in on multiple targets by tripling the MP cost and Cooldown for each extra target called Multi-casting. Even Yuliah only had enough MP to use this spell on two targets at once and keep enough MP to be useful afterwards.

Soon Hal and Kyle’s bodies started glowing with a bright white light as the spell reached its completion, this glow soon faded to reveal white lines covering the two young men’s bodies and Yuliah breathed a sigh of relief as she sagged slightly at the completion of the spell.

“Right,” she said as the two young men blinked to clear the bright spots from their eyes that had been caused by the spell. “You guys should be able to take twice the number of hits you could before but I’ till like you to be careful, we don’t know how powerful this next group of monsters is and I could be wrong about that.”

“Yeah,” Kyle replied. It was very difficult to ensure that you had covered all your bases when it came to resistance to damage, he could tell that the spell that Yuliah had cast on him and Hal was extremely powerful but without knowing what the monsters that were heading their way were it was difficult to prepare properly. “We’ll do our best.”

The two friends walked out into the destroyed courtyard with the other student volunteers forming up behind them with Ulrich and Gloria holding the massive shield once more. Looking up into the sky they saw that the flock of monsters was closing fast and Fi was heading back their way with what information she had been able to gather with her Identify Ability.

“So, did you see Damian when you were inside?” Kyle decided to ask his friend. It was odd that their fire magic wielding friend wasn’t one of the other students that had come out to help and seeing as he knew that one of the groups of students had gone missing Kyle was starting to get a little bit worried.

“About that,” Hal said sighing sadly. “He’s inside right now but he’s too badly injured to help right now. When Zerah gets back she might be able to help him but if not then he might have to give upon becoming an Adventurer.”

“How bad is it?” Kyle asked quietly. He knew that this was the risk that one ran when fighting monsters, this wasn’t news that he had ever wanted to hear but it was still better than the other option.

“His right leg is hanging by a thread,” Hal replied quietly, his face grim. “If she gets here quick enough Zerah should be able to sew it back on but even then, he’ll be lucky to regain full use of it.”

Kyle nodded slowly glaring up into the sky at the swarm of monsters, they were close enough now that he could make out individual shapes where before they had seemed like a single amorphous entity and Fi had almost dropped back down to their level.

“No one else,” he said in a surprisingly calm tone of voice and Hal turned to look at his friend in confusion freezing as he saw that Kyles’ eyes were glowing the same way that they had when he had unlocked his Will Made Manifest Skill as the blue markings crept across his enraged features. “We won’t let them hurt any more of our friends!”

“Damn straight!” Hal replied slapping his friend on the shoulder. Although he was a little worried about Kyle right now, he did seem to be more in control than the previous time that Hal had seen him like this. “Let’s do this!”

FI was now close enough to hear what they were saying and although she was worried by Kyle’s current state she decided not to say anything about it and instead report what she had found about the new wave of monsters that had slipped past the guards on top of the wall.

“This next group is made up of 26 Psionbats between Levels 8 and 13, as I’m sure you know you will have to be careful of their sonic attacks,” Fi reported.

Kyle and the other students nodded at her words, Psionbats were one of the more dangerous low-level monsters in the Twisted Garden because of their sonic attacks which also had a Mental Energy component as the monsters’ name suggested. Psionbats didn’t feed on flesh like most other monsters did and instead kept their prey alive for as long as possible so that they could feed off their negative emotions like fear and anger. Physically they weren’t too impressive but their cries could also inflict a random status effect on anyone who heard them most commonly Fear which caused the target to go into a panic and Rage which sent someone into a berserk rage causing them to lash out at anything nearby including their friends and party members.

As the monster flew closer Kyle could finally see them clearly. Psionbats looked like grey-furred bats about the size of a cat with strangely small mouths and no eyes. Psionbats navigated by means of a combination of echolocation much like other bat and bat-like monsters as well as their ability to sense the mental emanations of other living things, it had also been suggested that the members of a swarm could communicate using this ability to some level allowing them to avoid attacks that they might not otherwise have noticed.

Once they were in range Amy cast a spell that fired a large rock into the sky before exploding and sending shrapnel into the swarm of monsters that tore through the fragile leather of the Psionbats’ wings but unfortunately the shrapnel couldn’t penetrate the furred bodies of the monsters. Seeing that some of the monsters were floundering in mid air because of the holes in their wings Kyle activated his Mind Storm which picked up some of the shrapnel and whipped the shards of rock around into the monsters again causing three of them to fall out of the sky when their wings were torn further.

The other students also opened fire taking another two of the monsters down before the monsters returned fire with their sonic attacks that caused one of the students to collapse in a heap as blood started streaming from their ears.

“Shit, the shield won’t block that sort of attack!” Ulrich shouted as he and the others holding the massive piece of metal cringed under the assault of the monsters. They all had higher Willpower than the people who had been hiding behind the shield as this Stat increased one’s ability to withstand pain making it extremely useful for the tank-type Classes whose job was essentially be the target of the monsters attacks meaning that they took the most damage. As this was also the Stat that increased resistance to Mental Attacks this also meant that they were the least affected by the Psionbats attacks. In other words, this was just about the worst match up for the tactics that had served them so well up until now.

Yuliah cast a protective barrier around her students as the Psionbats screeched again, quickly Ulrich dropped the shield, grabbed the student who had collapsed and started carrying her towards Yuliah calling for the others to retreat as he did so. Ulrich cursed angrily under his breath as the other students streamed past him; he was supposed to be protecting the other students but all he could do was help them get to the relative safety closer to Yuliah.

Kyle roared in rage as he saw what was happening to his friends and swung both of his chains at the swarm of monsters as he activated his Suppression Aura once more causing the monsters to screech again, this time in pain before the weights on the ends of his weapons slammed into them knocking one of them out of the air which allowed Hal to crush its body with his blacksmithing hammer.

Noticing Hal’s actions, the monsters decided to focus their attacks on him causing the muscular young man to fall to his knees in pain before straightening as he felt the pressure of the attacks lift slightly off him as Amy quickly formed a barrier of Mental Energy around him.

Retreating back towards the enraged Kyle Hal realised just how bad the situation they were in right now was. Despite the protective spell that Yuliah had cast on them he and Kyle were already in a bad state. Not only was his armour not providing any real defence against the monsters attacks they were almost impossible to dodge meaning that he was taking almost all of them head on and as for Kyle, he wasn’t even trying to dodge them as he swung his chains with as much force as he could muster into the swirling swarm of monsters. If something didn’t change quickly there was no way that they were going to be able to hold out.

A worried look appeared on Sonia’s face as she and her friends sang the same song that they had used to boost the regen rates of the students last time but it was quickly becoming clear that just that wasn’t going to cut it this time and she stopped singing briefly to issue some orders to the other members of the Bard Guild.

“Alright half of you need to start playing Connell’s Last Stand,” she told them. Connell’s Last Stand was a dwarven dirge that increased the listeners resistance to Mental Attacks slightly. As all of those present were, much like the students below Level 5 this song wasn’t going to be particularly effective especially since not all of them had learned it, but it was better than nothing. Soon the sombre tone of the dwarven dirge also echoed out through the courtyard causing more of the Psionbats to attack the people who were taking cover there, but the attacks were easily blocked by Yuliah’s magical defences and soon the monsters resumed attacking Hal and Kyle.

By the time that they had take out over half of the Psionbats both Hal and Kyle were on their last legs and Yuliah was running out of MP from protecting the other students and healing Kyle and Hal when she could. Kyle’s suppression Aura had long since faded and he was feeling mentally drained from all the attacks that he and Hal had weathered despite the songs that Sonia and the other members of the Bard Guild had been singing. In fact, both him and Hal were swaying on their feet as they struggled to stay conscious and seeing this weakness one of the remaining Psionbats decided that it would try and latch onto Kyle so that it could start draining the Mental Energy from him.

“Oh no you don’t!” Fi shouted casting her new Umbral Fog spell in front of the two young men but to her horror the bat-like monster flew right through the damaging fog and wrapped its body around Kyle who screamed in pain.

Another of the monsters decided that it would attack Hal, but this time was properly intercepted by an unfamiliar figure that looked like it was wrapped in living shadow. The black knife in the figure’s hand perforated the monster’s skull with amazing ease before the figure spun and threw a shadowy dart at the monster that was feeding off Kyle that killed it instantly.

“Sorry we’re late Yuliah,” the figure said calmly as it caught Kyle as he collapsed. “Things were pretty bad outside the city.”

“Well at least you made it in time,” Yuliah replied wearily as two more figures emerged from a nearby shadow, one was a strange furred creature that raised a paw to its mouth as it yawned tiredly and the other was a being that Hal, Amy and Sasha all recognised; the same fairy that had flown past them in the Dungeon.

“It’s good to see you Alistair.”