The day after their Awakening, Arthur and his friends arrived at the same Dungeon Entrance as before, only to see a larger building there now, albeit it looked… plain.

“Oh, it’s you guys… the boss said to look out for you.” The man at the door noted and Arthur’s group was quick to wonder why Shaun was made out to sound like a mob boss, and this guy looked like an enforcer, with his muscled build and shades.

“Um… yeah, right… we want to enter the Dungeon.” Michael spoke out, one of the more outgoing members of their group, and Arthur didn’t mind letting him take the attention.

“Sure, no problem, just go over there to the counter and log in the members of your team, the name of your team, and a rough guess to what time you’re entering.” The man, despite his looks, was well mannered as he opened the door for them, pointing to the counter where a woman sat.

“Uh, thanks.” Michael added as the man nodded with a well-natured smile.

“No problem. Oh, log your time for a bit after you sign, most people entering for the first time stop to check stats for a while first. And respect my sister over there.” The last bit was said half in warning, but otherwise his tone was polite and well-mannered as the group approached the counter.

“Hello, here to log in a Dungeon entry?” the woman at the counter asked; the tag on her uniform reading Ellie Vasquez. That was an amazing surname, Arthur noted.

“Uh, yeah… anything else we’re going to do?” Michael turned to ask as Arthur stepped forward with a bit of thought.

“Yeah, it’s just a question, but does the Guild have primers on using magic?” Arthur felt the need to ask, and Ellie smiled at his question.

“Wow, the boss was right, you all do ask the right questions. Here, it’s a small booklet, but don’t let what it says dictate what you do with magic.” She handed the small four page booklet over as Arthur raised an eyebrow in questioning.

“Magic is split into a few forms apparently, but the one we all use is Soul Magic which is used by Demons as well. Soul Magic works on imagination, but it can’t do specialized things like healing, and it works with pure manipulation of an element.” Ellie explained helpfully as Arthur nodded in thanks, quick to vanish into the book as the rest of the group shook their heads.

“Alright, so you’ll all be entering the first floor. I’m supposed to tell you not to go past the first floor, but you all seem reasonable so it’s implied.” Ellie stated with a warning look as everyone in the group wrote their names, even Arthur, after he got knocked upside the head.

“In addition, take note that it’s best to only level up five times at max before returning, as occasionally Demons appear on the route back, forcing you into the sixth and painful level up.” Ellie continued as they looked at their team, now needing to pick a group name.

“…Ideas? I’m tempted to enter Squad One.” Michael noted and soon the group fell into discussion over names, Arthur still busy focusing on his booklet on magic, before he held his palm out…

Sparks appeared on his hand, capturing the attention of some of the people there, as Arthur looked up, now having the attention on him as he awkwardly looked around.

“…What?” He was a bit lost on what was happening as Emilia explained what was happening.

“We’re busy trying to pick a name for our group… say, what’s your name idea?” Emilia asked, ignoring John’s team name of ‘I don’t want to be here’ and Matt’s ‘Upside Down Teddy Bears’.

“A name for our team?” Arthur asked her, and she nodded as he thought… he hadn’t wanted to say anything too majestic, but before he could stop himself-

“Einherjar.” He spoke, making the group pause, looking at him in explanation for the name as he blushed, wishing his love of mythology hadn’t appeared just then.

“It’s Norse… they’re the great warriors who, upon dying, live within Asgard in preparation for the fight against Ragnarok.” The rest of the group looked interested before Michael spoke up.

“To a vote, Einherjar?” they all raised their hands, making Arthur want to sink into his book a bit more, as Michael nodded, the unofficial spokesperson/leader of the group.

“Right, our team name is Einherjar, the warriors who face Ragnarok.” Arthur was a bit worried over the pretentiousness of their name, but accepted it…

He also wasn’t aware that the reason they were named Ein-her-jar, was because it meant ‘one time warriors’ as in, they relaxed and only fought during Ragnarok… still worked though.

“Alright, since no teams are coming after you, you have quite a bit of time with the access panel, just, try to be done before a half hour.” Ellie reminded them after they wrote the team name down, the leader slot currently being taken by Michael, not that anyone in the group cared really.

Their Adventurer group, Einherjar, was a meritocracy; they had all agreed that whoever had the best knowledge about something was to take over that role. In this case, Michael was a good spokesperson and, with assistance, could convey and make plans very well.

To be a bit orderly about it, Michael was the leader, Matt was the ‘raw instincts and manliness’ guy, Emilia had hunting training so when it came to tracking or something like that, she had best say, John was currently a healer apparently, so injuries were his area, and Alice watched their supplies.

As for Arthur, the group as a whole just let him do as he wanted, he was the one with the most know-how on how role-playing games worked and so understood levels, skills and magic better than anyone else in the group, and his job was to teach them about some of those things.

They entered the access panel room, and one by one went to the panel to check their stuff, no one else capable of seeing what was on the panel while the person using it was busy.

Not that it mattered to Arthur, who noted that he could see it for some reason… but rather not. They were going to write their skills and such down for the group to share anyway, between knowing it now and betraying trust, or knowing it in a minute and keeping trust, the choice was obvious to Arthur.

It was soon his turn and he looked over his information.

Arthur Clive

Level: 1

Class: Linked Swordsman- Grants one stat point to Strength and Wisdom per level

Gives Soul Sight (Unique) Skill

Anima

Dagger of Hunger

Cloak of Will

Anima Skills

Dagger- Devour- Increase Soul Gain by 6.25%

Cloak- Defence- lowers damage taken by 1%

Primary Element: Lightning

Personal Skills

Tactician I (0/50) - increases Wisdom by 10% (total 110%)

Swordsmanship I (0/50) – Increases skill in blade handling

Soul Sight I (1/200) - Allows insight beyond mortality

Stats

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Endurance: 5

Vitality: 5

Arthur noted that his Soul Sight had increased somehow, and that levelling up didn’t have an ‘experience bar’ like most games… then again, that made sense, reality wasn’t a game, despite how the information was laid out.

Arthur had a piece of paper, writing his information down, including that he was one of those few people with two Anima instead of one, and with his new ability, Soul Sight, he now found the implications disturbing.

Once done, the group as a whole compared their information, and Arthur was quite disturbed that his was slightly better than the others, Skill wise.

Michael Grave

Level: 1

Class: Bowman Surveyor- Grants one stat point to Strength and Dexterity per level

Grants Archery Skill and Eagle Eye Skill

Anima

Longbow of Skill

Anima Skills

Elemental Shift- Grant your arrows magic damage based on element

Primary Element: Fire

Personal Skills

Hawk Eye I (2/50) – Enhanced vision, drains stamina

Archery I (0/50) – increases accuracy with ranged weapons

Stats

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Endurance: 5

Vitality: 5

Michael’s was pretty good, but he had one skill less than Arthur, worse, all his skills were granted by his class and Arthur’s apparently only gave him one skill… a disturbing thought.

Not to mention Michael got tired if he used his Hawk Eye skill, and he’d been trying it yesterday for quite a while… that skill was really necessary for a leader though, being able to grasp everything in an area around him…

Plus, he had the Archery Skill, a staple of all ranged fighters not counting magicians, and much like Arthur’s swordsmanship skill, it granted a ‘mini-Skill’ within the skill upon gaining a rank.

For example Arthur could pick between Power Slash and triple stab, Arthur had picked Power Slash for ease of use. Were his swordsmanship skill to rank up, Arthur would get a skill again.

Emilia Vasilievna

Level: 1

Class: Hunter Thief- Grants one stat point to Dexterity and Intelligence per level

Gives Tracking Skill and Dagger Arts Skill

Anima

Bloodletting Daggers

Anima Skills

Shred- increases damage dealt to animal-type enemies, occasionally causes Bleeding

Primary Element: Water

Personal Skills

Quick Reflexes I (0/50)- increases Dexterity by 10%

Dagger Arts I (0/50)- Increases Dagger-type weapon damage

Tracking I (0/50)- Allows tracking of wounded enemies, can be used to map areas, but is not designed to do so.

Stats

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Endurance: 5

Vitality: 5

Emilia had three skills, one of them being the stat skill for Dexterity, which was good for her Class, a combination of a Hunter and Thief, as the name suggests…

Emilia’s Dagger Arts were actually a subset of the Swordsmanship skill focused on dagger use. Unlike Swordsmanship, Dagger Arts can obviously only be used with a Dagger, they’re more focused, while Swordsmanship can be done with Daggers or Great-swords just the same.

Plus, with her tracking skill, she’d make a good… what was the word… Cartographer, that’s it.

John Collins

Level: 1

Class: Shade Healer- Grants one stat point to Wisdom and Intelligence per level

Gives Sneak Skill and Light Scripture Skill

Anima

Enhancing Arts

Anima Skills

Hard Hitting- lets someone deal double damage on their next attack

Primary Element: Mind

Personal Skills

Sneak I (4/50)- grants the ability to blend in with shadows and sneak up on enemies

Light Scripture I (0/50)- Grants Healing Spells, lowers Mana cost

Stats

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Endurance: 5

Vitality: 5

Everyone, everyone laughed at John upon learning his Skills and Class, no exception. Yes, even John laughed at John, wondering why his Sneak Skill seemed to be getting better really quickly.

Otherwise, he was really healing and support focused, his magic element was even Mind, and according to the booklet Arthur was reading, it didn’t do much beyond allowing the user to show illusions, despite being one of three High Tier Elements…

Arthur was pretty sure that wasn’t all there was to that though… an entire Element dedicated to just messing with someone’s head? Probably not, but Arthur wasn’t sure yet.

Matt Jacobson

Level: 1

Class: Wall of Steel- Grants two stat points to Endurance per level

Gives Spatial Recognition (Rare) Skill and Shield Arts Skill

Anima

Shield of Immunity

Anima Skills

Bulwark- ranged attacks against team are redirected towards the shield

Primary Element: Metal

Personal Skills

Stand Strong I (0/50)- increases Endurance by 10%

Shield Arts I (0/50)- decreases Damage taken when blocking

Spatial Recognition I (0/100) - Allows tracking of all things within a five metre radius, causes headaches with long use

Stats

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Endurance: 5

Vitality: 5

Matt wasn’t even humble when it came to his ability as a ‘tank’ character. His Endurance at level fifty, even if he placed no points into it, would reach one hundred and thirteen, not accounting for placing points in the stat or ranking up his Stand Strong skill.

Even better, he was capable of blocking ranged attacks. The enemies, if they could shoot spells or arrows, couldn’t hit anyone else, but only Matt, within limit of course.

Alice did voice out that if it was an Area Of Effect (AOE) attack, then Matt could do nothing, but the group as a whole agreed that wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon.

Alice Grave

Level: 1

Class: Martial Berserker- Grants one stat point to Strength and Dexterity per level

Gives Pain is Gain Skill and Hero’s Strength Skill

Anima (Skill)

The World is a Weapon- grants use of any weapon as if holding a rank I skill of that weapon type

Primary Element: Darkness

Personal Skills

Hero’s Strength I (0/50)- increases Strength by 10%

Pain is Gain I (0/50)- The more damaged, the more powerful the user becomes, causes intense anger

Calm Mind I (0/100)- Keeps a person calm and collected

Stats

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Endurance: 5

Vitality: 5

And then Alice’s stats and skills were shown and… well, Michael, John, Matt and Arthur all had looks as if they hadn’t used a toilet in years.

A Berserker was typically male, and incapable of using any weapons beyond brute force ones such as clubs and the occasional axe, they’d be horrible to fight, especially if they could regenerate health by attacking, becoming a walking example of perpetual motion, hindered by anger.

Alice wouldn’t get that anger, and while only Matt and Arthur seemed to get it, once it was explained, Alice became even scarier in the eyes of the guys in the group… a Berserker capable of using any weapon calmly while destroying armies… insert shiver.

“Well, that’s everything… We all got our roles?” Michael asked as we all looked over the notes, taking about five, ten minutes to check everything.

“Yeah, John is the healer, you’re the sniper, Matt’s the meat-shield, Emilia kills things that are nearly dead and I beat the-” Alice’s next words were interrupted by Michael holding up his hand.

“We… we get the idea Alice. As for Arthur, he has a grasp on magic unlike the rest of us, and he can fight at close range… Arthur, you okay with moving as necessary? Basically, we need you to play mid-fielder.” Arthur nodded, giving thumbs up at the excellent soccer analogy.

“Well… this is all well and good, but do plans survive contact with the enemy?” Emilia raised a good point as Alice shrugged beside her, standing up and using an amazing feature they had discovered about LEV’s… they could store things.

Granted, one would still feel the weight of the stored things, but it was spread equally upon the body, as if underwater. It made moving harder, but not so hard that they couldn’t jump out the way of an attack, much like they could do the same with a bag on their backs.

So everything that was brought was soon stored, mostly boxed lunches which were still warm due to the nature of LEV storage… a feature Arthur was glad for, as he had discovered he had an addiction to spices mixed in with melted cheese on bread.

It was really good in his opinion, and anyone who said otherwise was insane.

Anyway, they soon packed the pages and such they had been using, and moved to the access panel, having gathered a few steps away and Michael touched some stuff, a burning sensation going across their LEV’s, registering them as one team.

Everyone got ready as Michael tapped on the ‘Enter Dungeon’ icon that had appeared on the access panel, and the block of obsidian a bit behind said access panel lit up in a white light.

On their bodies, their equipment appeared, at least, what they could use at the time.

With Michael, his bow had appeared in his hands, no arrows necessary as it generated arrows that disappeared in ten minutes automatically.

With Alice, she removed a sledge hammer from her storage making the males shiver in fear… remember, a Stat of five was standard adult male strength, not seventeen year old female strength… so there was a sense of ‘what am I seeing?’ there.

With Matt, a shield appeared on his arm, a heater shield commonly used by knights, except slightly bigger. In his off-hand, a base-ball bat appeared, not that it would do much damage since it wasn’t boosted by being an item from the Dungeon, an Anima, or a Skill in club use… but it would work.

John had nothing, as he wasn’t a combatant in the first place, but he couldn’t get away with that so a knife was handed to him… those close by could hear him muttering about getting a staff.

In Emilia’s hands, two daggers appeared, still one Anima though, and both were slightly serrated and large bowie knives.

With Arthur on the other hand, a cloak appeared around him, being fastened around his shoulders in a manner similar to a cape, allowing him free movement. Strangely, no matter how he moved, the cloak wouldn’t hinder him, as if…

Arthur wouldn’t go there, the moment the thought of ‘Are Anima’s alive’ comes in, it would get weird.

As for his second Anima, his ‘dagger’ appeared in his hand and he stared at the weapon with a bit of annoyance… because it wasn’t exactly a Dagger… not a modern one. It looked to be made of bone, a good example being the weasel’s dagger in that movie about a mammoth, a sloth and a sabre-tooth tiger.

Trademarks and Copyrights are scary things.

Still, it was a weapon, and its edge was still sharp, and it curved viciously… the Dagger of Hunger…

“…That is creepy.” Arthur looked up from his Dagger to see the rest of the group edging away from the weapon as they looked at it.

“Why?” Arthur’s question was plain, even as they moved towards the dungeon entrance.

“It… It looks like a fang… what is that big?” Michael asked and Arthur looked… right… it was as long as his head, a bit long for a dagger, but still… yeah, if this is a tooth, what was that big?

“Other than that, it feels like… I’m a piece of meat in front of a hungry dog.” John added and Arthur realized that his Dagger had a ‘feel’ to it… one of a hungry animal apparently.

“Well, don’t worry… this is for the enemies.” Arthur twirled the knife around, surprised at his sudden skill with the dagger, before noting that his Swordsmanship Skill must have been helping, not to mention the fact that the Dagger of Hunger was part of him, he’d always use it a bit better than other weapons apparently.

Seemingly mollified by Arthur’s words, the group entered the shining light, and entered the Dungeon for the first time…

They reappeared exiting from an obsidian wall with a white light, the light fading as Arthur stepped through last, noted that the wall stopped shining and that the rest of the Dungeon’s walls seemed to be similar to a cave system… albeit weirdly.

“Emilia are you going to start with the mapping?” Michael asked as Emilia nodded, removing a drawing board and a few rulers and setsquares… Arthur and Emilia had been studying Architecture, of course they used tools to draw… neater that way.

“Okay then. We’ll wait for a moment before continuing.” Michael added as everyone nodded, still maintaining that feeling of ‘something’s going to happen’ while waiting for Emilia to finish the beginning bit of the map.

“While Emilia’s busy, Arthur, got any idea on magic?” Michael asked their resident ‘explanation guy’ as Arthur nodded, holding out his hand and having it spark for a moment.

“Our magic works on imagination and belief, and there are some limits built in that differ depending on the person.” Arthur explained to the group, Emilia working while listening as Arthur continued.

“Magic works with a few key things, imagination being one that allows you to picture your element manipulation. Other than that, knowledge on an element can also influence what you do, and how well you do it.” Arthur explained, adopting a thinking stance before nodding at something.

“Right, an example would be three Fire Element users. All have the same stats, and neither have boosts to their Element from Anima or Skills.” Arthur set the stage for his example, his listeners picturing said example.

“One of them just thinks hot equals fire. So he makes a fireball, but can only launch three.” Arthur decides to practice his mediocre skill in free-hand drawing by using his knife to draw a person in dirt with three balls next to the person, labelling them as ‘1’

“Another thinks that fire is caused by oxidation, and thus attempts to cause electrons in air to vanish, making a fireball appear. His fireball is just as hot as the other, but he can shoot it four times.” Arthur’s next drawing was similar to the first, only different in that another ball was added and it was labelled ‘2’.

“And the third knows about oxidation, but also considers that air contains lots of different gases including nitrogen and oxygen, key elements of a fire. So instead of having to generate these elements, he manipulates them into causing the fire. His fireball forms quicker; and they possibly burn hotter. He can shoot maybe three or four, but he does more damage than the others.” Arthur’s final drawing is once more similar to the others, with larger drawings for the attacks.

“So what you’re saying is that, depending on knowledge, one’s ability with magic will change?” Michael was keen on this lesson, with fire as his element, even if he was a bit lost.

“That’s exactly what I mean. Of course, all the knowledge in the world is worthless if there isn’t enough Mana to make it happen, I know a bit about how lightning bolts form but I can’t make one now.” Arthur explained, and the group nodded, understanding that bit…

To use an analogy, spells were like cars and Mana was like fuel. An old car could go a long way on less fuel, while newer, faster cars required much more.

“Of course, even with knowledge some just wouldn’t work, like John being able to heal us with his mind, it’s because these are structured spells compared to element manipulation.” Arthur frowned at this before noting Emilia standing up; everyone was getting ready to leave.

“So in the end, knowledge only applies to our element manipulation, but to do things beyond science one needs a magic based skill to learn spells.” Arthur finished up, and everyone tried to mess with their element for a moment.

Emilia’s hand dripped a bit of water for a moment, Matt’s seemed to gain a metallic lustre, Michael’s went on fire and…

“Why doesn’t ours work?” Alice complained with John as they began to move, coming up to the first recorded fight in the Dungeon.

“Elements have ranks, and the highest elements are Darkness, Mind and Light. Your element has a greater threshold than ours for powerful spells, but it needs more Mana than you have.”

Alice and John got the idea and they encountered their first enemy… a gelatinous blob of blue that squeaked as it hopped towards them, only being about… if Arthur was to estimate, thirty to forty centimetres tall, and about as wide.

Hey, he wanted to work internationally, and the international unit standards were centimetres, metres, kilograms, etc…

Made him really weird compared to his friends, but he found more order there than the rough guesstimates caused by Inches and Feet.

It’s a problem when even drug dealers need to use the metric system instead of Imperial.

“Right… Slime… how dangerous is that?” John asked absently as Arthur spoke out in warning.

“Pretty dangerous as it’s made up of acidic materials… basically, stick your hand in there long enough and there won’t be a hand left.” John felt a bit of fear at the seemingly adorable little blob as Michael was quick to shoot off an arrow…

It hit the Slime, and Arthur noticed the spark of flames from the red arrow as the Slime burnt a bit, visibly shrinking as Michael shot another arrow, killing it as it squeaked to death, much like one would imagine a teddy bear dying… kind of weird.

There was a feeling of… fullness, Arthur wasn’t quite sure how to explain it, but he could feel something that wasn’t quite right after that thing had died.

The feeling settled down soon after, but he was still a bit disturbed.

Apparently killing ten Slimes would get a level, so ten Slimes… to Michael that meant eighteen more shots.

“Well that was… subpar.” Matt noted, and Arthur sighed at their ease as he walked over to where the Slime died, picking up the tiny gem, a Soul Stone of a Slime.

This was the monetary earning method of Adventurers, selling these stones to people or more notably, the Governments. These stones were capable of providing alternative energy to their dying Earth; some were already experimenting with trying to use them to make phones, power cars, or more.

Even the Adventurer Cards were made out of the stuff, though the lower the quality, the more were needed.

Not many Cards had been made yet, even after a month of the Government hunting through Dungeons, so Arthur and his friends had been quite pleased that the Guild Leader, Shaun, had decided to provide them with some.

“Of course it was Matt, what were you expecting, an epic battle with a dragon to be our first fight in the Dungeon?” Arthur joked as he placed the stone in his ‘inventory’.

“Not exactly, but I was expecting something better than a tiny blob of acid death squeaking.” Arthur conceded the point, Slimes were sad really…

“Well, they are still kind of dangerous; they mostly rely on close combat, by basically jumping on their enemies. They melt things slowly though, and only flesh.” Alice and Emilia seemed happy… with that last bit for some reason… Arthur’s thought of Slimes in Anime came to the forefront and decided yeah, they could be happy that they only dissolved flesh.

“Slimes are pretty weak to magic, but physical attacks barely work on them, it’s why magic is one of the first things people need to learn.” Arthur added as they continued, both liking and disliking his position as Mister Exposition… rhymes, ha.

“Oh… Michael’s best for them then, because his arrows do fire damage.” Emilia added, as Alice frowned as she looked to her hand in annoyance…

“…I can’t use magic…” she complained, but no one blamed her for complaining… it really was annoying for her at first.

“Hey, don’t worry, Slimes are the majority on the first floor but there are Goblins too.” Michael added, knowing of the two Demons who roamed the first floor.

On a side note, there was an argument going about whether or not to call them Demons or Monsters, everyone eventually just agreed they were the same thing as far as the Dungeons were concerned.

“Fine… I find a Goblin I’m braining it to death.” Seeing Alice gently caress the sledgehammer was disturbing for everyone, but Alice’s sense of humour was always a bit vitriolic.

Their group continued, and once they found two more Slimes, Arthur stepped forward, Michael aiming at one of the Slimes as Arthur attacked the other one with his dagger, which was sparking from a bit of electricity left on it…

As he attacked, Arthur made sure to activate his Unique Skill, Soul Sight, as he stared at the Slime, it quivered after just one hit as it died, Arthur’s Dagger of Hunger dealt more damage than Michael’s arrows, but not by much.

The key difference was their elements, as Arthur’s Lightning was effective against the water-like Slimes, and it was a Mid-Tier Element, while Fire was a Low-Tier Element.

So Arthur’s Slime died in one hit, and Soul Sight was already activated, despite his dislike for the skill… not because it was bad, no, it worked precisely as advertised… which was the problem.

Think of X-ray vision. Some people, we know who you are, would love to have it, but others would feel awkward about possessing an ability that caused one to see others in such a way.

Soul Sight was even worse because Arthur saw the core of another person. He couldn’t make out details due to the low ranking of his skill, but he could see it and occasionally gain some information from it.

For instance, when he saw Michael’s soul it was a light red, bordering on pink. One would assume girly, but it flickered between that and dark red, much like a flame would flicker then roar back to life.

From that, he figured he could see people’s Elements even before seeing it in action. It became clearer the longer he stared, but when Michael’s core turned into a bow, with a wall, he knew he had looked to deep and instead looked away… as he was about to see why Michael had gotten a bow for an Anima.

And from what little Arthur could remember about receiving his own, it was a private thing, not something everyone should know.

Soul Sight on Slimes provided some confusion though, as their souls were so… bland, boring. Spherical and… difficult to explain, but their souls looked like an absence of colour. And no, that didn’t constitute as the colour black, as black was the warmest colour due to being a mix of the primaries and their secondary colours.

Clear. That was a better term. It felt like looking at empty glass where one should be seeing a precious gem.

And upon killing the Slime, that crystal shattered, a large amount of it seeming to float away, while a few pieces lingered, one of which flew towards Arthur’s chest and entered as Arthur froze.

He looked to the other pieces, seeing them enter the souls of his companions, as he now noticed the clear pieces sticking to the souls… already it looked like a third of their souls had crystals growing over them, though the crystals were empty.

As for the last lingering piece of the Slime’s soul, it turned into a gem, a gem Arthur had picked up earlier, another Slime Soul Stone.

Arthur walked to the side and felt the urge to vomit, but resisted as he sat on the floor, the rest of the group rushing over to check what was wrong with him.

Upon seeing his normally dull brown eyes shining violet, Michael had already figured what Skill Arthur had been using.

“What did you see man, what happened?” Michael asked, worried about Arthur, who had been his friend since childhood.

“I saw their souls… I saw their souls breaking… I saw our souls eating pieces of theirs.” The reactions varied as Alice frowned, Emilia and Matt paled while John and Michael just froze.

“I…I think that’s how we level up…” Arthur said, shivering as he stood, feeling slightly better now that he had deactivated the skill, his eyes once more gaining his dull look…

It worried Emilia the most, having thought it eerily similar to those blank stares held by those seeing things they shouldn’t have, but according to Michael, even at a young age Arthur had had that look.

“Our souls… they’re like colourful crystal, but they flow like water.” Arthur hinted a bit as he looked to the Soul Stones, glad to no longer see the tiny red gems turn into lumps of clear empty crystal.

“The Slimes, probably the Goblins too, their souls are like empty glass. When we kill them, their soul bursts into pieces, some fade away, and a small amount comes to us and grows on our souls… when we get enough, our souls begin to move toward the extra space, increasing the size of our souls.” Arthur was theorizing a bit towards the end, but he felt sure of his words.

“Okay, Arthur, let’s talk this out.” Emilia said, making the other members of the group blink a bit at her as Arthur nodded and she continued.

“Our souls grow, and we level up. What does levelling up cause?” Emilia asked, and Arthur was quick to respond.

“An increase in ability in the form of five stat points and two predetermined stat point allocations due to our Classes...” he seemed a bit lost towards the end as Emilia nodded.

“Right, now, ignoring Classes for a bit, why would our souls growing give us stats?” Emilia asked, and Arthur looked to be thinking for a bit.

“Our souls… get stronger and stats allow us to decide the growth direction of that strength.” Arthur stated, and by now the rest of the group was watching the byplay with either amused or confused expressions.

“Right, but why would that let us become stronger, faster, or recover quicker?” Emilia could see Arthur was winding down, calming himself from his previous burst of confusion.

“I… I’m thinking… like that saying, strong body provides a strong mind, perhaps it works in reverse with the soul as well, the soul increasing in strength allows the body to increase as well… on the other hand….” He looked a bit thoughtful as Emilia nodded, rolling her hand in a gesture for him to finish his thought.

“On the other hand, our souls might have actual impact on reality, based on our magic… so stat growths might not actually be actually making our bodies stronger. A person with a high Endurance stat can be bullet-proof, but their skin would still feel normal. Meaning it’s not a physical change, but a bleeding effect that somehow lets the soul begin to affect reality when it gets strong enough.” The last bit was very confusing, but Arthur was visibly calmer by the time he was done with his ‘rant’.

“Better?” Emilia grinned at Arthur, her smile a tad too bright for someone of Arthur’s disposition as he had a tired smile at her reaction.

“Better.” He added, now having something else to think about instead of his previously morbid thoughts… oh, they were still there… but he now had an explanation for it.

“Well, that was weird and awesome. Let’s continue… and Arthur, no using that Skill in a fight if it will distract you.” Michael added and Arthur nodded, feeling calmer.

They continued their movement around the Dungeon, walking further into the Dungeon and encountering three Slimes.

When they fought these three, Arthur kept his Soul Sight off, for the moment, as they fought. Alice, despite not being able to do real damage due to her lack of available magic, did help in the fights.

While Slimes required magic damage to do proper damage to them, they could still be hit and moved around an area due to being hit in those directions. Alice’s job was to keep them away from Michael and John, for the moment.

Emilia’s magic had an appearance of its own, as she willed water into existence which covered her blades, before the water rapidly cooled, surrounding her Bloodletting Blades with Ice to deal damage.

Matt, on the other hand, didn’t do much beyond blocking the Slimes from jumping at Arthur or Emilia, and on occasion his baseball bat would shine silver and he’d do proper damage…

Much harder to use metal magic on something your mind is convinced is made of wood. Magic works on belief, and if you believe it impossible, well…

It’s kind of self-explanatory at that point.

Slimes were still weak, despite their group only having three people capable of hurting them, but when they continued after killing the three Slimes, encountering another three, Matt accidentally let a Slime past his shield, letting it impact on his arm, he grunted in pain.

That worried their group as Matt was one of those men. Those guys that think if you flinch from a punch you deserve to get hit on that spot again.

So for him to actually voice out his pain from just a quick touch was enough for their group to know that Slimes actually did do a lot of damage if they hit.

Note the ‘if’ there. Slimes were typically slow, and the only reason this next Slime hit Matt was because Matt had blocked one from hitting Emilia.

The fight ended relatively quickly, their engagements never lasting longer than two minutes, which was already quite a long time… those movies where they talk about how a fight lasts hours?

Lies, because even if the people fighting were strong enough to destroy the world, which just meant their fight would be that much quicker. The only time a fight like that would last so long would be if both were regenerating at rates almost equal to how much damage they were doing to each other.

So following this example, their fights were actually pretty long when one considered that it took Michael roughly five seconds to fire an arrow, and that one could launch two slow but stable attacks with a knife in roughly the same time.

After the fight, Emilia looked at Matt with worry, but did her job as the cartographer for their group while John approached Matt and did his first spell for healing.

“…That’s it? No holy light or mystic chanting?” Matt asked as John basically held his hand over the injury, an already bruised arm, and when he removed his hand the bruise was gone.

“That’s it man. I mean, if I had Light as my element there might have been lights and such, but I’m a Mind-user.” John complained as Arthur looked up from his looking at the map Emilia was drawing.

“Hey, you think it would look different depending on the element? Like Fire would have the wound look like it was burning closed, Water covering it, and so on?” He asked and everyone just shrugged… they didn’t have any other healers so they wouldn’t know.

Healing was possible through every Element even if it didn’t make sense theoretically. But a proper Healer had much better spells in comparison to a warrior trying to heal himself.

Their third fight against a group of three Slimes was much quicker, and safer in comparison to the fight before that, and Arthur even got a chance to test his Lightning magic.

Of course, everyone laughed, including Arthur, at the sign he made with his hand when the weak jolt of lightning left his hand… a classic punk rocker’s devil-horns, aka the Spider-man web-shooting hand sign.

His reasoning was that he was picturing his pointer and pinkie fingers as alternating magnets, sending electrons through the air in front of him.

On a side note, spells couldn’t be created by people, only through magic skills such as John’s Light Scripture Skill. So even if Arthur considered this ability as a ‘spell’ that he knew, it wasn’t actually one unless he gained a skill for it.

It was a bit annoying to Arthur, but he understood the gist of it as they worked on killing the Slimes.

With more than ten Slimes defeated, the group felt their arms burning a bit, signifying that a level had been earned, but they would not become stronger until using the Access Panel.

Using his Soul Sight afterwards, Arthur informed the group that the clear bits of souls were now evenly layered over their souls, looking like their souls were covered in glass casings.

They would have turned around… but Alice had not killed a Goblin yet and refused to leave until they had done so… the group as a whole decided that it should be fine, as they would need to kill one eventually, might as well do it now.

Their next opponents, unfortunately for Alice, were still Slimes, and this time four of them. Arthur weaved through them easily, now knowing their general attack patterns, being thankful for the mindless nature of the Slimes. If they had intelligence, they would fight differently and that would mean trouble for Arthur’s group.

Arthur’s main advantage over the other members of his group, ignoring the Soul Sight Skill and his Animae, was that his pattern recognition ability was really high. A small twitch, the Slime would attack, a wobble, the Slime would instead try to do a lower stabbing-like attack.

Knowing these signs, Arthur could dodge easily as he attacked when able, Emilia and Matt attacking at their leisure… Michael shot an arrow or two…

He didn’t want to shoot more out of worry for hitting one of the vanguards, knowing that despite his sudden skill with a bow, that he was still new to that fighting method.

The fight ended with the group praising Arthur for his dodging skills, making Arthur scratch the back of his head in embarrassment.

The group stopped to eat for a bit, having taken their time to move through the different corridors, on occasion ending up at dead ends and getting annoyed, but accepting it.

After eating, the group moved forward and finally encountered their first Goblin…

Before Arthur or Michael could warn her, Alice was already upon the ugly green creature which stood at roughly a metre, ninety centimetres tall, wearing a loincloth with tribal tattoo’s and holding a tiny club.

The creature swung at Alice, who swung her own sledgehammer at the club instead of the creature, the sledgehammer going through the club and breaking it, to the shock of everyone watching… well, except Alice, who ignored it and continued on to spin the hammer into position to slam it on the poor Goblin’s skull.

The one hit did not kill the Goblin, but it was most certainly heavily injured and would die out on its own anyway, considering its cracked skull with blood pouring out slightly… Alice ignored that and took a second hit just to be sure.

After becoming really sure that Alice was secretly very violent beneath her amiable exterior, the Goblin faded away leaving its Soul Stone.

“That was so nice… finally killed something!” No one had the heart to tell Alice that she was scarier than the Goblin, and even if they could they wouldn’t… it would be too dangerous.

Unknown to any in their group, even Arthur, was that none of them felt anything truly wrong with what had just occurred, despite the gore and disturbance… and that in itself was wrong.

It would be much later when they would notice this though. By then, the only thing that would possibly disgust them would be witnessing a soul cannibalizing another, much like Arthur was attempting to get used to seeing.

They would run into another two Goblins before deciding that they had enough, the next two Goblins being taken out by Michael, Alice and Matt, while Arthur and Emilia handled the other one.

By the end of it all, they had returned to the Dungeon Entrance to level up to level two, and distribute their stats, the group finding that travelling a certain distance, then having to turn around and come back was annoying and boring.

At the access panel, Arthur chose to raise all his stats to six, and Wisdom to seven due to that stat giving Mana regeneration and being boosted by his own Tactician skill. Everyone else did pretty much the same, agreeing with Arthurs Soul Sight telling him that creating an imbalance in stats would lead to an imbalance in the soul, not something nice.

Not to say they couldn’t focus on certain stats, but only when their souls wouldn’t be at the verge of tipping over, something he would know since he could see how different stat placements affected the soul.

Michael and the others noted that, were Arthur to make what he knew public knowledge, a lot of researchers would be happy… Arthur agreed, but only to certain groups.

They had soon handed their Soul Stones over, receiving five dollars per Slime Stone, and ten per Goblin Stone, leaving them with one hundred and ten dollars total…

A nice amount, but not enough to make a living off of… luckily for them, it wasn’t so simple, as they’d eventually make their way to lower floors, and fight stronger monsters to get more money, simple as that.

Rather than that though, Ellie had needed to call Shaun himself when Arthur had come forward with knowledge pertaining to how levelling up worked, as well as why it happened. He had been separated from his team for a private conversation when Shaun had appeared to talk.

The conversation was really tense for some reason unknown to Arthur, and when Shaun’s own eyes shone green for a moment, Arthur had realized that Shaun had a ‘sight’ skill of his own.

“It’s my Anima. It lets me see things about a person… I can’t see your Soul Sight Skill though, so I’ll assume it has a rating higher than Rare, since I can see those too.” That had been terrifying information for Arthur, knowing that someone could get a much more concrete understanding of an enemy than himself.

After his explanation though, he was assured that his team would gain a large monetary reward for explaining so many phenomena their scientists had been wondering about... the money would likely be around sixty thousand, split six ways. Not a huge amount, but good earnings for just seeing things in Arthur’s opinion…

Though Arthur could have done without Shaun requesting Arthur use the skill on Shaun… witnessing a strange glowing eye in the centre of Shaun’s chest was glaring at him was scary, especially because the whole soul acted as the eye, and it seemed to be split between three colours, yellow sparks of lightning, and white light... and green flames.

The last bit didn’t count towards any element Arthur knew of, so he just considered it a part of his Anima itself as he practically ran away from the glaring animal like eye.

Seeing souls had brought up some curiosity on his own soul though, so he wanted to check his own out when he got home…

He was waylaid by his parents, Markus Clive and Julia Clive, as well as his younger siblings, Dennis and Angelica.

During dinner, Arthur had been forced to talk about his time in the Dungeon, and had eventually breeched the topic about souls, wishing he’d never mentioned it when he saw the gleam in his parents eyes, as both minored in Psychology.

“It changes the way Psychology could be done, if all psychologists could get that ability… not that it seems possible…” Markus complained at that last bit, Markus and Julia had both had their own Awakenings but Soul Sight was Unique.

After discussing it a bit more, Arthur went to his room and tried to go to sleep… finding himself incapable of it, he finally gave in and went to the mirror, activating Soul Sight.

He immediately left the room for the bathroom and decided that there was nothing wrong with vomiting up his dinner after seeing that… Souls shouldn’t be cracked or missing pieces…

Let alone look like the pieces were grinding together like glass.

Arthur Clive

Level: 2

Class: Linked Swordsman- Grants one stat point to Strength and Wisdom per level

Gives Soul Sight (Unique) Skill

Anima

Dagger of Hunger

Cloak of Will

Anima Skills

Dagger- Devour- Increase Soul Gain by 6.25%

Cloak- Defence- lowers damage taken by 1%

Primary Element: Lightning

Personal Skills

Tactician I (2/50) - increases Wisdom by 10% (total 110%)

Swordsmanship I (2/50) - Increases ease of weapon handling

Soul Sight I (9/200) - Allows insight beyond mortality

Stats

Strength: 6

Dexterity: 6

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 7

Endurance: 6

Vitality: 6