I wonder… do you remember the colour, the smell, the texture? Do you remember the blood?

Arthur shot to a seated position from his previous position of sleeping, deep breaths and sweat hinting at the shock he felt as he woke up…

He had dreamed again, again it was that dream… he hadn’t known how to take it, and did what he had been doing since he was twelve.

Ignore them.

He got up, showered, dressed, and checked the time. Around seven, still early… but that was fine, Arthur always kept something to do when he was a bit off.

He looked over to his computer, something which he wastefully left on all the time, but since he paid for his own electricity, he didn’t quite care.

Out of sight, out of mind problems, but it was honestly wasteful… were it not for Chronos.

Strange as it was, the climate of the world was fixing itself, slowly, but it was noticeable, and it began to focus those changes around Dungeon Entrances… so they were essentially climate control.

Not only that, lots of other problems were slowly being solved, all around the world, with Lightning mages getting paid to be human generators, and Wood mages growing crops, and so on.

Really, magic, and those climate control devices, it was like Chronos was giving them a method to slowly solve their problems…

That was the problem, Arthur thought, if Chronos solved their problems, they’d have little reason to fight him other than for vengeance for all those who had died… so yes, they’d still fight, but Chronos was having resources as his main lure for people to fight him… that and controlling Hell, which was in itself a bit sketchy.

So it was likely that there was a limit, and one was already found in Mana, it took people a while to regenerate, and for some reason, using magic outside the Dungeons took up more than normal.

Generate electricity for a light bulb, you’d be tired, fry the brain out of a Goblin’s ears, you’d be ready to go for more.

…Arthur looked at his hands and clenched them at that last thought. His, uh, tendencies were become a bit more shown, ever since they had begun going into the Dungeon…

He had his ‘theories’ as usual, but he just wanted to wait for once…

That being thought, he looked to the saved word document on his computer, which listed enemies and what he had found out about them, as well as notes on his own teammates.

He just scanned through it; already knowing most of what was written, seeing as he’d written it himself, and once done he checked the time. Still around half past seven…

The nineteenth of January, a Sunday… he was awake too early.

He decided to leave, knowing their team would meet up around eight, as usual.

“Hello Arthur, going to the Dungeon?” Arthur blinked a bit in surprise at his mother standing in the kitchen… she was not usually awake yet…

“Hello mom, yeah, going to go ahead for now. We’re approaching floor eight, and we’ve found a new enemy.” Arthur informed his mother, even as he took a lunch box from her with a wry smile.

“Oh? Is it another Lantern? Do you think that the ‘boss’ would be a Lantern of some kind?” Arthur listened to his mother’s question with a thoughtful face.

“Probably… I mean, we’ve encountered Squires, Knights, and recently Archers… and we saw another one, didn’t get a chance to scan it yet though.” Arthur still recalled seeing the massive form in the distance and their group had decided to leave it alone.

“With so many ‘Lantern’ enemies, I’d assume the enemy controlling that Dungeon to be a Lantern of some kind.” Arthur added, and his mother hummed, even as Arthur got his helmet and waved.

She didn’t notice his eyes changing to violet for a moment, even as Arthur winced and walked away…

Well, her soul was cracked too… it had become instinct to look upon others souls, even if it violated their privacy, it taught him a lot, and helped increase his skill.

Speaking of which, some were close to being ‘full’, so he could assume a skill rank up or something.

They were all quite new to how LEV’s worked, but they seemed to make themselves appear in video game format for ease of understanding, so it would make sense for skill increases to be a part of it.

He’d have to see at the end of the day… but he already knew what his stats from the day before were, so he didn’t care enough, as he climbed onto his motorcycle.

Considering his father was a Neurologist with a minor in Psychology, and his mother was a specialist in Sports Medicine with a minor in Psychology, it made sense that his family was well off, which is why he had a superbike instead of a moped or something.

It was a strange aspect of his life, Arthur considered, that he disliked drawing attention, disliked talking to strangers, disliked crowds, there were so much things he disliked, and yet he’d occasionally do something that went against those things…

Such as owning a superbike when it drew attention he disliked.

Occasionally people would stop and stare a bit at his motorbike and the only thing that made him happy was that he had a helmet for moments like those… it kept people from knowing who he was, faceless, unknown…

Some people think masks are cowardly things to hide behind… Arthur thought differently. He felt masks were there to protect the wearer from the world on the other side occasionally.

But when he arrived at the Dungeon, he knew the helmet that protected him would have to go, people liked talking face to face after all…

Arthur liked that as well, but only with people he knew.

After placing his helmet into his Inventory, he moved towards the Guild, knowing they’d be willing to put up with him researching for a while.

And as usual, Dante was already at the door, a ‘guard’ for the Guild, despite the fact that every Guild member was at the very least level ten.

In fact, Dante should be level fifteen at least, possibly even higher… Dante greeted Arthur easily enough, finding Arthur to be interesting to talk to when they did.

The only confusion in the minds of Dante and his sister was that Arthur and Shaun disliked being in each other’s presence for any long period of time, for what reason they were unsure of, but it really seemed like they disliked each other despite their similarities.

“Arthur, Arthur!” Arthur stared up from his book, only to find Matt smirking at his confused expression as he moved the book in Arthur’s hands towards the table.

“Man, deep in your books as usual… how come you didn’t get a Mage Class or something?” Matt asked half-jokingly as Arthur shrugged, looking to the book and deciding that a study on the interactions between elements needed to be written considering how little information was given in the book.

It didn’t even mention that some Elements had additive effects to others, notably Metal and Mind magic were primarily supportive magic to other Elements, though they could obviously be used on their own.

Then again, it had only been about a month and a half since Red Sky Day, so they’ve only had magic for a month and a half. It takes time to have comprehensive understanding.

And really, Arthur had found this out by accident when Matt’s spell to strengthen his sword attracted Arthur’s lightning to it, creating a really sharp sword which paralyzed enemies hit.

Matt hadn’t gotten a good blunt weapon yet, safe to say.

It only lasted a few seconds, but it was awesome while it worked, and proved that some elements could enhance others, though obviously opposing elements would never have that kind of connection.

“I’m not sure myself… but I guess that’s mostly because my Anima is a bladed weapon.” Arthur gestured to his Dagger of Hunger which materialized in his off hand.

Once in a while Arthur would stop and stare when people materialized their Animae, for it was quite beautiful to look at, if a bit commonplace now, seeing motes of light seemingly gather to a location before forming into a weapon, armour, or accessory.

“Your skills and Anima are decided by your soul, your magic is more decided by innate personality traits, but still… everything a person is, according to LEV at least, is based on our desires and personality.” Arthur added, and Matt just scratched his head at the words of their ‘scientist’.

“If you say so man… that conversation got high level quickly…” Matt had nothing truly against that part of Arthur’s way of speaking; he just liked thinking simple, even if he could understand the more complex things.

“Sorry about that Matt… there are just so many new things…” Arthur’s smile couldn’t be hidden even if he wanted to, and Matt chuckled at that look of excitement on his friend’s face.

“Nice to see some wanderlust in the world. Not worth much, but eh, at least it’s there.” And that look on Arthur’s face vanished as they looked at the man standing in a suit opposite their seat.

This didn’t stop Matt from smirking as he leaned over to take said man’s hand in greeting of course.

“Shaun, how you doing boss man?” Shaun just ignored the reaction of Arthur and gave a small smile as he shrugged.

“For the most part, everything is alright as a Guild Leader, though paperwork is annoying… there are some other problems, but nothing an Adventurer needs to worry about.” Shaun looked particularly angry at that last bit as Arthur caught on to that bit of emotion.

“What’s happened? Anything we can help with?” Despite not liking Shaun that much, Arthur was aware that was just a personality issue, not anything to do with Shaun and his official role.

“It’s nothing… no… actually, maybe you can help a bit.” Shaun seemed to decide something as he nodded to himself after thinking over his words.

“You see, as a Guild Leader, my job isn’t just to monitor the levels of all adventurers and check the requests given by production groups, but also to ensure that Adventure-related issues don’t occur beyond the Dungeon.” Shaun said something a bit strange there, Arthur noted, but waved it off.

“And well… tell me, what do you think happened to wars and fights after the Red Sky Day and when the Dungeon began being opened to the public? Do you think they increased, decreased?” Shaun asked as Matt frowned.

“Wouldn’t they have decreased, I mean, we have an enemy in Chronos now don’t we?” Shaun sighed at Matt’s answer before he spoke out.

“You aren’t wrong, but you’re not exactly right either. All wars and bits of combat stopped entirely. This was because of the sudden population drop firstly, but then the Dungeon Entrances appeared, and humans became capable of some amazing stuff with their new power.” Shaun stated, and Arthur was not too surprised, obviously a large portion of those who died were military due to their fighting against the Demons on Red Sky Day.

“But anyone who knows the world of the military is aware that this is merely the calm before the storm. To be exact, the entire world has likely entered something similar to the Cold War, in that a brand new arms race has begun.” Arthur’s eyes widened as he spoke out in realization.

“Adventurers… but Adventurers aren’t tied to their countries though?” Arthur asked as Shaun rolled his eyes, knowing that while the person he was talking to was kind of intelligent, he didn’t quite know everything he was talking about.

“No they aren’t, but tell me, who is the strongest Adventurer?” Arthur almost replied with his own team, knowing that he hadn’t seen any other team with people at level eleven, but then held his tongue.

“…It’s you or one of the other Guild Leader’s, isn’t it?” Arthur asked as Shaun nodded solemnly, acknowledging that he was the strongest human being currently.

“Yeah… oh don’t get me wrong, we don’t go into the Dungeon nearly as much as your team does, so you’ll probably overtake us eventually… but are we Adventurers actually?” Shaun asked as Matt shook his head.

“No, you’re the Guild Leader, you work for the government, so unlike Adventurer’s, you’re tied to this country… you’re a soldier.” Matt and Arthur looked at each other with worry at this revelation as Shaun nodded with a sigh.

“Indeed. Every Guild Member you see when you come here, from Dante at the door to his sister at the counter, are soldiers or intelligence officers, with the Guild Leader as their commanding officer.” That… was quite scary for Arthur and Matt, knowing that they were within what amounted as a technical military base.

“Don’t worry about that though, you weren’t wrong about Adventurer’s not being tied to their countries, so you’re safe, I do my job and you all do as you will.” Shaun stated, looking around for a moment as he seemed to reach behind him removing… a flask?

“…It isn’t even in the afternoon…” Arthur stated as he just stared at the Guild Leader who grinned in return.

“I haven’t slept in two days, its afternoon all the time now.” Arthur couldn’t even refute the man as he took a swig of the flask…

If Arthur or Matt knew that the man was drinking fifty year old whiskey that cost over forty thousand dollars like it was water, they would be certain that life was unfair.

“Anyway, where was I… oh right, my problem. You see, the police forces are a bit short in ability when it comes to people with LEV’s, so Guild Leaders are the main force for situations where an Adventurer catches on shit outside the Dungeon.” Shaun reminded as he took another sip of his insanely expensive whiskey.

At least the man in cardinal red knew Shaun’s tastes.

“And now we’ve got one of the worst types of Adventurer catching on shit, worse, I don’t know who it is.” Shaun admitted as Arthur and Matt had to wonder what this person did…

Before Shaun could continue explaining though, Michael, Alice, Emilia and John arrived, so Shaun just shrugged and decided to continue without explaining to the latecomers.

“Your two friends will catch you four up later. Anyway the guy I’m talking about is a serial killer.” That caused their whole team to flinch, even without a backstory it was ingrained into practically all humans that serial killers were insane, evil, or some variation of the two.

Shaun didn’t voice that he found that hypocritical for them to immediately think that, but then look at soldiers in admiration… because while serial killers did what they did for whatever reason, at least soldiers killed for survival… most times.

“The only reason we know it’s a LEV user is because of the circumstances of the deaths. The victims all died in different ways, but a common point is that all victims had their spines turned to metal and have a stab wound at the top of the skull.” Shaun said it in a matter of fact manner, so Arthur almost missed the hint of disgust in Shaun’s voice towards the end.

“Now obviously, turning bones into metal is the domain of magic, namely the Metal element obviously, although there were other reasons to believe it was a LEV user, like the required strength to inflict some of the injuries.” Shaun reminded the group, the four latecomers wondering what kind of conversation they just walked into.

“Anyway, this guy, who we have no name for because we’re not in some cop-show, is the reason I’ve gotten so much paperwork. He already has at the very least fifty kills to his name… and he started before the Dungeons opened to the public.” This caused Arthur to widen his eyes as he spoke out his thoughts.

“So wait, either this serial killer is actually a part of the government… or he somehow has access to a Dungeon Entrance that is unknown to the government?” Arthur asked as Shaun snapped his fingers at the second option.

“That one, that one is likely the cause of our issue. In major cities like L.A, New York and Washington we easily know where every Entrance is, but outside of civilization like the national parks? We’re not sure.” Shaun sighed and ruffled his hair in annoyance, taking another sip of his drink before the flask was snatched out of his hand.

“Boss… drinking… again?” Shaun almost looked pale as Dante, the doorman of the Guild, stared down at the Guild Leader.

“Dante, man, come on, it was just a bit…” No one witnessing this mentioned that he completely looked like someone caught sniffing cocaine.

“Right, sure, and you don’t have more hidden on you or in your office? I’m sure your wife would be happy to hear about this.” Team Einherjar stared at Shaun with surprise on their faces at this, wondering who would marry that guy.

He wasn’t bad looking exactly, but he was always slightly untidy, and apparently a near alcoholic or something…

“No! Man you can’t tell her, please, for the love of all creation don’t tell her, she’ll kill me!” All the men in team Einherjar vowed to respect whatever woman he was speaking of, while the two girls decided to meet her and possibly get some tips, especially Emilia…

What, she was aware of how similar Arthur and Shaun were. Shaun was like Arthur if Arthur was more comfortable with himself… and lazy and possibly alcoholic. So obviously this woman who was Shaun’s wife definitely had some way of getting through to him.

“Then I need you to stop drinking while at work man. Besides, our hunt is scheduled to happen in an hour.” The other team in the room just looked to Shaun in confusion as he stood with a sigh, holding out a hand as Dante placed the flask in his hands.

“Fine, I won’t drink, for now. Get the rest of the team together, are our stand-ins here?” Shaun asked as Dante nodded.

“Yes, our stand-ins are here, I’ll go get the others. Ellie! We’re diving!” Ellie, the counter-lady and Dante’s sister, smiled as she did a small fist pump in glee.

“Yeah, finally, was getting tired of night-shifts.” She said as she walked away, leaving Dante to walk away and Shaun to look at his flask with longing, before pocketing it.

“Wait, you normally go into the Dungeon at night?” Alice asked as Shaun nodded with a smirk.

“Yep, it’s why I drink during the day. We guild-employees are basically vampires. We do our stuff at night, then during the day we rest and help you guys out. Night time for fighting, day time for resting and small jobs.” He explained, though he shook his head towards the end.

“That can’t keep going on though, we’re humans too, despite our higher stats, we need rest. So a rotation system is being set up, we get lower levelled stand ins to work the Guild while we’re levelling.” Shaun explained as he gave a small salute to the team.

“Good luck with your dive.” Shaun walked towards the entrance room, and Arthur’s team decided to wait for a bit until Shaun’s team had left…

From what they knew, the team consisted of Shaun, Dante, Ellie, and two others, forgoing the sixth member of their team for an unknown reason, something about said team member busy studying for exams?

Anyway, while Shaun did his thing, Arthur and their team discussed their stats and skills, noting that all of them were close to levelling up at least one skill.

After ten minutes, they walked to the counter, finding a new secretary who obviously didn’t know their team, just blandly asking for them to fill the form.

As usual, the leader of the team was still considered to be Michael, despite Arthur being the one they wanted to pick, the man wouldn’t accept the role just yet.

They soon entered the Dungeon, and began their usual trail through the place, every member of their group was thankful for Emilia’s ability with Cartography, enough that it had apparently become a skill for her upon reaching level ten.

By now though, Arthur was suspicious of the Dungeon and its monsters, especially as they came across floor seven, fighting the Lantern Knights.

To describe, they were similar to Lantern Squires in the sense that they seemed to be floating armour filled with fire, possessing an obvious weak point in the form of glass plating on their chest with a fire pulsing inside their chests similarly to a heart.

The difference between the Squires and Knights were that the Knights were slightly faster, and carried a shield instead of just one-handing a sword for a fight.

Beyond that, they were pretty much the same… every one of them. And that was messing with Arthur, and this allowed his friends to catch his confused look.

“Arthur, what’s up?” John asked, and Arthur looked up, his eyes flashing violet for a moment as he used Soul Sight to see the pieces of souls which entered their own.

They were approaching level twelve and even Alice who had originally been behind on levels was catching up, even if she was only about halfway to level twelve in comparison to the rest of the group.

“Not to jinx us, but the Dungeon… isn’t it too easy?” Arthur asked, confusing the group as he decided to clarify.

“Think about it, using my Soul Sight, I can see that our enemies have empty souls… they fight in set patterns, unchanging, they don’t adapt, they aren’t alive. We’re basically fighting puppets.” Arthur explained as Alice caught on.

“Why would Chronos invade us with only puppets… it’s like… isn’t this like a game tutorial? Where the monsters are simple to fight, allowing you to figure out the mechanics before everything really kicks off?” Alice asked as Arthur frowned.

“If that really is the case… then floor ten should be where this ‘tutorial’ ends. I just can’t accept that fighting would constantly be like this.” In hindsight, everyone else in their group agreed with Arthur’s observations.

Chronos managed to kill over a billion people in twelve summative hours across the world. Why would his soldiers therefore be this… weak?

It didn’t make sense and it was a thought that would stay with their team for a while now, even as they continued to fight of the Lantern’s and their variations.

The most annoying, for the group they felt, were the Archers. Like the other Lanterns, their weapons were denoted by their names, and in this case they carried crossbows which shot metallic stakes at the group.

Needless to say if the thing even hit them they’d be in for a lot of pain, as Alice, Matt and Arthur could attest to, each having been hit somewhere, luckily not the chest or head.

Of course, the group had their own Archer, Michael, and he picked off Archers before they could let loose their bolts, but there were occasionally more than one Archer, and Michael wasn’t some super-being capable of shooting more than one arrow at the same time or killing two enemies with one shot.

It was understood though, that Matt should be the one to take the hits if possible, as he felt way less damage and pain from getting attacked like that, due to his absurd Endurance stat which was currently at twenty seven in comparison to his other stats, which were all at sixteen currently, due to Matt’s very easy point distribution.

Just put one point in everything except Endurance, because Endurance would solve itself.

Less hassle compared to everyone else who had to micromanage, considering what points to put where each time.

In comparison, only Arthur and Alice had stats higher than twenty, like Matt, but in Arthur’s case it was because Wisdom got a multiplier effect, and for Alice it was her Strength boosting skill.

So yeah, Matt was really tank-like, not to mention his Bulwark skill. If any bolts flew close enough, they’d curve towards him, allowing him to block the attacks for other people.

The issue was that Bulwark only had a certain range, as learned when Arthur and Alice got hit, if they were a certain distance away from Matt they’d still get hit as the effect from Bulwark wouldn’t activate.

So around Lantern Archers, it was best for everyone to stay in a certain radius from Matt, otherwise they are liable to have a small hole in them.

“Okay, after we go to the next floor, we turn around and head back, we’re all close to level twelve and I want us to get into floor eight as strong as we can be at the time.” Michael added as they approached where they estimated the stairs were.

Of course, they were blocked by the newest Lantern, and the reason why their group hadn’t decided to descend to floor eight yet.

As they approached, the name of the being was known to them, due to their LEV’s acting similar to a HUD when they encountered enemies.

There was no life bar, or mana bar or anything like that obviously, it’s just they’d suddenly know things about stuff they were looking at, and in this case, they were staring at a Lantern Brute.

“Damn that thing looks like someone made a suit of armour for the hulk.” John’s statement was unanimously agreed to, when they approached close enough for the thing to ‘see’ them and flex its hands in preparation for a fight.

There was no signal to start the fight, but Michael made an impromptu one when he launched an arrow, starting the fight as he began to call out orders.

“This thing has some serious plating on its chest, my arrow did next to nothing, we’re going to need to hit it really hard to kill it!” Michael called out as the thing charged forward, aiming a fist as the closest enemy, namely Alice.

She responded by jumping back in time for Matt to take her place, slamming his shield forward into the fist, causing both him and the Brute to stumble back from the shock.

“It hits hard guys, blunt force, so as long as we aren’t hit a lot, or on the head, we’ll be fine!” Matt called out after tanking another blow, giving an opening for Emilia to slash its back, trying to get its attention.

“Okay, it’s pretty slow, but not as slow as it looks… guys, we’re playing keep-away!” Arthur said after a moment of staring at it, and the group got the idea quickly.

The thing was huge, could tank hits and dealt heavy damage, but it was slow. Granted, they had to make sure that they dodged or Matt was there to block, but otherwise they simply had to keep attacking one spot.

The weak spot all Lanterns seemingly had, that giant glass casing on its chest.

Arthur in particular was having some success in comparison to the rest of the group when it came to dealing damage, due to a combination of his magic type and his Dagger, which got stronger with him as he levelled up.

Next was Alice who was using a sledge hammer currently, having been using an axe against Goblins and Slimes due to their more fleshy nature.

But against a Lantern, which was essentially an empty suit of armour, the sledgehammer worked better, as in blunt force trauma worked better.

You usually use a hammer to break glass, not a knife, which made sense, the only reason Arthur was doing more damage was because Lightning magic was suited for piercing attacks and that’s what he was using his dagger for, when he got the chance.

Emilia’s daggers weren’t cutting it (pun not intended actually) but she was capable of being a diversion for Arthur and Alice, taking the ‘aggro’ of the Brute allowing Alice and Arthur to get a breather before trying to attack again, basically she was working defence with Matt.

Those three were the main attackers while everyone else worked on just keeping the Brute from killing them, half on offence, half on defence.

The battle wasn’t an overly difficult one, more tedious because of a lack of damage… at least until the first major crack appeared on the Brute’s glass heart.

With a bellow, the thing seemed to scream fire into the air as its chest began to gain more cracks, and immediately Arthur called out to the team seeing something strange.

“Get back, it might be doing a suicide move!” Arthur’s warning wasn’t right… it wasn’t wrong either.

The thing’s armour seemed to shrink as heat escaped from the very cracked chest, and then it rushed forward, faster than it was before as it hit Alice in the stomach, sending her flying back and into John before anyone realized what just happened.

“Alice!” Michael moved to protect his downed sister even as Arthur moved in the opposite direction, rushing towards the smaller Brute, now getting a vague idea of what was going on.

“Someone, pass me the hammer!” Arthur shouted as Matt stepped forward to block a swing from the Brute, getting pushed back even more than he had before as Michael threw the hammer at Arthur.

If Arthur was right, and he was pretty sure he was, this was going to be awesome, especially given that John saw what he was doing and used the first skill of his Anima, Hard Hitting, on Arthur to double the damage of his next attack.

He almost dropped the hammer as he caught it, slightly mitigating the awesome factor, but using that momentum he spun and managed to hit the Brute straight in the chest, breaking through the previously tough glass extremely easily, sending the Brute stumbling back as its armour began to vanish, leaving behind a Soul Stone.

“Hey, John, Alice okay?” Arthur asked as he walked back, seeing Alice puking bits of blood and vomit out onto the floor as John focused his healing ability on her.

“She’ll be fine, internal injury, but fine. If it weren’t for magic she’d need immediate medical attention though.” John admitted as Alice visibly began hacking and coughing a bit less overtime.

“Alright, I had to use two heals on her, but at current I can only use five a day so I recommend we go back.” John, as the healer, was quite aware of when their expeditions had to be cut short due to injury.

His skill, Light Scripture, allowed him to pick a healing spell and learn it, though at level one the skill only allowed him to pick a basic ‘heal’ spell.

It apparently healed based on John’s Intelligence, while the amount of uses he got were based on Wisdom. He started out with two uses, and his Wisdom was over twenty now, giving him three more.

It seemed to Arthur as if it worked as 1 heal per five points in Wisdom, John wasn’t certain on that yet though.

“Right… well, most of us reached level twelve now, and Alice should reach it on the way back. That, and the damage she received should boost her strength by quite a bit actually…” Arthur said, looking to Alice who was gargling water and spitting out the remaining bile and blood.

“Yeah… I got the vague feeling like I could punch through a wall. Probably isn’t that amazing though.” Alice stated as she clenched and unclenched her fists.

“Right. I forgot, but we really should train your skills a bit more Alice, with John’s help of course.” Arthur said, confusing the two as Alice finally stood up and they began to walk back.

“Right, basically what I’m saying is that Alice should get an injury on purpose, not a debilitating one obviously, and then continuously fight with it. That would grow her Pain is Gain skill, and her Calm Mind skill which would counteract the negative effects of the first skill.” Arthur said as Michael frowned, not liking the idea of his sister being hurt, even for training.

“Arthur, I’m not a masochist, that sounds horrible.” Alice said with a disturbed look on her face as Arthur shrugged.

“I wasn’t saying it had to be done. I’m just saying that you don’t get injured often, and because of that the only skill you really train is your stat boosting one.” Arthur reminded.

“And the reason I’m included is to heal her in case we get into a fight that needs her at full strength right?” John asked, getting a nod from Arthur.

“That’s the idea, but it is admittedly disturbing to put into practice. In a video game, it’s what I would do, but this is real life after all.” Arthur reminded everyone, but most importantly he was reminding himself that not everyone could train their skills in such a harsh way.

His own were easily trainable in his opinion, Tactician levelled from thinking out plans and discussing them with people, having people move according to his advice/orders granted experience for the skill.

Swordsmanship levelled up just by him fighting with his Dagger of Hunger or his Lantern Sword, and his Soul Sight was something he used often to check the ‘experience’ gained by his group and when they were close to levelling up.

“Maybe after I put a couple point in Endurance, but not before.” Alice allowed, and Arthur didn’t quite understand why they were trying to make concessions for his strange advice.

It wasn’t much of an issue on their way back as they allowed Alice to kill as many enemies as she wanted, pushing her over to level twelve as well after the third Lantern Knight they encountered on the way back.

After getting back to the Dungeon Entrance they were allowed a moment with the access panel to level themselves up for the next time they entered the Dungeon.

Arthur’s skills had all increased, with the exception of his Soul Sight Skill unfortunately…

Arthur Clive

Level: 12

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 7.5%

Dagger- Rend- Damage to living beings increases by 1%

Cloak- Defence- lowers damage taken by 1.5%

Cloak- Wise One- Increases Wisdom by 5% (total 120%)

Primary Element: Lightning

Personal Skills

Tactician II (0/100) - increases Wisdom by 15% (total 120%)

Swordsmanship II (0/100) - Increases ease of weapon handling

Soul Sight I (91/200) - Allows insight beyond mortality

Dual Wielding I (20/50) – Allows use of a weapon in each hand

Stats

Strength: 19

Dexterity: 20

Intelligence: 15

Wisdom: 20 (24)

Endurance: 15

Vitality: 18

His Wisdom jumped a bit after he placed his points, going up by five cumulative points even though only three went into it. This was due to his Tactician skill levelling up to Tactician II which increased his percentage to 15% for Wisdom from the skill alone.

Going by this, at level ten, or X as it were, his Wisdom would increase by roughly 55% or 50% to make it neater? Whichever happened, it would boost his Wisdom by quite a bit.

As for his other stats, they all increased by at least one point with the exception of Intelligence, which he rarely bothered with.

His manipulation of lightning, as what he did wasn’t spells but element manipulation, was something that was tiring the longer he did it, so his Wisdom stat was supposed to mitigate that effect.

It did seem like Wisdom was actually a percentage, with each point corresponding to 0.1% of his recovery rate for ‘mana’.

Following this, it seemed that if someone had one thousand points in Wisdom, their magic could go from empty to full in a minute.

Arthur doubted that he would see something like that for a very long time, and probably only when near whatever level cap might exist.

Certainly not one hundred, as he doubted someone could kill Chronos with only a total of roughly 700 stat points and some skills, let alone take over Hell alone like he did.

No, like Arthur said in the Dungeon… this was only the tutorial before the real ‘war’ would begin…

Hopefully they were ready by then.