After slightly longer than half a minute, Degritone spotted a party of goblins. They were heading in a direction that would make them miss Grimey Gulch by a few hundred feet, but that could change, given that that was close enough to make the house visible through the woods. It was a war party, similar to the one that was sent to Grimey Gulch.

He stayed out of their vision and snuck up behind them. Once he was close enough to reach them before they could realistically turn and face him, he activated Bastion for 600 stamina, Guard for 200 stamina, and Haste before casting an Empowered Omen of Pestilence in front of them, but close enough to them to still damage them, applying Mark of Antipathy to the tank.

Their attention on the green ghoul, he quickly cast an Empowered Omen of Famine on the tank, dashed up beside them, cast Omen of War, and sent an Empowered slash up right, impacting the goblin right below the armpit. The ghouls began swiping at the closest enemies as the goblins began to attack them while fleeing. Attacks impacted the green ghoul as the tank goblin began reaching to activate the shield dome, the ghouls' attacks barely missing as they managed to get out of the way.

Seeing the tank go to activate the shield dome, Degritone Empowered a kick to the back of the tank's knee, knocking it down. The time granted by this allows Degritone just enough time to bring his sword around and bring it down between the goblin's spaulders and arm armor. Knowing his sword is replaceable if this failed, Degritone attempted to use the leverage to yank the spaulder off.

A wet snap resounded as his sword did more than intended and managed to dislocate the arm and cut quite deeply into the shoulder. Having a sudden inspiration, Degritone attempted to have his mana spread out through the goblin like a sharp web before yanking his sword out of the gap. The green ghoul dissipated and Degritone himself took two arrows to the chest as a loud squelching sound was heard.

From the tank emerged a sword whose end was covered in 3-inch-long strands of mana on which rested what remained of the poor goblin's shoulder and a bit of its torso. Degritone resummoned the green ghoul between the squishies and himself to allow him time to heal up and to deal with the tank. The red and blue ghouls got their own swipes off on the downed tank.

After casting Revitalize on himself, Degritone manipulated the strands of his sword away before stabbing down onto the face of the tank. Attempting to create another flesh-rending web failed as his mana refused to penetrate the skin of the goblin. The green ghoul was brought down much more quickly this time as they weren't caught off guard, just as Degritone got another stab into the tank.

With the second stab, the rending web was able to slightly pierce the eyelid of the goblin, ripping a hole through it as Degritone pulled his sword away. Two more arrows and a magic blast hit Degritone in the torso as the two remaining ghouls got one more attack off on the tank, each. Casting Revitalize on himself twice, Energize once, and getting another 610-health Bastion shield, Degritone dashed behind the red ghoul.

The tank reached up with his good arm and grabbed Degritone's ankle before he could fully get behind cover, making Degritone fall over, and stands up with Degritone's ankle still in hand. Frustrated and taking one more arrow to the thigh, Degritone pushed himself up just in time for the two ghouls to dissipate. He resummoned all three of them on the tank. Now out of mana and with three ghouls between him and the squishies, he turned and awkwardly slashed at the goblin holding his ankle.

The tank finally fell dead and Degritone ran behind the ghouls as they charged the squishies. The blue ghoul being the fastest, it acquired priority and fell mid-swipe. However, Degritone was right behind it, ready to deliver a running slash through the retreating wizard. Another follow up swing through the wizard left them dead and he turned to the two archers as they launched two more arrows at his ghouls.

The red one preoccupied the melee DPS as the green swiped at one of the archers. He quickly dispatched the archers just as the ghouls went down, three strikes each. He turned to where the melee DPS was and was surprised to find a sword to the stomach. He grabbed the sword to keep it close and swung at it with his own sword, snapping the physical object with his mana weapon.

That one blow left him just under half health. However, with his regeneration and the sword having been taken out, he was still safe and back above half before the goblin would have been able to get another swipe off. Degritone grabbed the arm of the goblin as it went for a stab and pressed against its tendons in its wrist with his thumb, making it drop the dagger. He stepped on it to make it impossible to reacquire.

The melee goblin retreated much faster than Degritone could follow and everything was quiet for a few seconds before Degritone felt an impact on his back. He turned just in time to see the goblin retreating behind some trees. Checking his health, that impact hadn't done enough to be a threat, but he popped two of his Orbs of Revitalization, just in case. Once again, he was assaulted by the fists of a goblin before he could react after a seemingly random pause.

This repeated 5 more times, bringing Degritone below half again. He popped all of his Orbs as he tried to anticipate this somehow silent goblin, bringing him to almost full health. Degritone closed his eyes and took a stance as if he were fighting someone directly in front of him and began imagining a sphere around him where he had absolute knowledge of everything, including objects' future paths.

He stood there for two and a half minutes, being pelted by a goblin all the while, as he tried to get a skill. Finally, he felt something 23 degrees behind straight left and he swung at knee height exactly where he felt, knocking over the goblin. Stepping on the goblin's chest, Degritone needed four stabs to finally finish off this annoying bee of a goblin.

Having leveled up twice in that one fight, Degritone places 9 of his 12 free stats in Vitality and 3 into Bonus Health Regeneration before checking to see if what he felt at the end of the fight was an actual Skill or if it was just his mind managing to find the small difference from background noise to figure out where the goblin was.

Swordsman's Territory lv1

After spending a small amount of time concentrating, gain absolute knowledge of the position of all objects, including creatures, within a short distance from you. Additionally gain a slight predictive power over their future positions.

Must be holding a sword for any effects to apply.

Unable to quantify exact effects, Skill too erratic.

SLevel^(0.75+0.5*SLevel/10000) = 1% increase in Skill effectiveness

"Skill too erratic? I should add the cutie to my friends list, if possible. It'd be nice to be able to ask questions to someone who is definitely knowledgeable about stuff." As he's speaking, Degritone attempts to add "Patron of Loyalty" to his friend's list, but it doesn't let him. Disappointed, he shrugs. Maybe when I visit her next. Why no Skill for the rending web? It'd be nice for that to be an actual Skill, but meh.

"Onward, to murder! In like 30 minutes."

Daylight fully arrives after a couple hours, Degritone having taken out another 3 war parties and 2 scouting parties consisting of only three archers. Now level 10, gaining Knight's Awareness lvX, and having taken no damage against the last two war parties thanks to getting used to his new Skill, Degritone felt confident enough to reenter the dungeon through the goblin village. From some slight testing, Swordsman's Territory seemed to have a range of roughly 6 feet with a roughly tenth of a second predictive capability.

Sticking to a bath between buildings that left as little vision as possible, Degritone easily made it to the dungeon once more. The vegetation had grown and he could hear that some monsters had returned in his brief disappearing act, extended by the highly inflated time dilation for the first bit of being gone. "I have roughly 100 days in here to train, then I can fight the boss and leave to have 3 days remaining before the village monster," he says to himself.

He sighs out, "Let's get to training, I guess."

Warning!

Putting PP into a tier 4 Path makes you incapable of putting PP into tier 3 and below paths.

Additionally, you can only put PP into 3 tier 4 Paths. Do you wish to continue?

Regenerative Physique 200/200

Congratulations! You have completed the Regenerative Physique Path!

Regeneration Gland lvX

100 flat Health Regeneration per level

10 Bonus Health Regeneration per level

1 Vitality per level

1 Free Stat per level

Inexorable March 200/200

Congratulations! You have completed the Inexorable March Path!

Knockback Resistance lvX

75 flat Stamina Regeneration per level

7 Bonus Stamina Regeneration per level

1 Vitality per level

2 Free Stats per level

Supreme Convalescence 0/200

Nothing can keep you from your peak performance for long.

Quick Recovery 0/200

You get knocked down, but you get up again. Nothing will ever keep you down.

Quick Recovery 200/200

Congratulations! You have completed the Quick Recovery Path!

Recuperate lv1

50 flat Health Regeneration per level

5 Bonus Health Regeneration per level

7 Vitality per level

1 Free Stat per level

Juggernaut 200/200

Congratulations! You have completed the Quick Recovery Path!

Juggernaut's Might lvX

500 flat Health

5% maximum Health from stats

750 flat Stamina Regeneration

7.5% Stamina Regeneration from stats

20 Endurance

20 Vitality

20 Strength

10 Endurance per level

10 Vitality per level

10 Strength per level

PP Spent on Tier 5 Path

Class evolutions will unlock after 1500 PP has been spent on tier 5+ paths

1/1500 PP spent

Overflowing Vitality 350/350

Congratulations! You have completed the Overflowing Vitality Path!

Vital Presence lv1

10 Vitality per level

1 Bonus Health Regeneration per level

1 Bonus Stamina Regeneration per level

350/1500 PP spent

Vivacious 350/350

Congratulations! You have completed the Overflowing Vitality Path!

30% Health Regeneration from stats

3 Bonus Health Regeneration per level

1 Bonus Stamina Regeneration per level

700/1500 PP spent

Supreme Regrowth 100/350

Congratulations!

For your first rime reaching 1000 in one of the four primary stats, you gain Potent Vitality lvX

800/1500 PP spent

Supreme Regrowth 350/350

Congratulations! You have completed the Supreme Regrowth Path!

As Old, Now New lvX

7 Vitality per level

4 Bonus Health Regeneration per level

1 Bonus Stamina Regeneration per level

1050/1500 PP spent

Improved Physique 350/350

Congratulations! You have completed the Improved Physique Path!

Regeneration Gland becomes Regrowing Body lvX

1 Strength per level

1 Endurance per level

1 Vitality per level

1 Agility per level

1 Bonus Health Regeneration per level

1 Bonus Stamina Regeneration per level

1400/1500 PP spent

Vital Body 100/560

Congratulations! You have unlocked Class evolutions!

See your village spirit for more details

Minor Class evolution!

Knight becomes Red Knight

Knight's Awareness upgraded

Level rewards increased by

1 Free Stat

3 Vitality

1 Endurance

1 Bonus Health

1 Bonus Health Regeneration

1 Strength

50 flat Health

15 flat Stamina

1 flat Mana

Vital Body 560/560

Congratulations! You have completed the Vital Body Path!

Regrowing Body becomes Body of Vitality lvX

50 Vitality

20 Vitality per level

1 Bonus Health Regeneration per level

1 Bonus Stamina Regeneration per level

Vital Spirit 560/560

Congratulations! You have completed the Vital Spirit Path!

Spirit of Vitality lvX

7 Vitality

3 Bonus Mana Regeneration

2 Vitality per level

1 Bonus Health Regeneration per level

1 Bonus Stamina Regeneration per level

1 Bonus Mana Regeneration per level

Aura Control 560/560

Congratulations! You have completed the Aura Control Path!

Aura Manipulation lv1

40 SP

1 Bonus Health Regeneration per level

1 Bonus Stamina Regeneration per level

Vivicant 560/560

Congratulations! You have completed the Vivicant Path!

Bloody Aura lv1

Acidic Blood lvX

1 Vitality per level

1 Bonus Health Regeneration per level

1 Bonus Stamina Regeneration per level

Vital Blood 119/560

And finally, Degritone managed to figure out Unholy Covenant on day 76 of his 100 days of training. He had to manually modify his ghouls' souls while summoning them through their Skill. The modification, while not directly interfacing with his soul, had to create a link from the ghouls' mana souls to his real soul. Once the connection was established, he'd had to command his ghoul to protect him as he damaged himself.

This resulted in the link growing to cover his entire body right before the attack landed, finally granting him Unholy Covenant.

Degritone walked up to the colosseum and entered through one of the doors. Inside, he saw stairs leading up, what looked to be dilapidated desks where, he presumed, bets used to take place, and a gate leading toward the arena proper. He headed to the gate and got a system message.

Final trial!

Defeat the Champion to claim the belt and complete this dungeon!

Nodding once, he began lifting the gates.