Lucas rumbled through the chest, sorting through the stuff he got as a prize for clearing the dungeon. There were a number of items there, as usual, with largest number of them various consumables and crafting material. Lucas knew to appreciate that kind of rewards, but they didn’t excite him the way a new piece of equipment or some rare item usually could. His “Eye for details” scanned what looked like a hundredth ingot of steel coral and mana potion, getting a bit tired. That is the exact moment he noticed something on the bottom of the chest. Taking it into his hand, he deduced it was a ring, made from something that looked like hard pressured sand, extremely hard on touch. Before inspecting it, Lucas dive into the chest one last time, emptying it to the last. He didn’t find anything else that interested him as much as the ring. He took it into his palm once again, marveling at the extraordinary craftsmanship. Throughout the length of the ring, a pair of sea snakes went in criss – cross and at the top their two heads merged into one, which formed the top part of the ring, replacing a jewel that usually stood there in human made rings. Not wanting to wait any longer, he activated his identification skills and got to inspecting the ring.

Ring of the Abyssal Depths (Epic)

A Naga made ring infused with the skill of its crafter. The ring managed to replicate the vast sprawl of the deep seas and oceans, granting the ring ability to act as a spatial storage, limited to 10 tons of items put into it. While inside, all processes are stopped and items will be in a condition in which were they put in it.

Bonus ability: Spatial storage

“I still need to find space roulette or something. I just got one of the rarest items in existence from clearing an extremely easy dungeon.” Lucas thought before waving to Bruce and sending him the description of the item before slipping the ring on his finger. Bruce read the description quickly and then stared incredulously at Lucas. Lucas made sure to wear his best smile and demeanor, not letting any chance of annoying the old Loremaster go in vain. Bruce called him with a hand wave to come back and Lucas obliged, cleaning the loot from the dungeon with his new ring. Arriving at Bruce location, he quickly ducked to avoid a slap that aimed at the back of his head.

“Never again” Bruce just told him.

“Never again what?” Lucas feigned ignorance, knowing full well why was old man still angry.

“Let go of your escape route for loot. Items can be found again, people are irreplaceable” Bruce continued his chiding. Lucas just saluted, focusing on the rest of the items and sucking them into his ring. Bruce watched the process in awe, asking for permission to analyze the ring. Lucas slipped it from his finger and Bruce went full nerd on it. Finally, with a quick “Archive” he returned the ring back to Lucas and they sat down to discuss their further plans.

“Normally, I would be again against such reckless use of leveling gem, but these are desperate time” Bruce commented as he heard the rest of the loot Lucas sorted through. “But, I think the pearls are bigger finds. With them and your new ring, we don’t need to move as carefully, instead taking a more direct approach.”

“And how will we do that?” Lucas asked

“We? So you decided to do the right thing?” Bruce asked, hope flaring in his brown eyes.

“Not exactly. Michael is still my target, but if there happened to be a chance of killing his boss also, I’m all for it. You did help me a lot” Lucas said, deciding there was no point in running again.

“I would that anyways, you saved my life back in the prison. Speaking of it, I think it is a good base of operations as any.” Bruce returned to planning.

“Hangman’s row? The place where the worst go to die?”

“The same. If we free the political prisoners, it should give us an able core of people. From there, it’s just a matter of waiting for the right time to strike.” Bruce explained

“And what about other prisoners? You expect me to guard them” Lucas asked.

“No, they are there for a reason. We will just accelerate the verdict”

“And the same goes for guards?”

“Only those who don’t drop their weapons. The rest of them will lose the block and they will be exiled to find their way in the world.” Bruce said with steel in his voice.

“So basically, we will kill them with extra steps” Lucas retorted “why then just not do the deed ourselves”

“There are a lot of them in the town. If they don’t see the other way out, they will fight us to the last man. If they do, they will rout, as they did when they figure out fighting you is pointless and a death sentence for them” Bruce explained and Lucas grudgingly accepted the old man made sense. He still didn’t like it, not because he was particularly squeamish about killing or having some kind of merciful streak, but it felt pretty hypocritical to spare someone’s life just to send them into certain death.

“Moving on, you did pretty well in you training. I can feel from you newly minted strength and it will serve you well. You are much stronger than your level indicate” Bruce continued.

“About that, I noticed that I started killing higher level enemies in one or two hits” Lucas remembered the question he wanted to ask.

“You got very good fundamentals and are extremely adept at dealing critical damage. What you lack is endurance for longer fights, crippling the usefulness of your bleeding effects. But that part will have to wait after we finish the Camp Hearth business”

“And what if I happened to need that training during “Camp Hearth business”, if that whip lady proves too hard without that?” Lucas asked.

“Then you will adapt and prepare better next time. That is your best quality in a fight after all, as far as I noticed.” Bruce complimented Lucas, which caught him unprepared and almost cause him to blush. He wasn’t use from this level of praise from Bruce. Looking for a change of subject, Lucas asked about his free points and how to spend it, sending to Bruce his status when asked and letting the old man study it in detail, he himself doing the same.

Name: Lucas (surname N/A)

Class: Duelist level 40 (Skill points available: 3)

Attributes:

Strength: 42

Agility: 69

Constitution: 21

Intelligence: 30

Willpower: 25

Perception: 47

Charisma: 30

Luck: 30

Health: 907

Stamina: 4347

Mana: 750

Skills:

Eye for details

Duelist Grace

Dodge

Battle dance

Death of thousand cuts

Stinging cut

Punch parry

Mana Punch

Infused Piledriver

Guiding strike

Battlerush

Spin strike

Bulwark of balance

Equipment

Curated leather chest

Curated leather pants

Curated leather bracers

Ceramic – laced gorilla gloves

Curated leather greaves

Gladius of the Viridi

Ring of the Abyssal Depth

Quests

A dish best served cold…

Titles

Monster Slayer

Colossus Muncher

Home – schooled

Scenario dungeon diver I

With five free points remaining, he could start following Bruce advice and raise constitution marking the start of the long road to raise his endurance. On the other hand, he was already on the path of raising his mana usage and magic efficiency, although the second still had some work to do, seeing he didn’t have anything that scaled with Willpower and Intelligence. For now, he had some seven or eight “Infused piledrivers” on the condition he restrict the usage of parry skill. Which to be fair, he did, using it only in one on one swordsmanship duels in which they found its niche. His head was starting to hurt and he decided to wait to hear Bruce opinion on how he should place his free points.

“From what I see here, your best of course of action is to raise your mana points to at least one thousand and then focusing on health. Generally, you want to raise all the stats connected to resource you are chasing to increase, to avoid diminishing returns and all that.” Bruce explained to him and Lucas immediately put all of his free points into willpower, rounding it up. Finishing with all that business, Lucas relaxed and started thinking about what is to come next. He will confront Michael about everything he did and he will simply end him, without much pomp. He wasn’t interested in excuses or explanation Michael was sure to offer, nor did he want to give him the chance to beg, because Lucas wasn’t sure he will be able to ignore something like that. He loved that man as a brother and stuff like that lingers no matter what happens. After that, who knows. If he actually kills the General, he will take control of the Camp Hearth, and seeing how a shadow of a proper support system trivialized the wreckage dungeon, he could only imagine what a proper one would be able to do. In the now, however, his power grew immensely, guided by the expert tutelage from Bruce. The man himself proved to be an endless font of information and generally good advice and Lucas finally realized how much he lost being obstinate about any kind of tutoring or lessons. He was resolved to remedy that mistake and that meant he had a long and fruitful relationship with the old Loremaster to look forward to.