The three remaining-- wait, four remaining players approached the spotlight, three with their new set of armour in their arms or in their inventory. The wolf was simply happy to be alive when his party members were, at best, a smear on the floor.

They had won. Of 334 people to enter the dungeon, they were the only 4 to leave. This was undoubtedly the most death Nikola had ever experienced in one place. She wondered if she should feel guilty for wishing she had been the cause of more of it, considering Luke's arrangement with his mother.

"Hey, Nikola," Luke started, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder, "you did fucking amazing. I mean it."

"Thank you," the former NPC replied, allowing the contact as long as the hand didn't linger. It didn't, returning to his side soon after. "You were amusing to wield as a weapon."

They stepped into the spotlight and poofed into pixels, the streak of light sucking them up into the air and out of the dungeon.

DUNGEON 1: THE LION'S TOWER - COMPLETE!

Lukeknight64 - survived with 30 percent health! Exited the dungeon at Level 4, with 3 Levels to assign!

Nikola Brightdark - survived with 64 percent health! Exited the dungeon at Level 4, with 3 Levels to assign!

PhoenixRising - survived with 21 percent health! Exited the dungeon at Level 7, with 1 level to assign!

WhiteMage01 - survived with 44 percent health! Exited the dungeon at Level 6, with 2 levels to assign!

Would you like to assign your levels now?

In the nothingness of transportation, the question appeared in front of her - and likely the others, as well.

While it could put them out of step with each other, she chose to do so anyway. She had seen earlier that while they couldn't be erased during Phase 2, they could be felled, forcing them to give up some of their Silvers and possibly also some of their Inventory at random.

She wanted to be equipped for whatever was waiting for her outside, whether it was a grassy meadow or a sea of opportunistic players. Catching a wounded party just as they were leaving a dungeon would be a juicy opportunity.

Nikola had 3 Levels to apply.

That meant she had 15 Points to spread among her Class Skills, and 30 Points for her stats.

Since the stats were just numbers on a page with no descriptions, she decided to assign them first. She knew her Rogue class was drawing damage from her Dexterity, so she would want to max that out first. She poured 15 of her points into DEX without hesitation.

Then, she put 10 into Constitution and 5 into Strength, to make sure she could wield a chunky weapon properly if she came across such a thing.

With her 2 in Charisma, she doubted she would be well-liked if she chose to go speak to the inhabitants of a random village - but as she was playing the game as a Killing Game rather than the meandering, adventuring affair it seemed to be in its original state, she didn't mind. She wouldn't be going and wining and dining the locals if she stopped somewhere, and wine was too expensive for her anyway. But maybe that wasn't the case anymore... just how much had she earned so far?

Anyway, with her stats as they were, she could just cleave someone's face in if they didn't like her. Most issues weren't issues any longer if she stabbed them hard enough.

After assigning her stat points, her stat block read as...

[Username: Nikola Brightdark

Level: 7

Race: Human

Class: Rogue

Weapon Specialization: Dagger

STR: 10

DEX: 40 +5

CON: 35

WIS: 2

INT: 1

CHA: 2

Class Skills:

Dagger Mastery: 20 (MAX)]

Next, her class skill points.

She had felt the absence of the skills she couldn't use during the fight with the Boss Lion, so she assigned a single point to each one immediately. Double Attack, Fade Away, Can't Touch This and Backstab filled her repertoire, adding themselves at the bottom of her stat block and joining Dagger Mastery there.

That took 4 of her 15 points, leaving her with 11.

She flicked her gaze between each; Double Attack and Backstab would offer her more offensive capabilities, but her far superior Butcher class was loaded with those. While killing things harder would always be desirable to her, when given the choice between using her Rogue skills and her Butcher skills to put holes in her opponents, she would almost always choose the Butcher skills.

At this moment, Fade Away and Can't Touch This were more appealing. She had no other way to deal with other people encroaching on her with their weapons besides using her own body to physically back away, or her cleaver to divert their efforts.

[Fade Away] could take her sneakiness to the next level. She was already adept at plodding gracefully along on the balls of her feet without being noticed, but actually being invisible would allow her to do things she never could before. [Backstab] would be the obvious thing to move into after [Fading Away], but it could useful for so much more than that too. Her ears could be privy to so many private conversations; she could learn so much about her enemies if she just placed herself somewhere they would never tread and listened in, unmoving. The shell-like edges of her ears tingled at the thought of that kind of power.

[Can't Touch This] was a no-brainer. Up until now, she'd had to rely on her own body and senses to help her dodge attacks, but if she was reading the skill correctly, it would be her backup. If she couldn't duck out of the way fast enough, it gave her a chance to not get hit. It could be what saved her, what kept her alive when the others in her party toppled like bowling pins. Not that she knew what those were.

She decided to assign 4 of her points to [Can't Touch This] and 4 to [Fade Away], and then she distributed her final 3 points into [Backstab] so she would be doing 340 percent whenever she could successfully use it. Nikola felt she got more per level up than if she had put her last 3 points into [Double Attack], which only lowered its cooldown.

As she confirmed her choices, she found herself wondering how she was even applying her levels. She had no physical form in this space; no body, no fingers to move around, nothing but her own mind and gaze. And yet, the world was conforming to her will. It felt strange and unsettling to be simply an entity with no no mobility, at the same time as being inherently in motion. She wondered briefly if she could throw up with no mouth.

Her stat screen post-leveling read as:

[Username: Nikola Brightdark

Level: 7

Race: Human

Class: Rogue

Weapon Specialization: Dagger

STR: 10

DEX: 40 +5

CON: 35

WIS: 2

INT: 1

CHA: 2

Class Skills:

Dagger Mastery: 20 (MAX)

Double Attack: 1

Fade Away: 5

Can't Touch This: 5

Backstab: 4]

She tried to emerge into the real world, but she smacked into an invisible nothingness that told her to Wait For Her Party Members to Finish. Bah. She had only just become a person; they were used to this whole video game business. Couldn't they hurry the fuck up?

Still, the notion that she had outpaced anyone in her party made her faceless face smirk a smirkless smirk.