The next dungeon had a scarab swarm as its boss, the first Levi had encountered in a level 1 dungeon. It was considerably less intense than that in the level 2, but swarms were still one of Levi’s least favourite enemies. Even if this one was decimated so thoroughly by his growing army of minions and allied minions that it lasted less than two minutes.

Gremlin Two has reached level 6!

Gremlin Two has 2 stat point available.

As requested, his team brought down one of the scarabs for him and held it unmolested for him to tame.

RESISTED

Gordon cast Dismay a few times, while the helpless scarab tried to strike back at Becca, but the Rift Cat’s paw held it firmly in place and she ignored its futile attempts to inflict its corrosive bite.

Tame: Success!

Would you like to name ‘Rust Scarab’ at this time?

It felt strange taming a plus scarab before even finding a normal one, but Levi wasn’t about to complain.

“Crackle.” The word came to him as he thought about the sound of the swarms, and he’d never put much stock in worrying too much over names of things.

Crackle: Level 1 Rust Scarab +

Strength: 0

Health: 50/50

(+1/min)

Psyche: 1

Mana: 60/60

(+4/min)

Spirit: 0

Stamina: 40/40

(+1/min) Strength: +3 Health, +2 H-Regen Psyche: +20 Mana, +2 M-Regen Spirit: +15 Stamina, +1 S-Regen

It probably would have been more impressive if he weren’t used to boss stats already. This felt underwhelming. But, it was also a swarm creature, so perhaps like Shadevine each individual scarab only gained minor bonuses due to there being so many of them.

This dungeon gave only a single health restorative, but two more Destruction tokens and two weapons - neither one Levi had encountered before. A trident and a scythe, both marked as Uncommon.

Trident (Manablade, Uncommon)

Abilities: None

Power stone: 0/1

Upgrade Slots: 1

Destructive Scythe (Manablade, Uncommon)

Abilities: (Basic) Destructive Slash

Power stone: 1/1

Upgrade Slots: 0

The trident came with an upgrade slot in addition to its power stone aperture, while the scythe was single-stone only but had a Destruction stone already slotted.

Peter couldn't take his eyes off the scythe.

"If you want it, you can have it," Levi offered, and gladly accepted back his shortsword. Beast Bite provided surprising utility that he'd miss, and he'd never seen Peter look happier than decked out in his magic armor doing practice swings with his magic scythe.

Levi put Two's points one each into Strength and Spirit, bringing his totals up to 65 health and 5 health regen, and 120 stamina with 9 stamina regen.

The third dungeon’s boss was more gremlins, which they killed this time as Levi had plenty now. This had the benefit of granting levels to several of them who'd been not leveling with the base level 1 non-bosses - taming bosses did have the drawback of not granting any experience for their defeats, so it was good to have the chance to fully clear a dungeon properly.

Skarm has reached level 7!

Skarm has 2 stat point available.

Ward has reached level 2!

Ward has 3 stat point available.

Gremlin Three has reached level 2!

Gremlin Three has 3 stat point available.

Peter and Irene also both hit their threshold at level 5, but Levi decided to get his own minions out of the way first, and give them time to look over their options before he asked about them.

He only now realized that he'd neglected to assign Ward and Three's initial bonus points; when taming them, he'd forgotten that his universal Horned Gremlin stat point bonus applied retroactively.

Ward's points he put into Spirit, while he gave Three one of each to go with his balanced returns.

That left Skarm.

"Any preferences?" Levi asked his oldest minion, as Skarm patrolled the edges of the boss room atop Centoo as if that would prevent any enemies from spawning in.

Skarm made a hand motion of jumping through the air.

"Stamina?"

Skarm nodded, and Levi applied his points to Spirit.

Minions Name Lvl Type Str Psy Spirit Health Mana Stamina Skarm 7 Horned Gremlin 5 0 9 75/75

(+7/min) 0/0

(+2/min) 140/140

(+11/min) Gremlin Two 6 Horned Gremlin 3 2 7 65/65

(+5/min) 6/6

(+3/min) 120/120

(+9/min) Cen 5 Stone Centipede 4 0 1 130/130

(+6/min) 30/30

(+2/min) 75/75

(+3/min) Centoo 5 Stone Centipede 3 0 2 115/115

(+5/min) 30/30

(+2/min) 80/80

(+4/min) Becca 5 Rift Cat + 2 3 0 370/370

(+14/min) 190/190

(+8/min) 70/70

(+2/min) Shadevine 5 Shadevine + 3 2 0 65/65

(+16/min) 135/135

(+14/min) 40/40

(+10/min) Ward 2 Horned Gremlin + 1 0 3 160/160

(+4/min) 0/0

(+1/min) 160/160

(+8/min) Gremlin Three 2 Horned Gremlin + 2 1 1 105/105

(+6/min) 30/30

(+4/min) 95/95

(+4/min) Crackle 1 Rust Scarab + 0 1 0 50/50

(+1/min) 60/60

(+4/min) 40/40

(+1/min) Skarm: Level 7 Horned Gremlin

Strength: 5

Health: 75/75

(+7/min)

Psyche: 0

Mana: 0/0

(+2/min)

Spirit: 9

Stamina: 140/140

(+11/min) Gremlin Two: Level 6 Horned Gremlin

Strength: 3

Health: 65/65

(+5/min)

Psyche: 2

Mana: 6/6

(+3/min)

Spirit: 7

Stamina: 120/120

(+9/min) Cen: Level 5 Stone Centipede

Strength: 4

Health: 130/130

(+6/min)

Psyche: 0

Mana: 30/30

(+2/min)

Spirit: 1

Stamina: 75/75

(+3/min) Centoo: Level 5 Stone Centipede

Strength: 3

Health: 115/115

(+5/min)

Psyche: 0

Mana: 30/30

(+2/min)

Spirit: 2

Stamina: 80/80

(+4/min) Becca: Level 5 Rift Cat +

Strength: 2

Health: 370/370

(+14/min)

Psyche: 3

Mana: 190/190

(+8/min)

Spirit: 0

Stamina: 70/70

(+2/min) Shadevine: Level 5 Shadevine +

Strength: 3

Health: 65/65

(+16/min)

Psyche: 2

Mana: 135/135

(+14/min)

Spirit: 0

Stamina: 40/40

(+10/min) Ward: Level 2 Horned Gremlin +

Strength: 1

Health: 160/160

(+4/min)

Psyche: 0

Mana: 0/0

(+1/min)

Spirit: 3

Stamina: 160/160

(+8/min) Gremlin Three: Level 2 Horned Gremlin +

Strength: 2

Health: 105/105

(+6/min)

Psyche: 1

Mana: 30/30

(+4/min)

Spirit: 1

Stamina: 95/95

(+4/min) Crackle: Level 1 Rust Scarab +

Strength: 0

Health: 50/50

(+1/min)

Psyche: 1

Mana: 60/60

(+4/min)

Spirit: 0

Stamina: 40/40

(+1/min)

With that taken care of, time to move on to his family. "What are your ability options?" Levi asked, mentally bringing up a blank template within the system to record the information in.

"Revive, Dismay, Empower, and Pack Leader," Peter read out. Unsurprising, the same as Gordon and Levi’s options had been at level 5.

“What do you want to do with your ability points?” Levi felt confident that between himself and Gordon they could cover anything essential, so Peter could afford to have some fun with his build as long as he didn’t do anything too ridiculous.

Peter thought for a minute before answering. “I’ll already get enough minions with one every other level, so I don’t need Pack Leader. It’s getting crowded as it is. I want to be able to bring back anyone who gets hurt, and I want to be able to help tame bosses. And I want to make Henry stronger.”

“One each into Empower, Revive, and Dismay? Sounds like a solid choice to me.”

“Yeah.” Peter grinned and applied the points.

Irene’s options were more surprising. Levi filled out a sheet for them as she read them off, his eyebrows rising more and more as she read.

Medic Abilities

Potency

Increase effectiveness of all your tools, elixirs, and medicines.

Leech

Draw negative afflictions from a patient to yourself.

(Requires touch)

Stasis

Preserve an injured person in their exact state to prevent further damage.

(Requires touch. Lasts until contact ends or mana is fully expended. Can only be used once every 24 hours.)

Incorporation

By absorbing the essence of an item or elixir, can utilize its ability for a short duration as a temporary innate ability.

(Cost of ability depends on power of item. Only one ability can be incorporated at a time.)

He’d expected some option to actually heal, but the closest was Incorporation.

"Let's go over these one by one," Irene suggested. "Potency. What kind of items and elixirs will I have access to, and will increasing their strength be of more than minimal value?"

"Most elixirs are either amplifiers or restoratives. There are elixirs for fire resistance, or other things of that sort, the ones you know to recover health or stamina. Other items can have temporary positive effects, but I'm not sure how much Potency will impact them. Is it worth gambling?"

Irene made a noncommittal 'hmm' sound, and read off the next. "Leech. Pretty straightforward."

"I don't like it," Levi said at once. "What if you take on something too powerful and end up dying yourself?"

"It could be very powerful. From what you've said, we'll go up against a lot of things with poison or acid or corrosive before this is over, and being able to draw those away from the fighters and deal with them in safety seems a major game changer."

Levi tried to imagine being able to keep fighting while someone else dealt with the scarab venom-induced sluggishness, but could only imagine Irene being overwhelmed by taking on too much. She would push herself too far, he knew it. She cared so fiercely for him and Peter, this kind of ability would only tempt her to overreach.

"Incorporation might be better," he said, instead of arguing. He didn't want to cement her opinion by forcing her to defend it. "We'd have to test its limits, but I get the feeling it would remove the dangerous side effects from elixir consumption if it's channeled through a medic's touch."

"Stasis is next, you're skipping ahead."

"Stasis sounds pretty useless."

"I think it's an important emergency precaution. True, it will fully occupy me and has no utility outside of absolute desperation, but if we're ever in a position where you're bleeding out and I'm out of elixirs, we'll be glad to have it on hand."

"Elixirs are ridiculously common in low level dungeons. We'll have a hard time running out."

"I'm taking it anyway."

Levi nodded slowly. "But you should definitely take Incorporation. And Potency."

She smiled faintly, as though to say she saw what he was doing, but nodded. "I agree."

This dungeon's treasure was similarly abundant, providing only one stamina elixir, but another set of leg armor - this one going to Irene - a greatsword, and a flail. Both standard, but with how many decent weapons they were getting, they should be well poised for profitable trade once they got in contact with more groups.

Levi would be able to gather most of the necessary ingredients for his coming crafting endeavor himself, but since he planned on power leveling his crafting until he could make something worthy of his hidden-treasure upgrade items, he’d likely be trading in most of the unnecessary duplicates of weapons and armor for more crafting materials.

They didn't continue through the night, even though Levi would have preferred that, but stopped at a motel for the night. Peter couldn't stop talking about it all, he was clearly having the time of his life. Irene was clearly more stressed by the whole trip than she let on, but Levi didn't push her on it.

The night passed peacefully enough, though it was becoming harder and harder to find a good spot to stash their growing army out of sight and without potential for causing a ruckus.

They finally struck ogre-boss gold on the next dungeon, first thing in the morning on the second day of their trip.

This particular ogre had a large blunted sword, chipped and blood-stained, though Levi wasn't sure how or by what creature's blood.

"This time, you stay alert." Levi remembered how Peter had gotten distracted the last time they'd faced an ogre together, as they stared into the room. "Even if one of our guys goes down, you keep focused and fight for your own survival. We can revive any of the minions afterwards if they're killed, and Irene can heal them if they're hurt. You coming through safely is more important, we can't revive you like we can a minion. Understand?"

"Yeah, I'll be careful." Peter nodded seriously, staring at the ogre intensely. "And he will be mine!"

Together, they charged.