“No.” Gabriel shook his head and frowned. “I’m sure you’re trying to help, but I’m not going to let anyone else choose for me. I wouldn’t let my family pick, I wouldn’t let Daryl pick, and I’m certainly not going to let someone I don’t know pick my future. I know I’m not choosing the well-known Paths, but I’m choosing my Paths and that’s all there is to it.”

Serenity grinned. That wasn’t the answer he’d expected and it certainly wasn’t a wise answer, but it was a good one. “Good.” Gabriel looked confused by Serenity’s response, so Serenity explained. “You know what you want, you know who you are and where you’re going. That’s more important than always taking the best choices. The best choices are only the best if you can predict the future, and even those who can do so only imperfectly. You’re taking it farther than I would, but I’m old enough to be confident in my choices. Sometimes confidently wrong, but it’s always my choice.”

Indeed, for a moment, Serenity was afraid he’d just been confidently wrong. He’d accidentally invited Gabriel to ask how old he was. That was a question he didn’t want to answer.

“That’s not what I’ve been told,” Naomi objected. “Choosing the known Path is safe, it’ll take you to the known endpoint reliably. Choosing your own Path risks a dead end before that.”

Serenity shrugged. “And then you have to make your own Path or be at a dead end. A dead end later is still a dead end, and if you’re no longer sure who you are, how do you choose?”

“It’s a problem we’ll all have to face at some point. My Path doesn’t end until Tier Fifteen, so I’ll have plenty of time to figure it out,” Daryl claimed. “When does yours end?”

Serenity shrugged. “Who knows? It’s not like I’m on a known Path.”

Daryl snorted at that. “See? Clearly worse. You don’t even know when you’ll start having trouble. How long did it take you to break into Tier Four? Decades?”

Serenity bared his teeth at Daryl. He hated being talked down to like that. “I had a Tier Four available as soon as I finished my first Tier Three. I’ll have a Tier Nine when I finish my first Tier Eight. It doesn’t work that way for everyone; you have to have a Path that goes higher. Making someone else’s Path yours … well, it can work if you’re similar enough.” Serenity didn’t like the practice, but a lot of people liked the surety it gave them. “On the other hand, as you said, you’ll be Tier Fifteen. Maybe that’s enough.”

Serenity flicked his Status open. He had a ways to go before he reached the next Tier, but - wait, when had he advanced his Path that far?

He stared at it dumbly for a moment before Aide reminded him of the vision-altering spell. It must have counted as appropriate for a magitech Abomination.

Path: Magitech Abomination

Level: 94 (0/7520)

Tier: 4, 100/100 Spent

There really wasn’t much left. Maybe he should think about other spells he could enhance his body with, if that was what was needed. He probably needed to use his Magitech Affinity, too; that might be exactly what the Path was trying to teach him.

Fortunately, the food arrived before the discussion could get any more heated or Serenity could get any more distracted. They all took that as an opportunity to change topics; the clink of tableware against plates was the main noise until most of the food was gone.

As Serenity had come to expect, it was Rissa that put everything back on track. “The four of you will be doing the deepest dungeon near here, right?”

Naomi licked the last of her sauce off her fork, then set it down in the empty bowl. “Yes. Probably only through the eighth level, but that’s still farther than we’re making it with the three of us. It’s as far as I can go. With just the three of us, we’re managing level six, maybe seven, so eight would be a big increase. But Serenity beat all three of us, so…”

“That doesn’t mean I’m as good in a dungeon as having another three of you,” Serenity interrupted. “I beat you by taking advantage of your weaknesses. Most monsters don’t do that. It’s especially uncommon in dungeons with their focus on other things. You said this was a dungeon based around hazards?” Serenity looked over at Gabriel as he spoke.

“Hazards?” Gabriel looked puzzled for a moment before he realized what Serenity was talking about. “Oh! Environment hazards! I hadn’t really thought about it. The dungeon’s themed, but every single theme is an unpleasant or dangerous place to be. A swamp, a desert, a blizzard … ah, what are the others?”

The next day was a visit to the Enchanters’ Guild that Serenity expected to be quick and actually took all day. By the end of his discussion with Master Enchanter Levit, Serenity had turned down three offers of apprenticeship; the last one, from Master Levit himself, even came with the offer of not having to pay for the apprenticeship with anything but his apprentice goods.

Serenity didn’t even have to think before he turned them down. He didn’t want to be an enchanter, even if the Voice seemed to think it was a good idea. He didn’t care if it seemed all too similar to his runic knowledge, similar enough that Master Enchanter Levit was openly interested in the rune on the biplanes.

Serenity didn’t care. He had to keep repeating it to himself. He didn’t care. Even if he did care, he didn’t have time for it right now.

In the end, that was what really made the difference; he didn’t have time. An apprenticeship was years of effort and learning; he wanted to get back to Earth sooner than that. He wasn’t sure how he’d handle being on Earth at his Tier, but he had to try. Maybe he could just stay in a dungeon or a nexus.

Maybe he could import an enchanter to teach … Students. Yeah. Students.

Actually, wasn’t one of Katya’s relatives an enchanter?

Serenity sent her a message with the question, then scolded himself. He didn’t even have the students lined up yet, why was he looking for a teacher?

At least he was going to get to kill some monsters soon. That should clear his head; he hadn’t had any really good combat lately, other than the exhibition fight against the Silver Blades.

The day of the delve was misty and chilly in the morning. Rissa saw Serenity off with a warm breakfast, a kiss, and her well wishes. She was headed to join a different delve that day, acting as a low-Tier healer, but they planned to meet at the dungeon, which was closer to the Library than the Mercenaries’ Guild.

Serenity met the three Silver Blades at the Mercenaries’ Guild. He arrived shortly before they did and spent the time relaxed on a chair talking to Aide. Aide was excited about enchanting and kept asking about the relationship between runes and enchantments; it was enough to make Serenity want to hire a teacher just to answer Aide’s questions. Serenity didn’t know the answers.

From the Mercenaries’ Guild, it was a five minute walk to the nearest local Portal Node, then a quick hop through a portal that took the four of them to the far side of Takinat. The area was deserted; it had clearly been overrun by dungeon monsters repeatedly and simply walled off rather than trying to defend the dungeon.

Serenity had seen the strategy before, but it was only used in places where there weren’t enough delvers to reliably keep a dungeon cleared. Instead, it was encouraged to have small dungeon breaks, which were simple to take care of, by running the easy levels. The overpressure at the deeper levels would cause a dungeon break, but the lack of monsters in higher levels would limit the break to a small number of low level monsters. It wouldn’t relieve much pressure, but it was still far easier to handle.

Serenity felt something strange about the area before they were even all that close to the dungeon. He didn’t just dismiss it, but he had no idea what it was. It wasn’t uncomfortable; it was simply weird and he didn’t know what to think of it. Perhaps it was because of his new Dungeon Deity Evolution? They were approaching a dungeon, and while he couldn’t remember anything like it from the trip, he hadn’t actually been in a dungeon other than the one he rescued Andarit from in quite a while. There simply hadn’t been a good time for it.

The fact that there was a wall that didn’t look new outside the dungeon told Serenity that Takinat had been using that strategy for this dungeon since long before the attacks started and the delvers left. That was not what he remembered from the discussion at the Mercenaries’ Guild, but it was entirely possible that the wall predated having enough high-Tier people to regularly clear the deepest part of the dungeon. It was also possible that they thought some level of small breaks was normal; Serenity couldn’t guess which from the small amount of information he had.

The first real clue that something was very wrong was motion ahead of them as they walked towards the wall protecting the area from the dungeon. It wasn’t until they were closer that they could see it: a humongous monitor lizard. It was probably ten feet from its nose to its tail.

The four delvers made out the lizard only moments before it realized they were there and charged towards them. It should have been taken care of easily at long range by Daryl, but his bow wasn’t ready; he clearly hadn’t expected an attack before they passed the wall.

Serenity didn’t have that problem. Not only did he always keep at least one weapon ready, he had Skills that didn’t require preparation. A single Death Magebolt was enough to drop the lizard in its tracks. Serenity watched it only long enough to be certain it was dead; his attention was on his surroundings. A monster, especially a monster with no thoughts other than to attack, this close to a dungeon was all too likely to mean there was an ongoing dungeon break. Worse than that, this was well outside the wall that surrounded the dungeon, which meant that it hadn’t contained the dungeon break.

His caution was rewarded when a second giant lizard charged them, just as nonsensically as the first. Fortunately, it was just as easy to kill as the first. By the time the third lizard attacked, the Silver Blades were ready. There were a lot of lizards, but as long as they kept attacking as individuals they were easy to handle.

Naturally, the moment he thought that was the moment one of the lizards roared. Serenity wasn’t sure real lizards could make that much noise, but lizard monsters definitely could; really, almost any monster that came in groups could. They had to have a way to call the rest of the group, and noise was the most common.

This time, it wasn’t one or two lizards; it was at least twenty. Once he saw them, Serenity didn’t wait for anyone to say anything; he just dropped a Fireball on top of the group and pumped mana into it, expanding its size until it hit every single one of the lizards running after them. When the spell faded away, nothing moved in the area it had covered.

“Fucking hell,” Daryl swore. “We have to get back to the portal and call the guild. Run!”