Giant monsters weren’t particularly novel to me by this point. In fact, given how many of them I’d already fought, one could be forgiven for thinking I would be largely inured to their presence. As I craned my head up at the massive figure in the boss chamber, however, all I could think was one thing.

Man, that thing is huge.

Unfortunately, a quick check with God’s Eye proved that it had the health to match, too.

Level 23 Warforged Titan: 15000/15000hp

Appearance-wise, it was what I guessed a troll would look like if said troll had been dipped in a vat of metallic paint. Every inch of the creature was perfectly and reflectively silver, including the set of armor it wore which looked as though it would otherwise have been leather.

Standing thrice as high as Alara and with the broad shoulders and bulging muscles to back it up, the Warforged Titan looked exactly like the kind of thing you didn’t want to mess with.

It was unfortunate, then, that we’d come here specifically to mess with it.

After our fair share of nervous gulps and Emin (hopefully jokingly) asking if he could leave, we couldn’t put things off any longer. I opted to make one final check before we went in.

“Everyone good? We all know the plan?”

My words elicited four nods, and Alara took it away, doing a much better job to amp us up than I ever could.

“I am looking forward to smashing this ‘Warforged Titan’ to pieces. Come! It will be a battle fit for the bards!”

With no more words wasted, she charged into the room, and the four of us followed suit.

Instantly, we all spread out in a predetermined pattern. This wasn’t a surprise boss like the time I’d fought Slippy -- we’d all had to read about this dungeon to such an extent that it appeared in our dreams. Naturally, that included all the details of its boss.

The lynchpin of our fight was once again Alara. Merrily yelling, she ran straight for the boss, somehow undaunted by their incredible size differential. With her making no effort to approach stealthily, the titan spotted her immediately, answering her roaring charge with one of its own.

Right before they collided, Alara activated the skill that made the entire fight possible. I’d yet to see it in person, but Identify Skill activated, allowing me to read the description for myself.

Immovable Object

Your mass becomes far too great to be displaced. For the duration of this skill, you are rooted in place and gain full resistance to any knockback, teleportation, or other position-altering effects. Once this skill is activated, it takes thirty seconds to deactivate.

It wasn’t the only skill in play -- she was presently under the effects of half a dozen potions courtesy of Oachin, strengthening her skin, her bones, her muscles.

Still, it was an entirely surreal sight to watch as the titan brought down its mind-numbingly colossal fist, sending it hurtling into Alara.

Only for her not to budge an inch when it connected.

At the last second before the fist hit her, she’d reached out and punched it, using her class skills to rob it of much of its force. Even so, the entire boss chamber shook, and I nearly stumbled as I ran into place.

Even with Alara’s lack of movement, that wasn’t to say that the punch did no damage, but a small orb of liquid appeared in front of her face a moment later. The remotely-administered healing potion streamed into her mouth, keeping her health topped off.

Not seeming to care that we were in a pitched battle against a boss that wanted to kill us, Alara filled the chamber with her laughter.

“Hah! Titan, I would like to thank you for that. You have just assisted me in completing a class quest! It is a shame we must kill you, or we would share a drink in celebration!”

Only Alara, I thought to myself.

Rather than congratulate her, the titan wound up for another punch.

As much as the impossible slugfest made me want to stop and stare, I hadn’t been idle thus far, nor had the others.

Emin, Oachin, and Nella had all congregated together by the wall. As was standard practice, Oachin unstoppered his vial of fast-growth potion. A sphere of liquid escaped from it, hovering in the air before him. As if he’d turned on a faucet, a stream of liquid suddenly dropped from it, dousing the ground in front of the three.

Dense shrubbery poked out from the soil, and under Emin’s ministrations, it shifted and took on a sharp and steely appearance, reminiscent of barbed wire.

With his plant-alteration complete, Emin had a single job remaining: Buffing me.

You have been augmented with the blood of a Mana Newt! Mana regeneration increased.

You have been augmented with the skin of a Death Adder! Death resistance increased.

You have been augmented with the power of a Philosopher’s Fern! Intelligence increased.

Oachin joined in a moment later, layering his own potion-based buffs on me. By the time it was all over, I felt like I was audibly humming with power, every part of wanting to shout, to run, to let loose.

Instead, I took my own spot, much closer to the boss and behind Alara. Just to verify what I’d read, I fired off a probing arrow, imbuing it with a dash of Overload Weapon for good measure.

As expected, it pinged off harmlessly, even the magic damage doing absolutely nothing.

That was the annoying part of this particular boss. Even worse than its ridiculous size was its metal coat. Not only did it render most physical blows pointless, but the shiny, reflective sheen also effectively protected against magic damage too.

That was fine. I trusted my party members to deal with that. My job was much simpler.

With a deep breath, I summoned another arrow, attuned it to death mana, and then activated Overload Weapon in earnest.

It was strange to think that I was the one selected to be the main damage dealer in a boss fight. It was just so far from what my role had ever been, but if anything, it was a sign that I was getting stronger. Mana rushed from me into my arrow, filling the air about me with an empty, sterile feeling.

Now, we wait.

The chamber shook over and over as the titan’s fists pummeled into the immovable object that dared to challenge the boss of the dungeon. Frustrated with its notable lack of progress, the titan roared, and at last the moment we were waiting for arrived.

The metal coating on the boss’s arm shifted, flowing towards one of its fists and pooling around its fingers. A singular massive spike formed there, ready to turn Alara into one giant puncture wound.

The metal, however, was a limited resource, and in bringing that much of it together, the boss had made a costly trade off: Where once its entire body had been perfectly silver, there was now an unprotected patch of green flesh on its arm.

With each second, dozens of points of death mana streamed into my bow, and the deathly aura about me gorged on it. It was a hollow, cold feeling, and I could feel it battering up against me, shaving off my health even as I held onto it. I found myself eager to be rid of it.

Thankfully, with the boss’s arm unprotected, I could do just that.

I let the arrow loose, and it flew through the air unerringly. I’d aimed carefully, but needn’t have bothered. With my distance and the massive size of my target, the conclusion was foregone.

Archery has reached level 12!

Hundreds of points of death mana rocketed into titan’s arm, the arrow blasting halfway through its flesh and getting lodged there. It roared, aborting its strike and jumping away from Alara, but the damage was already done. In real time, the titan’s veins grew black and its flesh began to decay and necrotize. In moments, the entire arm hung limp and useless.

Hell. It was easy to forget sometimes, but I actually packed a punch when I had the time to charge up.

Punching things, however, wasn’t the boss’s only trick. With its cries still reverberating through the room, it spun about, seeming to notice the four of us for the first time. Rather than charging us, its metal coating shifted about once more. Around its waist, four giant beads of metal pooled off of it, rapidly shifting until they took the form of razor sharp blades.

Faster than I would have imagined, they shot off from the boss, each of them en route to one of us. At the speed they were going, there was no chance we’d all be able to dodge them.

It was very fortunate, then, that we didn’t need to.

The room filled with the scratching, screeching sound of metal biting into metal as three of the blades sank deep into the metal shrubbery protecting the others. As for the fourth, it met a thick layer of plate armor enhanced with Overload Armor. Even the force behind it did little, not able to overcome the knockback resistance from my Strength and class skills.

The blade clanked uselessly to the ground before transforming, quickly shifting into the familiar form of four metal slimes. Two of them immediately attempted to bowl me over, while the other two started rolling back to the boss, intent on recharging its metal coating.

At last, it was Nella’s time to shine. Her skills weren’t long-range enough to fill my role, and were she to get too close to the boss, all it would take to kill her would be a single blow. She hadn’t been happy about her role, per se, but it seemed she was serious about her lake house apology.

After taking a moment to roast the twelve slimes that had oozed out of the bushes, she darted over to me and took care of my four as well, cackling madly as all the slimes melted to slag.

It was possible that I could have dealt with my slimes on my own, but I was already busy charging up for round two.

Perhaps sensing the danger that I posed, the boss turned my way, and for a moment, I thought the fight was going to turn into a hectic game of cat and mouse as I ran from it. Before it could take a single step, however, a giant rock sailed through the air, pummeling into its back.

Man. Jason would have loved that.

It stumbled forward far more than it should have from a rock of that size, taking its eyes from me to see who dared assault it in such a way.

For all that she was presently rooted in place, Alara still had her bag of tricks. Though she was a melee specialist by nature, that didn’t mean she was above throwing a good rock or two, and she kept a solid selection of them in her spatial bag.

Did her throws come with a host of class skills to back them up like Jason’s would have? No. With her able to greatly increase their mass the moment before they left her hand, however, they were still proved to be quite a fearsome attack.

With another roar -- this one sounding notably worse for wear by now -- the titan forgot entirely about me and rushed back to Alara, returning to its previous slugging match but with a single arm.

Having chosen to attack the one person it couldn’t do anything to, the boss had all but sealed its fate. The rest of the fight went even more smoothly than the first had, and with it already down some of its protective coating from its ranged attack, landing my second strike proved even easier this time around.

Another torrent of death mana. Another lifeless, dangling, decaying arm.

From what we’d read, we expected a host of ranged attacks to follow as the boss depleted all of its coating in a last-ditch effort to do us in. As it turned out, things were even easier than that: Its arms rendered useless, the titan attempted to stomp on Alara.

Unfortunately for it, that proved to be a very bad move.

Alara pushed her mass manipulation to the max, turning what -- in any sane world -- would have smushed her ten times over into an opportunity. She crouched down with her hands raised to the ceiling, and with as much force as she could muster, she shot up and pushed against the monster’s foot.

Most of her shove was focused on redirecting the titan’s leg to the side, and the results were even better than we could have hoped for. Perhaps it normally would have used its arms to balance itself, but at the last moment, it seemed to recall that wasn’t an option for it anymore. A single moment of panic was all that preceded its fall, its incredible height making the entire process take a handful of seconds.

Maybe not something we want to repeat. It would be incredibly embarrassing if we did all that just to lose because the boss killed one of the others by falling on them.

For the final time, the room rumbled and shook as the titan’s body met the ground.

The five of us had no intention of letting it get up.

Without its arms to push it back up, the fight effectively ended right there. It managed to throw out a few more ranged attacks from its prone position, but unable to see all of us, they missed their mark. I peppered it with more arrows before getting up close and personal, filling its legs with death mana until they matched the creature’s arms.

Nella joined in a moment later, and soon the titan was transformed into one giant funeral pyre.

We didn’t have long to wait after that.

Congratulations! You have cleared the Sylum Metal Dungeon in student trial mode!

Current trial completion status: 1/5

Shouts and cheers echoed off the hard metallic walls as our party celebrated our first full dungeon run together.

With the dungeon complete, there had naturally been talk of drinking and revelry to commemorate our victory. In fact, even after all of that, Nella’s enthusiasm hadn’t waned, and she tried to convince us to do it all over again.

Unfortunately, considering that none of us had planned on running the dungeon after class, we’d already spent much more time together than we’d anticipated. As it was, each of us had other classes and obligations to take care of, and even had that not been the case, Oachin begged off by saying he needed to refill some of his potions.

Alara stayed in the Adventure District, with the two nobles heading inwards to the inner city. Heading roughly the same way, Emin and I started walking together.

As we navigated through the narrow streets of Sylum, I caught him lightly shivering a few times, the simple action confusing me.

“Emin, are you cold?” I certainly wasn’t.

“Hmm? I suppose a little. It’s, ah, a touch brisk out, isn’t it? Should have brought a jacket. Are you saying you’re not cold at all?” He seemed equally as confused as I was seeing that my getup was even less warming than his was -- the outfit I’d chosen for the day didn’t even have long sleeves.

Is it because of Cold Resistance? But the skill was still fairly low leveled. Maybe it had to do with my Constitution then? As I considered what the difference was, I absentmindedly started to weave my mana into a particular shape, only to abruptly stop halfway through.

Oh. Wow. Of course I was warm. Because I was warming myself.

Not bothering to stop myself this time, I completed my spell and cast Invigorate. A small jolt of warmth spread over me.

When did that become so second nature? After a good two months of wearing the archmage’s training aids, it seemed that I didn’t even realize when I was casting my Initiate rank spells.

I lost myself in reflection, realizing that the overall effects were even greater than I’d realized. Even when my training aids weren’t activating, I used my spells throughout the day almost constantly. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if it was sunny or not right now -- I’d taken to automatically adjusting the brightness of my contacts everywhere I went, keeping things perpetually just a little bit dim.

The same went for temperature. Had it gotten colder recently? Had there been warm days? I adjusted my own temperature on the fly so quickly that it made no difference to me.

Of course, not all of my spells got equal usage. It wasn’t often that I needed to cast Encumber outside of when my training aid activated, and the same went for Vivify, Deaden, Dampen, and Dry. Still, I had to admit the archmage’s methods were working pretty well.

“Wait, that spell works on any target I want it to.” My musings came to a halt as I remembered what had sparked them in the first place. “One sec.” I recast the spell a handful of times on Emin, turning on Heat Sight so I could see how well I was doing. He let out a fairly undignified yelp as the first cast hit him, but was fast on the uptake.

I stopped when it looked like he was about as hot as I was.

“Pretty handy, huh? Beats having a jacket any day.” I was hardly some battlemage capable of summoning up firestorms, but I was pretty useful sometimes!

Emin chuckled, agreeing with my assessment while also thanking me for warming him up. I was paying attention to him as he spoke, but a small part of my focus went to my notifications, as my recent spree of casting had paid off.

Invigorate has reached level 8!

Fire Magic has reached level 16!

Wow. Honestly, I’m speeding through the Initiate ranks a little faster than I thought I would. I pulled up my character sheet, finding that most of my spell classes were around the same level.

The single exception was Dark Magic. Considering how frequently I used Shade, coupled with the fact that my Obsidian Hairclip had me passively casting Darken Small Object nearly 24/7, it was ahead of the pack at a respectable 18.

Emin and I parted ways soon after that, but as I walked back home, I found myself staring at all those numbers again.

Pretty close to finally hitting level 20 in a spell class like the archmage wanted me to. Plus… I glanced over to my experience numbers, finding that I was painfully close to hitting level 14 after all the class quests I’d completed. Would be nice to get a new level.

With a renewed resolve towards spell-casting, I spent the rest of the way home channeling dark mana into my boots and eyes while also casting Shade over and over again.

New magic was so close, I could almost taste it!