Taking Alice’s sword in hand, Logan snapped it.

“It was that close to breaking!?” Alice shouted as she slumped over the lost weapon.

Marcus then tapped the mace that Jayd had been using, several sections flaking off.

“Oh man, that was close”, Jayd said, deflated.

“I was out of bolts too”, Varuud added with a sigh.

Sooryah was fighting back tears with only a single dagger in his hand, the other five being beyond repair.

“This is why you buy spares”, Logan instructed.

“Or repair your gear before going off to such a mass of monsters”, Marcus nodded.

“It’ll be fine, we’re gonna be rich with the pay from this dungeon quest”, Alice smiled off the sadness.

“Sorry there weren’t any items worth your time”, Jayd apologised as he bowed his head slightly.

“It’s fine. We just lost a few hours in the day. All good if we can help some newcomers”, Logan replied as he handed a small booklet to Alice.

“What’s that”, Sooryah asked.

“Homework.”

“What!?” the team exclaimed.

Warping back to the exterior of Gauntlet, Alice picked up the body of Sooryah who had collapsed again before entering the city. When inside, Logan teleported the group right to the G-Hall to save time.

With wide smiles, the now recovered team had their signets updated with a single dungeon clear each, while Logan got his third. The team all gave strong hugs to the Spellthief and Devout before departing to sort out their gear, sell off components, and rest before their next quest.

A few whispers went around the guild, though thankfully they were more curious than snootyness, as adventurers wondered why Logan had helped such low-ranked people. It made sense with his previous reputation as a nice guy, but some were still curious as his identity as a Wolf Hunter painted him as a dangerous individual.

There wasn’t much issue with the discussion, so Logan went back to the dungeon boards. It had only reached the evening, but a few pieces of parchment had changed. The Spellthief took up two more to complete, quite weak locations that had the receptionists put on slightly bemused looks.

Leaving to the outside world, Logan looked at the orange sky as the sun descended past the walls of the city. He had time, no need to rush. Instead of dealing with the dungeons straight away, the pair returned to the Meek Moat Inn for a long rest before a duo dungeon run tomorrow.

Double-checking their gear, the pair were all straight for another delve into the earth in the morning. Not wanting to not practice what they preached, their backup weapons were plentiful and their current gear as repaired as they could be. Logan could update his armour, but there were hardly any that compared to the effects of his Spellthief’s Garb. He needed a new system quest.

While browsing the shops for anything they might need, Logan made note of the severe lack of stuff on display. It seemed the drought had hit, with hardly any healing potions on offer in the normal markets. He only hoped it didn’t last long.

The first dungeon to clear as a duo was an outside set of ruins, two teleports away from the city. Remnants of walls and pillars lay strewn across a clearing in the forest, magical tags on every other tree to track movements and levels of spellforce in the area.

This place was once a large town in the past, a few centuries ago, but was attacked and overrun by traitors looking for a quick coin. Sadly, the negative emotions fed the fauna and flora, and even the corpses left behind. Now, it was a spellforced dungeon that was contained within the confines of the town.

So close to being an erupted dungeon, this was a stable locale for monsters and undead to form. Monsters moved into the forest to bring back corpses to get reanimated, while new spectres formed in the town.

With orders to be cleaned every three months, this was a common place for rank four through nine adventurers to venture to. Unlucky travellers would also stumble onto it, so it had to be cleared thoroughly.

Marcus laid his hand on Logan’s shoulder as he Enhanced both of them. A grey aura flowed around the duo as Logan commanded his elementals to circle the town and move into its centre, pushing all monsters to a pillar in the middle.

Darting into the town, Logan and Marcus shouted at all those who could hear them. They both made it to the centre in a minute, clearing a distance that made them far beyond the sprinters of Earth.

Sliding to the pointed pillar, Logan spun daggers in his hands, as Marcus spun his staff and dagger.

Their earlier “pull” had caused a torrent of monsters to charge towards them. Undead mounds of flesh, creaky skeletons, undead goblinoids, and even demonic dogs.

Throwing a dagger into his coat, Logan held out a hand and chanted, “Lightning Cascade”, causing blue bolts to form across his fingertips before dancing towards a goblinoid in the middle, shocking it to its skeleton before the lightning split off into ten directions, taking down eleven in one blow.

Marcus kicked off the floor and landed a massive slam into one skeleton, swinging it wide had him separate the top half of a zombie next. Kicking the face of a goblinoid, Marcus cartwheeled into a diving dagger to its face before slicing upwards into another zombie.

Elemental blasts could be heard and felt in the distance as Logan’s summons did as he commanded.

Logan smirked as he saw so many foes fall at once, it was a nice power trip, but he knew to hold back such overconfidence against stronger foes. But now was the time to bask in his preparation and progress.

Letting fly another Lightning Cascade, Logan jumped to the side as he dodged a clawed swipe from a skeleton garbed in a shadowy cloak. A spectre of some form, and stronger than the others. Parrying another claw with his dagger, Logan circled his foe and planted a hand on its back, “Flame Grasp”, igniting the bones with harsh flames.

With a kick of dust and rubble, plus the shadow at his hind, Logan moved his head to the left to dodge a piercing rapier from a zombie still holding its last weapon. Backstepping, Logan wrapped around the zombie's arm and threw it over his shoulder onto the floor, driving his own blade into the creature twice.

Yet more Lightning Cascades caressed the air and punctured his foes, this maximised spell doing wonders to remove all traces of monsters in this outside dungeon.

It didn’t take long for the summons to meet their master, their faces would be fatigued if they had the ability to get winded, but at their heels were more monsters to add to the pile.

Logan aimed an arm high with a smirk, lightning forming in his fingers.

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A pile of corpses filled the town centre, Logan sat atop an especially large pile of zombies and Marcus kicked a skeleton’s skull down the street.

“Where’s the boss then?” Logan asked rhetorically.

No experience numbers had shown themselves just yet, meaning there were still threats in the area that could engage the party.

“Hey! Undead! You scared?” Marcus antagonised.

Logan clicked his fingers but didn’t need the report of Echo Radar before having to dodge a wide scimitar swing.

A partially visible spectre of bone, glowing blue eyes, and metallic armour was phasing in and out. The corpses shook as their energies flew towards the newcomer foe, his form becoming more solid as the spellforce formulated him properly.

Logan skipped from one foot to another to keep himself pumped, dodging another swing and then another. It was good enough training against humanoid-ish foes with weapons, since humans typically subscribed to one of a few attack styles.

This undead monster slowly became more adept at attacking, taking on one such form of civilised kind, causing Logan to theorise it kept some of the previous living person’s identity.

Jumping side to side, ducking, and twirling around, Logan far surpassed his foe’s Agility. Another thing to check was skills, Logan cast, “Invisibility”, to turn his visage vacant, and danced around the foe. However, its skills allowed it to track Logan regardless of a visible form.

The next was to test out the effectiveness of what he dubbed a “Wall Crush”, summoning up a Gaia Wall, he summoned another to crash into its side. However, as both came up from the floor, they just went up, not sideways. He also couldn’t form a Wall from another Wall spell.

A sad outcome, but he now knew that would only be possible within interior locations. The undead would look confused if it had a face, swinging away from the grappling vines of the walls.

With a solid punch into the skeleton’s chest, Logan sent it flying into his magical wall, the vines taking heavy hold. Darting towards his foe, Logan landed several more clenched fists before backstepping from a scimitar slash, ending the creature with a Force mick to the dome.

The culmination of bones slowly fell apart into a pile of white and steel on the floor, its black coat disintegrating in the sunlight as the walls of rock receded.

As the experience faded into the air, Marcus gave out a solid laugh as he continued to feel his power increase. While he had gained access to third-level spells during his own training regime, every level thereafter as he hit 18 increased the number of times he could cast said spells.

Focusing more on his martial might, Marcus had his bonus attribute point spent into Strength. Combined with his increase, Servoir and Umbra both gained a level and an inch in height. Even at 1 level below the 12s, Umbra had the same MP with his faster progression. Logan’s batteries now granted 39 MP.

Sending out his elementals to scout the dungeon for further threats, Logan investigated the pillar in the town centre.

“Identify.”

“Town Obelisk - This is the marker of the town centre, in the past, it was used as a lucky charm and prayer locale. Residents would polish the obelisk in the hopes their diligence would grant them good karma for the day, while others would give it fresh coats of paint and stone maintenance.

The obelisk absorbed the residual spellforce of the people who prayed and spent time around it, eventually granting luck in the form of a protective barrier, if a bit weak. It has since been corrupted by the blood of those same people, victims in the bandit raids. It now “protects” the residents by making them immortal in death. However, its lack of intellect means these aren’t anything more than animated corpses with imprints of their previous living vessels.”

“Marcus, over here”, Logan called, his ally jogging over to him, “This thing is the cause of the dungeon.”

“Truly? Such a… mundane object?”

“It’s a glorified magical item, similar to a trinket. The spellforce is haphazard though. It’s keeping the bodies of the populace moving but not living.”

“Below, what a tragedy. Can you halt it?”

Fol then spoke in Logan’s head, “There is a 50% chance you can destroy the obelisk and have the dungeon become deactivated. The other outcome is that the dungeon becomes erupted, allowing the undead to move away from the town and possibly make undead further afield, making it more dangerous.”

Logan tutted, “Possibly, but I don’t want to risk it. If I had a system quest to do so I’d be more willing, but on my own, I don’t have the proper tools.”

Fol then added, “Using Necromantic may provide better results, you’d instead absorb the energies of the obelisk and its revivifying powers. You need only use Spell Absorption on the remains as you did with the five-pointed star used to teleport to Oretessu.”

“That’s a shame”, Marcus replied to Logan, unaware of the mental conversation.

“Wait a moment, Marcus”, Logan put up a finger. “What are our chances?”

“I do not believe you’d fail. Less than 5% chance of an eruption”, Fol calculated.

Logan hummed, “I might have a different solution. As luck would have it, I have recently maximised my mastery of Necromantic Second, so I could use that to absorb the life from the obelisk to deactivate it. I even nullify negative effects with such mastery.”

Marcus chuckled, “Surprises abound, but I expect it from you nowadays. So, how do we go about this?”

“Give me a second”, Logan instructed, moving to a section of three walls that would have been a house.

Biting his thumb, Logan did the same measures to form a circle in the air and chanted, “Ochus, I smith thy words”, creating a window into the same dark room with a grey-robed woman.

“My liege, my ears are open.”

“I have found a way to eradicate another dungeon. Do I have permission?”

The woman jumped in her chair at the mention but composed herself quickly, “We shall make concessions for you. How will you go about doing so?”

Logan explained his plan with the obelisk, though kept out the mention of his Spell Absorption.

“Very well. Your theory makes sense. I shall warn the others and make up a cover story if it goes wrong”, Ochus allowed.

“Then that will be all. We’ll stick around for an hour or so to make sure.”

“I wish you well, my liege”, Ochus ended as the blurry grey window dissipated.

Standing in front of the obelisk, with Marcus and his elementals on standby a bit away, Logan placed his right hand on the obelisk and chanted, “Necromantic Second Grasp”, causing a black abyss to appear over his arm and formed a claw in his hand, digging its nails deep into the rock the obelisk shook as the ground shattered around it.

Faint azure mist flew up from the stone flooring as it was sucked into Logan’s palm, the shadowy mass fell away as he took hold of the obelisk again, his fingers digging into cracks as he mentally commanded, “Spell Absorb”, another wave of azure mist whirlpooling into his palm.

A wide crack crashed open diagonally across the obelisk, and then again in the opposite direction, forming a cross and splitting it in four as the pillar fell to the floor in a loud crumble.

“Absorption of item successful. Calculating reward…”

“Necromantic and Necromantic 2 are already mastered. Zombify has progressed to tier 2-3-4…-10.”

With the object fully absorbed, there was a rush of wind into the town as if an invisible barrier cracked and fell apart. The sounds of birds and woodland creatures started to enter the ruins, as well as full life.

“Eradication successful”, Fol informed.

Logan sighed in relief and gave a thumbs up to Marcus, “We’re all good. This dungeon is eradicated.”

“Amazing work, Logan”, Marcus cheered with a raised fist.

“We’re the best, you know!” Celsius cheered.

“No longer shall we need to hunt here”, Umbra calculated.

“It is done, let us go”, Fahrenheit asked.

“Now now, we need to wait to make sure. Let’s have a short rest before teleporting away”, Logan announced.

The team nodded as the elementals went back to their patrols, Marcus sitting in the town centre for an hour, while Logan Harvested the bodies for components.

With no further difficulties, Logan informed Ochus about the outcome and warped himself and Marcus back to Gauntlet.

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