Clambering into the door was difficult. Kiresula had to climb up next to it and then move herself sideways. Her left foot almost slipped. Then she moved herself around the doorframe and collapsed on the floor.

She was exhausted. Every part of her body was in pain. Every little part of existence hurted. Kiresula was feeling like falling asleep right then and there. Even thinking seemed too much effort. She spent time just breathing. Tears were running down her face and she didn’t even have the energy to wipe them away. She eventually dozed off.

There were noises that woke her up. Loud noises. Shouting. Kiresula opened her eyes and saw a monster. More specifically: An orc. A huge creature, about twice as tall as Kiresula with green scaly skin and bulging muscles. The entire inside of the spire was a metal staircase with just a small landing where she crashed. There were no guardrails on the inside of the structure. Every fall would be deadly and would lead them directly to the ground. At seemingly random places in the wall, tiny specs of bright light shone. Kiresula stumbled to her feet. The orc was descending the stairs slowly and carefully, seemingly afraid of falling. The left hand carried a sword. While Kiresula didn’t know a lot about weapons, she knew to be careful around the thing. She kept to the wall and checked her status. Her health was at 21 points. Her magic was at 34 Seren. There was very little that she could do. She concentrated on doing Serenity to restore her magic as the orc approached.

She had been unable to raise her magic to anything even possibly serviceable. She had only been able to raise it one single point. Doing Serenity was difficult when there was a lot of pain that while trying to devour her, distracted her.

As soon as the orc was close, she cast to [Bites of the Elemental Beetle] to each of the eyes. The orc closed its eyes for a moment and in this moment Kiresula did a [Fire Strike] directly from the right to push the orc from the direction where its sword wasn’t. The dungeon monster screamed and tried to get to Kiresula. She once again went for his closest eye with a Bite of the Elemental Beetle to try to get up the steep stairs to get the high ground. She was at 21 Seren. She hit another beetle, this one into the area between the male orc’s legs. Then another one. 15 Seren. The orc stumbled back. Four more elemental beetles into the same area followed. 3 Seren. The creature stumbled to the side of the stairs without guardrails or protection. Then, it disappeared. About the time to count from 21 to 36 in Mainlandish, Kiresula heard a faint thud.

Kiresula breathed a breath she had not realised she had been holding.

Class Achievement: Defeated a dungeon stage boss with only elemental magic. This provides experience in your Elemental-Somatic Mage class.

Class Achievement: Reached Rank emergent, Level 3 in your Elemental-Somatic mage class.

60 stat points assigned, 5 free stat points.

New skill: Elemental Awareness

New spell: Synthic magnetism

Kiresula quickly assigned her free points, then she sat down. She only now realised that she had been struck by the orc’s claws and was bleeding. She then fell asleep.

Name: Kiresula

Species: Emergent Glitchling

Highest Class Rank: Emergent

Highest Class Level: 6

Classes: Seferian Mage (Rank: emergent, Level 6), Elemental-Somatic Mage (Rank: emergent, Level 3)

Power: 503

Might: 105 (+15)

Fortitude: 341 (+5)

Willpower: 47

Speed: 404

Agility: 130 (+15)

Mental acuity: 146

Perception: 128

Magic: 543

Magical force: 192 (+10)

Magical control: 213 (+10)

Magical defence: 168 (+10)

Social: 128

Charisma: 50

Empathy: 70

Cunning: 8

Health: 21/401

Magic: 3/510

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Skills: Improved casting, Seferian Fortitude, Control of the Pioneer, Immediate Escape (only for: Dungeon of the Bridge), Enhanced Synthic Restoration, Elemental Awareness

Learned Spells: Illuminate, Sunlight, Freedom of Movement, Travelling Light, Nightly Sojourn, Waterproof Object, Icy Terrain, Foggy Terrain, Spherical Vision, Enhance Ability, Grains of Time, Northern Star, Preserve Commestibles, Bite of the Elemental Beetle (Rank 3), Wind Step, Fire Strike, Evaluate Plant, Move Soil, Synthic Magnetism

When she woke up, things were much noisier, except, it was not actual noise, nor was it visual or tactile, but yet, it kinda felt like all of them. It sang of the slight movement in the air, of the metal wall and the stairs in a narrow area around her. She checked her health and realised that it only went up about a fifth of her total to 127 points. Her magic had returned to the full 510 Seren. She tried to clamber to her feet, but she almost fell. After a few attempts, she tried the new spell. She immediately stuck to the wall and the stairs using synthic magic. Her head reverberated when it impacted the wall. Standing up was much harder, but eventually, she managed to shift the attraction to just her feet and her back and then was able to get to her feet.

She had lost 100 Seren in the process but she was not worried. Serenity could restore her magic quite swiftly. While her normal recovery rate remained at the sedate 6 Seren per minute, Serenity improved in leaps and bounds with each level increase. This was different from Mayana's recovery. She recovered more than 24 Seren per minute at only Level 4. But in contrast, Serenity merely doubled it and did so statically. As for Kju, no one was quite sure how it worked as it was highly volatile both when resting or when trying to do a recovery technique. They had noticed that it was much higher in the settlement of the Je-ashvehanu than when the three were on their own.

Kiresula climbed slowly. The enemies here had already been defeated. Kobolds, goblins and winged goblins lay in heaps about every 2 rotations of the stairs. Sometimes, they looked burned in the places they were hunted. The others had been able to dispatch the dungeon creatures.

Despite the disgusting nature of the corpses, eventually, Kiresula paused, stuck to the wall and had a meal of the cold, preserved goat meat.

She climbed the stairs until she felt exhausted. Afterwards, she used the new spell to stick to the wall and use it to help her upstairs. When she was out of magic, she stopped for Serenity, then, she used the same process again and again. Eventually, the stairs ended. There just was no next step anymore. She noticed that the ceiling was only a bit higher than she could reach. She used Serenity to re-fill her magic and then tried to stick to the wall and climb the sheer wall. Doing so with all of her boosted Agility allowed her to get up enough that she could see that there was a faint gap in the ceiling. A thin line in a rectangular shape. She could only hit it once, then she slid down. Then she did Serenity to restore the lost 490 points of magic. While doing so, she was quiet, The entire climb, the spire had been quiet, apart from the noises of her breath, her steps, her sighs and sobs and sometimes, when the silence was oppressive, the sounds of a song that she sung, but now, she was not sure if she could hear something. There was a faint sound of voices. Or was there? Kiresula shouted an inarticulate scream. Then she waited for a response. She was not sure if she imagined it, but she thought she once again heard something. Her heart raced. She once again climbed upwards and while doing so, she shouted: “Anyone there?”

In that moment two things happened: The trap door opened and at the same time, wooden steps moved magically out of the gapless walls. She was pushed away from the walls and screamed in panic.

One wooden step emerged on the level of her breasts on the right side of her body, the next one about two handspans lower on the level of her abdomen. This was the step that she barely held onto with her right hand. As she started to fall, she managed to hold onto it with her left hand as well. She held onto the step for her dear life. She still screamed and at this moment, she heard other screams as well. Her fingers started to hurt from the fall and using her recently improved strength was enough to move her upwards, to the point that she could move her head over the step but not enough that she could move her centre of gravity over it. Slowly, bit by bit by bit, with pain in all parts of her hands, her arms and her shoulders, but she could not drop or let go. That would kill her.

Her screams turned into more desperate noises and eventually, just into sobbing as more and more of her throat, neck, and shoulders rose over the step. She had less and less energy and stamina. She was closer and closer to losing her strength and her grip. Her fingers were sweaty. Her eyes were tearing up. She could not see anything anymore. Then, she felt something in her Elemental Awareness. The next moment, she felt someone grabbing her and dragging her up. She heard a voice: “Help me, it’s Kirey!” It was Mayana.

Kju and Mayana eventually dragged Kiresula upwards. Kiresula was sobbing Mayana’s name during the process. Eventually, she was sitting on the ground, exhausted, pained, being held by Mayana. She slowly regained her senses and hugged as well as kissed her. Mayana joined in while Kju respectfully turned around.

“Thank you!” was the first coherent thing that she said. “Both of you!”

Kju turned around, his head hung low and he said: “I am sorry that I could not save you when we were running. I don’t have a neat Enhance Attribute as you do. The spell I used was to get someone temporarily over the minimal stat requirements for an assignable class they can get. It is probably supposed to simulate the feeling of Level 1 in it, but I am not fully sure. As you had already been assigned a class, there is no class that can be assigned to you. And as I have used this spell on Mayana and myself, I cannot use it until we have crossed the threshold of level 64.”

Kiresula nodded in understanding. “I see. I guess it makes sense that I only survived due to the class that you assigned. And due to that dungeon spell, the beetle.”

Mayana looked shocked: “That bloody spell? I cannot imagine how you can use a spell with that staging time.”

Kiresula looked at Mayana and shrugged: “It worked against the orc.”

Kju made a shocked sound: “We had not been able to defeat that thing! We had to outrun it.”

Kiresula explained: “I fought dirty. I hit the thing right where it hurts the most. It stepped back and the lack of a guardrail did the rest. I also used [Fire Strike]s, but I was almost out of magic. When the thing dropped, I was at 3 Seren.”

Mayana sounded shocked: “Kysan ran out of magic?”

Kiresula nodded: “Shijsan, or, now byeshsan has magic, but not infinite amounts of it.”

Instead of ky for three, she used shij for four and byesh for five.

Mayana asked: “You got a level up?”

Kiresula nodded: “In my secondary class, I am level three.”

Mayana smiled: “That’s great! I gained a secondary class as well And even levelled it up to level 4: Fireblade. You remember these slate rocks we used to butcher the goat? I used a fire enchantment on it. And then just slaughtered my way through the enemies.”

Kju nodded: “Not even from me. It was just the system noticing how she fought them with an enchanted rock with a sharp edge.”

Kiresula hugged Mayana and exclaimed: “That’s awesome!”

A while later, Kju brought another topic up: “We can get up the spire. We are complete now.”

Kiresula asked: “What do you mean?”

Mayana explained: “When we got up the spire, we saw a message flying in the sky, telling us to get the group together to summon the next miniboss.”

Kiresula made an unhappy noise. “Do we have any healing items or spells? I feel like I have been trampled by a herd of elephants.”

Mayana shook her head. So did Kju.

She nodded: “We still have some meat. Let’s eat something and recover. Then we can get up there tomorrow.”