Brandon woke up and his head was still throbbing. He was lying on the cold stone floor of the forge and the effects of drained mana were still treating him roughly.

Brandon rose into a sitting position and realized his hand was still holding onto the sword. He wanted to check its stats right away, but he had a larger concern, he wanted to check his notifications first.

Brandon opened his notifications and read them in order. The first was a permanent increase in his mana stat by two. He had also gained two levels in his profession. The next notification was about the masterworks.

[Masterworks are items that even the creator could not easily replicate. Often made from rare materials and lots of effort, masterworks draw out every ounce of their crafter’s skill and are more perfect than the crafter was capable of creating before them. The extreme effort that goes into crafting a masterwork often grants them unique abilities influenced by the crafters mana.]

Brandon couldn’t help himself when he saw the reward for being the first to create a masterwork. It was an epic rarity crafting material box. He would save that for later, for now he had a sword to inspect.

[The Arcblade (Epic)]

+25 slashing damage

+15 piercing damage

+10 lightning elemental damage

Masterwork Abilities

Enhanced Arc Slash: Lightning

Mana Storage: lvl 2

Durability:1600/1600

Brandon stared open mouthed at the stats. This was a better weapon than the enhanced mist steel sword he had seen. This was twice as good as his best weapon made before it. He knew it was a combination of his new material and his new skill as much as anything else, but this weapon was staggering, and that was before checking the options.

[Enhanced Arc Slash: Lightning]

[Arc slash can be used in two ways through this weapon. A normal arc slash will be fired unless the keyword is called out or thought with the push of mana. The keyword is:____]

Brandon got the feeling he was supposed to say a keyword, and the first thing he thought came out of his mouth, “zap.”

Once he said it, the keyword filled itself in on the window.

[Mana Storage: lvl 2]

[This weapon can store 1200 mana in the hilt to be used during combat. Instead of your mana pool.]

This was as big of a deal to Brandon as the enhanced arc slash. His current mana pool was 980 mana, and that was with two classes focusing on magic power and all the points he had put into it. Brandon suspected it had another meaning as well though. Not only was the amount of mana amazing and more than his own, it was mana he could use without the negative effects of mana getting too low.

Brandon’s mind flashed back to the bear and he shuddered. He saw the bear living through his final attack and remembered how he fell. If it hadn’t been for his teammates, he would be dead. Up to that point Brandon had not thought much about death in the tutorial.

He knew he was in danger and he had faced more than a few dangerous situations. It was different being confronted with his own certain death though. Even more so now, he did not know what he could do about the monster outside. He wasn’t sure how electricity would work against it. It was covered in rock and ore, the rock could ground it or the ore could channel the electricity directly into the beast.

He did not want to be helpless like last time. He needed to be stronger.

Brandon stepped up to the missing wall and charged an arc blast. He channeled over 400 mana into his sword and hoped it would extend the reach enough to hit the Odarake from the wall. It was over a hundred feet away, so he wasn’t sure.

Brandon stepped through the barrier swinging his sword with all his might. It felt good in his hands, well balanced for him and it cut through the air fast enough that it created a clear and high pitched whistle as it glowed and felt almost alive. Brandon very nearly lost his concentration on the attack as his head also passed through the barrier.

There was a roar of noise with clapping, cheers, and jeers directed at him. The colosseum seats had filled with apparitions much like the dwarf who he had met earlier. The Odarake responded to the noise by looking around. Its head was still facing away from Brandon when the arc slash hit it in the side between his front two arms on its left side.

The roar the beast unleashed was astonishingly loud. Even from this distance Brandon could feel it in his chest. It sounded like a whale gargling rocks as it sang its song. Brandon saw the slash had cut halfway into its arm, having hit between where the ores were, but it had been nearly dissipated by the ores where it had hit them. Even with all that mana, they were strong enough to mostly resist his strike. All that he could see where they had struck ore was cracks along the rocky surface.

Brandon found himself staring as the Odarake turned towards him and let out an additional roar. Faster than he could think to do it, Brandon’s body dodged back into the room where he sat panting on the stone floor.

I know it lost some power over the distance, but omg. That is ridiculous. Brandon realized he would have to get in close to a creature over 20 feet long that would tower over him and had 4 arms with claws as long as swords. Great.

Brandon groaned and decided to meditate a while to get his mana back. His test had been somewhat successful, and he knew two things now. It could feel pain, and under that armor, it had weak flesh.

Brandon meditated and filled his sword with mana. It was a process that took most of a day to do. It took twice as much mana to fill it as it stored, so he had to use 2400 mana and it took almost 2 hours to recharge his mana after each time he filled it.

Once the sword was full of mana, Brandon took out the rest of his swords he had made and began infusing them. He also took out a bar of arc steel and infused it as well. When injected with mana it could produce electricity, he grabbed it as a last resort to try and throw at the beast if it broke too many of his swords.

Brandon’s total count was 44 swords including his Arcblade. Preparation took all day, so Brandon slept again, he would try again tomorrow, and this time he had a new idea.

***

Brandon picked up the Arcblade from the table in his right hand, the cool metal gleaming as he charged just enough mana for an infused blade. He had realized he forgot to make a sheath last night but left it on the table forgetting his inventory. He had been tired.

This time when Brandon stepped into the arena, he was ready for the noise, but the Odarake was also ready for him. Among the boos and calls of cowardice there were also calls of support calling him brave for coming back, telling him he could do it.

Brandon charged towards the juvenile monster as it reared back onto its hind four legs and roared at him again. The ground shook with the force of its call. When he was around 20 feet away, he let off a couple of twenty mana arc slashes. They came out of the blade with any swing of the sword if he used just a little mana.

As the arcs approached the monster he also called out, “ZAP!” A third arc, this one with jagged edges instead of sharp and precise ones like the blade of a normal arc slash. It was coiled lightning held in the shape of an arc as it rushed forward.

The first two arcs his the monster in the chest as it began to swipe at Brandon with its long claws. Brandon had just enough time to see it crack slightly and the second arc make a real chink in its armor before he had to dodge out of the way. He somersaulted backwards taking advantage of his greater strength and agility to jump cleanly over its claws. The lightning arc got absorbed into its chest and Brandon could hear the audible zap as it jumped from ore to skin. The Odarake roared again.

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While it was distracted, Brandon ran in with his infused blade and slashed at its front left hind leg. Brandon managed to cut into the rock with his sword and felt more confident, summoning the two strongest blades he had made besides this one. One was a falchion, the one he had finished just before he made this one. One was one of his experimental telepathy-only designs.

It was the first of that kind he had made, a weapon that did not fit his fighting style in melee combat but hat he could use better as a telepathy weapon. It had a thicker blade than most of his swords with an extremely thin taper as it went towards the tip. It was closer to a javelin than a sword, but he had made the blade two feet long and the handle 4 feet long. It still counted as a sword by the system, so his sword manipulation made it easier to control.

Brandon had made it specifically to try and pierce the armor of this beast with pinpoint thrusts. He infused its blade now and brought it through the sky and down into the gap he had made in the armor on its leg as he ran away from the beast's swinging claws. The sword found its mark and caused the creature to stumble then fall. Brandon saw his sword snap as the monster fell on top of it and recalled another one from his inventory as he watched the health bar barely move 2% with the stab wound in its leg and its fall.

Brandon sent both swords at the monster’s chest with another electric arc slash. It worked just as he had hoped. The two swords were not as fast as the arc slash and when it got between them, the two swords absorbed the electricity and it arced between them instead. When they sank into the Odarake, it was like it got electrocuted with a taser. Brandon saw that even that had done only maybe 6 % of its health but he couldn’t stop here.

Brandon dashed at the monster again as it was jerking from being tased. It broke both of the weapons in its chest with its claws then attacked him again. Bradon summoned three swords and infused them with mana using them to block its claws. Only one of them broke, and he sent the other two into the chest cavity again trying to widen it.

He fought the Odarake up close but had too many close calls and began to run instead. He was not heading back towards the forge but towards the opposite wall, controlling his swords and sending arc slashes back at the monster. He ran for nearly twenty minutes, slowly chipping away at its health and trying to tire it out.

As Brandon ran away from the monster dodging another set of claws and turned around to arc slash it or try and penetrate it with his floating swords. He realized his mana and stamina were getting depleted faster than its health when he saw its health bar as he faced it.

Brandon decided to take a risk. He ran at the wall full speed with the monster behind him then jumped towards it, pulling in his feet and turning them towards the wall. He crouched to slow his impact and kicked off the wall, pushing mana out of his feet as he dove towards the Odarake. He used the mana stored in the hilt to quickly push out an arc slash as he went under the beast’s body, but one of its claws caught his leg and twisted him, causing him to miss.

The arc missed its chest but cut through its uppermost right arm. Dark red blood sprayed over the Odarake and him both as its heavily armored limb crashed to the ground with a mighty thud. Brandon crashed into its back legs because of the claw that had caught him and he had a gash across the side of his left thigh.

He definitely couldn’t run now. Brandon called a dozen of his remaining swords and infused their blades. He sent them all as a group at the monster’s face, but it was just a distraction. Brandon was unsurprised as he saw the beast destroy all of his blades. He used the time to get behind it but out of range of the tail.

Brandon charged 700 mana from the storage on the blade and shouted “Zap!”

The Odarake turned around at his call but that was a mistake. It allowed the gigantic arc slash to hit it in the chest. The cracked apart ores shattered off of its body, flying in all directions. One chunk hit Brandon in the chest and knocked him even further from the beast. It surprisingly did not tear through the apron.

The roars of the crowd grew even louder than that of the Odarake as it tried to recover from being electrocuted and cut across the chest. Brandon pushed the ore chunk off of himself and pushed himself to his feet. He was staggering as he had lost a good amount of health and blood from the cut and impact. He was still well over 300 health so not in any immediate danger, but another slash like that could put him there.

With its chest exposed, Brandon summoned two more of his new swords. He was running out, but he needed to survive. Brandon sent the swords forwards into the beast’s exposed chest, but only one was able to sink in. The other bounced off, not well made enough to damage the monster.

The Odarake was eating the ores that had broken off of its chest and turned to face Brandon. Its eyes locked onto his and he suddenly knew what was happening next.

It happened in almost slow motion. Brandon dodged out of the way as the creature’s mouth opened and molten metal spewed out of it, covering his feet and legs.

“Aaaaahhhhhh!” Brandon screamed as he felt his legs melt. The moments in the crucible came back to him as the molten metal pored not just on his legs but through them as they melted away. For a moment, he was back in the crucible, he was dying to extreme heat and he froze. Brandon did no pull his legs away in tome for them to be useful and was collapsed in pain on the ground.

The crowd was louder than ever at this development, but it was one person’s voice yelling “Dodge, you fool!” that snapped him out of the pain long enough to act. Brandon rolled away to his left, the hardening metal on his legs weighing him down and causing the claws to catch across his back as he rolled.

Brandon let out another scream of pain but he was still alive. I’m such an idiot. That was the last thing Brandon thought before pushing the rest of his stored mana into the sword as well as most of his own and letting out one last electric arc slash as it towered over him, getting ready to bite. “Zap!”

The arc cut deep into its chest and Brandon watched the health bar as it faded to 0, but then the monster began to fall on top of where he was. Brandon blacked out before it landed on him.

***

A while later, Brandon woke up and was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. It took him a moment to remember what happened, but as soon as he did, Brandon sat up and looked at his legs. They were back, he must have gotten a full restore.

Brandon realized he was in the den of the rune bear and should be relatively safe. He decided to check his notifications.

[Congratulations on completing the challenge dungeon! The rewards including a portable forge and all leftover materials you collected and the book you were gifted have been added to your inventory.]

Apparently, the materials he had collected were fair game but not the ones that were in the storage. He had kind of suspected it but it was still disappointing. Brandon had also gained a new skill similar to his heat resistance called bludgeoning resistance. He assumed it was due to the last part of the trial.

Arc Slash, Infused Blade, Mana Sight, Basic Telekinesis, Basic Swordsmanship, and Sword Manipulation had all leveled up. Brandon had also gained two levels each in his class and profession, meaning he had new skills to look at as well. A level 15 Odarake was no joke.

Brandon was still upset at himself for having almost died again. It was because he got trapped in his own mind. He didn’t even know who called out for him to dodge but he was grateful they had. Brandon shook his head and decided to just look at the skills he had available to him instead.

Brandon was hoping for a new attack skill or a defensive skill that would let him block blows without armor. Even an evasion skill would be okay. Combat thus far had taught him that he was a glass cannon. He could deal extreme amounts of damage, but it came at a cost. He almost died in both of his last two fights.

[Skill Selection Window]

[You have 24 hours to select a skill or one will be assigned at random from the following list of 5 skills. Receivable skills are based on personal achievement and class progression.]

[Skill: Lunge level 1 (common)]

+10 piercing or slashing damage

Step forward with a quicker step than you normally could. Slash or stab during this step dealing extra damage to targets hit.

[Skill: Mana Arrow level 1 (uncommon)]

Channel your mana into a penetrating arrow that you send forth to smite your enemies. The range and damage of this arrow is based on how much mana is poured into it and how efficiently that mana is used. It is more penetrating and powerful than a mana bolt.

[Skill: Fast Infusion level 1 (Uncommon)]

Increases the speed of infusing with objects by 20% and decreases mana needed to infuse any object with your mana by an additional 20%

[Skill: Battle Smith level 1 (Rare)]

Weapons and armor you craft give additional stat boosts when used by you in combat but not when used by others. The stat boosts depend on the weapons and armor crafted.

[Skill: Sword and Sorcery level 1 (Legendary)]

Every melee attack you perform raises the damage of your next skill or spell by 5% stacking up to 10 times. Every spell or skill you perform raises the damage of your next melee attack by 5% stacking up to 10 times. This skill can be activated to slow down time around you to 1/10th normal speed for one second plus an additional second per stack. [Cooldown: 168 hours]

Warning: You do not benefit from any effects of the skill once it has been activated until the cooldown is over.

Unlike previous skills, there was no difficult choice here. He grabbed sword and sorcery immediately. Once he did and the window closed, Brandon saw there was another notification.

[Stat ascended: Magic Power]

Upgrade now?

Yes/No

Brandon hit the yes button and felt his vision start to darken again. Damnit. Was all he had time to think before another notification entered his field of view.

[⅙ requirements met for racial ascension.]

It was the last thing Brandon saw before he felt an onrushing of mana and fell asleep on the floor of the bear’s den. He hadn’t even had a chance to put on clothes or put away the sword that was still in his hand.