Brandon opened his eyes and he was standing already. The room he was in had wooden floors with a dark brown stain, a similar color to dark chocolate, The walls were wood paneling up to a chair rail a few feet up the wall then a white stone above the chair rail. A chandelier made of blue crystal with 8 long, white candles in it. It was swinging gently as the mana in the room moved away from Brandon. It seemed to have surged when he appeared.

In the room there was a wooden dining table and a set of chairs. On the table was a piece of paper with writing on it. It took just a moment for Brandon to notice, his swords and clothes had been unequipped. He checked his inventory, and all of his equipment had a red x over it. Focusing on the equipment, a new popup appeared, [No outside equipment inside the challenge dungeon].

Brandon closed his inventory and walked over to the table that had the letter on it. He was a little cold without clothes but it wasn’t as bad as it could be. He picked up the paper on the table and began to read.

“Hello challenger. Welcome to my challenge dungeon. You will find out who I am if you manage to finish the dungeon as well as the tutorial, but for now it isn’t important. You are part of a new universe just gaining access to the system. You must have noticed that gaining skills can be rather difficult if you have managed to get past the guardian. Have you reached level 15 yet? No, don’t bother answering. You may have noticed enemies often have body parts that can be used as materials, maybe even started crafting or made improvised weapons from them. If you have, congrats! You will have earned some crafting experience. I know you haven’t chosen a profession yet because this dungeon only opens to those who have not.

I am afraid that the tutorials prevent the use of as many resources as the outside world, so there will only be three choices for you among the myriad out there to choose a profession from. The choices will be tailored to your experiences and skills you have already unlocked. Back to the skills. Challenge dungeons are much like class dungeons, inside of them, skills can be earned outside of the level structure via demonstration. This will allow you to more effectively train your profession than outside of the dungeon, maybe your class too if you are creative enough.

Now, It is time for you to choose a profession. I warn you beforehand this is a challenge dungeon. I do not guarantee your life. If you do not choose within twenty four hours, you will be sent out of the dungeon, if you do, the dungeon will commence and you will be risking your life for your class. You beat the bear though right? You’ve got this! Your choices are as follows…”

Once Brandon had finished reading the note, he got a new system prompt. Three windows popped up next to each other.

[Profession Change: Arcane Engineer Lvl. 1 (Epic)]

[Arcane Engineer]

Stats/level

Strength: +4

Dexterity: +4

Stamina: +3

Endurance: +3

Magic Power: +8

Free Stats: + 4

The advanced class of engineers who have evolved from just materials to materials and mana. Arcane machines and vehicles are created by these engineers. There are no societies in the multiverse that do not need Engineers of this caliber.

[Profession Change: Mana Weaver Lvl. 1 (Rare)]

[Mana Weaver]

Stats/level

Strength: +1

Dexterity: +1

Stamina: +2

Endurance: +2

Magic Power: +10

Free Stats: + 3

The intermediate class of Crafters skilled in the manipulation of mana. Mana Weavers create pure strands of mana and use those to craft their equipment. They can make weapons and armor of pure mana, but they struggle to use materials in their crafts, losing some value to gain the ability to manipulate pure mana into solid form.

[Profession Change: Magic Smith Lvl. 1 (Rare)]

[Magic Smith]

Stats/level

Strength: +3

Dexterity: +3

Stamina: +2

Endurance: +2

Magic Power: +6

Free Stats: + 3

The Intermediate class of Smiths who have the ability to create weapons and armor that have magical abilities and properties not only relying on the materials but also the utilization of mana and the weaving of spells into their weapons.

Brandon was an aerospace engineer, he had gone to school for it and had a degree and a job in the field. He was an engineer even more than he was a swordsman now. It was the obvious choice and was even an epic class. He went to select the class, his finger hovering above the option, but he hesitated. Three times in his life, he had made things in a forge. He had crafted his own knife and a dagger and a horseshoe. It had been under the supervision of professionals and with help, but he had studied and understood a lot about smithing. It was fun and something he enjoyed possibly even more than engineering.

More than the enjoyment, he felt the desire to improve his own power with his two hands. Smithing was a good way to increase his power in this new world. Humanity was dying at an alarming rate and monsters were real. What if he could make himself and his allies stronger? Brandon chose the Magic Smith profession. Ding!

[You must pass the Magic Smith Trial quest to acquire this class.]

[Quest: Magic Smith Trial]

[To embark on the path of a magic smith, one must learn the arcane arts as well as the craft of a smith, the skills required for both are necessary to succeed. The trial has multiple phases. At each phase, it is possible to acquire a skill.

Trials Passed: 0/?

Reward: Profession Change]

When Brandon received the quest, a door appeared at the opposite end of the room. Before he went through the door, he opened his inventory and pulled out his phone. He had a message from Kara and one from Thysse in the groupchat. He checked Kara’s message first. They had been chatting off and on since the beginning of the apocalypse.

“Our leader has just reached level 9 today. He slew the Raka that has been hunting our group. It was a level ten beast and helped his whole party level up to 8 and 9. I am still level 7 myself, but my healing skills leveled again. I need a new spear, my spear finally broke in the Raka fight.”

The word Raka was a blue hyper link that when clicked brought up a small amount of information on the beast in a system window with a picture of what it looked like. They had noticed it did this a few days ago when she first saw the Raka and mentioned it. If they mentioned the full name of a creature it shared some information with the other party.

The Raka was a reptile. It had the muscled and graceful body of a tiger, but instead of striped fur, it had black scales, the head was almost like a bearded dragon but instead of eyes on the side of its head protected by ridges, it had front facing eyes with large eyes proportional to those a tree frog has and the vertical pupils of a cat. They thought it was cute at first, but then it attacked. The webbed feet could expand or shrink back as it swung its paws making it hard to predict, and it used the night and stealth to kill. It started stalking them at level 7 when they were still level 6. It killed enough of the community they had started living in that it was level 10 when they finally killed it.

Brandon was glad his party hadn’t been the ones to encounter it. He suspected the rune bear was a more powerful threat, but it was not a stealth hunter that tracked lone targets. With their small numbers and only having one person for watch at night, he feared a beast like that could have killed them all.

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“We also just broke through to level 9. We killed the Rune Bear we had seen. It was the most terrifying monster we had fought so far. All of us nearly died in the process. The bear could use some form of magic in the runes it had.”

Brandon replied to Kara then checked the group chat and saw what Thysse said.

“What do you think about me picking up alchemy as a profession? I got a choice called Botanical Alchemist. Talks about alchemy focusing on plants. Another choice was Gardener as a profession not just class, but I am not sure how I feel about that. Seems too much. I don’t think I’ll take the regular alchemist one, it is a common class.”

“Botanical alchemist sounds good. I got magic smith as my profession.”

After replying he went to put the phone in his pocket, but it rubbed up against his bare leg instead. “Damn,” He muttered. He opened his inventory and put away his phone, then he walked over to the door.

Pushing the door open, Brandon stared into darkness. He took a tentative step forward onto a cold stone floor. The stone was rough and had sand scattered across the floor. It was mildly uncomfortable. Brandon noticed his mana sight could not see past the doorway and neither could his regular sight. He stepped fully through the door into the room and it closed behind him.

He still could not see with his eyes, there was no light in the new place, but his mana sight helped him to see that he was in a cave and there was a pickaxe next to him against the wall the door had been on. The system notification interrupted his train of thought. Ding!

[The Trial of the Mine has begun. Collect as much ore as possible within the next six hours.]

Brandon could not see well enough to distinguish ores from rock, mana sight didn’t give color and composition of things, but as he thought about it and focused on his senses, he noticed there were places in the rock with higher concentrations of mana. That must be the ore. He grabbed the pick and walked up to the closest spot of denser mana. Once he reached it, he swung the pickaxe like he would an ax. He started low with his hands together, brought the pick in a smooth swing above his shoulder and slammed it into the wall.

There was a cracking sound but the rock didn’t break. The pick vibrated against his hands so hard that he nearly dropped it. He let out a gasp of pain and had to alternate which hand it was in for a few moments. He adjusted his feet briefly and took a small step back. With a wider stance that would allow him to put more weight behind the strike. He struck next to the mana dense part of the wall instead, this time and the rock broke, and the vibrations hurt his hand much less. He struck the other side of it and went back and forth. The strength and dexterity stats he had made wielding the pick much easier and he was able to dislodge it after a few swings. He picked up the chunk.

[Low Magic Iron Ore - infeageiatite]

[Unlike the iron of your home, it is infused with a small amount of magic naturally.]

It was a small chunk, and so were most of the ones around him. He kept mining for the next hour and had to move deeper and deeper into the cave. After about two hours, he encountered his first monster. There was something vaguely ant like crawling along the wall towards him. It had three body segments, but it had 8 legs, long pincers, and fangs in between the pincers. His mana sight was improving but not well enough to make out the finer details of the monster. He swung its pickaxe and it sank through its skull killing it, but where there was one, there was more. They started swarming up the tunnel towards him. He killed and killed them, but the pickaxe wasn’t enough, he needed his sword.

Brandon couldn’t fight without his sword nearly as well as with it and he hadn’t infused his pickaxe with mana. In a panic, he pushed out with his mana from his hand like Mia did for her mana bolts. The energy shot forward in a lethal blast killing an ant. He heard the system notification but ignored it, he built up the mana in his palm intending to send a bigger, stronger bolt, intending to hit multiple ants, but he put in too much mana in his haste and the mana left his palm in an explosive wave of force. It pushed back the closest of the monsters and knocked them off the wall. They only flew back a couple of feet but it slowed the ants down and gave him a little time to think.

There were still ten ants in his mana sight. He slowly aimed his palm at them each in turn, letting out a mana bolt each time. Checking his mana, he was down to 240. It wasn’t expensive to kill them, but there seemed to be a colony. With his sword he could have been much more efficient. He only had 300 ore so far and needed much more.

Brandon had gained two skills from those actions. The first was mana bolt, the common skill he was familiar with. The other was another common skill called repelling blast.

[Skill: Mana Bolt level 1 (common)]

[Channel your mana into a bolt that you send forth to smite your enemies. The range and damage of this bolt is based on how much mana is poured into it and how efficiently that mana is used.]

[Skill: Repelling Blast level 1 (common)]

[Blast your enemies back with a small mana explosion centered around your palm. This skill does minimal damage but applies a strong force to repel enemies.]

Brandon continued down the tunnel, killing the ants with his pick between mining ore. Using mana bolts and running back down the tunnel when there are larger groups. Occasionally, he had to push the groups back with a repelling blast, but it wasn’t so bad. The ants seemed to be the only other entities in the tunnel for a while.

A while later, thoroughly exhausted but still with a few hours left to mine, Brandon entered a larger cavern. The cavern was large enough that his mana senses could not detect the walls all around him. He felt a lot more blind in that situation, but he also noticed that there was a difference in the ores in the wall here. After mining over 700 samples of ore from the tunnel, he could tell when there were differences. The ore here had denser mana and there were at least three different kinds. One felt like a more mana dense iron, one had some sort of crystalline structure the mana went along, and one kind of ore seemed to be slowly pulsing, sending mana out and then taking it in with extra mana from the environment.

It created a strange appearance in his mana sight that made it harder to tell where the ore ended and began. It would be trickier to mine. Brandon went to the pulsing ore first and he swung his pickaxe, successfully hitting the rock next to it, then he did the same a few more times, trying to avoid hitting the ore directly. After one hit where he struck the ore and it made a loud ringing sound, he heard a screech echo through the cavernous room. He quickly turned around preparing for whatever had made the noise.

Something moving quickly entered his mana sight, he shot a mana bolt at it as it ran towards him. The creature was strange, mana sight was a good ability but didn’t fully capture the horror of this creature. It had long, human-like limbs that ended in fingers that were much too long. Almost a foot and a half long, the fingers had large, thick claws at the end with sharpened points. The creature was bi-pedal but leaned over forward with its front arms hanging below its body and a long, thick tail balancing its weight behind.

Those features were bad enough, but what was truly terrifying was its mouth. It had rows of tentacles under its chin and on top of its head, but the 6 that were coming out of its mouth pulsed with mana and had hooked suckers all along them. Inside its mouth, that turned into circular rows of spinning teeth that looked like they were meant to grind stone.

The mana bolt Brandon had fired hit the creature in the shoulder, but it kept sprinting towards him. It was so quick, he had to charge a repelling blast because he wasn’t going to be able to fire another mana bolt and hit it before it got to him. Once he had knocked the creature away, he readied his pickaxe. He had infused it with mana after he first fought the ants so he could use it as a proper weapon. It may not be as easy as a sword but he could use his telekinesis to control it while striking to increase his power and speed.

The creature leaped at Brandon, its long fingers outstretched to grab him, but he swung his pick with force and the tip hit it in the head. He heard a loud crack and the creature cried out as it was knocked to the side, but it was not dead. It came at him again, this time grabbing onto his arm with two of its tentacles as he knocked it away. It wasn’t able to hold on, but the hooked suckers took some of his flesh with it, and that was painful. He lost only about 15 health to it, but he also got the bleeding status effect, meaning it wouldn’t stop bleeding via normal means till he could do some first aid.

The creature charged him again, and he aimed for the spot he had first struck with the pickaxe but was swinging with one hand. He prepared a repelling blast in his left hand and pushed the creature away as the tentacles approached his torso. Having to blast the creature away would have caused him to miss, but he let go of his pick and used his telekinesis to guide the pick to the right spot. This time it stayed dead.

He remembered to check his notifications this time and saw that it was a level 6 [lurch] and that the things he had been calling ants were level 1 and 2 [spidants].

Brandon opened his inventory, intending to take out some bandages, but his medkit was locked like his other equipment. His potions were as well. Unlike when he was a lower level, the bleeding effect was not near enough to kill him and it would only las 30 more seconds, but it was good to know he had no way to heal if it came down to it.

He went back to mining, more carefully now. The pulsing ore as well as the crystals both were identified with question marks. He kept them anyway and kept mining, but he was more excited about the middle grade iron. It was a definite step up, and he wasn’t sure the others were even ores if he was being honest. He kept mining all three and had a few more run ins with ants and lurches, but before too long, the system window popped up in front of him with a ding! And a door appeared behind it.

[You have mined greater than 100 ore. You have passed this trial! Reward: Error… Mana sense already unlocked… calculating reward: Error… Mana sight already unlocked… calculating reward: Geology]

[Skill: Geology level 1 (Uncommon)]

[You have studied the earth and its many materials, you may identify unknown ores, rocks, and gems and discover one of their properties by holding them in your hand for at least one minute.]

I can see why mana sense would have been needed for a magic smith, I am glad I already had it. Brandon closed the menu and identified the two things he had mined he couldn’t previously identify. It took a moment for him to pick up his jaw off the ground when he identified [Mana Crystal] and [Lowest Grade Mythril].

Brandon also identified their properties. Mana crystals could store mana energy and purify natural mana. The Mythril could conduct mana well. Unfortunately those were the only properties identified, but that was a lot of information by itself. He had about a hundred of each and was excited to see what he could make with it.

After he had identified the ores, he stepped through the doors and into the next room. This one was different, but the first thing he noticed was that he could see again. Looking around he noticed he was standing in a large basin. It was a ceramic basin with large walls he could not climb up if he wanted to. The walls led up to a chain on his left and right, and it appeared to slowly be getting lowered. As it did, he felt his feet getting hotter as well. Ding!

[The Trial of the Crucible has begun. Survive]