While membership in the Adventurer’s Guild is not strictly required, membership comes with a large number of perks in exchange for an annual fee. Access to a private market of materials and crafters, cheap lodgings near most Dungeons, reasonably priced training, access to the Adventurer’s Guild Job Board, and the backing of an international organization are all powerful motivators for membership. The true draw, however, is the Adventurer Guild Insurance Policy. This specialty enchantment can track the health of Adventurer Guild members, alerting Guild Workers to deaths and serious injuries. The guild can then mount rescue and recovery operations. – History of a New Age, pg 45

  Over the following day the Warlord felt his frustration growing. A truly impressive accomplishment on the part of the pink nuisance considering Warlord’s nature. He was used to sitting motionless for months or even years, never even noticing the passage of time. The squishy lifeforms were always a problem though. It was so hard to sleep when they insisted on living so loud and fast and bright. They never cared, or perhaps never even realized, just how much of the Deep Power they gave off.

  The stuff poured off them in waves when compared to the deep, slow, and contained rivers of power that animated his lesser kin and himself. It irritated him, forced him from his slumber and left him feeling strange. Like when he woke from a long sleep to find himself covered in dust, leaving a primal need to clear the build up from his surface. Or a sensation not dissimilar to watching cracks appear on his surface, but infinitely more intimate.

  He imagined it must be very similar to whatever instinct caused the small, four-legged creatures that occasionally invaded his domain to use their claws on themselves.

  Those little things were bad enough, but this being was so much worse. It had more power and was so much louder in its actions. Like it had never needed to hide in its life. Everything had to hide sometimes. From greater predators, to set up an ambush, to let down an opponent’s defenses. To be allowed to sleep.

  This creature was an anomaly. It walked like a predator, but had no power to back that image up. It gave off the feel of a challenger and immediately ran away. It was so loud despite being so scared. It had no concept of reality and it was doing everything it could to annoy him.

  He had not stayed awake for an entire day in decades, and this upstart was doing its best to force him to experience that particular pain again. He would crush it for that. Eventually. If only it would sit still.

  No, why would it do that. It had to stick its fleshy face through the door and jump around on a few statues. Always staying just barely out of reach. Simply infuriating. Drastic action would need to be taken.

  Warlord did what he had not done in a long time. He commanded his soldiers to form up. He willingly went to work on changing his domain. He prepared and gleefully awaited the expression the nuisance would have when it came to the door next.

#

  “Well, that’s just unfair…”

  Li had made seven additional attempts to escape from his current predicament and apparently the stone soldiers had decided they were done with his games. When he checked the exit this time, the Warlord’s throne had been dragged about twenty feet in front of the door. A big difference from it’s earlier, more central placement.

  That wasn’t the only change either. Stone soldiers had been lined up on either side of the exit, each of them carrying a large shield clearly meant to pin him in. Behind them, pikemen with long spears stood ready to prevent him from simply leaping over them. The Warlord himself stood in the middle of the clearing, ready to engage as soon as Li left the entrance. It appeared someone had decided they had enough of his scouting.

  Not that it particularly mattered. At this point he was fairly certain that no other entrance would open at the same time as his own. Maybe he was wrong, and they were doing this to prevent him from discovering his one chance at escape. That seemed unlikely though. The Warlord had never seemed to take particular interest in what Li was doing, just in squashing him.

  At any point, there was nothing left for him to do here. With the Warlord guarding the exit and so many soldiers set up and ready for him, entering would be a death sentence. He would need to head back to the pond and make a decision.

#

He was better now. There was no denying that his abilities with his spells were higher and he could bring more of their power to bear. It wasn’t enough though, there simply was too much of a qualitative difference between himself and the Warlord statue. He didn’t have the stamina to avoid the thing for any extended length of time. He didn’t have the power to break through its defenses. He didn’t have the protection to survive its attacks.

He had to level up. It was the only option at this point besides giving up, hoping for rescue, or gambling on a door opening shortly after the dead end’s entrance shut. There was nothing in this passage for him to kill for experience though. If he had taken meditation, he could have used that. It would have been slow and inefficient, but it would have been something.

I have to go into the jungle. There’s nothing else to it. I have no idea what is in there, but I can’t imagine it being more certain to kill me than what I would face in the courtyard. It was an unfortunate truth. He had to take a gamble one way or another. Either face a complete unknown, or take a bad bet. In the morning. I can get one more night of peace. Tomorrow we’ll see what’s hidden out there.

#

The jungle here, deep inside the labyrinth, was subtly different than the jungle where he first appeared. It was slightly less overgrown to start. Where on the outskirts the jungle was a near solid wall of vegetation, unpassable without cutting a path through the underbrush, here there were small trails due to the wildlife. The undergrowth was not quite as dense, something he could likely push out of the way if he really needed to.

The plants also grew far less quickly. They still returned at a noticeable rate if cut, but it would likely take a day or more for the vines he removed to grow back. This was nothing when compared to the hour or less that the untamed jungle outside the labyrinth would take.

Li was personally of the opinion that this jungle was considered a “room” while the outer jungle area was considered a “wall” by the dungeon. Because of this, he theorized that the outer area was fed enough magic to make it near impenetrable. In comparison, this area was only fed enough to let it recover.

At least he hoped that was the case. If the dungeon meant for challengers to enter this particular jungle area, it would mean he had far more of a chance of surviving this decision. If this was another area not meant for entry, he was willing to bet it would be far more dangerous.

Well, no point just sitting here. Let’s get going. Reconciled to this course of action, Li took his first step into the dense plant growth. Despite the sheer amount of life above his head, the area was rather brightly lit. The trees had frond leaves that were apparently quite thin, easily allowing light to penetrate through them. Additionally, the trees refused to touch each other with their crowns, creation outlines around each treetop that allowed an unobstructed view of blue sky.

The jungle teemed with more than just plant life. Shadows would go flying from treetop to treetop and small creatures skittered around in the undergrowth. A large variety of bugs made their presence known as they flew, crawled, and burrowed around him. Various types of birdsong filled his ears and formed a pleasant counterpoint to the screeches of some species of monkey or ape. Under it all, the screaming harmonics of some of the louder insects created a constant white noise. The entire area gave off an impression life and untouched wilderness, like recordings from earth’s rainforests.

It also felt like danger. He constantly felt the itch of attention on himself, like hidden eyes were watching his every move. More than once he quickly spun around, thinking some sound behind him was an ambusher making its move. At more than one point, a mammal of some kind running across the trial he followed into the jungle resulted in him leaping back almost ten feet thanks to a panicked activation of his Reinforcement Armor.

He wasn’t too regretful of his panicked responses and nervousness. In the end they served their purpose when they saved him from being smacked in the head by a rather large rock that come crashing through the branches above his head. Following the path of cracked and broken branches had revealed a primate gazing down at him. The creature’s mouth was stretched into a cruel grin by oversized, tusklike lower canines and large hands had shaken at him in rage.

It hadn’t been alone either, three others quickly making their presence known with loud cries that had seemed disappointed at his continued survival. One had quickly descended to collect another rock, perhaps five times as large as Li’s fist. It had then climbed around halfway up the tree before throwing the rock to one of its companions, who then began making its way into place above Li once more.

That was just fine in Li’s mind. He wouldn’t feel bad killing these things as they had attacked him first, and he actually had a chance given that they weren’t made of solid stone. It was exactly the opportunity he had been looking for. Keeping a close eye on the armed creature, he waited until it bunched itself for a leap to a nearby branch. He then activated the strengthening aspect of his armor, using the additional power to whip a throwing knife at the monkey with superhuman speeds.

The thing definitely wasn’t expecting a counterattack, apparently entirely unused to other creatures in the jungle being capable of attacking from range. As it flew through the air, the danger punched into the creature’s side and knocked it off course. As it scrambled to save itself, desperately flinging out its arms in search of a handhold, Li put everything he could into his Force Manipulation spell.

He dragged the creature down, massively increasing the strength of gravity as it acted on the primate. The monster was too far away for him to manage any fine manipulations, but a simple shove was possible. As it fell, he threw his remaining two daggers into the monster’s chest.

That wasn’t enough to finish the monkey off in the end. It had continued to scream in rage, pain, and fear right up until the moment it crashed into the ground with a sickening crunch. The entire exchange couldn’t have taken longer then thirty seconds, the monkey’s fellows simply watching before howling with rage at their companion’s demise. They beat their chest and began throwing sticks, seeds, and other objects in his direction before eventually swinging deeper into the jungle.

While Li did not regret his actions, he had simply defended himself from monsters that had been trying to kill him, the interaction did weigh on him. The thing had suffered unnecessarily at the end there, an unfortunate consequence of its own resilience. He would have to do better next time. It was better to kill the beasts as fast as possible. For both his own sake and theirs.

In the end the experience from killing the monkey, which was apparently known as a Hurler Monkey, had proven this choice to be the right one. The things were worth ten or so Experience Points and were a good opponent for his abilities. This one had only dropped seven Evolution Points, but that was still a step in the right direction.

Li’s immediate goal was to get the Meditation ability. The purchase would not increase his current combat abilities, but the System had said it was one of the primary ways beings in this reality cultivated Evolution Points. He hoped that meant he would be able to quickly make back the points he had spent and that Meditation would become a solid base for his future growth. The pond seemed like the perfect place for such a skill given the safety and peacefulness of the area.

After he had Meditation, he would reassess his current needs. Who knew how his abilities would evolve between now and then? Maybe he would even just gain enough power from raw stats that breaking through was no longer an issue. It seemed likely that Giant’s Punch would get to that point eventually, assuming at higher levels of power it would provide greater protection to his hand.

All that was for the future though. Right now, his job was simple. He needed to hunt as many of these Hurler Monkeys as he could. He needed to level up as much as he could and continue to grow his skills with his magic. Everything else would come later.

#

Over the next week Li slowly mapped out the jungle that butted up against his lakeside paradise. The area was tiny in the grand scheme of the dungeon, but still easily one or two square miles. If not for the irregular shape of the entire thing, similar almost to a drawing of a three-pointed crown, but with each point wildly twisted and extended, the area would have been far larger. The dense undergrowth and crisscrossing animal tracks also served to make the entire area feel even larger since not straight path through was readily available.

Unfortunately, no other exits from the jungle had revealed themselves. As far as he could determine, the only way in or out was through the part of the jungle that butted up against his pond. Every other border was a solid stone wall that gave no signs of hidden doorways. He could be wrong of course. Finding trap doors was not something he would consider himself highly adept at, but functionally there was no difference between him being unable to find any secret exits and there being no secret exits. He would not be able to simply slip past the Warlord’s Courtyard.

He had discovered throughout the mapping process that the Hurler Monkeys were the only monster of note in the jungle, everything else being smaller creatures that presented little to no danger to him. The Hurler Monkeys themselves varied wildly in the danger they represented, all depending on what objects were available for them to throw (as befit their name).

Most were limited to simple rocks and large sticks like that first group. These were the least dangerous and he could quickly kill one or two then drive the rest off without risk to himself. They were only dangerous if he was taken unaware or if they gathered in too large of numbers. That was a real risk as the Hurler Monkeys seemed to like to expand their troop until it was as dangerous as any other group of their species in the area, and since these were the least well-armed that meant they needed numbers to make up the difference. Over time he learned two tricks that helped him deal with these more simplistic groups.

One of his biggest issues he had with the Hurler Monkeys is that they liked to stay high overhead, just outside of his effective attack range. Even with Reinforcement Armor he could only throw the daggers so hard and they would lose a large amount of power during their flight. Of course, Reinforcement Armor was not his only spell.

As before, he had begun exploring ways to combine and supplement his power. Strengthening a throw with Force Manipulation had proven simple enough. He had even realized that he had been subconsciously doing it already, spending miniscule amounts of mana to shift the flight pattern and ensure as perfect of a throw as possible. With that in mind, he had begun actively enforcing the movement of his hand and arm throughout the throw and increased the force acting on the blade after it left his hand. It took concentration and forced him to drop his guard, but the increase in power was incredible.

Then he had added in the might of Giant’s Punch.

As far as he could tell, Giant’s Punch worked by compounding the effects of momentum. It was why changing your target had negative effects on the output and why hooks were far less effective than jabs when using the spell alone. Compounding momentum could be used for more than just simple punches, though. Especially once he realized that the spell had never required him to form a fist, that had simply been his assumption.

Empowering his throws with Giant’s Punch was not the most efficient use of mana, as only a small portion of the power was actually transferred. Using the spells in combination also still had many drawbacks as it used a large amount of mana and required lots of concentration. That said, it allowed him to strike powerful blows and did not result in injuring himself, so he counted the spell combination as an effective addition to his arsenal.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

His second break through had been with his Force Wall spell. It had been a very simple realization in the end, but one that was worth-while. He had realized there was no reason why his walls should be referenced by placement in relationship to static objects. In other words, why couldn’t he make the walls move when he moved? A moving shield would grant him a way to close the distance with the monkeys without having to leave cover or spend excessive amounts of mana making wall after wall. After several days of trial and error, he had managed this feat and received a new System Alert to boot.

Congratulations! Through practice and exploration, you have discovered a new Beginner level spell.

Force Shield: Create a small plane of force that pushes anything which attempts to pass through it back with equivalent force. The spell will move in relation or your body.

The spell had its limitations. He could not make it much larger than three feet by two feet and it would drain a tiny amount of his mana every time he moved. That was worth it for a mobile defense though. Between these two advancements in his spells, he had little difficulty in defeating these lesser troops.

#

In comparison to their less dangerous kin, every other group of Hurler Monkeys in the jungle had learned to use the natural resources of the forest to their advantage. Troops in one area were prone to throwing living snakes at their targets, small creatures with a rather potent venom that the primates themselves seemed to be immune to. The venom was not deadly, but it would quickly leave your limbs aching and muscles burning while rivers of sweat poured down your body due to a rather viscous fever. The snakes themselves seemed to prefer the canopy as he very rarely found them on the ground of their own volition.

The advantage to dealing with these troops was that they did not stay quite so high up in the trees, needing their living weapons to survive the throw long enough to at least bite the target. This made them an ideal target for training his skills with Force Manipulation, allowing him to practice controlling his daggers with the spell to fight living targets. Over time he became far more adept at interposing the daggers between himself and thrown serpents, along with attacking the monkeys.

Another area in the forest was home to seed pods that would explode when struck with enough force, sending the incredibly sharp seeds flying at amazing speed. The seeds could shred through flesh if the explosion was close enough, and would often leave the unfortunate victim covered in small injuries like a thousand paper cuts even from a dozen feet away. The seed pods grew far above the ground, at the very top of a species of tree unique to the area. The fall from such heights was usually enough to set off the explosion and would ensure the seeds made it far away from the parent tree.

  Hurler Monkey’s loved these seeds and took extreme delight in throwing them from incredible heights, not overly worried about their accuracy. When facing them Li need to be much more defensive. Force Wall proved perfect for the challenge, being able to deflect and prematurely detonate the small projectiles with minimal drain on his mana. It was still exhausting, but nothing compared to blocks rocks or giant scorpion tails.

  The walls had been perfect as a counter offensive too, allowing him to put up a near invisible barrier in front of a Hurler Monkey as it threw the small bomb with all the power it could manage. The resulting explosion would often knock the bombardier off its perch and give him the perfect opportunity to bring them down. In some instances, proper placement of his force wall would let him take out a number of the troop at once.

  While this wasn’t a new application of his spell, it helped him immensely when it came to effectively using it. Nothing, not even the wonderous powers of the system, could replace experience. That was exactly what these opponents gave him, and the effects made themselves known as he quickly grew in ability with the spell.

  A fourth group of Hurler Monkeys was composed of individuals far more muscular than their rivals. These troops were found in an area full of larger rocks and boulders, but relatively fewer trees. Because of this they tended to leap around on the large rock formations instead of the tree branches and preferred to throw large rocks with both hands.

  Reinforcement Armor and Motion Sense helped him avoid these slow, but much more dangerous, attacks. He relied on simply leaping out of the way of these monkey’s favored weapons, knowing that blocking with Force Wall or trying to grab the rocks out of the air with Force Manipulation was far more draining on his Mana Reserves. Of course, the monkeys had a response of their own to how easily he dodged their attacks.

  They would throw each other at him.

  The first time that had happened had caught him extremely off guard. He had seen it coming with Motion Sense of course, but nothing quite prepared you for an angry primate hurtling through the air toward your face. The sheer shock value had taken him off guard just long enough for it to close the majority of the distance. Right before impact he had managed to role out of the way, just dodging the monkey’s grasping hands.

Avoiding being grabbed by the monsters was an absolute must. The things had highly developed muscles in their upper body, and normal earth monkeys were already incredibly strong. Their hands were easily two or three times as large as what you would expect on the creatures and could likely crush his bones into dust.

With that in mind, he had defeated the creature with hit and run tactics, using his armor to pop in and out of range with swift movements and Giant’s Punch to break bones every time he came in for an attack. The style had been incredibly rough, and more then once he was almost grabbed and brought into a grapple by the physically imposing creature, but he had won in the end.

Future fights with those troops had helped him refine the style. Helped him relate feelings from his Motion Sense and predictions from his Perfect Force Understanding into anticipation of what his opponents would do. They were the perfect opponent to practice close-range fighting against and allowed him to quickly develop a style of combat all his own.

It was still rough, but he had slowly developed a style focused on staying just out of range of his opponents. Using Force Manipulation and his daggers for harrying attacks to slowly wear his opponent down, only to quickly close the distance and strike with a powerful blow when the constant harassment created an opening. A style heavily influenced Mohammad Ali’s famous saying, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

Over time, he began to incorporate his Force Manipulation and Force Wall in other ways. He began shoving his opponents off balance or directly opposing their actions with Force Manipulation. He threw up small walls to trip opponents or entangle their arms. After experimenting, he even using the force walls to provide himself with new sources of leverage.

There were other troops of course. One’s that threw sharp stakes like spears. Ones that would work in unison to carry one incredibly large stone up into the canopy, only to drop it down on the heads of potential prey. Ones that liked to create rockslides in the less forested areas. Each presented a unique challenge and helped him to refine himself. Each helped him to improve with his Motion Sense and Perfect Force Understanding, making his vision more and more clear. Each offered him Experience and Evolution points. Each brought him one step closer to his goal.

#

Within a week, long before he was finished with his personal crusade against the Hurler Monkeys, he had collected enough Evolution Points to finally purchase the Meditation ability. That had turned out to be an even better purchase then he had anticipated, as utilizing the skill in his rest area had resulted in an alert from the system that he was Meditating in a “Wild Mana rich environment” and that “Evolution Point Production [was] increased by one point five times”. Thanks to that, by spending at least four hours a day meditating he had been able to gain around four additional Evolution Points a day while also recuperating.

Four did not seem like that many, but it quickly became one of his primary sources of Evolution Point income as he leveled and the monkeys became worth fewer and fewer evolution points. It also equated to at least one powerful ability a month, a not inconsequential growth rate. It might not help him now, but it would mean a lot in the long run.

Meditation also meant he was virtually incapable of starvation or dehydration regardless of where he went, as three points would grant him the bare minimum required sustenance for survival. That was a good feeling, knowing he could survive at least. It was something his old world could never promise, a solution to global hunger and access to clean water.

Of course, he didn’t need to worry about that in his current circumstances. Instead, every point went into his savings, allowing him to slowly but surely build back up to one hundred evolution points. He still didn’t know exactly what ability he would purchase, but he would figure that out.

#

By the end of his third week in his idealistic prison, Li had made some real progress. He had made it to Level Seven and had saved one hundred and three Evolution Points beyond those he had spent increasing his number of throwing knives to ten, buying a bandolier with sheathes for the knives, and getting a simple set of leather armor. According to the system, in addition to his twelve normal points each level was awarding him an additional point in Dexterity and an additional point in Perception. That still left him with seventy-two stat points to distribute. It was time to cash in on his advancements.

“Show me the purchase menu, System.”

“As you wish.”

Pausing to ensure he was reading the menu correctly, Li took a moment before calling out to the mysterious voice, “Is this right, System?”

“Yes, by exploring the inherent strengths and potential of your element you have discovered a new aspect of your spells.”

Returning his eyes to the glowing blue screen, he re-read the newest option.

Abilities

Evolution Points: 103

Enhanced Mind (Basic) – cost 50 EP

Enhanced Physique (Basic) – cost 50 EP

Extended Senses (Basic) – cost 50 EP

Meditate (Basic) – cost 100 EP

Armor Spell (Common) – cost 50 EP

Aura Spell (Common) – cost 100 EP

Bolt Spell (Common) – cost 100 EP

Enhancement Spell (Common) – cost 50 EP

Debilitation Spell (Uncommon) – Cost 100 EP

It was a hard choice. He was going to go with an Enhanced Physique spell, hoping to protect himself from the negative effects of his powerful combination strike of Giant’s Punch, Reinforcement Armor, and Force Manipulation. This might be better though. A Debilitation Spell might be just what he needed. It was a gamble, and he didn’t like putting everything on a role of the dice, but this was too good of an opportunity to simply ignore.

“System, spend one hundred points on a Debilitation Spell.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he felt it once again. The injection of previously unknown knowledge into his brain and the feeling of new abilities awakening within him. There was no real comparison to anything from his old life. His best attempt would be that the experience was like compressing a college class into a single moment and having it burned into your mind in a similar fashion to embarrassing memories from your childhood.

Your Uncommon Debilitation Spell has been attuned to your Mana and evolved due to your need for a weapon to break through the most solid defenses. Congratulations! You have unlocked the spell Potential Energy Well – Beginner. This spell is a Rune Spell. To place the Rune, you must make contact with a target. This rune has two modes: Charge and Release. While in Charge Mode, all forces beyond a base minimum that the target is exposed to are stored as potential energy. In Release Mode, this energy is immediately released as a single strike to the target at the location of the rune. This Rune can be set to last anywhere between thirty seconds and five minutes, but this can not be changed after placing the Rune. One Rune may be placed at a time.

In his mind, he could see the shape of the rune that would be produced. It looked similar to a simplified drawing of an anker, a cross with a circle on the top and an arc on the bottom, repeated rotationally around the small circle four times. The outer arcs, if they had been connected, would have created a complete circle. He also knew that after placement the rune would release a blue white glow for the entirety of its existence, dimming in strength as the rune approached the end of its life.

This was exactly what he needed, a way to translate his weak strikes into something actually effective. He would need to test the spell of course. Make sure he was comfortable with it and could effectively use it. He also wanted to use the time to gain a few more evolution points.

During his downtime over the last few weeks, he had explored the shop in greater detail, discovering what was available for purchase. Within he had discovered something that he felt was the perfect item to help him win this confrontation. He only needed fifty-three evolution points. Then it would be time to take the fight to the Warlord.

#

Warlord could feel it. Something had changed and the itch was back. Perhaps the little rat was done hiding in its den and was ready to come out. Perhaps he would finally be allowed to squash this pest.

It hadn’t been long. Barely enough time to call his sleep a short nap. Maybe a month based on the small amount of dust and grime covering his surface. No matter, he would need to clean himself soon anyway. He couldn’t go to sleep covered in blood or he would attract all sorts of annoyances.

The door was not open yet. Wouldn’t be open for a few hours still. What was the fleshy nuisance planning? Would it be trying to escape his encirclement again?

There was no way it would fight. It was far too cowardly for that, despite what it said with its Deep Power. It would try to flee again.

But his defenses against that were perfect. Weren’t they?

Perhaps he should call them out.

They were always a nuisance. So hard to return them to fighting shape afterward.

  He would need to be awake for days afterward. Shaping stone and refilling their reserves of Deep Power. The Home would help of course, but most of the actual work would fall on himself.

  It would probably be worth it though. This creature had not simply given up and stayed deep in its hole like so many others. It would keep coming back.

  And if it did manage to get on top of his shield bearers while avoiding his pikemen, they would be invaluable.

  Yes, perhaps he would call them out.

#

Li had meant to meditate before this. He needed to be calmed, refreshed, and energized to manage that. Meditation always helped with those. Like waking up after the perfect amount of sleep, full of mana and muscles rested.

It’s strange. Meditation definitely does more then just provide Evolution Points. There is more to it. Since I started Meditating daily, I’ve been getting the best sleep of my life. My muscles feel less sore even with all the working out I’m doing fighting through the jungle, the headaches from casting spells disappear quickly, and my mana regenerates faster. This skill is definitely essential for this world.

He was distracting himself from the huge stone doors. He knew it. This was going to be the moment. He was either going to escape or die when they opened.

The idea of dying wasn’t a stranger. He’d lived with it for almost two years. But then he’d been given a second chance. He didn’t want to lose that and he was surprised how much the idea of perishing now rattled him. Still, he had had practice setting such fears aside and he would do so now. What’s so scary about dying? I’ve already tried that.

Besides, he was going to win. He knew that. He knew that. He’d worked to hard for there to be any other outcome. He’d even managed to raise his rather pitiful strength and Endurance with all the fighting these last weeks. Very little in the strength department to be honest, but that was fine.

His seventy-two points from leveling up had been divided between Acuity to help him manage his combination strikes, Wisdom to help him regenerate mana as quicky as possible, Intelligence to empower his spells, Perception to make the most of his enhancements, and even more Endurance to keep himself going. He had debated how to split his points between Intelligence and Wisdom, but in the end most of his Mana Expenditure was small expenses paid continuously, such as empowering his Reinforcement Armor, using his enhanced awareness, and keeping his knives in the air. He had decided that in the end zeroing out the cost for keeping all his base abilities going would give him the greatest advantage.

Now it was time to see if that was the right decision.

The great stone doors were lowering into the floor as the Labyrinth opened the way back into the courtyard, slowly revealing the sight of the Warlord. He stood in front of his thrown with arms crossed, swords sheathed on either side.

The same row of soldiers with heavy spears, supported with a row of soldiers with heavy spears, formed a solid wall around the entrance. The same waves of tiles rolled through the cleared space between him and the king of this courtyard. The same glowing runes covered his swords and the same throne stood behind him. Nothing had changed besides Li. Guess I will have to see if that is enough.

Status

Name: William (Li) Aiden Licht

Class: NA, Level 0

Race: Human, Level 7

Constitution: 103

Resistance: 97

Resilience: 97

Strength (L): 88

Endurance: 115

Dexterity: 121

Intelligence: 117

Wisdom: 135

Acuity (G): 142

Perception: 123

Charisma: 77

Luck: 85

Evolution Points: 36

Class Experience: NA

Racial Experience: 4/100

Skills

Scarification Tier 1

Self Regulation Tier 1

Endurance Hunter Tier 1

Hysterical Strength Tier 1

Enhanced Charisma Tier 1

Jack of All Trades Tier 1

----------------------------------------