Chapter 13 Dungeon Once Again

Standing in front of the Firecracker Dungeon, Sam hefted her shield. “A new day, a new dungeon dive. Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Ah well.”

She was instructed to kill at least ten of the fire slugs while only using her shield, before going down to the second floor. On the third floor she had to kill at least five fire toads before she was allowed to return, again with only her shield.

Luckily she was allowed to train against the toads with all she had, before she had to handicap herself by only using her shield.

On the first floor she soon found the first slug. It was slithering away quite close to the entrance. When it noticed her, it immediately stopped and went in her direction instead.

Not content to wait for the slow moving creature, Sam walked towards it. Soon it attacked in the same pattern that she had figured out days ago. Now though, she wanted to dispatch it as soon as possible, so she could go on to the second floor.

With her shield, the only thing she was allowed to use, she deflected the creature, and immediately used the shield to attack. With a splash the edge of the shield cut through the creature, killing it instantly.

“Well that was easy. Too bad that I have to gather its core, that’s just disgusting.”

The day before, she had been the only one who managed to unlock the [Legionary recruit] class. Apparently her special skills had helped her attaining it a lot easier than the others in her squad. Even the four who had a day more of the legionary training hadn’t unlocked it yet.

Her getting it this soon, also meant that she had to go through her entire status page with the trainer again. Luckily the others were dismissed so the two of them could go through it in peace.

In the end it appeared that only the skills that she switched out became general skills. Thus the trainer had her replace her grab, stab and slash skills with the skills she had pending already, namely shields and short swords, and the last of the three became discipline. The last one was a bit of a mystery for Sam, but according to the trainer it would help her a lot because of the repetitive tasks that she would be doing as a recruit, and later as a legionary.

Her stats were also something that they had to address. The trainer didn’t even know that she hadn’t assigned them, but now he could give her some good advice. Her stats were still really low for her age, so she had a lot to catch up on. For now he advised her to get her physical stats up to at least fifteen, after which she should get the others to level ten. That would give her a good enough of a foundation to work with. As a frontline fighter, she would need more physical stats of course, but even those needed enough mana to use the stronger skills. Luckily she didn’t have a problem with that right now, as all her class skills were passive ones. For now she had given her vitality and endurance three points each, and strength and agility two points each.

Name: Samantha ‘Sam’ Bello

Age: 24

Statpoints: 0

Pending skills: 0

Class: Legionary recruit level 1

Skill: Shields level 1

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Skill: Short Swords level 1

Skill: Discipline level 1

Skill: Practice makes perfect level 1

Skill: Physical training level 1

General Skills:

Language - level 1

Identify - level 1

Running - level 1

Knife – level 1

Grab - level 1

Slash - level 5

Stab - level 4

Special Skills:

War Machine - lvl 1

Weapon Specialist - lvl 1

Natural Fighter - lvl 1

Status:

Str: 9 Int: 5

Agi: 10 Wis: 7

Vit: 10 Cha: 3

End: 9 Luc: 5

Health: 100/100

Stamina: 88/90

Mana: 50/50

This gave her a nice boost to both her health and stamina, and the speed and power to defeat her opponents made it easier to stay alive as well.

“Too bad that all my skills are still this low. The guy was almost mad when he found out that most of my skills are still level one, and now I have even more to practice with.”

The combination of both her low stats and low leveled skills had earned her a spot in the dungeon. Normally new recruits were made to keep practicing until the entire squad had gotten the class. For her though, the trainer had decided that she had to keep leveling some more while the others tried to unlock the class. That would help her keep up when they intensified the training later.

While musing about her changed status page, she almost didn’t notice the two slugs that had been slithering her way. The two had apparently seen her a while ago, and adjusted their course to intercept hers. Luckily she saw them a moment before they were in range to jump at her.

“Whooa! Let’s stop looking at my status page while in this dungeon. I’d hate to explain to trainer Quincy why my new uniform had gotten holes in it on my first day back in the dungeon.”

With ease she dispatched the two slugs in the same manner as the one before.

“Only a few more to go. Should I go looking for them, or just go towards the second floor entrance?”

She thought about it for a moment, but in the end decided to just go on.

“I’ll probably find several more before I get there, no need to waste time searching for them. And if I get there without coming across enough of them, I can always search in that area.”

Luckily she found a lot more slugs on her way. When she found the entrance to the second floor she had killed another seven slugs and harvested their cores, giving her just enough to complete her task on the first floor. This meant that she could go right on to engage the toads.

Excited she went down the stairs. After exiting the cave, she found..

“Nothing!” she screamed in frustration. Even after an hour searching, she still hadn’t found a single fire toad.

“This way it will take ages to kill even the five that I need to kill with only my shield, let alone enough to practice with beforehand!”

Deciding to take a break from her search, she sat down against one of the bigger boulders to have a drink and a snack.

As soon as she opened her snack, a loud swoosh sound reached her ear. Immediately she dodged by throwing herself to the ground.

Looking back to where she had been just a moment ago, she saw the tongue of a toad retreating with her snack!

“Hey! That’s mine you sack of slime. Give it back!”

Jumping to her feet she raced after her snack. Right before it was going to be devoured by the mouth of the fire toad that had appeared from nowhere, she managed to cut off the tongue. The end fell down on the ground, while the other part snapped back into the mouth.

Not wanting to loose the initiative, Sam jumped at the toad with her shield in front of her. The toad was over a meter and a half high, thus she didn’t have to be as worried about her head as she would have otherwise. Without the flaming tongue, the toad didn’t have that much options to attack up high.

When she collided with the toad, it didn’t even move, instead she staggered back herself. The thing was way heavier than it looked. She did manage to stab the creature with her short sword, but due to being thrown back by her own charge, it didn’t manage to penetrate that deeply.

Thinking about the trainer talking about active and passive skills, she thought to experiment a bit. She tried to slice the toad diagonally, but while doing so she focused on her [slash] skill. When her sword connected this time, it went through the toad almost as deep as the stab from earlier.

“It worked! I can do magic!” she yelled while doing a little dance.

Immediately she had to jump aside though, because the toad wasn’t defeated yet. It jumped, using its weight to try and crush her.

Once more Sam tried to use her skill. This time she tried to do so by focusing on sending mana into the sword. Immediately she noticed a difference. While her previous attempt went well enough, this time her sword even started to glow a bit. When she hit the toad, the strike went all the way through it, dissecting it. Slowly the two pieces fell apart.

Sam didn’t notice this though. Right after using the skill, she got a migraine worse than she had ever felt before. Slowly the edges of her vision became darker. The only thing she noticed before falling unconscious, was a blinking number in her vision.

Mana: 00/50