- Come on do it with strength, put your feet into it! – I yell at one of the soldiers and then I see another – you grip the sword properly, if you lose it ten laps around the field.

I see my father at the edge of the training field and I move there.

- How is it going? – ask my father.

- They are training hard, but there is only so much training we can do, If what I remember from what I read, there comes a point when they have to use what they have learned, I do not have experience on that. – I tell him.

- Give me a minute. – He tells me then he turns towards the field – Sergeants to me!!

A lot of the soldiers leave their training and come to step in front of my dad they are walking fast without looking like they are panicking I actually admire how they are making all possible haste to be in front of my father but they don’t look like they are in a hurry, I have to learn to imitate that.

- Ok now that all of you are here, prepare the troops for deployment, 2 weeks, you are all veterans I do not have to tell you what to do right?

- No, sir! We will be ready – all the sergeants say together.

- Yes sergeant? – says my father towards the oldest of the sergeants a guy who is obviously in his thirties that was obviously wanting to ask a question.

- Sir, sorry for the disrespect but who will be in command? – he asks a bit nervous.

- I will be, tell that to the troops, my son while very competent does not have experience he will be my second in command so he can learn, you know you overstepped right? – says my father.

- Yes sir, but I know you are just, and if its not critical we can ask for extra info so that we can settle the troops.

- You decided to stay with the army? – ask my father.

- Yes sir, I completed my first ten years and I decided to continue, I was in your command when I started.

- Family? – ask my father.

- Yes sir, 2 wives 8 kids they are safe here in the city with my brother.

- Name? – says my father with his tone softening quite a lot.

- Sergeant Gabriel Bakern.

- Continue with your responsibilities – My dad says dismissing all the sergeants, then he turn towards me – come with me Carter.

We walk towards the household, but instead of going towards his office, he tells me to clean myself to go to breakfast, once I finish cleaning myself and I enter the dining room I see the rest of the family, my dad does his usual routine of talking to all of us and giving us our tasks for our studies, this has become a smaller and smaller affair over the years as more of my brothers and sisters leave to join the academy and then the army, he leaves me for last.

- Carter, for the next couple of weeks you will be learning some basic tactics and strategy, you will be attending those classes with you uncle Dylan who is right now at home.

I went onwards with my day and then I had my 2 weeks with my uncle the lessons were interesting, some of it I saw how the heroes and the kingdom had for hundreds of years created defensive positions, Earth mages creating natural barriers so that if we have to step back we would have a better time defending, sadly we have been on the defensive practically from the start, he showed me maps of what was beyond the fort and the pass it was made to funnel the demon troops, I asked why leave the past, he showed me that one of the other kingdoms did that and they lost that defensive line in less than 30 years, the demons just keep gathering troops and digging tunnels through the mountain 30 years later the demons burst into the fields and it was a disaster, by making these funnels we can keep the demons busy, if they attack us we can keep killing them and lowering the number, if they don’t then we can send troops to attack them and also reduce the pressure, so either they move or we do, but letting them gather without any interference, that is not something anybody wants.

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Another news he gave me was that the king had decided to implement our sewer system in all the other cities of the kingdom, it has shown a remarkable improvement in public health, we are getting more fertilizer, and also with less sickness in the city there is more healing available for the troops that has reduced the amount of casualties, also we are the first city in the kingdom with growth in the last 100 years, our numbers the year before were positive for the first time in a century, that and our revelation of the system was what made him decide to implement it now.

Our target will be to scout and test our new troop against the demons on the defensive line that was abandoned almost 150 years ago, objectives are fluid, the first is to survive that is the more important one, second test the troops, all of the troops were able to level up swordsmanship, but only 80% of them were able to level up their class, we discovered that you needed Swordsmanship level 15 in the Orange level and have your previous class complete to be able to upgrade it, some people that had not completed the class went to the church and saw if they could change their class and they could but they would not receive bonus stats, we asked them to keep their old class and try to level it up, other objectives apart from those 2 were at my father’s discretion.

The 2 weeks pass and we were on our way, we arrived at fort in 3 days, and I saw how being in an army slowed things down significantly, the trip that could be done in a single day for a carriage took 3 days with the troop, when we arrived at the fort we waited, until the monthly attack happened, the attack was blunted a lot more specially because our troops helped, the bigger stats of our troops, the higher level of swordsmanship allowed our troops to really make a difference in the battlefield, a good chunk of the troop that had not completed their class was able to do it, and now the amount of soldiers with their class not complete was 9 in a troop of 500, and they all were in the 98+ levels, just about to complete their class.

The swordsmanship class at least the novice swordsman class gave multipliers to 3 of the 8 stats, strength, constitution and perception, and with those stats multiplied by 2 well our troop could see and feel better what was happening around them, hit a lot harder and they could fight for a lot longer, how each stats affected the person was something I did not know yet, maybe in the future I may discover that, but for now it works.

I asked my dad what were normal stats, and he told me that most people would reach close to 20 by the time they were adults, some people that truly focused on training and becoming the best would have stats around 25, I decided to Check my Own stats something I have not payed attention in years specially because my family told me that this would change as I grow up.

My attributes were:

Strength: 13

Constitution: 20

Dexterity: 19

Agility: 12

Wisdom: 32

Intelligence: 24

Magic: 18

Perception: 30

I was surprised, and well in private I told my dad and he said that I had been training myself and pushing myself a lot so it is not a surprise that some of my stats are already at the level that some 16 and 18 years old have them, thought he was extremely surprised about my perception, I was not and I told that to my dad, I kept making enchantments, trying to figure them out, I kept trying to discover what was magic, what was the system, how the system worked, and I had started not too long ago to pay attention on my blacksmithing skill to see why there was a difference between a normal quality sword and a high quality one, and if I did discover how it worked maybe we could make higher level sword more often instead of just by luck, so no I was not surprised that my perception was so high.

We finally went into enemy territory, the slope that we used as a funnel was just nasty, so much blood from the goblins has fallen on it, that the earth is tainted green, but as we went down the hill the color went back to normal, I could feel with my mana sense that the mana around us was not the same as it was behind the defensive line, sadly I could not see with my senses what the difference was, we moved further in and we ended up setting up camp, the next day we had our first battle, I was in guard with my greatsword just in case.

This battle was not some great battle there was a group of goblins that was roaming about chasing some deer, and we were able to fight them and kill them, then we started following the tracks to see where did these guys came from, by nightfall we discovered a set of rocks this set of rocks looked weird, and finally with my mana sense I could see some motes of magic that were just like my mom had taught me all those years ago, they were black, the kind of black that was associated with demons and corruption.

I told this to my father and he decided to pull back and make camp quietly, we would keep watch on this and try to discover what it was, the next morning we saw that from those rocks another group of around 50 goblins came out, we baited them and killed all of them, then we got closer to the rocks we could see some stairs going down, the first thing I thought I blurted it out.

- That is a dungeon.

- Son that is not a dungeon, dungeons are below castles. – says my dad and I know what he is thinking

- No dad that’s what the heroes would call a dungeon, something that produces monsters. – I say just throwing out the wild theory it occurred to me.

- You think this is producing the goblins? – ask my dad

- Could we go back to the camp for a bit. – I say

- Let’s go. – orders my dad.

When we arrive at the camp I go with my dad towards his tent and I ask him for a dome of privacy he took out the sphere and produced the green dome for our privacy, then at this point I start telling my dad about the stories of dungeons that we had on Earth.

- So a dungeon can use magic to create creatures and it also creates a maze for himself? – ask my father.

- I don’t know dad what I told you is what our fiction writers on earth wrote about them, and this people just like bards were trying to make entertaining stories for everybody, the dungeon could be a machine that the demons put here to absorb magic, and produce goblins, it could be a sentient being that levels up just like us and at the lower levels only produce goblins, this dungeon may also produce orcs, or maybe it has to be an specialized dungeon for that, the dungeon could be sentient and just trying its best to not die, there are too many options and I do not know, but in all the stories I have read dungeons are dangerous, some of them could feed from our magic others could feed of the bodies of the people that die in them, how this dungeon works and what it does, is it a machine? Is it sentient? I don’t know but we should be careful- I tell my father and I am freaking out a bit.

- We cannot stay here long son we brought some rations but we have to go back, so lets explore this “dungeon” and see what we can discover, we also have not finish testing the troops. – Says my father.