POV Aron Brightcloud

Back in my room, I gave him the go and my little towel vanished out the window. Not long later, a transmission arrived.

‘Boss, can you hear me?’

‘Loud and clear. Are you now back in the classroom?’

‘Yes, I phased through the wall. The door was closed.’

Another ability which would come in handy.

‘Great, this will widen your operational possibilities immensely. Describe the room to me. What do you see?’

The awaited answer didn’t come. Had something happened? I decided to give him time. Not long later, I felt our connection widen. A video transmission arrived in my mind. At first shaky, it stabilized quickly, letting me see the classroom through my little brother’s eyes.

My mind spun at the possibilities. Combine this ability with his stealth and phasing, it changed everything. No description errors, no caught or dead scouts or problems getting into a building as long as they are not specially warded. This would give us a massive advantage.

‘You are still in your dematerialized form, right?’

‘Yes, I am invisible at the moment. How do you like the transmission?’

I sent him all my approval and happiness. If this wasn’t a game-changer, then what?

‘This will revolutionize the way we do things. No normal familiar can share his view with his bond-partner. Combine this with your invisibility and other abilities and we will be a hell of a reconnaissance team!’

I felt his pride flood our bond. After he had been benched during the morning praxis, he had been down throughout the day. He tried to cover it up, but it didn’t escape my senses. Now he had recovered.

‘Let’s check the rest of the tower and the surrounding area.’

My ‘towel’ quickly confirmed and new content transmitted through our link. For the rest of the evening we scouted the surroundings and various rooms of the tower, expanding our knowledge.

There were some places that had dangerous looking runes inscribed on their walls. We made a wide curve around those. I had no clue if they were dangerous to him, but for now we weren’t in a hurry. First, we would explore the not dangerous stuff. When I understood more about magic and how the runes affected and reacted to my partner, we could try the trickier ones.

Especially the arcane library interested me. At some point we would get in there, no matter what.

At the end of our testing, I still hadn’t found the limit of his operating range while being apart from me. I had no clue how that functioned as part of his soul was directly bound to mine, yet somehow it did. For now, this would remain a mystery, but a good one. It allowed for so much more flexibility and tactical maneuvers.

______

The next morning began with general classes. Groups had already started forming. One around young Marquess Stonewall, and one around Marchioness Nightshield. Interestingly, they split quite cleanly between men and women. I didn’t care. I would be an outsider either way. I got some strange stares as I had arrived in my armor. Today would be the first introduction to the dungeon, and I refused to step into it without protection. The others had embraced the magician theme completely. Everyone clad in the more comfortable robes. If they wanted to get stabbed or bitten without protection, their problem.

Soon teacher Monrose arrived.

“Good Morning novices! Today will be the introductory lesson to our own dungeon. As you should already know the novices can enter the dungeon twice a week for free. If you want to go dungeon diving more frequently, you have to either pay or use your contribution points you have won through trade with won items or achievements. On our first dive, I will lead you and teach you the details. Afterwards you need to build your own groups.”

We followed him out of the classrooms and made it down to the catacombs. There the familiar form of a portal room greeted us.

“The academy has seen to it that we have our own entrance to the dungeon. There is another one in the nearby city. If you join an adventure party, you will use the other entrance to enter.”

Our group stepped inside the room and made our way towards the portal. A formation had been carved into the surrounding ground. As we entered the first part of the room, arcane shields sprung up before us. A magic interface showed itself.

“Here you can enter your group size. The formation will only allow the right amount of people inside. A group can vary from two to thirteen people.”

My heart sunk when I heard the limitation. I had planned to dive alone. This would complicate things. Had I known this before, I would have played the “get to know phase” in our class differently. Now I would be mostly cut off from my classmates as they already had formed groups. Hopefully, I would still get a spot in one of them. As Stonewall was the leader of the first group I didn’t even need to think about that one.

Teacher Monrose set the group-size to thirteen. The shields vanished and he motioned us to step into the formation. As soon as everyone had entered the shields sprung up around us, isolating us from the outside.

The portal changed color from white to blue.

“The dungeon automatically adjusts to your group-size, the change in color tells us it is ready. Dungeons are able to instance each group in a separate closed off space. The older the dungeon, the more groups can enter parallel. Follow me through the portal.”

As we came out the other side a dimly lit cave awaited us. Teacher Monrose waved his hand and we build a half circle around him.

“If you enter the adjacent corridor, the dungeon dive starts. There a multitude of monsters, traps and more. Although the first floors are easy, never underestimate them. Dungeons live from killing us visitors, this one is one of the friendlier ones, there are others which will make your life as miserable as they possibly can. Never assume that you understand a dungeon from having dove another. Each one has its own “personality”. Follow me.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

We walked down the corridor. Our first dungeon dive had started. After some time the walkway expanded, opening up into a new cave. Even though we were underground, the walls were covered with shrubs and other fauna, giving the whole cave a Mediterranean feel. Glowing stones built into the ceiling brightened up the area. It was there when we met our first enemy.

They were called rock turtles and looked their part. Infused with earth energy, their shell had changed into rock, giving them enhanced defenses. On the up-side they moved even slower than their namesakes.

With all the time of the world, we stood in a row, preparing our spells as they scuttled closer.

Our elemental arrows rained down on them. Some setting them on fire, some ripping into them with force only the earth element could provide and others cut or whipped at them, bringing the characteristics of each element to bear.

The experience gain depended on the amount of damage done to an enemy, the last hit gave especially much as it was responsible for killing the opponent.

That was the point when I got my next surprise. Part of the experience leaked out through the holes in my core wall. It fused with my muscles and rest of the body, improving it.

This changed everything! Every other person had to choose between core and body as once an element had been chosen and the core had sprung to life, the walls closed off and didn’t allow the experience-energy to flow back into the body. Only mana was allowed out. That was the main-reason magicians had so frail bodies. Their bodies only upgraded a little every time they reached a new tier. For me, this was even more important as it presented a potential fix to one of my problems. A sturdier body counteracted the damage I induced through the use of my magic!

The only disadvantage that instantly became apparent was that I had to invest more experience to reach the same strength level. I would fall even further back compared to the others. To a certain degree, I could mitigate this with a harder training regime. Yet on the surface I would develop worse than the others. For now, I divided the energy equally. When I had time, I had some serious planning to do.

The others left their familiars as defense at their side. I didn’t need to.

‘Try to get some last hits in. Maybe you can steal some experience.’

My little brother floated over towards the half-cooked turtles, flying through them in an attempt to damage them somehow. Sadly, they were too strong. Only the magic did damage.

The fight had no expanse. The turtles didn’t make it halfway before they “expired”. Our group cleared the entire room and improved our spell-casting considerably.

We made our way towards the next corridor. Monrose in the front, with Stonewall next. I followed somewhere in the middle. Behind me moved two of the commoners and before me one of the viscountesses, I think her name was Anna. Even-though I walked in the middle of the throng, I kept my vigilance.

That proved smart.

Anna’s right foot came down, but instead of the normal sound, my ears made out a faint click. My subroutines flared to life. Acting on instinct, I threw myself forward, tackling her out of the way. Something pierced its way horizontally through the air. As I was flying through Anna’s spot, it scrapped over my armor and drilled its way into the wall on the other side of the corridor.

Anna crashed into the ground. Dizzy from the hard impact, the woman needed a second to get her bearing. Slightly recovered, she gazed back at me, her eyes filled with outrage.

“How dare you! I will-!”

I wordlessly moved my hand and pointed at the projectile that had inserted itself in the adjacent wall.

Anna's skin color turned a shade lighter. Her outrage vanished as her eyes moved down to my chest. I knew why she did that. My breastplate armor sported a prominent furrow where the thing had pierced its way through.

“-thank you.” She ended her sentence shaken. We both knew she wouldn’t have survived if the projectile had hit her.

The others before us only slowly realized what had happened behind them. Teacher Monrose quickly arrived at our side. He kept his expression straight, but I saw the moment he realized he could have lost one of his students on our first trip.

“Is anybody hurt?!” He quickly checked us. He let out a breath when he confirmed nobody injured themselves. Before the teacher could say more, Stonewall inserted himself into the conversation.

“Anna, you are very lucky. My two friends Jason and Mouse have told me you survived this only because of luck. Aron mis-stepped exactly at the right time and lost his footing to accidentally push you forward when you activated the trap. Isn’t that right, Jason, Bart?”

His two new goons quickly nodded their heads. “Yes, he tripped. It looked comically until we realized what had happened.”

These pieces of shit… Stonewall aimed to rob me of my rightfully earned contribution-points! Yet I couldn’t do anything, he had two “wittinesses”. In their minds, I was the loser who had lost an element. Choosing between me the rescuer or me the klutz, it was an easy guess to what conclusion they would come to.

Anna didn’t seem convinced of their claim. I had hit her with a lot of force. Yet she didn’t speak up.

Teacher Monrose took in the said words before answering.

“In that case thank your luck Anna, that arrow would have killed you had it hit. Aron, pay more attention to where you walk.”

He turned to the rest of the students and spoke further.

“This is the reason why you should always be on guard. If you have not much experience, then I recommend you to stop the dive when you realize the dungeon has slipped in traps. It lifts the difficulty of a dive in irregularly intervals. This assures that it gets kills, yet it is one of the biggest sources of dead novices and adventurers for us. As you are all beginners, we will stop here for the day.”

With the teacher looking elsewhere Stonewall sneered at me. The malicious joy not hidden from my eyes.

On our way back, the others behaved subdued. Until now, the whole dive had seamed like an adventure. Now they realized this was no walk in the park, death could wait behind every corner. Jane fussed over her sister. I brought up the rear, checking every area we came through for additional traps. I wanted to see if I was able to pinpoint others. Anna looked once or twice in my direction but kept to herself.

Back in our classroom teacher Monrose let us practice conjuring magic arrows. We still had time after the cut short dungeon dive.

The afternoon classes were at the arcane tower. We talked about certain beginner theories behind conjuring magic through one’s pathways. The idea was to push as much of it as you could through your channels. Sadly, that was not an option for me. I would flood my whole root-network instead of getting more energy to where I wanted it. This hindered my growth immensely as it stopped me from charging my spells. Before I hadn’t found a solution for this problem, I would be unable to build powerful spells.

At last the day ended. Sitting in my room, I strategised over my options on how to exploit my changed body. I had the rare chance to develop my body in both directions at the same time. Before me there had been only warriors or magicians. I would be the first magic warrior.

As a pure magician, my core would have limited me immensely. Too mediocre to stand above the majority. But as a magic warrior who got to bring the advantages of both casts to bear, I would create a place for myself.

Sadly, I had no clue about the details of how warriors forged themselves. I knew there were different subclasses. Berserkers, Runeknights, Bulwarks were only a few of them. It made me wonder about my future path, but it could wait. For now, I would focus on my magic side. Learning all there was to learn from it during my basic studies. Afterward I had to decide if I could somehow join a warrior-school under a false name or if I could get lessons from somewhere else.

Had I not had my evil hitchhiker in my body, I could have done the whole thing open, becoming a shining example of a unique genius. But with the darkness in my body, I couldn’t allow for the interest such an outing would generate. Only because the magicians had missed him once didn’t mean they would miss him twice. Especially as they would scan me from top to bottom in search of the solution on how to create more magic warriors.