“Well, you see… I have this blessing…It does a lot of crazy stuff, you know?”
“I can see that.”
“And that’s about it.”
“What?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
“Unbelievable! Do you know how much mana that was? You shouldn’t be alive right now! What did it do Pal, what did it do?!”
Pal hesitated, he really didn’t want to show off what exactly his power did but the situation left him with no other choice. He Mentally dumped all his stat points into the body stat and felt his body shift a little, next he used his skill point, willing it to go into his super strength skill.
“I think I just awakened a bloodline with the help of it.”
The man’s face immediately became unreadable, and Pal was shocked by such an abrupt shift.
“I see, can you demonstrate what it does, sir Pal?”
His question left no room for a no, the others were now looking at him expectantly too, so he did the sensible thing and nodded. Satisfied with his response, the guild master snapped his hand and the podium rumbled before vanishing in a puff of light.
“I wanted to say a few more words before we began testing but things have changed, no matter, come along.”
They all followed him to the left corner of the room, where the largest of the training dolls stood.
“You all have broken through and must have gained at least one ability from it, we’ll be assessing it here, Pal, step forward.”
The dwarf gulped, then stepped forward. Runes and arcane markings on the training doll began to flicker and shift, and then the construct came to life and lumbered forward, in the blink of an eye the thing was running toward him with surprising speed for something so large.
Pal stood his ground, years of experience as a tank holding him in place. The construct inched closer, and when it was just a few meters away from him it whipped around its hand and threw it towards him in the form of a fist.
His first instinct was to block, but then he realized that he didn’t have his shield. Pal slipped to the side, grabbed the incoming fist with all his might, and pulled. His fingers dug into magically reinforced stone as he pulled even harder, only stopping when the construct suddenly flipped forward, flying over him with its own momentum.
It crashed into a thin wall of air that stopped it completely, before it could rise again the dwarf was already on the move. He dashed over to it and jumped on its exposed chest, he then took a deep breath and punched with all his might.
WHAM!
And again.
WHAM!
WHAM!
WHAM!
Pal lost himself in a trance, he hammered his fists into the magical construct, it reminded him of when he was beating metals into submission with his enchanted hammer, it was a wonderful feeling. All his pain and plans of revenge faded away, and they-
“Pal!”
Pal blinked, then returned.
“Pal! STOP THIS INSTANT!”
The dwarf snapped out of his stance and stumbled back, falling on the broken torso of the humanoid construct.
“What is the world? Did I do this? With my own hands?”
The training doll was broken and battered, magical stone rubble flickered across the floor along with broken parts of the construct. It was damaged beyond repair, pal saw the runes across it flare one last moment before they died down completely.
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Guild master Bob was upon him within seconds of the barrier dropping.
“Are you crazy! Do you know how much that was worth!?”
“I’m sorry…I don’t know what came over me there…I lost myself.”
What followed was an intense lecture about power and control, Pal silently sat and took it all in, not daring to say a word. He realized his blessing made him stronger than he realized, and he was now ranked low silver.
The fact that he had skipped an entire rank struggled to settle in his mind, his blessing was a blessing like no other. The dwarf knew this, but only now was the concept settling in, with such power finding the dungeon core and crushing it would be effortless.
NOOO! IT DOESN’T HAVE ONE!
Pal’s mind froze, what did it mean by that?
“W-”
Reality cracked, time froze and blue light consumed the world.
….
The fact that he had skipped an entire rank struggled to settle in his mind, his blessing was a blessing like no other. The dwarf knew this, but only now was the concept settling in, with such power finding the dungeon core and crushing it would be effortless.
A strange feeling of Deja Vu washed over Pal as soon as he thought this. He quickly shook it away. By the time the dwarf was done with his thoughts, Guild Master Bob was wrapping up his lecture.
He then moved to assess the others, all ended up breaking through to low copper, with him being the only exception to this rule.
“Okay, now that I have a solid grasp of your abilities it's time for role assignment.”
The man locked eyes with him and gustred for him to come forward.
“Everyone meet Pal, he will be our tank.”
“Peter, come here.”
A tall and slender man in green leather robes and iron armor walked over to them with a iron broadsword in hand.
With a wave of his hand the guild master produced a wooden sword inscribed with countless glittering runes seemingly out of nothing and tossed it to the swordsman.
“Use your awakened ability to attack Pal, try not to use lethal force.”
Pal swallowed.
“Wait! I don’t want to be attacked, why is he attacking me?”
The man bent over and laughed and suddenly Pal felt like an idiot, was there something he was missing here? That was a perfectly reasonable question!
“Pal, you are the tank, did that not sink in? My all seeing eye says you’ll be fine, your blessing is making you supernaturally durable, that combined with your low silver body you're almost impervious to lower rank attacks.”
Pal thought for a moment, he didn’t know that, was the guild master talking about his skill [Dwarf’s elder body]?
“Judging from the look on your face you must be wondering if I can see your powers, yes I can, but not fully.”
“How?”
The man only smiled in response and pointed to his glowing eye patch with a creepy smile that sent shivers down the dwarf’s spine.
“Anyway, do not worry. Part of being a tank is taking damage, being hurt and returning said damage so others don’t have to.”
The dwarf knew the man was correct, years of experience ingrained this into him. Pal had countless cuts and scars to show for it, he found it strange that he’d suddenly be afraid of doing something he made a living out of for 200 years straight but chalked it up to his new blessing.
The guild master materialized a wooden shield and casually tossed it to Pal, he caught it with a grunt and shifted his stance into a defensive one.
Peter rushed at him, a soft green light enveloping his wooden sword as he ran. Pal clutched the handle of the wooden shield and felt it expand, he planted it on the floor and kneeled down, bracing for impact.
It never came, however. Instead he felt something hard dig into his left side, using his enhanced strength he hauled the shield around, slamming it into the hand of his attacker. The sword wielder yelped and dropped the sword, jumping back and rubbing his hand in pain.
“Wonderful! That was beautiful to watch! Again!”
The same sense repeated itself with each team member, they were given a weapon best suited for them and tested themselves against Pal, the dwarf only struggled with the mage as he had access to many spells that he didn’t have any experience with.
The power of the spells were weak though, and were merely annoying. Once he closed the distance between them he lost the advantage and Pal defeated him easily.
“Good! Good! Now it's time to test your teamwork.”
The man clapped his hands and the entire room suddenly went dark. A growl sounded in the distance and Pal rushed over to where he remembered seeing the mage.
“Light! Produce some light you buffoon!”
“B-But…”
Pal growled and shook the man, hoping to shake some sense into him.
“Now!”
Light blossomed overhead in the form of a crimson fireball, the darkness around them faded away slightly, just enough for Pal to see where everyone was.
“Everyone Behind me now!”
They scrambled into formation and Pal cursed when he saw how disorganized they were, if this was a real life situation half of them would’ve already died. Suddenly the room returned to normal and Guild master Bob came into view.
“Failure”
Pal expected as much, that was such a horrible performance there was no way for any of them to pass, even if he was helping.
“In a real life situation only Pal here would’ve maybe made it out alive. Your response to the sudden shift in your environment was pathetic. How can you call yourselves copper adventures if you act so poorly? I know many of you have never stepped foot in a dungeon but this is just unacceptable!”
“Such random and rapid shifts are common in dungeons, and while we may not know how old this one is, it's safe to assume that things will mostly be the same. You will face mutated monsters, twisted creatures the likes of which you can’t comprehend, nothing will be constant, nothing.”
“Again!”
A similar scene played out, their coordination was only a little bit better this time. This earned them another failure and they were forced to do the drill again, each one different than the last. Eventually however, they began to rapidly improve as more variables were introduced, forcing them to adapt.
……
“Pass.”
“Yes! We did it Pal, we did it!”
Everyone celebrated, Pal allowed himself to smile as well, that was brutal. The test had pushed them closer than ever, pushing the limits of his thinking to levels even he didn’t know he had.
“Alright! Gear up! We’re moving out. As this will be our first expedition I will be personally accompanying you. Hold on a minute.”
After saying so the man vanished in a lick of azure flames.
This didn’t surprise Pal, there was simply no way they’d let such an inexperienced group of adventures into a newly formed dungeon without a catch. They were merely fodder, the silvers and golds he saw in the guild hall were the true team, they were merely the warm up.
Pal didn’t care though, it was a dirty tactic but one he could use to his advantage. Revenge was a fist away, with the power granted by his blessing there was no way for the dungeon to survive, even if it was an elder one. Elder dungeons were immensely powerful, but still had a wild intellect.
This made them mold their creatures like beasts, and while the first floor didn’t reflect this it could be explained. It likely had an ungodly amount of time to perfect its first floor, since it took massive amounts of mana to make a second one.
That would explain the lack of mana in the dungeon as well, it wasn’t anomalous at all, it simply didn’t have any and was barely surviving.
“It all makes sense..” He muttered.
“Hmm? Did you say something Pal?”
“Oh? No, I was just thinking to myself.”
WOOSH!
A burst of azure flames spun into the form of Guild master Bob above them.
“I’m back! Here!”
With a wave of his hand specialized armor specifically tailored for each of them popped into being, with the only exception being him, as he already had armor. Instead a shield littered in runes along with a mace popped up in front of him.
Pal grinned