I looked down at the small town that spread across the sides of the large hill I stood on top of while I waited for my team to join me. For some reason, I had been thinking that Satar’s only E-rank dungeon would be similar to the Bloodfields.

“This is nicer than where I grew up,” Aaron snorted.

“I mean, that’s not a bad thing if we have to spend some time waiting here, right?” I shrugged.

“Let’s just be careful with how we spend our money,” Gary said with a half-smile. Despite the prosperous-looking town, the dungeon immediately drew my attention when we arrived. Below the large hill, the town occupied there was a massive crater in the valley.

“Well, should we head into the town or take the path straight to the dungeon?” I asked as we all studied the view. There were a few different paths down from the portal, but one of them went directly to the crater while the rest went to different sections of the town.

“Let’s head to the dungeon and see what they say,” Gary said. “If there’s a wait we should talk about what we want to do, next.” I nodded and we started down the path to the dungeon in the distance. If the wait was longer than a week, I would propose returning to the mountains beyond the Bloodfields to my team. Although the path we traveled on went straight to the base of the hill, I could still see impressive inns, markets, and guilds during the hike down the hill. As we grew closer the size of the dungeon started to seem unbelievable, as I realized the crater was incredibly large.

“That’s probably the adventurers guild representative in the building,” Gabrielle pointed ahead of us. As we got closer it was easy to see a large building just before the path descended into the crater. The walk took us less than half an hour and soon after we arrived at the smaller version of the adventurers guild blocking the path ahead. A few people were walking around out here and our team was getting looked at by everyone we passed.

“Come on,” Gary led us through the swinging doors of the adventurers guild and I looked around quickly, unsurprised by the usual layout. We headed directly to a receptionist and after a quick wait, we were waved up to the mans’ counter.

“How can I help you?” the attendant asked.

“We just arrived at the Depths,” Gary said, “do we need to wait before we can head in?”

“New E-ranks?” the man asked with a raised eyebrow and a sweeping look across our team. “Commoners by the look of you. You’ve probably all been adventuring for years to reach this point,” the man laughed as he shook his head. “The wait is six weeks.” My jaw dropped when I heard the man. He smirked and I heard another team of adventurers at a nearby counter burst out in laughter as they watched us. My cheeks heated up in embarrassment and I realized this was probably just a noble messing with us because he wanted to.

“I see. Can you add our team to the list, then?” Gary responded curtly after a moment. He passed on the information the attendant condescendingly asked for and we left the building as soon as he was finished.

“Six weeks, to visit the dungeon for one day,” Zack said in disgust. I shook my head beside him and sighed as we gathered together beside the path back up the hill.

“I had a feeling it was going to be like this, based on how the guild master talked. They don’t care about commoners, even if we advanced to E-rank.” Gabrielle folded her arms angrily.

“We could find a mission at one of the other cities, to clear out a camp of monsters or something similar,” Zack suggested. I grimaced and looked away, we would barely earn any experience if we started looking for guild missions to complete.

“What about the mountains?” Aaron put his hands on his hips and looked around. “It’s what we’re all thinking, even though no one’s said it.” I nodded slowly and took a deep breath as my thoughts returned to the mountains where we fought the trolls. Although they were only F-rank the difference in size made them extremely formidable creatures.

“I agree, the area beyond the Bloodfields is our only real option if we want to continue to improve,” I said hesitantly. Zack and Aaron were nodding and I looked at Gary and Gabrielle.

“You're right, we’ll just have to be more careful than last time. Maybe we can clear some Awakened on the way to get used to our new stats?” Gabrielle suggested. I nodded agreeably to her idea and glanced over at Gary. Only Gary and I had skills that were upgradeable at level five.

“And my new skill, Snaring Roots. Did you upgrade Charge, Gary?” I asked interestedly.

“I think we could handle that. Sounds interesting, Eli. My new skill is called Piercing Charge, it feels like it takes more Essence than before, but I’m sure it’s more powerful, too.” Gary said excitedly. We started heading back up the hill as we continued chatting about our skills.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Does anyone feel like their Essence is…” Gabrielle trailed off for a moment as we hiked up the steep path. “I don’t know, it feels different than it did before we advanced.” I nodded and thought about how my Essence had felt denser since we had ranked up.

“Yeah, I wonder if all of our skills will be more powerful, now. Our Essence has been changed,” Zack said agreeably. We spent the rest of the day making our way back through the portals to Gorok and then purchasing a month's rations for our team before we retired for the night back at the inn we had been frequenting in the city.

The following morning we ate our last meal in the city before getting back on the road for the Bloodfields. We had discussed staying in the city for longer, but everyone wanted to test out our new improvements in a fight. I had gone to the training yards the night before and tested out Snaring Roots where it wouldn’t damage anything. The upgraded skill allowed me to create thick roots instead of the vines I made before. I was hoping the improved skill would prove strong enough to hold a troll. I continued my training by draining my Essence completely during the hike to the Bloodfields and noticed a significant improvement in all of my skills.

“Looks like a regular Awakened camp,” Aaron reported back to our team. He had just gone ahead to scout out noise in the distance, which I noted was already much further than my perception allowed me to hear. I gripped my spear and shield comfortably as I grinned. We had ignored all the smaller goblin and warg patrols on the way here and I was excited to see how we had all improved.

“Let’s go, then. We’ll stick with our usual plan for the villages,” Gary stated and we followed Aarons's directions to the clearing a few minutes away. I studied the village as we walked through the clearing towards a distance Aaron could easily strike from. The goblins started rushing us just before Aaron started shooting and I waited for the larger goblins to reach us. I had cast Barkskin on Zack, Gary, and myself like usual and my increased Spirit provided me with much more Essence than I had ever had before. Gabrielle, Aaron, and I tore the goblins apart before they could reach us with our ranged skills and only left a few for Zack and Gary to finish easily. Two larger hobgoblins rushed towards us and Gabrielle sent a Meteor slamming between them and Aaron sent a barrage of Drill Shots as they lay stunned.

“Piercing Charge,” Gary charged past me as I rushed forwards and I watched him blur past me and stab through one of the hobgoblin's skulls.

Zack smashed the other through the skull with an Empowered Strike and I slowed to a walk as I realized both monsters were dead.

“Well, that went well,” I laughed as I reached the two bodies. “Are those even Awakened?” I asked although both of them were wielding a sword and shield.

“They are, we’re just too strong, now,” Zack laughed and slapped Gary on the back. I grinned and began the grizzly work of retrieving the monster cores from the two monsters while the rest of my team separated to check the other bodies. Even if we couldn’t go to the E-rank dungeon, we could still make good money out here.

“All right, do we want to look for another Awakened camp?” Gary asked once we grouped up a few minutes later.

“Not really, I didn’t even use my new skill,” I complained. “I wasn’t expecting Zack and Gary to kill both of them in a single hit.”

“Excuse me?” Gabrielle said with a look at Aaron, who folded his arms and glared at me.

I cleared my throat, “I mean, my team impressively managed to kill the monsters before I could prepare myself.”

“All right, all right,” Gary raised his hands to grab our attention. “It’s just past midday, if we head to the mountains now we can camp close to the base tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll head to our ambush spot and see how we handle those trolls, now.”

We hiked to the base of the mountains, where we set up camp in a small hollow along the mountainside. No one wanted to start a fire without the trees to hide the smoke so we had a cold dinner and I split off to stand the first watch. I pulled up my Status to see how much experience I gained from the quick fight earlier today.

Eli - Lvl 5 Druid

Experience - 45\10000

Strength-11

Dexterity-11

Perception-10

Vitality-10

Spirit-13

Willpower-12

Barkskin - Level 8\10 Upgradeable

Experience - 180\12800

Thornbolt - Level 6\20 Upgradeable

Experience - 2290\6400

Rejuvenation - Level 5\10 Upgradeable

Experience - 670\3200

Snaring Roots - Level 1\10 Upgradeable

Experience - 2\200

I had expected the experience to slow down once we advanced to E-rank, but to only gain 45 experience from killing two F-rank Awakened and a camp full of goblins were disappointing. The rest of my watch was uneventful and I found myself excitedly planning on how to face the trolls tomorrow.

“Thanks,” I grabbed a bowl of cold oats and dried fruit from Aaron and joined the rest of my team for breakfast. I brought up the reduced experience gain idly and we discussed how it would affect us while we ate. We finished and grabbed our packs to head up the same path into the mountains we had taken during our last trip to the area.

“Get down,” Aaron hissed at the group and I dropped to my stomach quickly. We had just barely crested a small hill as we headed deeper into the mountains and I glanced down the path as it twisted through the mountains ahead of us.

“There’s a group of hobgoblins, I don’t think they saw us,” Aaron whispered to the group and Gary gestured for us to back down the other side of the hill. I crawled back until I was out of sight and waited for everyone to join me.

“Looked like twenty hobgoblins heading away from us down the path. They were pretty far away, I could barely see them,” Aaron explained. “They were far past the turn towards the trolls' cave.”

“Aaron, keep watch on the hobgoblins. Let’s make sure they leave the area before we head back to our ambush spot for the trolls.” Gary said and Aaron headed back towards the top of the hill to keep a lookout. I waited with the rest of the team for another hour before Aaron headed back towards us.

“They’re gone, but they left the path and disappeared behind another mountain,” Aaron said. Gary looked worried but nodded seriously a moment later.

“All right, we’ll head to our ambush spot. Everyone keep an eye out, we know there's more than trolls in these mountains,” Gary said and I grinned. More than anything, I felt excited about a true challenge. We had been taking it slow and easy over the past couple of months, and I felt my blood pumping in anticipation.

“Let’s see what we can do,” I stated confidently and got a small cheer in return.