As it turned out the next three chambers were largely unremarkable in their training. They focused on balance, speed, and reflexes. All things that Duke excelled at and Elaine could perform admirably in as well. As there was no advanced training offered in these chambers, they moved past them quickly.
The tenth chamber greeted them with four separate instructors, apparently one for each of them. The group split up to approach an instructor each. The only instructors that seemed particularly interested were Duke’s and Elaine’s. Grat’s and Baslin’s trainers greeted them but offered them little more than a nod.
Duke’s instructor offered a full bow and greeted him. “Welcome true student. I see you have succeeded through several chambers to arrive here. This is good. Dedication to one’s studies is key to success. This chamber is to take what you have learned and hone it even more. This will prepare you for the challenges to come. Are you ready to begin?”
Duke smiled. “I am quite ready.”
Teaching began as his instructor began to teach him how to flow his attacks and defense together into a cohesive whole. He learned ways to read his opponent from their stance to how they balanced their weight. It was not long before his enhanced XENOGLOSSIA and Intuition were once again combining to provide him with advantages.
Hours later, Duke was able to read the moves of the instructor before they came. He found himself anticipating kicks and punches before they were thrown. All of this gave him what felt like a sixth sense when it came to combat. That was until his instructor changed his body language entirely. Duke found himself blocking punches that were never thrown only to be struck by a follow-up blow that he did not anticipate.
“How are you doing that?” Duke finally asked in exasperation.
“Doing what?” The instructor responded as if providing a leading question.
“You are tricking me with your body language down to such a fine level, I have no idea what’s coming anymore.”
“Ah, so I was correct. You were able to counter me far too quickly, so I surmised you were able to read my body language. I simply changed how I moved to match an automaton. What you were perceiving as muscles moving were simply false indicators. That ability of yours is useful, for sure, but not everything will provide you with such clues. Here, you must learn to read the strikes as they are coming and react before they hit you. Now let’s begin again.”
Over the course of countless hours of training, Duke learned to feel attacks coming from different directions and dodge, block, or even counter them. This lasted until a second instructor joined in and things got significantly harder. Duke learned to evaluate multiple attacks simultaneously and decide how to respond. Some blows he found were just better to accept as they were not damaging enough and offered him an opportunity to counter-strike effectively.
When the third and fourth instructors joined in, Duke found himself moving too fast to think about what he was doing. He simply read the flow of the fight and became one with it, striking, blocking, and slipping blows faster than he could think.
After a seeming eternity, something changed, and Duke was able to see the fight from a new perspective. It was as if his body were continuing to fight on its own and Duke was able to step back and watch. It was from this altered consciousness that Duke was able to read things more clearly. He planned attacks and was able to set sequences into motion that ultimately led his opponents into poor positions he could take advantage of. After the fourth such sequence, all the instructors collectively took several steps back and waited for Duke to stop.
When he did return to full consciousness, he found himself dripping with sweat and blood. His combat robes were tattered into little more than shreds of cloth tied around his waist, and he could feel bone-weary exhaustion throughout his body. He reflexively activated RESTORE and CLEANSE, feeling a bit better afterwards.
“Congratulations, Duke. You have completed your initial combat training, albeit to a degree I have not encountered before. You are more than well prepared for the lessons to come.”
Duke looked down at his Orange martial robes and turned back to the rest of his group to show them he was right about the color change. They were all staring at him dumbfounded.
“What?” Duke asked, confused.
“You are an absolute monster.” Elanie responded, sporting her own orange robes.
At some point the tents and full camp had been set up. Duke figured that they had gotten good at setting up camp by now as they had done it several times. He didn’t recall them setting up this time but he had been a bit distracted. One thing that struck him as odd was the half-meter red-stained wall surrounding the camp.
“What’s with the wall? Duke asked.
“It is there to keep the blood from flowing through the camp.” Baslin responded with a pointed look at Duke.
“What on Earth do you mean by that?”
“Do you have any idea how long you fought for or how much you were injured in the process?” Elaine inquired gently.
“This is going to be bad, isn’t it?” Duke responded.
“My training here stopped three weeks ago, Duke. Three weeks.” She replied.
Duke stared back at her in dismay.
“And there was so much blood from your fighting that it started running into camp!” Grat added forcefully. “You have to learn when to stop or at least take a break. You must be starving, you haven’t eaten anything in like a month.”
Duke was indeed hungry, but nearly as ravenous as he should be. That confused him until Baslin spoke up. “I conjured food into his stomach. It’s a rather advanced Spell but useful in very specific circumstances. This is not one that I had anticipated. A more typical use for such a Spell would be to maintain the strength of mages participating in an extended ritual. That might take a day or two at most. This. This was extreme.”
“Thanks for that, Baslin. And sorry, everyone. I had no idea that I was fighting for that long, or that I was spraying blood all over the place.” Duke winced as he thought about the volume of blood it would have taken to cause it to coat the area as much as it had. He activated a CLEANSE with an extra 1,000 Mana to clean the area, following it up with an equally enhanced RESTORE.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Duke’s first instructor from this chamber spoke up. “The blood was not all yours, Duke. In fact, towards the end of your testing, very little of it was. When your companion called you a monster, she may, in fact, be correct. No simple human could have fought for that length of time with that ferocity. Please take some time to rest before moving on to the next chamber.”
Duke started to walk over to his companions only to discover that his entire body locked up with pain, as if every muscle in his entire body cramped up at the same time. He stumbled three steps before the floor rose up to greet him as he passed into blessed darkness.
He awoke to find himself in his own tent with no recollection of how he got there but he felt good. That surprised him greatly, especially since he really felt like he was in top shape, like the ordeal he had put his body through hadn’t happened at all. What the hell is going on with me? His thoughts were interrupted with system messages:
*** Whoa boy. You really stepped into it this time. You turned combat training into more than 500 hours of non-stop physical and willpower conditioning. That was something to watch – no one dared interfere because they were scared to do so. We couldn’t look away – it was just too much fun to watch. You have pushed your body and mind past previous limits which may not be the smartest thing to do but it was fun to watch.
Agility + 10
Strength +10
Endurance +25
Reason -20
Intuition +10
Psyche +25
Your Skills and Abilities related to physically fighting have been drastically altered.
Dodge has increased to Practiced 30
Martial Arts Combat has increased to Adept 10
Meditation has increased to Initiate 10
Tonfa Mastery has increased to Adept 100
REGENERATION has increased to Adept 25
MENTAL FORTITUDE has increased to Initiate 20
CLEANSE has increased to Initiate 12
ARMOR SKIN has increased to Practiced 51
You have gained a new Ability. COMBAT SENSE is gained at Novice 10. This Ability allows you to step back into your mind during a fight. This allows you to perceive more of the world around you, fully utilizing all your senses. Your perception of time slows while in this state making you more able to see opponents' incoming attacks and respond.
You have pushed beyond your limits again. You benefited greatly from this as it was entertaining as hell. ***
Duke ran through the changes in his head and realized that the drop in Reason wasn’t a particularly good thing. It was already his lowest stat so he decided to finally spend more of the points he had been hoarding, bringing it all the way up to 300. It would still be his lowest stat but it would be in the same realm as the others. The headache from the stat boost only lasted a few seconds. Duke wasn’t sure if he was getting used to the changes or if his amped-up REGENERATION was coming into play. Either way, he was glad to CLEANSE himself and get going.
He emerged to find the entire rest of the camp packed up and the rest of the group seemingly ready to leave. Elaine gave him an impatient stare.
“Have a nice nap?” Grat asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I don’t think anyone planned on spending a year in this dungeon, but at this pace, we’re going to get there.”
Baslin shook his head but decided not to speak on the matter. Duke didn’t have any qualms about speaking up. “Time runs differently in the dungeon. We could be in here for a year and it might only seem like days out there.”
Baslin decided it, indeed, was time to speak up on the matter. “But the flow of time in the dungeon does not seem to be consistent at all. There have been times when Duke was in here for weeks that seemed to be only minutes to me. Other times, it has been relatively the same time. I suppose we can do experiments to find out what causes time to pass differently or what causes it to vary, but that is for after we finish this thing.”
“Sure, we can get going.” Duke pulled his tent into his INVENTORY and looked back to the rest of the crew. They seemed a bit disheveled. He graciously extended RESTORE and CLEANSE their way. For some reason, they still didn’t look happy with him. Ungrateful lot.
“OK, out with it.” Duke demanded. “You all look like you’re measuring my back for knife placement. What’s going on?”
Elaine was the one to address the issue. “Duke, we all are your friends, your companions. We have shared goals and, at least for Grat and I, a shared PURPOSE. We are all driving towards the same goal here. But it seems that you are getting lost along the way more and more. You just spent nearly a month in this single room training so hard and so long we ran out of words to describe it. You are growing stronger than any of us had ever imagined possible. We know you came from another world and, quite frankly, we are afraid of what you will turn into.”
Duke noted the others’ heads nodding along as she spoke. “So, I’m the big scary monster now?” Duke replied.
“Don’t be childish.” Elaine admonished him. “You have always been a big scary monster. Just now I am worried that you are losing your focus and only concerning yourself with growing your power by forsaking everything else.”
“Oh.” Duke replied, trying to think through what Elaine had said and what she meant.
“OK, he’s still the big, dumb, idiot he has always been. We can move on.” Grat added.
“Well, thanks for that, Grat.” Duke chuckled. “Yes, I’m still me and you do have a point, Elaine. I am very focused on building my power. But it’s not for some mad goal. I need to be, for all of us to be, powerful enough that anyone who even thinks of taking our freedom away is going to get their teeth shoved down their throat. I need to be powerful enough to protect those I care for. So, yes, I am grabbing at all the power I can get my hands on.”
Baslin responded gravely, “Duke, do you know how many despots have approached things from that exact same perspective? I don’t really know much about your home, none of us do, but here, there is some truth to the thought that power is needed to protect you and yours. Just don’t neglect or harm yours to gain that power. Make sense?”
“Yeah, I get it. There’s a long list of people who did some truly horrific things to get into power and, in many cases, even worse things once they got there. If I even start to look like that, I need each and every one of you to set me straight. I’m goal-oriented and I know that I can focus too heavily on the task ahead of me and get tunnel-vision. But look at what has happened to me and all of you in just the short time I have known you. Grat, Elaine, the both of you were nearly cooked for dinner by some monsters from the very caves this dungeon sits in. Baslin, you had your entire tower destroyed by freaky mage-hunters. I was able to save Grat and Elaine, but I couldn't do shit about your tower, though. Well, maybe. I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry about the tower. I can rebuild it if I really want to. At this point, assuming they haven’t removed the rubble, I bet your RESTORE Ability could do it too if you apply enough Mana.” Baslin trailed off as he realized what he had just said.
Duke picked it right up. “Yes, with enough Mana. With enough Mana, I can do things like that. We all can. Don’t think I didn’t notice Elaine as a kaiju bear wrestling with the titanic skeleton. That’s power. But the army that I pulled from the ranks of the undead is also power. One-on-one, I’d take on anyone at this point. I might not win, but you can bet that they wouldn’t walk away easily either. But taking on the king’s army? Yeah, there are things I can do that would possibly work. Arcing LIGHTNING with 100,000 Mana would probably clear a wide path through them. But that’s what we need an army of our own for.”
“And here I was thinking we would just quietly infiltrate the capitol and do what we needed to do without involving the lives of the mostly innocent.” Baslin responded with a pointed look. “Why do you think I allowed them to tear my tower down? I wanted to come to the dungeon. I wanted an adventure. I know that they can’t sense us while we are in here which will make them think us dead. With us dead, they will go back to business as usual and relax even more. Then we can even more easily slip in and save who you want to save while cutting the king’s reign short, if we even need to do so by the time we get there.”
Duke stared at Baslin, stunned. “You really could have stopped them?”
“Of course. I told you as much when we came thought the portal.” Baslin replied.
“Right. We’re all a bit warped. Let’s just get on with the next chamber. We’re not even a third done with this level and I’m suddenly tired of it.” Duke turned to the passage and entered, not looking back.