Following a strict schedule, she was about to heal. This schedule went along the lines of strict meditation. If the first week, she spent doing nothing in Green River was laying in bed and conversation, mainly used to relax. The first week in Aruna was spent isolated from even the boy. Having discussed it before, she was given a suite that was filled with more than just one room. Normally she would reject such offers. Inn suites were not very common. In fact, she had no use for such a thing, as it was usually only taken by a wealthy patron that needed guards.
Extra rooms were provided for essential personal. The rooms themselves were pretty subpar, smaller than the average room, while still being provided toiletry. It had become a common treat for herself to use her uncle’s connections to stay in a fancy room with more privileges. While sad, her uncle didn’t say much. Victorina and him stayed in the shop. Victorina was a Grade C, while her uncle worked with metal for the majority of his life. Neither of the two had any issues with the insane heat produced by the forge. She on the other hand had it awful trying to stay in the shop.
This was the first time she took up one of the suites offered. She wasn’t comfortable leaving the sword in a separate room or isolating him further. With a room of his own, he could use his body as a medium and stay in the room. Eventually, no escape in site. Jessica was able to concentrate on meditating for at least three four hour periods a day. Closer to perfection and mobility of her arm, once near her goal, she even started to skip even meals.
Subtle as it may have been. Jessica was easily provoked in a few cases. One such way was the mention of the old man reaching the end of his life. Whenever she thought of it, she would spiral into what she could do to prolong it. In her younger years she had asked a few doctors, the old man was pretty old to begin with. All of them would give certain aspects to watch out for. Some knew more about the situation, while others just believed it was for a person without mana. None of them knew she was asking about an elf, that she had to research herself.
Along the many things she found, the easiest she had come to was stress. Over time, Jessica waited torturous nights and days waiting for injuries to heal to a point she believed they could be hidden. All in order to return home without showing it to the old man. Most of his nagging had to do with her inability to take care of herself, one such manner of solving that was power. Her talent wasn’t the greatest, but she could make it to Grade C, with a bit of struggling. Her goal was obviously not that high.
Jessica believed that if she could even reach Grade D she could alleviate some of the concerns he might have. Knowing deep inside, she knew all of it would end if she gave up on his last name, if she could just live a normal and peaceful life. All of which were things she would not be happy with, in the end, would continue to cause more instead of fewer concerns for the old man.
Every so often, this caused a period of isolation that would boost her total mana. The obvious results were things she enjoyed but caused other issues themselves. The first was procrastination and avoidance. When she reached a breaking point, she would look for any distraction. For this reason, she isolated herself for an entire week to heal her arm. After two more days after the initial week was the time she was finally able to leave that isolation. Now came a much easier and more enjoyable period.
Rehabilitation. Unlike the torture that was sitting still and constantly watching higher purity of mana from ignoring her, she couldn’t deal with the isolation either. Once she reached the rehabilitation, it was about moving her body, something she was innately talented at. Part of it was because of the elven mana technique. This was the unnamed technique taught to her by the old man. There were hundreds of thousands if not millions of these techniques, at any given time in history one could find no less than a thousand in small towns being sold in small markets. Over half were nameless, and others were casually named as derivatives of the base material.
The reason for so many different types and iterations of basically the same type of technique was very simple. Moving mana through the body followed a few short categories. Mana gathered in the heart and was treated similarly to normal blood. What the two did was differently, instead one was passively handled by the body. In its place, mana utilization was all about different ways of making your own technique for the circulatory system in the body. People weren’t nearly as creative and intelligent as their bodies. One had many years of wiping out individuals left and right until only one system allowed for the species to survive.
At the end of the two weeks, Jessica reached a comfortable state that wouldn’t progress if she didn’t leave her isolation. Being told she was moving a bit recklessly she ignored the boy’s advice. Having pushed herself repeatedly, she knew her arm was completely healed. Mana was really that miraculous, combined with the medicine that cost her a hundred gold. Now, the issue was her own psychological problems. She heavily discriminated against dungeons.
Only moments like this brought her shame, she had been doing her job for years by this point. While her name had become a bit famous, it wasn’t because of her ability. Regardless of how she was pretty impressive for Grade F, what she did was often seen as stupid. That was why her work name got around. While it provided a good fuzzy feeling inside, neither did it pay the bills nor provide her with furthering herself. Dungeons, as disgusting as they were, were beyond more productive.
Alone they could only do so much, a rift between those that were dungeon crawlers and those that were true adventurers or even mercenaries. The very pinnacle of dungeon crawlers stood at the top. Their movements and abilities alone showed they were forces to be reckoned with. The biggest reason why the two were so opposite of the top and bottom was perspective. Dungeons were in similar grades from F to S. The difference in dungeon wasn’t to do with just the mana, or strength of a person.
Every aspect put together had to do with the overall difficulty. In the end, the dungeons from Grade F to D were known as playgrounds. For those at Grade C and above, dungeons below were called such as they were basically playgrounds for children. The creatures in dungeons rated Grade C were evolutionarily different. Only at that level were the creatures instead given any semblance of intelligence. For this very reason, someone that has gone into a Grade F dungeon would need a party to hunt a creature found in a Grade F dungeon outside the dungeon.
Moving to the entrance, the guards had changed. It appeared nobody knew who Jessica was, as nobody signaled her out. Seeing the slightly below average height guards, the dwarves just checked to see if she had mana before allowing her through. It wasn’t difficult to bypass, only if someone wanted to kill themselves it wasn’t their problem. They were only responsible for the very minimum. Once they returned to the dungeon, it was once again possible to feel the festive atmosphere.
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To the right were a bunch of blankets or even people laying down goods on the grass as they tried to sell their wares or services. To the left was a more open lot where one could find groups of people standing around as one person from their party looked for others. For this low grade dungeon, it was perfect for an entry dungeon. It was mainly filled with goblins. They were smaller and physically stronger than a human and even dwarves. Lowest grades outside a dungeon could be tricked and scammed by a cleaver child. While those found in the dungeon were filled with a will to fight off intruders.
Without intelligence, they moved purely off instinct. Not wild beast instinct, instead the very basics of life itself. In essence, it was possible for them to attack and hurt those around them, that was how simple they were. Throughout the outside of the dungeon wasn’t just beginners trying to get used to the atmosphere. Veterans could be seen, most of these types lacked talent or were simply those with a family.
Not everyone was so ambitious and wouldn’t mind a bit of luck by finding a lucky drop. Dungeon monsters were still profitable to make a living off of. Pulling away, she ignored the people around her as she moved towards the entrance. Jessica closed her eyes and she put her hand on the wall before walking down the stairs. Unlike what many might believe, she didn’t move down a set of stairs and simply walked into the darkness before disappearing. Within five steps, she could feel her last two had been on stable ground.
When she opened them again, she left a bit sick. Akin to some type of insane carnival ride, she felt completely shaken. Outside of her heavy breathing and coughing, all that could be heard was the sound of water dripping from the top of the cave to the bottom. Echoing off as if the entire dungeon was just a single room. Observing her surroundings, the entrance was blocked by the same type of shadows while in front of her was stone archway and door.
Once she put her hand on the stone door and pushed slightly, there was a loud rumbling. The door slid itself into the wall with some unknown construction. Looking inside, one could see two green skinned people. The height of a child, they were small and could possibly be mistaken as a child as seen from behind. Obviously, if you could ignore the green skin. An unsettling feeling passed through her as the two just stood there like dolls.
One might imagine it was a cakewalk with their intelligence and their current lack of sentence. The largest danger to a first time dungeoneer was themselves. The true experience of a dungeon would only be felt once they entered the room. If for example you tried to attack from outside, the method used would reflect before entering the room. The best example was using a bow from the entrance of the dungeon, if there was a spell or a crossbow shot from the entryway of the room instead of the dungeon…
Because of the distance and the destructive nature of the attack, anyone at the entryway was guaranteed to be a fatality. The boy was oddly quiet and had stayed inside her arm. Taking out her weapons, she studied them to ensure there were no problems. With the door open, she knew who her opponents were and could devise a plan. She wasn’t here for combat experience, the dungeon couldn’t offer such a thing, at least not for her.
Lifting her sleeves, she had what appeared to be two wrist guards. In reality, she had no intentions of taking any attacks. Goblins by nature were stronger than humans, she as a woman without specific training was weaker than a man. The two items were bought when she visited the dungeon last time. The two daggers she had taken from the pile were two that were equipped with ring pommels.
While the two wrist straps appeared to be made of metal, there was a clip holding down the metal. Once she took the end, she was able to pull off the metal wrapping. Instead of a metal coating, it was actually a metal string. Using the string, she was able to attach the two ring pommels to the leather wrist straps that were hidden under the metal wire. She wasn’t sure who the manufacturer was. She only knew the mark was one that she had used for a number of years. It looked simple and was rather crude, but they all came with quality craftsmanship, combined with an emergency contraption that would allow her to cut off support with her mana to disconnect the string from her wrist.
This was a secret weapon she used for her work. It was very easy to catch people off guard. The downside was that a contraption to automatically control the length was still not possible. She had repetitively asked her uncle for one, only he couldn’t find a way to do it. Jessica was sure he could do it, however one that would work without problems was something he couldn’t accomplish as she hadn’t received it yet. Therefore, she had to manually control the length and rewrap it herself, both of which could be a complicated process.
Once everything was done, she stepped into the room. The door wouldn’t close, nor could she leave. Physically, she wasn’t barred, but the second she did, the dungeon would swallow the goblins and the door would close. Once locked out, they were barred from entering for a period of time. Thus, once she entered, she was greeted by two lucid goblins that seemed to be startled awake. Once they saw her, their child like appearance soon vanished.
With open maws, it was possible to see their front teeth were pointed. Once the large canines met the open air, it was difficult for them to be concealed once again. The rest of their mouth was similar to a person, only it wasn’t difficult for them to chew down on bones. The hardness was on a completely different level. Showing off their physical superiority, they moved at her in record time. With short wooden clubs, it wasn’t difficult to follow their movements. They didn’t do anything tricky and ran straight at her.
She aligned herself with one as she continued to use the other as cover. As she used mana to backpedal, she was able to keep her balance, despite the difference in physical ability. The one that was aligned would continue to attempt to face off with her as she showed off her coordination and situational awareness. With the wall, it made some of the second goblins movements difficult. Without intelligence, it didn’t find a problem that could be solved.
With it, finding the other side every so often. Every attempt from that side, she would deflect the blow off to the first goblin. Because of the superiority in weapons, she didn’t have difficulties using the side of the blade to meet the club and have it slide off with force to meet the first. If the two didn’t coordinate in a way to do this, she simply needed to kick off the ground and distance herself. When she met the wall, she lightly jumped before kicking off the side wall and having the duo follow her along a roundabout circle.
As openings appeared, she took them to inflict injuries on their arms. As time went on, she started to find bigger openings as the two would have bits of outbursts at each other. Even without intelligence they still had egos, this allowed her to pit the two against each other with frustration. This lead to larger movements. Obviously because they had an intruder in front of them they didn’t start attacking each other.
What occurred instead was hesitation and disruption in their movements. Lowering the stress she had to deal with, the usage of her mana was lowered by a large degree. As time went on, the degree of injuries started to pile up as she bid her time slowly before finding openings and killing the two in one final blow. She couldn’t help but look at the corpses slowly being disintegrated with a hardened expression. Without any suspense, nothing was left behind. Turning away she touched the door to the second room.