Within the solo dungeon situated in the centre of Thistledon a desperate battle was being waged. A fight for survival unlike anywhere else on Earth. The whole world might be facing challenges never before seen, but none were as unholy and terrifying as the ordeal ongoing inside. A full day still had yet to pass since the System came to Earth, and it was unlikely anyone was facing it as fiercely as I was. At least, that’s what my imagination told me.

“Ninety seven… Ninety eight… Ninety nine… and…?” Naea had stopped saying the hundred and portion of the numbers early in the ones. As the final, five hundredth swing clattered to the floor my hands released the grip of the aptly named Sorehammer. I was completely unbalanced and fell onto my back without the hammer’s weight to keep me stable. My arms wouldn’t stop twitching, attempting to continue the crushing motion I had been making for the past three hours.

I didn’t appreciate that she seemed genuinely unsure whether the task would actually work, if I read her tone correctly. There was just enough of a question in her voice for me to give her a sharp look. My neck, long locked in cramps, spasmed violently at the motion. “It worked,” I admitted once the pain had stopped.

Skill Unlocked! - Heavy Blow (Common)

A simple application of mana and force which creates a result greater than the sum of their parts.

As the System filled in the foundations of the technique with understanding, I shuddered in relief. This made two skills unlocked since beginning to work with Naea, and my doubts were fading further and further away. I wasn’t afraid she was going to attack me as I believed her words on the power of promises. Now, I believed her words on the System, too.

The practice was simple. Attack anything with a heavy weapon, hit as hard as you can and do it five hundred times in under three hours. Each strike needed to carry with it at least a single mana point, sent through the weapon. If I hadn’t already done this one and received a skill doing a mundane task, I wouldn’t have been able to attempt this feat at all. The monotony was a good way to let my brain switch off, focusing on nothing but the rhythm.

I didn’t have five hundred mana to swing in one go, but I had enough Regeneration to manage. The two roadblocks were getting started and then not stopping. Initially, my impacts had been too heavy or sometimes without the requisite mana. If I slipped up, breaking the chain at all, I needed to start over. “So with the false starts,” I groaned, standing up slowly, “that was more like eight hundred, right?”

“Who cares?” Naea asked simply, a knife to my gut, “just use the skill and see how it feels.” She had been getting noticeably grumpy as time went on. I put it down to hunger, because at one point during my break between skill farming, she had shot off in the direction of the two Attack Animals which lay defeated in the forest. When she returned from that trip, she was clearly calmer. It had been a few hours since then and she was snappy again.

Despite myself, I thought of my young sisters and smiled a sad smile. They would get on with me, as long as I made sure they had some snacks. My sisters Sinéad and Niamh were a lot like Naea. They, too, were as annoying as a buzzing flying and never shut up. “Thanks for showing up, Naea.”

“What’s that for?” The fairy asked, suspicious. I just shrugged and shook my head. Forcing myself to my feet, Naea began clapping to cheer me on. I gripped the hammer. My hands were burning in a way I wasn’t sure would recover like the wounds I had received in fighting. Could I still get callouses? Even with my Resilience making my hands feel like they were wrapped in leather already, the skin protested as I lifted the weapon. My left and right hands nearly overlapped at the furthest end of the Sorehammer from the head. The impressive metal hadn’t dented even a fraction, even after five hundred mana-infused swings into the concrete and dirt.

While my body recovered, stalling a little, I decided to get a little curious. “So, I’ve got some common skills. Makes sense, but how do I get more powerful ones?” Even with the knowledge and strength which existed inside of me now, I knew that this was only the beginning. I fixed my grip on the hammer, letting mana start to move around inside me.

“You’re talking about skill stages. Stages are more qualitative than skill levels, but both are important. You don’t need to worry about skill stages for now, as you can’t do anything with them… yet. Something for later.” Naea’s response was met with a nod as I was no longer able to speak. I could accept that answer for now. The mana inside me was ready to burst, so I let it rush towards the spot in my wrists where the skill seemed to reside. The area bloomed with warmth from within, and I unleashed the attack upon the unsuspecting ground.

The motion began with my body as a conduit. I felt like a passenger to the attack, having performed the motion so many times I was now able to let it fly without any conscious thought. Beginning with the glutes and back muscles, the knees bend an inch while the back twists. Gently relaxing the tension in the arms, the hammer starts to move. Then the hands grab harder, any loose muscle in the body becoming tight like iron as the left arm pulls, the right pushes and the hammer begins to rise. Mana joins the equation and I let it flow greedily into the metal at the top of the handle. The weapon almost flew from my grasp as the weight at the top doubled and redoubled again. I grit my teeth hard and with immense struggle, lifted and then dropped my foot, the hammer going along with it.

Heavy Blow.

I didn’t hold back, letting a full ten mana flow into the swing. Alongside the magic, I put rage. Rage against the world which was ending, but still demanded effort. Anger and vitriol against my situation, alone and without any familiarity save for a building which made me sick to look at and a playground I had thoroughly destroyed. I roared, and within the sound was something ancient. Naea darted away at impressive speed, and I closed my eyes as the metal smashed into the dirt around me.

The force of the blow rocked me, sending the Sorehammer flying from my grip. I landed on my back and saw debris falling from the meteoric strike. Above the dirt and rock my attack had kicked up, the hammer spun higher and higher. It was another few seconds later before I was forced to dodge the falling weapon, the magical effect of the item itself creating a slight danger.

“Note to self,” I said, struggling slightly to pull the hammer from where it wedged itself in the ground, “practice with that specifically.” My eyes twinkled, I bet, as I imagined the possibilities of an actual meteoric strike. The Sorehammer, thrown high into the sky with a Heavy Blow attached to it… Now that would be a finishing blow.

Not that I needed one. “See, if you could do that before fighting the local wildlife you’d have been fine, eh? Wouldn’t have needed to smash your hand, that’s for sure.” I bit back a retort as Naea gave her backhanded praise. I judged that arguing with Naea and reminding her I didn’t have the hammer to do the attack with before the last battle wasn’t the right choice. Instead, I just nodded.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She wasn’t wrong about how this would change the fighting from now on. Even just for my mentality. Before doing this, I had been dreading the idea of close quarters combat subconsciously. The Attack Animals were bigger and stronger than me, and they were just the first enemy I had seen, not the strongest in the dungeon at all. Except now, After hitting the ground nearly a thousand times, I wanted nothing more than to see how the hammer worked on one of those shells. The time spent swinging my hammer had been time well spent.

Same with the torturous jogging earlier. I had laughed at Naea when she suggested it. It hadn’t taken much convincing once Naea said a skill would be unlocked, but I had been sceptical the whole time running. The deciding point was when Naea told me to spend mana the whole time. When I asked if she meant throwing Mana Bolts, she laughed at me. “You’ve got a slight specialisation in mana usage, and you might as well make it your strength rather than shift into Strength or Agility based fighting,,” she had said, “but there are many ways to use mana.”

Naea hadn’t even needed to explain much more. That vague suggestion alone had been the spark which set me off. Naea was right, after all. I had three ways to use mana now, and Mana Bolt was definitely the most basic. Simply pushing the mana out in a clump, forcing it to hold a shape and then throwing it. Heavy Blow was different, utilising both mana and my muscles at once. Instead of releasing mana, I released force.

Then there was Sprint.

Skill - Sprint (Common)

By suffusing mana into their breath, the user empowers their body and increases movement speed.

The challenge to unlock the skill was a similar principle to the Heavy Blow task. Maintain an invisible counter with the System over a few hours by continually using mana while performing a specific task. With Heavy Blow, I had used a single point for every swing, but Sprint did not require mana in each footstep. My System-altered physique was important here because running for the two and a half hours required to unlock the skill was exhausting. Each breath spent a mana, infusing the air I sucked in during my run. Each huff and puff of air then filled my muscles with magical energy. My pace increased so much that the ground below me seemed to disappear.

Unlike Heavy Blow, neither the mana nor the force it created truly left my body. There was a subtle difference, with Heavy Blow not actually making me stronger, but increasing my effect on the world around me. As of now, I had three variations on my mana usage, and I decided to name them. Output, like Manabolt. Infusion, like Sprint and application in Heavy Blow.

I was interested to see how the secondary mana within myself would act with these skills. It felt potent in a way my own mana didn’t, but less malleable too. The magic of the dragon was built for one purpose. To rule over others with an iron fist and flaming jaws. I had a lot of time to think about my mana. I had a lot of time to think about everything since the training period had taken about five hours so far.

Even as I took cover from the still falling dust, I could feel the changes in my own body and the way I moved. Even without the skills, this would have been a fairly sensible thing to do, though I would have probably taken more breaks. Jogging first and then swinging the hammer allowed me to get more in tune with my body’s new physical abilities. Naea and I hadn’t left the area around Clive’s, and I had run a noticeable path around the place as I unlocked Sprint. I then thoroughly destroyed everything in the surrounding area. Naea said she would fix it, which I was interested to see.

Even thinking about the name of the skills, I could feel the capitalisation. I could land a heavy hit, or I could land a Heavy Blow. The difference was the level of destruction. The first would be like getting hit with a sledgehammer, the second like standing in front of a train. There was sprinting, during which I was as fast as an Olympian, and then there was Sprinting. Using Sprint made me feel more like an actual Greek god.

At a cost of up to three mana per second, I could increase my movement speed. This was a very simple skill. Input mana, output speed. This, unfortunately, didn’t translate to better dodging. There was no wiggle room, the ability worked on moving to places.

As with Mana Bolt and Manasight, my two new skills came with bursts of knowledge. They were not just skills, they were my skills and they worked how I expected them to - or rather, the System bent itself around a little bit to facilitate my use of the skills. Naea was actually quite a good source of information herself during our time together so far.

While our time together so far was definitely torture, I was content with my choice to trust the strange fairy. I was still careful with my words, but since we began she hadn’t tried to trip me up or used that strange Fae magic which made the world shake. We were fine until something new came up. Better than fine if she kept helping me get stronger. I opened my attribute page and grinned.

Attribute Window

FP:0

Strength

7

Recovery

7

Resilience

7

Dexterity

6

Agility

7

Perception

5

Power

10

Regeneration

6

Command

13

These were gains simply from working out. Two points in Strength, Recovery and Agility, with one point in Dexterity for good measure. There was a maximum level to these gains, according to Naea, but seeing them realised and feeling them in my bones was nice proof that this had been time spent valuably. The thoughts of the world outside pushed me on, and the knowledge that if I died in here I would help no one kept me from running face first into the enemies of the dungeon.

Strength first. Then dominance. Freedom waits after that.

Within my chest, the fire of defiance towards the System and this new existence crackled happily at my mantra. “What’s next?” I demanded.