“So, how’s everything?”

“Everyone is pretty much fine, with the money we got from the Dungeon, we were able to buy a surplus of health potions and even commission new weapons for a couple members. All in all, things are alright. But I’m glad you wanted to talk, since I have something I’d like to mention to you too.”

“Sounds good, and yeah I had a few things on my mind. I would like to find more Dungeons and I think sending 1 or 2 people out to do this would be beneficial. All they would have to do is try to find a Dungeon in the surrounding area, and come back at the sign of trouble, no need to fight anything.

“If they find one, based on the requirements I’ll enter by myself and clear it, then I wouldn’t mind bringing a few of you in to clear it as well, similar to what I did today. How does that sound?”

“Actually, that sounds pretty good to me, I will have to talk to them about it, because again, I don’t force anyone to do anything. Also, I would only be comfortable sending another cultivator out to do this so that limits the options. Even though I think we will soon have a lot of 1st Cycle folks.

“Well, either way I like the idea, but I’ll talk to the team and get back to you. Does that work for you?”

“Yeah that’s fine, what did you want to bring up?”

“Ah yes, everyone kind of agreed that today went really well, and they learned a lot. We still can’t really spare the type of numbers it would need to tackle that Dungeon on our own, but if you can continue to bring a small squad of us in, that would be appreciated. In fact, the plan would be to switch out the members each time so that more and more of us can gain the type of experience needed to be successful here. What do you think?”

Hmm that’s kind of a big commitment out of me, but I do think I learn something out of it, and I am asking them to do something for me, so I guess I’m okay with that under the condition that Richard leads the team every time.

“Sure, but you have to come each time.”

“That works for me.”

That was kind of all we had to talk about, and he left shortly after. It was roughly the evening now, and I quite literally spent the rest of the night practicing with my flames. From small balls, to larger ones. I tried complex shapes like swords and arrows and had them fly around the room. Though for some reason those actions never felt very natural to me. I could still do it, and it worked just fine…it just felt …off.

It wasn’t until I coated both myself and my spear in the flames did everything finally feel natural. It seems like this is the state my flames prefer to be in. Yeah tomorrow I’ll go test them out in the Dungeon. Oh wait...I have to take Richard’s folks in the Dungeon don’t I..

It’s getting late…but why can’t I just go now.

Yeah…there’s no reason I can’t.

After gathering my belongings, I made my way out of the Outpost and back into the forest. I did have to fight some Goblins on the way, but nothing to worry about it.

By the time I made it back to the Dungeon, the sun was mostly set. Not worrying about it, I accepted the prompt and once again I was back in the Dungeon, this time with the intention setting it ablaze.

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Based on all my experiments, testing, and practicing I think simply coating my spear in my flames for now is how I should start out, and I’ll go from there.

And so, with that plan in mind, I walked into the first cave with only the head of my spear coated in beautiful black flames. It wasn’t a lot per se, the flames themselves only extended about 3 inches from the blade itself in all directions, I knew I could make it far larger, but this will do for now.

I wasn’t in a rush to kill the Goblins, as this was just supposed to be a test run of using them in battle, but of course things don’t always go to plan.

After I entered the cave the Goblins started rushing at me, I performed a wide yet what was supposed to be a light swing of my spear and willed it to burn everything in front of me.

I guess I need to be way more specific with my thoughts or the scene that’s currently in front of me will play it when I definitely don’t need it to.

The cave before me could now probably called an ocean of black flames. There was nowhere in sight that wasn’t being touched by flames.

When I swung my spear earlier, the second it made contact with the first Goblin, it rushed out like a flood and immediately bathed quite literally everything in front of me in flames. Of course, the Goblins took the brunt of that, and not a single body remained in front of me. There wasn’t even anything for the Dungeon to absorb. I hope that doesn’t mess with the re…oh there it is now.

I felt a little relief when I saw the chest appear once more, it would really suck if because all the Goblins got burned to ashes and the Dungeon couldn’t absorb their bodies meant no chest. Glad that isn’t the case.

Moving on, I got to control my power better on the next floor, while that could be considered a successful test in a way since I learned something, the result wasn’t my intention, so I need to be able to control exactly what I want to happen.

Maybe next time I’ll just try to burn things on contact…hmm...yeah that should work. I collected the Rock Iron and as I walked through the sea of flames before me they seemed to slowly die down before eventually fading out.

Neat.

Anyway, I got to the next floor and immediately tried out my new theory. If everything went according to plan, then the flame would only burn one Goblin at a time instead of a big flood of flames like the last floor.

Well, the plan didn’t work.

At least not entirely.

While it didn’t flood out like last time, once it devoured a Goblin, it continued to spread like a plague amongst the swarming Goblins and in barely a minute all 100 Goblins in the cave were burned to ashes.

Well.

Learned something else I guess.

After collecting the Rock Iron here as well, I made it to the next floor and immediately started fighting the Goblins with the idea I thought of on the way here. I just made my flames hot. That was all. Don’t do anything else, just be hot.

And hot they were.

If I just did a normal swing of my spear I could cut any Goblin in half with ease, but I always felt some type of resistance. I could very much tell that I was indeed cutting something no matter how east it was.

With my flames burning at a temperature, I have no idea of, that feeling was practically gone now. It almost felt like I was swinging at air with how easy it was to cut my way through the Goblins.

I tested it out on like 20 of them before I decided to switch it up. This next test was risky, but I think it’s needed.

I stopped attacking and coated my entire body in black flames with the simple thought that nothing should touch me.

And of course, my flames didn’t let me down. With the flames extending about half a foot from my body in all directions every single Goblin that made contact with it burned till they no longer existed without fail. It didn’t matter how many came in contact with the flames. Everything burned.

Though of course I wouldn’t let this get to my head. Goblins are weak, and but this plan probably wouldn’t work against something or someone that was maybe as strong or stronger, or even someone who were maybe also immune to flames. Who knows, but it’s a good last line of defense.

Moving on, I cleaned up the rest of the Goblins and proceeded to the next floor. Well, I ate some food pills first. I got really hungry right after I stopped using my flames.

Which makes sense in a way I guess.

Anyway, I had more thing I wanted to test then after that it would just be time for practice.