Kyra's eyes open to the blank view of the sandy colored roof of the cave. She props herself onto her elbow but pain racks her body and she groans.

"Oh good, you're up." Tiny jumped out from the shadows. He pulled Kyra up involuntarily and she protested, but stood up nonetheless. Her muscles ached.

"Now check your status screen."

"Huh?" Kyra rubbed her head, drowsy. "How long was I asleep for?"

"Three days." The boy replied.

"What?!" Kyra's jaws dropped. No wonder she felt so drained. Curiously enough, Kyra didn't feel a stabbing hunger in her stomach, nor a throbbing thirst - her cheeks burned a little from embarrassment as she thought of Tiny taking care of her. Kyra wasn't used to being vulnerable - not even when she was sick.

"Nevermind that. Since you agreed to my conditions, I gave you my powers, so check your status screen." Tiny sighed as he took a seat on a rock by the entrance. Kyra curiously called up her menu. She wondered how much closer she was to Marc. Maybe a fifth closer? A third? Maybe even halfway? Excitement buzzed in her head along with the headache as she clicked on status.

[STATUS]

Name: Kyra Malixi

Path: Path of the Peasant

Level: 1

Class: N/A

Health: 31

Mana: 235

Stamina: 20

Vitality: 3

Strength: 5

Endurance: 4

Agility: 6

Intelligence: 16

Perception: 2

[SKILLS]

ACTIVE:

PASSIVE:

Fortitude Lvl. 2, Mana Sense Lvl. 1

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Scanning through the screen, Kyra saw that one of her stats, her Mana stat, was way ahead of the other ones. It was at 235. 200 more than what she started with. Kyra's eyes started bulging. While it was still ten times smaller than Marc's it was certainly larger than what she assumed other people had. And if some other stats were on par with it...

"This is it?" Kyra scoffed when she realized the rest of her stats had not changed. Kyra frowned when she examined her pitiful list of skills.

"Where did Jack of all Trades go?" Kyra yelled at him.

"That thing? It was a curse. You would have died two seconds in the dungeon." Tiny smiled. "I was giving you a helping hand." Kyra acknowledged his reasoning, but still flet salty that the skill she earned from her lifetime of being the best at everything had been erased as simple as that.

Kyra stared at her screen, noticing that instead of [Jack of All Trades] there was a new skill, labelled as [Mana Sense].

"So you only changed my mana stat and gave me this weird passive skills? Thanks a lot." Kyra said in a monotone voice.

"Like I said, you would have died if I just dumped my power on you." Tiny began to sound irritated.

"Is your power really that powerful? I mean, who are you, even?" Kyra decided to pull up a detailed screen of the [Mana Sense] skill. But she froze when the air tensed. Her body seemed to distort and twist into non-existence. And it felt right. Kyra dropped to her knees panting, her entire existence put into question - why is she alive? Even her fortitude skill had no practical effect - Kyra could only feel the constant dread.

Unlike the night before, nothing made any sense. Her head didn't understand anything that was going on as her world blanked and twisted. Things that were not supposed to be there were there, dancing circles around her while the ground turned soft and the sky fell around her in shards of glass. When she tried to raise her hand, instead she only arched her foot. When she tried to blink, she opened her mouth. And it felt as if every organ in her body was misplaced and twisted.

Kyra tried to snap her head around as the boy began laughing. A needle of fear stabbed itself into Kyra's mind. And then the aura disappeared as quick as it came. Kyra relaxed muscles she didn't even know she had as her instincts called down from screaming.

"Now let's not go questioning my powers. Or who I am. " The boy slinked against the wall, gloating. Kyra collected her breath, her heart still pounding and roaring.

"Okay fine." She spat with a hoarse voice. "What now?" She gestured to the shallow cave and beyond that, the forest. She wanted to get a move on, especially since she had been sleeping for three days now.

"Well, isn't it obvious? Survive in this dungeon until I get back." The boy stood up and stretched out his short arms. "Oh, and," he glanced at her, "if you take this too lightly, you'll die." Smiling, the boy vanished into thin air in a whisp of mana. "Huh?"

A whisp of black smoke appeared in midair, hovering over a glowing blue notification screen. As the smoke drifted off to the ground, Kyra saw the notification that she should have received when she entered the cave and yelped in surprise.

[You have entered a dungeon.]