The Trial was an incredibly difficult place to miss. No one had described what the area around the dungeon would look like, but she had assumed she was going to have to spend some time finding it. In reality, the area surrounding the dungeon’s entrance was like its own little city. There were thousands of large semi-permanent tents dyed in various colors and painted with symbols that seemed to indicate party or guild memberships. There were even a few dozen large buildings that appeared to function as lager guild's headquarters.

She remembered Thadius’ wife, Claire, mentioning that some Immortal Guilds were constantly pushing the dungeon. I wonder if those buildings are theirs. I can’t imagine a normal guild taking the time and resources to build something so... permanent.

As she entered the tent city and began making her way down the packed dirt road that was the main thoroughfare of the city, she was met with the sights, sounds, and smells of an unorganized society. The tents and buildings were placed haphazardly with no concern for space efficiency or ease of travel. There was a low hum of chatter across the entire city as people spoke in muted voices, and there were the constant tings of hammers hitting anvils that could be heard from everywhere within the small settlement. Blacksmithing seemed to be a very popular profession in the city based on the amount of work she heard being done.

She also saw evidence of many other professions that were positioned to directly service the adventurers facing The Trial. She saw small shops that would buy monster cores, shops for tailoring, leatherworking, dungeoneering, fletching, and any other service an adventurer far from civilization may need.

The smells of the city were what struck her the most, however. She had expected for a place without a government, or guards, or any other societal structure to smell terribly. Instead, it smelled fine, all things considered. There was a faint smell of garbage and waste permeating the area, but it was nowhere near as bad as she would have expected. She had no idea how a place like this, that didn’t seem to have any means to discard waste, smelled so normal, but she just assumed it was probably magic related.

People in the tent city seemed to mostly keep to themselves, as no one so much as glanced at Kelsey as she was trying to find the entrance to the actual dungeon. Most people seeming to intentionally avoid eye contract with her. She wasn’t sure why, but people seemed extraordinarily standoffish. Her best guess was that people were probably a little nervous about accidentally pissing off some high leveled person. This place wasn’t governed after all, there was no telling what kinds of things people may try to get away with in a place like this.

Kelsey on the other hand was Identifying every single person she came across, and what she saw made her much more than a little nervous. She easily identified over a hundred people while searching for the entrance to The Trial, and she didn’t see a single person under Gold rank. Most were level 130 or higher. She even saw half a dozen people who were closing in on immortality.

Off the main street near the center of the tent city was one of the largest buildings in the whole area. It was a simple two-story stone and wood building that could house roughly 20 people. Some of the occupants were presently lounging outside on tables and chairs that had been set up kind of like a backyard barbeque. When she identified them, her suspicions were confirmed. All of them were Immortals. This building must have belonged to one of the Immortal Guilds. Based on the symbol of a bird made of fire that was painted on the roof, she assumed that the word phoenix was likely in the name.

Not wanting to cause any trouble or be caught staring, Kelsey moved along quickly, continuing her search for the entrance to the dungeon.

About half an hour after entering the tent city, she suddenly found a place below her that was completely impenetrable to her domain. As she walked towards it, she realized it was the entrance to the dungeon. The dungeon’s entrance was a large circular hole that had a waist high wooden fence surrounding it. The dungeon itself seemed to be what was blocking her domain, she couldn’t see anything below her while she was standing anywhere near the hole.

The biggest giveaway that this was the entrance to the dungeon, however, was the small line of well-equipped adventurers that led to a small hut with a man sitting on stool inside who was talking to people before they climbed down into the dungeon. Kelsey did what she thought she was supposed to do and got into the back of the line, waiting patiently for her turn to enter the dungeon.

It took another 30 minutes before she was first in line, and when she walked up to the hut, she got a good look at the man sitting inside. He was elderly, seeming to be in his mid 70’s. Identifying him however showed that he was an Immortal mage at level 293. Well shit, if this is who they have watching the entrance...

“Good afternoon miss. First time in the dungeon? I don’t recognize ya.” he said while talking through his bushy white mustache.

“Yes sir. Just arrived.” she said a little anxiously. She was excited to get into the dungeon and was extremely nervous talking to someone so high leveled.

“Alright well. I need to give you a brief rundown. After climbing down the ladder, you’ll be on the first floor. Your guild card will not work once entering the dungeon, and there is no one down there to protect or help you if you get attacked. The monsters aint even always the biggest threat. Watch your back. Easy to go missin if you aint careful.” he said seriously, the meaning behind his words were clear.

Kelsey’s excitement waned slightly at hearing this, and her nervousness increased. But she steeled herself and nodded back to him seriously. “I understand.”

“Alright then, you’re free to go. Good luck miss.” he said as handed her a small iron tag with a string of numbers on it that was placed on a necklace. He immediately began talking to the next group in line.

He didn’t say what to do with the necklace, but she assumed she was supposed to wear it, so she put it around her neck and walked forward.

As she neared the entrance of the dungeon, she looked down the large circular hole and saw that it went straight down into pitch darkness for dozens of meters until the hole reached the first layer of The Trial. She could see that people had built some sort of entrance area with lights at the bottom, but she couldn’t make out anything else from her angle at the top of the hole. On the side of a hole was a simple metal ladder built into the wall that she saw people below her using to descend into the dungeon. Following their lead, Kelsey embarked on the short climb down the ladder. The moment she passed the threshold where the top of the hole was, her domain expanded to fill the floor and what she saw was astonishing. She quickly climbed down, excitement completely overshadowing her anxiety.

*ding* Warning! You are entering a dungeon - The Trial

There was an entire forest filled with thick oak trees, plants, and bushes. She realized that the light she had seen from above was in fact not due to the hole’s inhabitants, but the dungeon itself. The roof of the dungeon was covered in a bright yellow crystal that shone light on the entire floor with the exact intensity and color that the sun above did. If she wasn’t looking up, it very much felt like she was standing in the middle of a village in the woods at noon.

The adventurers had a large area at the bottom cleared of trees in order to set up some sort of base camp for people to fall back to. She could see that there were multiple large permenant tents that were set up for various things from food service to armor repairs. The two largest tents were both food halls where people were currently enjoying some lunch in small groups. The next biggest tent was some sort of medical tent. Thankfully, they only had one patient currently who was getting treated for some broken bones. There was even a tent that seemed to function as a brothel.

Moving away from the ladder to ensure other people could get down, Kelsey began exploring the base camp. The settlement down in the hole was nowhere near as large as the tent city above, but there were still roughly 3,000 people, with a few hundred of them looking like full-time residents such as the staff at the food halls, the medical personnel, and the dozens of various merchants and craftspeople who were selling their wares and services.

The thing that struck her the most however was the difference in levels and general competence down in the dungeon. The people down here were very clearly experienced. Nearly all of them had scars somewhere on their bodies. Their gear was well worn, and their faces were chiseled with determination and grit. Almost all of them were above level 200, and many of the ones above level 200 were already Immortals. She was surrounded by people that could destroy most cities on a whim. That thought made her deeply uncomfortable, so she began moving towards a set of stairs she had spotted leading down further into the dungeon. She figured that she may be safer on an actual floor than she was in the base camp. At least on a floor she would be surrounded by less people.

Arriving at the stairs, she saw some signage someone had posted with directions, level ranges of various floors, and depth. They didn’t include any other information, but just this was plenty for her. She quickly scanned the sign and found the floor she should head to was floor 3, where monsters ranged from 70 - 85. That felt like the perfect area to warm up and get used to living in the dungeon.

As she descended the stairs, she gained a general sense of uneasiness. She hadn’t expected to feel so vulnerable while at The Trial. No wonder Owen and Lisa wanted someone to go with them. It didn’t occur to her before she got here that she would be surrounded by such powerful people. I can’t let this distract me. I need to focus on gaining levels and getting stronger. Soon I won't have to worry about the Immortals because I’ll be one.

Opening the door to the third floor, Kelsey was met with a quite unexpected sight. She had expected another forest like on the first floor. But inexplicably, she found herself walking out into a desert. The crystals above were shining brightly and the temperature had risen significantly. So, each floor really is its own biome? That’s kind of terrifying. How the hell did someone build something like this?

Not having any great plan for how to tackle the dungeon, she decided to just look around for a little while and get a lay of the land. She walked out into the desert, paying close attention to her domain. She quickly found that her domain was cut off at the ceiling above and the floor below. It still had its full range horizontally, but something was blocking her from seeing into the other floors; not that that mattered for her purposes.

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She wandered for over half an hour and learned one very important thing about the third floor. Sand. Lots and lots of sand. There was absolutely nothing as far as the eye could see.

Once she got bored of exploring sand dune after sand dune, finding nothing of interest, she was ready. She needed to find some monsters to fight.

Thanks to the relative flatness of the desert, she was able to stand on top of one of the sand dunes and see for hundreds of meters in all directions. These floors are absolutely massive. She wasn’t even able to see the far walls that she assumed must exist. Based on her understanding of how seeing through air worked, that meant that the walls were at least five kilometers away in every direction.

She slid down the dune and continued walking in the direction away from the door. She didn’t see any monsters or people for a full thirty more minutes until she noticed something moving in the sand a couple hundred meters away. Not knowing what it was, she moved closer until it entered her domain, and what she saw almost made her laugh out loud. It was a Sand Shark. She saw a shark swimming through the sand as if it were water.

This should be easy. Kelsey activated her buffs and slowly began creating dozens of large spears in the air aimed directly down at the swimming shark. She poured a few hundred mana into each spear, and they eventually began looking more like lances than spears. Once she had spent about half her mana pool, she launched her telekinetic creations directly at the shark. The lances ripped through the sand kicking debris up 10 meters into the air and she saw the lances pierce the shark's thick hide. It had tried to instinctually dodge after it sensed the attack, but her lances were too fast for the sand-swimming predator.

Her opening volley had done a lot more damage than she had expected it to, and the shark was already on its last dregs of health, with massive gashes ripped out of its hide.

A few moments after the lances hit the shark, it let out a long low whine that caused the sand around it to vibrate. The sound must have traveled for kilometers. That can’t be good. She thought as she created a small telekinetic blade to finish the sand shark off.

*ding* You have defeated a [Sand Shark - lvl 72].

After finishing off the first shark, dragging it out of the sand, and storing its core, she waited patiently for several minutes before she saw exactly what she had expected. A veritable tidal wave of Sand Sharks heading in her direction.

Perfect, they’re bringing more friends to play with. I love it when a monster does all the work for me.

As the sharks arrived, she began her opening volley. Knowing that she wasn’t going to have time to create large lances like last time, she decided to draw her sword and practice the telekinetic bladed wave technique she had used against the bandit leader. Creating the telekinetic blades on her saber, and then using the motion of her saber’s swing as a catalyst for the launching of the waves, she was able to both create them faster, and launch them with much more power than creating them normally. The biggest downside to this new technique however was that she used up much more stamina with this method which was a resource that wasn’t nearly as easy for her to maintain in a prolonged fight. But still, the telekinetic waves were incredibly effective.

Using this new technique, she was able to create massive waves of telekinetic energy that ripped through the sands like a hot knife through butter, causing massive wounds to the swarm of incoming sharks. Once they arrived, she was going to be forced to switch to a defensive fighting style, so she wanted to dish out as much damage as possible.

Sooner than she would have liked, the first shark made it to her, leaping out of the sand and charging at her, mouth first. She dodged easily, slicing the shark's stomach open with her saber as it passed.

That moment was the catalyst for the rest of the fight as Kelsey teleported away and began barraging the sharks from above with her telekinetic projectiles.

After fighting the first few sharks, Kelsey could tell that these monsters were not going to be a problem for her. The sharks relied on two main strategies in order to kill their victims, and neither were all that effective against Kelsey. Their main strategy was swimming further down into the sand and getting under their targets before launching themselves out of the sand in an attempt to bite their prey. This didn’t work on Kelsey thanks to her ability to track the sharks the entire time with her domain. Their other strategy was their use of Sand magic. It was functionally like fighting in a hailstorm made of sand, it certainly hurt, but it didn’t have enough stopping power to leave more than superficial wounds against her, which she was easily able to regenerate via her Mageblood Regeneration. As a side benefit of their sand magic, the sand would also blind anything inside the storm. Once again, that didn’t matter to Kelsey who simply closed her eyes and focused on fighting with her domain.

The next six hours of Kelsey’s life were a bloodbath for both her and the sharks. While the small wounds she received from the sharks were far from life threatening, they certainly caused her to bleed. She had to disengage twice in order to eat some food and drink some water otherwise she likely would have died from the blood loss. Her clothes were torn to shreds and completely covered in her own blood.

But, she won. As she killed the last shark and heard the final ding ring out in her head, Kelsey fell backwards into the sands below. She was unhurt and had won the fight without so much as a close call; but fighting for such an extended period of time had exhausted her completely. Using the new telekinetic wave technique as part of her arsenal caused her to run out of stamina at a shocking rate and she was forced to back off to rest over 20 times during the fight. As the fight ended, she was breathing heavily and was nearly out of stamina again.

Lying on the ground, she entered mediation and waited not just for her status screen to say she was full of stamina, but she waited until her heart rate and breathing were back to normal as well. When they were, she stood up and began the very lengthy process of harvesting the monster cores from the Sand Sharks. She also stored a few dozen of the sharks whole in order to cook and eat them later. This took her an additional four hours as many of them were buried deep in the sands below, so she was forced to dig them out.

At least I won't go hungry...

With the cores and bodies collected, she decided to end her day there and rest for the night. Although, I'm not exactly sure that night even exists down here. The lighting hasn’t changed since the moment I walked into the floor...

It took her about half an hour to set up camp before she finally sat down and checked her notifications.

*ding* You have defeated a [Sand Shark - lvl 71].

*ding* You have defeated a [Sand Shark - lvl 82].

*ding* You have defeated a [Sand Shark - lvl 74].

*ding* You have defeated a [Sand Shark - lvl 75].

…

*ding* You have defeated a [Sand Shark - lvl 83].

*ding* You have defeated a [Sand Shark - lvl 72].

*ding* You have defeated a [Sand Shark - lvl 79].

In total it looked like she had killed over 300 of the sharks.

*ding* Mageblood Arcanist has reached level 65 -> 74 - 90 free stat points have been awarded!

*ding* Telekinesis has reached lvl 5 -> 7

*ding* Telekinetic Armory has reached lvl 4 -> 5

*ding* Teleport has reached lvl 3 -> 4

*ding* Spatial Domain has reached lvl 6 -> 8

*ding* Telekinetic Enhancement has reached lvl 3 -> 4

*ding* Telekinetic Creation has reached lvl 6 -> 8

Nine levels for that many kills? Wow. Them being so close in level to me must really be hurting my experience gain... How the hell do people stomach fighting things around their levels? Leveling must take forever.

She quickly redistributed her stat points and then realizing something, decided to pull up her skill list and take a look.

Primary Class Skills - 8/10

Telekinetic Creation - lvl 8

Telekinesis - lvl 7

Telekinetic Enhancement - lvl 4

Teleport - lvl 4

Dimensional Vault - lvl 3

Telekinetic Armory - lvl 5

Spatial Domain - lvl 8

Mageblood Regeneration - lvl 1 (Maxed)

General Skills - 7

Anouran language - lvl 10 (Maxed)

Eye of the Magus - lvl 1 (Maxed)

Meditation - lvl 13

Pain Tolerance - lvl 20 (Maxed)

Poison Resistance - lvl 11

Acid Resistance - lvl 5

Mental Resistance - lvl 3

Based on how quickly I’m leveling, and how slowly some of these skills I don’t use as much in combat are leveling, I’m going to reach 100 well before reaching level 10 in all my class skills. I’ll bet anything that it's better for an advancement to advance at the required level instead of afterwards like I did the first time.

She thought about this for several minutes before deciding that she was going to start training her skills intentionally again; something she hadn’t done since she was living in the Mageblood forest. She had practiced a bit of course, but nothing like she had done when she received her first class.

Over the next few days Kelsey fell into something of a rhythm. In the morning, she would spend a few hours practicing her skills and spend some time thinking of how to use them in combat. She would then go find some sand sharks and fight another giant group of them for several hours.

By the fourth day she was equal to the highest-level sharks, and leveling slowed to a crawl, but she did see an intense amount of skill progress. Her most difficult to advance skills seemed to be Telekinetic Enhancement, Teleport, and Spatial Vault, so she started fighting with a focus on those three skills. She moved from a ranged barrage fighting style using temporary telekinetic objects to a melee combat style using dozens of various weapons that she prepared before the fights and then stored in her vault in order to summon in the middle of combat. This new melee style of hers made her significantly more reliant on her teleport to escape danger, which helped that skill level more as well.

It's odd that some of my skills have such a melee focus when the most effective strategy is just to barrage monsters with projectiles...

During this time, she had continued to try out a variety of weapons, but she still kept falling back to her saber. A simple one-handed sword with a curved single edged blade. Something about it just spoke to Kelsey and she couldn’t seem to find a weapon that she felt more comfortable with.

On the morning of the fifth day in the desert, she decided that she was tired of fighting in sand and wanted to move on to something new. She spent over 14 hours a day either fighting, practicing, or collecting cores. Because of the time spent fighting, she had made very little progress in attempting to acquire the new Minor Water Creation skill. But the progress with her levels and skills easily made up for it. She was now level 86, only 14 levels away from her second advancement. She was also pleased to see that all but three of her class skills were maxed at level 10, and Teleport, which was the lowest of her skills, was sitting comfortably at level 7. She was confident that if she focused on her melee fighting style until reaching level 100, she would have all her skills maxed just in time.