My bear handled the smaller groups of zombies with ease and I happily hopped from group to group. I felt like a honey bee collecting honey or a butterfly hopping from flower to flower. "These meditations are going to my head a little too much," I thought sarcastically to myself, "Now the only thing left would be to become a vegetarian and live in a cave like a hermit."

I kept going further and further into the city, hoping to find something interesting, like chests or even a mini-boss. I had my imp, my rats, and my faeries scouting and with their help I often found interesting herbs and minerals.

After an hour or so, I was further into the city than I'd gotten before and the zombies were getting much stronger. There were practically none of the usual zombies.

In general, the zombies here were all significantly more durable and often had extra skills. For example, they could fire different types of magic attacks, or increase their strength and speed like the martial classes. Some of them were huge, nearly three meter in height, while others were brutally strong and fast monsters. There were also some that moved on all fours like animals. I had to summon my bear more and more often because of the numerous wounds the zombies were inflicting on it, and soon I gave up and hurried back to the outskirts of the city.

"It's a good thing I carefully picked only small lone groups, if I make the slightest mistake here, or two groups somehow join together on me I'm dead. It's just not worth it," I thought.

I decided to move back, to the weaker zombies, but there I started to encounter larger hunting groups of people more and more often.

This was simultaneously good and bad news. It was good, because our efforts with all the morning practices, volunteers helping to organize new and more balanced groups, and our other efforts, seemed to have borne fruits. And on the other hand I was finding it increasingly difficult to find smaller and isolated groups of zombies for myself.

Despite all this, with my new skills and mana capacity, I was doing considerably better than on previous days and kept exploring the city.

Because my summons were so heavily focused on reconnaissance, I was finding a lot of herbs and minerals, and my packs were getting filled with a surprising speed. That's why, I passed twice the herbs and rare zombie parts I had collected, to familiar hunting groups, whose leaders I knew from the political debates, to take to the alchemists.

Some of the groups bragged about what they had found from the special chests or bosses, and I looked enviously at the lucky people's new items.

Occasionally, I would stop at special places and meditate briefly, absorbing the mana and mystic aura of those places.

These breaks were refreshing and were recharging me, even strangely helping me to improve the control over my summons and my connection with them. If I didn't need more currency units to train with the instructors, or if the tutorial was a safer place, I would probably spend a lot more time in meditation and other mystical practices.

When attacking, my bear would use its natural power, its personal mana reserves, the enhancements of the special seals I placed on it during the summoning proces, the buffs of the fierries and finally the mana which I generously provided through our link. This made it significantly more lethal and I was feeling very happy with my fights.

Also, my mana balls started to get a little stronger because I was trying to put the power of the elements into them. However, they were still weaker than a regular mage's attack power, and served more to harass my opponents. However, that wasn't a problem since I had a fairly large mana supply and mana regeneration, not to mention my ability to absorb the mana of the death zombies.

Finally, the imp, who was my personal familiar, was also getting stronger as my mana cultivation grew. More and more often, besides for reconnaissance, I would use it to fire some odd fireball at the unsuspecting zombies. Furthermore, his ability to help me with my mana regeneration was also getting stronger.

The bad thing was that I was getting wounds more and more often in my battles. My bold maneuvers to attract the zombies' attention often resulted in serious scrapes and bruises. And on a few occasions I even took hits from the zombies' attacks. Their spells inflicted me with some pretty nasty wounds, and so I had to be much more careful than before.

From talking and training with the martial classes, I knew how to increase my body's natural health regeneration, but it required mana, time, and concentration.

I decided to slow down a bit and just try to distract the zombies using my Shadow Fusion skills.

The zombies weren't particularly intelligent, and I was getting better at learning their habits. All and all I was extremely pleased with my results today.

As the day progressed I again came across a spot with a high concentration of free mana and stopped to meditate there. The macial spot was next to a small ruined building and I made myself comfortable on a fallen piece of wall and began my work. As I was slowly absorbing the mana, my rats found something odd with their acute senses.

I decided to interrupt my meditation and check it out in person. I carefully made my way to the small basement of the building and there, in the semi-darkness, half hidden behind a lot of debris, I found a strange door.

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It was made of a strange wooden material and looked completely out of place here. Although it was small, it gave off a somewhat heavy and strong aura. Anyone who looked at it knew that something important was hiding behind it.

I slowly walked up to the door and after examining it for a few minutes, decided to open it. My bear approached it and after a few clumsy attempts managed to slightly pry the door open.

At that moment the world spun around me and I found myself in a new place.

“Fuck, I am getting sick from all this teleportations!” I cursed, carefully shaking my head, trying to remove the painful sensation from the teleport. Then I looked around. I was in a well-lit cave. It was very strange because I couldn't see any light sources.

"It must be lit by magic" I thought.

"Wow, that's super cool, maybe when I get out of the game there will be awesome new technologies like that on Earth."

I looked behind me and saw the same door I had come from. “Ok now what,” I thought to myself. I had my summons and I had an exit. After a slight deliberation, in order to be fully prepared, I decided to finish my meditation and to fully replenish my mana reserves.

I sat down on the floor and began to meditate. I let my new and still very weak magical senses spread into the dungeon and began to draw the mana particles to me. I continued this for a while, then with mana and stamina restored, I headed forward, down the wide cave corridor.

Naturally I didn't just charge blindly. I looked at my summons and chose to send my magical rats to scout ahead. They were small, had good senses and were hard to spot. Not to mention, easy to replace.

It wasn't long before they detected a group of human-like creatures. As I watched them a well "forgotten" memory unpacked in my head. "Demons!"

Thanks to the memory pack, I intuitively knew that all of the demons hated all beings of our plane of existence. Especially here in the game. My memories were telling me that these were low-level demons, physically no stronger than an ordinary human on Earth. However, they could have all sorts of abilities, and the higher level demons could be tens, hundreds, or even thousands of times more dangerous.

"This transfer of memories is quite convenient," I thought. "Too bad it doesn't come with an instruction about their habits and weaknesses."

From the eyes of my summons, I could see the demons. They were talking quietly in a strange language and occasionally changing positions. I picked a convenient moment and with a loaded crossbow I showed myself around the corner and shot a bolt at the demon closest to me. I hoped their strange scaly skin wouldn't stop my bolt.

Fortunately for me, nothing like that happened. The crossbow bolt stuck deep into the demon's body. He started howling in pain and grabbed the shaft of the bolt and panicked trying to get it out of his body.

During that time, I started firing energy balls and sent my bear to attack, having previously improved all of its physical attributes.

It slammed into the group of surprised demons at high speed, its first opponent flying like a rag doll.

"Cool," I thought with satisfaction. "These demons don't have the toughness of the zombies."

In a flash, my bear lunged for the next demon in the group, who pointed his spear at it. Here my bear's instincts kicked in, and it swung its heavy paw, breaking the spearhead. It then struck the demon with its other paw and bit its neck. The last two demons of the group raised their swords and attacked my bear, wounding it.

One of them was hit by my magic ball, but it didn't do much damage to him. I then grabbed my crossbow.

In order to reload my weapon, first I had to put its top on the ground and step on the stirrup. With my several months of training this was one well trained motion. Then I have to bend forward and grab the string with my hands and pull it towards me. This was the most intensive part. But, luckily with my thousands of shots fired, back with the tower spirit, and magically improved body I had this mastered. It usually takes only a few seconds and I wisely use my bears to distract my enemies while doing it.

Mana flowed through my energy channels and my muscles filled with power. With one well-measured movement, I pulled the bowstring of the crossbow and then fitted a new crossbow bolt. Then I took aim and fired. The bolt struck my opponent, allowing my bear to finish him.

During this time, the last demon manages to slash three times at my bear, wounding it sevierly. My rats were not sitting idle and managed to jump on the demon's legs biting him, while my flying creatures were trying to outmaneuver him and attack its back.

Using all my magical power and will I forced the bear to jump to the demon, despite its pain and injuries. Its lungs were badly hurted and it had trouble breathing - It was dying. But I only needed a few seconds.

The demon tried to evade the frenzied last charge of my bear, but it managed to catch him with one of its paws and then pulled him closer and started to attack him with quick paw attacks and occasional bites. My other creatures joined the battle and together they finished it in just a few moments.

“These weapons are very dangerous. I have to be much more careful from now on.” I thought while examining the bear's wounds.

I made the bear finish the wounded demons and quickly retreated to the entrance door of the dungeon. Then I released my brave summon and summoned a new one, improving it with all my magic. Next I went back to the room and started to search the bodies of the demons and collected their weapons. After that I started meditating in order to absorb the mana of my fallen enemies.

My inspection of the room showed me that the demons were guarding chests of a strange gray mineral. I put some of the minerals in my backpack and continued on down the hallways.

Several more battles with small groups of demons followed. I even found one group of demons digging up the mineral with heavy picks and stuffing it into huge chests.

My strategy improved and I used my bear more cautiously. I started my assaults with arrows and spells, also using fieries to distract my opponents. I often sent them towards the demons' faces, moments before attacking them with the bear.

It turned out that my rats were not bad at attacking, using their small but sharp teeths to buy me more time and distract a strategically well chosen demon. My imp was also constantly flying around shooting small balls of fire.

My bear was faster than the demons and extremely deadly. Its body was well protected by its thick fur. I was careful to not let it spend too much time on finishing its enemies, and despite the many wounds that it would take in every battle, we are able to win every encounter.

So far, I was able to kill or wound at least two of the demons with my bolts and magics, and the bear the other two.

In one of the battles I had to face five demons and it was pretty messy. I had to quickly attack and retreat with my bear, distracting my enemies with fairies and rats, giving me more time to use magic and even my crossbow when possible.

My magic balls weren't very effective, indicating that these demons had some resistance to my spells.