They moved through a cavern which only had the dim glow of runes along the walls for lights, with their footsteps as the only sound. More questions swirled around in Leo’s head, but he knew that he probably did want to stay quiet. According to Axilya, the dungeon they moved through had a higher difficulty than it normally would for the tutorial. A D-rank dungeon for a bunch of E-ranks (at least, he guessed the other two were E) would make for a bad tutorial, but he wondered if Axilya being C-rank boosted the difficulty by raising the average rank. He didn’t know - he had no idea what determined that this dungeon was D-rank, and he probably wouldn't find out for a while. He just needed to focus on surviving.

As they rounded a corner, and spotted a light at the end of the tunnel, the passage opening up into a larger chamber, he held up the sword and shield in his hands. He didn't have any formal training in them, but he had vague memories of boxing lessons that he took for one summer nearly a decade ago. The particulars were lost on him, but he remembered the basics. Keeping his hands up, staying light on his feet, keeping his eyes on his opponent. He'd have to acclimate to blocking with the shield and striking with the sword on the spot.

While thinking on that, he nearly ran into Axilya, who'd slowed to nearly a stop as they approached the chamber. A larger room than the one they all appeared in, made of carved stone and held up by pillars. Scattered across the floor were the bones of skeletons. Mostly normal, but a couple of them had oddly green vines growing over them, despite not being visibly connected to anything. As Axilya waved everyone forward and started to walk into the room, Leo decided to Appraise a couple of the skeletons.

Name Animated Skeleton Element Dark Total Rank E

Name Vineblight Skeleton Element Wood Total Rank E

Axilya-." Leo started.

"I know, just get ready." She reached for the greatsword on her back, and surprisingly, the metal bands that wrapped around it unfolded for her, letting her pull the blade free without any issues. Leo glanced around. Aside from odd bones that weren't attached to anything, there had to be nearly two dozen skeletons on the ground, whose bodies began to rattle once everyone stepped in the room. "You three, stay close together. Don't let them surround you, I'll try to draw as many as I can."

Around them, the skeletons began to rise, brandishing old clubs and rusty swords, creaking and groaning, and their eye-sockets shining with a malevolent purple hue as they wordlessly began to rush the party. Axilya cried out and rushed forward, striking the first one and the ground so hard it caused tremors. Leo nearly fell over from shock, but that did managed to draw about half of the skeletons her way. He regained his composure and held up his shield as the others began to reach him and his group.

To Leo's relief, the skeletons individually weren't strong. His shield seemed sturdy, also. He could block their swings without issue, all of them were painfully obvious in how they were going to attack. The real problem was the number of them. He felt his shield arm begin to ache after blocking the fifth or so swing, and he couldn't back away too much without risking stumbling into the others. He could bash a skeleton with his shield or hit one with his sword to make them back off, but two more would fill in the space almost immediately.

Fortunately, Mada and Koren seemed used to this sort of thing already. Koren would raise his hand, blasting back skeletons with an invisible force like some kind of Jedi, then whack any skeletons that got close with his staff. Meanwhile Mada began chanting, waving her wand around while staying well out of the way of any of the skeletons weapons. When she was ready, she moved out next to Leo and pointed her wand directly at the small horde he'd been keeping at bay, blasting them with fire as if the tip of her wand was a flame thrower.

At the waves of fire, most of the skeletons backed away. One of them, one of the two out of the whole pack covered in vines, rushed forward, unbothered by the fire, and lashed out with a sword before Mada or Leo could react. Mada dodged back to avoid taking a direct hit, but cried out as blood from a cut on her forearm started to drip. Leo rushed into it and battered it back with his shield, but he grunted in confusion in feeling how sturdy it felt. Much more than the other skeletons. Still, he shoved it back before backpedaling back into place to stand in front of the other two.

At that point, Axilya emerged behind the vine skeletons and carved it into pieces with two rapid swings, and then started to clean up the six or so skeletons on the larger group's side that remained. Handily breaking them apart two per swing. She cleaned them up so fast that, the fight was over before Leo even thought to raise his shield again to try to help, and looking over at at Axilya's side of the room, she shredded through the the skeletons that went after her with an apparent ease. Her only urgency being the fate of the tutorial goers.

"That was a lot." Leo said, lowering his sword and shield before willing them to go back into his Storage. He felt a mental ping, and a couple of boxes popped up for him.

Auto Loot activated

Items Retrieved Animated Bone 12x (E-Rank, Dark) Vine-Covered Bone 2x (D-Rank, Wood)

You have defeated a Rank-E enemy for the first time! Achievement Reward: E-Rank Unrestricted Karma

You have defeated a Rank-D enemy for the first tine! Achievement Reward: D-Rank Unrestricted Karma

"Everyone alright?" Axilya asked. Her attention immediately focused on Mada, who cradled her sliced arm.

"I'll live. Just need something to stop the bleeding." Mada said. She waved a wand around, and with a quick word, the blood soaking into her clothes from the cut disappeared, though it began to stain again at a lesser rate.

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"Hey, Mixer, what did you get from the skeletons just now?" Axilya asked, giving him a stern look."

The question caught him by surprise. He hadn't picked up anything from the skeletons, so she must have been talking about what he got from Auto Loot. "Uh, bones mostly." He answered. "O bunch of them with the Dark element and a couple of them with Wood."

"Mix the dark and wood into a healing salve." Axilya told him, and then sighed at the confused look he gave back. "I know another Mixer, so I know you can do that much. Just imagine it and combine them together."

Nodding, Leo envisioned combining two of the bones, one with the Dark element and one with the Wood. A number of prompts came up, asking him if he wanted to combine, and he mentally willed the answer to be 'yes' each time. He paused for a moment at the last one, which said 'Combine Materials to make ???,' but he said yes anyway, trusting Axilya and not wanting to waste too much time so Mada didn't lose a lot of blood.

He put his hands together, and a shimmering purple light sprang up between them, as the two materials disappeared from his storage, and melded together in the form of a kind of paste that fell into his hands. He shivered at the cold feeling and the texture, but moved to Axilya to show his handiwork. More boxes popped up

Healing Salve (E-Rank) Created!

You have created an E-Rank item for the first time! Achievement Reward: E-Rank Unrestricted Karma

"What's Karma?" Leo asked, as Axilya scraped the paste out of his hands and began to apply it to Mada's wounds, he got to watch the cut heal up rapidly as she answered.

"It's what lets those under the Labors grow. You use it to increase your Fortitude, Reflexes and all that. I guess you all would have been getting some from achievements at this point, but you mostly get them from quests under the Labors."

Koren, who'd been monitoring the situation to make sure things didn't get worse, began to walk around. "I'll just be taking a look to see if there's anything else useful on these bones."

Leo watched him walk off, then turned back to Axilya. "Alright, cool. Should I use it now?"

"Might as well, I don't think there's any use to holding on to them. You don't get any benefit until it actually raises your stat, anyway."

"What should I increase?"

Axilya didn't respond for a moment, watching the healing salve work on Mada's arm before turning Leo's way. "Sorry, I couldn't tell you. I think the Mixer I know said something about Mental stats, but I don't really know. It's good practice to raise all of your stats anyway, even if one ends up head and shoulders above the rest, so you can't really go wrong with what you pick." Axilya explained. "And if ever there were a time to make mistakes with this kind of thing, it's early."

Leo shrugged, but went to thinking. He brought up his list of skills again, and saw that the only one that really 'scaled' off of any stat in particular was the Combine skill making a mental guidebook. Checking that book, a list that showed ten slots appeared. The only entry had 'Healing Item (E-Rank, Dark + Wood)' listed, and the other nine were empty slots.

His Appraise skill was also influenced by Intuition, so other than just generally boosting his Fortitude which he suspected would make him physically stronger, that seemed like a good option. He didn't know how often he had to use Appraise, but it definitely proved to be a useful skill. Deciding not to take too much time on it because he still had more questions, he just put everything he had into Intuition. The two E-Rank Karma gave him 1 point each to his Intuition, and the D-Rank Karma gave him two, giving him four total out of ten. He didn't feel any different, but he guessed that that was what Axilya meant when she said that the Karma wouldn't affect him until it actually raised the stat.

"Okay, that's done for now. My next question before we get going is what all of the elements are?"

Both Axilya and Mada looked at him like this was information he should already know, but Axilya spoke up first to answer. "Wood, Air, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water are the worldly elements. Light and Darkness are the heavenly elements." She paused, and her ears lay flat against her head as she glanced between them with an almost embarrassed look. "There's also another one that's a different type, but I don't interact with it that often-"

"You're thinking of Aether, the spiritual element." Mada answered, then turned to Leo. "The worldly elements can promote, regulate, or weaken each other, while Light will weaken any of the others, and Dark will promote any of the others, with those two heavenly elements weakening each other. Aether is somewhat special, it can promote anything and only really weaken itself."

Some of that sounded familiar to Leo. He thought about it as Axilya confirmed Mada's arm to be healed and Mada confirmed that she hadn't lost too much blood to continue. Really, he could only think of one thing that used 'Wood' and 'Metal' as elements. He vaguely remembered the five-element concept from a couple of classes on religion and philosophy that he took in college, but it didn't seem one to one, mainly because there were more than five elements. Even if he included only the 'worldly' elements, it still added Air.

"I have one last question for now." Leo said, as Axilya started to make her way toward a hallway.

"Make it quick, we shouldn't stay in one place for too long." She replied.

"Why am I the only one asking questions?"

Name:

Leonell Bolden

Stats

Title

-

Fortitude: E- (0/10)

Class

Mixer

Reflex: E (0/10)

Element

-

Intellect: E (0/10)

Total Rank

E

Intuition: E (4/10)

Status

Health 100%, Mana 100%

Will: E- (0/10)

Skills

Combine, Auto-Loot, Appraise, Storage

Luck: D (0/10)