Tier two is the stopping spot for most individuals who do not wish to risk their lives in pursuit of glory, or who are not wealthy enough to afford alternatives. At this stage, the danger of hunting ramps up significantly. I assume most of you here are at least at this rank.
Should one decide to make a career out of killing, reaching tier three is often not an overly difficult task. Magical beasts that have only evolved a single time are often still inexperienced enough to kill easily if their weaknesses are known. For the everpresent underbelly of society, killing civilians is a favorite method of easy advancement. As a result, the majority of the world's soldiers, criminals, and delvers fall into this category. This is also the point when many give up on further advancement, having already gained the tools needed for an easy life and having no desire to further expose themselves to risk.
Tier four is the realm where only those with skill, dedication, and perhaps more bravery than sense. According to data collected by the Delver's Association, only one out of every ten thousand sapients will ever reach this point. It is not for a lack of trying, however; the death rate for tier threes is simply incredibly high. Tier three Sapients have a shorter average lifespan than any other tier. Those few who manage to reach realm four have proven their prudence, however, and often go on to live long and productive lives.
-Lecture on the tiers by Professor Sitio
----------------------------------------
After Mud decided the group was suitably rested they slowly began their way towards the downward stairs, clearing monsters as they moved. On several occasions they made contact with other parties, but moved past each other without incident. Before long, they arrived at the downward slope towards the second floor.
Mud and Jabrax had no difficulty traveling down the steep incline, but Novus was forced to crawl backwards down the slope on all fours. A sight which was met by mocking laughter from Cob, who used a rapid movement skill to run down the slope in an instant.
As they reached the bottom, they found the landing already cleared, the slowly dissolving bodies of Corpse Worms showing that another group had recently passed through. As Novus finally reached the bottom of the ramp, Mud approached the swordswoman.
"Novus, your skill is not sufficient for the enemies on this floor."
While climbing to her feet, the girl balked at the rather blunt assessment of her skill. Although it was upsetting to hear, she couldn't argue against the point. Compared to everyone else in the party, her skills were certainly lacking. Cob and Mud seemed to be of similar strength, and Jabrax was clearly holding back, being well stronger than any of them. Currently, she was the weak link.
"I understand... do you want me to move back to just guard the rear? Or carry your equipment?" Novus asked solemnly, avoiding eye contact with the golem.
"That is correct." The girl winced. "You will be carrying my sword. It will improve your combat ability to the extent that you will be useful."
Novus blinked in surprise. Was Mud's sword enchanted? Even if it had some imbued with some Ideal that improved its cutting ability, it wouldn't make her better at using it. The girl put those thoughts aside and decided to trust in the advice of her party leader. Reaching out her arm, she grasped the sword which now floated through the air towards her.
"Hi there, I'll be your dance partner from now on! My name is Ego, nice to meet you!"
"What!?" Novus looked around the room rapidly, but couldn't find the source of the voice.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
----------------------------------------
Things proceeded as planned after Mud gave the sword to Novus. As the golem had predicted, Ego was able to make up for the human girl's lack of skill by subtly adjusting attack angles, as well as improving her attack power by modifying her weight during strikes. As for her shield use, Mud was able to split its focus enough to use Telekinesis to move the shield into place when she was open to attack.
Puppeteering a follower so directly like this was a new experience for Mud, and was more difficult than coordinating with Ego. As Mud learned the methods of directing its pet human's every action, it awakened to a new aspect of the Ideal of Control. With the level increase, a new spell was learned. Hallucination. It appeared to be a more complete version of Paracusia, allowing visual and even tactile sensation to accompany the spell.
Unfortunately, the spell was not perfect. Images would be displayed exactly as they formed within Mud's mind. As a result, many details would be left out and aspects simplified. Holding every single detail needed to make a perfectly realistic depiction of a three-dimensional object within its mind at the same time was simply not possible for the golem. It lacked the required processing power. At best, a convincing illusion of a small rock was possible. Larger illusions would be entirely unconvincing.
A bit of experimentation using the humans also revealed another flaw with the spell; if the target knew it was seeing an illusion, then it was trivial for them to banish the spell. When Mud informed them it was using the spell, or tried to make a large object, they were able to immediately see through it.
When Mud did not warn them it was using a spell, things were more successful. Mud was able to convince Cob he had suddenly gone blind for a few seconds by creating an illusion of a pure black sphere around his head. Once he realized what had happened he regained his sight and laughed it off, claiming it was a "pretty good prank".
Overall, the spell was too unreliable to use as a serious method of attack. Instead, Mud used it in another way. Constructing a carefully planned design, Mud created a display containing a feed of tactical information to its party members. After some advice from its allies and several iterations, the Mud Illusory Tactical Heuristic was finalized.
All display elements were slightly transparent and a light blue shade so as not to be distracting. The bottom left featured a circle which displayed the relative position of all known hostiles as red dots, with the person receiving the data depicted as a dot in the center. Everyone in the party, with the exception of Jabrax, granted access to their Record, allowing Mud to include a live feed of important data such as health, mana, and spirit in an unobtrusive manner.
Jabrax had refused access to her Record, claiming to have disconnected herself from the Akashic. The humans seemed somewhat surprised by this information, but didn't comment on it. Apparently, splitting from the Akashic wasn't unusual enough for them to ask questions about it. There didn't seem to be any apparent advantage to such a choice to Mud, but the golem assumed it was missing something. A subject for later research.
Despite its complexity, the MITH didn't take up too much of Mud's concentration. With its Class levels, Mud's mental abilities had improved greatly since its creation. Mana costs were also low enough that Mud could still regenerate to full mana between fights by simply not creating the MITH when outside of combat.
Although its class had made this useful tool possible, Mud was still determined to spend its next level on its species. The reason was because of a short conversation it had had with Jabrax the last time they were inside the dungeon. When asked about why the Giant Caterpillar had changed into a different species, Jabrax had revealed that when a soul amassed enough power, a large transformation could overtake their bodies. Specifically, level ten in a species would qualify Mud for that change. In other words, it only needed one more level.
And that level would come soon. With all of the Corpse Worms the group was killing on the second floor, Mud was extremely close to leveling. Unfortunately, as the group entered a small opening where two paths merged, the golem's plans were delayed.
In the small room formed at the intersection of several tunnels stood a group of four delvers. A woman wielding daggers in light leather, two older men in metal armor with sword and shield, and a younger man wearing casual clothes and wielding a thin sword designed for thrusting. While Mud had never interacted with them, it recognized the group as delvers it had seen at the Association pub, and the man with a thrusting weapon had been in the VIP section.
As it had done before, Mud made its way to pass the new group. The man in casual clothes, a pair of tight-fitting black pants and an extremely loose button-up white shirt, stepped in his way. "Stop for a moment. I'd like to chat."