Jaune had been slowly training his new ability for the last month with the help of the hole in reality that was a dungeon. By doing this, he had made a few conclusions.
First. Just because dimensional comprehension didn't have a rank didn't mean he wouldn't be able to progress with it. After soaking up every detail he could note about his first encounter with dimensional magic, Jaune had noticed that the flow of information that the skill provided had become slightly smoother. If he extended his range, the information flow went back to the original inferior quality.
He also noted that his sense of balance had improved. The sense of balance was mostly affected by dexterity, but having a skill that improved it wasn't unheard of.
Second. The underwater dungeon was not permanent. That statement probably required more background information. Dungeons were natural occurrences that happened everywhere where life existed. These entities, or doors as Jaune had discovered, syphoned off the energy from their surroundings to create the doorway. Why they did so, no one knew.
There was a direct correlation between the amount of energy necessary to power a door and the difficulty of the dungeon. Namely, the more power that was required, the more powerful the Grimm or the monsters in the dungeons were and the more valuable the loot.
For a dungeon that was permanent, it had to meet one simple condition: its energy input had to be exactly the same as the amount of energy its surroundings could provide. If it needed more energy than was available, then it would disperse after using the available energy up. If it needed less energy than the surroundings provided it, then it would also disappear since the unabsorbed energy travelling in the air disrupted the makeup of the door.
The underwater dungeon had maybe one more week. Thankfully it was a dungeon that needed less energy than was actually there. A place on the outskirts of a village with no great amount of Grimm or any symbolically powerful landmarks was very low energJaune y, so it should be even weaker than a permanent one.
This he had found out with his new skill. It was like watching threads come together and the thread that was responsible for the lifespan of the dungeon was shortening at a pace only a low-energy-eating dungeon could have.
Third conclusion. Jaune was Dumb. After thinking about what to do for a month, how to approach Raynold, convince him to explore the dungeon, wondering if he should even explore the dungeon...
After all of that, Jaune realized one thing. His mother was a full-fledged knight and was perfectly willing to help him become stronger.
No point thinking about his stupidity any further. Mum was out buying a few things for the household, and he was scheduled to meet Raynold at their usual meeting place. He still had a week. No need to rush it.
His hesitance might also be attributed to the fact that he liked the routine he had fallen into. Wake up, spar with mother, train arcane bolt, go hunting with Raynold, sell loot, and lastly try to understand the makeup of the dungeon. It was a nice routine that would make sure he would be at least a few levels ahead of the curve when he arrived at Beacon. The average level of the entrants was sixteen, while Jaune was already at level six.
"Yo Jaune, you ready for some hunting?" Raynold's voice resounded over the clearing. Jaune's feet had unconsciously led him to his destination.
He couldn't help but smile at his maybe friend. "Was there ever an instance where I was not?"
"I guess not." The other boy guffawed. "Except maybe that one time where you wanted to stay in the village to flirt with that travelling artisan."
Jaune felt his face heat up and walked ahead to hide his blush. "Come on smart guy, those Grimm aren't going to kill themselves."
The warrior shrugged and started walking towards the forest, with the mage clambering on a tree in their usual formation.
No matter what people said about warriors being muscle heads, Raynold wasn't dumb. He had known what skills he needed to be a successful hero and had done his all in acquiring them.
Like tracking, which was the reason that Jaune could just tree-hop behind him while Ray searched for Grimm tracks. Sure, he had been learning as well, but he wasn't nearly as good at it as Ray, who already had at least two years of experience.
They progressed in silence. There was a time for talking; this wasn't it.
After an hour or so, the land-bound warrior suddenly crouched down and raised his hand, holding up two crooked fingers. Beowulf. Then he held up four fingers on his other hand. Four of them. Then a forefinger swivelling.
Jaune wasn't able to see them in his position in the tree, but he trusted his partner, so he circled the other direction while Ray stayed there.
After a while, he came into sight of a clearing that had previously been hidden behind the bushes Ray was hiding behind. It wasn't particularly big, only being able to hold the four Grimm lounging inside it.
Circling had been a good decision. Three of the Grimm were almost directly in front of Jaune's tree while one was a bit further away, closer to Ray's position.
Like usual Jaune was the one to start the fight. His job was to distract the three before him so that the warrior could solo the lone Beowulf. Afterwards he would use taunt on the remaining two so as not to let the mage get slaughtered. The assumption was that Jaune could oneshot the weakest-looking one, and then take on a more supportive role.
It took Jaune mere moments to identify the weakest one. Sadly, it was the one Ray was going to kill. The second-weakest one it was then. You could easily determine the age of a Grimm by their bone plating-the less they had, the younger they were.
Jaune started charging up a bolt, sacrificing its stealthiness and maneuverability for raw power. He dumped about half of his entire reserve into it and like a loosened arrow, it streaked towards his target in a purple arch.
The head of the monstrous wolf looked like it evaporated into a black mist, the body falling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. The remaining three Grimm in the clearing perked up, wasting precious seconds on determining where the threat was coming from before actually doing something, giving Jaune enough time to throw another bolt at the Grimm closest to him.
Not nearly as strong, just enough to finally make them run towards him instead of staring dumbly into space.
As if jolted from their stupor, they started running towards the tree he was crouching on. Only two arrived. The one furthest away was immediately jumped on by Ray and almost died in one hit as he brought his sword down on its spine. With animalistic reflexes it shimmied towards the ground and rolled to the left, not that that helped much since the warrior just brought his swordless hand down onto its head and probably broke its neck, by the way it suddenly went limp and started flopping around.
Ray froze, probably wondering why it was so easy. Jaune felt a sliver of annoyance. Apparently, the warrior hadn't used the time while Jaune had circled the clearing to identify the strength of the Grimm, how droll.
He didn't freeze for long though, maybe a second, and then he immediately roared. "ROOAAR!" A red-tinged cloud escaped his mouth towards the two Grimm stalking towards Jaune's tree, and they suddenly turned around so fast they were blurs in Jaune's eyes and started leaping towards the warrior.
One of them was parried away by Ray's sword, the other got an arcane bolt to its hind legs and didn't make it to him in the first place.
After Ray finished off the two Grimm, Jaune jumped down from his tree and they started collecting the loot which they shared equally. Not much, a few lien and a chunk of iron ore which they left lying there. If they still had space in their packs they would pick it up on the way back. It wasn't really smart to go hunting with a huge chunk of iron weighing you down.
Howls suddenly resounded through the forest, and a cacophony of screeching answered, signalling that somewhere nearby was a flock of Nevermore and a pack of Beowulves.
"They probably heard your girly roar and are coming to investigate if there is a damsel in distress they can save. Come on, let's go."
Not waiting for Raynold to agree that they should skedaddle, Jaune simply started walking, the last words that were muttered in this chase being, "It's not girly, is it?"
They headed at a leisurely pace towards a ravine. No sense in running if they wanted to be chased, after all. The howls were getting closer and they weren't close enough to their objective that they could slow down, so the pair picked up their pace, two shadows flitting through the forest, one hopping on trees like a monkey and the other breathing heavily in his relatively heavy armour.
The ravine came into view, a small opening the only way of entering it. A choke hold.
Jaune started jumping on higher and higher branches and once he was near enough, jumped with all his might and caught himself on a rocky protrusion. Scrabbling up, he seated himself in a meditative position and watched as Raynold retreated a bit into the ravine. It was tight enough that only one Grimm at a time could actually enter it.
The Beowulf pack came into view. There were six, no, eight of them. More than usual, but nothing they couldn't handle. No Nevermore in sight. They might have been distracted by something.
His job now was to make sure that Ray had a small break between each opponent. A small purple ball crackling with energy and green lightning started forming over his right shoulder. Really, the Grimm in this area were just too easy.
-/-
Jaune was sitting before the dungeon. Or more like standing before it since sitting down in a river with a fairly rapid current wasn't the most genius of ideas. He was still agonising over who to ask to explore the dungeon with him, mum or Raynold.
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With Joanne he would be extremely safe, but partying with her wouldn't give him as much experience since she was higher level. Raynold, however, would make for an equal EXP distribution but would be riskier.
"I hate making decisions."
The choice was suddenly taken from him by a loud growl echoing through the forest behind him. The mage spun around to find himself staring at a fucking Ursa of all things.
"You have got to be kidding me." The mutter didn't elicit any kind of reaction from the universe, implying that this was not, in fact, a bad joke. Normally Jaune could just run away from an Ursa by hopping onto a tree and high-tailing it out of there, but Jaune was, at the moment, waist-deep in water.
He instantly made the most powerful arcane bolt he could manage and shot it into the bear's face. Unsurprisingly, it didn't elicit any reaction other than maybe pissing it off and making it stalk towards him faster.
The mage wasn't one for dawdling in dangerous situations, a great contrast to his dawdling in non-dangerous ones. He immediately spun around and dove into the water, his goal being the dungeon.
Swimming only a few metres, he slipped into the cave.
-/-
The first thing that he noted was the feeling the cave entrance behind him made as it disappeared. Dungeons tended to do that. There were only two ways out of one after you've entered. Either finding the one secret passage out of there, or defeating the final boss. Or instead of a boss, cracking the puzzle in some cases.
This was a fairly weak dungeon so it shouldn't be that hard to beat. Soloing it was just extremely risky. Jaune looked around. He was in a dank cave, with only one way leading forward, as expected. The only reason he could see at all was thanks to the mushrooms growing on the walls that seemed to glow a faint fluorescent blue.
The ground he walked on wasn't ground, it was sand, he noted with surprise. Well, the environment inside a dungeon was known to differ from the one outside. At least it was a beach and not a volcano. That would have sucked pretty hard.
The walls with mushrooms were, however, not so pleasant, with water condensing at the top and running down in rivulets. The stones were scraggly, jutting out in spikes and ridges. Jaune lamented the fact that he hadn't entered the river with all of his gear and made an inventory of what he had. Underwear and pants.
"I'm pretty fucked, aren't I." The words were uttered in a whisper, so as to not attract any monsters that were lurking in places unknown.
Jaune threw himself on the ground and lay on his back for a few moments, staring at the blue lights. He thought about what he was going to do. There really was only one option.
Complete the dungeon. No armour, no potions, no weapons, just his wits and his magic.
Honestly, this situation reminded him of a children's story. A boy fell into a dungeon and after many tribulations became a young hero worthy of his name. Except this time a happy ending wasn't certain. He would just have to make one himself then.
Pulling himself to his feet, Jaune headed towards the dark corridor, slipped inside and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, his eyes started adjusting to the darkness that persisted where no mushrooms grew. Carefully moving forward, he stuck to one wall to not give himself away to the casual observer. The rocks jutting out scratched against his skin.
After a few minutes, he saw the same blue light that had permeated the last cave. His feet almost lost all movement as he moved as slowly as a snail.
Reaching the entrance, he peeked inside, making sure he was not seen. There in the middle of the room stood a fish with legs?
It was a fish with limbs to be more exact, its back turned to him. Other than that, the cave was empty. No corridors, no treasure chests, nothing. The fish had no clothing other than a loincloth, and had a dagger at its side. In its arms, it was holding a trident. How cliché.
It suddenly turned around, giving him a glimpse of a hideous face with the usual fish eyes that seemed to almost pop out of its skull. How did it breathe? Jaune focused and saw that it had no nose, yet its gills were expanding and contracting at regular intervals.
It started walking towards him, or more accurately the corridor he was standing in. Was it patrolling? His body shivered, informing him that if there was no sun, there was also no warmth.
Maybe he should talk to it. Most monsters in dungeons were semi-intelligent. There was even a dungeon in Atlas where people traded with its inhabitants. Jaune stepped out of the corridor into the sight of the fishman, his hands raised as a sign of peaceful intentions.
"I come in pe-" The thing suddenly shrieked louder than he would have imagined possible for a creature that should actually live underwater. It raised its trident above its head, pointed it towards him in a comical display of inefficient weapon handling. Well, comical if it wasn't running towards him on its stubby legs, clearly intending to spear him.
Jaune jumped back and threw out an arcane bolt. No use in entering close combat with an armed enemy when he still had a mostly full mana pool.
The bolt flew true, impacting the thing's head at what should have been sufficient velocity to blow its brains out. It stumbled back a bit, but otherwise didn't seem to notice, the bolt splashing harmlessly on its face.
The only thoughts Jaune could properly form as he started backpedalling away from the apparently magic-immune fish were a series of fuck, fuck, fuck.
Gathering another, more powerful bolt, this time he sent it flying directly at its crotch. The target not being its dick (get your mind out of the gutter), but rather the only article of clothing it had, the loincloth. At the impact of the bolt, it was ripped from the things body and fell to the ground with the dagger it had been holding up.
Incidentally, it also revealed the thing's obviously human genitalia that then proceeded to flop around madly.
Sadly Jaune couldn't avert his eyes as he had to watch the human part of its body for signs that his magic had worked on it. There! A bruise was forming. Jaune narrowed his eyes. It was regaining its momentum, so not much time to think… Its human parts seemed to be susceptible to magic, at least more than its fish ones.
Jaune gathered another bolt, waited for the right moment, and shot it at the thing's right knee just as it was mid step.
The fish swivelled its leg, avoiding the bolt. It was nearly upon him now. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Time to enter close combat then, the thing had already caught onto his magical shenanigans. Time to use the element of surprise.
Jaune used up the last dredges of his mana, leaving barely enough for another bolt, and jumped forward, foot raised in a stomp. The bolt hit its midriff as expected, making the thing recoil a bit. It gave Jaune the opening he needed to smash his bare foot into the thing's knee with all his strength. A wet crack resounded, and the leg bent backwards, a small white protrusion appearing. Trying not to lose his momentum, Jaune grabbed onto the trident the thing had foolishly been waving around above its head and tried to wrestle it away.
The move brought him close to its face, finally allowing the rank smell to hit him. A growl escaped his throat. He fucking hated fish.
Wrestling the trident away was a no go. He'd already nearly gone deaf from the thing's screeching and his knees hurt since he was trying to pummel the thing into submission with them, its broken one preventing it from retaliating in the same manner.
Suddenly it opened its mouth, revealing a row of serrated teeth. Its breath smelled like days-old garbage simmering in the sun, and Jaune rewarded it with a weak bolt down its gullet. He was running on empty now.
The arcane magic flowing down its throat distracted it long enough for him to finally get a grip on the trident, and he rappelled himself up, laboriously breathing. Then he stabbed into the writhing thing's body, not trusting himself to successfully hit its squirming head.
He pulled the trident out and stabbed down again, and again, and again until the fishman wasn't moving anymore. Just to be sure, he stabbed into its now unmoving head one last time, making it give a spastic jerk.
The mage collapsed onto his back, the blood-soaked sand warming his shivering body before that as well lost its warmth. Jaune tried to get a hold of his breathing, but couldn't. Adrenaline was still coursing through his body at a rapid pace.
Despite his protesting body, he stood up and started moving to the corridor again. Hmm, their chase had led him into the first cave again. He looked around just to make sure. Nope, no way out suddenly opening, meaning that this fishman, despite how it had almost killed him, was not in fact a boss.
Steps weary, he didn't walk so much as drag his feet towards the second cavern. His foot bumped into something hard, the dagger. Thankfully it was sheathed. He hadn't gotten hurt much during that fight, would be pretty sad if he cut his foot afterwards.
He picked it up with the loincloth, marking both with the fishman's watery blood. He should probably have felt sorry for killing another sentient being, but unsurprisingly couldn't.
The second cave was empty, except for a stone circle in the middle of the room. Probably some mechanism you had to step on to activate. He definitely wasn't going to do so now.
A wave of dizziness hit him, making him fall and have to catch himself on the walls. The sharp stones cut into his palm.
Jaune move back to the first cave. The adrenaline was gone now, he was going to crash soon enough. The fact that he had strained his mana to the last not helping matters, and as his last feat of strength Jaune managed to drag the fishman's body back to the second cave with shaking hands and make it back to the first one.
This way, if more fishman came into the cave through the use of the stone circle (which he assumed was some mechanism to open a door), they would immediately start shrieking, hopefully giving him enough time to prepare himself for another fight.
Trying to cover as much of his body with the thing's smelly loincloth, Jaune fell asleep on the sandy ground.
-/-
Crying was an instinct that newly born children used to communicate with the outside world since they could neither speak the language nor articulate their desires in any other way.
Since as a baby you mostly needed to communicate when you were experiencing something unpleasant and needed help, crying had a certain negative reputation. As they grew up, these babies of course learned that when they cried, someone would come and help them. Through constant reinforcement of that fact, even adults were still prone to bitching like little kids whenever they didn't like something.
Not crying, just bitching.
There were, of course, other tears, tears that were shed from emotional and physical pain. Jaune hadn't cried in a while. It wasn't socially acceptable to cry as a man.
So imagine his surprise when the first thing his body did when it woke up from its unrestful slumber was to scream its lungs out.
He hit the sand he was lying in. There was snot running down his nose and his puffy eyes failed to identify his surroundings due to the obscuring salty fluid.
Rolling around on the ground, he reached the walls and tumbled into them like a moron trying to do a barrel roll on the ground. The pain that Jaune felt as the spiky wall cut up his back somewhat ironically made him stop his hysterics and let him calm down.
First things first, the condition of his body. As expected he was tired as all hell. The problem was the shivering; it was too internal to be caused by the cold. He raised a hand and put it to his forehead. He was burning up. A hand under his armpit confirmed that he probably had a fever.
He was stuck alone in a dungeon, where the first monster he met almost killed him and he had a fever.
He was going to die.
Jaune Arc was going to die.
Jaune Arc was going to die before he did any of the things he had wanted to do.
But no, if he continued onwards there was a minuscule chance of survival. Rather than the 0% chance of survival if he just lay here and gave up.
The incessant pinging at the back of his head made him aware of the fact that he had gained a level and now had one point to assign. He immediately put it into constitution, without a doubt in combat the most worthless statistic for a mage. But sick, hungry, and thirsty, it was the statistic most likely to keep him alive outside of combat.
The thought reminded him of his need to answer nature's call, and… he was also thirsty as fuck. Due to the fever, he had spent the whole night sweating, almost turning the sand under him into mud. The problem was that he had nothing to drink. Jaune stumbled towards the fishman corpse and stabbed it.
Glistening water poured out, slightly thicker than real water. Did it share any properties with normal blood at all? It hadn't congealed after what was probably half a day? He felt oddly thirsty looking at the fluid.
The pressure in his bladder made him aware of another possibility. Urine or the watery blood of a fishman of dubious origins. Well, he was going to have to eat the fishman anyway. No way was he entering the next cave on an empty stomach.
Jaune pulled out the dagger and got to work.
Afterwards, he felt disgusted with himself, yet also comically proud. This was proof that he wasn't someone who would just lay down and die once things got hard. It was gross proof, though.
He stared at the stone circle on the ground next to the dissected fishman corpse. There was a rune engraved on the stone. It wasn't one he had ever seen before, not that he was a rune-based enchanter, which was basically the only job that actually used the sigils.
With a sigh, he realised he was procrastinating. He was as prepared as he was going to be, trident in one hand, dagger stuck into the waistband of his pants. The longer he delayed the smaller his chances of surviving were. He stepped onto the circle, expecting maybe a hidden door to open or the ground beneath him to disappear.
Jaune was instantly teleported away.