The bear’s roar shook the forest the sound rattling Celia's very bones as she raced around the creature. This was only her fifth contract, but she still felt jittery and unsure every time she walked out of the city gates. She had ended up joining the adventurer’s society, as much as she despised how the adventurers acted she couldn’t afford to not join. Her options, if she wanted to level and grow, were to either join the adventurer’s society and hunt monsters or join the army and fight other humans. As much as she despised people sometimes, she didn’t want to be forced to kill for no reason. She ducked sharply as a paw whistled overhead, Celia had heard the rumors about the army. Stories of villages burned needless and pointless wars fought between petty tyrants, she wanted no part in that.

Pushing itself to its full height the bear lashed out again with its massive paws trying to squash the annoying human. Celia was a little indignant that this thing was only tier one, it was massive, but her contract was to put it down and that was what she was going to do. Besides she was so close to getting to tier two she could almost taste it.

Celia hadn’t known much about fighting at least before joining the adventurers, she had gotten some basic training that amounted to some very basic pointers. Seriously she could figure out that the pointy end of the dagger went into the enemy. Fortunately, her power meant she didn’t need to be too skilled with her daggers, she just needed to be fast enough to get in striking range.

As the bear roared again in frustration, Celia poured chakra into her body, her muscles ached and her body burned as she sped through the world for an instant. There was a sharp impact as her dagger slammed with all the force she could muster into the neck of the bear, the blow was strong enough to send the animal crashing onto its back weakly struggling as its lifeblood poured out.

Celia didn’t have time to celebrate her success as the backlash of what she had just did hit her. Doubling over she felt as if every muscle in her body was rebelling at once, her arm ached too, she might have cracked the bone this time. This was the problem with her current fighting style, for an instant she was far faster and stronger than anything in her tier but it came at a price. She needed to end every fight she had in a single blow or she would die. Celia knew this way of fighting wasn’t sustainable, eventually, something she fought would be strong, skilled, or lucky enough to survive her initial attack. If that happened she would be in deep trouble.

The young adventurer groaned as her body slowly put itself back together, at least chakra made her healing faster as well. Celia could see why her class wasn’t the most popular even putting aside the stigma associated with assassins, not many people liked pain, and chakra hurt, a lot. At least it was easy to use, she just flooded her body with chakra, and boom she was faster and stronger. Gently sitting up and wincing at the dull aching in her arm Celia climbed to her foot, her haphazard use of chakra probably wasn’t doing her body any favors though.

Hopefully, she would get better at directing the power enough to not injure herself every time she used it, but that was a pipe dream for now. Fishing a small piece of metal out of her bag she grinned at her reflection, it wasn’t much but it was still a perfectly good mirror.

...Celia

Race: Human (level 1)

Class: Novice (level 10)*...

Celia jumped into the air with a whoop of excitement and then quickly sat back down looking around, good no one had seen that. Still, she was excited, she was going to evolve her class for the first time. She had been told how to get her class to evolve by the adventurer society and she focused on looking at her class.

...Evolution Available

Class Change: Pupil...

...Accept/Decline…

She focused on yes, and groaned as fresh waves of power washed through her. Celia felt stronger, and could practically see her bruise begin to fade. This evolution was supposed to be the weakest of all the evolutions, and if that was true she couldn’t wait to see how strong she would grow in the future.

Taking a look over the bear Celia suppressed a grunt of irritation, the blasted thing was so big. She would at least need the head as proof of contract compilation, and animal pelts were rather popular so it would be a shame to leave the fur to rot in the woods. Sighing she pulled her knife back out and got to work, this was going to take a while.

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Vance jolted awake as his carriage hit a particularly large bump, yawning as he stretched as much as he could in the cramped confines he was in. Why did this new dungeon town have to be so far away? Also, why did he have to go to this particular dungeon? There were quite a few others in House Storm lands, and as the son of the current lord Storm, he could have trained at any of them. You know why they sent you out here, they don’t want you to be a useless chi user. Vance resolutely stuffed that unhelpful voice into the darkest corner of his mind and sighed, if only he hadn’t had to pick a chi class. Even a chakra class would have been better, and a mana class would have been perfect but no he was stuck with chi, the commoner’s class.

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Theoretically only having one class option was a blessing, proof that you were perfectly suited for that one class. Why did I have to be perfectly suited for a chi class though? Vance’s family had taken almost exclusively mana classes for the past three generations, but he didn’t get that option, and now he was being sent to the middle of nowhere. There’s got to be a legitimate reason why father is sending me here, I refuse to believe my family would throw me out just because of my class. Vance knew his father could be a bit scatterbrained and prone to making arbitrary decisions when he thought it was in someone’s best interest, it still hurt though.

The driver leaned back infusing a few of the runes that dotted the carriage and opened the small window to talk to Vance. “Are you well young master? We are getting close to Corinth city, after that, it should only take a few days of travel to reach the new dungeon town.”

“I’m fine George, just a little bored.” Cool air washed over him as the runes kicked in, Vance almost wished they hadn’t. It was another reminder of what he could never accomplish with chi. “You’ve been with our family a long time haven’t you George? Why do you think I’m being sent out here to the back of nowhere to a newborn dungeon.”

The driver sat forward with a thoughtful look on his face. “I can’t claim to know your lord father’s mind, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say it's for training.” Vance snorted in derision, it was most definitely not about training, but Georgia soldiered on with his explanation anyway. “New dungeons can be dangerous because of the unknowns they bring, but it can also be more of a challenge as they haven’t been fully explored yet. The tendencies of new dungeons aren’t understood yet and that makes them more unpredictable training grounds than more established dungeons.”

“Then why were none of my siblings or cousins sent as well? Surely they could have benefited from some training as well.” It was because of his useless class he was stuck out here he just knew it. “Besides there are some dungeons that are on the newer side that are far closer to Olympus city. Why did it have to be this dungeon?”

“Well young master, the reports we received just two months ago seem to indicate that this dungeon might be one of the best training grounds in the duchy, maybe even the kingdom.”

Vance sat up slightly; he hadn’t heard this before. “Why’s that?”

“Well there are far more creatures than a normal dungeon would have and the monsters behave almost exactly as if they were wild monsters in the vast single room floors that the dungeon creates.”

“That does sound like a rather good place to train, certainly less formulaic than most other dungeon’s I’ve heard of. Why isn’t anyone else going to this dungeon though, if it's such a good place to train surely it should be more popular.”

“There is a notable absence of anything like loot except from the bosses. This is probably a big reason that not a lot of nobles haven’t been going to it, that and its remote location.” Their carriage had been enchanted with several runes of haste and speed but it still took them about a month to make the trip to Corinth. After that they would have to continue at normal speeds to the dungeon, the temporary enchantments having exhausted themselves by then.

They lapsed into silence with only the trotting of the horses filling the void. Trees and grass passed as the driver visibly plucked up his courage to speak. “Young master, I know chi was not the energy you wanted, but it can be just as strong as mana given time.”

Vance snorted with derision but decided to listen. George had served his family well for decades, he deserved that much at least. “I know it's not necessarily weak, but still it's not the energy of nobles. I will always be at a disadvantage compared to my peers who have mana.”

“Young master the weakness of the three energies only are majorly in play in the first three tiers of power. After that, it has much more to do with personal skill rather than a favorable matchup.”

“But matchup still matters.” Vance took a deep breath to calm himself, he knew George was just trying to be helpful. “I know energy weaknesses matter less at higher tiers but they never necessarily go away. As a chi user, I will generally be at a disadvantage when facing a mana user who can stay away from me and blast me with spells. I will be able to negate or circumvent this advantage as I get stronger but the fact remains that I will have to train harder than my peers just to stay even with them.”

“That's the focus of chi though isn’t it young master? Chi classes are not that powerful at first but the more you train to do a specific task, the more your chi will reinforce your body to be better at that specific task. That means even if it takes more work, you should be able to match anyone of your tier in combat eventually”

Vance nodded reluctantly, chi was a straightforward power, very easy to use which was also why it was so popular. A baker might never fight a monster in his life, but if he took the chi class page he would get continuously better at his job in this case baking. The baker would move a little more swiftly and a little more intuitively every day as his chi made him better and better at doing the tasks required for baking. It wouldn’t make him a genius at baking, but an experienced baker might be able to churn out a huge amount of goods compared to a novice. All it took was time and training, Vance was a high human he had time to spare, and he would put in all the training necessary to become strong, to show his family that he was not a failure just because he didn’t have mana

“Yes it is George, you’re right I’ll just need to put in the work, and I will. It's just my family, is a noble family and even for nobles we are highly focused on mana. We’re famous for our compound mana classes, and that entire legacy is just wasted on me.” They continued in silence, George had apparently run out of courage to pursue the matter further. Vance was glad he had spoken up though, it was a good reminder. He would work as hard as it took but he would show his family that he could be strong, and it seemed like this dungeon would be the first step in doing so.