This week's poll is about metric vs imperial unit system. I use the metric system, but I tried to use the imperial system in this story until now to familiarize myself with it.
As always, feel free to point out any mistakes.
Enjoy!
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“One of the most popular classes is the enhancer. It belongs to the aura types and has two main subclasses. Speed enhancer and strength enhancer. An enhancer won't use his whole aura pool for his aura shield and armour, but also some of it to enhance his muscles. It's up to each enhancer to decide how much aura he will spend for each task. A speed enhancer reinforces his muscles with aura to let them contract faster, allowing much quicker movements. Strength enhancers use aura to let their muscles work with more power, granting them superior strength.
An important factor for enhancers is their body. A person with slow, but more effective muscles fibres will have to use more aura to speed up his movements than a person with quicker, but less effective muscles fibres. The same applies vice versa for strength enhancers. It's also important to train the body. The fitter the body, the less aura is needed to achieve the same result. Speed enhancers are better known as Duellists, strength enhancers as Berserks. Those who use a balanced mix of both are called Warriors.”
-The Way of a Warrior, Author unknown.
***Aeron***
We are currently on the way to one of the dungeon's entrances. Surprisingly I'm not scared to fight ferocious monsters. I'm excited! Hopefully this won't change in front of one of the monsters. That would be really embarrassing, especially in front of the girls. Mia shouldn't have a problem, she's always eager to fight. Ha, looks like I'm turning into a male Mia.
Speaking of her, waking up this morning was a real surprise. The moment I almost fell asleep yesterday, someone knocked on my door. Although a bit dizzy, I opened the door and saw a shy, but smiling Mia. Despite my confusion, I let her in. Due to the lack of chairs, we sat on my bed and talked, but I must have fallen asleep quite soon.
When I woke up this morning, I was surprised to stare into a girls face. Seems like she fell asleep, too. Her sleeping face is angelic, but I didn't have much time to enjoy it. From somewhere behind me I could hear someone waking up. After turning around, my eyes caught something dreadfully, cute. I have to admit, her sleeping face has some cute features, but it's still her, hence it's dreadful! Lily was sleeping on a chair, although there shouldn't be one in my room.
Perhaps I wronged her. It had to be her, who covered us in two blankets, too. I just had one in my room and she watched over us while sleeping. OK, the last point could be interpreted as creepy. Before I could contemplate about it more, she opened her eyes. A devilish grin greeted me and I knew, I didn't wrong her! That's how my troubles this morning started.
This was a few hours ago. We are now arriving at the plaza in front of the Adventurer Academy. Despite the early hour, it's already filled with people. Many merchants are praising their goods full-throated. It takes us almost ten minutes to arrive before the guild's guards, who are protecting the tower in the middle of the plaza. The nearest guard in his dark brown surcoat calls out to us: “Good morning kids. Your academy cards please.”
Lily steps silently forward and glares at him while showing something resembling a dog tag. I think she doesn't like being called a kid. Good to know!
“An adventurer card?” He examines her sceptically, but after the dog tag begins to glow he waves her through, before turning to Mia and me. Both of us are showing our admission sheets.
“Ah, newcomers. I assume she is your guide?” He asks while pointing at Lily.
“Yes.” Mia and I answer in unison, which let's me flash her a glance. She returns the look with a small smile.
“In that case you can pass, but take care. Monsters aren't a joke.”
“I take care of them. Come.” Instead of us it's Lily who answers him while stomping further into the tower.
The inside of the tower is spacious, although gates and defensive positions are restricting the place to walk. We are following the flow of people going down a wide ramp. It leads down spirally. There are also stairs, but Lily prefers the ramp. All of the inner gates, we are passing, are build to obstruct something leaving the dungeon. Sure enough, the guild take monsters seriously. After some time we enter a huge hall. It's well illuminated despite the few lanterns. The central area, which is mostly occupied by a big fountain, is especially crowded. There are also many sculptures of fabulous looking creatures and many more benches for people to rest.
“Mia, Aeron, welcome to Altos Dungeon. From now on you have to listen to everything I say. No arguing. Got that?” As soon as we enter the dungeon, Lily's playful aura vanishes and even her voice is stern. There is also a hint of sadness on her face or am I just imagining things? But this makes it easy to answer her seriously: “Yes, Lily.” “Yes.” Mia replies immediately, a second before me.
“Good. This is the entrance hall. It's regarded as safe, because there is almost no ether here. Despite the many adventurers, you should never be careless in here.”
While nodding I have to think about the beginners guide. It mentions, that even strong monsters get weaker and weaker the lesser the ether concentration. I can't imagine any upper floor monster threatening all those adventurers up here, but perhaps she doesn't only mean the monsters.
“As long as you aren't careless, it's a great place to recover and get up to date information. It's also a convenient place to assemble a party and many people here are trying to find one. You shouldn't trust them, though. Try to find trustworthy companions at your school.” What exactly happened to her to develop such trust issues?
“Come, I will place a mana shield around you, but don't be reckless because of it. Your aura shield should always be your last line of defence. Never count on the mana shield.” I was about to question this, but then I thought about it more carefully. Mana shields loose their strength after some time and if it wasn't you who cast it, then it's hard to know how much strength is left. And an additional safety margin doesn't sound too bad in a fight. Mia on the other side just nods. She is pretty used to getting orders from her fighting instructors.
While taking Mia's hand she applies the mana shield on her. There was a faint bluish glow on her skin, which fades slowly. Then it's my turn. Lily reaches out for my hand and I place mine into hers. Touching the hands of the devil is actually pleasant. Together with a faint bluish glow the tender and warm feeling spreads onto my whole body. The glow fades, but the feeling doesn't vanish completely. Measuring the strength of the shield with this feeling alone is impossible, though.
“Alright, draw your weapons. Now follow me closely and try to remember our route. You two will lead us back.”
There is no need to answer, hence Lily just proceeds. Before going to the Dungeon, she made us memorize a rough map of the dungeon while explaining the plan. Having an accurate map of the dungeon is impossible, because it's ever-changing. However there are pathways, which won't change. The most distinctive characteristics are the paved ground, about 30 feet high ceilings and bright illumination for the upper levels. Most parts of the upper dungeon are well-lit via fluorescent things like moss or crystals. It's strictly forbidden to remove those. Your entrance rights can be revoked if you get caught stealing them.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The not changing pathways are called main roads and they lead to the seven entrances, but not in a straight way. There are many splits, dead ends, nooks and crannies, but all main roads are even, indicating the floor you are at. The only exceptions are the main interchanges. These are paths of the main road, which lead either up or down onto main roads of another floor. They can be ramps, stairs or just holes. Of course we didn't memorize the whole map of the western part, we just needed to memorize the way to and the nearest vicinity of the place we are heading to now. It's one of the westernmost areas on the first floor.
The hall we are in has four gigantic gates, for each cardinal direction one. We came through the western gate and are now heading to the northern gate. There are many parties who are taking the same entrance. Stepping out of the gate we walk on a ramp, which leads 50 feet down to the first floor. Not far from the gate is a square with two big holes and a line of people, who are waiting there. Almost all of the other parties are heading to the end of the line.
“This is a popular main interchange. The Adventurer Academy operates two lifts, which lead to floor 11, 19 and 27. Although the lifts can carry many people, it's still crowded at rush hours like now. It takes some time to reach the 27th floor through other passages, thus this is a nice short cut to reach lower floors. The use is free for Foxys.”
“What's a Foxy?”
“Oh Aeron, you are a Foxy! It's one of the cuter nicknames for students of your Academy.”
After getting Lily's answer I look down on the emblem of my dark blue coat I bought yesterday, it shows a three tailed fox. Although the dungeon is colossal, there is a strong rivalry between the pupils of the Academies, hence it's an unspoken law to not venture into areas of the other academies. Lily doesn't look old enough to resemble an adventurer, thus I was forced to wear my academy's cloak.
Yep, enforcing the role of the vanguard onto me while I have to wear my new clothes. That's why she made me buy more than one set... At least she is also useful and knows how to use support magic. While walking to the western exit of the square, some lined up adventurers are giving us curious looks. We quickly leave the square and follow the paved road.
The walls left and right have many openings. Some have a diameter of just one feet, others are big enough to let a few elephants through, at the same time. The strangest thing is, that they aren't at the same level. Some are even at a height of 25 feet. Seems like an arduous and risky task to climb up or down. After several splits and turns, Lily suddenly pushes us forward.
I look at her enquiringly, but she just smiles mischievously and points with her index finger upwards. Immediately I follow the direction and look upwards, together with Mia. Just in time I catch a glimpse of grey silhouettes falling down onto us. While jumping back, I raise my shield to block the nearest silhouette. There is an impact, followed by a dull sound. No need to warn Mia, as expected she manages to avoid all of the silhouettes completely.
After confirming quickly that no new silhouettes are jumping at us, I take a look at the place we stood few seconds ago. “What the...?” Instead of scary monsters I get a sorry sight. Six grey corpses, resembling four feet tall sloths, are laying on the floor not moving at all. Another three are groaning loudly while crawling slowly towards us. That's what you get from jumping down from up there. Just one of them was lucky enough to avoid serious injuries and is charging at us with his long and pointed claws.
As Lily told us to draw our weapons I also applied my aura shield, charged my armour and weapons. It's not easy to keep this up the whole time, but this surprise attack shows it's worth the trouble. The sloth-like creature's charge is more like a slow stroll compared to my speed, hence it leaves Mia and me with enough time to prepare our attack. I take a look at her and she nods almost unnoticeably. This marks the beginning of our attack. With my windblade prepared I propel myself forward, holding my left-handed shield in front of me. Because of the short distance I reach the monster almost immediately, strike his claws away with my shield and jump to his left side, to my right (*AN: left and right always from the point of view of the mentioned body). He tries to turn with me, but got hindered by the inertia of his knocked away claws. I use this opening and slash at him horizontally. Direct hit!
At the same time Mia followed me closely, concealed by my fluttering cloak. At the moment I jumped to the sloth's left side, she moved to his right side and impaled it with her glowing longsword, before using the momentum to spin around clockwise. This way she gets rid of the impaled sloth-like creature, which along the way splits into two parts. Both parts land with a smack on the wall she was spinning at. Yep, never mess with my childhood friend!
But I don't have much time to look at her, instead I'm now in front of the crawling creatures. The injured sloths aren't a challenge at all and I end their misery with two windstrikes at blank range. The third ones life is ended by a quick strike of Mia. While the six corpses already dissolved, the four fresh corpses now begin to dissolve, too, with a strange glow, marking the end of our fight.
“That's it?!” Mia can't help and ask me confused. I'm puzzled as well, more than half of them killed themselves during the jump and the rest couldn't put up a fight. Mia's and my attack was simply an overkill. At that time, Lily begins to laugh in amusement.
“Ahahaha, you should see your f-faces! Ahahaha, c-congratulations for slaying your first ferocious monsters. I'll g-grant you the title Lemmin-Slayers! Ahahaha!”
“Oi! Lily!?” Why is she laughing at us? What's so funny?
“What's so funny?” Mia inquires even more confused, asking the question I have in mind.
“You two are just too cute! Attacking these Lemmins with all you've got. Such serious expressions and then your confused faces, ahahaha...” Lily needs a few breaths to calm herself from her laughing fit. All the while I glare at her and Mia looks at her with a sullen face.
“Phew, I thought I was going to die just now. These Lemmins are nearer to level 0 than to level 1. They are only a threat if you don't see them jumping right onto you. Then their piercing attacks are quite something, but if you evade their first attack, they are either harmless or already dead. Oh, don't pout like that Mia, actually it's really good. You should never underestimate an enemy, especially not down here.”
This girl is too much for me... At least her grave demeanour is gone and she smiles again. That's more like the Lily I know and her smile is actually quite cute.
“Let's go my~migh~ty Lem-m-min S-slayers ahahaha... come, let us find some worthy opponents for you!”