If there was one thing that immediately countered my feeling of being a badass solo diver who just killed nine harpies almost entirely by himself while hanging over a (probably) death pit, it was being unable to answer a really simple question asked by a pretty woman that I had an obvious crush on.

Up there, I didn't feel out of control. I knew what I could do, and I knew how to try things to see if I could do them, safely. Here, suddenly, there was no obvious path forward. I had no skill to use to skillfully avoid her words and find her vulnerable points and--actually what even would be the point of that. No, I just had no way to ... resolve this situation? Was it even a situation?

"Hey..." Louise managed to pierce the dense fog of my self-recrimination. "It's okay. Just take it slow, alright?"

"Take it slow." I grit my teeth and let out a long sigh. "I... can't think like that."

"You can't take it slowly?"

"No, I..." I sighed. Was that a joke or was she being serious? "I realized, like... a long time ago that I can't go back and forth between being like that..." I gestured towards the sky where I'd just been hanging, "...and being normal. It's like it's... not really me. I don't know."

She looked at me for a moment. "Is that--"

"It's not why I killed people." I paused, and shook my head. "...I don't think it is. I swore off killing a long time ago and was still in the dungeon for a long time after that. But I'm..." Words I couldn't really identify caught in my throat. What was I trying to say and why couldn't I say it?

It got a little more complicated as Mel's group, attracted by... well, at least one of the stupid showy things I did, came to check on us. Strangely enough, it was the mage, Jenna, leading the way.

"You!" Her shout completely surprised me, because she was still a ways away and I had no reason to expect it. "You bastard!"

I was confused, I'd like to say justifiably so. Did they have a run-in with the monsters I spooked? I didn't think so, since they weren't on the path I jumped. What the hell was she so mad about?

When she got close enough that she was certain that it was a straight shot from her to us, she let go of her light spell and just dashed at us, slowing down to a panting mess a little ways away. Behind her, the rest of her party were now without an easy way to see the floor around them, without that light magic and had come to a standstill. I glanced at Louise and gave her a head jerk towards them, and she looked over and nodded, moving towards them and giving her light magic some more power.

"You are a fucking natural, aren't you?" Jenna suddenly reached out and grabbed my shirt collar as though it was an accusation, which is sure as hell sounded like.

"I have no idea--"

"It's not--I don't--ugh." She backed off a step. "It's not the right word. You're... you know magic without the system, right?"

I felt my cheeks flush, but her question still didn't make sense. "There was no magic before the system."

"There wasn't this." Jenna made a fireball appear in her hand. "But there was something. There are rumors that the fucking occultists, witches, whatever users of old magic are what drew the System to us, but one thing's for sure is a lot of people just seem to already knew how to do shit and what you did is clearly above your level."

I backed away from her, conscious of the fact that there was no light halo and I had no idea how far I was from the edge. "Hey, easy... I'm trying to tell you, that's not it."

"So what the hell skill were you using?"

"Telekinesis." As the word came out of my mouth, I thought I knew what she was going to say, but I was wrong.

"And what's your growth rank for Telekinesis?"

I blinked at her. "My what?"

"Have you ever visited a Skill Sage?"

That seemed an odd question, and I tried to remember what I knew of Skills, but it was a little thin in places, honestly. I had definitely heard the term, but I didn't think at the time that it was a technical term. "No... but, I mean, I have a little bit of that skill myself, I just--"

"What does your Skill Sage say about Telekinesis?"

I paused and considered that. I had only really been paying attention to skill level and the brief description on items, since those were the path forward. Why study skills I already knew how to use, or thought I didn't need? I linked to the Skill Sage and brought it up for my skill, my guts immediately clenching.

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TELEKINESIS [ Foundation: Psionic ] - Level 53

Skill Sage: Growth Rank [AB] - Growth Points 229 Telekinesis is the Psionic control of position, momentum, and energy. As a [ Foundation ] skill, this may act as a skill ceiling on other abilities. Telekinesis requires [ Ethereal ] [ Line of Effect ] to the target

The level of my skill was something I knew well, and was proud of--it had been ahead of my class level since about level 15. I'd spent the rest of my formative time in a dungeon or a jail, though, and wasn't the kind of person to go looking for someone else to give me a "skill sage" reading even if I'd known that was a thing. I toggled the panel to visible and spun it to face Jenna.

She just kind of stared at it for a minute and then looked at me. "You really have no idea what you're doing, do you?"

I gave her the kind of look in return that the question deserved, and around that time, the others showed up. The immediate response was from the Will the archer, who jockeyed for position to see the screen I had pulled up and whistled. "Crap in a handbasket, man, I've never seen that many growth points. Why haven't you spent them?"

"I don't..." On what exactly? Anxiety gave me a good punch in the ribs, though I was mostly able to console myself with already being overpowered. "I don't... need to right now?"

"He had no idea he had them, Will."

"Isn't that his own window, though?" That from the shield tank, who was just kind of peering at us. "I mean, you don't have Skill Sage."

Jenna was giving me the kind of smug look that really didn't seem to make any sense when I was the person who already had too much power and apparently wasn't using it effectively and she was just... an observer who thought she knew more, I guess?

"Okay! Okay!" I threw up my hands. "I have no idea what I'm doing. Honestly, if you think that's offensive you should see how many unspent Class Points I have." That dig was probably the kind of thing I shouldn't have made, because the whole group, even Louise (though she seemed somewhat confused) all ended up looking at me strangely at that statement.

"Unused class points." The tank looked at me. "So you have a self made class that you're... just... not using."

"And yet--"

"And yet he can throw himself across the level with a skill level that's only in the fifties." Jenna sighed. "It's a good growth rank, admittedly, but if he's never spent any of his points then what's even the point?"

I sighed. I could see this abuse lasting for a while longer, maybe. "I'm not relying on that."

Jenna's face, in a way that as far as I could tell was uncharacteristic of her, got taken over by a look of real hatred, and she, with no windup and no real warning, gave me a suckerpunch straight to the nose that forced me to take a step back--and my foot slipped right off the edge of the platform.

I didn't fall far, of course. That was... kind of the point of her being mad, wasn't it? It was't even that scary. I twisted around, pulling my hands closer to the edge of the platform until I could grab it, and when I had a solid grip so my brain could adjust to the idea that I needed to climb up, I just boosted myself into the air and got my feet back on it.

The others had backed up a bit, more away from the edge than away from either me or Jenna, since neither of us were physically intimidating, magic powers be damned. Either way, though, there was a bit of distance between us, and a cautious look on Jenna's face, like she wasn't sure if I was going to get really, really pissed off that I'd just about died.

Which, like, not... not really. I wasn't really processing the cliff edge as a deadly danger right now. I knew it intellectually, but at the moment, my brain was churning on just how much I really, really didn't know.

"Sorry," said Jenna, that caution mixed with anger in her voice, and I waved her off. "It's just... you really shouldn't make it sound like the rest of us just aren't trying. We're risking our lives too, you know?"

"Yeah." I felt at my nose, which was fine. Being a Dungeoneer was scary in lots of ways, but the fact that we didn't get hurt the way we should was a constant reminder of just what we'd sacrificed for power. "What I mean is... there's a difference between skill Level and whether you're using the skill right. I teach some classes--"

"Wait, wait, wait." Jenna marched forward again. "You don't know jack, didn't even know how to use Skill Sage, and you teach skills?"

"Um, at the local gym. I'm not a professor or anything." She threw up her hands in frustration, and I kept watching her, as I continued. "I watch people who think they're practicing and they're not getting... better. I had to be better, to use the skills the way they're meant to be used, to survive. That is the specific thing I'm relying on to survive. I'm not... or I'm trying to not rely on class levels, or..." I gestured to where we'd been standing, before I got knocked back. The UI window had disappeared when I moved, as it tended to do. "...skill... growth points or whatever. I have to, to some extent, but I don't want to. I want to have mastered the skill itself, not be told by a fucking ethereal window that the Dungeon has allowed me to be a little stronger now, how lucky for me."

"So how did you do it?" That was Melinda, who had so far been kind of quiet. "How do you master telekinesis when you didn't have it until the first time you entered a dungeon? When you didn't have anything like it until you entered a dungeon?"

Although Mel was speaking, my eyes got drawn back to Jenna and the smug look on her face. She was sure that she knew, more or less, what my answer was, what it had to be.

And she was... only half wrong.

I pointed at her face, trying to shame her for being smug, though I doubt I had the force of personality to manage it. "There was no magic before the Dungeons," I snapped at her. "You're wrong if you think there was."

She tilted her head back to look down her nose at me, but waited.

"...but there were... spiritual things." I grit my teeth. "Ghosts. Dreams. Things."

The silence was deafening.