Chapter 15 - Wait

Kai wasn’t happy.

He had spent hours getting to the point that all his incoming essence was overflowing to Syl.

Everything was fine, he was just starting to get to grips with his skills, he was even gaining stats.

Then Syl got enough essence to level, that alone wasn't a problem, it was actually one of his goals.

But he had felt Syl reach into his core and level him up. She pretended it happened when she levelled herself up, something to do with their connection.

But he wasn't a completely oblivious.

If he hadn't been dealing with a fresh spawn of goblins he might have tried stopped her.

But she was subtle and he didn't really notice what she was doing until it was too late.

Kai checked his status.

Status:

Name: Kai

Race: High-Human

Level: 2.1

Constitution: Well rested, only mildly agitated.

Health: 100%

Stamina: 100%

Mana: 100%

Physical Core: (50%)

Strength 23.75

Dexterity 24

Toughness 23.5

Vitality 23.5

Endurance 25

Mana Core: (50%)

Capacity 24

Control 25

Conversion 23.4

Absorption 23.35

Flow 24

Syl had kept his cores equally balanced but his new stat spread looked terrible. He was almost perfectly balanced when he last levelled himself up, now his cores had imperceptible lumps he would have to iron out, especially if Syl and her lecture about a good foundation was to be believed.

Doing some quick mental arithmetic he worked out he had gained somewhere over twenty new stat points. He had thought most of the stats he had Gained through working his cores were physical, but either he had miraculously gained just as many stats in each core or Syl had at least worked to mitigate any over all stat difference between each core.

He hadn't been checking his stat gains as he got them, it seemed inconsequential until he levelled up and evened everything out.

Kai was just focusing on the grind.

If Syl hadn't interfered he was going to check his stat gains before and after levelling, that way he might have some idea how many new stat points he gained per level. But Syl had interfered and he was left clueless.

Then she went dropped a sleeping matt on him and told him to get some rest in the rewards room.

If it wasn’t for the fact he would probably be dead on his feet if he tried to get his grind going again he might have been tempted to run the room a couple of more times just out of spite.

Reflecting on it now he wasn't achieving as much as he liked. He felt like he could do so much more with mana bolt but the small room with just six goblins wasn’t an ideal place for experimentation.

His swordsmanship wasn't improving either, the goblins were just too dumb, predictable and they lacked any real skill to sharpen his own skill against. At most he had gotten use to trusting his instincts and explored the basic knowledge the skill books had implanted into him.

He had tried his collection of bows once or twice but without someone else to take up the goblins attention his archery skill was just impractical in the face of a good mana bolt and steel combination.

He didn’t seem to gel with the axe, mace and hammer much, but that could just be because his combined swordsmanship was just far better.

Spear was fun, the extra melee range was great and he could deal some decent sweeping damage.

Kai knew now he defiantly wasn’t going to be a tank, lugging around a shield was not for him, summoning one from time to time was much more his style.

He had gotten used to creating barriers on the fly but it ate away at his mana pool faster then he liked and using it more then sporadically severely limited his potential mana bolts.

Maybe Syl was right.

She had levelled up now and continuously grinding out low level goblins probably wasn't very efficient.

If he could get to a room with higher level monsters then rinse and repeating that dungeon room would be better for his skills and it would offer allot more higher quality essence for Syl’s core.

Kai stood in the reward room doing his best to pretend he wasn’t more exhausted than he had ever felt in his life.

The reward room was the same as the previous five dungeon rooms, except in the place of a group of stinky green goblin wretchlings three chests sat in a row in the centre of the room.

Two of the chests were rustic plain iron banded wooden things while the third was made from some strange silvery metal that drew the eye, the surface constantly shifting with images of a man killing goblin after goblin.

‘You going to find out what your rewards are or are you going to make us wait while you sink deeper into your own thoughts.’ Syl said interrupting him as he watched the changing depictions of what he now thought was him grinding the dungeon rooms.

Kai was still kind of pissed with her.

He looked at the chests, then he looked down at the sleeping matt Alicia had so kindly given him.

He decided Syl could wait.

Dropping the sleeping matt and blankets at his feet he asked, “so do people sleep in their armour when running dungeons or they allowed to get comfortable?”

‘You are really going to make us wait aren’t you.’

“I mean I’m pretty smelly, I know I should clean myself, but I have no way of cleaning my armour, taking it off seems a bit redundant. Unless you would care to do it for me in the domain while I sleep?”

‘It depends. Best practice is to stay in your gear, but most adventurers have some kind of cleaning charm.’ Alicia said cheerily, ‘I hear the cleaning spell is not that complicated; I am sure master could be convinced to teach it to you. But for now I hav-‘

‘Kai take off your gear,’ Syl said interrupting Alicia as a small pack and water skin appeared next to him, ‘there’s soap and a small cloth in the survival kit, also use one of the daggers you haven’t played with yet and give yourself a shave. With all that goblin crud on you your starting to look like a hobo.’

‘Hobo?’ Alicia asked.

‘A hobo is an…’ Syl started to explain but Kai tuned it out.

He looked down at himself a noticed he did have quite a lot of goblin crud on himself. How he put up with the smell until now he didn’t know, he must of gotten use to the smell at some point.

‘I have something tha-‘ Alicia started but was cut off again.

‘Store your amour and I will see to it once I set Alicia off to her core exercises.’ Syl said abruptly.

“What does Alicia have?” Kai asked, she had tried to say something several times now and he knew how much he hated being interrupted.

His question was met with a long drawn out silence.

‘I have a cleaning charm, it could be used to clean your self and your gear… but it has limited uses. Syl says you are used to cleaning your self like this and I would be spoiling you…’ Alicia said sounding a little uncertain if she agreed.

“Is this because I’m not opening the chests.”

‘Oh please, I just want to see you give your self a sponge bath. Will be just like the old days.’ Syl teased.

Grumbling Kai stored his armour right off his body, noting the trousers and shirt he’d been given were sweat stained, some goblin gore had even worked through his armour in places so he sent them Syls way too as he summoned a fresh pair of his oversized boxers.

“I have another question…” Kai said feeling uncomfortable, “If I need to go, where would be the best place?”

Syl burst out laughing.

“Seriously, I need to go.”

Getting control of herself Syl said, ‘there is a bathroom here in the domain that Alicia has been using but that won’t do you any good as you can’t enter here physically like how you have looted her.’

“So what should I do?”

‘If you really need to go now and don’t want to be sleeping in the same room you just shat in then isn’t it obvious.’

“Not to me.”

‘Well if you hadn’t already left the last room you could have gone in there and then it would have been the dungeons problem. But you cant do that as going back would only leave the dungeon now that you’ve entered a safe room. So unless you are willing to hold it until you leave this room you’re going to have to loot it. There is a pack of tissues in that survival kit, use them sparingly you only have so many.’

“You want me to loot it,” Kai said not liking the idea. “Won’t that mean I’ll be walking around with…”

Syl was laughing her self silly again.

“Syl?”

‘Sorry, you should see Alicias face, she is mortified,’ Syl said as she tried to stop herself from laughing. ‘Kai, you need to understand, you’re literally full of shit. Alicia shit, goblin shit, it is all in here. I managed to set your dismantle ability off to tidy up all your looted goblins. I’ve had to set up a second sealed up storage area for all the waste products. It’s basically a giant septic tank we will want to dump as soon as we get out of here…’ Syl went quiet, ‘Fertiliser? Alicia there has to be a limit… Fine but you’re the one who has to figure out how we process it and sell it.’

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Hearing only half a conversation Kai asked,“What is she saying?”

‘It can be used to improve crops.” Alicia answered, ‘If we just dump it anywhere it might cause an outbreak of disease. if anything we should separate the different parts… We can sell the waste to night soil men or if we can-‘

“Alicia,” Kai had heard enough, “This is your world, we will handle it in a culturally appropriate way, but I don’t think I want the details right now... actually what I do need is a little privacy.’

He was met with silence.

As he got to the wall he realised he might have another problem. “ I am pretty sure I can loot solids, but I’m not so sure about loose liquids.”

An empty water skin dropped to the floor beside him.

“Thank you… make sure we mark this one somehow.”

‘Pretty sure the system wont see it as a normal waterskin once you are done with it.’

Kai did his business assuming the girls were giving him privacy he requested.

Looting his own waste he found himself hoping this world had some form of functioning plumbing, decent sanitation and waste management systems in place for the sake of his day to day life.

He washed up with the crappy cloth from the little survival kit and did his best not to cut himself while shaving. He had no mirror so shaved completely by feel, he would have to wait to see how bad his baby face was.

After changing into a clean set of oversized boxers and feeling somewhat refreshed he looked at the three reward chests again. He was thinking about opening them, he wanted too. But after just a moment of looking and thinking about it he got the feeling he was being watched again.

Smiling to himself he turned around and crawled into his blankets purposely putting the chests to his back.

‘Oh come on, you’re not even the spiteful type!’ Syl groaned.

“Night Syl, love you…” Kai teased as he closed his eyes.

‘It’s not even night anymore…’ Syl grumbled.

He was already asleep.

Hours later Kai awoke to find his clothes and armour neatly stacked beside him.

As he got dressed he was surprised everything was so perfectly clean. If it wasn’t for the occasional scrape and scuff on the armour he would have assumed it was all new gear.

His new boots had even been taken at some point, cleaned up and treated with some kind of oil. They didn’t have a mark on them, though he clearly remembered being quite rough with them the day before as he had booted quite a few goblins in the unmentionables. it was an effective strategy when you had nothing but a loin cloth for protection.

“Either of you two watching?” he asked tentatively when he was done getting dressed.

‘Yeah… hot food incoming.’ Syl said.

Kai got the feeling Syl might be a little annoyed with him as a bowl appeared right in front of him. Floating in the air the bowl came dangerously close to falling to the floor. Grabbing the bowl before gravity decided it was hungry he was relieved his reflexes were far superior to what they use to be.

In the bowl was some kind of stew, mystery stew with mystery meat. He was immediately suspicious.

He was looking at it wearily as a wooden spoon appeared and plopped right into it.

‘Alicia made it, I mean I helped, but it was mostly Alicia. Eat up.’

“This isn’t goblin stew is it?” Kai asked as he sniffed it.

‘You have examine…’

Feeling stupid he examined the bowl he was holding.

Adventurers stew.

A simple but filling stew made from the rations of an adventurer, made with unfamiliar ingredients.

He just continued looking at the bowl suspiciously.

‘You’ll upset Alicia, she made that with love.’

“It says unfamiliar ingredients…”

‘You think she would serve you up goblin meat, I mean I suggested it but she refused. Apparently its not bad, a bit gamy but not bad.’

‘It is orruk meat.” Alicia said as if that was enough to alleviate his concerns.

“I don’t know an orruk from a goblin…” Kai said honestly.

‘It is a massive woolly bovine that the clans hunt. They use the whole beast. They preserve the meat they do not eat, sells quite well to adventurers. They are a staple prey item of dragons too.’ Alicia said filling in the blanks for him.

‘You will be able to hunt in the next set of rooms, with this kitchen and fresh ingredients I think I can put together some good meals, much better than anything cooked over a campfire,’ Alicia said enthusiastically.

Kai just took the spoon and got a chunk of the mystery meat. It was a bit chewy but he guessed that was because it had been preserved at some point. But otherwise it wasn’t bad.

Chewing the meat he let him self get a sly examine off, just to be sure.

Adventurers stew.

A simple but filling stew made from the rations of an adventurer, made with the preserved meat of an orruk and other unfamiliar ingredients.

Relieved he had some confirmation he wasn’t eating goblin he tucked in to the hearty stew. For something put together with rations it was actually quite good.

Dressed and his fast broken he once again looked at the chests.

“What can I expect?” Kai asked as he sensed the two watching him intently.

‘Anything the dungeon determines you will need to progress further, you have an abundance of gear and have reasonable stock pile of supplies, so I don’t know what you might get. I got an enchanted quiver and a variety of arrows,’ Alicia said, “You also spent a long time in the first five rooms killing allot of goblins, I don’t know if that will penalise your rewards…’

He actually thought he heard murmuring as Alicia went quiet, perhaps she was conferring with Sly and he was starting to pick up on it.

‘You tell him, you are this particular dungeons expert for the team.’ Syl said.

‘I- I do not know why there are three chests, my team only got one chest per person. You also faced too many goblins. This dungeon has been around for centuries and it is well documented. Though I think the ornate chest is a dungeon specific achievement, but the two plain chests do not make any sense, each chest can contain multiple items so why there are two chests I do not know.’

Kai shrugged, this was his first dungeon, he had no clue either. “I think ill open the fancy chest first.”

They said nothing so Kai stepped up and lifted the lid.

Dungeon Achievement unlocked.

Dungeon Slayer.

You have killed hundreds of goblin wretchlings before even getting to the first reward room, word has spread through out the dungeon and its denizens have become weary of your coming.

Sitting on a large velvet cushion in the chest was a single simple pendent made from a leather thong and polished black stone.

He retrieved the item and the chest broke into motes of light that flew off disappearing back off into the dungeon.

Challengers stone. ( Soul Bound )

This stone marks the wearer as a challenger. Challengers gain increased essence draw from dungeon denizens, increased chance of rarer variants spawning and improve dungeon rewards. However dungeon denizens which are hostile will see you as a threat that must be destroyed.

Kai immediately slipped the pendant on and tucked the stone under his shirt and armour. Something that increased essence draw was perfect.

‘What did he get?’ Alicia asked Syl.

‘An achievement and a challengers stone…’ Syl continued to explain.

Kai was already moving onto the closest plain chest. The moment he touched the chest he got a feeling.

Sufficient energy found to improve dungeon reward.

Would you like to improve dungeon reward:

YES / NO

Deciding he wanted to save his remaining energy for something significant he dismissed the system prompt and Lifted the lid of the chest to see two items.

A book sat on the bottom of the chest next to a weird floating opaque shard.

He picked out the book and couldn’t help but grin as he read the cover; Mana bolt, multi-casting and was to diversify your magical arsenal.

He couldn’t help himself, he opened the skill book and started reading.

Skill Upgraded.

Uncommon Mana Bolt.

You know how to form a variety of mana bolts for a variety of situations using mana from your core. Your technique is developing well favouring efficiency and minimal mana use whilst remaining potent. Mana bolts are typically volatile and break upon impact causing damage to whatever it hits but you know there are many more ways then that to inflict damage. You know identifying intended targets is critical for mana bolts to automatically fire off, but you don’t yet know how to get them to track targets once they have left your control.

The skill had jumped from basic up to uncommon, and what’s more the skill description hinted at something else the spell was capable off, he even had an inkling of an idea how it might be possible.

Who needed arrows when you could cast multiple magic target seeking missiles off at once. Not that he could, be he was going to figure it out somehow.

‘A skill book…’ Syl continued.

He looked at the weird shard ignoring the ongoing commentary.

Mysterious Fragment.

Collect all your fragments.

He picked it up, “you know what this is?”

‘Oh that, no one does, no one has collected them all. You get one in every reward room. I had five fragments, but they disappear when you leave the dungeon. The speculation is if you complete the dungeon in one run they combine into a bonus reward or a key for another reward room or something to that effect.’

Kai stored the fragment and moved to the final chest. As before he put his hands on the chest and opened it.

Or at least he tried to open it, the lid wouldn’t budge. He didn’t even get the notification about upgrading the reward.

“Er guys, I can’t open this one.”

‘But that only happens when…’

There was a flash of cyan flame and Syl appeared with Alicia standing beside her.

Syl looked at Kai, noticed his jaw had dropped a little and she turned to look between herself and Alicia.

Both of them wore what he now was certain was one of his giant t-shirts. Syls a vibrant white while Alicias was the usual black.

“Huh I see the colour alteration in the domain didn’t stick to the t-shirts physical proprieties, shame she looked so much purer in the clean white one.”

Kai coughed as Alicia stepped in behind Syl, “did you have a good sleep over. Looks like you did.”

Alicia had undone her tight braids in the safety of his domain and strands of her platinum hair flew everywhere as she clearly hadn’t tamed her bed hair

“Send me back Syl, please.” Alicia whispered, “I do not need to be here, not like this. Please.”

Kai knew she was asking Syl but he focused on Alicia and looted her, aiming to put her in the living room instead of the creepy storage area, he still wasn’t sure how what he looted was sorted.

‘Thank you…’ Alicia murmured from within his domain again.

“Was she really wearing one of my t-shirts?”

“She didn't have any real sleepwear, and anything I fabricated in the domain wouldn’t carry out hear unless it was part of my manifestation.” Syl grinned, “Actually that’s not a bad idea, a bit crude, but if you retrieved Alicia at the right time it would be instant naked princess any time you want.”

Kai didn’t want to dignify that with a response, he just tried to give Syl the best disappointed look he could. Part of him new Syl would go that far, actually maybe she would.

“Alicia, did you hear that?”

‘Yes…’

“I swear on the system to never summon you from my domain unless you are ready and willing… or your life would be in danger should I leave you in there.”

A blue window appeared.

System Oath detected,

You cannot remove Alicia from your domain unless she is ready and willing or her life is in danger should she remain. This oath can only be rescinded with the permission of Alicia.

“The chest,” he said as he dismissed the message and a strange feeling sank into him.

“You know I can just push her out… not that I actually would… but I could.” Syl grinned mischievously. “You know I can tell when you are feeling frisky… instant princess. Though if you ever figure out our connection goes both ways I would be screwed. Or at least I ho-”

“The chest Syl…” Kai said trying real hard to ignore her teasing.

Syl pouted, “It was Alicia who had the answer.”

‘You can not open a chest that is not assigned to you!’ Alicia said in a rush.

“So who is the chest assigned too, I’ve been running the dungeon solo.”

“Have you though? Think about it, the extra goblins, the extra chest. I think the dungeons been detecting someone else this whole time.” Syl said as if it was obvious.

With the prompt from her It dawned on Kai immediately.

“Paired individual. we are a pair. The dungeon has been detecting you, increasing the number of goblins.”

“How you are so clueless I will never know.” Sly said throwing up her arms.

Kai looked away and coughed as the t-shirt rose up a bit higher then Syl probably realise.

“Yes erm, if we are correct that chest is for me.” Syl said as she adjusted her t-shirt clearly embarrassed. “One problem I cant physically open it.”

“Syl, did I ever talk to you about System fuckery?”

“Yes you did.” Syl looked at the chest, “Worth a try I guess.”

Syl floated over to the chest and crouched down making a sure nothing unintended was exposed.

She made to open the lid, her hands phasing through the lid.

She looked at Kai he disappointment evident, “Maybe I can loot it and then open it in the do-“

Click!

Swinging on its hinges the lid popped wide open.

“System fuckery,” Kai said proudly, “what did you get?”

“A fragment, and this,” Syl pulled a ridiculously thick opaque book that trailed faint wisps of cyan smoke from the chest.

“I thought skill books were rare?” Kai mused.

“They are… This, this is exactly what I need…” Sly said in hushed tones of reverence as she ran her hand over the cover and read the title.

“Well are you going to make us wait.”

Syl levelled a look on him that said he was in danger, “You went to sleep, made both me and Alicia wait for hours.”

“I was joking, take all the time you need.”

Syl went back to he big smoky book, “It’s actually a skill tome, think skill book times ten… Metaphysical magic. Volumes one through three, Casting traditional spells for the metaphysical being, using substitutes and proxies, and finally remote spell control.”

The book was massive, “looks like a big headache to me.”

“It will let me fight alongside you, cast magic through you as a proxy. I knew it was technically possible but it would have taken me decades or more to learn how. This tome wont teach me any actual skills, but it will teach me everything I need to know to effectively cast the spells I do know.”

“I have to go learn some skills, wait for me.” Syl said as she and her new tome vanished.