“Getting to 3-star in the short amount of time that you have been here is quite impressive,” Anna said. The two women woke up to the smell of food being cooked by Levi. Levi had told them that he had crossed the threshold and was now a 3-star summoner. He informed them of his class evolution as well.

“How long does it usually take?” Levi asked.

“A couple years maybe more,” Anna said. “Depends, you used star tokens which are very rare. How much did that help you?”

“Significantly,” Levi admitted.

“There you go,” Anna said. “That doesn't diminish the hard work and effort you put in to achieve the ranking. It’s just not as easy as it could have seemed. 3-star is where you should expect to see much slower progress. Typical this is the hardest jump to 4-star. It also becomes hard becomes any tokens that you can use become next to impossible to find.”

“Right because now, I can no longer use 2-star tokens to raise my level. I never even saw a 2-star token,” Levi said.

“Don’t expect to,” Piper said. “Work hard and get your attributes up by training. It was good you had the tokens so you could catch up to us,” she said with a smile. “Now that you have its time to do what the rest of us do.”

“Grind,” Levi and Piper said at the same time.

She smiled, “exactly. Your new class sounds amazing! We’re going to have so many badass friends on our team!”

“Right,” Levi said. “I can summon two more. There is one I absolutely want to summon now and one that I will wait, to see what happens when I get this summoned familiar to see what it is.”

“What’s that?” Anna and Piper asked.

Levi held out an orb that was swirling with light gray smoke inside. “This is a smoke ball; it’s used in summoning rituals. It’s supposed to get me some kind of smoke entity, I think.”

“Are you sure you’re not evil?” Anna asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Jury is still out,” Levi shrugged. “You,” he said looking at Piper. “Need to go rank up so we can leave the room and finish this dungeon. I am going to summon this familiar. What dust should I use?” he mused aloud.

“But I want to see,” Piper complained.

“You best be quick then while I choose what dust I am going to use,” Levi said staring into space. Levi was combing through his inventory. He had some crystal dust left that could be useful, some iron dust, and coal dust. Those were the only magical dusts that he had. He thought about potentially mixing dusts like a coal and iron dust circle might be interesting. He was operating blindly with what combination to do. Levi knew that no matter what his summoned familiar was it would not attack him, so he had little concerns about what the beast was. Levi decided that he would do snow and coal dust to create his summoning circle.

Usually, he could do rituals without the circle but for familiar summons it required more power and needed a full circle not just the runes. He pulled out his wand and began drawing the circle. The circle was more intricate as it was a 3-star summon. It was a circle on the outside. Inside the circle was a normal four-pointed star with a rune circle in the middle. Then there was a triangle on top of the star with the rune circles at the ends of two points. of the triangle. After Levi laid down the materials and placed the materials in the two outside rune circles, he placed the smoke ball in the middle. Then he took a step back.

Releasing the mana from his palm he touched the materials to light the circle up. The summoning circle shone bright ice blue, the smoke ball began to swirl faster until the outer shell burst open, and smoke poured out of the item. The smoke was not as thick as Levi thought it would be, it quickly changed into what seemed like vapor. Vapor filled the room until nothing could be seen besides two bright white eyes shined brighter than the light blue vapor.

The vapor cleared as a hooded cloak figure was standing next to Levi. It was slightly shorter than Levi but not by much. The creature wore a white hooded cloak that had what looked like blue vapor decorating the entirety of the cloak. Mysterious vapor shrouded the creature, it looked up. Levi could not see into the dense vapor swirl inside the hood. All he could see were two eyes staring back at him. The creature reached out a hooded arm, no hands emerged from the hood. Levi thought that it looked like a spawn of the grim reaper. It was creepy, the white cloak made it worse, in Levi’s opinion.

“Well, aren’t you from horror movies,” Levi said.

“I am Vapor,” Vapor responded.

“Pleasure,” Levi said. “I’m Levi, what are you?”

“I am spirit of smoke,”

“So, a ghost?” Levi asked.

“No,” Vapor responded. “A ghost is an entity of the dead. I am an entity of the smoke. To put it plainly I was born when smoke and magic interacted.”

“That makes sense,” Levi said. “Your appearance does not help my ‘I’m not Evil’ campaign, but you look dope. Let’s have you meet the gang.” Levi introduced the party to the smoke entity. While everyone was becoming acquainted Levi read her description.

Familiar Bond has been established

Smoke Spirit- Vapor

Familiar Vapor provides a boost to spiritual self. Vapor has given the summoner the ability to perceive souls. When fused with summoner Vapor invigorates an increase in mana and health recovery.

“Soul perception,” Levi muttered.

“What was that?” Piper asked.

“It said that I can now perceive souls,” Levi said. “Souls are real?”

“Yes,” Anna said. “Are they not on your world?”

“Levi,” Vapor said. “Inhabited a world in which magic was desolate. Souls were perceived differently on that world. Such as will power, or passion.”

“That’s exactly right,” Levi said. “How’d you know that?”

“We are connected, deeply,” Vapor replied. “I understand souls due to my nature as a spirit better than you. You had the information; I was able to decode it.”

“Fancy,” Piper said. “Do you provide Levi with smoke attacks?”

“No,” Vapor said. “I am a utility specialist.”

“Interesting,” Levi said. “We have a lot to learn about each other. Where do you fuse to? Willow is my eyes, Anza my bones, I guess… and you?”

“Your soul,” Vapor said.

“Spooky,” Levi said.

Piper decided that it was time that she would rank up. After reading all of her prompts she watched as the stars shot out of her and re-entered. Piper read another text box and dropped to the floor. Piper hadn’t told her friends but one of the reasons that she had been delaying her rank up was because she didn’t want to get to the class evolution. Terrified of the prospect of being an assassin, it was enough to arrest her curiosity. Piper had originally planned to wait until after the dungeon before evolving her class. She had been quite pleased to find the first two rooms had nothing to do with combat, disappointed that the last room was only combat.

She had stalled even more by taking a nap instead of drinking a mana potion, once again fortune was on her side as the rest of the group followed suit. Even more lucky is that Levi had woken up before her and gone through his class evolution, this gave her more time to stall. After thoroughly walking through the summoning and meeting the newest member of Team Levi Piper had no more time. They had to get a move on in this dungeon and she was the final piece.

Reluctantly Piper went through all her textboxes. Surprisingly she had grown her wisdom significantly, it was a nice gain from before. This gave her hope that she would be able to be better with magic in the future. After the display of stars, she saw that her class had evolved there it was, the thing she had been dreading. Piper was no longer a rogue. Piper saw what she was and dropped to the floor.

“Piper,” Levi said walking over to her.

“I’m alright,” she said. “Have a look at this.” She tossed him a text box, and he read.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Class Evolution

Rogue has evolved into Arcane Trickster

Arcane Trickster

Legendary

The skills and training of a master assassin were not enough for you. You have dabbled deeply in the art of spell casting, giving you the added ability to use both stealth and spells to get the job done. Arcane Trickster has unlocked the ability Arcane Ritualist. Arcane Trickster has increased Wisdom significantly, bonus does not affect total attribute score, Mana pool has been increased significantly. Affinity for dark magic has been formed.

Ability: Arcane Ritualist

You have gained the ability to perform ritual magic. Arcane Ritualist allows the user to use spell books and cast spells.

Spells:

Orb of Darkness

Shadow Hands

Shadow Tentacles

Shadow Blade

“Damn,” Levi said.

“Holy shit Piper!” Anna exclaimed.

“Congrats girly pop,” Levi said. “You’re not an assassin, you’re better than one.”

“PIPER!” Anna screamed. “That’s badass, all three of us are different classes and can use magic!”

“We can,” Piper said. “I honestly don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t have to say anything,” Levi said. “Come on, we have a dungeon to clear.” Levi led the trio out of the room, leaving the two childhood friends to radiate excitement together in the back. Walking out of the door, Levi felt the sense of teleportation magic. He prepared himself as they stepped through. On the other side, the trio was standing on a piece of glacier that looked it was shrinking. They were surrounded by water in every direction. Levi pushed out his aura and sensed the presence of a very strong monster.

“We can’t go swimming,” Levi said. “There’s something a star rank or two higher than us down there.”

“A star rank or two?!” Anna said. “We would be dead in an instant. What do we do? None of us can fly.”

“Hello?” Piper said, looking at Anna. “You’re a Blizzard sorceress, with an affinity to water and ice magic.”

“Yeah, girl if you don’t push us to our destination!” Levi added.

“Glad to,” Anna said. “Which way is our destination genius?”

Levi looked at her and pointed up. The girls followed his gaze and saw a door directly above them. “It’s too far for Anza or the drones but if you get us closer, we could use her then.” Levi explained.

“Alright,” Anna said, pulling out her wand. She chanted a quick spell, and water started to rise from under then. In a second, they were shot from the water on the top of a geyser, they had been going for a couple of minutes, which showed the pure height of the roof they were in. Their ascent slowed down, and they reached a point where Anza Lashed out a tentacle and it stuck to the frame of the door. The party grabbed on, and she pulled all three to safety through the door.

As they entered the next room, the shift in perspective was unnerving. It was like they had walked out of bed without getting up.

Ice Stone Caverns: Progress Made

Room Three- Completed

Reward: Added to final treasure

The room they entered was a large ballroom. There was nobody else in the room but them. Instruments, decorations, and snacks were around. Levi looked around carefully, observing anything that he could see.

“Is this a puzzle dungeon?” Vapor asked.

“It is,” Levi responded.

“Curious,” Vapor responded. “What do you think is the puzzle?”

“Seems pretty straight forward,” Levi said. The girls turned to look at him. “I think we’ll have a song or two to figure out the dance, dance the dance on the floor and the door will open.”

“What happens if we don’t?” Piper asked.

“Then, something comes out those vents and I bet it won’t be good.”

“Can you dance?” Anna asked Levi.

“I can,” Levi said. “Can either of y’all?”

“I cannot,” Piper said.

“I can, but not every dance,” Anna responded.

“Who can follow better?” Levi asked.

“Definitely, Piper,” Anna said.

“Not true,” Piper retorted. “She is saying that because she wants us to dance. Anna, you know I can only sway at best, if we want to beat this dungeon go.”

Levi and Anna entered the center of the dance floor. The instruments came to life with magic and began playing a song. Levi and Anna started to do a partner dance. He grabbed her hand and put her hand around her waist. Anna wanted to fight it at first, but she kept her cool for the sake of the mission. The two found the rhythm and started to dance perfectly in sync. Piper looked on in slight jealousy, not because of thinking Anna would steal Levi but because they looked good together.

She never was taught how to dance and now she wishes she had. That could have been her out there dancing with Levi. Shaking her head from those thoughts she watched on as the two of them were lighting up the circle on the dance floor. Literally, lighting up the dance floor, every completed move had runes appear that were glowing green. After the song ended all the green runes started to glow, swirl and form into a big rune that appeared over one door.

“Switch,” Levi said. Anna sprinted over and pushed Piper onto the dance floor.

“What the?”

While Levi and Anna were dancing, they were having a conversation.

“She’s not going to be happy; you know?” Anna said.

“Not our concern right now,” Levi said.

“Her feelings are not a concern?” Anna shot back. “Watch your hand.”

“No, her concern should be not dying,” Levi responded. “I’ll take her being upset and alive then happy and dead.”

“You’ve figured it out?” Anna said, realization dawning on her face.

“I have. See that door?” Levi twirled her to a large door with two massive circles above it. “Now look at the runes on the ground, you feel that magic, right?”

“I do.”

“We are in a ritual circle and the rhythm and moves we complete create runes, enough of the completed runes will likely form into one big one and open the door. There are two meaning we will likely need two colors. The dungeon itself wanted three people minimum and everything we have done so far had required all three of us to participate. This room would be no different. She’s gonna have to dance. If we don’t, we will be locked in here and die from suspicious gas or a vicious attack. Either way I don’t want to find out.”

“Okay, then, I trust you.”

“Just do me a favor,” Levi said with a smirk.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t fall in love with me; my moves can be intoxicating.”

“I can promise you one thing: That is not going to happen,” she said, rolling her eyes. But was it? She couldn’t deny that she felt something for Levi. Anna hadn’t had many guy friends in her life, she had only her dad and suitors. She never needed to distinguish friendships and relationships. This was new territory. She studied the face of Levi. He had gotten remarkably comfortable with the two of them. His eyes used sharp and distant, they were now full and sad. There was a lingering sadness that always seemed to be plaguing him. She wondered if he had forgiven himself for anything wrong that happened before he came here.

She wondered if the sadness was a mask for guilt or shame. Anna had no idea, and she wouldn’t push. She wanted to understand these feelings and how to control them, if they needed to be controlled.

“You’re not used to having guy friends, are you?” Levi said, interrupting her thoughts.

“No,” Anna admitted. “I am not. This is all quite weird.”

“I imagine so,” Levi said.

“Are you?”

“Am I used to having friends that are girls?” Levi questioned.

“Yes,”

“Yes. But my first one, who was gorgeous, like you, I had to sort my feelings out, much like you are. I’m not gorgeous by any means, but I’d bet heavy that this is your first time experiencing any feelings not romantic or familial.”

“So, what do I do?” Anna asked.

“Keep exploring; you’ll find the reasons why it is more familial than romantic and that’s good,” Levi said.

“What if it's not?” Anna whispered.

“Then I am the luckiest dude around,” Levi chuckled.

“I think I found the reason,” Anna shook her head.

“That’s foul,” Levi said. Their dance ended and Anna raced off to swap places with Piper.

“Switch,” Levi said. Piper came nervously up to Levi. She nervously waved and fixed her hair, her nervous tick.

“I, uh,” she began. Levi reached out his hand and grabbed her gently. He slowly took a step forward and pulled her in at the same time. They were face to face. He gently put his arm around her waist and placed it on her lower back.

“Just follow my lead,” Levi said. The music that was playing was much slower. The two of them sway softly taking slow purposeful steps to complete moves. “So how does it feel to be 3-star?”

“Where did you learn how to dance?” Piper blurted out. She awkwardly giggled and looked away.

“My sisters,” Levi said. “I had to older ones, and they were not going to let their little brother be a scrub and not know how to woo a woman with dance moves.”

“They seem very supportive,” Piper said.

“Yeah,” he said, frowning. “They were.”

“Oh no, did they?” Piper asked.

“Nah, they just couldn’t bear to see me throw my life away.” Levi said.

“Do you think they’d forgive you?” Piper asked.

“No clue,” Levi responded. “I may never know. Honestly, the sooner I can accept that the easier it will be. I can’t live in what ifs, it’s dangerous and will distract me from…” he paused to look at his dance partner. Piper was already cute, but whatever imperfections she had were corrected with her most recent rank-up. Her gray eyes were looking back into Levi’s eyes expectantly. “This,” he said, taking a deep breath.

“Levi,” Piper said softly. “If you and Anna-”

“Not going to happen. I like you,” Levi said. The two of them were lost in the moment and hadn’t realized the music had stopped playing. Leaning in for a kiss, a rush of air pushed through as the large door opened to the final room. Once again, their kiss was halted, and they had to proceed with whatever events were happening.

“One more room,” Levi said to the trio.

“Shall we see what the boss is?” Anna asked. Levi and Piper nodded and made their way into the final room.