Time was running out. The moon was heavy over the dungeon. Those of the light element could feel their element shrink down to its weakest. Darkness was at its peak and all dark powers rose to their peak.

Soon, Pa would come, and he would leave this place. His growth would return to what it was before, slow stagnant. Markus leaned on his tip toes focusing.

Shadows rustled, as a coffin covered in chains of light appeared. Markus moved faster than ever before. The chain’s light began to wink out and they were cracking. Skeletal hands began to peak grip the lid and tentacles of dark began to flow out.

Markus’ fist impacted the coffin sending it against a pillar, tentacles locked on to him and lashed out. The lid shot off revealing the monster inside. Taking his light psychic hammer in hand he smashed the flying lid away.

It was worse than he thought. Markus yelled and flew into a powerful blow to the creature’s head. Multiple skeletal arms caught the weapon the chains cracked winking out, and the psychic energy was quickly absorbed. Markus thrust his hand forward covered the creature in chains and flung it against an adjacent marble pillar. He used telekinesis to wrap the creature in layer after layer of chain. It glared at him with its red eyes just like Marie.

This was leech, not a vampire, they are two branches of an evolutionary tree. It was a collection of leeches bound to a hive mind manipulating dozens of skeletons. The monster stood on sharpened femurs and looked through the eyes of many skulls. Rotting flesh fell off the skulls but the eyes were fresh. The creature expanded, and the chains winked out of existence.

Markus knew this creature’s attack pattern. His Pa loved telling the story of that time he fought one with Ma. The only part of it that didn’t absorb psychic was the bones. A sweep came, and Markus let himself fall face first on the ground. He felt wind from the creature’s attack pass over him. Not bothering to look up, he pushed himself rolling to the left as a powerful set of femur spikes slammed down where he was. Back to his feet he leapt over a set of tentacles, then closed his eyes just as the creature’s dark eyes opened. Pa had run him through drills like these to prepare for certain creature’s. Markus had to slow himself down. If he moved too quickly the creature would adjust its attack. But it couldn’t adjust when committed due to the hive mind.

His greatest chance to beat it would have been when it had been condensed in the coffin. At that point its weakness was right there. It was a small red blob the creature’s joint intelligence. An organ that resembled a brain.

This time Markus upped his speed and gained some distance. He would have to go for broke or lose. He clapped his hands forcing a ton of psychic energy into a single point and wrapped it with light. This was such a simple spell, and yet it held so much power. Light radiated from the the solid sphere his spell formed when he pulled his hands apart it became a long structure that resembled a spear. The creature saw his spell and fled back to the coffin. Markus had reasoned correctly that it was still afraid of the light on some level.

He held his hand up and the light spear hovered there shining its brilliance. It was already at its limit. The light was losing its connection to the telekinetic energy and soon the spear would dissipate. He threw the weapon with all his might at the coffin. The second it hit Markus ran forward. Leeches exploded when the telekinetic force split open the coffin letting the decaying light in.

Markus shot his hand into the pit of leeches and pulled out a red ball of mucus covered membrane. He crushed it and the leeches dispersed throughout the room. As the first coffin dissipated the last two coffins appeared. The leeches from the first monster flowed towards the coffins pulling the bones with them.

In place of the dissipating coffin was a vial filled with water. Snakingly he picked it up. “Chalice is this water of life?” Markus asked.

“Drink it and it will increase your vitality by 10 times but you can only drink once.” Markus poured it down his throat and felt his body become significantly tougher.

“So that makes me eighteen times tougher now right?” Markus asked.

“No, you should be sixteen times tougher by my count. You ate the apples and drank the water so that makes sixteen times what you had naturally. Though as you grow older you will become 16times sturdier than you normally would have. Once your puberty ends you can go through rituals to increase your base vitality further.” Chalice said. Markus took a sip and felt refreshed.

While he had been chatting the 3 leech, have been communicating with each other. Markus started to increase the amount of psychic energy in his body. Small sparks of electricity bounced off his body from the shear energy pouring from him as he leveled off his power.

His body was only supported by his psychic power. He didn’t have the physical strength to move himself anymore. When he touched the floor, he could feel it, but his muscles weren’t really in control. This was a problem.

Markus let his feet leave the floor and floated to the other side of the room. Leeches poured together and gathered up the two coffins.

Bones of all kinds gathered together as the leeches shrank down into a single powerful body. Markus shot a line of chains at the creature, but they turned to dust before touching it. This was a creature of the dark stronger than any he had ever faced. He kept seeing flashes of telekinesis leveling up faster and faster as the room was filled with a miasma of darkness. Teams of paladins were known to fall to merged leeches.

Fortunately, he had no reason to fight this enemy straight up. Pa would be disappointed if he let his lust for battle overshadow common sense. Open palmed he sent a wave of freeze via telekinesis. Leeches froze and exploded in bloody gore. Bones were a poor insulator.

The creature moved erratically grabbing at him and moving at incredible speeds. A coffin was flung at him like a battering ram. Markus had to cross his arms and take the attack. An iron coffin weighed around 400kilos due to the way the coffins are made. Thrown by an eldritch abomination the force of impact was several tons. Markus smashed into the wall like a tennis ball. The second he was hit he began slowing down his momentum hit the wall and hovered back to the ground.

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Miasma was getting thicker the longer the creature was alive. He needed to end this quickly. The psychic energy in his body was beginning to deplete. One big attack would take too long so he needed destroy this creature a little at a time.

Telekinetic lances and slashes covered in freeze lashed out around him. All he had to do was apply the force and the freeze traveled on. He had long since realized that psychic is just a transporter when fighting the dark. His body, freeze, and light were the meat, vegetables, and chimera grease. Leeches froze and shattered as Markus began to move forward.

None of his senses really worked when fighting the in the miasma. He could see only flashes of bones before the stabbed at him from the purple clouds. But this was the end his victory wasn’t in doubt. With every leech dead the collective weakened. Eventually they had to hide within their coffins.

He slapped his hands against the lid as one clattered to the ground. He opened the coffin to see the leeches swirling around the large red ball inside of the coffin.

It was moments like this one, when he knew Pa was right. It was better to have more tools at your disposal than one shiny one. He levitated the red membrane and shattered it. His telekinesis skill went up to 99.

Shadows swirled, and the final creature appeared. It was massive and covered in spikes. This foe wasn’t technically stronger than the leeches or Kaliatama. Nope not technically. The leeches can merge in their thousands becoming threats to Haven. This creature wasn’t even close to a threat to haven. But it could easily dispatch the leeches in their tens. He still had time before it was fully formed.

Out of one of the piles of dissipating coffins was a small black ring. Markus picked it up and put it on. The ring added 30points to vitality and endurance. Nothing compared to epic or legendary equipment, but it would do. He slipped it on and felt his power increase by 30% on top of his already high vitality. His vitality increased to 20x, so he added more psychic energy to his body. His already high power went up more. He needed to keep it all in for this one.

The creature was covered in darkness. It was called a Nightlord locally. Its skin was grey, and it had normal human hands, arms, legs, and a face. The creature’s eyes were yellow, and it moved casually. It did with dark what Markus did with psychic. This creature was considered equal to a noble born in battle potential. The nightlord was around his age, so it had at least 12 years to learn how to use its natural born powers under Marie a vampire.

Lances and tentacles waged war. Flashes of level up appeared as he fought this war of attrition. Markus knew they wouldn’t settle this from afar. With this guy here, he couldn’t even touch the light in himself. No, this would be a physical battle of blood and bones like the stories, as it should be.

At some unseen sign they charged at each other. The nightlord had a refined style of fighting. Markus knew it after they first exchange, his right arm went numb. Their attacks were still flying, and Markus began his defensive retreat.

Every few attacks the nightlord changed patterns. But he always leaned back on his back leg before he changed. A trap or maybe a habit.

He felt what was wrong with his right arm. The attack had driven dark mana into his arm and disrupted his control. Using what little light, he had left, he drove out the darkness. When he moved his right arm again the nightlord gave him a frustrated look.

“Well what have you learned boy?” Pa’s voice rang out forcing Markus to think. He dodged more debilitating strikes meant to take out his limbs and let his mind handle the issue. Patiently, he watched his opponent move, he was fast, faster than Markus. But his blows were soft, when he couldn’t gather enough velocity. There it was, he realized. It was stupid really.

His enemy was light as a feather and when he could gather enough speed hit like a freight train. But Markus was sturdier. He needed less speed to deliver more force.

The nightlord was doing it again. He flew around the room to gather speed for a powerful blow. Markus flew at his side using his body like a wrecking ball. He smashed the nightlord into the wall and threw him down and drove his body down with all the force he could muster. The nightlord rolled out of the way, as Markus drove his feet into the marble floor.

Cracked marble flew everywhere as he yanked himself out. The floor began to repair itself as Markus continued to move himself like nothing else mattered. The nightlord looked on in terror as Markus ripped through pillar after pillar.

He managed to clip the nightlord. “Please no more I surrender.” The nightlord said and spat up blood. This time was different Markus was out for blood. Power was rolling off of him and the ground crumbled under his feet. The Nightlord scrambled away trying to get as much distance as he could.

“Enough Markus you won.” Markus turned his head to Marie. She waved her hand and the nightlord vanished. “Here take this as a sign of victory.” Marie said. She held a small crimson peach in her hand.

“What does it do?” Markus asked.

“It increases base vitality to 50x natural no more no less. It is the ultimate prize of the dark type side of my dungeon. Darkness after all is eternal even after the light winks out the dark shall remain.” She handed it over to Markus and he took a bite. The rich juices tasted sweeter than anything he had ever tasted. The peel was perfect and the meat supple. The peach was gone in seconds. Its energy began to echo throughout his body immediately. His body quickly hardened becoming something denser. Even his organs became unbearably heavy. If he was to estimate his weight it would be around 2.25 tons. He couldn’t move and inch without telekinesis now.

She gave him an odd expression. Like something was off. “Something is bother you Marie.” It was a statement that caused her to look even stranger.

“You can’t move without telekinesis, now right?” He nodded. “Doesn’t that bother you?” She asked.

“It’s strange moving without relying on my muscles. My body is so strong now that I could break someone, if I hugged them too quickly. I must minimize velocity or risk my momentum destroying them. I can’t even play with Trixie’s tentacles now without ripping her head off by accident. So, now I guess I’m going to need to search for the dexterity, and strength equivalents to boost those stats.” Markus said. She gave him a pitying look.

“Challenging an actual dungeon and what this is could be considered night and day. I would suggest collecting endurance from the light monsters here first then challenging strength in another year. Student in the academy can take sabbaticals to challenge dungeons. I’m sure you could ask some of your classmates for help. Dexterity is another animal entirely strength may be the only way to fight that monster.” They were both silent for a few minutes. “How many points do you have?” He looked at his menu.

“Since I didn’t kill that last guy, I have 370.” Markus went to his points menu and bought monster tamer then froze. He had just bought another ability. Time passed as he waited for something to happen.

“It seems you have enough vitality to withstand the transformation.” Marie said.

“Yea,” Markus said. He felt like his mind exploded outward. There were small cables shooting out of his head looking for matches. There were light, dark, light blue, and violet colored cables moving about. One even seemed to be flirting up to Marie. Her face was crimson. “I’m sorry.” He said.

“Don’t be its normal for boys your age to have little control over themselves especially around powerful monsters like me.” Marie said with a slight smile.

“You said, you would teach me how to use darkness.” She grew serious and Markus rubbed his hands together in preparation for the lesson.