Appearing in the air dungeon, Shaun couldn’t help but be shocked at what he found, it was unlike any of the other dungeons he had been in. He had appeared on an island, but not just any island, one that was floating in the air. It was barely big enough for him to stand on, let alone for five people to be able to comfortably move around on it. Walking over to the edge he peered down to see how far he was from the ground and what he saw made him quickly move back to the centre of the little island. There was no land beneath him, just empty space as far as he could see, if he fell off the side there would be no coming back from the fall.

He wasn’t scared of heights usually, but when you are stuck on a tiny floating island the nerves and fear are bound to set in. Falling from a great height to one’s death was not in his list of things to do. The wind wasn’t too bad where he was but if he had to guess the further he moved into the dungeon the worse it would become. He knew which way he needed to go, out in front of his island was more islands, each spread apart a little further the more one moved along the islands, they were like stepping stones.

He could see far enough along the path that it came to a larger island about 500m away where he could in fact see the boss flying around its roost. Along the way were 6 other birds that would circle around the islands that he would have to hop along to get to the boss.

*Wind Swept Pigeon – Level 19*

“No one likes pigeons, they are so dirty, all they do is scavenge for food.” He was talking to himself, but he really didn’t like pigeons, he would have to walk through parks in the city where he lived and they would always have groups of pigeons that would fly up into the air every time you got close, on more than one occasion one had nearly flown right into him.

He didn’t think they would cause much issue in a fight, but having to navigate jumping from one island to another while also dodging and attacking at the same time would be a challenge. He had the range attacks that would help him with this but the fear of falling to his death still played on his mind, it held him back from moving along and getting this dungeon over with.

Dropping down into a seated position he slipped into mediation and searched out with his mana sight to see if there would be enough air mana around him to bond his affinity now rather an further into the dungeon, Shaun knew it was a long shot, he had always done this when he was truly surrounded by the mana he needed and there just wasn’t enough wind around, like he knew there would be further in, to be able to bond the affinity at this point.

Coming back to a stand, he really had no choice now but to leap to the next island, then the next, to get to the boss and hopefully try again there. Gearing up for his first jump, he moved to the furthest edge of the little island he was on, wanting to get a decent run up before he jumped across. Once he was in position, he had to hype himself up for a minute before he committed, he ran and jumped towards the next island, when he was in the air he refused to look down, he made sure to only concentrate on where he wanted to land. As he got closer to his destination, he couldn’t stop his momentum and ended up landing towards the edge of the opposite side of the next platform, nearly flying off the edge.

He had forgotten about the massive boost in stats he had just applied, and without taking into consideration the upgrade to his race and nearly a 50% increase to his strength, he almost completely leapt over the island and went straight down into the abyss.

He still had 11 more islands to hop across before he was at the boss and still had the 6 pigeons to kill along the way. The first pigeon wasn’t to far away from him, circling around on the island where he would need to run to next, He now knew that with all of his increases that he could jump along with no issues, in fact he needed to reduce the power he ran and then leapt with so as not to fly off of the edge. Rather than delay the next jump, he prepared for his next leap and right before he went he threw a fireball at the pigeon, as he ran the pigeon moved to dodge, much quicker than it should have been, but it did cause the distraction he needed to safely get to the next island without having to worry about an attack.

As soon as he landed he turned his attention to the monster who was now flying straight towards him, he waited until it got closer and as it dived down at him he simply sent a fire strike at it, at low power as it was significantly lower level than he was. He expected to see it go up in flames, but out of nowhere a wind swept through, moving the pigeon quicker than the fireball could reach it and at the same time redirecting where his attack was going.

“What the hell you stupid bird!” Shaun yelled at it, unable to control the outburst. The pigeon was so many levels beneath it that the fight should have been over before it even started, but he hadn’t accounted for the wind boosting its ability to move and throwing off his attacks. He doubted that the monster could actually do any harm to him but killing it was going to be annoying to say the least.

He watched the pigeon for a moment, seeing what it would do, but it didn’t come straight back at him for an attack, instead it circled around in the sky, watching him, waiting for him to make his next move. He couldn’t figure out a way to get it to come closer to him, so he was going to go the brute force method and see if that worked.

He created three fireballs and took control of one of his arrowheads, he would start by throwing the fireballs and then once the pigeon had either dodged, or hopefully, died, he would assess the need to use the arrowhead, not wanting to potentially lose it in the process.

Waiting for an opportunity where he would aim his fireballs at the pigeon as well as where it was flying and slightly to the side, he counted down and then threw all three at once. He watched on, never taking his eyes off of the pigeon, as the fireballs got the wind picked up again in a gust that sent it sideways away from the fireball that was travelling right at it, and into the one he had aimed directly to the side. Getting hit head on by a fireball caused massive damage, and the pigeon flew around for a few seconds, its feathers were falling off of it, having been burned by the flames.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Although it had lost most of its feathers it was still alive, it was as if they acted as a protective coating that you had to get rid of before being able to do more damage. He didn’t hesitate and sent the arrowhead forward, keeping control of it the entire time so he could redirect it if it moved again, it wasn’t needed though, as it punctured into one side of its body and straight out the other. It took a minute but eventually the pigeon couldn’t stay in the air and plummeted down into the depths of nothingness below.

*You have defeated a (Wind Swept Pigeon – Lvl 19). Experience gained. 190 TE awarded*

Although he couldn’t deny being happy about the dead pigeon, he hadn’t been able to loot it and had caused more trouble than what it was worth. He still had 5 more of these things and then the boss, and if he had to guess the next areas weren’t going to change much, he was going to have to repeat this process over and over again until the end.

And he did, five more times he killed the pigeons in the exact same way, and the further he moved along the more annoyed he got. It was a waste of time, the only good thing about it was that he got to experience how annoying monsters that could fly were.

When he got to the boss, it was just a bigger version of the last pigeon except it was able to control the wind a little more and had a tendency to blast him with gusts of wind with his wings. He didn’t really change up his attack styles though, just added more fireballs and a few more arrowheads. He was tempted to use one of his daggers but having to replace them would be more annoying than what it was worth, while the arrowheads were more disposable.

When the area was clear of the pigeons he again sat down and decided to test the area for mana, it was a lot more windy here than it had been at the beginning so he was hopeful that he may be able to bond air now rather than wait. He had decided when he was in the nature dungeon that if any opportunity, either in the tutorial or after, presented itself to bond new elements he would take it, risk everything, to gain the power and rise to the very peak of what a human was capable of. He doubted that there were only five elements in the multiverse, in fact he guessed that they were the most common and easiest to bond into an affinity, so he wanted the practice for when he came across something truly dangerous.

Slipping back into mediation he again used his mana sight, although he could feel a lot more air mana around him, it was more spread out than he would have liked, and never stayed in one place. He had a decision to make now, he figured that further ahead would be more abundant with the mana he would need but would also be moving quicker, probably due to the wind also picking up.

Either way he figured that trapping the air mana was going to be painful, he would almost need to chase it down and capture it rather than only needing to move his own affinities out to grab a hold of it in his spheres like he did with nature. He decided that more mana was better than less, even if it would be moving around quicker, so he stood back up and moved towards the next islands he would need to hop along.

This time around he could make out 18 separate islands, before getting to the boss, and nine of the new monsters he would be needing to fight.

*Gale Eagle – Level 21*

He expected another bird, he had also expected the shift from something like wind swept to gale, the level of wind was going to be much higher form these monsters and that meant that the fight was going to be even more frustrating than the one with the pigeons.

He didn’t delay, just continued on like he had with the last birds, the space between the islands that he needed to leap across had grown but at the same time Shaun had grown more comfortable with making these jumps, his fear of falling lessening to a small degree. As he made the leap to the island where the first eagle would attack he threw off a fireball as a distraction and came to land, before he even had a chance to follow up with another attack though the eagle had flown up into the air then done a 180 and launched it self straight towards him at a speed that he could barely follow.

Is it actually going to come to me? This just got easier. Shaun planted his feet solidly on the ground, infusing earth and nature through his legs and into the island, creating an anchor that any monster would be hard pressed to knock him from. He then powered up his sword with an elemental strike, ready to send the attack flying when the eagle got close enough that it could dodge. The eagle didn’t slow down as it approached, it actually built up speed, it was like a cannonball, there was no way it could stop before hitting him, he started to second guess his plan of attack, but before he could come up with anything else, the eagle had closed the distance and the only thing left to do was send out his attack.

The attack hit the eagle just before the eagle hit him, the resulting explosion engulfed both of them, while the body of the eagle hit him straight on and slammed him into the ground, his feet were still anchored to the island through both earth and nature, because if he hadn’t taken that crucial step he would have been sent flying straight off of the edge of the island. The beak of the eagle had gone straight into his stomach but seemed like more of a flesh wound than anything.

Once the flames cleared, while he was still on the ground, he grabbed the eagle and pulled it out of his stomach, its body still had cinders glowing in its feathers, but it was dead. He pulsed his nature affinity through his body to heal the wound, not taking much mana or time.

*You have defeated a (Gale Eagle – Lvl 21). Experience gained. 210 TE awarded*

The only upside to this entire situation was that at least they came to him, also if they continued to do so, he would get a chance to loot them, which he did with the body still in his hands. He got the beak and feathers from it, which he would probably be able to do something with if he really put his mind to it, but nothing that would help in the immediate future.

He repeated the process 8 more times until he got to the boss, where he had to endure hurricane level winds that tried to throw him off of the island, the only thing keeping him on was being anchored to the island, and when that failed to displace him, the eagle came in for the kill, just like the others, this time glowing all over. He didn’t wait for it to get close before he sent out attack after attack, trying to slow it down before impact, but nothing had helped. Instead, he just bore the attack head on, this time infusing his body with stone skin, and the result ended the same as the others, except this time he needed to finish it off by driving his sword through its body where he didn’t need to with the others.

It had taken about the same amount of time as the pigeons, so he was progressing well, only now he would need to focus on his heritage and gaining the next elements over actually fighting. He couldn’t wait to see what he could do with air after he was successful, because I will be successful.