Chapter 3

The next morning. Alec had gotten up early and started his day with some morning exercise accompanied with some motivating music playing in his head. He practised his forms and did some strength and endurance trainings, which Quarc had taught him and were focused on training the muscles needed for wielding a sword. 30 minutes in Will joined him in his exercises, but soon he had to stop. His muscles and joints weren't used to this form of training. There were many muscle groups that were needed in fighting that weren't used much in normal everyday life.

After 2 hours of training and of course short breaks, Alec joined the others and ate breakfast. “What are your plans for today Alec?” Marie asked, “We for our part will do some shopping and resupply for our next expedition.” “I will go to the Guild's information broker and then enter the dungeon.” Alec said. “But that's dangerous! You shouldn't go alone, you could die!” Sarah frantically exclaimed. “Did someone die in the dungeon since the start of all this?” Alec asked and left the table. He went to his room and got everything he might need. When he returned to the kitchen Sarah still sat there deep in thought. “You are right. No one has died yet. Why? That is completely illogical and opposes everything I ever heard about dungeons.” Sarah said. “It's not me you should ask this.” Alec said and left the house. It simply wasn't his place to share this knowledge, when there was a whole organization eager to do so if they were asked.

After a short walk through the still mostly empts streets of Cerfort Alec arrived at the adventurer guilds building and entered it. The building was way busier at this time of the day, than at the rather late time of his last two visits. He had to wait for ten minutes until he could use the information brokers counter.

“Do you have information about the whereabouts of Mark and Lucy Mercer?” He asked the bored middle-aged woman on the other side of the counter. “Separated by the transfer, huh? I fear we usually don't have any info available, but let me check.” She said and walked towards a massive forest of filling cabinets.

After ten minutes she came back. “I am sorry we haven't heard of them yet. But that doesn't mean much. We only have info from here and the surrounding cities around us. There is a central archive in the capital, that holds the combined information of all the guilds. Please don't ask how that works. Even with your knowledge about dungeons you aren't permitted to know this. It concerns a secret that only us managers are allowed to know.” She said.

Dispirited Alec left the counters and the waiting area. He walked towards the dungeon entrance and with every step towards it he shed the depressive thoughts from his mind. “Nothing is lost yet! And to move forward and search for them I need money! And the fastest way to earn it, is through the dungeon.” He had hyped himself up silently.

He didn't have to wait at all to enter the basement of the guild building, not many dared to enter it, too many had painful memories of this place and even more feared for their live too much.

For five minutes he walked through a corridor, whose walls continuously grew coarser and more slanted. When he exited he found himself in a cave, which was illuminated by blue luminescent mushrooms. As he observed his surroundings he spotted a group of three reddish lanky creatures. They seemed to be nothing more than skin, bones, teeth and glistering eyes full of madness.

As soon as they saw Alec, they ran towards him and began to emit screeching sounds of... excitement? Alec readied his weapon. When they were three meters away they began to madly swing their claws around, which protruded from their too long fingers.

Alec didn't give them the chances to circle or swarm him, instead he immediately moved to the left flank of the group and brought the other two behind his first victim. The first of the imps fell to his sword despite frantically trying to block with its thin arms. Cleanly cut its arms and head arched through the air. Alec didn't pause to appreciate his swordsmanship and instead stabbed towards the throat of the next imp.

Gurgling it fell to the ground, frantically pressing its hands down on the wound. Even before its eyes had begun to dim Alec had already gutted the last of them with a diagonal downward slash.

“I will definitely need new clothes after this.” Alec thought while wiping the blood of his face. When he left the first room he found a small niche in the exit area. Like he had heard from other adventurers in the bar his loot was there. It consisted of a small pile of copper coins. Seven in total. Enough to buy a meal. Alec doubted that this was a coincident. He pocketed the money and moved on.

The next cave was slightly bigger and also housed a few tall ferns. There were also five imps separated in two small groups. Like he had learned in his survival training Alec begun to sneak. He used the brush and the patches of darkness it created in this dimly lit cave to his advantage and sneaked up on a group of two. When he was in range he leapt forward and beheaded the first and used his remaining momentum to cleave the other one into its ribcage. The thin bones of the creatures easily gave way and both were killed in an instant. Immediately Alec freed his blade with a sharp pull and charged towards the other group.

After he had killed them he left the room and found another pile of money. Coins with a total worth of twenty-one copper were pocketed by him. The following rooms were similar in nature, but the loot he got grew more versatile. He had collected around 200 Copper, or 2 Silver worth of coins and also found a few bundles of herbs, as well as some small iron ingots.

Alec also had noticed that one couldn't explore every branch of the dungeon. As soon as one turned around and started to go back the way one entered a room one would enter the tunnel that led to the basement. On one hand this was a huge relief for Alec, as he didn't need to worry about the way back, on the other hand it bugged him that he had missed out on the loot of the other rooms.

After three hours he reached a room that was marginally different from the other rooms. Its floor and walls were smooth and the lighting was a red crystal in the ceiling. But what stood even more out was the creature in the room. It looked like a bodybuilder among the imps. Its muscles were big even for human standards and it was armed with a sword. A fine sword at that.

Immediately Alec's greed had been awoken. His own sword was rundown, as it had never been intended for real combat and had seen quite a bit of it. And this sword looked like a refined image of his own one. He wanted, no, he needed it.

Alec immediately engaged the creature. As they exchanged a few blows, Alec noticed that the imp at least knew the proper movements and was on the border of mastering them to a degree that he didn't have to concentrate on them.

He immediately changed his tactic and began to read its movements until he could clearly play its music in his mind. From then on he needed three blows to kill it. The first was a thrust that hit its leg, that let it kneel down, the second a chop against its left wrist and finally he had beheaded it.

Afterwards Alec dropped his guard and wiped of the blood from his face and blade. Then he collected the imps sword. It was a perfect fit, as expected. Finally he checked for loot and to his surprise he found a whole silver and a small badge. He pocketed both. When he entered the tunnel that led out of the room he was surprised to find himself in the tunnel that led to the entrance to the dungeon.

When he turned around he saw the same scene as before, the tunnel was perfectly mirrored with him as the centre. “Seems like all I can do for now is leave. I guess I should pay the guild master a visit.” Alec thought and continued to walk.

As he exited the basement he was greeted by the Guild master. “I knew you had the potential to beat the first floor, but I never expected that you would beat it so fast or on your first try.” He said. “It wasn't a walk in the park, but it never got seriously dangerous. So could you tell me how I get to the second floor?” Alec asked. “You can't right now actually. Because whenever someone beats a floor boss he can't enter the dungeon for the following two days, also you shouldn't leave the city in that time. The counter would reset if you did. As for entering the second floor. The tunnel will have a fork whenever you enter it, the fork with red lights leads to the next floor.” The man explained, “You should rest for now.”. “Fine. It wouldn't have been wise to continue anyway. Have a nice day!” Alec said and left. Concerning the dungen he had come to the conclusion that it wasn't innately hostile and really more or less a testing ground, but it was definitely disgusting.... He needed a bath and new clothes...

Two hours and one silver later Alec met up with his friends in the tavern. “Hey Alec how did it go?” Sarah greeted him. “Quite well. Did you ask the right people?” Alec answered as he saw her calm expression. “Yeah. Of all the things I had expected, their answers were none of them. Did you know that most of the food here comes from it?” She asked. Alec shook his head and noticed the confused expressions of the others. He burst into laughter.

When he had calmed down he began to retell what happened during his dungeon run. “Wow, that looks great!” Will said as he inspected Alec's new sword. “I wish I too could challenge the dungeon like this. I mean we could try, but I ain't confident in our abilities and what would happen if we fail?” “Not much.” Sarah said in a silent voice.

“You could dive together with me, but let me warn you it won't be a free ride! The dungeon will probably spawn more monsters when more people enter together.” Alec said. “Yeah, probably. I once heard Rosh talk about how ridiculous it is that there were 36 monsters in the first room when he had entered with his twelve man group.” Peter said. “Hmm, if its like that we would need someone with AOE abilities. Say Sarah what exactly can you do and how does it work anyway?” Alec asked. “I can manipulate up to twenty cubic meters of earth a day right now. But the movement isn't very fast and I cant levitate it either. So all I can do is create some walls and pillars. And it only works because I have earth affinity as my innate ability.” She explained and fell into deep thought afterwards.

“What are you thinking about?” Alec asked. “Well, you know that everyone absorbs and emits mana unconsciously, right? So I wondered what those without any affinity could do with it. The basic techniques to amass mana aren't bound to an affinity or ability. Everyone can learn it.” She explained.

“Maybe you should check out the mage school building. Sarah, your mentor surely knows more about this matter. All he does all day is studying magic anyway, so he surely will be eager to answer some questions.” Will interjected.

“Yeah, let's do just that then, but it's rather late right now. How about we go there first thing in the morning?” Sarah said and everyone voiced their agreement.

The next morning Alec went through his routine while the others still slept and then as usual joined the others at breakfast. After they had finished and cleaned the dishes, they went towards a rather abandoned part of the city. Many houses in the area looked damaged or even slightly burned, there were even some ruins.

“It's rather spooky, isn't it? All those buildings are testament to the deaths that occurred when those that didn't learn to control their new abilities succumbed to them. I was rather lucky in that aspect, my abilities aren't controlled through emotions, but through concentration.” Sarah explained.

An explosion could be heard just moments after she had spoken. “Oh seems like master is up already. Sounds like he tried to make coffee again.” Sarah exclaimed merrily and sniffed the air. “Yep that smells like a coffee explosion.”

“What exactly is your masters affinity?” Alec asked. “It's not as much an affinity as the ability to control small amounts of matter. Sadly his ability is highly unstable and tends to blow up. He once tried to explain why that was, but he lost me as soon as he said something about getting rid of the antimatter.” She explained.

When they reached the building they saw smoke rising from one of its windows. “Good morning, Sarah! What brings you here so early in the morning? I hope you didn't encounter any problems with your magic.” An old lady at the reception said. “Don't worry. I only have a couple of questions for Master Ferrow.” Sarah answered. “Thank goodness. I was worried there for a second. We just had a couple breakdowns yesterday, you know. Poor unstable fellas.” She said.

Sarah led the others through the maze like corridors of the big building and after ten minutes they reached their destination. She firmly knocked on the door, which was almost immediately opened by a bespectacled mid-thirty man with messy black hair. His outfit was completed by a white robe that resembled a lab coat.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Hello Sarah. I already saw you coming here a moment ago, when I needed to open the window. What brings you here? I hope nothing bad.” He said with a scratchy voice, that told tales about long silence and too much inhaled smoke.

“Everything is fine with my magic, but I have some questions that might interest you.” Sarah said. “Then by all means come in, although I fear the smell and smoke haven't cleared completely yet.” He said and led the group inside and past some tables, full of utensils and reagents, towards a carpeted area full of pillows and small tables. “Take a seat.” he invited them and sat down on a pillow next to a chalkboard.

After they sat down Sarah asked, “Do you know some forms of magic that can be used without an ability or affinity?” “No, I don't know anything of this sort. As you know when we use magic we always need a focus. And as far as I know only abilities can provide us with one. They let us feel the elements that we have infused with our converted mana like they were our own bodies. You can't flick a finger you don't have.” He explained.

“So let me get this straight, you emit the mana you have converted to the surroundings? What would happen when you keep it inside your body?” Alec interjected. “First of all it hurts like hell. It feels like all your cells are tearing and regenerating at the same time, sadly I wasn't able to isolate the healing factor. Secondly this technique isn't suited for mages. The total amount of our mana is limited. While the exchange rate with our surroundings would remain the same, we would lack the mana to infuse our surroundings. It could be useful to avoid detection through other mages thought.

“ He said.

“Would you teach me how to meditate and store up and control more mana?” Alec finally asked. “Sure. Just join the children that will arrive in ten minutes for their lessons. It surely is a blessing in disguise that the abilities only awaken after a certain biological development. It would have been sheer horror to teach a newborn how to stop setting everything ablaze.” Ferrow said jokingly.

“Might I ask what ability you have?” Ferrow asked Alec. “I won't train in it, but since you asked it let's me record and play music in my mind. Not very useful, but perfect for me.” He said and begun to hum the tune that played in his mind. “Really? I was sure it had something to do with swordsmanship.” Will exclaimed. “Apropos, its really uncomfortable to sit like that with a sword on my waist. Do you mind if I unsheathe it?” Alec said. “Sure. But please keep it close to you. I don't want the children to hurt themselves with it.” Ferrow answered.

As his friends still had other things to do they left Alec behind, who now sat cross-legged on a pillow and his sword rested on his lap. Shortly after his friends had left children stormed the room and sat down on the pillows around Alec. With curious eyes they beheld the stranger with his sword .

“Can I touch and swing it?” One of the bolder boys asked. “Not now, nor in here. After we finish the lesson I will be in the courtyard. You can try it there.” Alec answered with a calm voice.

“Alright everyone is here. Then we can get started. Like usual we will start with a round of meditation. It is the basic of our control over our magic. Remember to meditate at least two hours a day and if you are able to use it instead of sleeping. I know that this is hard, but you won't ever master it if you don't try! Anyway, since we have a new entry and some beginners among us let us repeat how its done. First close your eyes. Then let your mind drift. Relax, but don't sleep. When your mind has calmed shift your focus on your body. Listen to its rhythms. Do you feel it? Your pulse, your breath and finally your mana as it moves in and out of your body? Ascertain yourself of its existence. Hold it, move it, play with it.” Ferrow explained.

Under those words guidance Alec entered a wondrous state, where he came aware of his own mana. As he moved it around he felt its rhythm and slowly he heard its symphony. It filled every nook and cranny of his mind and slowly Alec began to change these tunes. He made them more and more similar to the sounds of his own body. Slowly more and more of his mana flowed into his body and as it wasn't in contrast with his bodies rhythms he didn't feel pain, but a warmth filling his body.

Sadly he couldn't maintain this state forever, it was still way too mentally exhausting. Just as he was about to let his control over his mana slip he felt a disturbance in his surroundings. As he tracked it he found that it originated from one of the kids around him.

The symphony of his mana was full of dissonances and it tried to slip the girl's control. Alec wanted to help and reached out with his mind, but he wasn't able to exert any control over the girls mana. Desperate to help the girl, who clearly was in pain, Alec focused his mana into the sound the girls mana should have. The melody filled the air as Alec's mana vibrated in the foreign tune. Slowly the girl's mana calmed down and followed Alec's lead. Like a conductor Alec showed the mana which tune to play and it willingly followed the guidance.

Slowly Alec fell into trance as he played the tune, then everything went dark.

When he awoke Alec found himself atop a mountain of pillows. Confused he looked around and finally recognized where he was. “Ahh, you are finally awake. I was a bit worried. It isn't normal to collapse for two hours after suffering mana exhaustion. But I must say what you managed to achieve was quite impressive. Thanks to you Laura has finally grasped the control over her mana and that without suffering a backlash.” Ferrow said as he noticed him.

“I think the enormous mental strain had a lot to do with that. Anyway now I am fine. Are the children still here? I have a promise to upkeep.” Alec said. “Yes they are, in fact they have a bit of free time right now. They are probably in the courtyard.” Ferrow answered.

Alec left the building and entered the courtyard, almost immediately he was swarmed by children, foremost the girl, which he had helped gaining control over her magic. She was still humming the tune Alec had used to help her. She would probably carry this melody in her heart for the rest of her live.

As they had pleaded, Alec showed them his sword and how to handle it, or at least he tried to teach them that. The teaching quickly deteriorated into playing fetch with the little rascals. It was a very refreshing experience after the day he had spent in dungeon butchering creatures, while being sprayed by their blood.

He stayed for another lesson and learned some basic practices for mana manipulation. Which mostly consisted of creating complex geometrical figures with strands of mana. Creating them had felt like he was training a muscle he had never even known of beforehand.

He had returned to his companions home in the late afternoon and immediately began his new training regime. His goal was to practice while meditating. But it wasn't easy to accomplish. For the first day he merely trained to enter a state where he could control his mana as quickly as possible and then tried to maintain it while doing small tasks like fiddling with his fingers.

After a few hours of training he got so mentally tired that he went to bed early.

Alec rose early the next morning and continued his training, but this time he started to enter the meditation in not so comfortable positions. Over the course of two hours he worked his way up to the point where he could meditate while lifting his bodyweight up with a single arm in a push up position. When he had reached that point he noticed that holding the mana in his body greatly increased his endurance and bodily functions.

Nonetheless he had to stop at that point, it was still too mentally straining to maintain this point. Also it was time for breakfast, which he wolfed down and then went to bed again.

“Is something wrong with him? His eyes look like he didn't sleep for days, they are dim and sunken in.” Peter asked. “That's a rather normal expression for someone doing mage training. We only have to stop him when begins to get nosebleeds.” Sarah explained to her shocked friends. “What? Did you think it is easy to become a mage? We probably are the ones that have trained the most in the past months!” She exclaimed proudly.

Over the next week Alec continued with this routine and steadily the time he could spent controlling his mana increased. At the same time the position he used for meditation grew increasingly ridiculous. It was to the point that Will couldn't stop staring whenever he entered the backyard to train. In the end Alec reached the point where he was able to maintain the meditative state for a whole day. But after that ordeal he had needed a day of rest. Even with magic it didn't seem possible to sustain a body indefinitely.

After he had rested from his last training session Alec began to prepare for the next dungeon dive. It would be a solo dive, as his companions had already started to dive on their own. After they had learned about dungeons from Sarah they had lost most of their fears, but Alec rudely washed away their confidence by reminding them that injuries sustained in the dungeon wouldn't simply vanish. If you got knocked out, you would get away with just a bruise or a light trauma, but if you were deeply cut you still could bleed to death. Although the adventurers guild was prepared for such cases, it was best to remain cautious.

Then finally came the day that he entered the second floor of the dungeon. Like he had been told there was a fork in the tunnel leading to the first and apparently also to the second floor. This layer appeared to be more versatile in its collection of creatures. In the first room, that was lit by red crystals, there were two different beasts. A green spider, whose body hung half a meter above the ground and had 2 meter long legs. And a wolf-like creature, in fact if it weren't for its extra pair of legs and its large size it would have been indistinguishable from a normal wolf.

The spider spotted him first, which wasn't really surprising as it appeared to have a spherical field of view. Alec immediately focused his whole attention to his weapon and his enemies. He made the first attack and slashed towards the rushing spider, partly amputating three of its legs in their second or respectively their third joint. Robbed of some its footing the still running spider lost its balance and tumbled. Alec immediately slashed out towards its stomach and gutted the arachnid. He turned just in time to see the wolf biting at his right leg and managed to slash towards its spine, just as its jaws closed.

Frantically he hacked down on the wolf's skull, but to no avail, until all of a sudden his sword cut through it like a hot knife through butter. Then he noticed what he had done. In his panic he had pumped his mana in his sword. A cold sheen was visible on its edge and made it extremely sharp.

“Seems like I underestimated the second layer. But I learned something extremely valuable.” He thought while he finally freed his leg and inspected the wound. “That won't heal quickly and I won't be able to continue for today. I should check for loot and then skin these bastards. Especially that spiders carapace seems promising. I imagine that if I hadn't gone for the joints immediately it would have been rather hard to handle it. Good thing Quarc also has trained me for combat against armoured opponents. Go for the openings he had always said.” He thought while he tested the chitins durability and hardly left a mark on it.

But first he cleaned and bandaged his wound. Then he checked for loot. He found a whole silver, the dungeon truly got more generous the deeper one got. Two hours of gruesome work later he had collected a pile of fur and chitin and dragged it out of the dungeon.

“Oh! Hi Alec, you return so quickly? I guess the second floor is really way harder than the first.” The attendant at the dungeon entrance greeted him. “Yeah the mobs there are about as strong as the boss of the first floor. They are beasts thought, so I think that certain tactics could prove more effective against them than my usual approach. Spears and blunt weapons might prove useful as well as fire.” He answered. “Do you happen to know a leather worker? I would like to get an armour fashioned out of these remains here.” Alec asked while pointing towards the pile he had dragged here. “Hmm, Anyu in the west district might be the right for this job, but no promises.” The attendant replied.

After he had thanked the man he went to the guild's hospital room and got his wound treated properly. Then he took his luggage and headed home. Tired from blood loss and pain he laid down for a nap.