“What, you scared to explore a little cave, Mike?” Josh taunted, voice reverberating through the wide tunnel leading to the open air of the outside.

Michael cringed at the nickname. He wasn’t on such friendly terms with Josh, not yet. He was exploring a cave they found, using the torch in his phone to make sure he didn’t fall on a rock and break his legs.

“I think it’s larger than just a little cave, Josh,” he retorted.

“Come on! Where’s the guy who caught a rabbit alive and skinned it before cooking it over a firepit, Michael? Where’s the experienced explorer, someone who claims to have scared off a bear on the trail just the other day, huh?” Josh’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Are you, perhaps, a coward?”

Perhaps being labelled a coward would be the lesser price to pay, at least in this case. With a sigh, he steeled himself. This was just a cave. A silent, deep, dark and foreboding cave, sure, but just a cave nonetheless. And nothing else.

It was like the chosen one business his karate sensei always pulled on him, and he felt like he was being pushed to do something he would not otherwise do just because someone was antagonizing him over it. He told himself, like every time, that he did it so he could feel like he had conquered something he was afraid of, coming out stronger in the end. One didn’t grow without a challenge, after all, and here the biggest danger would be getting lost, but he wasn’t planning to take any turns.

His friend was still yelling at him from the outside, he was all too excited about Michael exploring the cave for someone who wasn’t doing it themselves, for some reason. Josh’s ego had been badly bruised these last few days on the Trail, especially after Michael had proven his claims of being an experienced trailblazer to be true while his friend had been called on his own bluff, and envy was an insidious thing.

But, Michael did not realize, whatever mechanism had activated within his mind telling him to brave the dangers and come out stronger on the other side was as insidious as envy was. It made Michael push on in the unknown cave until all the light from outside disappeared, lost in the gloom where the only source of light now was the feeble torch feature of his cheap smartphone. It was when the last of the light from outside had faded and he knew he could not turn back just yet that the most bizarre and frightening thing happened, making him almost jump out of his skin.

“Oh! A human! A tasty morsel appears!” a voice said, and it was sinister like that of a mischievous creature, speaking from the depths of the cave where light did not reach. “Welcome to the Infinity Dungeon, human. Too bad you’re already dead!”

Then disaster struck. A terrible noise accompanied the rumbling of the earth, making Michael lose his footing. While he bruised his knee, he realized before the dust had even settled that something had fallen from the ceiling behind him, locking him into the cave. It was a strangely smooth slab of stone, air-tight, so much so that the dust settled almost perfectly vertical to where it was, save for the spots where the air was disturbed by Michael’s movements.

He almost didn’t hear the soft steps behind him before he was struck with a blade. The only thing that saved Michael from certain death were his reflexes, honed by his martial arts training. He twisted, putting his hands between his body and the offending implement, earning pain beyond belief as his left hand was pierced by the short blade that was meant for his gut. Phone falling to the ground, the dusty air was lit in flashes that revealed a horrible green and misshapen body in-between moments of darkness, brandishing the blade once again. It was rusted all over, and had torn chunks of meat from Michael’s left hand with its jagged edge.

Adrenaline kicked in. When the monstrous green form struck again, Michael grappled with it. He was bigger and stronger, although unarmed, and only got cut once more before he managed to snap the arm wielding the knife, breaking bone and join with the first real application of a technique he had practiced thousands of times in the dojo. The goblin, for it could be nothing else but a filthy goblin like in the stories, struck again, snarling, sending spittle flying everywhere. Michael reacted reflexively. He had never trained with a knife, but he knew that the sharp end went into the soft flesh, and it was enough. Its tip met the creature’s neck, the goblin was short enough that its neck came at the exact height Michael’s hands were.

The knife went in and out before Michael’s conscious mind could intervene, coming out of the wound in a spray of blood. Michael dropped to the ground, the goblin attacking him suddenly limp and, knife forgotten, ran over to retrieve his phone—the only source of light. When he turned around again, the corpse of the monster was gone, and for a moment it felt like it had all been a dream, save for the fact that Michael’s hand was throbbing with pain, and bleeding from where the flesh had been torn from bone, and ligaments and nerves were cut and frayed. There was blood on his clothes, his own blood being only less than half of the total volume of it, the other half being a putrid dark ooze that had come out from the goblin before it vanished.

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Leaving behind, Michael saw just now, a small fist-sized green stone.

“Well,” the nasty voice was back, coming from all around and making Michael suddenly feel very unsafe, like it could jump out of a wall at any time. “This might be interesting,” it went on, “take that skill stone. You earned it. The rules are clear. Just so you know: this is it; beginner’s luck is over. Have fun dying! I know I will have fun watching you!”

Michael’s hand was twitching with pain, little spasms renewing the burning sensation of exposed nerves as the blood just refused to stop flowing. Normally, he was a savvy person in the bush, knowing what to do in almost all situations. Here, though, he found himself panicking. There was no light save for his torch, the air was stale and still and hot, the exit was closed, and the room was so small, he felt his breath come in short, needy gulps that failed to oxygenate his blood. He was having a panic attack.

He had nothing to stop the bleeding. He fumbled with his phone, bloody hands staining the screen and making its contents illegible, and even when his trembling fingers managed to enter the unlock code, he saw that there was no reception. The thing was dead, useless without a connection to the internet. He couldn’t look up ways to bandage his hand, nor could he call for help. He only had his clothes, not even the knife the goblin was wielding since it was gone with the body.

He couldn’t use his clothes to create makeshift bandages even if he had the knife, stained as they were with sickly, foul-smelling goblin blood. Looking at his hand, shedding light onto the wound with his slippery phone covered in coagulating blood, he was fairly sure he had not hit any major arteries or he would be bleeding much quicker. But then again, his panicking mind unhelpfully supplied, he could not be sure it was the case. Perhaps he had already lost too much blood. Perhaps he was already not thinking clearly.

He had to calm down. Taking a deep breath, his thoughts slowly converged on the small piece of rock that had taken the goblin corpse’s place. It was a piece of deep green jade, and the way the light from the phone hit it made it almost shine with inner light, creating beautiful swirling patterns.

“Did the voice mention a skill stone?” He muttered under his breath, and for a moment it felt like the voice’s attention was back on him, like it had heard him. Which, he suspected it could, since it also seemed able to talk to him.

He grasped the stone, the agony of accidentally doing it with the wrong hand making him curse under his breath, feeling like he was entertaining the evil entity who was watching him with every panicked misstep and bad decision, brought upon by pain and blood loss. As soon as his bloody fingers closed around the stone, however, a message appeared in his vision, and for a moment the rest of the world seemed to go still as he read the text floating in midair like it was the only thing in the world that could save him. It might very well have been.

Skill stone: (Uncommon) Healing Aura

Use this skill stone to learn the first level of the skill: Healing Aura

There was no other information, but Michael didn’t need any. No thoughts of how strange it was that magic was real crossed his mind at that moment, and while they might have come later, he had other priorities now. Without even knowing how he did it, he used the skill stone immediately and felt a short-lived wave of euphoria wash over him as something fundamental about his very being was changed in an instant. He knew, from the depths of his being, that he was suddenly more than he had ever been, and the skill he had just learned was only a part of what had changed about him.

Then, he instinctively knew that by focusing on it, he could make the description of his new skill appear at will.

(Uncommon) Healing Aura 1

Within the gentle currents of Qi flows the essence of life's renewal; with each breath, let healing radiate, restoring harmony to all.

· Create an aura of healing for yourself and everyone marked as an ally around you. The effect decreases with distance, up to a range of 1 meter.

Moderate mana and stamina cost per second.

The skill was active before he had even finished reading its description. For a moment, Michael was sure he had blacked out, for the pain of being stabbed all over again rushed through his mind in a split second, followed by more pain and itching as the flesh started to stitch itself. The process was quick enough that he could see it happen in real time, but there was no time to be awed by the power of magic before a wave of vertigo, nausea and deep, gnawing hunger robbed him of his footing, making him scrape his knees of the sharp stones of the ground in his fall.

He was about to heal himself again but decided against it. The hunger, he guessed, was probably because the healing had had something to do with heightened metabolism, burning through his meagre fat reserves. He wondered if he had lost some of his hard-earned muscle. That left out the nausea and vertigo, and looking inward he could feel that there was something missing within himself, although it was ever so slowly coming back to him. He was out of mana, some part of his mind supplied.

Grabbing the phone, now cracked and battered, he went to find someplace to sit and wait the headache out. It didn’t take too long, but it was hard to tell without constantly using his phone, which he didn’t do to save battery. If the phone died, with it went the torch and his only hope of finding an exit. Then, a quick bout of healing later—no more than mere seconds to heal some light bruises and watch the area he had scraped scab—he headed for the only path he could take in search for an exit: deeper within the cave system.

Deeper inside the Infinity Dungeon.