[One-Handed Weapons: Novice 5 → Novice 6]

[One-Handed Weapons: Novice 6 → Novice 7]

[One-Handed Weapons: Novice 7 → Novice 8]

[Duellist Level 2 → Level 3]

[Skill Selection Available]

A grin broke out on Callum’s face. Energy suffused him and the blood stopped pouring from his shoulder. He still leaned on his sword for support; the level-up was helpful but didn’t completely alleviate the exhaustion from a fight.

The other notifications faded from his view, but the skill selection remained, insistent. He focused on it, and options populated his field of view.

[Vital Sense] No armor is without its weak points, and no living being is without vital areas. You gain an innate sense of where to strike to cause maximum damage. Scales with Wits and relevant weapons skill.

[Riposte] The riposte embodies the skillful artistry of combat by turning an attack into a counterattack. You gain the ability to find weaknesses in attacks, turning them in your favor. Scales with Wits and relevant weapons skill.

[Feint] By employing deceptive maneuvers, one can distract to create openings or cause confusion, disrupting attacks. You gain the innate knowledge of how to distract opponents to create openings for attacks. Scales with Wits and relevant weapons skill.

Callum mulled over the options. They all seemed like things that he could learn himself if he put in the effort which gave him pause. Why would he pick things that he could learn himself?

On the other hand, each of these were skills that seemed like they would immediately improve his combat ability. He didn’t know exactly what he would encounter as he moved through the dungeon, nor how much he had left to go.

He replayed the fight in his mind, weighing where he would have used each of the skills in the fight. Ultimately the one that had the most merit seemed to be Riposte. He couldn’t dodge everything, and Riposte seemed like it would be the hardest to learn without someone to teach him.

The line about how the abilities scaled was interesting to Callum. When he had originally chosen the class, the Wits he received at each level seemed like an afterthought, but he reconsidered and came to the conclusion that there was a mental element to dueling.

Since each skill scaled with both wits and relevant weapon skill, it remained a non-factor as far as his selection was concerned.

He confirmed his selection, but nothing seemed to change. He pushed himself off of his sword and settled into his fighting stance. He imagined how the large goblin had attacked him when the axe had struck him. The motion came naturally as he realized that had he simply redirected the attack instead of trying to brute force block it would have created an opening for him to counterattack.

Curiosity satisfied, he used one of the animal skin bedrolls to clean his sword off and opened his status page to see what had changed.

[Status: Callum Green]

Duellist Level 3

HP: 10/50 MP: 50/50 SP: 35/75

Strength: 5

Dexterity: 11

Endurance: 2

Intelligence: 5

Wits: 8

Resolve: 2

Skills:

One-Handed Weapons:

Rank: Novice 8

Proficiency: 12%

Riposte

As with the last time, the increase in health had brought him back up above zero, further solidifying his theory that HP was a pool before he took damage. He also wanted a way to test how much his Dexterity was improving his movements, but that would have to wait until he was out of the dungeon.

Callum took a few minutes to recover some of his stamina before pressing onward. He walked for only a few minutes before coming to a dead end, but what was in the dead end gave him pause.

The tunnel turned into a sheer wall, but at the base of the wall was a simple wooden chest. Callum approached the chest, the absurdity of this being dungeon crawl like in a game stood out to him.

There was no lock evident on the chest, so Callum opened the chest. Inside was a small collection of items. A dagger, a wooden buckler, and a leather drawstring pouch. He hefted the pouch first and found that it was quite heavy for its size and clinked with the sound of coins.

He pulled it open and found it filled with gold. Callum’s eyes widened as the wealth contained within was more than he could have imagined. He tied the pouch to his belt loop and moved on to the other items.

The buckler was his next item of focus. It was barely the width of his forearm, mostly wooden, with a band of metal around the outside and leather straps to attach it to his arm. There was something more to it that he felt he wasn’t getting like something was just on the edge of his vision.

He studied the item for half a minute when a notification appeared.

[Skill Learned: Identify]

This was quite the development. It proved that skills could be learned, which was quite a boon. He was also curious about what he could Identify. Like with Riposte, it came with the innate knowledge of how to use it. He just needed to focus on something for a few seconds and it would trigger.

He immediately used it on the buckler.

[Buckler of Magic Deflecting] By infusing this buckler with mana, it can be used to deflect physical magic effects.

Callum’s eyebrows creased as he read the description. It had already been proven that mana and magic exists, but this was the first thing he had seen that put it into use.

With no explanation for how to use it, he settled for strapping it to his arm. He pulled the leather straps tight and he felt an extrasensory tug. He gave in and let the buckler fill with his mana. It only took a few moments before it felt full, and when he checked his status page, he was missing ten mana.

That seems rather mana-efficient, but I’ll have to wait until someone throws a spell at me to really see how it does.

Finally, he pulled the dagger out of the chest. It was a simple thing with a wooden handle and a straight blade measuring a foot long. He used Identify on it, but his skill told him what he already knew. It was just a dagger.

Since the tunnel hadn’t split at any point, he decided he was done with this tunnel and made his way back to the entrance room.

As he passed back through the two places where he fought the goblins, he used Identify on the corpses and gleamed a little information. The larger goblin was a hobgoblin, and the smaller ones were identified as goblins.

Back at the entrance, he pulled a torch off the wall and used it to heat a can of beans. It wasn’t a gourmet meal, but to him, it might as well have been. A warm meal did wonders for morale, and it finished filling his stamina pool.

Ready now to take on more of the dungeon, he moved on to the central tunnel. He crept through the tunnel for half a mile before the path split. Sticking to his left-hand side method, he made his way through the split.

The tunnel made several twists and turns, forcing Callum to slow down as he approached each turn with caution. He estimated that he covered another mile of the tunnel before reaching a set of imposing double doors flanked by torches.

The doors stretched all the way to the top of the tunnel and had large iron handles mounted at roughly chest height but were otherwise unadorned. Callum pressed his ear against the door and listened intently.

He could hear the chittering speech of the goblins, muffled by the wood of the door. He sighed and heaved open the door.

There was a moment of shock from the goblins which bought him enough time to assess his situation. Seven goblin fighters were gathered near the door, and an eighth near the back end of the room. At the back were two hobgoblins flanking what looked to be a goblin shaman. The shaman wore long robes and stood hunched over so it was shorter than the hobgoblin.

Callum had no time to waste as he was upon the goblins in a second. He carved his way through them swiftly and three were dead before the goblins knew what was happening. His Riposte skill was proving its usefulness as he was able to slip past a spear thrust and slay the goblin holding it.

The next goblin in line fell just as quickly, but Callum noticed something red flying towards him. He barely managed to get his buckler in front of him as a ball of fire struck.

**WHUMP!**

The force of the impact lifted him off the ground. It pushed him back a few feet, but he was able to maintain his balance. The goblins seized this moment and were on him in a rush, forcing him to push his dexterity to the max.

Callum was a flurry of movement as he danced between blades, sometimes blocking with his shield, other times turning strikes away with his sword. The contest only lasted a few seconds as he found his opening to strike at a goblin. A well-placed thrust ended one, and the other two fell quickly. Despite being outmatched three-to-one, the goblins were no longer a match for Callum at all.

That’s when the first hobgoblin entered. Callum spaced himself away to get a moment to breathe and as he did he glanced at the shaman at the other end of the room. It had one hand around the throat of a goblin, and another on the shoulder of the other hobgoblin while it was chanting something.

Callum’s moment of distraction was enough for the hobgoblin to take a swing at him. Callum was forced to jump backward as the hobgoblin’s axe swung through the air where he had been a second ago.

Callum was calm as the hobgoblin approached him again. After seeing how the first one had fought, he knew what he needed to do to win.

It went for an overhead swing, putting all its strength into one blow. Callum shifted to the side slightly and with a slight nudge from his sword, the hobgoblin’s axe crashed into the stone floor leaving it completely off balance. Callum struck, skewering it through the gap in the armor. There was a brief look of shock on its face before it collapsed.

Callum turned his attention to the shaman and the hobgoblin at the far side of the room. The shaman discarded the goblin it had by the throat, but the corpse no longer resembled a goblin. It was gray and shriveled as if everything had been sucked out of it.

The hobgoblin, however, was larger and its muscles bulged with strength. The shaman collapsed into a chair behind it, but the hobgoblin charged with blistering speed.