Emily spent months killing goblins and trolls and edging deeper into the dungeon. On level 19 she encountered her first mini boss.
“They say three heads are better than one.” Emily muttered to herself staring at a three headed troll with four arms and towering four times above her.
Ducking back into the tunnel that lead to the cave the mini boss was in Emily scanned her runes. They were slowly deteriorating and this was Emily’s second suit of armor. Emily used her suit hard and with her class she did not need to worry about cost, she could just conjure more.
Making repairs and overpowering the runes with mana Emily had only a few minutes to finish the fight. Activating both her strength and agility runes Emily rushed toward the towering monster.
Pulling back her right hand Emily could feel the straining hydraulic pistons ready to be unleashed. The surprised monster did not have time to respond as Emily jumped and punched with all her power. The punch was so powerful that her arm dislocated but it was also powerful enough to punch through the monsters rib cage and take out its heart.
The cost beside her dislocated arm was the pistons in her arm exploded damaging her arm even more. Screaming in pain Emily started to meditate on top of the dead boss. As the pain was pushed to the back of her mind Emily clumsily took off her helmet and took out a powerful heath potion from Shady.
Drinking it Emily dismissed her arm armor. Taking another heath potion out Emily poured it onto her savaged arm.
Using her left powered armor hand Emily screamed as she hit her right arm and socketed her right arm back into place. Mediating some more Emily recovered fully.
It took twenty minutes to slowly recover and there were still twigs of pain in her arm.
Finally almost fully recovered Emily looked at her status screen and found the months of fighting higher Tier monsters and the increased experience she received from her title, Emily had was now level 100.
Grinning Emily took out ascension stone. Picking a class actually took no time in the real world even if she spent months in a trail so she was safe to use it here.
Activating it Emily arrived back in her old house. Taking a deep breath to center herself, Emily stopped for a moment to look at the picture of here and her father then went into her old office.
Booting up the computer again Emily found dozens of new options open for her.
Looking at advance mental metal conjure Emily was tempted the class had been extremely helpful in reaching L 100 so fast.
Emily studied some other classes that she looked at before, advanced warrior monk, battle monk, monk scholar, battle scholar and even saw the Tier 2 runesmith.
Unfortunately without any affinities Emily could not find rune mage classes or any Tier 2 mage classes, not even a basic advanced mage. Sighing in disappointment but not expecting anything else Emily looked at the class she had came here for, Tranquility Monk.
It was going back to her first class, warrior monk, a class she had loved and been very grateful to receive. The explosion and access to mana had shafted her focus but in the end the monk really called to her. In both her lives here and in her old one Emily had loved to fight and meditating brought her peace, a oneness with the world and her place in it.
Without thinking about it more Emily clicked on it. An even more fancy and detailed VR helmet appeared and with a glance you could till it was for something more than a basic Tier 1 class.
Emily placed it on her head.
A flash and Emily found herself on top of a mountain with floating rocks stretching out before her leading to another mountain top. As she watched stones light up one after another leading to the next mountain top.
With her memory it was easy to recreate the path and Emily easy skipped the floating rock path. Arriving at the next mountain top Emily saw more floating rocks leading to another more distant mountain pass. This time the flash of rock path was faster but still easy enough.
Emily proceeded like this for another four more times with the path becoming more and more complex and the distance becoming longer and longer.
It tested her memory, agility, stamina, and metal fortitude. On the sixth test the rocks were smaller than her foot with barely a toehold in length. It took all of her will and agility to skip form one rock to the other, doubling back more than a dozen times before she landed on the last mountain top.
Landing lightly on top of the last mountain top Emily found herself waiting. The same doppelganger that she had meet on her first Tier 1 warrior monk class stood with a sword in her right hand and a serene expression on her face.
There was another sword waiting stuck in the ground a few feet away. Emily walked to it and pulling it out, gripped it, and bowed to her foe.
The doppelganger mirrored her and bowed too. Then they each waited, serene and eager but patient.
Simultaneously they attacked. Swords flashing and striking they traded furious blows then disengaged. Still with a serene expression they attacked each other again. It became almost meditative, strike, defend, counterstrike.
They battle on the tiny island of land on top of the mountain with time being irrelevant. Perfectly striking and defending they each went back and forth and both taking a break to recover.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
After what had to be hours they broke apart for the last time. Each simultaneously bowed to each other and Emily found herself back in the cave with the dead mini boss.
Tranquility Monk
Class
Increases stamina and mana by 30% and increases stamina and mana regeneration by 20%
Combat Mastery L1
Skill
You understand hand to hand and weapon combat. You have knowledge of all forms of hand to hand combat and weapons.
Tranquility Mastery L1
Skill
You are a savant with prodigious talents in knowledge and memories that makes you one with yourself and the world around you. Adverse mental effects have a very slight chance of harming you.
Looking at her new class Emily found she liked it and was at peace with her choice. Others may have a different opinion but the class was almost a part of her core self.
Emily also saw some of her skills advance too. Her Basic Mental Construct skill advanced to Mental Construct skill and allowed complex mental objects to be constructed in her mind palace. Identity advanced to Analyze and basic tumbling advanced to tumbling.
Emily’s mage skills also leveled form basic to regular. Basic Mana Shaping, Mana Regulation, and Incantation reset to regular L 1 which meant they were really at skill level 10 form basic L 1 to L 9 and now regular L 1.
Looking at her new status she saw that instead of the normal +5 to all stats except charisma and luck she received +10. Form what she read the extra +5 was because of the growth potions she took. Because she took balanced potions it was spread for all stats, if she had taken a strength potion it would have been +35 to just her strength stat.
Name :
Emily Warden L 101
Class:
T2 Tranquility Monk
L 1 [Primary]
T1 Mental Metal Conjure
L 25 [Secondary]
T1 Runic Blacksmith
L 25 [Tertiary]
T1 Runic Mage Scholar
L 25 [X]
T1 Warrior Monk L 25 [X]
HP
2268/2268
MP
6113/6113
SP
3731/3731
Strength
89
Agility
57
Dexterity
105
Vitality
108
Endurance
108
Intelligence
158
Willpower
144
Charisma
16
Luck
10
Emily changed her secondary class form Mental Metal Conjure to Runic Mage Scholar and receiving an extra 108 MP and 5% increase in mana regeneration form 10% to 15%. Emily considered changing her Runic Blacksmith class but 15% SP and 10% MP bump was worth more than the other class options.
Emily did lose 10% mana regeneration by changing her class form Mental Metal Conjure to Runic Mage Scholar but the lower cost of mana for runes form both her Runic Mage Scholar class and Runic Blacksmith class was better and more cost effective than a flat 10% increase in mana regen.
Emily also found that the Runic Mage Scholar class leaned more towards rune script that was embedded in the runes and made them work with Runic Blacksmith focused more on the outside of the rune and placing them on items. It was the same as a person focusing on computer programming and another who focused on the computer hardware, both were needed to make a computer effective.
Now Emily was finally in the ranks of Tier 2 with the tier up she also received a 1.5x increase in her heath, mana, and stamina.
Now Emily could level the Tranquility Monk class to L 25 and take another class and level that to L 25 forgoing the special class skill at L 50. If Emily did level both classes then she would not Tier up until L 200 or she could level one class to L 50 and another class to L 25 and Tier up at L 175. Emily was not certain which would be the best option.
For right now she just wanted to enjoy her new class.
Looking at her unarmored arm Emily concentrated and armor appeared. It was disconnected from her hydraulic power system that Emily had cut off when she dismissed the destroyed armor piece. Emily found the effort easier and more fluid.
With that Emily decided to leave the dungeon but needed to fight up the tunnels to get out. The tunnels and caves were vast and new monsters appeared by the time she turned around to leave. More than one adventure party fought down levels without planning the fight back up and got too deep and found themselves to exhausted for the return. Then they died.
Emily could not fully repair her arm armor so it was now a hindrance without the runes and hydraulic power. Emily would need to build another suit now her regeneration was expanded but that was a worry for later.
Her first troll encounter was fast and easy. When she encountered a large group of monsters Emily really found the benefits of her new class. Emily found herself focused yet with more time to act. It was like professional athletes who talked about being in the ‘zone’, a heightened awareness of other thing around them.
Emily also found that instead of killing the monsters outright it was more effective and used less stamina to bleed them out than to kill them. A slice to the neck and trachea caused them to choke on their own blood and suffocated. Slicing their achilles heel or the veins in their wrist or thighs and let them bleed out.
The boost to her stats was impressive and Emily had a good time slaughtering her way through the rest of the dungeon.
Almost a day later Emily reached the first floor and did not have to worry about the trash mobs on the first floor. Emily quickly made her way out of the dungeon and sighed in relief as the fresh air hit her. Stopping by a street vender Emily got some grilled mystery meat that was very tasty and after that stopped and got a sweet bun for dessert at a local bakery.
Emily arrived at the smithery co-op after more than two week away. The dungeon was so large and deep that she had lived within it for all that time, some adventure groups could spend months in the dungeon especially Tier 3s who had to dive more than thirty levels to get to the more powerful monsters.
As Emily walked towards the door a man appeared that she was very familiar with.
“The count would like to see you Emily.” The head guard stated.
“Damnit”