“You’ll have to forgive Levia. Years of teaching my daughter not to interrupt me when I’m talking to my guests have all been for naught, I’m afraid,” The mayor spoke up. Though he was smiling and his tone light, Greg could tell that there was an undertone of actual disapproval from the man.
The spider queen, however, clearly didn’t care. With an indifferent demeanor, she shrugged the comment off. “Oh, I just wanted to greet my host before I ignore you for the rest of the evening. I wouldn’t want it said that I lack the social graces of the nobility,” She stated before turning around and walking off.
It was a short interaction barely half a minute long. In that time, the woman had barely spared Greg a glance. Whether she had truly been late and hadn’t heard about the fact that he was a mage, or she truly didn’t care, Greg couldn’t tell. Either way, he was glad for her departure as it allowed him to relax. It wasn’t that Greg was afraid of the woman, instead, it was fear of inadvertently revealing something that he shouldn’t know. They may act hostile to one another, but there was no doubt in Greg’s mind that they would unite against him if he revealed that he knew she was the spider queen.
Still, Greg let out a sad sigh as he looked in the direction of the departing lady. “Is something the matter, Mage Roka?” The mayor asked looking at him with a mix of curiosity at his reaction and suspicion that every father has towards any man who has their eyes on their daughter for longer than three seconds.
“Oh,” Greg pretended to come back to himself. “Forgive me, Mayor. But I recently lost someone close to me. Back when she was alive, my sister and I used to argue a lot over things that seemed important … or at least they did back then,” Greg let the dour silence hang in the air for a second before he continued. “Forgive me for spoiling the mood, it’s just that, while she was alive, had you asked me if she knew that I loved her, I would have sworn to the high heaven that of course, she did! Now she’s gone and… I’m not so sure anymore. Did she know that she was the reason I was working so hard? That even when my training was almost unbearable and I was on the verge of giving up, it was her that I thought of. That I never gave up because one day, when I was a powerful mage, I would come back for her. That I would take her out of the poverty we grew up in and put her in the biggest house she could ever dream of. That she would never have to worry about what to wear or what our next meal would be! What I wouldn’t give to have just a few more moments with her. A chance to tell her…”
By the end, his voice was just barely louder than a whisper and clearly shaking. Greg’s gaze, which had turned distant during his monologue, once again regained focus as he seemed to remember himself and where he was. The mayor was looking at him contemplatively, and though he kept a neutral expression, Greg could tell that he had been moved by his monologue. The man’s wife had tears brimming in her eyes and if not for the fact that it would have been inappropriate to hug another man in the current setting, Greg was almost certain that the woman would have pulled him into a comforting embrace. Smiling weakly, Greg offered an apologetic smile before saying that he needed some air and asked to be excused. The mayor offered him a silent nod but Greg noticed the man looking in the direction that his daughter had walked off in.
“Be very careful what you say at the party! The people around you may seem like they are engaged in their own little conversations but trust me, they are always listening. It is a common saying at such parties that a comment made on one side of the room while moving will still get to the other side of the room before you can…”
As Greg stood before the garden, just outside the Mayor’s house, he couldn’t help but remember Zarra’s admonition as they prepared for the party. “What he had just said to the Mayor hadn’t been preplanned. After all, how could he have known that the spider queen was the Mayor’s daughter or that they weren’t on good terms? Still, he had seen a chance and taken it. Why? Exactly because of Zarra’s warning. His identity as a mage had already gotten his foot through the door. A tragic backstory to the mysterious new mage, however, was the icing on the cake! If he could tug on the heartstrings of a few of the nobility and win them over before he even met them, this night would go far easier than it otherwise would have.
Greg stood out in the gardens for close to five minutes pretending to regain his composure. When he walked back into the party, Greg was elated to find that his gambit had worked even better than he’d even thought it would. While most of the men offered a few words of comfort but overall remained stoic, the noble women were just overflowing with words of comfort for the forlorn mage. Whether it was because of a pragmatic desire to make a connection to a mage or because they had some romanticized image of him in their minds, Greg couldn’t tell. In the final analysis, he didn’t care one way or the other. He just soaked up the attention as he kept moving from one noble couple to the next.
Out of everyone present, three in particular held Greg’s interest. More than likely, his next attempt at this dungeon would involve one of them. At the top of his list was a potioneer. Lady Andreya was the only other individual in this dungeon that was even tangentially involved in magic, that Greg had encountered. From what Greg had gathered of her backstory, she wasn’t an actual mage herself, but she had learned the art of potion-making from one. She could only make the weakest of potions seeing as the more advanced ones required precise mana control, of which she didn’t have any. Given the fact that this was a city full of mundane humans, however, what potions she did make were enough to make her one of the most sought-after potioneers in the city. This was especially true because, like his teacher, Lady Andreya was very exacting in the standards of her work. She would sooner die than allow subpar work to be associated with her name.
Part of the reason Greg was so drawn to the potion-maker, apart from the arcane knowledge she might possess, was that, just like him, she thought that all the rules that the nobility abided by were tedious and wasn’t afraid to express as much. With most others present, conversations felt like they were eighty percent flattery and flowery language and only twenty percent substance. Talking with Lady Andreya, however, felt like a breath of fresh air. If she liked you, you’d know it. And if she didn’t, you were even more certain to know it. She wasn’t crude or vulgar with her language, but her tongue was like a sharp sword that she masterfully wielded against anyone that earned her displeasure.
Greg was certain that the only reason she hadn’t been shunned by the nobility and run out of the city was because it was next to impossible to replace her. In principle, the potion maker could easily take her work to some other city and still be welcomed with open arms wherever she went. Not that this mattered inside the dungeon where only a single day repeated ad-infinitum. As such, despite the straightforward and slightly abrasive manner of her speech, no one raised any issues with her.
The second individual that drew Greg’s interest was a merchant called Sir Vikra. Apart from just being a successful merchant himself, he also happened to be the head of a conglomerate where several different merchants had come together to make a trading behemoth that controlled most of the goods that flowed in and out of the region. It, however, wasn’t his trade that drew Greg to the man, but who his daughter was. For the second time this night, Greg found himself having to keep his face from betraying him as he found the blonde thief smiling and laughing with other members of the nobility. Looking at the natural way in which she was carrying herself, it would be impossible to associate this innocent façade with the thief that bested the members of the spider gang. She’d even once slit Greg’s throat simply for getting in her way.
If the potion-maker was a straight-shooter, the blonde thief, was the exact opposite. Iyana, as she was called, pretended to be both harmless and clueless. One who watched her with enough care, however, would quickly realize that nothing could be further from the truth. He could see it in her eyes. With every person she talked to, Greg got the feeling that she was dissecting them visually. Seeking weaknesses and opportunities. It was as if she was planning to kill every single individual she was interacting with. All she would need is a signal and anyone she was talking to would probably be dead before they even figured out that they were in danger. Greg didn’t know what her back story was, but Greg got the impression of a sheathed blade any time he looked in her direction. A blade that could be drawn at any moment and cause a storm of blood in an instant.
The final individual that drew Greg’s interest was someone whose name he’d heard from Sir Joram. The merchant had referred to this man as a coward the first time that Greg had attacked him. Sir Reigad was an older man with greying hair and a rotund figure that spoke of one who indulged his appetite. Looking at his conduct, however, the first thing that came to mind wasn’t coward, but rather, lecher. He was here with his wife and a younger woman that Greg could only assume was his daughter. This fact, however, did nothing to prevent the man from flirting with any of the women that he came across, single or married. The fact that most of the women seemed to be giving him a wide berth was completely lost on him. Even his wife and daughter seemed to be doing their best to act like they weren’t there with him. However, given the fact that he was among the more powerful nobles in the city, no one was going to call the man out on his behavior.
Unlike the potion-maker whom Greg wanted to learn from, or Iyana, whom Greg was curious about, Greg’s interest in this man was much simpler. Despite his repugnant behavior, there was no disputing the fact that the man’s wife was the most beautiful woman at the party. Everything about the woman, from her hair, to her face, to her generous curves, to the regal air with which she carried herself. It all came together to paint a picture of peak feminine charm. Like a web, her beauty drew you in and ensnared you without you even noticing. And as if that wasn’t enough, she had passed this same beauty down to her daughter. They were the center of attention in whatever circle they found themselves in. Greg was already imagining all the ways he would enjoy their company in future runs.
Of course, with his innate AROUSING title, Greg had gotten a lustful look from more than a few of the women present. But with Sir Reigad’s wife and daughter, they hadn’t even bothered to hide it. The man was just too caught up leering at and trying to flirt with Zarra to notice what was happening with the two women beside him. It would be a lie to say that he wasn’t tempted. On more than one occasion, when the noble women had shown interest in him, Greg had almost given in to his baser desires and tried to seduce one of them. He, however, had reined in those desires in, instead forcing himself to remain on task. There would be countless more opportunities to do so on future runs. For now, he just wanted to remain true to his objective of learning as much as he could about those present.
Most of the dinner party went off without a hitch with one exception. Greg had been moving through the hallway looking for a washroom when he felt a hand placed on his shoulder to keep him from turning and a blade pressed against his back. From his several lessons under the healer, the blade didn’t even have to be pressed that hard for Greg to know that it was aimed between his fourth and fifth rib on his left side. If his assailant chose to stab him, the blade would go through both his left lung and heart. Whoever they were, they weren’t new to killing efficiently. “Who are you really?” Came a feminine voice that Greg easily recognized as that of the Mayor’s daughter, the spider queen. “I know Sir Joram better than even his wife does. That man would sooner kill her than let his wife go out with another man. I also happen to know that Zarra doesn’t have any cousins to speak of on her mother’s side, so think carefully before you speak?” came the cold warning from the gang leader.
It didn’t really surprise Greg that the spider queen had seen through his false identity. Given that they were partners in crime, it made sense that she had looked into the merchant and his family. Greg had just hoped that the woman wouldn’t want to antagonize him by calling him out on it. He was, after all, a mage, an identity that carried a lot of weight in this city of mundane individuals. It, however, seemed that he'd misjudged her.
“Do it,” Greg answered the woman with equanimity.
There was a moment of silence from the woman and Greg could tell that this wasn’t the answer she had been expecting. The moment of shock passed and Greg felt the hand tighten around his shoulder even as the point of the dagger was pressed painfully into his back. “Do you think that I won’t dare kill you?” The woman asked with a tone of dangerous amusement in her voice.
“Oh, there is no doubt in me that the spider queen is ruthless enough to kill me,” Greg answered her, calmly. Once again, the woman seemed to have been caught off-guard by his words. This time, he didn’t allow silence to follow his words. “However,” Greg’s voice turned colder than the heart of a glacier as he continued. “Do it only if you are certain you can make it out of this hall with your life,” He cautioned, his voice promising death should she keep on her current course.
As someone who was the head of a ruthless gang like the Spider gang, Greg knew that she would have seen right through him if he was bluffing. Greg, however, wasn’t. He had already made it through the dungeon and made it to the Mayor’s dinner party. He’d even managed to learn a lot about his future targets. Whether he died in this corridor or not, his objective was met. If the woman stabbed him, Greg’s last act in this dungeon run would be to leave her riddled with so many arrows, a porcupine would be jealous of her. As the head of a group of killers and a killer herself, Greg knew that she could recognize another killer when she met them. The fact that Greg knew of her secret identity and the calm certainty in his voice, made the woman hesitate. If she stopped now, there was a chance the situation could be salvaged, but if she insisted on it, then there was a very real chance she would die here.
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Greg didn’t continue to threaten the woman or try to convince her of how serious he was. He just quietly allowed her to make her choice. In the end, the blade was withdrawn and the hand came off his shoulder. With zero haste, Greg turned around and smiled at the redhead like she was a long-lost friend. “I’m glad this night didn’t have to end in blood,” He said casually.
“Who are you?” she asked with clear suspicion in her eyes.
“Roka,” Greg replied, not adding anything to the brief answer. “Now, did you want something or is a knife to the back just your awkward way of introducing yourself?” Greg posed with the air of one who had other things to do.
Ignoring his question, she countered with one of her own, “What happened to Sir Joram?” she asked.
“Oh, he came down with a sudden case of arrow to the heart,” Greg answered with the tone of one who was talking about the weather. “Nasty business that,” He added with a feigned sad shake of his head.
“Does his wife know?” The spider queen, Levia, asked, clearly looking for some kind of leverage over Greg.
“What do you think?” Greg replied with an amused look in his eyes as if he was watching an amusing play.
“And what do you think my father would do if he learned of what you’ve done?” The woman pressed unwilling to let up.
“Tell you what, why don’t we find out?” Greg posed in a completely unbothered tone. Pointing over his shoulder, Greg continued. “I’m off to answer nature’s call, the wine has just gone through me. That gives you a decent head-start. Use that time to tell your father and get as many of your men as ready as possible. I must admit I am morbidly curious how many of them I can kill before they take me down. Who knows, I might even manage to get your father,” He said with a shrug despite the way Levia's eyes narrowed dangerously at him. Without a care, he then turned around ready to continue his trip toward the washroom. He, however, paused and turned back around. “Oh, and it’s not very polite to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations, lady Iyana, wouldn’t you say?” He asked looking at another pillar, a short distance away from where they stood. Levia's eyes widened before she turned to glare in the direction of the pillar. There was a period of silence in the hall before, with completely silent steps, the blonde thief stepped out from behind the pillar she’d been hiding behind.
The silence turned awkward as it turned out that they’d been looking at the wrong pillar and the blonde thief had been hiding behind a different one. Greg’s serious façade broke as a laugh escaped him. Turning around and starting toward the washroom he spoke. “I didn’t think that would work,” He said laughing to himself.
When Greg had come back from the washroom, he had been fully prepared to find the hall emptied of the nobles and full of armed men. To end the party with a fight to the death, while not optimal, would be just as exciting. As he stepped back into the hall where the party had been, however, Greg found that nothing had changed. The nobles were still mingling and no armed men were anywhere to be found. Although, conspicuously to Greg, both the spider queen and the blonde thief were missing. With a shrug, Greg found his way back to Zarra’s side and continued to mingle. The rest of the night proceeded without any issues…
***
With a grin on his face, Greg skipped past all the sections of his assessment involving exploration, learning, combat, and sexual encounters. Instead, he focused on one particular section.
———
MAIN QUEST.
Attend the mayor’s dinner party!
ACHIEVED.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE: PASSABLE
PATH DIFFICULTY ADJUSTMENT.
+5
REWARD.
Performance increased by one grade.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE: PRAISEWORTHY.
HIDDEN QUEST
Survive the end of the Mayor’s dinner party the first time you attend it!
ACHIEVED.
REWARD.
Performance increased by one Grade.
OVERALL PERFORMANCE: PERFECT.
CALCULATING REWARDS…
———
Greg was frozen for a second as he looked on at the screen. There was a mix of confusion and trepidation in him as he read it over and over again. His confusion stemmed from the section on PATH DIFFICULTY ADJUSTMENT. Greg could understand what the words mean and looking over his memories of his attempts at the dungeon, he would agree that the dungeon had been getting progressively harder. What he didn’t know was by what criterion the dungeon made the adjustment for difficulty. Was this difficulty adjustment fixed? Or did it change with each dive? Could he actively reduce difficulty adjustment in any way? What was the maximum difficulty adjustment possible? Several questions were fleeting through Greg’s head over this particular section.
As for his trepidation, it stemmed from the hidden quest. Greg had been so focused on passing his main mission within the dungeon, that he hadn’t even considered the possibility of there being hidden missions. Looking at it, however, Greg couldn’t help but break out into a small cold sweat as he realized just how close he’d come to failing it. With a sigh of pure relief, Greg found himself thanking all his lucky stars that he’d somehow managed to achieve it despite his recklessness. Simple as the task may have seemed, Greg was keenly aware of just how easy it would have been to fail this objective. Even outside of his encounter with the spider queen and the blonde thief, Greg was certain that the only reason he’d managed to make it through this dungeon unharmed was because he’d had Zarra at his side to guide him through the intricacies of interaction with the nobility. If Greg had somehow made it to the party through some other means and didn’t know everything that the woman had taught him, Greg suspected that the night would have gone very differently.
———
REWARD ASSESSMENT DONE.
REWARDS:
50,000 DUNGEON COINS.
MAELSTROM ASCENSION MANUAL (FIRST LAYER).
———
Greg, who’d been waiting with bated breath to see what his reward for achieving a perfect rating would be, was left confused. Fifty thousand dungeon coins were quite the haul and were certain to make future dungeon runs easier. Greg, however, wasn’t sure what to make of his second reward. Given that it was the reward for achieving a perfect rating on his dungeon dive, he suspected that it was a good thing. He, however, didn’t even recognize what it was, so it was a bit hard to get excited about it. Rather than waste time trying to make guesses at the answer, he simply allowed the run to come to a close and his would to be brought back to the real world. After all, why guess when an answer could easily be obtained from Olivia…
When Greg’s eyes opened back in his room, he was already braced for the feelings of a pounding headache and overwhelming weakness and nausea. These were usually the aftereffects of a dungeon run. And while they did accost him, Greg was pleasantly surprised when he found that they were nowhere near as bad as they usually were before his break. Olivia had urged him to stop going on dungeon dives during the break the healer had given him. This was done to give his soul some time to mend and grow stronger after three months of dungeon dives. Greg had complied with her wishes and abstained. But if he was being honest, he hadn’t felt that much of a difference any way.
He wasn’t sure if soul strengthening gave any physical indication. If it did, he’d clearly missed them. This, however, didn’t bother Greg all that much as Olivia herself had told him that the improvement wouldn’t be that significant. Greg had just chalked it up to being something that he would feel only after it had had time to build up, perhaps after two or three years. He, however, was happy to be wrong. His soul had been tempered just a bit and it had in turn become just a bit more resilient to the adverse effects of the dungeon dives.
‘You also can’t overlook the ordeal with the soul core,’ Olivia’s voice resounded in his head. ‘It may have been just a fragment but you managed to contend with the soul of a tier three being and came out on top,’ She explained.
Greg’s brows rose at this. He hadn’t even considered that the beast-cores could help temper his soul. Now that Greg thought about it, however, it made sense. While it may not have been the traditional fight that employed fists or weapons, his teacher had told him of the very present danger of losing himself to the illusions. If he didn’t have a secured mind, chances are that Greg wouldn’t have come out the other end of the illusion completely fine. With his mind secured as powerfully as it currently was, however, Greg was immune to any adverse effects from the beast-cores, or at least the tier three ones. If not for the fact that to use one he needed to be knocked out for several days, Greg would probably have used this method to temper his soul even more than the dungeons.
“What is Path difficulty adjustment?” Greg at last turned his attention to the question that had been lingering at the back of his mind.
“I think by now you’ve worked out that the dungeons aren’t just a game, but a way to train your abilities,” Olivia replied, getting a nod of confirmation from Greg. “Whether it be combat, infiltration, espionage, or any other skill you wish to perfect, the dungeons will give you the chance to practice and perfect them. It, however, won’t make it easy for you. Out in the real world, if you try to break into someone’s house and fail the first time, will he be more or less prepared the second time you try?” she posed rhetorically. “The same holds true for the dungeons. The more times you attempt a given path in a specific dungeon, the more difficulties will be thrown your way.”
“Take the present dungeon for example. For three months you’ve been trying to get to the Mayor’s dinner party through the Merchant and his wife. This was your path. Every time you used this path, the dungeon learned from you and made the next attempt just that bit harder than the previous one. For example, if you had tried to seduce the tailor’s wife this time, you would have almost certainly gotten caught by her husband, leading to complications that would have ultimately led to complete failure in this attempt,” She said with a small smile. “To give you another example, consider the thief. The first time you met her, she ran into you. The subsequent times, she avoided you. When you finally tried to physically stop her…”
“She killed me,” Greg stated, understanding dawning on him.
“Exactly,” Olivia answered. “Simply put, the dungeon isn’t there to just give you rewards, master. If you want to get something good from it, you’ll have to work for it. Take every attempt seriously and work towards achieving whatever your main objective is. Always keep it in the back of your mind that it won’t get any easier,” She relayed. The familiar then smiled. “At the same time, however, there is no need to be too stressed at the moment. The Mayor’s dinner party is among the weakest of dungeons so there is a limit to the amount of difficulty that could be thrown your way. That’s why you still managed to beat it despite failing this path almost a hundred times over the past three months. Among the more difficult dungeons, failing a particular path ten times will render it almost impassable unless you get a significant power-up! Either that or you pick another path to try and beat the dungeon. In other words, Your first time attempting a given path will always be the easiest one. With each failure, subsequent attempts will get progressively harder,” she cautioned him.
Greg’s lips pressed together into a thin line as he realized the truth of the familiar’s words. While the dungeons at first appeared to be an easy way of getting rewards from the system, in reality, nothing could have been further from the truth. The rewards he got for his PUTRID ratings may hold some value while he was still a mundane human and perhaps even as a first-tier mage, but beyond that, they’d be useless. “What’s the limit for the difficulty adjustment?” Greg asked.
“Five for the lower dungeons, ten for the middle, and fifteen for the higher dungeons,” The familiar answered simply. “Trust me, you do not wish to ever encounter a plus fifteen dungeon,” She added with a shudder. For some reason, Greg suspected that she was being completely serious as opposed to her usual theatrical self. The moment, however, passed and a smile crossed the familiar’s face as she added. “Although, as you can see, the higher the difficulty of the path you beat, the better the rewards, so who knows, perhaps you just might wish to,” she said.
Rolling his eyes, knowing that she was just taunting him, Greg moved on. ‘I managed to get a perfect rating from the dungeon and got something called the Maelstrom Ascension manual. What is that?’ he asked, finally turning his attention to the reward he got from the dungeon.
‘Ascension manuals, scripts, methods, paths, and so on. They go by several different names depending on where you are from and how pretentious the one who came up with it is,’ Came Olivia's reply. ‘Put simply, An ascension manual is the method used by mages to rise from one tier to the next. Remember, your core and mana pathways are usually both formed and largely fixed by the time you step into the first tier. And yet the higher your tier, the more mana you have at your command, have you not wondered how this can be?’ Olivia posed.
Greg shrugged. ‘I just figured mages shoved more and more mana into their cores until it condensed into a more saturated form,’ he replied.
‘Yes, in the crudest possible terms, that is exactly what they do. But just straight-up pumping more mana into a core than it’s meant to handle will at best end with you leaking it all back out and at worst will blow up your core, the results of which, I promise you, won’t be pretty. Getting one’s core to not only hold but generate more condensed forms of mana is one of the prerequisites for rising from one tier to the next. There are several different ascension manuals out there, ranging from crappy ones that will take forever to take you from one tier to the next and give you a weak foundation. To top-tier ones that are usually closely guarded secrets of top mage families, clans, or even schools. A better ascension manual will save you not only in time but will leave you with better foundations and a lot more mana in any given tier compared to someone who used a crappy one,” Olivia laid out.
‘What does ‘first layer’ mean?’ Greg questioned.
“Lower tier mages don’t gather and condense mana the same way those in the middle tiers do, and the same holds true for when you transition to the higher tiers. Each layer of an ascension manual corresponds to the equivalent mage tier. Most ascension manuals that you encounter out there will only have three layers, taking you to the third tier and no further. Manuals that take you to the fourth tier and beyond are usually owned by various forces, be they families, big clans, mage academies, or even kingdoms and empires. The best manuals you will find out there have seven layers to them, taking you all the way to the seventh tier. Beyond that, each mage's path is so unique that only they can chart their way forward beyond that point,” She explained.
“So you are telling me that I’ve gotten an ascension manual for only the first tier?” Greg asked, unable to help the disappointment in his voice.
A smile crossed Olivia’s face as she picked up on his disappointment. “If this ascension manual had been a five-layer ascension manual, a perfect rating would have been enough to get you the whole manual in its entirety. If it had been a seven-layer ascension manual, you’d have at the very least gotten the first three to four layers of it. That you only got the first layer of this particular manual despite your rating means that you’ve gotten something quite unique, Master. I wouldn’t be quick to be disappointed if I were you…”