Just an hour later, they were walking outside of the Guild with a brand new Dungeon Identity Card. It was a simple thing, just a few minor enchantments to keep the information up to date. It was basically just a portable status that you could show others. Not everyone had [Identify] after all. Case in point, Voran themself didn’t have it.
[Identify] was extremely common in merchant Classes, but most people guarding dungeons were warriors. They generally had a [Danger Sense] skill, and those worked in shades of ‘not dangerous’ ‘dangerous’, and ‘very dangerous’, unless they were a higher rarity.
Considering these were guards for fiercely protected resources, everyone entering a dungeon would be considered ‘not dangerous’ to their skills, and the card gave the confirmation that you were at the appropriate level for the dungeon. Well, that and it showed that you were actually a part of the guild. They wouldn’t want to give free resources to someone unaffiliated with the Delvers.
Voran was actually heading to a Dungeon at that moment. Vorn wasn’t talking much, but Rowan managed to stay excited despite his soulmate’s bad mood. They were headed to the Trial Dungeon. It was a safer - not safe mind you - dungeon that was manned by high-level warriors that were there to save you if you fucked up. You were required to go through it before you went to actual dungeons that could murder you in half a second. The Guild had to make sure you wouldn’t freeze up at the first sign of danger before they would fully unlock your Dungeon I.D.
It made sense to Rowan. A fully unlocked I.D. gave you access to most dungeons in the Lunarian Empire – Rowan had discovered only a few hours ago that Empire’s actual name was Hyal’heim, in honor of the Goddess of fertility – and gave you the ability to join someone’s party. You wouldn’t want some greenhorn joining your party only for them to freeze up and get you killed. Thus, Trial Dungeon.
It wasn’t very far away, only a short stop outside the city walls. Rowan was surprised when the air felt heavier the moment he left the walls. It was as if gravity had started pulling much harder.
“Vorn, what is happening?” Rowan asked while continuing to walk to the dungeon.
“Huh? Oh, did you notice the mana pressure increase? I didn’t realize you would be mana-sensitive, or I would have warned you. Most that are sensitive get magical Classes… Oh wait, you did get one that offered space magic, didn’t you? My bad, I should have realized.” Vorn apologized.
He continued, “Most of the mana in the city is consumed by people going about their business, so there isn’t much pressure there. The moment you leave the city, however, the mana in the air gets denser and more abundant. I really should have remembered to tell you that. Sorry.”
“It is- It’s fine.”
“What was that? You cut yourself off.”
“I am- I’m trying to talk more naturally again. I have stopped using the meditation technique, but I had not- hadn’t realized how much it changed my speech patterns unconsciously. Disregarding the fact that talking like this naturally defeats the point, I have found this extremely difficult to counteract.”
“Oh. You don’t have to force yourself, you know. I don’t mind how you talk. It doesn’t even really sound that robotic anymore. You actually have an inflection in your tone when you… think? What are we doing right now? I’ve never actually thought about it. It just came so naturally.”
“I think it’s some sort of telepathic communication. The system did say it changed our biology and spirit to be more compatible, maybe that has something to do with it?”
“No, we were doing this right after you got here. It just got louder when the System changed our spirit.”
“Then I don’t know. You can’t hear all my thoughts, can you?”
“No, that’s what had me wondering. If it were just our thoughts, we would constantly be hearing each other's stream of consciousness.”
“A mystery then. Why don’t you think about it while I take care of the dungeon? You could probably figure it out pretty quickly.”
— — —
“Halfway through their trek through the dark roads outside the city, Vorn finally asked, "So… Do you have a plan?”
“A plan for what?”
“A plan to kill the monsters in the dungeon. I think I heard something about the one we’re heading to being inhabited with goblins, but we don’t even have a weapon…”
“I don’t need one.”
“Is this you being reckless again? Do I need to turn this body around?”
“No need to go that far, I just mean that I’ve had training in unarmed combat, and I don’t want to waste your funds. You're planning on heading to that academy right? It must be expensive.”
“It sure as fuck is, and I appreciate the thought, but if we’re heading somewhere dangerous, I can take a hit to my savings.”
“It’s no problem. I’m almost as strong as I was in my previous life, so a few low level creatures with common Path’s shouldn’t be an issue.”
“And how would you know that?”
“This is where the guild sends their recruits, unless they're trying to murder a significant number of them, it can’t be that dangerous. They send level five’s with common Path’s here, and we have twice the number of raw Attributes.”
“It’s dangerous to think that way, level and rarity aren’t everything… But, in this case, you’re probably right. This is a very low level dungeon. Okay, we can continue.”
Vorn was more concerned than he let on, but Rowan was a veritable legend and a combat specialist… So he knew what he was doing… Probably.
— — —
There it was. A dungeon. It was… unimpressive. A little floating crack in mid-air. The crack had a wall around it, but it was clearly manmade. There were quite a few guards manning it. Curious. Rowan walked up to one of the guards and asked about it.
“Why is the dungeon so closely guarded?” He asked simply.
“It’s not the dungeon we’re guarding, kid. It’s you. This is a Delver’s Guild’s training ground, it would be insanely easy for some psycho to come to pick off Initiates on their first dungeon run. Most people running it aren’t exactly dangerous. This dungeon is so low level that it wouldn’t even be worth it to raid for most brigands, but the noble scions on their first run…”
“That answers my question, thank you.” He said before walking up to the crack.
There was one more guard he had to go through.
“Card.”
Rowan complied.
The information was simple. Name, Level, Race/Species, then Class. Below that, there was the number of dungeons run, and estimated danger rating. Level did not determine how dangerous you were after all, your perks, skills, and stats did. You were, however, not required to tell the Guild that information. Just your Class and Level. So they had to estimate based on how quickly you ran dungeons and third-party information.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Oh, and also, the estimated danger rating wasn’t a feature that was widely known about. Rowan only knew about it because Vorn had told him. Apparently, his mother was high up in the Guild and had told him about it. It was a hidden feature on the card that only those with sufficient clearance could activate. It was kept on the card in case you were arrested, so the guard knew how to deal with you. The card also had a mirror copy that the Guild kept themselves, but that was also not a widely known thing.
“You're clear, go on in.”
Rowan gave the guard a nod and headed in. All it took was him touching the floating crack, and he was suddenly standing somewhere else.
— — —
He arrived in the middle of a gray brick room. It wasn’t very large, only about fifteen by fifteen feet. To his left, there was a short table that had a couple of guards playing a game that looked like dominoes.
“Ah, don’t worry about us, kid. We’re just here to make sure you don’t get your ass kicked too badly. Pretend like we’re not here, if that makes you feel better.” One of them said.
Rowan just gave them a nod and continued forwards out of the room. There was a wooden arched doorway directly ahead of where he arrived.
Rowan nearly jumped when he opened the double doors. They swung outwards to reveal… nothing. Just a black wall so dark that he couldn’t even describe it properly where he was supposed to walk through. This was an extreme achievement, as Rowan seen a substance one hundred and seventy times darker than Vantablack in his career. This door was somehow much darker.
“That’s just the dungeon tryin’ to spook ya, kid. Just walk through it, we’ll be right behind ya.” the second guard said.
Rowan didn’t need the encouragement, but he appreciated it nonetheless.
He slowly brought his hand towards the dark boundary, and the moment he made contact, he popped into another location. Rowan was beginning to see a theme.
The new area was, instead of a gray brick room, a luscious forest. He quickly analyzed his surroundings but found nothing amiss. There wasn’t even a door behind him. It was as if someone had just picked him up and dropped him into a rainforest.
“I think I saw rustling to the right,” Vorn warned.
Rowan quickly looked to his right, and Vorn was right. It was subtle, barely noticeable, but there was a slight trembling in the leaves.
“And you said I was observant,” Rowan complimented.
“I try.”
Rowan walked up to the area where they saw the rustling, and he saw a small pair of footprints. Something was watching them.
“Those look like goblin footprints. Looks like the rumors I heard were right. Based on how light they are, it’s probably a rogue.”
Rowan quirked an eyebrow at that.
“How do you know that off the top of your head?”
“I, uh, read a lot. I mean, I did read a lot. Haven’t had much time for that recently. I read a bestiary a few years ago about the most common monsters in dungeons and their variants. I still have the book somewhere if you’d like to take a look when we get home.”
Rowan didn’t question that, he had read a few books on animals himself. He had taken up hunting during his short stint as a civilian, so he knew how important it was to be prepared. He just accepted his good fortune and moved on.
“Tell me if you notice anything suspicious. You seem to have a better eye for dungeon creatures than me.”
“No problem. I'll keep an eye out.”
Rowan wasn’t the stealthiest, but he knew how to be quiet in a forest. Luckily, there weren't any dead leaves, the ground was mostly just mud and roots. He just had to be careful to avoid squelching his boots into the mud.
He followed the footprints back to their source. Which was apparently a camp. Three goblins were sleeping, and another two were lazing around practically asleep on their ramshackle chairs, looking into the fire. The goblin rogue was nowhere to be seen. Rowan took stock of his situation. He had no weapon, and the goblins were armed. The smart move would be to try to silently pick one off and take their weapon… But in his experience, overwhelming violence also worked a treat against unsuspecting enemies.
He crouched into a running position and rushed into the clearing like a bolt of lightning, quickly arriving at the sleeping goblins. He stomped on the first sleeping goblin's throat but didn’t have time to do the same to the other two before being tackled to the ground. Rowan leaned into it and turned the tackle into a roll, and he ended up on top. He grabbed the goblin’s long ears like handlebars and violently twisted its head to the left, snapping its neck. That was two down out of six.
“HOLY SHIT!” Vorn shouted, not expecting the sudden rush of violence.
He heard a goblin rushing him from behind and grabbed the sword of the goblin he just killed, though it was more a dagger for someone his size. That is, not 3’2. He quickly turned while keeping the ‘dagger’ in a guard position. The goblin was already most of the way to him, and the other two were not far behind.
The closest goblin lunged at him with a knife, but Rowan had been in a few knife fights in his time. He cut the inside of its wrist as it tried to stab at him with a reverse grip. The goblin dropped its weapon and instinctively grabbed its wound. That was enough time for Rowan to put his dagger through the goblin’s temple before quickly letting go of it and dodging backward. Now it was a two vs one. He was unarmed, but not any less dangerous for it.
The two goblins rushed him together. One had a dagger and the other a sword, but he wasn’t worried. In fact, he was thrilled. The dagger one lunged for him first, but he grabbed its stick-thin arm and pulled the dagger out of its hand. The other goblin didn’t pause for this, though, and kept rushing at him. Rowan used the dagger he just acquired and threw it at the sword goblin's stomach. He could have aimed for the throat, but they were freakishly thin, and he couldn’t risk missing. The disarmed dagger goblin clawed at his arm that was keeping it locked in place, but Rowan let go before it could hit him.
The sword goblin staggered back from the impact of the dagger, so Rowan had a bit of time to deal with the former dagger goblin. It was quite tenacious as, even without a weapon, it attacked just as brutally. It swung its claws at Rowan like a whirlwind, but he just picked up a rickety chair and threw it at the goblin. It nearly fell down but managed to quickly regain its balance, just not quickly enough. Rowan rushed it and pushed it to the ground. He then kicked it in the head. That left it stunned enough for him to stomp on its throat. Two left.
Oh, the sword goblin was bleeding out on the ground. One left. There was still a rogue somewhere, but if it hadn’t attacked-
“DUCK!”
Years of training and experience kicked in when someone said duck, he ducked.
As he impacted the ground from violently throwing himself at it, a dagger flew right over his head and thunked into a tree. There was the rogue. Had it really left its comrades to die just for a better opportunity at a sneak attack? Rowan decided he didn’t like goblins.
It panicked upon seeing him not grossly injured and tried to run, but Rowan had longer legs and higher stats. He tackled it to the ground and its face hit the floor hard. He grabbed the goblin's head and twisted once more. Hmm. Rowan didn’t think he had ever snapped two necks in a battle before. A new record.
That was six out of six.
“Thanks for the save. I owe you.”
“I was also saving my own ass. If you hadn’t noticed, if you die, I die.”
“Thanks anyway.”
“You're welcome.” Vorn said, embarrassed. He hadn’t received genuine thanks in… years.
“How did you notice that goblin anyway?”
“We share the same senses, so I just figured I would keep an ear out for any unusual sounds you may have missed in your battle frenzy.”
Rowan was about to move on, but before he could, Vorn asked, "Aren’t you going to loot them?"
“What could goblins have on them besides a few poorly made weapons?”
“I need to stop forgetting that you're not from here. Just touch one of the corpses now that you're no longer in combat.”
Rowan obliged and was rewarded with a screen.
[Loot], [Destroy], or [Convert]
That was curious.
“What do the options do?”
“[Loot] gives you a magical item based on the amount of mana that was in the creature you slayed, [Destroy] destroys the body but gives you better loot for it, and [Convert] turns the mana that would have been turned into items into currency.”
“Why would you ever pick [Loot] instead of [Destroy]?”
“[Loot] Lets you harvest the body. For goblins? It’s mostly useless, but it does allow you to collect their ears if you're on a harvest quest. Since we’re not, either pick [Destroy] or [Convert].”
“How does the currency thing work? Does the system just drop a few coins in your lap?”
“Coins? I haven’t heard of those. No, it gives you a mana stone of equivalent worth to their level. Our currency is based on mana stones. The higher the density of mana, the brighter they glow, so they are named based on brightness. they go, in order, dims, lumies, brights, and blinds.”
“Lumies?”
“Oh yeah, the full name is luminescent, but no one calls them that. The actual ranks are dim, luminescent, bright, and blinding, but most people use the plurals of the names.”
“Strange.”
“I guess it might be to a reincarnator. Didn’t you say you guys used digital money in your world? That sounds weirder to me.”
“Anyway, check our status! We probably leveled a few times. Those goblins were all level 7 to 12.”
Status.
Voran - Level 3 Twin Soul Warrior
Attributes:
CON: 15 + 30
STR: 15 + 30
AGI: 15 + 30
DEX: 15 + 30
WIS: Locked
INT: Locked
CHA: Locked
LUCK: Locked
Unlock the rest of your attributes by selecting a Class!
“Huh, that’s…”
“Good?”
“Disappointing. I did think your Class was abnormally strong, but it appears to level just as slowly as a Mythic one. I guess it’s only fair.”
“How much would a common Class have leveled?”
“Probably to around level 8 or 9.”
“And those six extra levels would have netted them 36 stat points, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“We just got 120. I think we’re fine.”
“True, but they also would’ve gotten their first Class skill.”
“Is that worth 120 stat points?”
“Later on? Yeah. Right now, no. Anyway, I see your point. Even if we advance slower, we’ll still be more powerful. Still, killing six monsters all over six levels higher than you at level one and only getting two levels… It feels strange.”
“We can continue this later, I need to [Convert] these before they start stinking.”