Paragon of Skills

Felisia Clearwater is having breakfast with her bodyguard after finding out that her newly-acquired Tutor had yet to return from the Emberdeep Cavern.

"Sir Greyson," Felisia clears her voice, trying to look nonchalant.

She's going to ask again.

"Yes, milady?" Sir Greyson smiles.

"So… do you think Bocaj will be alright?" she asks, looking outside the window of her favorite tower. This is where a very young Felisia was brought by her mother every morning to have breakfast with her.

Young Bocaj has no idea what it means for Felisia to have the Great Tide Bracelet.

Sir Greyson knows how much Felisia loved her mother and how much it had hurt her not to receive the bracelet that had been promised to her. Calantha, through some scheming, had convinced their father, Lord Clearwater, to give it to her.

Felisia had never overcome the grief of her mother and her heritage being cannibalized by her sisters.

Not until now, Sir Greyson thinks. She doesn't even realize how much differently she's behaving from the usual. She'd be screaming at me in any other scenario right now. The kid has calmed her nerves so much it's beyond impressive.

"Young Bocaj will most certaintly be alright, milady," Sir Greyson says, taking a sip of his tea. "If it had been any other person, there would be a right to be concerned about him going into the Dungeon alone. But Young Bocaj? As long as he's cautious, he's going to be fine."

The boy hides more than he lets on, Sir Greyson thinks. He has something that he talks about, something inside he's not telling us. But I can tell he's a good person. Whatever stock he's really from, I have no doubt about his character.

Sir Greyson doesn't consider himself a very strong Knight nor the most talented fighter around. Among the three bodyguards of the daughters of Lord Clearwater, he's definitely the weakest. However, he comes from a noble lineage himself, despite being the youngest child. He grew up observing people, from his older siblings to all the guests in the house. Over the years, he's realized that telling whether someone is good or evil is much easier than one realizes.

Test their character under duress, that's all it takes. And Young Bocaj showed us his true colors from the start. He doesn't need Felisia to rise to a star of his own. He's got enough knowledge that he could easily make it to the Knight's Academy without my recommendation.

It's true that Sir Greyson's support could help the boy get into the academy, but the Knight knew very well that if Young Bocaj is actually as knowledgeable as he think he is, he could get any Knight, perhaps even Sir Renquell, to give him a recommendation.

And if my recommendation would get him at least taken into consideration at Ytrial, Sir Renquell's…

That would guarantee his admission on the spot.

Few people carried as much weight as the Five Wandering Knight, even one who fell into disgrace as Sir Renquell.

Felisia, who's biting into a piece of pastry, suddenly frowns, puts down the pastry, cleans her mouth with a napkin, and then raises an eyebrow at Sir Greyson.

"Sir Greyson, did you explain to Bocaj he must not approach the second level of the Dungeon and, most importantly, the Boss?"

"Of cou—" Sir Greyson stops himself mid-sentence because, as he's trying to remember his indication to Bocaj, he realizes he did explain what the second floor and the Boss would be like, but he did not warn the boy not to go there.

"Well," Sir Greyson scratches his chin and swallows. "I don't think Young Bocaj will be foolish enough to go beyond the Molten Snappers, milady."

The two look at each other and Felisia suddenly puts down her cup of tea.

"Sir Greyson."

"Yes, milady, would you like to take a walk into the Emberdeep Cavern?"

"I'm glad you still have some sense left in you, Sir Greyson," Felisia says stiffly, getting up. "If anything happened to Bocaj because you didn't warn him, Sir Greyson…"

"I'm sure he'll be alright," Sir Greyson replies, "he would never dare enter the second floor while not having a Class. He's too knowledgeable to make such an amateur's mistake."

* * *

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I look at the incision above a stone arch.

"Emberdeep Cavern 2F. Cool," I say, cracking my neck.

The Molten Snappers have stopped being a problem and I don't feel any closer to leveling up my Skills to level one-hundred.

I know all the flaws in them, but as I come closer and closer to solving them, there are things that just seem to evade me.

Name: Jacob Cloud

Skills:

Iron Grip Lv. 98 (Iron)

Minor Endurance Lv. 87 (Iron)

Minor Night Vision Lv. 32 (Iron)

Minor Vibration Sense Lv. 21 (Iron)

Minor Cookery Lv. 34 (Iron)

Minor Strength Lv. 91 (Bronze)

Light Lv. 67 (Bronze)

Pickaxe Mastery Lv. 81 (Bronze)

Minor Mineral Sense Lv. 72 (Bronze)

The Grimoire Extraordinaire (Rainbow)

Mana Pool Lv. 78 (Silver)

Hell's Sword Lv. 80 (Gold)

Fire Shield Lv. 83 (Silver)

Fire Armor Lv. 88 (Silver)

Fire Slash Lv. 82 (Silver)

Fire Walk Lv. 78 (Silver)

The most surprising levelups, honestly, are the ones from Iron Grip. It went from level ninety-five to level ninety-eight while I was wielding Hell's Sword. Apparently, grip strength is very important in swordfighting and I had completely forgotten about such a common, primitive Skill.

I step under the stone arch into Emberdeep Cavern's second floor, and the heat changes.

It's drier here. No lava streams. No glowing cracks.

Just stillness.

The ceiling lifts into a wide dome of black volcanic stone, with only faint veins of orange pulsating through the walls. It's like the heart of a dormant forge. No light, no monsters, no sound. Even my footsteps feel swallowed.

I summon Hell's Sword.

The flame blade hovers beside me with practiced ease now.

I step forward.

The chamber is huge—and empty.

Then I see one figure with very long arms.

[Magma Claw – Level 15]

The creature stands still.

No—it waits.

The [Magma Claw] doesn't shift its weight or flex its absurdly long arms. It simply watches me.

Its skin looks like crusted slag, blackened and splintered with crimson cracks that pulse in rhythm with its breath. Its arms are longer than its legs—long enough to drag along the floor if it walked upright. The hands are claws in the loosest sense—more like lengths of obsidian rebar fused into jagged arcs. Each swipe would take a head off.

Before it sees me, I get an idea.

I can't take this thing on my own, but the Grimoire showed me the two guys' before… maybe…

I focus on the monster and try to activate The Grimoire Extraordinaire.

Target Status – [Magma Claw – Level 15]

Threat Assessment: High

Strength Output: 320kg

Reach: 2.4 meters

Vein Saturation: Lava-Type Core — Extreme Mana Conductivity

Primary Weakness: Overheats when casting attacks

Secondary Weakness: Slow rear-leg pivot

A red danger zone appears around the monster and I feel a spike of adrenaline. It's thrice as big as the Molten Snappers'.

Now, the problem is the following. Fighting with a Molten Snapper means that I would be facing a monster at level fifteen.

The level five Molten Snapper was easy to deal with because it was slow, but this magma claw is clearly much stronger than the snappers.

Therefore, I hesitate.

Look, it's not that I don't want to push my skills to level one-hundred, but it's also the fact that maybe I could just wait. After seeing how strong the Molten Snappers were, I realized that anyone with a brain would have brought reinforcements here to farm the Crystal Shards for Fire Walk.

However, now that I am here with all my skills on the cusp of reaching level one-hundred, I feel something in my veins. I feel an ambition that I had not felt as strongly before.

Sure, I've always wanted to be a knight. Sure, it's always been my dream, but never had I felt this strongly about it. The pressure of fighting a Magma Claw on my own, or not just one, would make my skills level up several times.

Only a few flaws remain in each of them. Even though they're almost perfect, they're about twenty levels from level one-hundred, and all the minutiae that I need to work out—all the kinks—are still there.

I summon both Hell's Swords and look at the monster.

Fuck, I think to myself.

This is going to be really hard. This is probably the closest I've come to death since I fell into that pit where I found the grimoire. But still, I decide to charge.

The [Magma Claw] stands motionless, yet I feel its weight pressing on my chest. I tighten both hilts although sweat already slicks my palms, and I push a slow breath between my teeth because the first mistake will kill me.

The monster lifts its right arm, and viscous sparks drip from each jagged finger while its chest swells. I see the glow deepen inside the cracks that web across its torso.

"Grimoire!"

Grimoire Extraordinaire: Magma Slag Lv. 35 contains 9 distinct flaws.

On top of that, the Grimoire generates a page that I ignore for the moment, but it also shows what I was hoping for.

When I was in the mines, the Grimoire helped me climb out of the pit. This time, thankfully, it shows me the future trajectory of the projectile.

Right on me and with splash damage? It's skewed to the right, though. I think.

I drop my stance, and I sprint left so the blast, when it erupts, carves a trench where I stood instead of roasting me alive. The floor splinters under the impact, and liquid fire splashes, but I ride the shockwave, and I hurl myself forward with Fire Walk, riding the fire like a wave.

I'll never get used to how cool Movement Skills are, I think, crouching low, and, before the Magma Claw can throw anything else, I slash at his wrist with one of the two swords.

Steel meets slag, and the hiss deafens me. A flake of black rock flies off, yet the limb does not sever. The creature twists, and its backhand sweeps low. I dive, feeling the heat graze my hair.

Holy shit that was close, I pant, breathing hard and letting my second sword go and thrusting it at full-power at the monster.

The sword partially pierces the chest of the Magma Claw, but before it can do more, the monster batters it away and looks at me angrily.

"This is going to be tougher than I imagined."