Soul of the Warrior

Reivyn twirled the harpoon in his hands as he walked to the front of the Dungeon. There were several other Parties taking turns entering the Dungeon on the first day it was reset for everyone. Reivyn had access to several types of weapons, his new sword proudly strapped to his hip, but he had chosen to open with the harpoon after witnessing most of the local guardians sporting the weapon.

There had to be a reason for their choice, after all. The harpoon he armed himself with was basically just a streamlined spear with a wicked hook on the end. Reivyn had tested it against the waters of the ocean and found that it was quite easy to cut through the water. It was mainly a stabbing weapon, and the hook on the end promised to do some real damage, but he could use it like a regular spear at any time.

That wasn’t to say that his other weapons couldn’t cut through the waters. Swords were particularly good at it, but it was a close-range weapon, and from what Reivyn could remember of the bodies of the Dungeon monsters, they were very agile and fast moving. At least that’s what he inferred from their bodies. He hadn’t actually seen any in action, yet.

Refix was obviously also able to expertly wield a harpoon, and Kimberly had snagged one of her own. She was mainly a spear wielder to begin with, so she could fall back on her main weapons Skill. Teilon was convinced to arm himself with one as well. He had the prerequisite Skill to use it half-way decently, and he still had his daggers readily available.

Xudrid, like always when not participating as a member of a squad, didn’t have any discernible weapon on him. He was a Sorceror type Cultivator. According to Xudrid and Vyria, the Cultivators still distinguished between martial and Caster classes, it just wasn’t as obvious. Vyria would hear nothing about using anything other than her sword. Like her senior brother, she only used the spear when acting as a member of the squad they were in. Reivyn wasn’t too worried about her effectiveness in aquatic combat, though. He had seen the reach of her sword, and it was anything but exclusively close-range.

“Have we got everything we need?” Reivyn asked the group.

“Pretty sure,” Teilon answered. “I’ve read and re-read that data packet a hundred times, too. I wouldn’t worry too much. This isn’t our first Delve.”

“Yeah, I know,” Reivyn said. “You’re actually more experienced than me when it comes to Dungeons, now.”

“That’s your own fault. You shouldn’t have gotten trapped in a space crack for several years.” Teilon shrugged nonchalantly.

“You do seem to have an unusual affinity with the Outside,” Xudrid noticed with a smile.

“Yeah, you’d think it would be Kefira,” Teilon said.

“I’m just special,” Reivyn shrugged. “What can I say?”

“Uh huh, keep telling yourself that,” Teilon chuckled.

“We’ll be fine,” Refix clapped Reivyn on the shoulder. “We’ve prepared as much as we possibly can, and there’s nothing left but to get actual experience in the Dungeon. We’ve all done this many times before, so there’s nothing to worry about.” Refix glanced at Xudrid and Vyria. “At least, I think we’ve all done this multiple times before. What’s your two’s experience with Dungeons?”

“We have multiple Tier Dungeons available to us in our Sect,” Xudrid confirmed. “We have Dungeons all the way from Tier 1 to Tier 7, though not even the Patriarch and Elders routinely delve the Tier 7 Dungeon.”

“Really? I’d think that would be their main source of safe Experience,” Reivyn questioned.

“Nah, it’s too hard,” Xudrid said. “As far as I know, the first boss has never been cleared. There’s only so much Experience one can gain from the regular monsters on the first floor. There’s more Experience from fully clearing the Tier 6 Dungeon. One of the quirks of the System, it doesn’t limit the Experience gains from out-Leveling monsters the same way as in the wild. It’s calculated as an aggregate.”

“Oh, there’s no diminishing returns from running lower Tier Dungeons at higher Levels?” Reivyn’s eyes brightened.

“I didn’t say that,” Xudrid shook his head. “I just said it was handled differently. There’s still a reduction in Experience, but you’re not going to find a situation where you don’t get any Experience at all from a Tier below your Level. I don’t know the actual calculations, and it changes as one advances in Level and Tiers, but it’s basically a 50% reduction per Tier below your own.

“That doesn’t level off above 0%, though. Someone that’s Tier 7 won’t get any Experience in a Tier 4 Dungeon.”

“Still, that begs the question: Why aren’t there more Tier 8 Classers?” Reivyn asked, puzzled. “If you can get 25% of the Experience from running a Dungeon two Tiers below your Level, shouldn’t there be enough time to just grind to max Level?”

“Dungeons Tier 5 and up don’t reset every week, and there are other ways the System enforces diminishing returns,” Xudrid answered. “Again, I haven’t touched that Level, yet, so I don’t kinow the specifics, but I do know that the elders in the Sect spend a lot of time between Dungeon delves. It’s speculated that the System wants people to compete against actual denizens of the Realm to reach the very top, not just shadows. They’re more a supplement to one’s journey at the higher Levels than the main avenue of Experience.”

“Hmm, that’s something to keep in mind going forward in the future.”

The next group ahead of Reivyn’s finally entered the Dungeon. The guardians on duty nodded to them with familiarity as they waited for the time between groups heading in. It was universal that there was a short wait period between different groups entering a single Dungeon. They only had to wait for about a minute before it was finally their turn.

Reivyn took the lead and stepped into the Dungeon. Everything looked the same as when they had first found themselves on the island, minus the corpses of the various monsters lurking in the water.

“The data pack says that everyone has to get into the water before we engage the first group of monsters,” Reivyn said as everyone walked to the edge of the water. “It doesn’t count even if there’s one person waiting on shore. We’re not aiming for Hard Mode this time, obviously, but I don’t see a reason we should do what we saw the other Party do and draw everything to the land to kill them. We’re going to have to fight them in the water anyway, so we would only be hurting ourselves in the long run.”

“That’s fair,” Teilon said. “If we work on clearing the Dungeon, too, we’re going to end up fighting in the water, anyway. Might as well jump in feet first. No pun intended.”

Everyone else nodded, and so Reivyn once more took the lead and led them into the water. The water was just colder than lukewarm. It wasn’t unpleasant, and it didn’t cause any discomfort. It took a moment to get used to the feeling of the water soaking through the cloth on Reivyn’s body and cling to his body, but after just a few short moments, the feeling was relegated to the back of his mind.

Reivyn’s Divine Sense was always active. It was a true sphere, though it usually didn’t show him what was below the ground when it was solid. He could force the issue by concentrating, but there was hardly ever any reason to do so. He was using it passively right now, and it automatically expanded in his perception downward as he moved away from the edge of the shore. There weren’t any monsters within the immediate vicinity showing up in his perception.

Makes sense, he thought. Every Dungeon I’ve been in so far has had at least some space that’s safe from enemies. No reason for things to be different, here.

Reivyn nodded to the others and swam out toward the center of the giant cavern.

“No reason to go below until we reach where the monsters are going to be,” Reivyn said to murmurs of agreement.

Reivyn led them forward at a normal pace for about a minute before the first monster came into his sight below them. It wasn’t directly under them, but his Divine Sense didn’t reach the floor of the water. It was possible there was still more lurking further below, but the data packet had mentioned that there weren’t any ambushing groups of monsters on the first floor.

“First monster spotted,” Reivyn said. “Down and in front. Alright, let’s get to it.”

Reivyn took a deep breath and pushed himself below the surface of the water. The monster hadn’t spotted them, yet, but that was about to change with them heading directly for it.

The first monster was just one of a small group. They looked like little sharks on the outside, about the length of an average person’s height, but Reivyn remembered the razor-sharp multiple rows of teeth within its mouth.

Like Reivyn suspected, it wasn’t long before the monsters sensed their presence. Reivyn didn’t know how they perceived the surroundings, but from his own eyesight he could tell that the ambient lightning found within all subterranean Dungeons was present even under the water. He could see quite a ways clearly through the water with just his eyes.

He had enough practice between his different senses that he was able to easily parse the difference between what he was seeing with his eyes, hearing with his ears, feeling with his skin, and what was fed to him through his Divine Sense. That parsing had tremendously accelerated his other Perception Skills, like Night Vision, and he assumed they would eventually be incorporated into his Divine Sense somehow.

Reivyn brought his group down level to the sharks as they ascended to meet them. The monster sharks moved very quickly through the water. Their bodies were built for it, after all. Reivyn brandished his harpoon and waited for the first shark to arrive.

They pounced like a rabid pack of goblins. There was no subtlety or tactics involved in the attack. They didn’t move so fast that Reivyn and the others couldn’t keep up with them, but Reivyn tossed a Sense Threat their way, anyway, as they engaged in combat.

FreshWater Mon-Shark

Tier 3: Level 85

Moderate Threat

The Skill still mainly based its assessment of threat based on the Levels. Reivyn had noticed, though, that as his Skill Level increased, there was a slight increase in the accuracy of the assumed threat levels. The Skill didn’t just improve how much he could assess of the enemy’s Level.

Reivyn wasn’t worried about a Tier 3 monster, even if it was very close to max Level for the Tier. In fact, Reivyn was the only person in the Party who wasn’t Tier 4, and it could be argued that he was one of the strongest members. Refix still far outclassed him in terms of pure Stats, and Vyria’s Sword Soul ability was still enough for her to compete on equal footing with him if not a slight bit stronger, though Reivyn was confident that the closer he got to matching her Level, the less impact her unique ability would be able to affect him.

Reivyn gauged the movements of the sharks and expertly stabbed his harpoon down the open maw of the lead shark. Like he had suspected, the wicked hook on the end of the harpoon added a terrible laceration to the inside of the shark other than just the piercing wound.

Blood gushed out of the mouth of the shark as its movement was arrested. Its own dash forward had contributed to the amount of damage it suffered from the strike. Reivyn hadn’t even used any kind of Mana infusion into the weapon. He wanted to see how much damage he could do with just the mundane strength of the harpoon.

He had not been disappointed.

The strike didn’t kill the shark, though, it was just momentarily stunned. Reivyn ripped the harpoon back out of the shark’s mouth, though, and even more blood billowed out into the water from the devastating internal wound. The eyeballs of the shark swam around in pain before focusing once more on Reivyn. Reivyn could feel the feral hate in its gaze.

A shadow flitted across Reivyn’s perception, and Teilon was suddenly right above the shark. He had already tossed aside his harpoon into his storage pouch, and he stabbed down on either side of it with his daggers. The sharks’ body shook for a moment before turning upside down and floating up to the surface.

Reivyn noticed something was wrong with Teilon after he made his strikes, though, and he fumbled about in the water for a moment. He seemed disoriented, not able to react to the next shark dashing forward to try and take a bite out of his leg. Reivyn dashed forward and pierced the next shark through the gills. The weight of his strike drove the shark beyond the range of being able to nip Teilon.

Reivyn yanked the harpoon out, leaving a huge open wound in the side of the shark’s face, before he stabbed it once more. The two strikes were enough to deal enough damage to the next shark to dispatch its life, as well.

Reivyn looked at his friend with concern, but Teilon shook his head and regained his focus. He looked at Reivyn a bit wide-eyed before he gave a sheepish smile and shrugged his shoulders. He glanced at his two daggers before stowing them away and pulling his own harpoon out once more.

Reivyn and Teilon turned to engage the last of the monsters, but the rest of their Party members had mopped up the remainder on their own. Reivyn looked at them and nodded his head. He indicated a direction to head toward for the next group of monsters.

He would speak to Teilon about what had happened the next time they surfaced for air. They had agreed beforehand to reduce their surfacing as much as possible to get used to the sensation of holding their breath for long periods of time.

The floors below didn’t have a surface they could conveniently swim to to catch their breaths. There were multiple places along the walls and hidden alcoves on the floor where they could enter a pressurized bubble of air, though. That was what was usually used for regular runs for everyone else.

Reivyn led them to the next group of Mon-Sharks. The first several groups of monsters consisted of anywhere from six to twelve sharks. The other types of monsters they had seen previously didn’t make an immediate appearance, but Reivyn kept an eye out for them.

The data pack mentioned that they would need to clear all of the monsters on the first floor before engaging with the boss leading to the next floor. The boss would let out a wail that would attract all of the surviving monsters to join it in the fight.

Surprisingly, despite the obvious implication, there wasn’t any benefit to going straight to the boss and fighting the whole floor together. It wasn’t part of the Hard Mode or any other hidden Achievements or anything.

However, it begs the question: What if someone managed to get to the Dungeon Boss on the last floor without killing anything on the way? Reivyn thought. The first floor sets the precedent. Will the other bosses flock to the final boss on the last floor? Will that have an Achievement or lead to a Super-Hard Mode or something? We’ll probably find out if we use Kefira’s teleport Spells to reach straight to the final floor.

The thought filled Reivyn with anticipation. There was no guarantee that Hard Mode was the most difficult version of a Dungeon. He hadn’t been in any Dungeons difficult or complex enough to have the possibility of something harder, but the possibility was there.

Reivyn once more focused on the task at hand. They cleared several groups of the sharks. They decided to surface for a short break after Reivyn notified them through hand gestures and nods that there were no longer any shark groups close by.

“What happened back there?” Reivyn asked after breaching the surface and sucking down a large gasp of air.

“It was my Class Skill: Phase,” Teilon answered. “I’ve never used it in the water before. It usually lets me walk through walls or sink into the ground. I figured I’d try it out and see what it did in the water.

“It was very strange. I didn’t phase through the water. I phased into it. I became one with it. It let me move through the water super fast, but it was extremely disorienting. My perception was all off, and I wasn’t used to moving so quickly. Luckily, my body reacted automatically when I first popped out of it, or I wouldn’t have been successful with my sneak attack.”

“Hmm, does that mean you won’t be able to use your main Class Skill in this Dungeon?” Reivyn asked.

“Nah, I’ll practice some outside of combat if you’ll give me the chance from time to time,” Teilon said. “I think I can get a handle on it, and then it’ll be of great use for me to be able to move back and forth in the water quickly.”

Reivyn looked around to get everyone else’s response on the matter. They all either nodded their heads or shrugged, but nobody was opposed to spending a little time waiting for Teilon to try and master his Skill in the water.

“Alright, here’s what we’ll do,” Reivyn turned back to Teilon. “We’ll give you ten minutes right now, and then we’ll give you a couple minutes to play around after each encounter with the monsters. You just signal to us before you think you’re ready to try it in combat again, though, so we’re prepared to step in and help if you need it.”

“Sounds good to me.”

With that, the group tread water as Teilon sank below the surface once more. His body became ethereal to Reivyn’s Divine Sense as he activated his Skill. He could perceive the movement with his Skill but not with his eyes. It seemed like Teilon truly integrated himself fully into the water when he used the Skill.

Teilon spent several minutes rushing back and forth. Reivyn could tell by Teilon’s reaction whenever he popped out of it that he wasn’t always ending up where he had initially planned, and the disorientation was still a problem. Reivyn was hopeful that Teilon would be able to figure it out eventually, though. It didn’t matter if he didn’t even do so on this Delve. This ability with his Class Skill could also come in handy outside the Dungeon in the future, too, so it was in everyone’s interest to let Teilon work on it.

Teilon didn’t spend the full ten minutes dashing about. He left some time for himself to join the others to catch his breath before they continued further into the Dungeon. After the ten minutes were up, Reivyn motioned for everyone to head back into the water. He kept the spoken instructions to a minimum in anticipation of tackling the Hard Mode.

The group spent about an hour clearing the first floor of monsters. The shark numbers tapered off soon after their first break, and other types of aquatic monsters made an appearance. There were several types that hadn’t been among the corpses they had originally seen, too.

There were octopi the size of people, variations of different sharks, some crabs, and there were a couple individual crocodiles. The crocodiles were apparently the elite monsters on the floor as they were all huge and above Tier 4 Level 40. Most of the monsters fell into the upper Tier 3 or lower Tier 4 range. According to the data pack, the boss monster was a much larger octopus sitting over the hole leading to the second floor, and it was Tier 4 Level 60.

The Dungeon was four floors deep, and the average Level of the monsters slowly climbed until the monsters at the end of the bottom floor were mostly Tier 4 Level 100. The final boss was Tier 4 Level 130. It wasn’t quite the max Level for Tier 4, but it was close. It only lacked twenty Levels to reach the maximum Level for the Tier.

Reivyn had no idea how it would be possible to clear all four floors with one single breath. It had taken them an hour to clear the regular monsters on the first floor. With their Stamina, it would have been possible to do it with one breath, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be nearing the end of their ability to hold their breaths by the time they finished dealing with the boss.

There’s got to be some sort of trick to it, Reivyn thought. We can clear the monsters on this floor a lot faster than we did, but that doesn’t solve the problem. There are three more floors below this one, and they’re all approximately the same size with the same number of monsters.

We’ll have to brainstorm this when we’re done with the Dungeon for the week. The method of accomplishing the feat wasn’t listed in the dossier.

The dossier was written and compiled by the Adventurers who had discovered the method of unlocking the Hard Mode. They weren’t obligated to provide every single detail on how to replicate their accomplishment, and the Adventurer’s Guild wasn’t going to add to or remove from one’s dossier.

Whatever, we’ll figure it out.

Reivyn nodded to the others after they slew the last crocodile in the water. They had been through the entire length and breadth of the first floor, and he could even see the boss within the range of his Divine Sense in the distance. They had confirmed that the crocodile was the last monster before the boss, and they weren’t going to take a breather before engaging the last monster on the floor.

Reivyn led the Party to the creature. It spotted them coming, but it didn’t move. It was protecting the descent to the deeper floors, and it wasn’t going to budge. The trick to the first floor boss monster was either avoiding the tentacles and striking at its body, or destroying the tentacles before engaging the center mass.

There were pros and cons to both approaches. The monster had access to Water Affinity Mana, and it could create some powerful whirlpools that could do substantial damage, but it used it sparingly when it had access to all its tentacles and could reach the intruders with them. The frequency of the monster using its Water Mana was proportional to the amount of tentacles remaining.

On top of slowly changing the way the monster fought while destroying the tentacles, the tentacles themselves were more durable than the main body. It would take just as much effort destroying enough tentacles as it would to finally kill the octopus, and damage to the tentacles didn’t seem to do any damage to the monster. It was like it had nine separate Health pools. One for the main body and one for each tentacle..

It wasn’t something Reivyn had ever encountered before, but he could believe such a thing would become more frequent as they Delved increasingly higher Tier Dungeons in the future. It might have a special constitution provided by the System because it was a boss in a Tier 4 Dungeon, but there was nothing saying even regular monsters in higher Tier Dungeons, or even in the wilderness of the higher Tiers in general, couldn’t have the same constitution.

Reivyn used his Traveler Affinity to quickly close the distance on the octopus. He jabbed his harpoon into the soft flesh of its main body several times as it screamed through the water in outrage and pain before bringing several tentacles to bear on Reivyn’s position. Reivyn dashed away with three tentacles in hot pursuit.

He didn’t leave the range of the octopus fully. If he completely left the range, he would be subject to the boss’s Casting abilities as if it had lost the three tentacles that were chasing after him.

The rest of the Party also entered the range of the tentacles, making sure they were all engaged. Reivyn turned about and used his harpoon and Swimming to parry and dodge the flailing strikes of the octopus. It wasn’t just having separate Health pools that made the tentacles dangerous. They all seemed to have a mind of their own, and the octopus could operate at 100% efficiency with each tentacle as it engaged the Party members.

Reivyn’s Party consisted of eight members. There was a reason he had dashed forward to enrage the octopus and draw the ire of three of the tentacles. The planning had accounted for anywhere from two to four tentacles, so three was perfectly fine for their purposes.

Teilon was the next to dash toward the main body and strike with his harpoon. They had talked about it the last time they had surfaced. He had enough control over his ability that he was confident he could dash in, strike a couple times, and dash away before the disorientation incapacitated him. Being the second person to make the dash also ensured he would only have one tentacle chasing after him.

Luckily, it worked the way they had hoped. Teilon pierced the flesh of the main body after materializing above it. He wasn’t super precise with his movements, yet, but the target was large enough that he only had to aim for above the main body to get close enough to strike it. Teilon yanked his harpoon out and stabbed it once more, but Reivyn could tell the disorientation was going to be a problem, soon.

Teilon noticed it, too, though, and he once more yanked it out before flashing away. The quirk with his ability phasing him into the water meant the tentacle chasing after him couldn’t find him immediately, though, and he had enough time to recover after reappearing once more. The tentacle found him almost instantly, but he had wrestled the disorientation away by the time it was close enough to attack him.

Kimberly was the next up. She waited a moment to make sure Teilon was handling his tentacle fine before dashing down and forward. She repeated the same maneuver, striking it twice before dashing away. She wasn’t as fast as Reivyn or Teilon, though, but that had also been taken into account.

Casting Spells underwater wasn’t nearly as difficult as one might assume. It only required one to wrap their Spell in a bubble of pure Mana to protect it from interacting with the water. Kefira launched some Space Blades at the tentacle bearing down on Kimberly. She sliced through the flesh of the tentacles and caused it to recoil in pain, giving Kimberly enough room to regain her stance to defend against the strikes of the appendage.

Vyria was next in line. She only dashed half the distance as the others, though, and her Sword Qi erupted from within her and slashed down through the water as if there was no barrier at all. A deep gash erupted in blood from the wound, and she quickly backed away once more.

The fight was short but intense, and it was already entering the final moments. It helped that they were a full Party of eight. The fight would be much more complicated and messy if they had fewer people, but Reivyn was confident they would have been able to kill the beast quite easily even with half the numbers.

Refix was the second to last act. He dashed in, summoning his ethereal arsenal of weapons. He pierced the flesh of the monster with his harpoon, and his multitude of weapons became an underwater tornado that ravaged the flesh of the octopus. He only stayed within range for a few moments before also kicking off and dashing away.

Kefira was the last act. The monster was on its last legs, and Kefira had been building up her Mana since after assisting Kimberly get into position. She unleashed a barrage of siege-Level Spells upon the decimated body of the octopus. The flesh had been repeatedly torn apart, and it was even less protective after Refix was done. The Spells pierced straight into the very being of the monster, and it cried a final, defiant cry before the tentacles went slack and the monster died.

Reivyn floated in place, grinning as he shared a look of triumph with all of his Party members.