Soul of the Warrior

The Hard Mode of the Dungeon had been a little disappointing to Reivyn. None of the encounters were altered at all, and the enhanced final boss fight due to Refix’s presence was actually more of a challenge once they figured out the trick.

That being said, figuring out and then training the method of unlocking the Hard Mode was the challenge, and trying to do it without learning the trick was nigh on impossible, so it could be argued that the feat was incredibly hard.

The main difference between this Dungeon’s Hard Mode and the other one’s Reivyn had unlocked was the rewards. There was no change in the amount of Experience gained from the delve. It just increased the quality of the items found in the loot chest.

Reivyn had been correct that Boldir was specialized in weaponsmithing, though he was competent with all forms of blacksmithing. He made the suggestion to wait until the Party returned to Wispan to do anything with their materials, though.

His argument was twofold: One, the locals would be better suited to match the styles Reivyn and the others would want, and two, they would give their local craftsmen the opportunity to work with new materials. It was very unlikely they had ever worked with aquatic-based metals before, so it would be doing their local economy and craftsmen a favor by holding off.

They didn’t need to upgrade their gear right away, either. They were perfectly capable of clearing the Dungeon on Hard Mode with their current equipment, so Reivyn had accepted the advice. He would save some of the metals for his sisters, too. He didn’t know what they were going to want to focus on with their future crafting expertise, but so far they were more enchanters that dabbled in a little bit of everything.

He did secure some more exotic materials sourced from the sea from the proceeds made from the delves, though, a small portion reserved for the twins. One delve didn’t return enough money to pay for all of the materials he purchased, but that was mostly because of the fair split of the loot and coins. If they had kept the pool of loot together, they would have been able to still make a profit from a run, but then there would be the question of who had the ownership of the purchased materials. To keep things simple, they just decided to have everyone make their own decisions on what to sell, keep, or purchase after splitting the rewards.

The gear drops from the final boss, aside from the pearl necklace, had been more tailor-made for water combat. They had found tridents, gloves and footwear with webbing, and an accessory further extending one’s efficiency in holding their breath among some crafting materials.

The scales weren’t the only thing available in the chests. They also received a roll of silky fabric apparently made from some underwater plants of some sort.

Kefira and the other girls had gone all moon-eyed over the fabric. It was a cyan color, and it had the strange property of feeling so smooth it was almost wet when one ran their hands along it. Kefira had half-jokingly suggested they stay for another teleportation cycle so they could have more chances of securing the fabric so each girl could have a garment made of the material.

Reivyn offered a more practical solution: they just purchased some. It was a very expensive material, it turned out. It wasn’t because it inherently had amazing properties as compared to the other crafting materials, though it was a Tier 4 fabric. It was in extremely high demand for its use in making everyday clothing of all things.

Even Reivyn and the other men of the Party wanted to get a shirt or two made from the fabric after feeling the soft sensation for themselves.

All in all, the Party dropped several gold coins each to get their hand on some. It was the sole reason none of them were going to leave the island with a profit from their Dungeon delves, though it wasn’t anything too significant. They were all individually fairly wealthy, anyway. The Dungeon delves were more about the experience.

Considering the purpose of their delves, their impromptu trip to the coastal town had been a rousing success. Reivyn had gained several more Levels and progressed many of his Skills in the short time they were on the island.

He had earned another 139,000 Experience from the two Dungeon delves. Now that Reivyn had a perfect foundation and the ultimate Class for Tier 3, he was no longer concerned with holding himself back. He would be able to advance all the way to Tier 5 without having to worry about shoring up any Skills or Life Experiences, the main bottleneck for people gaining Levels as fast as possible.

All of the effort in holding back his Leveling and focusing so much time and attention to constantly training was about to finally pay off. He didn’t know how long he would be in Wispan before he was needed to go on another expedition, but hopefully it would be long enough that he could at least get to Tier 4.

There was only the one Dungeon near the capital city. Traveling to the next closest Dungeon would take too long to make it worth it with the round-trip involved. He would have to almost completely forego sleep and relaxation in order to maximize the Experience gain from running two Dungeons a week instead of one.

The workaround to that problem was simple for Reivyn, though. He would simply solo the Dungeon and receive 100% of the Experience reward without sharing it with a Party - after running the Dungeon with a Party at least once, of course.

Having multiple Dungeons within the capital city was one of the main reasons Ameliyn and Refix’s homeland was as powerful as it was, and it was the reason its subordinate kingdoms had coveted their position instead of seeking to help them reclaim the territory.

Hitting Tier 5 would normally necessitate one move to a Tier 5 Region to continue advancing quickly. The only reason Refix was as high a Level as he was while living in the lower Tier Regions was because of his access key to the unique endless Dungeon. If they hadn’t procured such a key, he would have languished in the lower Levels of Tier 5 to this day.

For the vast majority of people, being locked out of Tier 5 and above was the main factor for not seeking to continuously improve in ever higher-Tiered Regions. It was worse in the lower Tier Regions with their lack of opportunity to get the necessary Life Experience to unlock higher-Rarity Classes, but even in Tier 4 empires, less than half of the population were able to exceed Tier 4. Most of those people were non-combatants, too, so they had a harder time taking advantage of the Experience gains one could gain from a Dungeon.

It wasn’t all bad, though. The Combat Classes had a symbiotic relationship with the Crafters. The better the Combat Classers did in clearing Dungeons and acquiring resources, the more opportunities for working with exotic materials and gaining lots of Experience Crafter Classers had.

Reivyn was a prime example. He secured several exotic materials for his sisters to experiment with. Not only were they of a kind they were unlikely to get in Wispan, but they were high quality. The fact that they were most likely still too high quality for the twins to work with was the main reason he was only getting them samples.

Although they were leaving the island with a little less coin than they had arrived with, each of the Party members was loaded down with goods, Skill gains, Level Ups, and an Achievement to show for it, not to mention the friendships they had made. Everyone was happy with their little accidental displacement.

Reivyn reviewed his Status and Skill gains one last time as they waited for the teleportation circle to activate.

Skills Leveled Up!

Tier 1:

Athleticism (74 ->75)

Heavy Armor (39 ->44)

Map Making (29 ->30)

Observation (62 ->64)

Swimming (22 ->30)

Tutor (24 ->27)

Tier 2:

Evasion (70 ->72)

Gab (23 ->24)

Mana Absorption (63 ->64)

Mana Circulation (52 ->54)

Meditation (50 ->53)

Pain Resistance (63 ->67)

Strategy (38 ->40)

Tier 3:

Ambush (15 ->18)

Battlefield Awareness (51 ->52)

Breath Control (1 ->25)

Command (57 ->58)

Commanding Shout (40 ->43)

Eagle Eye (9 ->14)

Infiltration (4 ->5)

Inspire (64 ->65)

Night Vision (49 ->50)

Sense Threat (22 ->24)

Silver Tongue (14 ->16)

Tier 4:

Charm (3 ->4)

Iron Will (30 ->34)

Spatial Awareness (70 ->73)

Psionic (6 ->16)

Tier 5:

Aura (20 ->21)

Heroic Bearing (38 ->40)

Mana Healing (10 ->15)

Mana Reinforcement (20 ->21)

Multi-Casting (30 ->33)

Tier 6:

Regeneration (18 ->20)

Tier 6.5:

Divine Sense (18 ->19)

Achievement!

Tier 4 Dungeon: Theyaih, Hard Mode Complete

+50 Physical and Mental Stats

Reivyn’s Mental Fortitude and Iron Will had once more started advancing rapidly, but it wasn’t because of his resistance to the Sirens’ illusions. Only his Psionic Skill benefitted from his encounters in the Dungeon, as that was the only Skill that was getting any pressure applied to it.

If his underlying Skills associated with Psionic weren’t as high as they were, though, he wouldn’t have been able to sustain the effect and Level it up nearly as quickly. It was playing catch-up. Reivyn knew it would slow down considerably once it got closer to Mental Fortitude

His Mental Fortitude, Iron Will, and Pain Resistance Skills made leaps and bounds in the last couple of weeks because he had once more started working on his Affinities in the advanced manner of flooding his cells. The pain was excruciating, and keeping his mental focus during the endeavor paid more than just in rapid Affinity advancement.

He had halted this particular training after they had been pushed out of Piori in the conflict with the invaders. He didn’t want to be too mentally or emotionally drained from enduring the pain when an attack could occur at any time. That had led to a noticeable decrease in Skill and Affinity gains, though his Affinities still went up decently over the long period of time.

Another couple of Skills that finally saw some attention were his Mana Healing and Regeneration. Reivyn was against self harm in order to Level these Skills, but an idea had struck him while working on his Breath Control Skill.

Instead of holding his breath to the threshold of suffocation, Reivyn simply let himself go beyond for a couple intervals. He held his breath until he lost approximately 10% of his Health Pool, and then he would slowly use his Mana Healing and passive Regeneration to heal back to full over time. Once he was in tip top shape again, he would repeat the process.

The method had done wonders for his Breath Control, and he had advanced the Tier 3 Skill from 1 all the way to breaking through the first bottleneck at 25 in the short time they had all been practicing it. His other Skills he hadn’t had too many opportunities to work on also finally had a reliable method.

None of the others joined him in going so far, and he wouldn’t have recommended they did so, even if they had wanted to. He was the only one in the Party who had a healing-type Skill, much less two of them. He also wouldn’t recommend anyone try to replicate the way he had unlocked them, either. Nearly getting killed wasn’t a viable training option, and there was no guarantee one would unlock the Skill in the process.

Reivyn dismissed his Skill Ups and pulled up his Status Page.

Status

Name: Reivyn Class: Hero Lvl 17

Grand Arcanist

Fighter Age: 16 (21)

Health: 14,180/14,180 (+310) Stamina: 27,970/27,970 (+410) Mana: 15,635/15,635 (+50)

Qi: 1,000 (T4/Li)

Physical Stats Mental Stats

STR: 1,479 (+10) INT: 1,514 (+4)

VIT: 1,418 (+31) MAG: 1,813 (+6)

DEX: 1,478 (+10) CLA: 1,351 (+1)

CHA: 407 (+1) PER: 1,265 (+1)

LUK: 335 (+1)

Bloodline: Lvl 1 Unknown 236,443/10,000,000,000

Experience: 4,486/20,100

It seems like I’m Leveling up really fast in the Dungeons, now that I’ve let loose, Reivyn contemplated. And that’s with a Party. The Experience is shared. If I go solo, I’ll get considerably more than that.

I don’t know how much Experience is rewarded in the Wispan Dungeon, but let’s just say 120,000, Solo. That would get me five Levels, and most of the sixth. It would also mean more than one Level per delve in Tier 3. There are 90 Levels in Tier 3, and I’m Level 17, now, so I would need approximately twenty weeks, or so.

There are 70 weeks in a year, so a little under a third of a year to reach Tier 4. I could earn a lot more as a commander of an army, as long as we consistently fought battles, but I would run into the same problem of diminishing returns, eventually.

I should have the time to reach Tier 4 before the next deployment. Less than half a year’s break time isn’t enough for the morale of the unit, so if they suggest we go before then, unless it’s extremely dire, I’ll argue against it.

We’ll really need to move to a Tier 5 Region after the next deployment if we want to continue our pace. I know dad has access to that Dungeon, but that’s only good for Levels and occasionally some gear. Not everyone is like me and can convert natural treasures to raw Bloodline Experience. They need specific natural treasures to Level up their Bloodlines, and Level 2 requires a couple treasures only found in Tier 5 and 6 Regions.

Kefira needs her body unlocked so she can unshackle her soul as quickly as possible. She would get there eventually through Tiering up, but, again, it would take forever without going to a higher Tier Region, and that whole time she’ll be handicapped.

We can access dad’s Dungeon from anywhere in the world, so why wouldn’t we go looking for a Tier 5 Region with a couple of Dungeons close to each other. We can double dip while we explore for natural treasures.

Reivyn nodded to himself as he decided on an overall direction to achieve his goals. He wasn’t necessarily interested in Ascending, but he loved the feeling of growing more powerful. He also knew there were still threats out there, and he intended to be strong enough to face them head on.

He had no idea how powerful the ruler of the Tier 6 Empire in charge of the invasions was, but from the glimpse of Ariella’s master and context clues from the elites of the Tier 5 empire invading Vairo, he knew it had to be up there.

At least Tier 7, he speculated. And the power gap between Tiers only grows larger and larger as the Tiers go up. There are so many more Levels in the higher Tiers, and even reaching those Tiers necessitates one to have a high Rarity Class.

My advantage in Class rarity and Stats will quickly normalize in the upper echelons of power. What’s an additional 1,000 Strength when everyone has over 100,000? I don’t know if the numbers will be that high, but it’s the same concept.

Even understanding that truth, Reivyn wasn’t discouraged. He was confident in his own abilities, and the abilities of his friends and allies. If they had the time to grow, Reivyn knew he could get there.

That was the main problem, though. Nobody knew the end goal of the invaders, or their time frame. They needed to get stronger before they destroyed all the lower Tier Regions in the Realm.

They didn’t have to wait much longer before the teleport circle finally lit up with power. They had already gone through all of the procedures and paid the fee, so they patiently waited for the magic.

The light intensified, and a crack appeared in the air in the very center of the circle. It slowly expanded in height, and once it reached a certain height, it appeared to rotate open, revealing the long corridor beyond.

“Alright,” Reivyn said, turning to his friends. “We’re finally on our way back to Wispan. This isn’t the end of the trip, though. There are still six more stops along the way, and we’ll have to wait for the right connection at each stop.

“We’ll be back in Willowan within ten days, though. Come on.”

Reivyn jerked his head toward the corridor before turning toward it. Kefira sidled up next to him and gripped his hand, interlacing her fingers in his. Reivyn looked down at her, and she smiled back up at him.

“No accidents this time,” she said.

As they stepped through the threshold, Kefira unleashed a steady trickle of Space Mana into the corridor walls. She wasn’t researching her Space Affinity this time, though. She was reinforcing the stability of the spell.

Their trip to Theyaih had been fun and rewarding, but it was time to get back to their families.