Winnie and I walked along the edge of the bog while Greta kept a few steps ahead of us, tapping the mud every so often with the heel of her boot like she was testing it for traps. Winnie was still laughing about the headbutt from earlier, wiping a bit of dirt off her cheek while grinning like she had done something heroic. I was rubbing the spot where she cracked me, trying to look dignified even though my face still throbbed a little.

  The bog gurgled and burped under the mist.

  The sound came from everywhere at once, little pockets of air popping beneath the surface like the whole place was boiling slowly in its own rot.

  Every few steps the mud shifted under my boots, thick enough to cling but soft enough to pretend it had a sense of humor about swallowing small children.

  The smell carried a sour edge that clung to the back of my throat, something halfway between wet moss and an animal that had been dead too long.

  Winnie kept swatting at drifting insects, grumbling about how dwarves should never have to deal with flying bugs if the world had any sense at all.

  Greta answered only once, saying the swamp had none.

  That made Winnie mutter something about wanting to punch the swamp until it agreed to behave. I believed her.

  The trees groaned overhead as if responding.

  More than once, I saw the water ripple from something just beneath the surface, but it always slipped away before I could identify it.

  I started to understand why Greta kept testing the ground. The bog felt like it wanted to pretend it was just landscape until the moment you trusted it, then drown you for fun.

  Rotting trees leaned at strange angles, some half-sunken, others jutting out of the muck like ribs bleached in swamp water.

  Thin veils of fog curled around the branches overhead.

  We checked hollows, knots, piles of wet leaves, and every mossy trunk that even slightly looked like it could hide a snail.

  The longer we searched, the more the swamp seemed to breathe around us.

  After a while, something glinted in the mud.

  Before that shimmer appeared, the search had taken on a slow rhythm.

  Winnie poked logs with her shield while muttering threats to anything hiding inside.

  I crawled over half-rotten roots, scraping clumps of fungus off them to see if any purple snail trails hid underneath.

  Greta occasionally pointed out places we should avoid. Sometimes something had nested there recently, other times the mud was too dark and too smooth, which meant it was not mud at all.

  The deeper we went, the thicker the mist became. It clung low to the water, rising in uneven swirls that moved like breath.

  Every now and then, a faint sucking sound echoed from somewhere ahead or behind us.

  None of us mentioned it, which somehow made it worse.

  A spark. A tiny flash of color on the surface of the bog, too bright and too sharp to belong here.

  I squinted. "Greta, what is that?"

  She followed my gaze and frowned. "Huh. I think that is a muck monkey. Filthy little monsters. But… super rare." She stepped closer and watched the glimmer shift beneath the sludge. "If that is what I think it is, runt, that is technically a tin ranked mini-boss."

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  Winnie perked right up. "Mini-boss? Why would we want to fight that?"

  Greta snorted. "Because mini-bosses have cores. That one has a tin core to be specific. And tin cores are extremely rare and ridiculously valuable. Nobles buy them for their kids on the martial path to give them a head start. Thousands of freds. Sometimes tens of thousands."

  I blinked. "Why?"

  Winnie answered before Greta could. "Because we get a copper core put in us at Copper rank. Mages have a mana heart. Martial folks get a monster core instead. It upgrades us as we absorb more. Takes ten cores per rank. But… I have never heard of a tin core." She frowned at Greta. "Is that true?"

  "Yes, Winnie," Greta said. "Tin cores do exist, but they are extremely rare. Dungeons usually do not waste the mana making mini-bosses at the lowest tier. Tin monsters are weak. Even the mini-bosses. The dungeon saves its effort for stronger ranks. But nobles pay to track down whatever tin ranked mini-bosses they can find so their children get a perfect foundation early." She nodded toward the bog. "And that muck monkey is about as low-effort as a dungeon can get for a mini-boss. Mostly muck. Half slime. No acid. Just annoying."

  Winnie stared. "People pay thousands of freds for that thing?"

  "For the core," Greta corrected. "Not the monkey. The core is what matters. And if you can find eleven mini-bosses of your rank, your cultivation skyrockets. Most adventurers never see even one."

  I had not known much about the martial path in my old life. I had been a magic user, and there had been nothing I wanted more than magic, so I never cared to learn how the other half lived. I knew there were grand fighters, warriors of insurmountable skill, people whose strength seemed unsurpassable, but I never paid attention because it never mattered to me. I had spent my life in libraries, towers, and arcane rituals; my world had revolved around spells and mana theory, not fists or cores or body cultivation.

  Now it mattered a lot. Now it was exciting. Now every scrap of information about the martial path felt like a treasure. This was a world I had walked past in my old life without ever understanding. It felt new. Sharp. Alive.

  Greta added, "Tin cores are worth thousands of freds. Sometimes tens of thousands. But if you actually use one instead of selling it, you start your cultivation at Tin instead of Copper. Everyone else begins their foundation at Copper. You would begin one stage ahead of them."

  Winnie looked disappointed for a moment, shoulders drooping. "I only get three years with you. That is barely enough time to find any."

  Greta pointed a finger at me. "But he has nine, and he also found the thing in the first place."

  She continued, "You would need ten more tin ranked mini-boss cores to upgrade it into a Copper core, but if you manage that, your foundation will be stronger than anyone else your age. Nobles pay obscene amounts of coin to give their kids that advantage. But there is something different about getting the core yourself. Makes it feel like it belongs to you."

  Greta glanced at me and said, "Nine years is a long time to be a trainee, runt. Plenty of time to build the best foundation possible. Nobles can buy these advantages for their kids, sure, but earning your own core feels different. Makes it feel like it belongs to you. Not that anyone could actually tell the difference. It is just an Adventurer’s Guild superstition, but most of us believe it anyway."

  The mud bulged.

  At first it was subtle, just a slow swelling of muck like the earth taking a deep breath.

  A bead of swamp water rolled down the rising shape, then another.

  The surface rippled outward in trembling circles.

  Even Winnie stopped talking.

  Greta shifted her stance, the kind of shift that said she knew exactly what was coming and was already deciding how irritated she planned to be about it.

  The bulge twitched.

  A low vibration hummed under my feet, the bog responding to the thing pulling itself together.

  It was not dramatic, not fast, not explosive.

  Just steady.

  Relentless.

  Wrong.

  The mist swirled around the swelling mound, drawn toward it as if the creature were breathing it in.

  I felt something tighten in my chest.

  This was not like the turtles or the snails or even the strange bog insects we had dodged.

  This was deliberate.

  Intentional.

  A long arm made of wet earth dragged itself upward. A head formed, dripping swamp water. Two glowing yellow eyes blinked open, bright and hungry.

  The muck monkey pulled itself free of the bog, wobbling on thick, mud-packed legs. Its shoulders slumped forward, and every motion sent ropes of muck sliding off its body. It lifted its head toward us and let out a bubbling croak like a drowning creature trying to speak.

  Greta sighed. "Yep. There it is. Tin ranked mini-boss. Ugly as ever."

  Winnie strapped her shield on tighter. "Runt… you want it, don’t you?"

  I stepped forward. "Yes."

  Greta nodded once. "Then it is yours. If you kill it yourself, the core belongs to you. I will step in only if it is about to turn you into fertilizer. But otherwise… show me what you can do."

  The muck monkey screeched, a bubbling, swampy groan that rippled across the water.

  I lifted my shield. My breath steadied.

  A bead of sweat rolled down my neck even though the air was cold. The bog felt like it was holding its breath with us, waiting to see whether I would stand my ground or sink. Winnie shuffled closer, shield raised, eyes bright with worry and excitement. Even the insects hovering nearby seemed to pause midair.

  And the fight began.