When I got back to the Spell Forge I found my friends sitting around waiting for their mana to regenerate.

  “I’ve just received an invite for a five man, if you are all up for a change of pace?”

  “Five man what?” G said getting to his feet.

  “It’s called the Assessment Tower, a series of arena battles which get tougher as you progress through them. Take your rewards after every victory or gamble them to take a harder challenge.”

  The speed upon which my friends were on their feet told me that they might have been getting bored of the training.

  Sam had said to go past the Administration building, between the Healers Hall and Engineering block, to a small squat building which wasn’t on the map. There was a small crowd gathered up around it.

  “Looking for Healer, full group just needs a healer!” someone shouted out.

  I saw Sam waving to me, he had a shortish teenage girl next to him, who was looking a little put out. We headed over to join him.

  “Hi!” I called out once I was close enough.

  “Aenara. Thanks for joining us. This is Kelsey!” He said giving the girl a hug.

  “A… Uncle Sam!” the girl pouted. “We should hurry, the tank is saying DD is almost back to full mana.”

  “We got time,” he chuckled, his eyes flicking to the five people who were with me.

  “My friends, I brought them along for the content.”

  “Oooh, already have a five man? You’ll need someone who can heal… healing magic is available in the Healers Hall for free to anyone who can pass their anatomy test.”

  “Excuse me!” said a now beaming Jacobs who practically sprinted off with a mission.

  “Go!” Peachy said. “We’ll catch up once he can keep me alive.”

  Sam and Kelsey led me over to a couple sitting on the grass near the building. She was sitting in meditation, a white robe on, [Healer] Daisy above her head. He was leaning against the wall in plate, [Warden] Dominick above him.

  “Storm Mage?” he asked grumpily, looking at my title. “You said she was a fantastic DPS…urgh. Fine, too much hassle looking for another anyway. Do you at least have a weapon of some kind?” I nodded and retrieved my Tempest BattleStaff from [Inventory].

  I received and accepted the party invite.

  “Don’t bother trying to cast spells. Everyone knows they are worthless. Just hit it with that stick and try not to get in the way.” The man stood up, and a shield appeared on his arm.

  ‘Worthless?’ I mouthed to Sam, who gave me an apologetic shrug.

  “Sorry about him. Last run we did the other deeps kept getting in the way, so I said I knew a good one. We need a healer and she is pretty good. Didn’t think he would be so rude about your title though…up for showing him how wrong he is?”

  “Sure.”

  We moved up to the door and entered a chamber with a closed door on the other side. Once we were all in, the outer door closed and the inner door opened.

  “Seeing as this is your first time.” Grumpy started. “Watch how we fight and try not to get in our way. If I see you trying to wiggle your fingers, I’m kicking you. I’m sick of that shite.”

  The door opened into a circular chamber about twenty meters wide. In the middle, in a dome field was a Giant Rat. Grumpy walked across the room and pushed a red button on the floor. The door behind us slammed shut. The field dropped and he swung his hammer into the rat's head.

  “Round complete!” a deep voice announced.

  The door behind me opened again, alongside one on the far side of the room.

  “After each round we can either go back or push on. If we drop to less than three people the mob disappears and it’s considered a failed run. You then respawn in the antechamber.” Sam confirmed as we moved into the next chamber.

  Inside the dome this time there were three giant rats. The first fell to a hammer to the head. Kelsey took out the second with an arrow from her drawn bow and I took out the last with a .

  “What did I say about wasting your time with magic? No more chances, if you don’t listen you are out.” Grumpy said to me. Daisy was giving me a confused look. She had been stood next to me when I just raised my staff and fired the spell.

  I rolled my eyes.

  In the next fight we faced a bear. We got to see a bit more in the tactics. Grumpy bashed it in the head with his shield and then circled around it clockwise. Sam and I went anti-clockwise so we could hit it in the back while allowing the healer to keep both us and the tank in her sight.

  I didn’t argue with the party leader, just used my staff to whack it a lot. What I did notice was the tank after moving to let us flank, planted his feet and just wailed on it from behind his shield. No attempts to dodge any attacks. This left the healer having to constantly cast heal spells on him.

  We defeated the bear easily enough.

  “Good enough” he sniffed at me. “Fight like that.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  I rolled my eyes behind his back. Despite her healing him, he was down to three quarters of his health and he didn’t wait for her to finish before moving onto the next room. She was down to half mana already…

  “If he had kited that, she would still have most of her mana.” I said to Sam. He nodded.

  The tank was already standing at the button when we came in and the minute we were inside, he hit it. No time to discuss… I hadn’t even had time to see what it was we were fighting. Daisy looked slightly panicked as she hastily cast her healing spell, which I realised, was a channeled one.

  The dome dropped to reveal a scorpion that rose up on its legs and its tail snapped into the noob tank’s shield. Sam and I hurried to flank it. Kelsey’s bow firing arrows as rapidly as she could. I was impressed by her accuracy, all were landing within a hand of each other.

  Once we were behind it, Sam shared a look with me, and then ran a hand down his blade and it shivered and covered in ice. I shrugged and used for the first time. Sam timed his swing with my blow. As the thing locked up briefly, the now edged weapon sliced off the tail of the scorpion. The idiot tanking would have one less thing to worry about.

  Without its main weapon it was only a matter of time before it fell.

  “Well. That's it. Luck of the draw, that is as far as we go.” he said as he turned towards the door we had come through.

  “Let’s at least have a look at what is next.” I said.

  “Why bother? I’m at half health and she has less than twenty percent mana.”

  I shrugged at him and headed for the next chamber. Kind of curious.

  Inside the dome was another scorpion, it had two tails.

  Sam and I shared a look. We could take it. He looked at Kelsey who had joined us in the room. She looked confused. I nodded at the scorpion.

  “What happens if we push the button and we aren’t all in here?” I asked.

  “We continue and they don’t.” Sam confirmed my suspicion.

  “Wait?! Are you two planning on fighting that thing?” Kelsey asked. “You’re crazy!”

  “Don’t be saying such things about your charming and handsome Uncle!” He said grinning as his foot hit the button.

  “You are neither charming nor handsome!” Kelsey screamed in shock that he had actually pushed the button.

  I looked over to see Daisy on our side of the door.

  “I’ll get its attention. You cut off those tails!” I said to him and turned to the scorpion and hit it with a enhanced two handed overhead chop to the noggin. Then dodged back and to the left to move it clockwise away from Sam.

  My strike did get its attention and it started moving towards me. I sent a series of at it as I kited it around the room. It was pretty fast in a straight line, but I was able to dodge it easily enough and just kept moving.

  On one strike at me, I parried a tail with a enhanced swipe of my staff so it hit the wall beside me. Sam had timed his own attack to coincide with mine and sliced the scorpion’s other tail clean off. It started to turn from me, so I started spamming at it to try and pull its attention back onto me, it seems though that losing a tail is a bigger agro maker than my spells.

  “Lost agro!” I shouted.

  “Dodging!” Sam responded.

  The back of the scorpion was a mess, in addition to the seeping wound that was once the creature's left tail, I could see blood leaking from several of Sam’s stab wounds. would have been really useful about now…

  I slammed my staff repeatedly into its wounds. Hitting it with after . Until eventually “Round complete!” a deep voice announced and the creature collapsed.

  Sam and I fist bumped and went and joined the other two in the room with us.

  “How?” Daisy asked. “You didn’t get hit?”

  “Dodging.” Sam and I said at the same time.

  “Seriously, I don’t know why he thought you had to stand still and take all the hits…” I continued.

  “Truly. The only reason we stuck around, Daisy, is you are a pretty good healer.” Sam added not for him.

  “Speaking of, do you really only have that channel?”

  “Oh, no, I also have a strong heal, but it takes a while to cast. And it’s not really a channel spell, it’s a HOT I can enhance.”

  “Hot?” Kelsey asked.

  “Heal Over Time.” Sam said to her.

  “How do you cast spells so quickly?” Daisy asked.

  “I was wondering that as well.” Kelsey said. “Uncle can do that ice sheath spell...”

  “Frozen Blade.” He confirmed.

  “...but that's like once a minute. You were hitting it with lots of spells…”

  “So, do you know what the spell feels as you charge it with mana…” I started and went on to explain shaping spells in your head to cast them quicker.

  “Giant Mozzies!” Daisy said as we looked at the next room's threat. “Well…I guess that is the end of the line. It’s been fun, but there are too many of them and they are too fast…”

  The dome was full of the flying creatures.

  “Swarming?” Sam asked. Daisy nodded.

  “My first run, the third chamber mob. There was a third of the amount in there and they covered two seconds after the dome was removed.I was the furthest back and lost two third of my health before the others who were closer died…if they react like that swarm did you have at most two seconds to hit them before they scatter and you have no chance…”

  Sam was looking at me.

  “Two seconds?” he asked.

  “I don’t need that long… if I’m ready before it drops…” I looked over at the button. “Whoever hits the button would need to be diving away it though… that is inside the range…”

  “You have a new AOE?” he asked and I realised he had been thinking of .

  I just grinned in response.

  I swapped staffs. If I was going to show off, might as well do it with extra style. I checked Daisy and Kelsey were by the door ready to do what they could if this went wrong. Prepped the spell. Then nodded to Sam.

  He sprinted from the dome towards the button, hit it and dived away from the dome as quickly as possible.

  The shell of the spell plinked out of the end of my staff, crossing the distance at an impossibly slow speed. The dome’s field flickered and then collapsed downwards.

  Sam’s momentum shot him past me.

  My own movement finished turning me away from the mozzies to face our teammates

  .

  You could say it was because I didn’t want to see my impending death coming…but the truth is.

  Cool dudes don’t look at explosions!

  My fireball went KAboooom! The bright light from the big fireball lighting up the room and casting my shadow onto the wall ahead of me.

  And the mozzies died.

  Kelsey and Daisy’s jaws dropped slightly.

  “Slight overkill,” Sam said from the floor.

  “No such thing.” I replied, adjusting my hat.