Day 5, 8:25 PM

  Edna didn’t mention that the light in the dungeon steadily dims as you kill monsters on your dungeon floor. It’s a neat way to know how close you are to clearing it, and you can judge how many are left on the floor as soon as you enter it, but there’s a huge, glaring problem. The dungeon becomes deadlier as visibility decreases.

  It’s easier to miss a detail, misjudge a distance, walk into an ambush…

  I’ll ask Edna when I return. And despite believing that she’s out to enslave me, I will return to her. Based on what she said, there are probably no other mages around, and having reincarnated in a world with magic, there’s no way in hell I’m not learning how to use it.

  Lucy is doing great against the tenth and probably the final lobster of the floor. Especially considering the circumstances. She jumps not away, but to the lobster’s side from its first lunge. Unfortunately, her jump was too short. The crustacean snaps the other segment of its pincer at her leg, but she jumps again, somersaulting midair to avoid the attack, what ground she gained with her original maneuver she lost twice over, but that doesn’t matter. The way she recovered, and the instant in which she perceived the danger all speak of raw talent.

  The lobster isn’t as impressed. It lunges again, and Lucy jumps to its other side, this time better gauging the distance, which is really tough in the dim light. The lobster snaps with its secondary pincer, but a club smashes into its head with a satisfying crunch.

  Another one-hit-kill for Lucy, her second, compared to Fred’s one.

  The light dims further, reaching roughly the level of illumination of a crescent moon on a cloudless night, enough to make out shapes, not enough to read or do detailed work.

  “That should be the final monster. Anyone interested in dinner?” I point at the lobster.

  “I’ve got flint and bronze,” Fred says. “You guys just need to collect firewood.”

  I was planning to rub two dry sticks together until they caught fire, but Fred’s solution is better. I should’ve known the kids have at least some basic supplies in their sacks.

  “My agility is sixteen!” Lucy starts skipping with joy. “The dungeon rewarded me for killing the last monster on the floor!”

  “Lucy,” I say in an even voice, “the dungeon didn’t reward you. Your agility was already on the verge of a higher value. The way you jumped out of the way of that claw is probably what tipped the scales. That’s all. Congratulations, by the way.”

  “Thank you! Yes, thank you!” The girl claps her hands as the other two congratulate her.

  “I’ll gather the kindling, you guys just stay there.” I’m an outsider, so I leave the trio to celebrate, gathering sticks and searching for more valuable herbs. We’ve mostly scoured the floor, and all we found were two bushes of manaria, a moderately valuable herb, whose leaves are used to brew several kinds of advanced concoctions.

  Definitely nowhere near enough to send Gila back home with the funding she is looking for, but it’s a nice start. Zero injuries while Fred and Lucy handled their own enemies with increasing skill in constantly harsher light is also reassuring.

  My brief search bears no fruit, and five minutes later, I return with an armful of sticks and some dry leaves to find the kids sitting around a fire they had already started with what they had on hand.

  Fred is making suggestions as Lucy deftly sticks a pointy stick into the lobster’s mouth. Based on the smell, they have already cleaned it, probably Gila’s handiwork. Quite effective, given I’ve been gone a handful of minutes.

  “These should see us through the night.” The sticks clatter on the ground as I drop them two yards away from the fire. “I see you’ve got everything under control, in that case I’ll busy myself with this.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I unspool the vines from around my waist, cut it in three sections with my enchanted wooden knife-dagger thing, and start braiding it.

  My hands are dexterous, but braiding raw vines and making sure there are as few imperfections as possible still takes a good half hour. The lobster smells great. Gila is spinning it on a stick, casting glances my way while Fred and Lucy are staring at what I’m doing.

  Finally finished, I inspect my handiwork. The rope sling is the simplest ranged weapon, and if made of a good material, it’s more or less impervious to wet conditions. Bow and arrows have a more elegant look to them, but the string and the fletching suffer in the rain. Not to mention Edna said there are no feathers in this world, so I would have to improvise on that front too. And the final advantage sling holds over a bow is blunt ammunition. It benefits from Blunt, which empowers all my attacks with blunt weapons.

  “What’s that?” Fred asks.

  “A sling, you use it to throw stones at high speed at distant targets.” I glance at Gila. “It’s a great weapon for those with high agility who want to deal damage from afar. Watch this.”

  I pick up a stone from the ground, place it in the woven pocket, and after a couple spins, I send the stone whistling through the air. The shot is slightly off, released too soon. Even in a new body, I still remember all my training, making my shots perfect, yet never reaching advanced skill level.

  “It can pack quite a punch.”

  I shoot a dozen more stones before I do it just right and BSD appears.

  [Ability - Initial Slingmanship acquired]

  The other screen follows it immediately.

  [You have leveled up.

  Select a skill within sixty seconds or a random one will be assigned to you.

  Initial Flailmanship - Your skill with flails improves.

  Initial Knifemanship - Your skill with knives and daggers improves.]

  Damn! I’ve never mastered either, but picking an initial weapon skill as a level up reward hurts. Maybe I shouldn’t level up until I’ve mastered more weapons?

  I pick the dagger mastery, which I don’t plan on ever calling knifemanship. The fact that I own a dagger-ish weapon here and now is the sole reason I choose it over a blunt weapon category. The skill is mostly wasted, since I don’t plan on ever using either weapon, but at least I got an ability point out of it, which I invest into strength, upping my score to eighteen, then I read the level up condition.

  To level up, defeat an enemy by using weapons of three different weapon categories with which you have proficiency. I can bet my arm there are no level four weapon masters in this world. How do you even do this without knowing about the bloody condition? I almost start cursing BSD aloud like a madman.

  On second thought, I can actually imagine someone meeting that ludicrous requirement. If they fight something tough like a dragon or a giant turtle, and their weapons keep breaking, they might switch through a whole arsenal if they have access to one.

  Yeah, I’m probably the only weapon master in the history of this world, probably multiple worlds, who’s going to meet this specific requirement. But that raises a question, what do I care about more, quickly advancing through a class, getting as many ability points as possible and then bailing into another class when I hit the wall, or advancing each of them slowly?

  I’m leaning towards the former. As I consider my options, the lobster keeps smelling better and better to my savant nose. By the time the food is done, I’m almost certain my choice is to sprint through as many classes and as many levels as possible before becoming a mage, which opens up a new question, how high do I need my physical attributes to be?

  I have no intention of investing into social stats, twenty-two is more than enough for anything other than convincing the populace that I’m the archimage who created the Guide or a god of their choosing.

  Over the course of his life, Fyoor heavily invested into mental prowess, and it’s already insanely good, but after getting strength to twenty, I’m not certain I need any more. Sure, dodging and snatching arrows is fun, as is being able to run through doors like they aren’t there, or shrugging off direct hits of artillery fire, but magic!

  In the end, I decide to take a page out of the book of Lucy. Once I have any, I’ll bank my unspent attribute points and assign them when I need them. As for leveling up, the condition is trivial to meet once you know of it. All you need is a Fred.

  “Hey, Fred, wanna spar after dinner? I’ll have a handicap to make things more fair, I have to cycle through three weapons, changing one after each attack I make.”