Lucian took a moment to review his stats once he sat down against the wall of the cave. He brought his information to the front of his mind.

  His Spirit had dropped to 22 during the fight, but [Spirit Recovery]’s out of combat effectiveness was bringing it back up as he rested.

  He began distributing his free points. He put 4 points into Endurance, bringing it to 38. He put 2 points into Finesse, bringing it up to 25. The added points brought his maximum spirit up to 98.

  The Finesse was to help him fight better with one arm. The Endurance would be more and more helpful as he spent more time fighting continuously. If he got tired from a more prolonged fight, he would get hurt or die. “I doubt that knight is going to go down quickly…” He thought, the image of the tree knight from the Great Tree flashing across his mind.

  Strangely, he didn’t feel dread or anxiety at the thought of facing the knight once more. He felt a strange anticipation. The kind an athlete might feel as they drew closer to an important game.

  He turned his head, looking towards Annabelle as she sat beside him. She was grinning, presumably looking at her skill choices for level 25, “Something good?”

  She nodded, “Mhm! [Potent Poison]! It’s a passive skill that buffs all my other poison skills.”

  “Oh, nice. Gonna pick that one, then?” Lucian asked.

  “Yeah. My other options aren’t terrible, but this one leans way more into what I’m doing.” She made a gesture, “The other options are [Thornspear] and [Rejuvenation]. [Thornspear] is a longer ranged piercing attack and [Rejuvenation] is a heal and stamina recharge.” She explained, “I have you for the physical damage, and while I do have some support type skills in [Forest’s Protection] and [Minor Cure], we have Bianca’s food for that right now and if we need I’m sure we can find a dedicated support mage to join us.”

  Lucian nodded, “Makes sense. I wonder what happens once we get all 10 class skills. Do you think it’s gonna let us replace old ones or are we stuck with what we get?”

  Annabelle shrugged, “Hopefully it lets us replace them. Especially if we get a dedicated support, I would want to get rid of those support spells - or at least replace one.”

  “I hope so too. Though, there isn’t really anything I would want to replace right now - but I guess that really depends on what replacement options I would be offered.” Lucian chuckled.

  As they rested, Lucian also leveled up [Spirit Recovery] as it worked its magic. “Passive skills that level up from just being used are great.” Lucian smiled as he viewed the change.

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  The effect of the skill level was immediate, Lucian felt the energy within his chest quicken and pulse. He sighed happily. It didn’t take him very long to recover the rest of his Spirit. He stood up and stretched.

  “Full already?” Annabelle asked, raising an eyebrow as she looked up at him.

  “Yeah, [Spirit Recovery] leveled up.” Lucian chuckled.

  “Lucky bastard.” She laughed as he stretched a bit, “Well we can go now, then. I have enough Spirit to help out.”

  “You sure?” Lucian asked, looking back at her.

  “Yeah. I won’t be the reason your progress slows down.” She affirmed, getting up and rubbing her lower back a bit.

  “Alright, you’ll probably get less levels if you only help a bit though…” Lucian said, hesitating.

  “Probably! That’s fine, though.” She smiled at him, “Better to get some than have you leave me behind.” She winked.

  “I wouldn’t do that!” Lucian complained, “Fine, let's go…” He sighed.

  “Atta boy.” Annabelle laughed. The two of them briefly searched the room for any kind of loot of treasure chest, before heading back through the tunnel to the intersection chamber.

  Lucian pointed to the tunnel to their right, “Want to just go counter-clockwise?”

  “Works for me!” Annabelle nodded, “We should probably do the boss last though, assuming there is one.”

  “If we find it we’ll turn back and explore more before doing it.” Lucian agreed, “So we can be in tip top shape.”

  They moved to the tunnel to their right and began walking down it cautiously. Annabelle shined her light around as Lucian scanned the tunnel, both looking for traps. There was a pitfall, but it was easily avoided.

  The tunnel stretched slightly further than the last, opening up into a smaller room with a slightly large stone door at the far end of the room, a large stone slab with a seam down its center embedded into the wall. There were several piles of stones scattered about the room, but nowhere near individually large enough to form the golem they had fought before. He spotted several reflective stones within the piles, “So it’s probably many smaller golems.” He mused as he stepped into the room and activated [Manifest Weapon], his signature glowing blade forming in his hand. He lurched forward as he crossed the threshold into the chamber, aiming to try and destroy at least one of the cores before the golem fully formed.

  As he moved, the piles of stone trembled and began to animate, pulling themselves together into jagged humanoid forms with uncanny proportions, no two golems identical. Like the larger one, Lucian saw the reflective cores move to the center of their chests as stones surrounded them like armor. He made it to the golem closest to the entrance before it fully formed, thrusting his blade down into the core and spearing it like an olive on a toothpick, his blade splitting the smaller core completely in half. The rocks around it fell to the ground motionless as he scanned his surroundings for his next target.

  Lucian spun on his heel, stepping forward and striking a golem’s shoulder with a downwards blow. Rather than slice through it, the golem was forced to its knees as his sword cut deep, but not deep enough. Lucian pulled back and dodged an attack from another golem coming up behind him. He moved to the side, allowing the golem to pass him, and thrusted his sword down at the center of its back as it stumbled past him.

  With less stone to go through piercing through than slashing down, his blade struck its core. The golem fell apart, rocks clattering to the ground as it fell.

  “[Tanglethorns].” Annabelle ensnared another golem as it approached, vines wrapping around its legs tightly. Lucian struck the golem he had cut previously again, piercing through its chest and destroying its core. He pivoted and moved to the restrained golem, bringing his sword up and slashing down with [Penetrating Strike] - the attack cleaving through its body entirely, its core included.

  “It might be a waste of Spirit, but…” He moved again, cutting down a fifth golem with a second use of [Penetrating Strike], “I want to level the skill more… Especially if this dungeon is gonna be full of moving rocks…” With 5 of the golems destroyed, 3 remained. He moved between them swiftly, cutting each in half with a [Penetrating Strike] empowered swing of his sword. Each use cost him 9 Spirit, draining him to 43 by the time the last golem fell. The doors on the opposite end of the room slowly began to slide open as the last golem hit the floor.

  He smiled as he registered the skill level up. He figured that using [Penetrating Strike] on an enemy without much defense to bypass probably wouldn’t be effective for leveling the skill, so this kind of dungeon was a good place to get the levels rolling.

  He wanted to level his other skills as well. [Slash] would probably level just fine being used against any enemy, or at least any enemy that wasn’t a total joke - but he wasn’t entirely sure how the system worked. [Spirit Recovery] leveled from use, [Nightvision] also leveled up from use, [Spirit Barrier] leveled from taking hits, and [Quickstep] either leveled from general use, or using it to position or dodge - Lucian wasn’t entirely sure which it was since it had only leveled once. He had a fairly good understanding of the conditions for [Manifest Weapon] and [Manifested Proficiency] to level, changing his weapon while it was active, pushing the limits of its size, and generally using it seemed to level [Manifest Weapon] and accruing experience using the weapon seemed basically all that was required for [Manifested Proficiency], though he did note that it had leveled up alongside the former skill before.

  “What now?” Annabelle asked, walking up to him.

  “Well, I used a fair bit of Spirit there on [Penetrating Strike], it got the skill a level but I’m down to 43.” Lucian dismissed his sword as he looked around, feeling secure in the idea that there were no more enemies in this room of the dungeon, “So we should check around the room and then take a break. We can both regain some Spirit that way.”

  “Fine by me! Hope you didn’t burn through all that just so I could get mine back.” She teased.

  “Nah. I wanted to level the skill.” Lucian chuckled as he began to walk around the room. He briefly thought back to [Spirit Recovery] as he looked around. Outside of combat, he regained 4 Spirit each minute - 1 from baseline regeneration, and now 3 from the skill. In combat, he regained 2 Spirit each minute, enough to let him maintain [Manifest Weapon] without a net loss - but it was the same amount as before he had leveled the skill. “Either the system doesn’t allow decimal Spirit numbers or decimal Spirit regeneration rate, the skill itself is rounding down, or the reduction is to a flat number while in combat.” He pondered, “Ah, whatever. I’ll figure it out as it levels up more. Probably.”

  Lucian spent a few minutes searching the room with Annabelle, but again they found nothing. It was a little disappointing, but not unexpected.

  They took a break to regain some Spirit, Lucian filling up quickly but giving Annabelle another ten minutes to regain some more. They stood up, and headed through the now open doors, further into the dungeon.

  potentially incorporating that without straying from my own vision!