Dora was the first to put words to it? “Does it matter if we damage their soul if we're trying to kill them, anyway?”

  Nevin adopted his professorial voice as he replied, “That depends on what the nature of the soul is?”

  Crag shrugged his shoulder then added, “Maybe Samvek will have some idea about that.”

  Of course, he chose that moment to seemingly appear out of thin air. Whatever stealth ability he had was really good. He looked at me first, “You’ll need to join a different group if you want to pursue deep knowledge of a soul. You’ll find that the clans are much more centered about material concerns especially as it relates to the well-being of their members. The corporations are focused on wealth acquisition. Only the sects really focus on spiritual matters and they’re mostly all nutters, if you ask me. I can tell you that the commonly accepted perspective is that a soul is the part of a being which persists beyond physical death. Some sects will teach you about reincarnation and karma, which is the stupidest of them all to me—judgement without a judge. Some will tell you of their heavens and hells and others about universal oneness. The only time I’ve ever interacted with a soul for sure was when it was called back by magic and it's never very happy about that.”

  I nodded along. Nevin fired off a few more questions, which Samvek tried to gracefully answer before Dora hushed the mage to quiet down. Then I got to ask what was on my mind.

  “You’ve been watching us the whole time?”

  “Obviously. I wouldn’t come all this way or spend the resources necessary to set you up with a mission that would have one of the longest time dilations possible and then just ignore you. You all get a passing grade, but I do have some commentary.”

  We all grimaced, but prepared to listen.

  “Dora, should you have let Silas bait the monsters? No, don’t answer. You know the truth. He’s your healer. He shouldn’t be sneaking around like a rogue. You all have just become comfortable with him being able to do things you don’t expect since he’s a Forerunner.”

  “And you, Silas, did you think the flames on his crown were black because it was more beautiful?”

  I met his gaze but didn’t have an excuse when he put it like that.

  “You need to be observant. This may all be new to you, but have you ever seen black flames on your world?”

  “No, not outside of a cartoon.”

  “I have no idea what that is, but I get the sense it’s rather childish.”

  I shrugged. “It didn’t seem so at the time, but I can see how, and from your perspective it might have been.”

  “As long as you can learn. This time you remembered to use a variety of abilities. You also maintained your skills with the staff and put them to good use. If you’re worried about the soul damage, don’t be. It will heal up in a few days. You just need to avoid taking any more for the next few days, which is why we’re going to take the next month to go back to training before you return and finish the final three monsters here.”

  “Won’t the dungeon respawn if we take that long?” I asked.

  Samvek shook his head. “Nope. This is why it’s important to buy guidebooks if you can’t hire an experienced guide before going into a new dungeon. How well would the four of you have fared here without me? No, Nevin, that was a rhetorical question. It won’t respawn while anyone is in side of it, but the energy which is building up will continue to empower the monsters who remain.”

  “So, there won’t be new monsters, but the ones that are here will continue to grow stronger.”

  He nodded to confirm.

  I thought about it for a moment. Perhaps this would work out. We still had about four months left in here and as much as I wanted to see Mom and Cece or get a hamburger, this wasn’t an opportunity I could pass up. And besides at least he wasn’t dipping me in acid to build up my resistance like some spearmen might have done.

  We all agreed and moved with him back to camp. On the way, I picked up the wand I’d dropped, and we discussed the distribution of loot. Samvek assured us that with enough credit we could find an artificer who could repair the crown to full functionality.

  That led to an obvious split of the loot. The crown went to Nevin, who was thrilled. I wondered how his ability to influence the undead would play into Samvek’s training moving forward, but that was for tomorrow me to worry about. I took the Killing Touch scroll and decided to add the spell to my options. It might not be useful inside this dungeon, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t see future uses for it. The idea of being able to apply it to a shield seemed a bit OP. Death shields…

  The second class shard and spell scroll went into my spatial storage. If nothing else, they might evolve and then change. For now, that was good enough, especially since I was excited. Samvek’s last words before he disappeared again were that tomorrow we’d start practicing with spells.

  Chapter 16- Spells

  We were surprised when Samvek not only offered to stand watch for us so we could all sleep, but also provided some meat for our stew from a spatial storage bag. That wasn’t the truly surprising part. He’d been shoring up our supplies for a while. I didn’t even want to think about what would have happened if we had to try to survive here without him. I knew I’d be putting a couple years’ worth of supplies into my storage once I got home.

  What was the big surprise was the first bite that I took. It tasted amazing like there was an explosion of flavor in my mouth. Judging from the moaning that Crag was doing, I wasn’t the only one to notice. After a few bites, I began to feel a tingling sensation which spread through my body. It wasn’t anything scary, but just like a vibratory euphoria.

  Then, as I finished the first bowl and went to get more, the notification popped up.

  You have consumed euchren meat. Your clarity has increased. Mana circulation has improved. Affinity gains have improved.

  I looked at him as he sat eating some himself. “What’s an euchren?”

  “A herd animal on the world I grew up on. Someday, I might take you there to hunt them. It’s… an experience.”

  Nevin said, “How long will these benefits lasts?”

  “You’ll build up a tolerance to it, but at first, I’d say perhaps a full day. For me, it's only an hour at the most now.”

  Dora shook her head. “I thought we were going to rest tonight.”

  He shrugged. “You still can. I’m not placing any requirements on any of you, and even my clan member is free for the night. It’s up to him how he wants to spend the time until we begin training tomorrow.”

  Crag groaned. “This tastes so good, but now I’ll feel bad if I don’t get the most out of it.”

  Samvek didn’t reply, but his smile spoke volumes. Internally, I was a bit frustrated. This just felt like another test. If he wanted me to train, then he should have just said something. I was tired and still felt the ache inside from the soul damage, but I would have pushed through. Instead, this felt passive aggressive. It was like something my sister would have done to try to guilt me into helping her with her chores.

  I didn’t say anything else, but instead got up and walked over to where my bedroll was. Then I sat down with my second bowl of stew. Test or no, I wasn’t going to pass up on another bowl full of this. I wished the system would have told us exactly what percentage of gain we had from the stew, because it felt like a lot, but I didn’t bother asking Samvek about that. He likely would have just told me that it had something to do with how each individual responded differently and it was about how much benefit we wrung out of it rather than something we were being handed.

  Once the food was gone, I considered going back for more, but two big bowls were likely enough. My body lived more and more on mana, even if I still needed food. That was the only explanation for how I could have the ridiculous expenditure of energy without needing to consume an entire grocery store aisle at each meal.

  I looked inward and focused on the spells portion of my status sheet. I had two more spells, which I could add as my common level spells and another opening in my core spells since level 40. I hadn’t filled it in yet because Samvek had insisted I focus on learning how to use what I already had. I tried to consider if any of the spells were ones that I definitely wanted to keep for my future.

  Core Spells

  Boon-Bane (Rare 22%)

  Healing Grace (Common 26%)

  Barbs of Slowing (Uncommon 17%)

  Levitation (Common 52%)

  Frost Burst (Common 8%)

  Boon-Bane seemed like a keeper. Even though I cast it in virtually every fight, it was still rising slowly. It was the one that made my healing burden manageable while at the same time boosting the team’s damage output. Healing Grace was also going to be necessary until I could get an upgraded version. Although, if I could evolve it, then that would be all the better.

  The more I looked at them, the more I thought that I wanted to keep each of them. So for now I didn’t move any over to my common spell slots. Once there, they’d be blocked from evolving with experience. I did however, pull out the spell scroll which I’d just kept as part of my loot and chose to learn it.

  Killing Touch would add another aspect for when fire or ice weren’t good enough, but I was more excited to see if I could attach the spell’s effect to my shields. I cast it a couple of times. The mana cost of the spell was significant, but it was still enough to progress the spell one percent. The early points were always the easiest. Something about it felt more natural, though.

  I was tempted to experiment with it, but decided it was unlikely to have much use against the undead who were our only foes on this mission. So, I set it aside for later. The way this death spell resonated with my life mana was definitely worth exploring.

  Then, once I was ready, I wanted to test out the benefits of this meat. Some quick math showed that so far, my mana regeneration was nearly fifty percent greater than it had been. It was harder to say what the clarity and affinity gains meant. Maybe that was why I felt more connected to the death magic.

  I pushed speculation aside and got down to work. I had a goal, and I meant to push while I had this extra mana regeneration. I managed to cast Levitation forty times before I ran out of mana. During that time, I began to understand the nuances of the spell.

  It had bothered me how it functioned, allowing me to only be six feet above the surface I started on, but that if I started on a higher surface, I could game it to end up more than six feet above the ground. The process didn’t make any sense, but as I cast it, I began to understand why. I did speculate about whether I could conjure a shield and then stand upon it, moving it higher and then Levitate off of that point. Although, if that worked, maybe I wouldn’t even need the spell on my list in the first place.

  I worked on casting it faster, casting it while exerting myself, casting it in different positions ranging from handstands to lying flat. I cast it while trying to pour extra mana into it and other times I cast it while trying to make it work with less mana. The hours rolled by and the picture of the spell continued to form in my head.

  As I cast it, I also tried working on getting more functionality out of the spell. At some point, I noticed Samvek watching me. He didn’t say anything, but was just staring at me. Eventually, it started to feel like someone looking over my shoulder while I was reading, so I said, “Any pointers?”

  “No, I really want to see how you handle this on your own. For what it’s worth, you’re doing many things correctly.”

  Another one of those half-compliments. I took a deep breath to keep from becoming upset about it. “Not helpful.”

  He just smiled. I turned around so that I wouldn’t notice him quite as much, but increased Perception wasn’t always a benefit. I couldn’t seem to ignore him. I found that it started affecting me.

  That was when he asked, “If someone watching you slows your casting, then how do you expect to be able to do it in the middle of battle? I’ve watched you modify both spells and abilities on the fly, so what’s stopping you now?”

  I stopped and stood up a bit straighter. He was right, but that pissed me off. Was I having daddy issues or something? I thought back to the way my dad used to critique me about sports when I was young. Now, I could see how he only wanted what was best for me, but at the time it had been hard to be told that my ball handling or mobility on the field were lacking.

  Dad’s death was still having an effect on me. Samvek wasn’t a father figure. It was hard to be sure with the alien, but I always got the vibe that he was closer to my age than what my dad would have been. Was I just not properly appreciating him as a mentor?

  A dozen different replies came to the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed each one. “Fine, I’ll do better.”

  I then began to focus on casting Levitation and then trying to push the movement. I found that with some effort I could increase the height off the ground, but that it was easier to enhance my mobility. That was when the spell passed eighty percent towards the next tier.

  Samvek said, “Intention matters. Think about what you want the spell to do.”

  I took his words to heart and cast it again, this time while I leapt from the ground. Then, I used it to push me around Superman style as I flew. It wasn’t true flight, but I could feel how envisioning it as flight was changing the spell. My focus became more important than with the base spell.

  Levitation would keep me up in the air even if I fell asleep. I could only descend if I consciously willed it, or some greater force acted on me. Not so now. With this cast, I felt a greater need for me to focus on staying airborne, but at the same time, it was also pushing me to move faster. It wasn’t like I was streaking around at supersonic speeds, but I was definitely moving faster than normal with the spell, which was limited to half of my running speed.

  It was hard to keep track of time, but I watched as first Dora and then Crag had gone to sleep as well. The lack of a sun meant day and night were arbitrary. We had a pretty established schedule and our system interfaces were able to track the time we’d been here. It was essential to maintaining our sanity, so we made sure each of us got the required sleep. The time when we stood guard was what we called night, and that was definitely now.

  Still, my mind felt clearer than ever and I was making so much progress. Another hour of this had me at ninety percent on the spell. I began to feel anxious to know what would happen once I reached one hundred percent.

  When the others started to get up, I began to worry I wouldn’t make it. The spell had reached 99% but didn’t seem to want to budge. I’d cast it literally hundreds of times and pushed myself as hard as I could. More than once, I had to slow myself down and take a deep breath. This was going to work. It needed to work.

  I sat down then, hovering in mid-air, and focused my mind. I imagined the mana running through my body and how a large part of it was life attuned. It soaked into me and this extra mental clarity allowed me to focus better. I envisioned the mana filling each cell of my body. Then I willed that mana to break my bond to the ground. Magic was what defied physics in this system, and I needed to embrace that.

  I held that image with all my mental might until I began to tremble.

  Your spell Levitation has reached the point of evolution. You may guide aspects of the evolution. Do you wish to focus on duration, efficiency, mobility, or targets?

  Of course, I wanted to focus on all of them, but somehow, I didn’t think that was the way this worked. There really wasn’t a question. I could have gone through the pros and cons of each of the options, but from the very first, I knew that I was going to pick. Mobility.

  The system seemed to know too because it didn’t ask for me to actually specify but instead I got a new notification.

  Preferences noted. Evolution beginning.

  I felt a tingling and then a bit of heat coming from the center of my chest. There was a momentary bit of silver light which shone out of me as though I was a sock puppet with a flashlight being pressed against it.

  Levitation has become- Rapid Flight (Uncommon)- this spell will allow you to break the tether of gravity upon your body but requires your focus to do so. You may now fly with the same ease that you can walk. Just as with standing up though, if you were to sleep or otherwise lose consciousness, you’ll fall. Your movement is only limited by atmospheric elements. Your speed is up to triple your maximum running speed. You may only move yourself and up to twice your bodyweight in additional material. Grade: Uncommon, Duration: 30 minutes, Range: Self, Mana Cost: 120.

  Chapter 17- Body and Mind

  It turned out that flying was not nearly as limitless as I had imagined. At least it wasn’t inside of a dungeon. There was a ceiling even though I couldn’t see it. The ceiling looked like the sky and had a muted light coming from everywhere all at once, but once I flew up, I learned the truth. That same ceiling was actually smooth stone.

  Rather, I could say that the ceiling felt like smooth stone when I ran my hand over it. Up close the illusion of an open sky was gone, and I only saw gray stone, smooth as could be. It was a hundred feet up approximately, so that still left a good deal of room, but not enough room to fly out of the range of projectile weapons or spells.

  I also learned that there was an invisible field which covered each of the plots. So far, we had progressed through a gate from one plot to the next, but I hadn’t realized that what looked like worn down stone walls around each plot were actually just a part of the dungeon’s theme. So much for that.

  A quick breakfast followed, and the obvious questions about my new spell. “You evolved Levitation,” Dora said. It wasn’t a question, since the results had been obvious.

  I explained how the spell had evolved and the changes that it had undergone. Based upon their responses, it was good, but Nevin seemed surprised that it was Rapid Flight rather than just Flight.