James hastily got to his feet, preparing to beat down the wolf again if he needed to, but he heard the announcer woman’s prerecorded voice, congratulating him on clearing the 10th floor. He exhaled and turned his head to the left, where he saw the wolf’s carcass splayed out on the ground.

“Shit!”

James sat down and examined his left arm. As the adrenaline left him, the pain began to affect him.

In order to counter the wolf’s dark magic, James used a basic wind spell. However, his rushed magic could only weaken the magic the wolf had cast, not completely negate it. Instinctively, James had used his hand to block the weakened <Dark Lance>.

“At least, it looked like a <Dark Lance>. I know human and monster magic are different.”

The flesh on James’ hand had a hole in it where the dark spear had lodged itself, although there was no bone exposed. A stream of blood streaked down his forearm and dripped onto the stone floor.

James was quite interested in the wound, as this was the first wound from magic he had received. However, it merely looked like someone had used a stake and stabbed him.

Pain won over his curiosity, and James let out a small sigh of relief as the health potion did its work and mended his hand.

“Dark and light magic are really weird,” James said as he rubbed his newly healed skin. “They’re untouchable until you get stabbed with light or darkness. Then you can touch it just fine.”

“Well, they are considered to be rare attributes,” said Ajartum. “Less people have the ability to use light or dark magic, and it’s also quite tricky to get a feel for the transition between tangibility and intangibility.”

“Rare? How rare are we talking about?”

“I’m not quite sure,” said Ajartum. “As a rough estimate, out of all magic users, perhaps 1 in about 10 to 15 can use light or dark magic. And by use, I mean have the natural aptitude to use it. Even fewer really study it.”

James’ brain clanked as he remembered that he had aptitude for both light and dark. Then, he put two and two together, realizing that he also had an affinity for water, ice, earth, fire, wind…

“Having all major attributes isn’t common, is it?”

“Did you think it was?”

“I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t think about it at all. You know, I never really talked to other magical people except for you. And the stuff Vyan wrote in his book, I suppose. And both of you acted like having all attributes wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Well, Vyan also had aptitude for nearly all types of magic, so it didn’t surprise me that much. Although you do have a higher affinity for light and dark magic than he did. 

But the dungeon has a place for socialization, does it not? It was designed that way.”

“It’s supposed to be rude to ask other explorers about them, and I only know a few of them anyways.”

Ajartum seemed surprised. “Weird customs, eh? Although, every place has different traditions and rituals. I’ve seen enough places to know that.”

This caused James to wonder how long the dungeon had been in place. Could this partial isolationism really be called a tradition? And was it part of the culture on Earth?

“Wait.” He looked around the room and saw no teleportation gate. “Where’s the exit?”

“Ah. You’re not done yet.”

James cocked his head. “What?”

Ajartum suddenly launched into lecture mode: “In terms of physical composition and magic control, that wolf was inferior to you. The wolf had a somewhat stronger body, but you were much more agile. Plus, unlike you, it didn’t really cast much magic during the fight. Well, the magic that the wolf used at the end was quite powerful and fast, but it was also a suicide attack, so it doesn’t count.”

James thought about what Ajartum said, but was slightly confused. The wolf had been quite a bit stronger than him. But, he then remembered how the wolf had dealt with his spells.

“Ah. Magical reinforcement.”

“Exactly. It’s time for you to learn this skill. That wolf’s magic reinforcement made it both physically stronger as well as able to cancel your magic.”

========

Compared to casting magic, internal reinforcement was at the same time very similar and completely different.

It left James feeling quite weird, mostly because he wasn’t used to it yet.

Physical reinforcement, or reinforcement, was the name given to fighters who saturated their muscles with magic in a particular way so that the body of the user became more sturdy.

This was often confused with the reinforcement of physical materials. They worked on the same principle, but reinforcing metal was much easier than reinforcing flesh, because muscle was more delicate and also needed to be able to function.

Magic control was necessary - if done incorrectly, the magic would not only be ineffective but also potentially harmful. In fact, using this technique on your enemies was actually a branch of curse magic. 

Unlike casting magic, which often used memorized formulas, reinforcement required a lot more intuition. James had to get a feel for what worked for him.

In the words of the almighty God Sword Ajartum: “It’s not that we wouldn’t like to create a consistent formula, but it’s just not practical, unlike casted magic. There are enough differences in each individual body to make a standardized formula completely useless. And sometimes, making explosions is what you want in casting magic. It’s most definitely not what we want here.”

Combined with the fact that people had more control over mana within their body as opposed to outside, this made sense to James.

And because there were no formulas, chants were also used less often. Because chants were based off of Dragontongue, it was definitely possible, but again, each person would need a different chant.

“Some people created their own specific set of chants for ease. That’s actually what I did for a while.”

All in all, reinforcement was a bit more tricky to understand at first, as well as more dangerous. However, the benefits were well worth it.

James started with reinforcing his hand, since he was already used to manipulating mana around that area. However, he absorbed the mana into his own hands instead of using it to shape a spell.

The hand was easy because James only had to reinforce his skin and bones, for the most part. There was the muscle on his thumb, but that was nothing compared to the tendons and muscles on the forearms.

James discovered the anatomy of his own arm by feeling the magic flow through it. He now knew where the bones, tendons, muscles, and all the other ligaments were in his right arm by heart.

Thud.

James’ hand hit the wall of the dungeon with a punch harder than any pro boxer could have possibly thrown. However, he didn’t feel any pain at all.

“Reinforcing my forearm along with my hand makes it feel a lot better. A lot of the shock traveled from my hand, so that problem’s now dealt with.”

“Yes. Eventually, you’ll want to reinforce your entire body. Otherwise, you’ll have glaring weaknesses and be unbalanced. Speaking of which, you need to work on your muscles. Your back isn’t strong enough compared to your abs.”

“Hey! I have a lot to work on. Let me do my left arm first!”

James did not want to have a much stronger right arm than left.

========

James let out a weird noise from his throat as he maintained the control over his magic as well as exerted physical force on the iron bar he was holding. The bar bent under the pressure.

“Whew.” James threw the now L shaped piece of iron across the room. He felt as if it was only yesterday that Mike had told him he could rip a steel bar in half and he had been amazed. But now, he was doing the same thing.

Despite his low proficiency with reinforcement magic, James was able to exert a large amount of force because of the orbs he had collected - only later would he realize how powerful they actually were.

“Mm.” The beanie on top of James’ head moved up and down slightly, as if it was nodding. “Well, that should be enough to handle that wolf without any problems. Shall we try fighting that wolf once more?”

========

Beating the shit out of the wolf was much, much easier the second time. And it was much more satisfying as well.

As it turned out, the biggest difference wasn’t that James now had a much easier way of damaging the wolf because of the reinforcement magic. It was actually the amount of confidence he had due to having done the fight before and preparing for it. 

But that didn’t mean reinforcement magic was weak.

The fight started out the same way, with the wolf lunging towards him, but instead of backing off, James sidestepped and slashed at the wolf, not being too wary of his hand being caught in the wolf’s jaws.

His knife met the wolf’s fang, and both broke simultaneously.

“???”

James, due to his lack of a weapon, punched the wolf in the snout.

To be completely honest, since the wolf had fur that was resistant to sharp edges, using blunt force attacks might have been the better option in the first place. But it was the reinforcement that gave James the confidence to do such a brazen action.

The wolf recognized James’ physical superiority and ran away. It began casting a magic spell - the same dark lance that had stabbed James before. However, this spell was visibly weaker than the one he had been hit with before, since this wasn’t a desperate last attempt.

“Do it,” went one part of his brain.

“No. You could get hurt. Practice it later,” said another part.

“DO IT!”

James did it.

Instead of dodging, which he could have easily done, he ran directly towards the and met it with his left fist. 

The lance of darkness shattered. James felt a slight pain in his hand, but the damage done was negligible.

He then jumped on the wolf, which let out a frightened whimper.

James almost felt bad smacking it until it died.

Almost.