Well, it was dark for all of five steps before her eyes readjusted and James noticed the walls were glowing a pale green. Other than being the same green as the mana in the air, it also resembled the Gfp gene scientists liked to add to cells in order to mark them, sourced from green-fluorescent jellyfish. It was interesting to see it occurring naturally, given how far away James assumed the Tutorial was from any jellyfish. Or scientists that would add it to the moss, for that matter.

Seeing the overlay of the mana in her sphere and the real world was also an interesting experience, and James noted where they differed. For one, the mana in her sphere was constantly moving, following the universal law of going from areas of high to density. This created a swirling affect she assumed was similar to LSD. At least now she could confidently tell her parents she would never experiment with drugs; she didn’t need a third visual input to parse out.

She couldn’t decide if the glowing moss was a positive development or not, but James continued on nonetheless. Every couple of steps she could hear a splat of water or some rocks stumbling. She didn’t let that deter her though, trust her sphere that no life forms were approaching her. Though to be fair, if the lifeforms didn’t have any mana in them, she wouldn’t know. Or if they were outside her three-meter radius. She really shouldn’t have been so confident.

As she walked the ceiling of the cave arched upwards even as the path seemed to go down, making her feel increasingly small. The corridor also seemed to widen, and soon she was in a large chamber.

You have entered a Dungeon. You may not leave until you have completed it.

That was ominous. Especially because James knew her health points weren’t topped off from her weird run in with the goblins, even with the extra regeneration the high mana area provided. She also had no food, or water, though she suspected the latter could be found here. Nothing to be done now, though, so James didn’t dwell on it. Either she would complete the dungeon or she would have other things to worry about.

Walking onwards, grass began to crop up on the ground and the moss started to appear exclusively on the ceiling, giving the dungeon a weird outdoor, night-time ambiance. More vegetation cropped up, along with rocks, and soon enough she was in a new biome, trying to memorialize everything in her memory. At this point, she was thankful her Mana Sense didn’t act like her eyesight, otherwise she’d never be able to see through the thick mana. With such a high concentration it was almost a surprise she could move. Soon enough she came across a sluggish stream.

Dungeon Objective Quest [1]: Defeat the Lumina Nutria [0/7]. No experience will be awarded until this is achieved.

Reward: Decided upon completion.

The notification crossed her eyes without prompting, making her hide behind a large rock. Closing her eyes to better concentrate, she tried to listen to more than just the moving water and see if she could spot any mana anomalies.

If her experiments and recent fight had taught her anything, it was that she had a limited amount of Mana Blasts in her before her mana reservoir ran dry. She would need to try and concentrate the Lumina Nutria together before unleashing the Skill. And then hope that it worked like normal despite the new mana-filled environment. Strategy, hope, and luck. The magic trifecta.

Not hearing anything unusual, beyond a stream being inside a cave, she tried to focus on her mana sense. She thought she might be able to see some differences in the concentration of mana, but she really couldn’t be sure since it was all so high everywhere. Sighing to herself, she opened her eyes again. Only to find herself starting at a beaver-like creature.

It was as big as a medium-sized dog with long coarse hair whose tips were glowing that same green color as the rest of the cave. Its eyes were small, though not as weird as the goblin ones. Its two front teeth were also a radiating that same green hue, making it look like it would have horrible, possibly nuclearly charged, breath. That observation seemed to be a commonality between all the monsters she encountered. She doubted any of them would take too kindly to her offering them a toothpaste and toothbrush. Not that she had any to spare. Its last glowing body part was the tail, resembling a well-muscled rat tail. All in all, a rather hideous, and shining, sight.

Snapping out of her thoughts, she quickly Identified it, getting back Lumina Nutria. Well, at least she didn’t need to go looking for them.

The thing seemed to stare at her for what felt like a lifetime while she remained as still as possible. With her health points not at their peak, she didn’t want to antagonize it needlessly. Finally, it sneezed, its whiskers fanning out and back to their original positions. It proceeded to pad over to a nearby plant, cut it with its teeth, grab it in its mouth and wander off. All the while, James tried not to twitch a muscle, hardly daring to breathe. Getting up from her crouching position and feeling her knees protesting despite all her stats after the tense experience, she followed the Lumina Nutria’s trail.

Since she couldn’t really register the nutria in her sphere with the high mana concentration of the dungeon, she tried to listen extra hard to make sure she didn’t stumble across it again. A five-minute walk ensued, taking her to the river and continuing alongside it, before she heard a small splash. Confident that the nutria went into the water, she continued to trail its path, coming to a section of stream with some logs with vegetation on them. On it were the rest nutria designated by the quest. There were four ones as big as the one she had trailed, as well as two babies.

Smirking to herself, she started to approach them. They clearly had bad eyesight and sense of smell if the nutria earlier didn’t see her. Trying to make as little noise as possible, her first careful step into the water hardly made a sound. It was the second one that cause problems.

Instantly the nutrias were on guard, their small round ears raised and pointing forward. The small ones quieted down, the absence of their small squeals making the earlier noise all the more noticeable and the current silence more oppressive. James would need to rethink this tactic. Just as she was considering what she could do now, another nutria emerged. This Lumina Nutria one was even bigger, its glow a little brighter, and its teeth far pointier than the rest. Using Identify, it was the same Lumina Nutria as the rest. Using her eyes and senses, he was clearly different.

Its eyesight was also clearly superior, sprinting at her the moment it saw her. Letting out a small yelp, she fought against her instincts and began to tun towards the rest of the nutria. If James timed it right, she should be able to release a Mana Blast and capture all of them in it. She tried not to daydream of a world where she could let out a Mana Blast without her at the epicenter, after all she was running away from a monster, but wouldn’t it have been nice? She wouldn’t need to get close to anything. Since that wasn’t a possibility, she ran as fast as she could through the water towards the nutria: she had to make sure that get them all together.

It was clear the nutrias were wanting to disperse, but they too fought against their instincts. Clearly, they had never encountered a foe stronger than them since they evolved into monsters. Well, she was going to make them pay for those evolved belief systems. The only nutrias to scamper away were the babies, but James figured she would find them later. The adults were her biggest concern right now. Never mind the fact that the quest lied to her and made her believe there were only 7 nutrias here rather than the 8 she found.

Since the nutrias were all much faster than her in the water, the five adults on the log island got to her while she was still in the stream. Charging at her, she tried to dodge without taking too much damage, and not entirely succeeding. She tried to stall for time for the larger one to come, dodging and grunting as the nutrias rammed into her and tried to bite and scratch.

All the while, she tried to also visualize the Mana Blast she wanted to forge like she had practiced earlier in the day. It felt like a lifetime ago. The blast had to be strong enough to kill them as well as capture all the nutrias in its blast radius. Finally, the big nutria got the edge of her sphere. Breathing in and out in pain because of her bruised ribs, she tried to keep her image in mind as she let go of her Mana Blast.

Thank you to my patrons! Thank you to Kaiedi, Owen, Rickard, Ya Anon, LordDark, Brian, George, Micheal, 6J0ker9, Chayden, Nick, Richard, Blackelements, aaron, Monadologist, BtBurns, Kristian, kyle, Death2moo, Tonberry, mark, Jason, Cryptic_Reality, ShadeByTheSea, Pltergeist, Blacktide, Davvy chappie, joshjosh100, DB, Zivlanir, S. Nutter, and Daniel!