I woke up the next morning with the intention to explore the dungeon. I had been learning magic for at least a week and was itching to continue my dungeon dive now that I had learned it. I also thought that using magic in a combat scenario would help me level it up.
I got up from the floor and walked over to the waterfall. I looked into the pool at the base before getting a drink. While I was looking, I noticed something. I looked different from the way I remembered. My horns were longer, as was my snout. I twisted my head to look at the rest of my body. I realized that without noticing it, over the past week I had grown. I wasn’t sure how much yet, but I could figure that out soon enough. I knew I was about the size of a mono-horned rabbit when I first entered the dungeon, so I could measure myself based on their size.
I quickly lapped up some water and began my short trek to the dungeon’s entrance. I excitedly took my first step into the dungeon. I enjoyed the feeling of the sun on my scales as I wandered through the dungeon waiting for any monsters to attack me. I didn’t have to wait long before a slime jumped out from a patch of grass.
No sooner had I seen it than I had directed my mana to shoot a small burst of fire at the slime. The slime was incinerated, and I got a notification telling me I had gotten 4 XP. I took a look at the slime’s drops. They weren’t anything I particularly cared about so I just left them and continued on.
A short while later I had come to the first crossroads in the dungeon again. This time I took the left path and continued on. Shortly past the crossroads I finally had my first encounter with a mono-horned rabbit. I couldn’t kill it, or it would disappear, so I had to capture it. I decided this would be the perfect chance to try some different magic.
I imagined the dirt around the rabbit forming a cage, and I sent my mana out. It spread itself out to collect more mana as it went before dipping under the ground.
A moment later the ground below the rabbit erupted, the dirt snaked its way out of the ground and around the rabbit. Multiple bars of dirt shot around the rabbit, creating a cage to hold it in. With the rabbit now captured I walked up to the cage. I examined both the rabbit and myself. From my perspective it seemed like I was now about the size of a housecat compared to it.
With my curiosity sated I decided to try killing the rabbit with earth magic. I commanded the dirt bars to collapse inwards crushing the rabbit.
With the mana released I got two new spells, but I didn’t really care as I knew they would soon turn into a different skill. More importantly was the myriad of notifications I got after killing the rabbit.
“You have killed level 3 Mono-Horned Rabbit – Gained 5 XP.”
“You have leveled up.”
“Skill Innate Magic has evolved into skill – Intrinsic Magic.”
“You have completed the prerequisites, Gained Skill – Earth Magic lvl 1.”
My eyes shot wide open and I instantly opened my status board to learn what had happened.
Name: Nuriel
Species: Red Dragon
Level: 5
XP: 2/40
HP: 30/30
MP: 50/50
Str: 15
Agi: 14
Con: 13
Mag: 17
Racial Skills:
Fire Breath
Flight
Language recognition
Intrinsic Magic
Primary Skills:
Mana Perception lvl 2
Perfect Inner Mana Control lvl 1
Fire Magic lvl 1
Earth Magic lvl 1
My MP and Magic had shot up, and my Innate Magic skill had been replaced by the Intrinsic Magic skill. I was starting to understand what the skill did, but I had to make sure. I opened the skills description.
“Intrinsic Magic – An evolved form of Innate Magic. The Owner of the skill is intrinsically magical, as such they have an innate knowledge of magic and will progress with magic at a much faster rate.”
It seemed that the skill made it so learning one or two spells of an element was enough to learn the magic, and it made my MP and Magic increase at a faster rate.
I was ecstatic! I was loving using magic, and now I had a skill that made it way easier! Plus, I now had the Earth Magic skill, so I could do even more!
I wanted to continue gawking at my new skill, but I was ripped back to reality when a Brown Wolf leapt at me. I was so engrossed in my new skill that I hadn’t noticed it sneaking up on me. The wolf sailed through the air at me, its mouth open going for my neck.
I dodged to the side at the last moment, letting the wolf fly past me. Before it had even landed, I had made use of my new skill to turn the ground under it to mud. As the wolf sank into the dirt, I readied a fireball.
Before I could launch it a second wolf leapt at me from behind. I was forced to let go of the fireball in order to dodge. As the flame faded the wolf landed beside me. At that moment the other wolf freed itself from the muddy trap.
They both began to circle me, looking for any blind spot. Unfortunately for them, the moment of calm was all I needed. I summoned two fireballs and launched them at the wolves. The flames flew in opposite directions, each colliding with a wolf’s head. The fires spread across their fur, burning them to crisps.
The wolves both vanished leaving behind pelts and claws, along with notifications.
“You have killed level 5 Brown Wolf – Gained 8 XP.”
“You have killed a level 6 Brown Wolf – Gained 10 XP.”
The wolves’ surprise attack had reminded me that I was in a dungeon, and that I shouldn’t be focusing on anything else. I put the Intrinsic Magic skill aside for now and continued further into the dungeon.
Hardly ten minutes had past when the path branched a second time. The way to the right seemed smaller and less well kept than the way to the left. I decided to go down it, reasoning that a path like that probably lead to a chest. Even if I didn’t need the loot from the chests, I still enjoyed finding treasure.
As I walked down the path the ground began to become muddy. It wasn’t much of a problem for me as I could just harden the mud with Earth Magic. Speaking of, it seemed that Intrinsic Magic also increased the speed my mana regenerated. Despite using quite a bit of mana in the fight with the wolves, my mana had fully regenerated before I had even left the spot I fought them.
While I thought about that I continued further down the path. The ground just got muddier and muddier until I came upon a pond! The path led straight into the pool and sitting on a small island in the middle of the pond was a chest.
I decided against just flying over, as this gave me a good chance to practice water magic.
I pictured the water splitting, to create a path to the island, and sent out my mana. I watched as my mana gathered other mana particles as they went, forming into two big sheets that slid into the water pushing it aside.
I turned off mana perception and began walking into the pond. The ground was sticky and gross, filled with dead plants. It seemed that this pond was pretty dead. Nothing attacked me as I made my way to the island which I was thankful for.
As I came up on the other side of the pond I released my spell. The water crashed back into place. I didn’t pay much attention to it as I walked up to the chest. I flipped open the wooden lid and peered inside.
Inside the chest was a single golden ring. I instantly snatched it and slid it onto my middle claw. It fit surprisingly well. Immediately after putting it on I realized that was probably a bad idea. What if it was cursed!? I should know better, but I wanted the gold. Maybe it had to do with being a dragon. Fortunately though, the ring didn’t seem to do anything bad. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what it actually did do. I couldn’t open a description of the ring, and it didn’t seem to increase any of my stats.
I didn’t get rid of the ring though. Even if it did nothing it was still cool as jewelry.
With my looting done I turned around to return to the main path. This time instead of parting the water, I tried making it solid.
I pictured the water holding my weight and sent out my mana. I took a step onto the water… and it held me! I quickly began my walk back. As soon as I set foot on solid ground I got a notification.
“You have completed the prerequisites, Gained Skill – Water Magic lvl 1.”
I grinned at that; Intrinsic Magic made this so much easier!
With the help of Earth Magic, I quickly made my way back to the main path. At the split I found two rabbits waiting for me. I put my new skill to good use, summoning a water spear and flinging it at one of the rabbits, before having it turn midair and skewer the other one as well.
Upon releasing the spell, the water vanished as if it had never been there. It seemed that while I could summon water, it wouldn’t stay for long. One of the rabbits dropped a piece of meat which I gladly scorched and ate.
A short while later I ran into another Brown Wolf. As it jumped at me, I went to summon a fireball. As the fireball appeared my eyes widened, it was nearly twice as big as normal! As I sent the fireball to kill the wolf, I checked on my mana. It looked like I had consumed the normal amount of mana for a fireball, but it was twice as large. The only reason I could think of was the ring. It must increase the strength of fire magic.
With a skip in my step I continued further into the dungeon, killing monsters as I came across them. I was mostly using magic as I found it to be much more fun than not, and before long I got a series of notifications.
“Skill Fire Magic has leveled up.”
“Skill Earth Magic has leveled up.”
“Skill Water Magic has leveled up.”
As I was wandering around I ran into a slime. The ball of goo tried to leap at me, but I threw a small ball of fire into it before it could. As the slime exploded, I got a notification.
“You have leveled up.”
I quickly opened my status board to check what had changed.
Name: Nuriel
Species: Red Dragon
Level: 6
XP: 1/50
HP: 35/35
MP: 60/60
Str: 17
Agi: 15
Con: 14
Mag: 20
Racial Skills:
Fire Breath
Flight
Language recognition
Intrinsic Magic
Primary Skills:
Mana Perception lvl 2
Perfect Inner Mana Control lvl 1
Fire Magic lvl 2
Earth Magic lvl 2
Water Magic lvl 2
My stats had increased again, and my Magic stat had hit level 20! The level up couldn’t have come at a better time too. I was starting to get tired, but the level up washed it away.
I had been exploring for a number of hours, and I hadn’t found any other chests since the ring. I was starting to get a bit bored and was debating turning back. Just when I was thinking that would be for the best, I found something new.
A large tree. It wasn’t particularly big, but it was larger than any other tree I had seen in the dungeon. More importantly though, inlaid into the tree was a door!
