POV Eliza

I couldn't say we progressed quickly through the dungeon, but that wasn't a big deal. For me it was primarily about other things. On the one hand, I wanted to spend time with the three of them. It was a calm feeling for my soul not to be alone. To do this, I accepted some restrictions on collecting EXP, as it was distributed to all members of the group. To compensate, we earned more money together than I could alone. We were able to take all the monster corpses, or in the case of the goblins, the ears. Goblin ears also gave more than the spiders or the beetles. The goblins became our main targets alongside the beetles, as the others didn't want the slimes or the spiders as opponents. I also took off every two to three days to devote myself to my studies. Thanks to the others, I also had the opportunity to do this and used the money I earned to pay the teacher. Once Lynn came with me when I went to see my magic teacher. Apparently he also taught improved forms of two forms of magic, but I had neither fire nor earth magic. That leaves the lessons in advanced wind magic.

Much more interesting were the lessons on Identify Monsters. Since I was able to improve the skill, I was able to see the HP and special attacks of the monsters. As I already knew, the spiders had a weak poison attack. The goblins, on the other hand, had nothing special, but could take more damage until they were defeated. But the weapons they used were very painful. I've been able to experience it firsthand several times. But I had to be careful that I always cast the basic water magic healing spell in time so that it wouldn't be noticed that I had regeneration.

But by far the best lessons were with Lirella. She was the scout recommended to me. She had even advanced her class to explorer and was correspondingly experienced. She was in her late forties and had shoulder-length brown hair. She became a mother about ten years ago and since then lived in Tyros with her son Weyn. I had never met my father and Lirella never spoke of him. The two probably didn't get along so well. Maybe he had already died, in which case it was better not to ask.

In any case, I get along well with her straight away because her manner reminded me of mama. I felt very safe in her presence and therefore enjoyed attending her classes. She had so much experience ahead of me and I wanted to learn as much from her as possible. She had even explored several dungeons herself and reached floor 30. At that time she was traveling with a warrior and a sorceress. The warrior and the sorceress could both be found in the capital these days. If I ever needed help, I could turn to her.

I enjoyed listening to their stories with a cup of tea in the evenings after class. I was particularly interested in distant countries because I still barely knew anything about the world. One evening she told me where the other dungeons still known and accessible in the empire were. In addition to nature, the themes of the dungeons were earth, air, lightning and dark. The earth dungeon was in a large desert in the south and was therefore very difficult to reach. The air dungeon was also in the south at the great plain. It was the only known dungeon that went up to the sky and wasn't underground. The end of the tower was so high in the sky that it was always surrounded by clouds. The Dark Dungeon near the capital had an undead theme and was the preferred training ground for the Church's priests and warriors. The lightning dungeon was found in a remote valley in the mountains to the north. Lirella found him unpleasant because it was very cold there and the weather was constantly bad.

She also gave me a lot of valuable tips about the nearby natural dungeon and about the monsters that you could find on the individual floors. In addition to the slimes, beetles, spiders and goblins that I was already familiar with, there were also vines, caterpillars, giant butterflies, wolves, orcs , bears and treants. For whatever reason, the monsters in the lower floors were usually strictly separated from each other. Every 5 floor you had to defeat so-called boss monsters in order to get to the next floor. The boss monsters were in caves and separated by a door. From what Lirella had experienced so far, the final battle consisted of all five monster types that could be found in the previous 5 floors. One monster was significantly stronger than normal. This was the boss and was the only monster of this type. Which monster type was the boss was different for each fight and was purely random. Here it was a matter of luck, as some bosses were significantly more difficult to fight than others. But the bosses had to be defeated because only then was the portal to the next level activated.

As soon as you defeated the boss at every tenth floor, you could go straight back to the surface through the portal. From then on, when you entered the dungeon, you only went to the next floor after the last boss and could never go back to the upper floors. The only known exception was when you were in a group and at least half of the members had not yet defeated the boss. So you had to think carefully about when you wanted to defeat each boss. The natural dungeon itself was not popular with many adventurers because of the monsters present, but since it was the only one in the area, it was still heavily visited. As always, to pass the first boss room you had to defeat all the monsters there included slimes. Since the slimes could only be hurt by magic, they couldn't be defeated in groups without attack spells. Pure fighter groups sometimes invited magicians into their group.

The Dark Dungeon, on the other hand, was only accessible with permission from the Church, which was never granted to a normal adventurer without a special reason. You couldn't get through the entrance portal without permission. Additionally, the dungeon was permanently guarded, even though it was also outside the capital. But if you were able to get permission, your mana structure was registered with the help of an artifact and from that point on you could re-enter the dungeon at any time. An alarm was triggered without authorization, alerting the guards on site.

She gave me lots of useful tips on improving skills. I already knew most of it, or at least suspected it. You couldn't increase your skills to any level you wanted. If you reached the maximum value, you first had to improve the rank before a further increase was possible. While you could actively train most skills and improve them through EXP, you could only train resistances and sense skills passively. To advance through the ranks you needed an instructor or the appropriate stele. I was an exception because of two of my abilities, as I was able to improve both agility and intuition skills through meditation.

A stele was found when you defeated a boss in the dungeon. Lirella's sorceress friend had theorized that there was a stele somewhere for every skill and rank. The steles at floors 5, 10 and 15 gave the Advanced rank and the steles at floors 20, 25 and 30 gave the Expert rank. For master rank you need the stele of level 35 or 40, although there were only a few known groups whoever defeated the boss at floor 40. This also meant that a dungeon had more than 40 levels. There were also many rumors that in the Church of Lumos the master rank for light magic could also be awarded through divine assistance. But to do this you had to be a high-ranking member of the church. In general, people who found a master stele were well-known people and widely famous.

She gave me some other good advices. Upgrading a skill rank doubled the level when calculating effectiveness. Despite using a stele did not have to be used for rank advancement. If you don't use it, you get an additional development point. Development points were earned for defeating a boss for the first time and for completing special quests. You also received a development point for advancing in rank in the adventurers' guild. The development points were needed later when it came to improving the class. But that was still a long way to go for me, so I didn't inquire further.

I spent many wonderful days with Lirella's little family. During this time little Weyn also got used to me because I bribed him with sweets. I also helped Lirella around the house and in the kitchen in return for her hospitality. I met up with the rest of the young wolves in the evenings. During one evening we wanted to discuss when we should tackle the first boss. I've probably been ready for this for a long time, but I wanted to be on the safe side. In addition, the others wanted to reach at least level 10.

“As far as I’m concerned, we can go to floor 5 and then to the first boss. How do you see the matter?” <Eliza>

“But of course. We are stronger than ever before.” <Ken>

“Yes, thanks to you I have also become significantly stronger. I have now also studied with the magician you recommended to me. This allowed me to improve my magical offensive output. I can now use the fireball and other useful spells.” <Lynn>

"Congratulations. What is the fireball doing?” <Eliza>

“It is a ball of fire that flies towards the opponent and then explodes upon impact. This allows me to attack multiple monsters at once.” <Lynn>

“It sounds very useful. Maybe I should learn that too. Is this advanced fire magic?” <Eliza>

"Yes. It's expensive to speak, but it does significantly more damage than a comparable number of fire arrows." <Lynn>

"That sounds interesting. Maybe there is something similar in wind magic. I've only learned a few new spells so far after becoming advanced. I'll ask the magician how much it costs." <Eliza>

“Do it. But I can do it now, so you rely on me. Trust me.” <Lynn>

"Then we can go to Level 5 tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it," <Ken>

Everyone nods and goes to bed early.