After spending an entire night in which I wasn't surprise-hugged by Cluma once, I teleported back to Dawnhold. Given the delay to the day's delving activities, I would have preferred to take the time to walk, but there was a white-out blizzard going on. It still amazed me that we lived in what were utterly uninsulated wooden shacks with no real foundations, but could completely disregard winter weather that back on Earth would have the government issuing weather warnings. I'd never once seen a building blow over or collapse, or get uncomfortably cold inside. Perhaps it's for the best that I don't encourage the construction of homes without the aid of skills.

Cluma came running up with [Stealth] active and dived straight in for a hug. Fortunately, having been living in fear of her all night, I was keeping a watch with active mana scanning, and picked her up easily, dodging out of the way of her dive.

ding

Skill [Mana Sight] advanced to level 7

At least all the stress came with its own silver lining.

Cluma popped out of [Stealth], but rather than pouting like normal when I dodged a hug, she was looking very pleased with herself. She had replaced the healing potion she'd used up, as promised, but her smile was even more ominous than it had been yesterday... "You're plotting something," I pointed out.

"Yup," she happily agreed, not even attempting to deny it and making a second attempt at a flying hug, which this time I let connect, catching her and spinning around.

"But you aren't going to tell me what," I stated, petting her head. Wasn't she getting a bit old for head pats? Then again, I'd have thought she was too old to be keeping up her hug addiction, so she's obviously a bit more tactile than most.

"Nope."

And that seemed to be about as much as I'd get out of her on the subject. "Okay, today we'll be heading straight to floor five again. You're allowed to use your eyes, but still not [Stealth]. Also, once we get to floor five, you can't kill things until I say so."

"But I never kill things till you say so."

"No, you don't attack things till I say so, but once you do, you kill them as quickly as possible. Today we'll be practising teamwork, so we're going to fight together, covering for each other, and defending each other's blind spots."

Cluma peered. "I... might need a bit more in the way of instructions than that, but I'll give it a go."

We made our way to floor five, Cluma handling each boss with ease even without her stealth, now that she was allowed to look at them, but I was happy to see that even surrounded, she reacted to attacks from behind. As much as I hated to admit it, she was a far faster learner than me when it came to physical things.

On the fifth floor, we found ourselves a group of three goblin champions without any archers, and stood back to back, fending them off without making any attacks of our own. I kept a watch behind me with [Mana Sight], needing to regularly dodge attacks from behind to start with, mostly when Cluma dodged attacks that needed to be parried. To be fair to her, this wasn't something she'd ever done before, nor were her daggers optimal parrying weapons.

Also, as I'd previously noted, she was a far faster learner than me at this sort of thing. Within ten minutes, I could have shut off [Mana Sight] and completely ignored anything behind me. If anything, she was even better at this than I was.

ding

Wisdom increased by 1

The shock made me very nearly miss a parry, and I was forced to turn my block into an attack, bisecting the goblin in front of me. Cluma noticed and finished off the other two. That was my first natural wisdom increase since I first got the [Self-Destructive] title! How many years ago had that been?

"Watch..." shouted Cluma as the floor clicked beneath me and a dart launched straight at my face. "...out," she finished, as I employed [Distortion] to redirect it harmlessly into a wall. "Are you okay? You seem a bit distracted all of a sudden."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just surprised by a stat increase."

"Wisdom? I got one too."

Bah... And there I was, feeling special. "You're getting the hang of this too quickly to do it all day, so we'll do a few more groups, then start on what I had planned for tomorrow. With your [Monster Perception] practice from yesterday, I think you're ready for a stab at floor eight. Going further is going to need more levels in [Trap Perception], but I can't see the mobs causing you problems."

In fact, the only thing I could see causing problems was the final boss. Would the sages have something that could hit the whole room at once, and negate her [Stealth] that way? Even the traps on floor nine and ten weren't an issue, given her dexterity and that I knew there were very few spots on her armour they'd likely be able to pierce, given Grover's enchantment. Then again, I'd had sharpness back when I was there, which Cluma lacked. Best to make sure she can spot or dodge them, rather than risking it.

We found another goblin group and started another defensive battle. This one was a group of four, one of which was an archer, throwing a nice extra wrinkle into proceedings. Nevertheless, despite the addition, Cluma performed superbly, either dodging arrows when there was nothing behind her, or swatting them out of the air when they'd otherwise hit me. Striking an arrow out of the air with daggers was a feat that couldn't be explained with a mere weapon proficiency. [Acrobatic] was surely involved there.

Five minutes into our training, [Mana Sight] picked up a party of four heading towards us. The ears were inhuman... Dogkin? I only knew one party of four dogkin in this area.

"Incoming delver group," I said, to alert Cluma. "Probably Vyre's party. Let's clean up. Feel free to use [Stealth] if you want to surprise them."

Cluma vanished from existence so quickly that I was surprised she didn't cause the universe whiplash, before two goblins suddenly found that they lacked functional hearts. I bisected a third, and thrust at the archer with [Far Reach], piercing clean through his throat, his spine and a good way into the air on the other side, just as Vyre came around the corner.

He surveyed the devastation before turning to Bluvre as he came around the corner after him. "I thought you heard delvers in trouble. What about this scene suggests difficulty?"

"Bah. It's Peter. Always doing something weird. It's not my fault if they sounded like..." Bluvre stopped mid-sentence and looked around suspiciously, before grinning. Guess he worked it out.

"They?" asked Vyre, just as Cluma tackled him.

"Hi, Vyre!" she exclaimed. "Peter was training me in teamwork."

The sudden hug knocked Vyre a couple of paces backwards, and Cluma, Bluvre and their party's second scout, Zalkri, all simultaneously shouted out. I saw Vyre's foot sink slightly into the floor, and even before I heard the click, I was evaluating my options. Not enough time for [Far Step]. My weapon was out of position to block it with [Far Reach]. Too far away for [Distortion]. By the time the dart fired, it had finally occurred to me that he was rank three and could damn well take care of himself.

Cluma caught it. That... was not an option I'd considered.

"Huh? Where'd the dart go?"

"Oh, cool!" came Cluma's disembodied voice. "I levelled [Trap Perception], and got my last class level with it!"

"Your last..." started Vyre.

"Class level..." finished Bluvre.

"I feel inadequate," said Zalkri.

"Don't we all," agreed Kelja.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm rank one again now," said Cluma.

Huh? Rank one?

Analysis blocked

Darn it, she still had her appraisal block active. But the only rank one class I could think of was [Apprentice Mage]. Why would she have taken that? I was expecting her to go full assassin.

"It doesn't," said Vyre, giving her head-pats, which seemed to be the universally accepted way to cause wild Clumas to detach once they'd parasitised someone. "It really, really doesn't. Anyway, we're on our way to floor ten, and only stopped by because Bluvre thought he heard someone struggling. Take care."

"Floor ten? I didn't think anyone was running that these days."

"Yeah... We've outgrown this dungeon, but we all have family here. Couldn't really face moving. If you feel like inventing something insane again, work out how to make cheaper portals, so we can commute to a different dungeon. The delvers guild may let us relocate for free, but we can't live away from the dungeon we're working and use the portal every day."

"I'd have no idea where to even begin..." But it didn't need to be a portal, did it? With rank three stats, I bet people could easily cycle at car speeds. The main limitation would be the terrain; travelling at a hundred kilometres an hour on a bike over uneven ground was just asking for trouble. Because of the reliance on portals and spatial mages, there were barely any roads anywhere. In fact, I'd go as far as to say there were none. The trail that linked the village to Dawnhold wasn't made intentionally, but was simply a result of the same route being run by a cart repeatedly. I wasn't aware of any deliberately laid road.

How did you make asphalt? I remember it involved something called bitumen, but not what bitumen was. That wasn't much help. Then again, we use asphalt on Earth because of the combination of robustness and ease of construction. I bet an [Earth Mage] could just magic up something even more durable and with even less effort. And we wouldn't need the durability, anyway, without heavy vehicles using it. The only limitation would be mana.

Where was the nearest deeper dungeon? The Emerald Sea, probably, but I wasn't sure the elves would appreciate someone tearing down a line of trees to build a road. The Emerald Caverns? It had taken a couple of months, but their dungeon had regenerated itself after the core was shattered. That was fortunate; without it, and the food and resources it provided, there would have been a mass migration away from the place.

How far away were the Emerald Caverns, exactly, and how quickly could someone at rank three make the journey on a bike? We'd likely want different bike designs, given that all existing ones were off-roaders. Ones specialised for speed over a flat road. Were there any other dungeons around? Would all settlements around low-level dungeons be in commuting range of somewhere deeper? How much mana would it take to connect them?

My musings were interrupted by someone poking me in the nose.

"Cluma to Peter. Anyone home?"

I blinked back to reality and peered around. Cluma was the only one there. "Huh? Where'd everyone go?"

"They left. Quite a while ago. Getting lost in thought is fine and all, but don't forget we're in the middle of a dungeon. Besides, if you think I'll let you escape our bet by not teaching me properly, you're badly mistaken."

Oops... She makes a good point. This isn't the time or place to be pondering the best ways to build a road network.

I wouldn't say she'd mastered teamwork, but she was certainly at my level already. I found us another group of four, but given that I'd almost always fought alone, I wasn't really the best teacher here. After another ten minutes, I decided we weren't going to get any further, and it was time to show her the assassins.

"Okay, that's enough. Let's finish them."

I took out my pair of goblins with a couple of thrusts of my sword-staff. Cluma stabbed one through the throat, but then tossed her second dagger into the air, reaching toward her second goblin and tapping him on the hand and forehead before catching her dagger again.

The goblin's skin split open where he had been touched, weeping dark coloured blood. The wound on his hand caused him to drop his sword, but Cluma gave him no chance to recover, sheathing her daggers and dancing around him, tapping him repeatedly. Every touch she made caused a heavy bruise or split skin, despite the lack of force she was using. If it wasn't for [Mana Sight], I'd have had no idea what was happening.

Every tap forced a small amount of her mana into the goblin. It was an affinity I'd only ever seen once before, at the bottom of the Emerald Caverns' dungeon. Death.

"This spell is cool!" exclaimed the cheerful and overexcited catgirl, as the tortured goblin, covered in dozens of light wounds, finally collapsed. "Shame it doesn't do much damage, but it is only rank one and level one. It'll get better."

Cluma wants to be a [Death Mage]?!