As I headed deeper into the sprawling tunnels of the dungeon, I noticed the wall's rocky surface becoming darker and darker. Perplexed, I decided to head back to the entrance, and realised that the rock became a gradually darker colour as you approached the centre of the dungeon, where the boss room would be located..

Not wanting to abandon the mission that I came here with in the first place, I decided to circle from the outside in, so that I could get as much exp as possible. There's nothing quite like clearing out a dungeon of monsters in its entirety.

My next few battles were mostly against your run of the mill goblins, which didn't manage to put up much of a fight. However, It didn't take long before I encountered a well equipped war party led by a hobgoblin brute. This wasn't the boss, but it was strong enough to put up a fight.

The group started screeching like harpies when they noticed me, clearly confident I would be easy prey.

I encountered them in a wider than usual tunnel. With my back turned to a smaller tunnel, I could've easily retreated and taken them out piece-meal, but I wanted to continue pushing my limits. Perhaps a bit arrogantly, I charged [Dark augment] and rushed forward. The larger brute bowled over his comrades to meet my charge with his metal studded club. Again, my sword cut straight through, as if there was no resistance. The brute looked shocked for a moment, but dodged backwards just in time to avoid death.

It made some distance and pushed its goons forwards as a meat shield, before sizing me up properly this time, having recognized me as a dangerous opponent. I rushed to the war band's flank, before jumping on top of a goblin's raised wooden shield. From this higher ground I started slashing wildly, killing the goblins below me one by one. I jumped from goblin to goblin, as they screeched and panicked, not knowing what to do. Right as I was about to kill one of the final few, something drew my attention. No, literally drew my attention. As I looked over, it felt like my vision was forced onto the goblin brute, as its eyes glowed a dull red.

It had just used a taunt skill! I wondered how a random goblin could have ever gotten such a skill, right before my instincts kicked in and I whirled around with a horizontal slash, killing a few of the goblins that had gotten to me, trying to kill me while the larger brute kept my attention.

They almost succeeded, too. A few scratches and cuts remained on my body after their attack. Deciding to take control of the battle again, I knew I needed to kill the brute first. I could feel my wounds closing as I stamped forth. From a twitch of its movement, I noticed the goblin deliberating trying to dodge, but ultimately deciding against it. I took this as a sign the brute had given up, and stabbed through his heart. Right as I was revelling in my kill, the goblin gave one last act of defiance by cocking his fist back and sending it forwards, catching me right in the chest and sending me flying. I landed against the rocky surface of a wall, spitting out blood in the process. My augment cut off and as I landed on the tunnel floor I realised my core was nearly drained.

The sharp pain in my chest and difficult breathing signified a few broken ribs. Even worse, my sword was still stuck in the now very much dead goblin. I was at least ten paces away from it, and in between me and my sword stood the remaining five goblins. They had gleeful, cruel grins on their faces, clearly having noticed my plight. I knew it would be difficult to fight back without a weapon or my augment. I didn't have any hand to hand skills and the shock and pain from the broken ribs would limit my movement.

Deciding it was now or never, I started activating my core again, using my last bit of mana to power my final unused skill [shadow apparation]. For a split second, I felt my body dissolve and spread like smoke. The next moment, I had reformed right next to my sword. I pulled the blade free from the corpse, and charged with the intent to finally finish this battle.

Without augment my movements were slower and my strength less impactful. My death knight level stats proved to be more than a match for the remaining five goblins, however. The first two tried to work together to hold me off, to little success. I went for their legs, crippling them, only to finish them off with a stab to the chest. The last three were trying to run at this point, which only made them easier targets. A few cuts later, I had won the battle.

Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Death Knight] level 4!

Ding! 50 strength reached! Awarded the [Perfect physique] skill.

[Perfect physique](N/A)

Tier 1 skill.

Your muscles and fat are now perfectly proportioned for the use of the class skill [swordsmanship].

Increase strength to the next milestone to increase skill tier.

As I read the notification, I felt my muscles shift slightly. It wasn't an immense change, seeing as my body was already toned before receiving the skill.

I actually knew about this skill from a forester in our old village. Apparently it made your body perfectly proportioned for a single physical skill related to your class. It was one of the few synergistic skills, which strengthened other skills in some way.

Waving away my status screen, I dropped down to the ground and rested my back on the wall. The adrenaline was leaving me, and my internal wounds would kill me faster than my mana could recover. If there's one thing I learned from this fight, it's that a tier 1 core can only keep a tier 4 skill active for a dozen or so seconds before burning itself out. Right now, I needed the recovery from my augment more than ever, but I didn't have the mana for it.

I remembered the proficiency training for my [Simple dark core] and attempted to follow its instructions, in hopes it would help increase my mana recovery rate. It required me to draw in ambient dark mana into my core.

I focused my eyesight skill, and started seeing black tufts of smoke flowing through the air. Recognising it as dark elemental mana, I tried to will it towards my core, to no avail. Next, I tried another strategy. I started spinning my core, in hopes of drawing in more mana. That just increased the expenditure though.

Finally, I found something that worked. By pushing the central point of my core outward, and the outer ring of the core inward, the core seemed to form some kind of vacuum that slowly drew in the black smoke. My first few tries ended up collapsing, with my core returning to its natural state. On the fifth try, however, I managed to draw a fine balance between pulling and pushing. This time, a larger amount of smoke started being pulled in from my immediate surroundings. As the smoke made contact with my core in larger and larger quantities, I could feel my core coming back to life. Wasting no time, I activated my augment.

My combination of skills brought sweet relief to my body, and soon enough even my internal wounds and ribs felt healed. I tried to keep drawing in mana while standing up, hoping to have found a solution to my mana problem, but I lost the necessary concentration almost instantly. This would take a lot of practice before being perfected, I knew. Yet if I achieved meditation in battle, I would be far stronger and harder to kill.

I sat back down and gathered some more mana. A few minutes later I had recovered my core to its natural fullness. I tried to go over the maximum, but it just left me feeling like I had eaten far too much. Scared of breaking my core, I just stood up, preparing to continue my killing spree. Right as I stood up, I was startled by a new notification.

Ding! You have learned the skill [Meditation](2%).

Mentally, I opened the skill info.

[Meditation](2%)

Tier 1 skill.

This skill allows one to draw in elementary mana based on affinity into the holder's core, while stationary.

Use this skill for long periods of time to increase proficiency.

I cursed, as I had hoped to receive a version that would work while moving. I grew determined to one day create such a skill.

A few hours later, I was starting to run out of goblins to fight. At this point, only the boss room was left. I had encountered two more brutes and one more rogue throughout my explorations. One of the brutes had the ability to cover his fists in fire, and the other seemed to have some kind of fear inducing shout. Needless to say, both were rather ineffective against me. The rogue was actually rather cunning and had lured multiple packs of goblins to my location, making it a more chaotic fight. This time I saw it coming though and I defeated the rogue before any of his less dangerous cousins.

Afterwards, I had received the last of my milestone skills for the foreseeable future.

Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Death Knight] level 6!

Ding! Dexterity reached 50. Awarded the [Flexibility] skill.

[Flexibility](N/A)

Tier 1 skill.

All of your body parts become flexible.

Increase dexterity to the next milestone to increase skill tier.

This skill was, just like the other milestone skills, rather unimpressive. Perhaps I shouldn't have held out hope on such easy to acquire skills.

A few minutes passed before I reached the entrance to what was undoubtedly the boss room. Problem was, this time, I wasn't alone. Near the entrance stood three scarred older men and a woman. They were garbed in long leather cloaks and had hats on their heads that were a horizontal triangle shape, reminding me of a common sailor's hat. I had seen this pseudo-uniform before. They were witch-hunters! Here in the dungeon, of all places! I wondered why, seeing as witch hunters don't usually get hired for jobs that don't involve something related to undead, unless it's some kind of unsavoury task the other guilds won't do.

After some hesitation, I decided to go introduce myself. I realised this could be a bad idea, seeing as I was a death knight and all, but I was confident in getting away if it became necessary. With a slight shudder of nervousness, I walked towards them to introduce myself, keeping my sword sheathed. The four turned in my direction as I got closer.

"Woah there, fella! Don't just come out of the dark looking all ominous like that! You're covered in blood!"

"Oh, uh, sorry sir! I didn't mean to unnerve you all. I just came here from killing a bunch of goblins, and I kind of forgot about the dark, since I have a night vision skill."

The four smirked at each other for a moment. One of the other three, a large bear of a man, carrying a two handed sword over his shoulder, clearly intending to use it with one hand, spoke up.

"A night vision skill? You must have a rare class, kid! Say, aren't you a little young to be in the dungeon on your own?"

"I've been doing fine on my own so far. These goblins aren't much of a threat anyways."

"Well, you'll be sorely disappointed that the boss is off limits then. Sorry, kid. The boss here is a goblin shaman. It has killed the last five parties who challenged her using dark mana! Our witch hunters guild has been tasked to put an end to it."

Despite the fervent hate of dark mana I noticed the men to have, I gathered my courage and made a request.

"Could I... join you in the fight?"

The four witch hunters gaped at me for a moment, before looking at me as if I was crazy.

"Have you lost you marbles, boy?! This isn't a fight you can survive, otherwise we wouldn't have been called out here in the first place!"

"But sir, I've always wanted to join the witch hunters' guild! And be honest, would I have managed to make it here if I couldn't take care of myself?"

Now the four looked at me like I said the moon is made out of cheese or something.

"Wanted to join the guild? Boy, you are one of the five weirdest people I have ever met, and believe me, there's stiff competition on that list. Who wants to join our merry band of misfits and unshaven thugs?"

"I do! And if I can help you guys out slaying this goblin, getting into the guild will be twice as easy. Just give me a chance. I can be useful with my night vision skill!"

I bowed a little, trying to prove my point. Now to be fair, I hadn't always wanted to join the witch hunters' guild. No, that was actually a recent development. But first impressions can't be made twice, so I decided to lay it on thickly.

The group looked at each other for a moment.

"Give us some time to discuss, kid."

They walked over to another corner, but clearly underestimated the size of the cave, because I could hear them clearly.

"I don't know guys, that night vision skill could be essential."

"Yeah, but what if he dies?"

"That would be a right shame, but not our problem."

As I heard the group make slight assenting sounds, one of the four turned towards me.

"Good news kid, you're in!"