The town took the news of the new awakened well, and most of the regular people were left with a rather hungry look in their eyes. Practically half the town decided to pretty much live in the damn river, forcing a limit to be set and a small guard stationed next to it. He wasn’t even sure if the river had anything to do with it for fuck’s sake, it was just a damn theory, but everyone believed it and now there was a new issue for the guard to deal with.

Thankfully things mellowed out a bit in the following week. More people were unlocking their Mana every day now, with the others also hopeful. The majority was still kids. There was no way to know why and Aiden was done with theories for now, although he did ponder if it was their small bodies contributing to the spread of Mana within them.

None of the older people seemed to have awakened yet, with the oldest that had being twenty two so far. He really hoped that everyone would eventually awaken as he didn’t want to see the looks of disappointment if that were not the case.

Aiden did manage to get out of town eventually, although it took him a whole week to manage it. He had finally just dropped what he was doing, went and found Victoria and headed straight for the gate letting people know he would be back at some point and not worry about him. Yes, he had essentially run away.

They were now both exploring the cave’s at the base of the mountain range, happily killing anything in their path. It was cathartic for them both after such a long stint being stuck in town. They were starting to slip in their leveling a bit. Only gaining essence during the two Mana waves they had helped deal with in the last months.

The last wave even had flying creatures. Tho few in number, they added to the problem since they had to leave some of the army behind in the town to guard the citizens against aerial attacks. It was still manageable and they had yet to loose any fighter during any of them, but the difficulty was starting to ramp up a bit.

The beasts in the last wave were all above lvl 35 and were larger then any before. Some elites were twice the size of a car and nearing lvl 50. Everyone would need to step up their leveling a bit to keep up with the increasing difficulty of the waves. Aiden wouldn’t be surprised if the last wave had all the beasts over level 100. In fact at the rate it was going it would probably be even higher.

Victoria had it a bit better since she wasn’t as busy as him, and now had even passed him in levels. He didn’t really care tho and he though the smug look she gave him when it happened was rather cute. He chuckled remembering the moment.

Aiden was using his Tempest Blade skill almost the entire time they had been in the caves, wanting it to hit the next level. It was a good skill, adding a decent chunk to damage and even slowed down the enemies it hit slightly, leaving them with a sheen of ice covering their bodies. Unfortunately it was a skill and not a spell and didn’t benefit from the added damage a spell would get from the Int stat.

While killing another bat that swooped down at him he idly wondered why that was. Even if it was a skill it still used Ice Mana. Shouldn’t it be getting a benefit from Int? It did get a reduced version of it, just not the full bonus. He wondered if the skill gained enough levels if it would eventually gain the full benefit.

He and Victoria both had started to lag behind the others in leveling their skills and were trying to make up for it. From what he heard from others, the skills got exponentially better the higher they level. Aiden started to notice it himself when his skills went passed lvl 3. He checked his and Vicky’s status as they walked checking on their progress.

Status:

Aiden Winters: Age 22

Race Human: Rank(f)

War Ranger: lvl - 29 - Mana essence: 40727/50000

Ice Tempest: lvl - 18 - Mana essence: 18770/19000

Woodworking: lvl - 32

Health: 1180/1180

Stamina: 790/790

Mana: 750/750

Defense: 79(178)

Mana Defense: 75

Vitality - 111(118)

Endurance - 74(79)

Strength - 90(95)

Agility - 87(107)

Dexterity - 63

Skill - 80(91)

Intelligence - 68

Wisdom - 75

(+3 free / +2 Vit / +1 End / +1 Str /+1 Agi per level from War Ranger)

(+3 free / +1 Vit / +1 skill /+1 Int / +2 Wis per level from Ice Tempest)

(+1 skill from Woodworking Per level)

System credits - 397,248

Skills:

Battle Aura Lvl 4 - (14%)

Effect: Boosts all stats by 5 for 1 minute.

(Cost 75 Mana and 35 stamina)

Tempest Blade Lvl 3 - (97%)

Effect: Encases your blade in Ice Mana dealing increased damage with each strike. Duration 16 seconds. +30 Ice damage per strike +1 Bonus damage for every 10 points in Int.

(Cost 75 Mana)

Spells:

Frost Wave lvl 3 - (45%)

Effect: Unleashes a wave of Frost in a 60 degree cone in the direction you point your hand. Range 12 feet.

Effect: Deal 65-70 Ice damage and slows targets for 3 seconds within the cone of effect.

(Cost 75 Mana)

___________________________________

Victoria Leblanc: Age 21

Race Human: Rank(f)

Battle Healer: lvl 29 - Mana essence: 47850/50000

Valkyrie: lvl 19 - Mana essence: 8850/20000

Herbologist: lvl - 31

Health: 800/800

Stamina: 620/620

Mana: 590/590

Defense: 62(159)

Mana Defense: 59

Vitality - 68(80)

Endurance - 62

Strength - 61

Agility - 124(129)

Dexterity - 58

Skill - 58(64)

Intelligence - 85(90)

Wisdom - 54(59)

(+3 free / +1 Str / +1 Agi / +1 Int / +1 Wis per lvl from Battle Healer)

(+3 free / +3 Agi / +1 Dex / +1 Skill points per level from Valkyrie)

(+1 Int from Herbology Per level)

System credits - 546,520

Skills:

Overdrive - lvl 3 (49%)

Increases Agi, Dex, and Skill by 12% at the cost of stamina

Duration: N/A.

(Cost 60 Mana to activate) (Secondary cost 10 Stamina per 10 second’s)

Spells:

Healing Wind - lvl 3 (17%)

Summons a wind infused with healing Mana over a single target.

Range 17 feet. Cast time 1.9 seconds.

Effect: Restore 100 hp to a single target

(Cost 50 Mana)

Flame Cyclone - lvl 4 (10%)

Unleashes a cyclone of flames in a designated location.

Spell duration: 8 seconds. Range: 28 feet. Affected area: 12 foot radius from point of origin.

Effect: Deal 55-60 Fire damage per second. High chance to set targets aflame.

(Cost: 115 Mana)

Tempest Blade was close to leveling he noticed, but everything else still had a ways to go for both of them. Although he was close to leveling his Ice Tempest class. Victoria’s Agility was getting up there now, dwarfing his by a fair bit. He wondered how fast she would eventually become, hell he wondered how fast or strong a person can get in general.

Was there a level or stat cap of some kind? He remembered learning in the tutorial that a person can evolve after having a combined class level of 100, and with the different ranks of evolution he figured if there was a cap he wouldn’t hit it for a long ass time, at which point he would be sitting at a combined class level of 800.

And wasn’t that something to think about. He tried to compare his currently measly combined level of 47 to what it would be at 800 and couldn't fathom what that would be like. What would his body be capable of at that point. Shaking his head at the thought he closed the window and they kept going.

Their supplementary classes were starting to get slow to level now. Aiden needed a solid 5 hours of work to raise it. With so many other responsibilities, both he and Vicky didn’t have much time to work on them. He wondered how hard it would be a few levels from now and if it would be worth it to continue. The extra stat’s it gave were nice but if it took him 24 hours to get one point in skill, it wouldn’t be a good investment of time. With many other woodworkers in town now, his contrubution's weren't really needed.

He would still work on it whenever they rested, since carving figurines was fun and relaxed him. His skill was already up to a point where crafting a bow comparable to the one he was using if not better was possible. Aiden figured he would need to reach level 50 to craft anything with the Rare tag, or was that only possible if the piece of equipment was enchanted? He would have to ask those in town about it who had higher level crafting classes later.

They continued exploring for another few hours, then set up camp in a dead end cave which they secured with traps for the night. If they back tracked all the way outside the mines it would take five hours to get back at full sprint at this point. That’s how deep under the mountain they currently were. When Aiden checked on the world map, he saw they were currently almost at the center of the mountain they were exploring. He wasn’t sure of their elevation but it seemed like they had been heading down slightly.

They set up a magical tent that had cost nearly 30,000 credits and contained an actual bed inside. It was a luxury item and the system charged a hell of a lot for it. It was over half the damn cost of a row of residence. He purchased the variant that had a larger bed so he and Vicky could share. No point in buying two of them and getting ripped off even more.

The tent in its original form was a small cube covered in runes. When Mana was pushed inside a specific rune, the cube would start to expand and transform to take the shape of a squarish tent. It was basically the same to turn it back into a cube when you were done using it.

The inside wasn’t too large, just enough for a bed and a place to lay down their gear for the night but it was much better then sleeping on the ground in sleeping bag’s. Would keep the damn huge bugs off them too. There were better more expensive options but the smaller size of this one had better utility for their needs.

Well rested and refreshed they continued their exploration the next morning. It went the same as it had the past few day’s for them until about mid day when they found something that wasn’t just rocks, walls, or monsters. One of the paths they had taken led them in to a massive cavern that was decently illuminated for being inside a mountain. When they looked up they saw why.

There were a couple of large holes in the ceiling that looked as if they were drilled staright through the mountain that let the sunlight stream in from above. It was enough to light up the cavern they wondered into. The place was huge, if Aiden had to guess, he would say it spanned a kilometer or more in all directions. In the distance there was a small waterfall that was feeding a small river which wound its way through the cavern.

There was actually grass inside, with flowers and plants growing everywhere. Many of them looking quite exotic and unfamiliar to him. The scene was quite beautiful and the both of them just stood there for a while taking it all in. ‘Well it’s not the Dungeon we were looking for but it is quite the find. I mean wow, just wow, this place is beautiful’ Thinking of beautiful things he turned towards his girlfriend who seemed to agree with his assessment of the place if her excited and joyous expression was anything to go by.

They explored the area finding some fascinating plants, like a glowing mushroom neither had seen before. It exuded spores that when inhaled had similar properties to marijuana. Aiden found this out when he got a bit too close and received a blast of the spores to the face. After the initial panic and inspecting the thing, learning it wasn’t poisonous he relaxed. Really relaxed. The spores mellowed him out to the point where he just wanted to lay down and stare at the pretty shiny stalagmites donning the cavern ceiling.

He did so and ooh and ahhd at the sights, making Victoria giggle and warn him about not getting too close to things they knew nothing about. She wasn’t sure he heard her tho as he just continued what he was doing not paying her any attention. The effect lasted a little over an hour and once Aiden came off his high they determined that the spores weren’t strictly dangerous and the mushrooms used them as a sort of defense mechanism.

They explored a bit more after that, and finally caught on to the fact that the place was devoid of any monsters. They couldn’t figure out a reason for it either. There was nothing here that should be keeping monsters out that they could find. It was just another bit of oddness to this place. They weren’t complaining however, since the lack of monsters added to the beauty and tranquility of the idyllic location.

The duo stripped down and had a bit of fun splashing around under the waterfall. The water was a bit cold but they enjoyed themselves nonetheless. Victoria spent some more time walking around the cavern when she had enough swimming, sometimes picking a plant she found, while Aiden continued to swim. He dove down a bit wanting to test how long he could hold his breath with all the changes to his body.

He swam underwater for over 5 minutes before he needed to come up for air. ‘Huh five minutes and 24 seconds. I could probably top that as well.’ He went back down to try again. A few minutes of idling underwater he noticed there was more room behind the waterfall then there should have been. Giving up on his testing for the moment he came up for breath and swam up to the waterfall, diving down again once he was close.

He dived back down and noticed there was a hollow in the wall behind the waterfall. He swam upto it and saw that it was an underwater cave, deciding to risk exploring a bit, he swam foward and into the cave. Less then two minutes later he emerged from the water and into darkness. He retrieved a night vision potion, quickly drinking it down and took a good look around.

He found himself in a small cave no larger then 50 feet across. The thing that Immediately grabbed his attention was a massive door. He was pretty confused as what the hell would a door be doing inside a cave under a mountain. Deciding to check it out he pulled himself from the water and cautiously approached the door.

It was intricately carved, depicting various scenes of war between what looked like a serpentine race of some kind and what looked like an army of Undead. The door seemed to be made of stone and looked like it weighed at least a ton.

When he touched it nothing seems to happen. Inspecting it did nothing either so he carefully pulled the doors open. On the other side was a large vortex of the kind he was familiar with, but bigger. “It’s a Damn dungeon! Well what do you know we did manage to find one after all.” Aiden went up to it to see the prompt.

“Your party has discovered a Dungeon!”

“Congratulations! World first bonus! Your party is the first on your world to discover a (D) ranked Dungeon! +1 permanent bonus to all stats per party member”

Dungeon: Rank (D) - ‘The Hidden Tomb’

Dungeon type: Floor / Area

Exits - 6

Floors: 1-5 F-rank / 6-10 F-rank / 10-20 E-rank / 21-30 E-rank / 31-40 D-rank / 41-50 D-rank

Recommended combined lvl for F-rank 25+

Recommended combined lvl for E-rank 50+

Recommended combined lvl for D-rank 100+

Aiden read the prompt’s and whistled. “That’s a lot of new information to look up.” He quickly checked what the differences between this Dungeon and the previous ones meant on the help menu. First the new term ‘Area’ meant that the environment would change from one area to the next, with perhaps a new theme or a completely different look altogether. You could go from caves, to an open snowy field, to a grassy plain for example. This dungeon had a total of four 'areas', each with a different amount of ‘floors’ you needed to clear.

Exit’s meant portals leading outside the dungeon and were located at the end of an area. He noticed that the recommended level now showed up as combined and looked that up, finding out it was this way for any dungeons ranked E and up. The recommended party size was also missing for whatever reason but no explanation could be found for it.

He read up a bit more on D ranked dungeons and found out that more then one party could go in at a time with an upper limit of 100 people at once before the entrance disappeared, which was 25 full party’s worth of people. The reason for this was the much higher Mana density in the location, which now that Aiden concentrated on, he believed he could actually feel the Mana in the air. The higher Mana density also meant much faster spawn times for the monsters inside.

This also confirmed his theory that the mountain range was a nexus point for Mana. In some fantasy works he read it would be termed as lay lines converging, and in this case causing the Mana to leak out in much larger quantities.

In either case this place would be a huge boon for his Barony. The monsters around the town were getting scarcer with so many people going out and hunting them, forcing people to range further from the town, making leveling at a decent pace a bit difficult for most people.

Depending on the difficulty of the F- ranked areas and how fast they were to clear, a lot of people could run this dungeon daily. He would make this place restricted to his forces for now. The civilians will have to make due with the forests and the other dungeon. With 700+ less people killing things in the forest it should help repopulate the monster’s a bit as well.

He would need to go inside first and determine the exact difficulty of course. Just the though of fighting stronger monsters made him excited. He would have to show this to Victoria and together they would explore the F-ranked and maybe even the E-ranked areas.

‘I should probably head back. Vicky would have gotten the same messages and is probably looking around for me. Probably freaking out that I got sucked into a dungeon or something. With my luck I wouldn't blame her.’ He quickly dived back into the water and swam the length of the underwater tunnel back towards the Cavern.

Victoria was indeed flipping out a bit when he got there, so he quickly explained to her what happened and his discovery. She looked just as excited about it as he was and they both stowed their clothes and gear in their inventories from where they were lying next to an outcropping of rocks, Aiden surreptitiously plucking a few of the mushrooms for further ‘study’ making sure not to get another face full of spores by covering it. The couple then both dove down and swam back towards the entrance to the Dungeon.