The boss was something Serenity had only ever heard of - a tri-elemental drake. It was larger than the other drakes, but was still only as tall as Serenity’s shoulder. Serenity got its attention, then played keepaway for a while to see what it could do.

Fire, lightning, wind. All ranged. Annoying, but not particularly dangerous since they all had to charge to attack. It would be worse if it could manage an aura or even charge its physical attacks, with the windup time.

“When will ranged weapons be available?” Serenity was tired of fighting everything in melee, and his knives were not balanced for throwing. He might be able to manage, but he’d really prefer better weaponry.

“Day 9.” Sillon seemed to have said all the words he wanted to.

Serenity dodged a lightning beam and decided that he’d used magic on enough of them; this one was going to be handled in melee. Magic wasn't a great choice anyway; without a proper attack skill, using an Affinity took time and concentration. He'd managed so far because everything was weak enough (or in the case of the Dream Blossoms, immobile enough) that he wasn't really in any danger taking his concentration off the fight.

He took a couple of steps forward, watched it create a Wind-affected area aimed at him, and dove to the side and forward, out of the area. A few steps more and he was at the drake, beside the Wind-affected zone - and also next to the drake’s head.

Being able to see Affinities really is a cheat.

It was one he wouldn’t have for much longer; only his fingers (and thumb) were still crystal.

The drake dropped the charging of the Wind attack, and attempted to bite him. He blocked with one knife. As it recoiled from biting the knife, he plunged the other into the side of its throat, slicing through muscle and an artery.

It was a fatal blow as long as the drake didn’t have self-healing, so he jumped backwards again, avoiding its response, and waited for it to die.

The boss drake’s skull wasn’t harder to open than the others’ had been, but the moment he had the skull cracked he paused. He felt more than one core. Concentrating, he felt … four? Puzzled, he asked “Can a monster have more than one core?”

Sillon gave a one-word response. “Yes.” He seemed to be wondering where Serenity was going with the question, but didn’t ask and Serenity decided not to enlighten him - he was pretty sure that being able to sense monster cores was firmly from his monstrous side, after all.

Serenity cut the brain open and found one core in the usual spot - it was by far the largest - and three miniature cores, smaller even than the ones he’d found in the ordinary drakes. Two were near the eyes, while the third was closer to the mouth.

“You can sense cores when you’re close enough, can’t you?”

Serenity sighed internally. His question had been a giveaway, when he then went and found multiple cores in the drake. “Yes.”

“You should practice it. It’s not a sense I’m familiar with, but odd senses can be surprisingly helpful in combat.“

That wasn’t the response Serenity had expected, so he just nodded and said “Thanks, good idea.” It was a good idea. He wasn’t sure exactly how he’d use it in combat, but he could easily see it saving his life someday if it let him catch a monster that was sneaking up on him.

Serenity rinsed the cores and took a good look at the hand he was holding them in. He could see faint black lines in the skin. He dumped the cleaned cores in his bag and headed out of the dungeon.

Drake Dungeon 0.4 Complete

1 Participant

Rewards increased for reduced party size.

Monster extermination: 1,250 XP

Boss Killed: 750 XP

Total Extermination Bonus: 250 XP, 250 Ev

Dungeon Cleared: 250 XP, 250 Ev

The dungeon had been more difficult than the skeleton one, with a lot more monsters, and the experience reward showed it. It still felt like a ridiculously high experience award - but then, he was Tier 0.

Serenity looked at the sky. He had time for another dungeon before he needed to head to meet Echo and Lancaster.

The next dungeon was wolves. Nothing too severe individually, but after the third individual wolf they started coming at him in pairs and trios. This would be a better dungeon in a group, where the group could turn the wolves’ tactics back on them.

“This one is for teaching teamwork, isn’t it?”

“Most of them are. But yeah, this one is about working together against multiple threats.” Sillon seemed to have forgotten the earlier discussion about monster cores, but Serenity doubted he had.

Naturally, this was when the third wolf in the trio Serenity was fighting managed to swipe him across the back as Serenity killed the second. He turned and dispatched the third, but the scratches he’d picked up had exceeded the small amount of healing energy he had available. He allowed the scratches to stay, rather than pull from his fat reserves. Best to save that for an actual emergency.

It was too bad that he couldn’t prevent the energy reserve from healing minor injuries without also preventing it from automatically healing major ones. He’d have to play around with it; it might be possible in time. Most things were.

Armor would have easily stopped that swipe - and several earlier ones - from injuring him. “When does armor become available?”

“For students? Day 17. You’re an instructor, just go to the Armory and get some. You don’t see me in here without armor.” It was true, Sillon had worn armor since the first day.

Serenity felt like an idiot. He could probably get throwing daggers, at least, from the armory as well. He preferred throwing axes, but they were harder to carry and he didn’t have a storage item or ability yet.

Serenity powered his way through the rest of the dungeon. Even without his healing, the damage he picked up would have been no threat to him. He suspected that meant soloing would be impossible for a normal Tier 0 without armor - but even ordinary leather armor would stop a lot of the bites, so it would likely be possible later in the Tutorial.

The boss was a larger wolf with a full trio supporting it. Serenity was ready to just be done and hit the group with a spray of plasma. The three supporting wolves fell, and the Alpha was badly singed. It wasn’t hard to finish it off.

It wasn't the best idea for practicing his current skills, but hopefully he'd have an actual Path before he had to do real combat, and something like that was how he'd prefer to handle such a fight later. Doing everything without a Path was irritating.

“Why don’t you ever use your Death magic in the dungeons?”

Serenity looked at Sillon. It seemed to be a serious question. “I wouldn’t learn anything. I already know I can kill anything here with Death magic.”

A serious question deserved a serious answer.

Sillon mumbled, “Something so many never learn, and yet…”

Wolf Dungeon 0.5 Complete

1 Participant

Rewards increased for reduced party size.

Monster extermination: 1,250 XP

Boss Killed: 750 XP

Total Extermination Bonus: 250 XP, 250 Ev

Dungeon Cleared: 250 XP, 250 Ev

Serenity had expected Sillon to propose another dungeon after the Wolf dungeon, and he’d been debating if he should accept or not. He was leaning against it; the Wolf dungeon had been annoying. There was still a good bit of time before dinner started being served, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to spend it in a dungeon. It might be better to find out what Echo had discovered.

Instead, Sillon had looked at him consideringly, then said, “There’s someone you need to meet. Follow me.”

Sillon led Serenity out of the Trials area, bypassed the Arena, and skirted between the crafting booths and mage’s area to reach an area Serenity hadn’t quite figured out. It was close to where he’d found that interesting class on town leadership when Sillon walked up to a nondescript door, knocked several times, then opened the door.

“Margrethe? You in? It’s Sillon.”

“Come in, but shut the blasted door behind you.”

As Serenity walked in, he was able to see a middle-aged woman with curly red hair sitting at a table, apparently copying a book. He could tell when she saw him, because she set her quill to the side and capped the ink she was using.

“You’ve brought someone. What trouble did you find this early?”

“This is Serenity. You’ve probably heard - he’s our newest instructor, also a student. An exceptional one. Thing is ... “ Sillon trailed off.

Margrete raised her eyebrows and looked at Sillon. “Thing is? Come now, I know there’s a problem you think I can solve. Or you wouldn’t be here.”

Sillon wasn’t looking at either of them. “Thing is … he doesn’t know a thing about cores. And he doesn’t react normally to them. And he can sense them in a monster.”

Serenity wasn’t sure what to think about the fact that Sillon had just spilled one of his secrets. It wasn’t like he’d asked Sillon to keep it secret … and yet …

Margrethe looked at Serenity with a considering eye. “Hmm. Come over here, boy.”

She stood up, and when Serenity walked over to her, she put her wrist on his forehead. After a moment, she stated, “Well, you don’t have any. I do think we should talk. Sillon. Out.”

Sillon looked startled. “But - “

“Out! We’re going to be talking secrets of my trade - and probably his, and this isn’t your Path. Out!”

Once Sillon left, Margrethe actually locked the door. “I usually don’t bother, but under the circumstances ... “ She sighed. “You’re impossible. At least, impossible unless you’re someone who destroyed his core to walk the Paths, and Sillon wouldn’t bring someone like that to me.”

“Then why did he bring me here?”

“You heard him. You have a connection to monster cores and don’t know enough to leave them alone. That’s his reasoning, not mine, by the way.”

Serenity looked at her in puzzlement.

Margrethe laughed suddenly. “You have no idea who I am, do you? Or what my actual duty in the Tutorial is?”

“No idea.”

“Technically, I’m a healer. I don’t actually do much healing, though, and I don’t teach at all, except for a few very special cases. I’m really a safeguard. My job is to help people who are so ignorant or arrogant that they ignore the advice about cores, and don’t want to live with the results. In other words, my job is to cleanse the corruption and return people to as close to their original form as possible.”

Serenity wasn’t sure if he should be overjoyed or running away as fast as he could. He sort of wanted to do both at the same time. “So … I’m here to be cleansed?”

“Weren’t you listening? You don’t have any corruption.” Margrethe watched him for a moment, then continued, “Yet you’re acting like you think you should. First, work on your acting, it’s terrible. Second, I think we’re going to have a long conversation at some point. Not today, though, you’re too nervous. Come back when you want to learn about monster cores or talk about your situation. Tomorrow at the earliest.”

Margrethe shooed Serenity out the door, then closed it behind him.

Serenity looked at the closed door. He wasn’t sure when he’d be back, but even in his head the word was “when”, not “if”. Especially if he could figure out a way to trust her. There was a solution, he just wasn’t thinking of it. There had to be.