As was often the case after nearly dying, a fair number of notifications were waiting for me. On top of that, right after the snake had kicked the bucket, my body had shifted, leaving me feeling denser, bulkier, and also somehow less tired despite only moments before feeling the need for a nap. If I recalled, I was due to pass some thresholds this time around, and I was happy to see that they had such a pronounced effect.

It seemed like the other four were also taking a moment to read through everything, so I opted to follow suit.

Congratulations! You have gained the skill: Mining!

+1% to mining speed

+0.25% to ore gathered

Axes has reached level 3!

Pain Resistance has reached level 3!

Pain Resistance has reached level 4!

I failed to suppress a chuckle at that. Suds had really wanted me to sell the whole “miner” persona, and it sounded like he’d try to rope me into picking up the skill soon. Didn’t think I’d learn it quite like this, though. It also looked like fighting with the pickaxe would level up the Axes skill, which had been sitting at an anemic level 1 all the way back from my sparring sessions with Rock.

The next notification was a touch more unexpected, but in fairness, it was a long time coming. Despite the fact that I hadn’t used the skill all that much in the fight, I’d evidently been close enough to push it over the hump to the next level.

Spears has reached level 10!

Congratulations! You have reached the Initiate rank in Spears!

Based on your skill usage, you have been granted a skill augment for achieving a new skill rank.

Augment of Enhancement

All mana effects and skills channeled through or used with a spear are 10% stronger.

Class Quest Completed: Raise a weapon skill to level 10 (Repeatable)

+1 Class Point

+2500xp

At last! It was likely to be my last easy chunk of experience on the weapons front for a while -- my next best weapon skill was Small Blades which sat at a paltry level 4 -- but I’d take it nonetheless. Plus, hopefully whatever schooling I’d soon to be doing over in Sylum would help me grind those numbers up a bit.

One final source of experience was left, this one the most obvious.

Your party has defeated Slippy the Gentle Garden Snake. (You monsters.) Based on your contribution, you have earned 245xp. Due to the effects of the fruit of growth, this experience is doubled to 490xp.

You have cleared a hidden room!

+10 Prestige

+1000xp

And at last, the most welcome notification of them all.

Congratulations! You have reached level 11!

+2 Constitution

+2 Strength

+2 Endurance

+1 Intelligence

+1 Wisdom

+2 Dexterity

+1 Charisma

Congratulations! You have hit 25 Strength and reached the first Strength threshold.

Gain the ability: Magic Muscles

Magic Muscles

Your body is far more magical than the pittling spells any fledgling mage might send your way. As your Strength increases, so will your body’s and your strikes’ ability to directly interact with mana. Deal extra damage to magic shields, punch fireballs out of the sky, and warp the very rules of magic with your fists.

At the initial 25 Strength, this ability begins fairly weak, only allowing for slight physical nudges to magical constructs, alongside a negligible increase in physical damage to magic shields.

Gain the ability: Momentum Mastery

Momentum Mastery

Physics can be a bit of a bummer sometimes. The truth is, if you punch a giant hard enough to send it flying, that should send you flying backwards too. That, however, would be lame.

This ability grants a resistance to all knockback, recoil, and momentum change effects. Catch a charging bull by the horns without moving back an inch. Snap a one-legged kick out at an iron wall without losing your footing. Grit your teeth as you take a blow meant to knock you off a cliff, letting it bounce off as you stand your ground instead.

Effects generally scale such that you can always handle the recoil of your own attacks.

Neat! I didn’t think either of the two would be drastically changing how I fought -- at least not yet -- but they were nice additions nonetheless. My mind went back to the first fight I’d seen on entering Drawgin, where Agath had been battling a number of spellcasters. At times, she’d flat out punched spells out of the air. Originally, I’d assumed it was a class skill of hers, but it was possible she just had a monstrous Strength stat.

As to the momentum ability, it wasn’t even something I’d really considered. Resisting knockbacks would be nice though. Perhaps I would have had marginally better luck with Slippy when it had bashed into me with its tail.

Strength, however, wasn’t the only threshold I’d passed.

Congratulations! You have hit 25 Endurance and reached the first Endurance threshold.

Each point in Endurance above 25 will now raise your total stamina by 25 instead of 10.

All stamina costs reduced by 10%. Actions at a level of rigor of light jogging or below no longer drain stamina.

Endurance will now reduce the amount of sleep you require.

Significantly more straightforward, if no less exciting. From what it sounded like, I could now jog pretty much forever. I wasn’t sure why I’d ever want to, but it was at least an option now. More so, with my upper stamina limit going up more per level now, I doubted I’d be quite as tired after fights anymore, even when they involved rock climbing on a giant snake. The sleep part was also a big benefit, though it remained to be seen how effective it was.

And at last, that was it. It was the longest string of notifications I’d had since… the last time I’d been in this dungeon.

Guess Barb had a point about dragging me here. Although I think Trauma Suppression might have me taking some bigger risks than I probably should. Ah well. It all worked out in the end.

It seemed like the others had already finished their respective reading, and Eak was slumped over in rest while the other three checked over the body for loot.

On that front, they were all soon disappointed.

“I hesitate to say such a thing, but it appears that the loot here is… nothing? I see no chest, nor was there a drop. We managed to keep the fire gem intact, which should be rather valuable, but otherwise, nothing. Tess, any ideas here?”

Nothing? After all that?

Admittedly, we already had gained our reward in the form of the fruit we’d grown. If we’d wanted a monetary reward, we could have tried growing the fruit of wealth too. Sadly, it looked like the seed shelf had been wrecked in the fight, nor did I see any of the seeds. Not that we could grow them now in any case.

Still, I gave the snake’s body a once over, just to see if I could find anything. While nothing in particular jumped out at me, however, everything jumped out at me equally. The obsidian body of the felled serpent was rife with darkness and life mana.

“Um. Weird ask, but I ended up getting a level in Mining while fighting this thing, and I brought a pickaxe. Its body seems like it could be good crafting material. Can I just… mine it for a while?” Seemed like a waste to just leave it there, after all.

“I’ll help! By punching it!” Jason yelled. “If we break it up enough, then I can throw it.”

It would probably take a while -- especially considering the dungeon wasn’t instanced, Carpin would probably hate me for how much time I was using up -- but that was the perk of being a settlement owner. Plus, Eak looked like he needed more than a five second rest before we moved on, so that was that.

It was mining time!

Mining has reached level 2!

Mining has reached level 3!

Mining has reached level 4!

Mining has reached level 5!

The gains were significantly more than expected, but I supposed the average miner started out on some standard ore, not the mana-infused body of a dungeon boss. I was pretty sure I mangled a lot of the material, and I was confident that without my Strength, my low level in Mining would have prevented me from getting anything from the snake at all, but that was fine. All in all, I ended up with a sizable stash of mana-infused obsidian, some of which I split with the others.

Sorry Slippy. Is it messed up if I turn you into some jewelry?

Well, whatever. The snake had lost the right to get angry when it had tried killing us over a haircut. Its body would make some nice rings.

From there, the rest of the run proceeded without note. Much like Barb had said earlier, we were only here in the first place because he was confident we could handle everything.

With the effects of the fruit of growth still working, the gains were excellent. Especially considering the rock-based nature of the hidden boss, and its strange grass-like hair, both Barb and Jason ended up gaining a level, partially from completed class quests. Eak snagged one too, probably in part for his many water-based contributions to the hidden boss fight.

Sadly, I didn’t find anything else groundbreaking, but that was fine. I’d had my fill of unexpected adventure for the run.

The actual dungeon boss turned out to be significantly less noteworthy than the hidden one: A massive shade that split itself into smaller copies after getting damaged enough. The copies would run to the sides of the cavern and attempt to touch the walls to heal up. If they made it back to the boss at the center, it would heal up and gain some strength.

Much like we’d crushed the shades in the first room, so did we the shade boss. Kex’s golem came in clutch once again, making it nice and easy to pick off the smaller copies and keep them from being able to heal.

And then that was that. A loot chest appeared and we collected our rewards. Perhaps it had something to do with my Luck having reached the first threshold, but I was happy to find that my reward seemed like the best out of the bunch.

Obsidian Hairclip

+2 Intelligence

+2 Constitution

Contains the ability: Dark Hair Dye

While worn, when the wearer’s mana is full, all mana regeneration will go towards passively and continuously casting Darken Small Object, darkening a single lock of the wearer’s hair.

This effect can passively level the Dark Magic skill as well as the Darken Small Object spell.

It was in some part a bit creepy how well suited it was to me, and no one even suggested that the reward was for anyone but me. I’d already seen how dungeons generated personalized loot, though: After all, Barb had gotten a pair of scissors the first time I’d delved with him, not to mention Kex’s Mud Seasoning Tooth.

While it wasn’t some groundbreaking weapon, however, it was perfect. No longer would I have to remember to be spamming all of my spells to train them. Plus, it was a nice vanity object, with a little streak of my hair being magically darkened whenever I wasn’t low on mana or actively casting something else. Better equipped to handle all matters hair-related, Barb helped me place it in the most fashionable position.

When at last we left the dungeon (and finally started letting the dungeon recharge to let the next group in), all I wanted was to relax for a while. Even with my newly enhanced Endurance, my mind wanted nothing to do with training or fighting for the rest of the day.

My remaining time in Emer’Thalis passed quickly and largely uneventfully, until, finally, it was time to return back to Sylum. After a set of goodbyes -- and another round of Sylum-related warnings and advice from Barb -- I activated my recall gem and soon found myself back in Suds’ mansion.

It was still early in the morning, and it turned out that Suds was home. On discovering I’d returned, he summoned me to his office, giving me a quick once over.

“Good! Can’t see your level with that obfuscation gear still on you, but you look like you crossed some thresholds, so I’ll assume you had a productive time. Nevermind that though -- here.”

He hastily rifled through some papers until finding the one he wanted and tossing it in my direction, the simple sheet of paper somehow spinning cleanly through the air as if it were some sort of thrown weapon.

I caught it with ease and scanned the text, having a suspicion of what it was, but wanting to confirm. “What’s this?”

After some brief grumbling about “common sense” and “context clues,” he decided to enlighten me.

“It’s a course list! Hope you like it, because that’s what you’ll be taking this semester!”

Stat & Level Updates:

Axes 3 → 4 Pain Resistance 2 → 4 Spears 9 → 10 Mining 0 → 5 Level 10→ 11 Constitution 26→ 28 Strength 24→ 26 Endurance 24→ 26 Intelligence 30→ 31 Wisdom 26→ 27 Dexterity 19→ 21 Charisma 20→ 21 Class Points +2

Character Sheet:

Name: Tess

Age: 26

Race: Human

Class: Arcane Arsenal

Level: 11

Prestige: 1222

Health: 300/300

Mana: 325/325

Stamina: 240/240

Constitution: 28 (+2)

Strength: 26

Endurance: 26

Dexterity: 21 (+1)

Intelligence: 31 (+2)

Wisdom: 27 (+2)

Perception: 28

Charisma: 21

Luck: 27

Skills:

Skills

Weapon & Armor

Archery: 10

Spears: 10

Medium Armor: 5

Small Blades: 4

Swords: 3

Axes: 3

Hammers: 2

Staffs: 2

Unarmed Combat: 2

Heavy Armor: 1

Movement

Dodge: 3

Magic

Life Magic: 6

Water Magic: 7

Fire Magic: 7

Light Magic: 6

Mental Magic: 1

Ritual Magic: 1

Demonic Summoning: 2

Spells

Conjure Water: 10

Minor Healing: 7

Flameploof: 8

Illumination: 7

Sense Minds: 1

Resistances

Trauma Suppression: 13

Mental Resistance: 7

Poison Resistance: 6

Bleed Resistance: 4

Pain Resistance: 4

Heat Resistance: 2

Detection

God's Eye: 8

Detect Trap: 7

Detect Secret: 6

Craft

Construction: 6

Woodworking: 7

Jewelry Making: 5

Mining: 5

Alchemy: 1

Social

Conversation: 5

Etiquette: 5

Trade: 3

Flirt: 2

Dancing: 2

Deception: 1

General

Drinking: 7 (+5)

Gambling: 1

Reading: 1

Class Skills

Weaponmaster

Bind Weapon: 1/5

Arcane Armament: 2/5

Overload Weapon: 1/5

Armorist

Bind Armor: 1/5

Arcane Armory: 5/5

Resist Magic: 2/5

Augmenter

Mana Feet: 1/1

Arcane Vision: 1/1