Chapter 321 - Debrief

[Exiting Dungeon]
[Calculating…]
[First Floor: Incomplete]
[Boss Undefeated]
[Special Scenario Complete: Exp +5,000]
[Total Experience: 5,000]

[Skills Leveled Up!]

[Tier 1:]
[Aim: (52 ->55)]
[Rhythm: (35 ->38)]

[Tier 2:]
[Tactics: (50 ->52)]

[Tier 3:]
[Identify: (28 ->30)]
[Sense Threat: (33 ->35)]

[Tier 5:]
[Magic Prodigy: (97 ->105)]
[Transcendence: Domination]
[Ability: Wrest complete control of Magic and bend it to your Will]

Woah! Reivyn was momentarily stunned. At first glance, it didn’t look like he had gained too many Skill Levels from that fight, but that was only because he had almost done nothing but Cast Spells at the Dragonling. Despite that, he still gained multiple Levels in various Skills after just the one encounter.

And that wasn’t even the biggest surprise. He had not only reached the threshold of Transcendence with his Magic Prodigy Skill, but he had blasted through the bottleneck and gained another four Levels on top of it.

I’m looking forward to engaging the Dragonling in close combat. My Stat penalty shouldn’t be too much of a problem considering it doesn’t want to kill us, and we’ll be focusing solely on Skills.

Not only had he reached Transcendence with his Magic Prodigy Skill, but he had gained many new insights into his Affinities and their Transcendent Abilities. He knew the next time he Meditated, his Leveling speed of his Affinities would be drastically faster. At least until he burned through his new insights, at least.

So… Domination, huh? I’m guessing I earned that through my various experiences of contesting my Will over mine and other’s Magic control. Altering the trajectory of my Beam Spells mid-flight might have had something to do with it, too. The real question is: Did altering the path enable my Transcendence, or did reaching Transcendence allow me to alter their paths? It happened in the heat of the moment, so I might never know. Reivyn chuckled.

“It looks like someone is happy,” Refix commented. The Party members were all standing around the Portal inspecting their System Notifications. Everyone had a bit of a stunned, happy expression on their faces, but Reivyn had a wide grin on his face.

“Yeah, I reached another Transcendent Skill,” Reivyn confirmed. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Sure,” Refix nodded. “No reason to inform everyone about your Status.” Refix looked pointedly around at all the other soldiers milling about within hearing distance.

Reivyn staggered a bit as he absorbed the impact of Kefira hugging him from behind. She leaned around his side to peer up at him with a smile.

“You’re not the only happy one,” she said. “I finally reached Transcendence, too.”

Reivyn’s eyes lit up with delight.

“Amazing! I knew it was only a matter of time. We’ll talk about that later, too.”

Kefira nodded her head. Reivyn turned his body and returned the hug properly before the two separated. He looked up and met the eye of the same lieutenant that had spoken to them the day before.

“Let me guess,” the lieutenant said, carefully inspecting their facial expressions. “You guys killed the Dragonling, too.”

Everyone shared a look with each other before bursting out laughing. Reivyn shook his head.

“Not even close, Lieutenant,” Reivyn said. “That thing was a true monster.”

“Whew,” the man wiped imaginary sweat from his forehead. “No offense, but it’s good to get confirmation you guys are still mortals after all.” The officer grinned to indicate he was just joking.

“I think it’s possible to beat the Dragonling, based on the mechanics of the fight,” Reivyn said. “It will just require a team with extremely high Skill Levels to achieve it.”

“Based on the mechanics?” The lieutenant asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the Dragonling starts flagging and making mistakes at predetermined times,” Reivyn explained, a confused look on his face. He expected the others to know about it. “If a team is Skilled enough, they should be able to fight through its mistakes to defeat it eventually.”

The officer raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Predetermined times? How long did you guys fight with the Dragonling?”

“The full hour,” Reivyn answered.

The lieutenant placed his hand over his face.

“So, not mortals after all…” He sighed. The man put his hand back down and addressed Reivyn with a serious expression. “The record before your group was 18 minutes. Elite groups can expect to last 15 minutes before they either run out of Stamina or the Dragonling disengages for whatever reason. Once the Dragonling disengages, the System recognizes that the fight is over, and the Dungeon puts up a barrier preventing the delvers from attacking it again.

“The leading consensus on why the Dragonling disengages is that the Party members quit making progress with their Skills during the fight, so I’m guessing you guys got a great workout if it lasted an hour.

“And you said ‘the full hour?’ What does that mean?”

“At the hour mark, the Dragonling disengages and disintegrates, having burned through all if its Mana and Essence,” Reivyn answered.

“Interesting,” the lieutenant said with a thoughtful look.

“Nobody’s ever defeated the Dragonling before?” Reivyn asked, drawing the man out of his thoughts.

“Oh, yeah, we have records of Tier 6 Elders coming down and killing it with brute force. If you do that, though, it stops sparring with you and goes for the kill for real. The records indicate it is incredibly dangerous to try and do such a thing before reaching mid-Tier 6 at least.”

“Hmm, that makes sense,” Reivyn said. “It’s consistent with it being a Skill check scenario.”

“Yeah. You know I’ll have to report this to the Commanding General, as well, right?” The lieutenant asked. Reivyn just nodded. “Good. I wouldn’t be surprised if the General asks you and your Party members to accompany some of our men to see if you can help them last longer in the fight to gain more Skill Levels themselves. I’m sure he would offer compensation for such a thing.”

“That’s… an interesting offer,” Reivyn nodded his head. “I’ll have to discuss it with my Party, but I’m not against it. I’ll have to prioritize my own men, though. I’ll just have a talk with the General when he wants to broach the topic and we’ll come to an agreement.”

“Very good, sir,” the lieutenant snapped a salute. “Have a good day, sir.”

Reivyn returned the salute.

“You, too, Lieutenant.”

Reivyn led his Party members out of the cave back into the fort proper. Reivyn squinted his eyes as he stepped out into the bright sunlight, his eyes having adjusted to the softer light from the torches and Dungeon ambiance. He looked at the others.

“That was much quicker than expected,” Reivyn said. “There are still a couple of hours to go until it's even lunch time. Everyone can do whatever you want for the rest of the day. Teilon, we’ll debrief the Special Unit on their delves tomorrow. The Captain and his officers can handle the rest of the Mercenary Company.

“Dad, I’m going back to my room to talk about my gains if you want to join us. If not, I can fill you in on my new Transcendent Skill later tonight.”

“Well, since you’re inviting me, I’ll just come with you now,” Refix replied. “No need to repeat everything twice.”

“Hey, we want to hear the scoop, too,” Teilon interjected.

Reivyn chuckled.

“Sure, everyone’s invited.”

The entire Party made their way to Reivyn’s room in the headquarters building. It was large enough to hold all of them, but it wasn’t so large that they could all spread out comfortably. It was a little bit cramped, but it wasn’t a big deal. Kimberly just plopped down in Teilon’s lap, and Kefira sat as close to Reivyn on a little couch as she could, Serilla standing behind them. Refix leaned against the closed door, arms folded across his chest.

“Well, I’m sure everyone guessed it, but my Magic Prodigy Skill reached Transcendence,” Reivyn started off.

“Wait, what?” Teilon spoke up. He sat up straight, holding Kimberly so she wouldn’t slide off. “Magic Prodigy? What’s that?”

Reivyn glanced at Teilon in surprise.

“Oh, I guess I never told you,” he said. “Magic Prodigy is like my Weapons Master Skill. I reached it a while ago by combining all of my other Magic Skills together. It’s a Tier 5 Skill. It’s not as good as a Master Tier 6 Skill, but it’s still good.”

Teilon rolled his eyes.

“It’s a Tier 5 combination Skill. Of course it’s ‘still good,’” he said, using air quotes with his free hand.

“Anyway, I also combined my Stealth Skills into Clandestine Prodigy and my Defensive Skills into Protection Prodigy.”

“You’ve had a combined Stealth Skill this whole time and you didn’t tell me?!” Teilon’s mouth hung open. He clicked it shut. “Okay, you’re definitely helping me do the same thing as soon as possible.”

“Sure,” Reivyn agreed. “Back on topic; my Transcendent Ability is Domination. I can wrest control of Magic away from others more easily, defend against the same, and bend the magics to my will.”

“That seems overpowered,” Teilon said.

“Of course it does. Have you heard of a Transcendent Ability that wasn’t?” Reivyn quirked an eyebrow. “It will be overpowered against everyone who hasn’t reached Transcendence themselves, but it will fight against the Skill Level of those that have.

“You’re going to be a terror on the battlefield,” Teilon said. “Not to say that you weren’t already.” He chuckled.

“That’s the plan,” Reivyn smirked.

“Ooh, ooh, my turn! My turn!” Kefira held her hand up. Everyone turned their attention to her. “I didn’t breach Level 100 with one of my Skills, but I did reach Transcendence with my Space Affinity. It’s doubly amazing that I did so, because I did it during combat and not Meditating, and I literally just reached Level 100 with the Affinity yesterday.

“My Ability is Omnidirectional. It might seem common sense that a Space Affinity will affect all directions, but up until now, that’s not exactly how I’ve been using it. My Space Blade Spells have had a distinct edge, and my teleport Spells have connected two distinct locations.

“My new Ability allows for my Space Blades to have an edge in all directions, and my teleport tunnels can be adjusted on the fly; both ends can be moved about at will.”

“Huh, that’s interesting,” Refix said. “That might help in the future if we’re ever chased by that crazy meatball monster thing again. If it can detect anchor points of teleport tunnels, being able to move the anchors while we’re traveling through them might obfuscate our position.”

Kefira nodded enthusiastically.

“That’s what I thought as soon as I realized what I could do,” she said.

“Well, I already reached Transcendence with my Weapons Prodigy Skill a long time ago, but I did gain close to ten Levels in it with this one fight,” Refix revealed. “Several of my other Skills saw significant improvement, as well.”

“My Daggers Skill is closing in on Level 100,” Teilon supplied. “My Sneak Attack Skill is almost 90, too. I imagine I’ll reach Transcendence with Daggers next time we delve that Dungeon, and I’ll probably get really close with Sneak Attack.”

“My Dancing Skill reached Level 100, but it didn’t breach the bottleneck,” Kimberly said. “I would like to take the lead for a bit the next time we fight to see if I can do so.”

Refix nodded his head.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Refix agreed. “I took over because we didn’t understand the nature of the encounter at first, and I didn’t want to take any chances. Now that we know better, we can all focus on our Skills more wholeheartedly.”

“I managed to reach Level 101 with my Swords Skill,” Serilla said. Everyone looked at her with surprise and appreciation. “My Ability is Stalwart, and it allows me to perfectly Parry and Block. It combines my Skill Levels in those two separate Skills into my Swords Skill.

“It might not seem like such an overpowered Skill on the surface, and it looks like it’s more suited to either the Parry or Block Skills, but the real benefit is that it will allow me to combine whatever Transcendent Abilities I gain from those two Skills with my Swords Skill. I’ll basically have three Transcendent Abilities at the first Tier of Transcendence once I reach Level 101 with those two Skills. Plus it adds their proficiency to my Skill Level a bit.”

“That actually sounds amazing,” Reivyn said. “And don’t forget what that means for the future, too. Once you have three or four Transcendent Abilities for all three of those Skills, your Swords Skill is going to be monstrous. That’s probably the Ability with the best growth potential of any Ability I could think of.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of Serilla’s lips at the praise.

“Talking about the Skill gains, does anyone have any opinion on the issue the lieutenant brought up? Taking different squads into the Dungeon to help them train past ten to fifteen minutes?”

Surprisingly, it was Kimberly that spoke up first.

“I think we should wait until after one more delve,” she said. “Teilon and I are very close to reaching Transcendence, and I’m sure Kefira is pretty close with a Magic Skill or two, also. After that, I’m okay with leading a squad.”

“That’s a good idea,” Refix nodded his head. “You would still obviously gain the benefits of the Skill training when leading another squad, but going in with others with most likely considerably lower Skill Levels while already reaching Transcendence in your main Skill would be for the best.”

“I want to try and gain Magic Prodigy before I push for any of my Magic Skills reaching Transcendence,” Kefira said. “I have a feeling having Transcendent Abilities would complicate the matter instead of making it easier.”

“That makes sense,” Reivyn said, “Everything with the System so far has been about balancing. One needs to have sufficient Skill Levels to combine them together to begin with. That threshold is lower when one is pre-Tier 1, and I imagine it gets exponentially harder after Level 101. It’s just like with Classes. You don’t want to gain too many Levels too fast without the corresponding Skill Levels and Life Experience. At some point, it becomes literally impossible to advance any further if you rush too much.”

“That’s some good insight, you two,” Refix nodded his head. “That means Teilon should get his Clandestine Prodigy Skill before advancing any of his Stealth Skills. Is Sneak Attack part of the Skill?”

Reivyn nodded his head.

“In that case, you need to help him get the Skill before our next Delve. There should be plenty of time, considering the time between Dungeon resets.”

“We’ll get on it,” Reivyn said. He turned to face his best friend. “You know what this means, right?”

Teilon stared at Reivyn in confusion for a few seconds before realization dawned on his face.

“Training!” Reivyn pumped his fist in the air. Teilon smacked himself in the face with his palm, groaning.