The next few weeks were more of the same, the duo did their guard shifts, practiced their magic and sparred as much as they could. They were improving, albeit slowly. They decided that for each layer they planned to challenge they would take a month to get used to the changes and train their abilities. The rest of the time was spent gathering intel about the opponents. The second layer of the dungeon was much like the first. The main difference being that the smaller grufflings would be replaced by their larger brethren the greater grufflings.
They entered the dungeon and once again, beat the layer rather easily. They upgraded their titles. The following months they fell into a rhythm, for every layer they would take two months to prepare and train before they would enter the layer. Within eight months they had beaten all the layers of the 'starter' dungeon. Jace had massively improved his mastery and his magical prowess. Both he and Weira had already managed to reach the advanced level in mastery. Jace had his shield upto level three in advanced and his sword mastery to one in advanced. Weira had her polearm mastery at advanced level six.
Both had improved upon their mana blade magical skill. The trick was to keep thinning out the blade so it could cut better. Jace had the advantage in this surprisingly, because of the image he used to imprint on his blade his was sharper than Weira's. It made sense in a way he had based his image on a monomolecular blade. Something he had read of in a sci-fi fiction, it was a blade whose edge as advertised consisted of a singular molecule. Of course he was not even close to that level of sharpness yet. But he could make his blade sharp enough that he could cut into stone, although it would take a good deal of effort. Getting their titles upto the sixty had done miracles on their strength. All his attributes were at a minimum of a hundred-twenty.
That together with their mastery and their spells made them competent in combat, stronger even than the level they tackled would suggest. While Jace had only managed to learn and use two spells, the mana blade and barrier, a spell he used to enhance his shield and enlarge the cover area, Weira on the other hand had built an entire arsenal. She had become an extremely effective backline fighter. One of her favourite spells were what she called Arcane needles. She had turned the basic magic missile extremely thin and had elongated it. This would have maken them weak if not for her control, she could make the needles extremely dense and guide them right into the softspots. Her favourite target? The eyes.
She had also been creating sigils and glyphs. A magic that a symbol based language which they used to create a large variety of effects. Something so far out of his reach that Jace didn't even think about using it.
The both of them were once more on guard duty on the walls, Jace glanced to the side at his partner. Someone who he had basically been glued to for the past year. A year that had flashed before his eyes. It had gone by way faster than he had expected, he had quickly gotten used to life here.
"You know I'm starting to get bored."
Weira glanced at him and raised her eyebrow.
"Yea I know we have a few more dungeons that we could do around here, but I'm already getting sick of it, it's just more of the same the entire time. I wanna go places, it's a new world for me, I want to explore it!"
She shrugged and then motioned outside.
"What do you mean lets go, you just wanna poof leave?"
A nod
"I doubt gran would appreciate us just leaving."
She rolled her eyes and looked at him exasperated.
"Ah.. yea of course we would say goodbye first and gather supplies. Yea that would be smart."
He heard her sigh and saw a small smirk on her face.
"So how close is the nearest village from here anyway."
She shrugged.
"Whatcha mean you never left the village. You never went to the neighbouring village or something?"
She shook her head.
"Fine then lets ask gran."
He turned to jump off and she grabbed his collar and dragged him back.
"hguhsgh." He coughed as he nearly chokes. "What the hell was that for!"
She pointed to him and then the wall.
He coughed and blushed, "Yea good plan, we should finish guard duty first."
She rolled her eyes.
They finished their guard duty and once finished headed back to the central building, a building that had become home to him. A building that he would likely not be seeing for a long time after today. He entered and walked his way to gran, he knocked on the door to her office and entered. The decorations were spartan and the furniture simple. Just the way gran liked it. She glanced up to him and he stared into her icey blue eyes.
She sighed deeply and put her chin onto her folded fingers. "So the two of you have decided to move on, fine. Head west for about two weeks and you'll enter the Kringva kingdom. They are relatively open to outsiders."
Jace blinked, "Your letting us go? Just like that?"
She stared at him, "I'm not your bloody babysitter. It surprised me the two of you actually stayed long enough to finish the damn dungeon. I can almost feel the stircrazy thats driving you crazy'."
He smirked at her play on words, "Welp then I guess we'll get the supplies and leave, might as well start now."
She nodded, "Might aswell."
He nodded, then glanced at her for a bit. He stepped forward and hugged her quickly before turning red and dashing off.
"Bloody younglings, what's with the fuzzy cuddly stuff." The elderly warrior said with a slight flush to her face. "Bleh stop worrying about it you old hag, they'll be fine. You trained them after all."
Jace rushed outside to meet Weira he pointed behind him and waited for her to go in and say her own goodbyes to gran. Once she came back they headed to the supplies to stack up on the essentials. They got some camping gear, basically a tent that could fit the both of them, sleeping bags, flint and tools. They got three weeks supply of food. Better safe than sorry after all, with their enhanced strength carrying that amount was peanuts. Once they stacked up they said their goodbyes to the other people they hung around with. The other guards waved them off without any fancy goodbyes and the professor was somewhat grumpy and teary eyed about having his genius pupil leaving from his care.
They left the village and made their way west. The travel was not nearly as eventful as he had expected. He had gotten used to the mediterranean type nature he was surrounded with. Even if the colour and size was off about everything, it no longer bothered him. More to the point he didn't even notice it anymore. He glanced in the distance and grinned, finally he saw the first signs of civilisation. He grinned at Weira and pointed forward, the two of them took off towards the village at a slight jog. His not as full as it used to be backpack bouncing on his shoulders. His shield as always on his left arm, most people slung it on their back or hung it on their backpacks. Jace had gotten used to having it on his arm and almost never took it off. A habit that although rather strange would no doubt prove useful someday.
The village they were approaching was quaint little hamlet. Smaller even than the one they had just left. Both villages had a palisade and manned watch towers however. Out here in the middle of nowhere to be attacked by monsters was par for the course. The guards around these small villages usually had higher levels than the ones in major cities simply because of the amount of attacks they had to deal with.
They jogged up to the gate and gave the man on the watchtower a wave. The guard waved back and let them through the gate. He didn't even asked why they were here or who they were. Jace frowned and asked the guard why he wasn't worried about strangers.
The guard blinked, "Well ye be human, why would I be worried about ya. Are you plannin to burn down the village?"
"Well no."
"Well there ya go then, we get strangers out here more than ya'd expect. It's the frontier into the wilderness after all, lotsa exotic stuff to be found out there in the wild. And the adventurers know it. We get a lot of warrior types like yous around here. Nothin new an nothin to be worried about." The guard told them, nodding sagely.
Jace smirked and thanked the man, the guard waved them off into the village.
"So what do you wanna do?" He asked as he glanced at Weira, she shrugged and pointed to a building.
Jace blinked and then a grin appeared on his face. "You wanna register as adventurers, now that right there sounds interesting. Lets a go!"