Andrew opened his eyes slowly to see an unfamiliar wooden ceiling once again, letting out a long sigh. He has grown all to customed with how the training has been going, his shoulders felt looser than they have every before as he had been training with the axes for god knows how long.
He would fight with Folen for hours on end only to get absolutely obliterated in a couple of moves after Folen grew bored. Too which was fairly often, then he would guide him on how to use the two new weapons foreign to him. Andrew couldnt measure his growth as the only other source of communication he had was Folen and a grown man-child of a system. Who was rather quiet these days as he seemed to become more distant from him.
"Well, it looks youve just about mastered all of the basics." Folen looked at him from a small chair that propped itself on the wall in front of him as his elbows rested on top of his knees.
"Yea, but how long did that take me? God i feel like i've been here for years. All weve done is fight and fight and fight. You havnt even tought me any of your spells like you said you would." Andrew harumphed out with a small pout and sat up on his elbows and glared at the man he had grown to familiar with.
"Yea yea, we both know that while you could learn it you wouldnt be able too use it for centuries. Forget weeks." He swatted his hand at him as he leaned back into the wooden chair that let out a small squeak as he did so.
Andrew didnt respond but just let his head plop back onto his pillow and brought his hands up to his forehead as he let out another large sigh.
"Man, i feel like i've forgotten almost everything about the real world. It's been so long that i've forgotten what shade of blue the sky is. This place has no goddanm day and night cycle. It's making me go nuts, the only way i havnt gone clinically insane is because i let it out by slamming things really hard." Andrew muttered to Folen quietly as if he just ran a marathon.
Folen looked at him with thought, Andrew already knew what he was thinking about. When you spend multiple hours with someone in close combat you get a grip on how they move and think rather quickly.
"Besides, didnt you say you wanted to take a visit to the real world for a while? Come one itll be fine."
"I didn't mean YOURS, that places mana is probably so thin i'll probably choke on the air alone. Besides, I couldn't manage a physical form for long with my own mana reserves, forget how long it's going to take you to get to a half decent place for me to stretch my horizons." Folen glared at him with annoyance, this conversation has become more and more common as the seemingly endless night passed.
Andrew looked at him and understood his worries about the matter at hand and tried to reason with him as much as possible.
"I see, but i cant get stronger when im trapped in this domain of yours. So the longer you keep me here the longer you have to wait." Andrew argued back.
He knew that a couple of days or even weeks wernt much in the eyes of a godlike being like Folen, but he didnt really care about that and wanted out.
"Besides, i can use the dungeons to get stronger quickly."
Folen heard these words and seemed to freeze and he snapped his eyes at him eagerly.
"You said Dungeons right? Like book dungeons or Stat dungeons?" Folen urged on sitting up quickly.
"Well, i dont know the difference between what your saying as i've never been in a book dungeon, but i assume they are what you call Stat dungeons. Every floor i complete gives me a certain boost." Andrew said nonchalantly as he met Folens eyes.
Folens eyes seemed to shake a little bit, before turning resolved.
"Okay, you may leave this place, But make sure you take the amulet i gave you." Folen said after a could of minutes
Andrew looked down at the place which Folen was pointing and found a small red amulet laying along the small coffee table. It's silver chain wrapped neatly around a small flower pot Andrew quite enjoyed.
He nodded and leaned forward and turned to ask what the change of heart was about. Watching the beads collide slowly with the stack of books laying around the wooden tabletop.
"Well, stat dungeons are a fairly rare phenomenon. Especially considering that i've been around more universes than you could imagine, let alone galaxies." He said as he watched Andrew picked up the small amulet that radiated a red hue slightly flickering as it neared Andrews pant pocket.
"Like all dungeons they start off rather slowly with rewards amounting to a couple grains of sand. But they grow vastly different compared to other dungeons where each floor gets better automatically, stat dungeons dont. Instead they compound on top of eachother, so after a while youll get two each floor, then three." Folen sat back with an excited glint.
Folen looked at the teenager in front of him with radiant jealousy, after all. Even he, who was in the third realm of power. Was shivering in excitement for something that wont even be his. His fists curled in and out in thought as he looked eagerly at Andrew.
But one of the main reasons he was so anxious about it, was because of all of the worlds that started with a stat dungeon. Were eventually raided by world eaters, a type of demon that harvests on a powerful world core only sensible to them. When the day that the world evolves they leap from the shadows and slaughter everything gaining an unimaginable amount of power.
But above all, if one manages to escape death from the ruthless beings of world eaters. They either become one of them, or a godly being hoisted on top of the universe. Let alone his own world.regardless of strength,intelligence or ability they are all exceptional in their own rights.
Folen let out a long sigh, in his mind thoughts a million miles an hour finally crashing into a messy string of correctness. Like a 5th grader doing a work of a professional correctly. Correct, but messy and missing multiple holes in a story or theory.
"Alright fine, I've gotten quite tired of sitting in the same place anyway. Besides, I couldn't teach you much at your current state." He threw a jab at Andrew as a form of revenge for pushing him out of his comfort zone.
Andrew was elated despite the jab and he felt his heart rate quickening sharply. He doesn't know how long it's been since the last time he saw his mother or the real world. His only sense of time was a small alarm clock that looked vastly out of place from the otherwise medieval home.
That same clock he'd seen display the same numbers over and over and over again. Left diagonally in its untouched spot.
"Come on then, no time to waste" Folen called snapping Andrew back into the world in front of him.
"Yesss" Andrew muttered quietly as he pumped his fist.
Folen saw this and smirked a little while shaking his head and snapped his fingers
Andrew's view turned white and nothingness soon engulfed his field of view.