(Lyze POV)
I always woke up to darkness nowadays. Robbed of the ability to see the morning sun as it rested it's light upon my skin. I mean, I could see regardless once I used Chaos. But despite being thousands of times greater than my own eyesight, I still felt empty because it wasn't my eyes.
Not that there would be much to see anyway in the setting I just woke up in. The room was dark with the light of the morning flooding in. It was very early, just a couple of hours before dawn, and the shadows in the quarters I'd been assigned to were very prominent.
It was a shared room as was customary for every newbie that came in. You didn't really get a room to yourself unless you became a first class adventurer or you did something special and noteworthy that got on Loki's good side.
At least was what Raul told me when I moved in here. Yes, Raul Nord, the leading member of can Loki Familia's second string group right behind the executives. He took top and I took bottom bunk.
I really didn't like these shared arrangements. The only good thing I suppose I got out of this was I didn't have to move my stuff in here. No, all of that was safely stowed away by storage magic.
It was one of the more difficult spells to master. It wasn't like those fanfics where I could just say 'Inventory' or 'Item Box' and a portal to a small interdimensional space would open up. I actually had to learn how to manipulate space and time on an extremely limited scale to be able to learn the spell.
I guess the pay-off was worth it though as I didn't have to share a room with the sweaty snoring kid on the top bunk while my belongings were inside. They were safe in my hammer-space in no danger of being touched, damaged, contaminated or blemished. Not to mention I also had some pretty valuable stuff in there as well.
Slipping on my attire and grabbing Libur on my way out, I made sure to open and close the door quietly so as to not wake up Raul. While some may think that it was weird for a child to be going at at such an early point in the morning, they have to understand that such a habit was customary and encouraged by adventures because that was what was counted as a full work day.
And besides, there were no parents or any other adults like that around to tell me otherwise. And the Loki Familia had no qualms about stopping such a thing.
It was only natural that today I would be entering the real dungeon. Just to be sure though, I had notified Finn after dinner last night that I would be heading out. he had no problems.
Walking quietly down to the kitchen, I grabbed a little bread and cheese to fill me along the way. Luxuries such as butter was not easily available here, so I didn't take any. After securing breakfast, I exited the Twilight Manor into the chilly air of the morning.
I breathed in deeply, savouring the sweet air. In my opinion, this was the best air one could breathe, for it truly felt invigorating and rejuvenating. Squaring my shoulders for the task ahead, I marched out of the gates and set my gaze on main street.
As I passed by the gates though, I heard somebody call out to me.
"Good morning Lyze."
I looked behind me to see Riveria standing there with her Magna Alfs in hand, dressed in her cream coloured cloak.
"Riveria? What are you doing here?"
Riveria smiled and began walking towards me.
"I shall be accompanying you on your first dungeon run. I must also get you registered at the guild as well before we do that."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Since when do leading executives have to time to oversee the first run of a new adventurer?" I said as I walked with her.
"We don't. However, the captain specifically asked me to accompany you today. Which is understandable. Youngsters such as you with numerous powers at hand tend to overestimate themselves and underestimate the cruelty of the dungeon."
"But why me specifically?"
"... Because I want to see the full extent of your abilities."
"You do?"
"Of course. Never before have I seen somebody max out all of their stats before receiving a Falna. It makes me curious to know the kind of things you have learnt. And also..." Riveria leaned forwards and spoke in a quieter tone "I've also seen the magic stats as well. Can you use magic Lyze?"
I rolled my eyes internally. Honestly I should have seen this coming, as Elves, Riveria in particular were fanatics about magic. It would make sense that she would be interested to know anything she could find about my magic after seeing my stats.
"I can Riveria. And before you ask, it is congenital magic."
Riveria straightened her back and looked at me inquisitively.
"It is not often that a human is born with congenital magic. Makes me wonder how many more surprises you have in store." She murmured more to herself than to me. "Well, I look forward to seeing it in action Lyze! Shall we get going now?"
"Yes." I nodded at her. "However, I was going to get there another way."
"What do you mean another way? I'm not sure that's even the best use of Koine." She said confusedly.
"I meant I wasn't going to get there by walking."
"Then how were you going to go? Hitching a ride or something?"
"No. I want to show you instead of just telling you. Will you hold my hands?" I asked as I held up my both my hands to her. She just stared at them before it hit me. It wasn't customary among elves to be touched by other races. "I'm sorry. I forgot about that."
"No, no. It's not that at all. It was just an odd request but...okay." She hurriedly said as she grabbed both my hands before I could lower them.
I smiled and in front of her began levitating upwards. At first a look of bewilderment flickered across her face as such an unexpected thing happened before it changed to an expression of shock as she realised what I was doing.
For a few moments her eyes were wide, and she was unable to speak. This gave me enough time to lift her off of the ground with me and for me to start flying out of there with her hanging from my arms.
"You can fly with your magic?"
"Yes. It's a basic spell. Pretty cool right?"
"I guess...are you sure you are not using a magic item or something?"
"Nope. This is my own legitimate ability."
"Fascinating." Riveria said as she watched the ground rush by beneath her as we got closer to Babel tower in under a minute. There was pretty much nobody in the streets by then, so nobody was there to witness this unusual spectacle.
"Once we get there, I'm going to register you as a member of our Familia and only then will you get your adventurer's permit. When that is sorted we can descend into the dungeon." she said to me.
"Okay. Aren't we going to find me an advisor though?"
"I'm with you today so it won't be necessary. However, when you start going solo is when you should find an advisor."
"Got it. How many floors are we going down?"
"However many you can handle before I decide it's too much for you. Are you excited?"
"I can hardly wait."
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(General POV)
[Sixth Floor]
A frog shooter lashed its tongue out at the young boy with the blindfold. Its bulbous tip sailed towards his face. However, the instant before it hit, he ducked under it and grabbed the long extension.
Yanking hard on it, he pulled the frog thing towards him. As it came he jabbed out with his fist packing a good bit of his might. The punch connected with the creature right on its head, first crushing the giant eyeball before shattering the skull and destroying the strawberry shaped brain inside. It squeaked weakly before disappearing, leaving its core to drop to the floor with a tinkering noise.
Riveria looked on in shock before shaking her head and sighing. She been expecting for them to stick to the first two floors at most because of his newbie status. But the moment a kobold had spawned, he was gone from her side and a moment later she saw a dog head rolling across the floor of the cavern.
Lyze persisted to do this with his bare hands to every monster he came across, not drawing his sword once. Eventually she came to realise that this was probably not gaining him experience at all as he was not even drawing his sword.
So for the first time ever, she broke her own rules and brought him deeper to see if he would get serious with the more powerful monsters. But as it turned out, not even coming down this far made any difference to him. He was still using his hands to kill everything he came across.
"Exactly what kind of life did you lead before you came here Lyze?" she asked him.
"I trained under my master to become strong."
"Is that it? Nothing more?"
"I said before Riveria, I don't want to think back on those times anymore. Now I have a set goal and I want to focus on moving forward with it."
"Yes you have emphasised that quite a bit" She rolled her eyes. "Still though, without studying before hand, adventurers aren't able dodge a Frog Shooter's tongue. So how did you accomplish it?"
Lyze turned to her and pointed at himself.
"Because of one of my subsidiary skills called 'Thread'. It allows me to predict a person or a monster's next move, after which I can then decide how best to respond."
Riveria nodded in slight awe.
"But it doesn't mean I'm untouchable though." Lyze said.
"Why is that?"
"Because if an opponent is too fast and strong, I can predict their next move but my reaction time will greatly decrease and I won't be able to counter or dodge. Example of that being when Finn flipped me off my feet with his spear. I saw it coming but because I'm not at a high enough level to react in time, I couldn't evade it."
Riveria noted that down to help him in his training further. She was surprised and pleased at how he got so far on his first run. But she was not willing to leave until she found his challenge down here.
She looked behind him to see a dungeon lizard crawling up the wall with its gaze fixed on him. Waiting to see how he would react to that, she watched as it sprang down from up there, intending to ambush him. Without even looking behind him, he lifted a hand.
The dungeon lizard froze in place, suspended in the air as it thrashed in confusion.
"What are you doing now?" she asked.
"This is me using the telekinetic abilities of my skill, 'Snatch'. Using this, I can inflict upon an opponent what I would do with my hand without actually touching them." He replied as he clenched his fist. The dungeon lizard was suddenly mangled into a lump of flesh before it also disappeared into a puff of dark smoke.
She sighed again and observed as he lifted the cores up and they vanished in a flash of purple light. Another one of his abilities he'd shown her was something he called his 'hammer-space' spell. Storage magic that not even she had ever come across before.
"Tell me Lyze, is it your main skill 'Xenia Khaos' that gives you such versatile magic?"
"Yes, it is."
"Can you tell me how you obtained that skill?"
"I was born with it."
"Really?"
"Yes. I've subconsciously used it all my life. Earned myself the name of 'Cursed Child' back in the Daedalus slums because I used it to kill someone who attacked me."
Riveria face palmed.
"And I suppose it was your 'master' that helped you master the abilities that came with that skill?"
Lyze nodded before turning around and proceeding to the next floor. Riveria sighed as she followed, hoping to find an appropriate level one monster that actually stood as a difficulty to this boy.
She hoped that her prayers were answered as she watched a section of the wall break away to reveal a War Shadow coming out of it. A 'newbie killer' monster as it was known.
"I think you might have met your match this time Lyze. War shadows are notorious for killing beginners. They are swift and deadly with those clawed fingers of theirs."
"I'm not so sure." Lyze said. She raised her eyebrow.
"What makes you unsure? You are strong for someone like yourself, but there is a reason why these particular monsters have a reputation."
"Monsters don't know how to fight Riveria. That's what makes these things harmless to me."
"...Explain."
"Beginners usually get slaughtered by these things because they have no prior training to sharpen their senses or their attack patters. These things charge at them, and they freeze up not knowing what to do. That's what gets themselves killed. But somebody like me who has had prior experiences..."
The War Shadow lunged forward with its clawed hand aimed straight for Lyze's face. The boy ducked down and quickly turned around while lowered, letting the dangerous limb pass harmlessly above his head. As he turned, he plunged his hand into the beast's body and tore out the core within. The War Shadow froze and jerked for a moment before it exploded into smoke as well.
"...it is nothing more than a brainless brute. It will take more than that to beat me." Lyze finished as he chucked the core into his hammer-space. Hearing a tinkering noise, he looked down to see that the monsters had dropped one of its claws on the floor. "Cool, a drop item. This will go for good money!"
"Then at this point it would seem as if only a level two monster is fit to be a proper opponent for you." Riveria sighed. "If you can kill a War Shadow that easily, then you must be one of those rare individuals that possess superhuman abilities before they even get a Falna."
"Is it really that uncommon?"
"There are some adventurers from time to time who come to the dungeon bearing the prowess of a level 3. That is the rarest one can find though. Now come along. I've grown tired of you acting in such a confident way with these lower level monsters."
"Are you going to deal with those?" Lyze pointed towards a cluster of red killer ants that had gathered in the path ahead.
"Are you?" she returned the question.
He turned to the monsters and lifted his hands. She stared in amazements as arcs of blue lightning began forming around his hands with no chants at all. He gestured with both his arms, and streams of electric ropes began bouncing around the walls and ceilings of the tunnels towards the killer ants. Every bolt that made contact roasted the poor monster it hit, killing them and releasing their cores.
'Chantless magic as well?' she thought exasperatedly.
"So that's what Force Lightning feels like..." she heard him mutter.
"I didn't hear you say anything to invoke that magic. Would you explain that?"
"Some of my magical abilities don't require me to say anything. Merely envisioning them is enough to cast."
"...I see."
Lyze nodded happily as he briskly walked down the path again to head to the floors below. Riveria gripped her Magna Alfs in equal measures of frustration, amazement and pride.
"This child is the one who will surpass me given he sticks to his path." She said to herself before smiling. "I suppose that means our Familia will grow a lot stronger in time then." With these happy thoughts, she followed after him.
There was one monster she had in mind that she supposed would be good a good fight for him.
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