! Entering the Dungeon of the Order of the Black Sun
! Defeat the dungeon to complete a condition of the Hidden Mage Class: Soul Reaper
! Recommended Level: 10
'Sounds fancy enough. And I've never seen a hidden class; it looks interesting. I'm level three right? I'll just check out the inside. There might be a bonus for first to enter.'
Sirus climbed down the trapdoor, finding himself in a small hallway. The walls were made of thick stone blocks and torches were hanging intermittently throughout. He marked his place by writing the number one on the wall, and continued, writing increasing numbers every 20 feet or so.
After 100 feet, he was met with two choices. Continue down the hall, or enter the door to his right, and he chose the ladder. He lightly gripped the door, nudging it open inch by inch until he could see inside. There was a library, filled with well maintained shelves of books, and he stepped in.
He could hear the turning of pages and more notably, the chanting of spells.
"Follow my command and Arise. Skeleton!"
"Shit. Is the engraving incorrect, or am I lacking magic power? I can't just keep asking Master for help."
! Name: Kael Thorne
Profession: Dark Magician
'It seems he's not a player, but a resident. And an oblivious one at that. I've never killed anyone, but I've also never been presented with the opportunity. This guy doesn't seem like a good person, but how much of that can I assume just from his job? It's not like my life is in any danger if I don't kill him, I can just leave.
But if I leave, I don't get any rewards.'
Sirus had spent almost a third of his life as a Navy Seal, and wasn't new to death, or killing. It bothered him, but not nearly as much as others in the community, especially in terms of PTSD. He was always too enthralled with the thrill of the fight and the pressure of the mission.
'This doesn't feel as high stakes as Navy Missions, but it's much more interesting. Everything feels new and exciting.'
Sirus crouched around the shelves, watching the young man cast spells, and more often than not, failed to do anything of much note.
"Curse your steps with Death, slowness! . . . Did that work? Wait, am I supposed to tell if a rat is any slower than it was before?"
Sirus slowly approached him as he rattled the rat's cage, and plunged a dagger into his neck. He shoved the dagger, and the man breathlessly fell forward.
! Kael Thorne has died. Alignment: -10
"CCRRRIIICCKKK, CCCRAAACCCKKK."
A tattoo on the dead man's wrist began to glow, then his eyes turned red. His body bent in ways it shouldn't, making all sorts of disgusting sounds, before stopping and turning to Sirus.
"Are you the one who killed him? And I see he was stabbed through the back of the neck. How cowardly. I quite liked Kael, he was weak, but he had potential. Someone dedicated to my cause.
I don't know how you found this place, but you will not make it out as easily as you came in. Leave. I have no use for you."
The corpse hadn't finished talking before Sirus bounded out of the room, out into the hallway. Someone who could react so quickly and possess someone was someone much out of his league.
! Skeleton summoning will begin in this area.
A group of four human skeletons appeared above a large magic circle in the middle of the hallway. Sirus was largely unarmed, he had left his halberd at the entrance, thinking it would be bad for close quarters combat.
He sped up, charging at the skeletons, who fruitlessly swung dull swords as he dove under their swipes. He continued dodging more skeleton summons before reaching the ladder leading back up to the surface, but then looked back.
'Wait. I seemed to be able to slip by those skeletons quite easily. They're really weak, and there's a lot of them.'
A devious smirk came across Sirus' face as he realized the benefit of this situation as he grabbed his halberd. He opened his inventory and threw the corpses of the Direwolves across the floor as a weak barrier to slow the skeleton's approach.
"It seems like this is going to give an enormous amount of experience! Come on!"
The skeletons were mostly armed with dull and cracked swords, and the occasional one had leather armor. You couldn't ask for a better situation. Sirus held his halberd by the base, and swung it across the small hallway, smashing through the skeletons before they could get in range.
[You have risen to level 4! Your stamina has been restored.
Choose an option to advance]
Sirus felt energy rush through him and the fire in his muscles ease.
'Oh fuck, did I need that.'
He smashed through tens of skeletons, their bones and weapons slowly disintegrating as more climbed over them. As his arms got tired of swinging, he started stabbing, and vice versa.
[Skill: Novice Halberd Arts has evolved to Basic Halberd Arts]
[Skill: Baic Halberd Arts
Grade: E
Increases dexterity by .25 when fighting with a Spear]
! Kill 300 monsters and train for 50 hours to evolve to Intermediate Halberd Arts
"Come on… huuuuhhh…you bastards…. I can….do this….all day."
The rate more skeletons spawned decreased, but Sirus was once again at his limit, and so was his weapon. In a final act of resistance, he threw it into the horde, then took the wolves back into his inventory and climbed up the ladder, back into the forest, and collapsed to the ground. It was daytime, so he figured the skeletons wouldn't be coming out.
Sirus plunged the bottom of his staff into the ground, and dragged himself to his feet.
"Been about a day I think. Don't want to be murdered by the Heavenly bastards. But I do want to see what that message meant about the options."
[Level Up! Choose one of the options below as a reward for your advancement]
[Random Stat increase]
[Random Class Skill]
[Random Class Skill Upgrade]
"More skills is probably better than more stats since I get stats from missions."
Sirus chose the random class skill option, and the system unfurled tens of cards. The cards were in various shades of red, and blank besides a minimal design.
[Choose a skill card]
'So I guess this is a real lottery to decide what I get then, is it? What a coincidence.'
As Sirus focused on each card, a window popped up in front of them, naming the skill, and its rank. He looked through all of them, trying to find the highest grade.
! Mudpit - Grade: D
! Flash Stun - Grade: E
! Danger Detection - Grade: E
! Entangle - Grade: E
! Frost Ray - Grade: F
! Alarm - Grade: E
! Animal Friendship - Grade: F
! Create Water - Grade: F
! Air Gust - Grade: E
! Mana Fever - Grade: E
! Feather Fall - Grade: E
! Silence - Grade: E
! Trap - Grade: E
! Shield - Grade: E
! Fog - Grade: F
! Ice Arrow - Grade: E
! Lightning Ball - Grade: E
'A real cheat skill, isn't it? Mudpit is the only D, so I'll go with that.'
[Obtained: Skill: Mudpit]
Skill: Mudpit: Combines basic earth and water magic to create a pit of thick mud.
Grade: D
Cost: 10 Mana]
! Use 100 times to evolve to skill Mudslide
. . .
"Impressive. I wasn't really expecting you to take out a whole pack. I was expecting you to attack a whole pack, then die, but this is good too."
"I'm just happy you're happy."
"The fur is weirdly dirty, but mostly undamaged. 8,000 Gold. The meat isn't really great for human consumption, but our familiar's division will buy it, though cheaply. 3,000 Gold. And the coup de gras, the magic crystals. All low rank, but there's ten, so 17,000 Gold. Anything else?
"No, just surprised it's so much. Much more than missions."
"Well, you can get more experience from missions, they're shorter, and the rewards don't come in Gold."
"Awesome! Would you recommend an alchemist?"