"Welcome back to mana basics."
"Today will be a little different."
"For the first half of class we will be discussing dungeons, and your first foray into one next week."
"Due to new precautions courtesy of the school, you will be headed to a dungeon."
"As for the second half we will be splitting into groups of 4."
"We will shrink and add groups as needed."
"Now lets being with the basics of natural dungeons."
"There are 2 types of natural dungeons can anyone tell me what they are?"
A girl raised her hand.
"Yes, Ms. Castellan?"
"The first is a naturally spawned dungeon, and the other is a artificial dungeon that loses it's owner and becomes part of nature."
"Correct."
"Despite the number of artificial dungeons in our world, natural dungeons still outnumber them 3 to 1."
"They are also unstable most of the time, so we have gate like devices stabilize them."
"The stability devices, or doors, have color codes."
"There are 5 colors correspondingly."
"Red is the lowest, it means the dungeon is either cleared, has no hostiles, or is regularly culled."
"Yellow is the first real dungeon. It either has a present threat, that has yet to be destroyed, or isn't completely, top to bottom, cleared."
"Green is next."
"Green doors mean a portion of the dungeon has a portion usually less than a third but greater than a hundredth of it's area unexplored."
"They are also home to very ferocious creatures, many of which you wouldn't be able to handle even in groups."
"Blue follows that. Blue doors have over a third but less than 3 quarters area unexplored."
"Due to the lack of exploration, we can assume there is a high level monster blocking the way."
"You will not enter any blue portals until your final year."
"Do not attempt to either as you will most likely perish, if not come back alive with injuries so severe, you will wish you had."
A few people looked shocked, some got a little squeamish at that.
"Finally purple doors."
"Doors that have more than 3 quarters of the are unexplored."
"They are home to terrifying beasts, horrible weather, or dimensional flux."
"These doors are not to be trifled with, ever."
"Many of you will never be strong enough to clear a purple door even after you've graduated."
"Do not think it's because of the high level of monsters."
"Simply put, purple doors are doors where high adaptability is required at minimum."
"No person beneath the 7th tier can do so."
"So I will say to you like I do to all my students past, 'Be careful in becoming a dungeon explorer, you may not know what color dungeon it is'."
After the explanation given by Professor Glasyan, we left our seats and began to make groups.
I already had a plan for my group.
I needed Aisha, Morgan, and Harry.
If all went according to how I thought it would, Aura would probably find Celeste and Mark.
They may take Armoria or another of Celeste's friends.
Neither bothered me.
After all this wasn't about the group score, we would be tested on our ability to work together, but not graded together.
If that doesn't make sense let me explain.
More than not, inside the dungeon a group will face a monster to strong for them.
It is up to them, to figure a way to leave or kill it.
If one person is ejected due to danger, it will not affect the students still inside.
Therefore, the loss of the teammate only means there is less chance to be graded higher for teamwork.
I walked over to Harry, at the surprise of everyone.
While he was a genius of theory, everyone knew he would be a deadweight inside the dungeon.
He seemed to think so too, as he had his head on his desk.
I tapped his shoulder and told him to join me.
"You want me in your team?"
He looked confused.
"Yes, now get up, you moping in class is pathetic dude."
He looked at me sheepishly.
"Right, so who are our other members?"
"Well, they are the others."
"Others?"
I pointed at a sleeping girl on the far side of the class, and a loner redhead near the front.
"Ah."
"Wait isn't this team composition too unbalanced?"
"Not at all."
"How?"
"I'll show you, but first I need to grab them."
I rounded up the unwanted Morgan, and the sleeping Aisha.
The people I had grabbed the attention of the class.
Some felt pity for me, others felt I was quite stupid, telling Aura I was a failure.
Some thanked me for 'taking one for the team'.
What they didn't know was these people were strong, courtesy of myself.
As of today I would be training Aisha in shield bearing and Morgan in dealing damage effectively.
Harry, was technically a deadweight, but his knowledge was more important than his combat prowess, although I would show him how to buff.
Now began the roughest training period in class.
The four of us as we left class made plans to train together at the large training hall grounds.
With that I left to mana meditation.
It was the same as usual.
Then mentoring.
Aika, as usual was very accommodating to what I needed to practice, so I was thankful.
I had no issues with my magic casting so I asked her help on caring for companions for Alea.
Afterwards I left to the dormitory to grab Harry and Aisha before leaving for Morgan.
The two of us had undergone massive understanding of the fundamentals of magic.
She may have been a 3rd circle mage now, but I doubted she would be for much longer.
She already showed combat prowess equal to that of the average 4th circle.
She would advance sometime within 10 days, hopefully it wasn't right before the dungeon dive.
That would screw with her magic control she had honed for the entire week.
But now wasn't the time to think about that.
I picked up a smaller round shield.
I grabbed a shield brace for Aisha, and clasped it to her arm.
"Why am I getting a shield?"
"You specialize in defense magic, you easily draw the aggro of the monsters, and I need you to get over the fear of monsters."
"Okay."
She looked a little sad, but it was the truth.
For Morgan I gave her a set of mage robes, and told her to use her wand.
"Wait but I want to use a wandspear."
"You can't handle the two types of fighting yet."
"I can, fight me and find out."
"In a minute, let me get Harry situated."
"I'm fighting?"
"He's fighting?"
"Harry's fighting?"
"Yes and no."
"He's here to mainly provide us critical information on monsters."
"But he will also act as our support."
"So Harry, take this."
I handed him a book full of 3rd circle buff spells.
"Memorize the few I have starred, but for the rest, you can just leave in the bag and pull it out specifically when I tell you to."
"Got it."
He sat down, and began to memorize the few spells.
"Alright Morgan, actually Aisha, would you like to join as well?"
She nodded her head.
"Alright I'm no magical beast, but most aggro on one of two things, the highest mana signature of lowest quality that runs, or damage being dealt."
"Thankfully Aisha is stronger than you circle wise, because if she wasn't, Morgan you'd be targeted quite fast."
"However because Aisha is a unmoving high value target to the unintelligent monsters, she will be targeted first."
"Alright."
"Come after me."
Morgan immediately pushed back and began to chant, I didn't let her create space.
I grabbed her wand and ripped it out of her hands.
"That's one."
With that I moved back towards a shaking Aisha.
I moved right in front of her.
I could see her shaking legs, and despite that she still held her shield up.
Good. She was learning.
Suddenly I felt magic casted towards me.
I moved behind Aisha, and le it connect with her shield.
As Aisha got pushed back, I held onto her to avoid her falling.
"With that, you have eliminated your own teammate Morgan."
I sat Aisha down, and told her to stay there.
"You said you would behave like a monster, what kind of monster baits an attack like that?"
"Well, first I only said I'm not a monster, not that I would act like one."
"Secondly, the intelligent ones do."
"Always having to have the last word."
With that she gathered magic and rushed me.
She got a few decent attacks in, not that they hit me.
And finally she let go of a third circle wind spell.
"
I grabbed her arm as she let the spell go at close range.
"I got you didn't I? So let me use my spear."
"When did you hit me?"
I cleared up the dust cloud Morgan stirred.
My clothes were completely untouched.
"How, did you?"
"I simply dodged."
"How, at such a close range."
"You're slow."
"Always hating, you're a hater Lucas."
"Well you still lost, so you will focus on magic cast and release speed with me."
"Genoa will keep teaching you everything else."
"Ugh, fine."
I picked up Aisha, and began to put her in front of a dummy.
"This dummy will launch
"Just focus on keeping the arrow's trajectory on your shield."
"I will ramp up the trickiness of the dummy, but I won't increase the strength yet."
"Be careful and good luck."
With that I set Aisha up to train.
Surprisingly there were people here doing the same thing.
So apparently there were some serious and knowledgeable people here.
With that I set Morgan in a room.
"This room has a dummy monster in the center."
"I will set the objective to hunt the monster, without letting your tank die."
I pointed to another dummy.
"The walls have openings to replicate the monster's aoe attacks, be careful of them."
"Alright, good luck."
With that I left to check on Harry's progress.
"Hey get anywhere yet?"
"Yea, I've gotten attack circle, and defense circle down."
"Let's see the cast."
He raised the book.
"Ah, no grimoire though."
"Alright."
He casted the two spells right next to each other barely overlapping.
I attacked a dummy with
Decent damage.
Then I stepped in the attack circle, and attacked again.
Stronger by about 15%.
Not too much.
Then I had the dummy launch a wind arrow at my basic mana barrier.
It glanced off, so I switched it to 3 short cast fire arrow.
My shield cracked a little.
Then I stepped into the defense circle.
And repeated.
The shield showed a noticeable clean surface.
The defense circle had probably increased my shield 30%.
"That's good work Harry."
"Try with the grimoire now."
And we repeated the process, with both circle nearing 50% increase.
"Great work Harry, keep memorizing."
With that I left them to train for 2 hours while I swung my sword and cast magic.
I didn't go wild as this wasn't the place for it.
"Lucas."
I heard a voice calling for me.
"Yes, Charlotte?"
"Are you practicing for the dungeon dive already?"
"Yeah."
"Me too, spar with me."
"Alright."
I readied Isla in my hands, and Charlotte steadied her rapier.
"No royal broadsword today?"
"Nope, I need to work on my speed, and needling skills."
"Ah so you are trying to annoy your opponents."
She smirked.
"Yep, and It will do so much damage to them too."
"Vicious."
"Yep, now come at me."
I didn't waste another word, and cast.
She deflected my basic cast and dodged my more complex one.
"Wow, that was nothing."
So I did the same thing but this time closed distance and swung my sword.
She blocked all of the attacks.
"Again really?"
But that wasn't all, I had cast whirlwind behind her, pushing her forward off balance.
She slipped, and I moved to catch her.
"Ah!"
I caught her before her body even hit the ground.
"Dammit Lucas that was dirty, I don't have eyes in the back of my head, and I was talking."
"I want a rematch!"