'Anticipating her to move first, I enhanced my leading leg to prepare a swift dodge. Her stance was interesting, her right arm extended as if to judge her range and left close to her cheek, both hands open she looked ready for any attack and prepared to counter. She stared me down with a gaze that could see through me.'
'I took my loose stance and counted down to start the fight'
"3"
"2-
'Ignoring the countdown, a red aura gathered on her left arm and a rapid left straight came for my face. Barely shifting my body in time, I narrowly slipped the punch, it connected with my ear cutting it and leaving red hot pain. She enhanced both hands and threw three punches. I enhanced my right hand, parrying the first two and dodging the third.'
'She is fast and can enhance two limbs, I am at a huge disadvantage. It also seems she's not giving it her all. Knowing our strength difference I will have to outsmart her.'
'My right fist enhanced, I threw two jabs of my own. She swiftly dodged them both and faked a punch with her right hand. Seeing me react to the fake, she kicked high aiming for my face. Her kick had a red aura needing both my hands to stop it from landing. A punch connected with my right cheek immediately after I blocked and left me dizzy. However I was still awake. I put some distance between us to gather myself.'
'Its good for me that she has knowledge in kicking. I might have found my path to victory. I stepped in closing the distance and faked a kick on her right thigh. She lifted her leg to check it as I hoped. Right as her leg was about to touch the ground again I used my left foot to sweep her leg from under her. She fell and I charged forward to finish the fight. Just as I got in range she hopped off the ground and headbutted me in the nose, following it with a left hook to the chin. My Vision went dark and my body dropped to the floor.'
'I woke up in the bed of our inn and the first thought that came to my mind was 'damn she's strong.' I was simply outclassed in every area. Casey was sitting in the corner of my room waiting for me to awaken.'
"You fight well. Once you get the hang of enhancing we will move forward and go passed the forest outside the walls. Then our journey will truly start."
'Noticing nothing was hurting including my back from the fight with the lord. I assumed she got the machine working and healed me. "How much did you get for selling the mystery artifact?" I asked forgetting about it until now.'
"200,000pc"
"A good deal, did you see what they got?"
"No I left immediately. If I hung around and they got something bad they would complain and try get a refund, and if they got something good… well I would be taking it back, and keeping the money of course"
"Wild beast" I mumbled quietly so she wouldn't hear.'
"Anyway I paid for a month in this inn. From now we train every day to strengthen eachother and improve our enhancing. We will then set out."
"Sounds good" I replied with a smile.'
'And we did exactly that. After a whole month I got pretty good at enhancing. After two weeks we went from bare hands to training with our daggers. Of course she was excellent with them and I lost every time. She is going to be a valuable teammate. My combat has become more fluid and I can feel how much I have improved after just a month.'
'I often talked to the owner of the inn whose name I found out is Morgan. We became friends over the month of our stay. He is really interested in adventuring again but cant due to his Father's poor health. He's running the inn to pay for a doctor. I tried to convince him to join us and that we would make him enough money to pay for it in no time, but he couldn't risk trusting our words.'
'Our time staying at the inn was at its end. We collected our belongings and prepared to leave. Before we departed I wanted to try convince him one last time.'
"Are you sure you wont come with us? We will be conquering dungeons and towers on our journeys we really will make a lot of money."
"How can only two young people hope to conquer dungeons? Even with me it sounds like an unlikely task." He said with a sigh.
'I was a bit confused by what he said. I know adventurers usually explore and attempt dungeons and towers with at least a team of four but Casey could probably clear the dungeons around the city on her own and I bet I could do a few solo aswell. Were we that strong compaered to the others?
"We cleared one the first day we came here and got a potion machine for a reward" I said hoping that would be enough to make him even consider joining us.'
"You lie, no dungeon around the city has been cleared for the last 3 months because the Dungeon Lord's have been getting stronger not many have dared challenge them and those who have, failed. I keep in touch with the association and no signs have been cut down either."
'My face dropped and darkened rapidly. We forgot to cut the sign. After you clear a dungeon you are supposed to cut down the sign that the association issues and wrote your names on it so they can see who cleared it and confirm the conquest of said dungeon.'
"Ah we forgot to cut it" I said with a smile and scratched the back of my head.
"If you tell the truth then adventures have been complaining about you two. Some have entered that dungeon to see it completed but the sign still stands. I have sometimes watched you two train I know you two are strong, but that that lack of experience makes me worry."
"Come with us anyway, you know deep down you were born to be more than an innkeeper." Light shone in his eyes after I said this to him and for the first time his voice had a bit of life in it as he said,
"I want to I really do, and the past month I have come to like you both but I cant abandon my Father for my own selfish reasons."
'I understood deeply what he was talking about. His situation is the basically the same as mine was except- my train of thought was cut off as he spoke again'
"But,… once I pay for my Father's treatment I will join you. To prove that I am serious take this." He leaned to me and pinned a small blue circle inside my armour and told me it was a tracking artifact.'
"Leave for your adventure and when I am ready, I will catch up to you two. I swear."
'Satisfied with that We locked it in with a fist bump and Casey came to the lobby.'
'I explained Morgan's situation and we left to begin our first true adventure. We left the potion machine in Morgan's safekeeping as its too big to bring with us, we stocked up a few potions just incase.'
"Take care Morgan, and I will see you soon" I said as we walked out, he waved us off and we left the city. Casey had gotten supplies of food and water before we left and bags to carry them in that we wore on our backs.'
'Outside the walls, we once again ventured past the forest that surrounds it. We passed the dungeon we conquered and cut the sign leaving our names on it and continued forward. A few days of travelling and we had gotten out of the forest by climbing a hill and reached our first new lands.'
'It is a place I do not look forward to traversing. It was a desolate land of sand, a vast desert that stretches as far as I could see. No wind blowing the sand was still and hot from the beaming sun that had no shade to cover its rays. Very different to the forest where sunlight was hard to get. There were sand piles scattered around as high as mountains.'
'We began our journey through it and I was already drenched in sweat from the insufferable heat. A short while of walking later we could feel rumbles near us. Looking around we drew our weapons. The rumbling came closer and soon was beneath us. Me and Casey shrouded our legs in coloured aura and just in time hopped away from it.'
'Up it came through the sand, a huge worm like creature that had scales made of iron and rows of sharp teeth at the mouth ready to impale. Our first enemy of the desert presented itself. A Sand Scavenger.'