Chapter 29

Just shy of the first anniversary of our arrival in Dia, my party stood before the dungeon entrance for the last time as unevolved delvers.

“Everyone ready?” Mike asked after being given the ‘go-ahead’ by the Association representative.

We’d gone through this process so many times over the last year that I’d pretty much lost count at this point. Moments later, we stood on the twentieth floor of the dungeon.

Beginner floors changed themes every five levels. The first five contained ‘rooms’ with a forest theme. Floors six through ten were actual caves and tunnels with rivers of lava and veins of various ores scattered throughout.

Actual safe rooms resembling oases started appearing after every tenth challenge room around then as well, making it easier for parties to remain in the dungeon for longer.

Floors eleven through fifteen resembled an abandoned underground mine, though there were far fewer resource veins in the actual mine than there were in the lava tunnels.

The ground-dwelling mobs also shifted from having fairly normal defenses to creatures with stone or metal armoring of some sort. It made defeating them a bit harder, but it wasn’t anything our group couldn’t handle.

Floors sixteen through twenty were more reminiscent of the first five floors of the dungeon, though they had larger jungle-themed rooms instead of the small forest rooms we’d encountered in the beginning.

Really, it was more of a forgotten grotto theme than an actual jungle, especially since the lighting for each room came from floating fairy lights and embedded crystals instead of a false sun.

The skillbooks dropped seemed to somewhat follow the theme of the floors, though there were a lot of random other skills mixed in, likely influenced by the prior affinities of me and my fellow Ascenders.

I’d picked up a lava-based skill on the eighth floor, a metal-based skill on the twelfth floor, and an illusion-based skill on the nineteenth floor. I’d ultimately just purchased the last of my new skills – Gust, which most people considered little more than a utility skill than anything meant for actual combat.

Because the skill was considered so weak and there were better utility skills that provided a similar function, the skillbook had been relatively cheap, which the frugal part of me had appreciated.

I wasn’t the only one who’d gained a few new skills, both from the dungeon and the skillbook vendors. We’d all added a few skills to fill the new skill slots we’d earned through leveling.

Pulling up my status, I looked over the changes that the last year had brought.

***

Name: Emie Neohim
Titles: Ascender (hidden), Contender (hidden)
Level: 198
Evolution: None

Core Skills:
Demesne (Epic)
Stasis (Unique/Uncommon)
Restorative Healing (Epic)
Lightning Bolt (Epic)

Skill Slots (15/19):
Divide Space (Unique/Rare)
Dimensional Anchor (Epic)
Teleportation (Epic)
Herbalism (Uncommon)
Haste (Rare)
Repulsion Aura (Rare)
Telekinesis (Rare)
Identify (Uncommon)
Enchanting (Rare)
Ice Blade (Rare)
Eruption (Uncommon)
Shrapnel (Uncommon)
Cooking (Uncommon)
Minor Illusion (Common)
Gust (Common)

***

Every skill except my most recent two had upgraded at least once from where it started, though some were distinctly harder to improve than others.

Like Demesne. After the upgrade I’d gotten automatically after the first demon attack, the skill had refused to upgrade further, no matter how much I pushed it.

The size continued to increase slightly with every level that I gained. There were a few times when I pushed the skill really hard and managed a moderate expansion, but the description and rarity of the skill refused to change, no matter what I did.

Herbalism and Identify were similarly stubborn when it came to upgrades. Both had improved to (Uncommon) a few months after Stephen joined the party, but no matter how often I used them, they refused to upgrade further.

It was frustrating.

Conversely, both Restorative Healing and Lightning Bolt had seemed almost eager to upgrade, as had most of my time and space-based skills. The only real exception was Stasis, but I had a feeling that would change once the skill actually evolved.

I’d finally given in and slotted Cooking once it became clear that I wouldn’t likely fill all of my skill slots any time soon. The skill had started at (Uncommon), likely because I’d tried enchanting effects into my ingredients more than once.

It hadn’t worked, but the effort must have been enough to push the initial skill rating to the next level. Or maybe I was just better at cooking than I realized.

Dismissing my status, I looked around the familiar space. The fairy lights twinkled almost playfully above the verdant grove, causing the small fountain at the center of the safe zone to look as if it were sparkling.

“I think I’ll miss these floors when we move on,” I mused, before starting my harvest. “At least, I’ll miss how pretty they are.”

It was routine at this point to harvest anything of value as we made our way through the dungeon, and it didn’t take long for the four of us to collect everything.

“The next floor starts the open floor plan with other parties,” Stephen said with a grimace as he stored the last of the sour berries growing next to the fountain. While edible, the berries were mostly used as an ingredient for stamina recovery products.

I knew that Stephen was still a little wary about using his shifting skill around others. He’d managed to upgrade it at least once, recovering even more beast forms from his old realm.

Stephen had mentioned that he had the option of selecting beasts from this realm instead, but he’d opted to go with creatures he was already deeply familiar with instead of learning how to use something new.

“It won’t be that bad,” Cora said confidently. “The dungeon only allows five parties per instance, and each floor is supposed to be large enough that none of the parties should get in the way of each other unless it’s intentional.”

Because Dians were a lot like humans, such interference was much more commonplace than anyone wanted to admit.

I glanced between my party members. We’d all kept pretty steady pace with each other, mostly by having those lagging behind do extra delves or work toward improving their skills, which automatically granted a level.

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Even having four empty slots, I still had quite a few more skills than the rest of my party members. To avoid getting too far ahead, I started storing my share of essence cores instead of absorbing them.

Since beasts didn’t have the same limitations as Dians, I planned to give my future asolade beast companion the cores I’d collected to help it level.

While I’d had enough money to acquire an asolade for months already, I’d ultimately decided to wait until I reached the first evolution before adding such a responsibility.

I knew Stephen was inclined to acquire a beast companion after we were officially ‘adults’ as well, but I wasn’t sure Cora and Mike would follow suit.

It would be kinda fun for everyone in the party to have a beast companion of one sort or another, but I was the only one with a storage space capable of housing said companions.

There were beast crates and beast bags capable of storing pets when it might be inconvenient to have them accompany their bond, but the good ones were often far too expensive for even steel rankers to comfortably afford.

I didn’t mind holding all of the party’s pets – a fact I made sure to let them know – but I got the sense that Mike and Cora didn’t want to rely on me for something like that.

My situation with Stephen was a little different.

Once I’d made my interest in the man clear, we’d become pretty much inseparable. We still maintained our own residences, for now, but that would change after we left the dungeon. In fact, we’d both already cleared our apartments in anticipation of our upcoming evolution.

Since we’d no longer be unevolved, we wouldn’t be authorized to live in the building housing unevolved delvers. We also wouldn’t be entitled to free room or board, which meant we’d have to start paying like every other delver living in the Dungeon Complex.