Chapter 4

My first meal in my new realm consisted of a variety of edible greens and berries foraged from the path between the safe zone and the first ‘room’. My efforts in identifying and collecting my meal resulted in another skill offer, this time, for Herbalism.

I should have probably expected something like this since I’d held the skill in the simulation and knew a great deal about low-grade herbs and edible flora. And while it wasn’t on my list of skills that I planned to take, I had built in a buffer of sorts.

My experience meant that I knew the value of the skill, and I immediately recognized it was worth making an exception for. I still wanted a general identification skill since Herbalism only provided information on flora.

Identify, or one of its analogs, wouldn’t provide much more than the name and grade of a plant, so the skills wouldn’t overlap by much.

Eventually, any information skills I gained would likely combine. But even if they didn’t, Herbalism was a good skill for any delver to have, especially one who had access to stasis storage.

Not only did the skill inform on which plants were edible, but it also provided information on any effects a plant might grant. For Chefs, Alchemists, and the delvers interested in supplying them, the skill was invaluable.

With that in mind, I accepted the skill.

After eating my fill and storing the rest, I focused my attention on recovering the first of my target skills: Haste.

My experience working with time magic made gaining a skill offer for Haste almost as easy as regaining Teleportation. Haste was just a little bit harder since I wasn’t just folding space. Instead, I was manifesting and holding a tight aura of altered time around my body.

Just speeding my thoughts wouldn’t have done enough. I needed to be able to move faster as well.

I was tempted to add a bit of lightning magic into the effect, but I realized that doing so would potentially add unexpected side effects, and maybe even harm the skill’s progression.

After pushing the limits on what I could manage manually, I finally accepted the system’s skill offer, regaining one of my core combat skills. Unfortunately, my new Haste skill only let me move about 25% faster than normal.

It was nowhere close to the speed at which I’d been able to move at my peak, but 25% was nothing to scoff at. Against an unsuspecting opponent, a quick burst of speed could make all the difference.

Barrier was next. I didn’t want a solid barrier that merely tanked hits. I wanted a reactive barrier that deflected magical and physical attacks while also making it easier for me to move.

I layered the magic a bit differently this time, focusing more on the force aspect of space, which I felt would work better to redirect incoming attacks. If I was correct, my new skill would also work to cut down on wind resistance by naturally redirecting the air around me.

What I ended with was something closer to a force field, though the system actually labeled the skill as Repulsion Aura. I tested everything several times before accepting the final version offered, and was pleased when the skill appeared in my status as an Uncommon skill.

The last of my former affinity-based skills that I planned to acquire right away was Telekinesis. Using the force aspects that I’d reinforced while creating my last skill, I managed to move a small stone by forcing the essence around it to propel the stone across the safe zone.

It was a crude application, but it was enough for the system to recognize the skill and offer it to me. I practiced with it for nearly half an hour, hoping to increase the weight that I could affect or push the skill offered to the next rarity. Neither occurred, and I eventually gave in and accepted the skill as it was.

Slotting the new skill felt a lot like clicking a puzzle piece in place. What was difficult and mentally straining before now seemed as simple as moving a limb.

There was definitely a limit on the size, weight, and number of items that I could move at one time. After a bit of testing, I discovered that my current limit was one small, relatively light object, though I felt like I could push those limits a bit if I really tried.

There was also a limitation on the distance at which I could use the skill, but even that was a significant improvement over the rough application I’d managed on my own. I felt confident that with dedicated effort, the effectiveness of the skill would grow quickly.

With that, only Enchanting remained on my list of skills that I could recover without a skillbook. Unfortunately, I wasn’t even sure that I could recover Enchanting before leaving the dungeon.

Thinking back to the simulation, I was fairly certain that I’d need an enchanting focus to learn the skill. I seemed to recall needing such a device until well after I’d reached the first evolution. Even then, using the small, stylus-looking focus made enchanting significantly easier.

I’d still give it a try once I collected some material to work with, but for now, I was done with my efforts to recover my previous skills.

I left the safe zone after resting for a bit. The light was still bright enough that I wasn’t concerned that the dungeon would shift to darkness anytime soon. That happened on floors that were meant to simulate outdoor biomes.

When the light started fading, most would be forced to return to the safe zone or shelter in the hallways between rooms. However, the latter could only be used if both rooms on either side of the hallway had been cleared.

That was something I’d learned in the simulation, and since magic wasn’t supposed to have changed significantly, I assumed the loophole still worked.

However, a delver couldn’t just remain in the hallway indefinitely, even if they were injured.

The rooms would reset during the eight or so hours of darkness, and the dungeon usually only gave someone about an hour or so after dawn before the mobs within the connecting rooms would sense them and attack.

The same applied to lingering in hallways during daylight. Hanging out in cleared rooms was a much better option as long as you didn’t stay until the light started fading.

If the reset began before you left a room, the respawning mobs would follow you and attack. And killing them only caused them to respawn.

The dungeon wouldn’t even wait for the bodies to be looted, nor would the respawning mobs suddenly forget you were there, even if you’d retreated to a hallway. It created a very dangerous situation.

Needless to say, I had no intention of remaining outside of the safe zone when darkness fell. But, luckily for me, I had access to a true sanctuary where I could retreat no matter how deep into the floor I might be.

I’d already harvested most of the herbs in the hallway, though I did take a bit of time to explore the now-empty first room since I hadn’t bothered to forage after killing the squirrels.

Once I’d gathered everything that appeared to be of value, I followed the path to the end of the room and continued as the space shrank to only a few feet on either side of the path. The false hallway was fairly short, only extending a handful of meters at most.

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Stopping just before the confined space expanded into a large room once again, I searched around the path, hoping to see what mobs the dungeon would send as its second challenge.

The squirrels hadn’t been all that difficult, and I didn’t expect this room to pose much more of a challenge. The mobs could be the same, but more numerous, or completely different. There could also be more squirrels and something else. There was no real way to know until I stepped inside.

The movement of underbrush along the pathway was the only warning I got before a shin-high barker launched itself at my legs.

Barkers were named such because they collected bark as both a nesting material and a source of nourishment. If I recalled correctly, they mostly nested in the older bark and ate what they collected from living trees or freshly fallen branches.

Interestingly enough, the small creatures made little yipping noises when they were agitated that sounded a lot like barks, too, though it wasn’t the same word as the outside of a tree in the Common tongue.

Outside of the dungeon, barkers were skittish creatures that rarely interacted with people. They would only attack if they had no other choice. That wasn’t the case for dungeon-born barkers, or any other dungeon creature for that matter.

They looked a bit like gophers, but with thick, oily fur instead of the soft coat that gophers from home had. They also had larger mouths and longer claws, which they used to great effect when they were forced to fight.

I teleported a few steps away and knocked the barker to the side. They were somewhat resistant to blunt force attacks due to the way the oil reinforced their fur. It almost worked like a non-Newtonian fluid by hardening on impact and distributing the force.

Knowing that, I quickly swapped to my spear and targeted one of the few truly vulnerable areas on the beast – its soft underside.