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Chapter 16: New adventurer

  James sat up on his second morning in his new home. He was ready to get used to the farm. Every farm was a bit different, and it was getting close to harvest time so he would need to get on top of things quickly. He looked out the window. He'd woken up before dawn again. He built a small fire and put a pot of water on to make porridge again. He might have to make a trip to market lane at some point to get some different food. And to find a place to sell his milk.

  He went out to take care of the animals, only to freeze in shock. What kind of seeds was Old Man Douglas planting?!? And why in the animal pen!?!?

  Coming up right in the middle of the animal's pen were a few giant stone fingers. There were more fingers, then hands, then arms that were probably thirty feet tall! The animal pen was completely destroyed, as was the fence around the haystack. Fortunately the animals were still meandering around, most of them were munching on the hay. James walked around to the far side of the hands, where they were the tallest. There was a tunnel leading deep into the ground. James could see a little ways, but then it looked like there were a bunch of vines blocking his view. He didn't want to deal with this. In fact, Marcus should probably deal with it.

  James jogged out to the road, and was lucky enough to catch a quickly moving cart. He ran up and jumped on, waving a hello to the person driving. They smiled and waved back. Soon James was in the town. Fortunately it seemed like this cart was going right past the big building! As they passed it, James waved goodbye to the driver, who didn't see it, and jumped off. He quickly headed into the building, planning on heading to the fifth floor to talk to Marcus.

  Instead, Marcus was in the front hall. He was giving commands to an army of runners. When he saw James he smiled at him, but then went back to giving orders. James walked over to him. "Hey Marcus, I have something I need to talk to you about."

  Marcus grimaced. "Now is really not the best time James. Somebody dug under the wall during the night and we can't find the exit anywhere."

  James blinked. "Uh, I found it."

  Marcus froze. "You what?"

  James nodded. "That's what I needed to talk to you about. They burrowed up on my farm."

  A few minutes later they were at his farm, everyone staring at the massive tunnel. James had never thought they could move that quickly through the city. Marcus had actually pulled them, and they moved far quicker than with any animal James had been pulled by before.

  As they were looking at the tunnel, Marcus started giving orders. "You, go get the builders. We need a fortification around this pronto." "You, go get me the three reserve squads from the wall." "You, go tell the head of training at the academy that we are on high alert. No dangerous training until I say otherwise." And so on.

  James watched for a few minutes. Pretty soon some builders arrived. They finished disassembling the animal pen and wall for the haystack, and started preparing to build a fortification.

  "Let's GO, people! This dungeon gave us time to react, let's make the best of it!"

  Marcus walked over to James, then stood next to him and looked at the dungeon. "Well, well. This was unexpected."

  James nodded. It appeared the dungeons had a feud with him. First his compass challenge, then his village, now even in the middle of the fort the dungeons figured out how to come mess up his life! "I'll say. I seem to be a magnet for dungeon problems."

  Marcus chuckled. "You've never heard of anyone where a dungeon came up on their private land, have you?"

  Finally James had had it. "No, no I haven't! I never did anything to the dungeons, but they seem absolutely determined to work together to ruin my life! First they try to kill me, then they destroy my village, kill my family and everyone I love, and now they've come to ruin my life in the freaking center of an impenetrable fortress!"

  Marcus chuckled again. "Well, it usually only happens to nobles who have more land than they know what to do with. What's important to you is that the guild gives a percentage of all loot that comes out of the dungeon to the owner of the land it emerges on. Which eventually becomes a LOT of money."

  James' jaw dropped. He was going to get a percentage of all loot found in the dungeon? Even if that was like a tenth of a percent, he would eventually become super wealthy!

  Marcus continued. "Certainly more than enough to help you become an adventurer." James’s spirits soared above the trees, until Marcus brought it to a crash landing. "It will take a while before you get that much though." Then he looked slyly at James. "Still, I think the guild would be willing to loan you enough money for you to become an adventurer and get some starting gear, just to make sure we start out with good relations." James' hopes were even higher than before.

  Marcus quickly scribbled down a note stating that James was to become an adventurer. He signed it, then handed it to James. "There's a class that started at the academy last week. The next one doesn't start for six months. You'll have to work hard to catch up, but somehow I don't think motivation will be a problem for you. Now hurry on to the academy while I figure out what to do with this pain in my side."

  James took the note, said a quick "thank you" and ran at a fast jog to the academy.

  He arrived at the academy in record time. He figured the big administration building Steven had called boring would probably be the best place to go to get started as an adventurer. He walked in the front door. He saw someone he recognized! As she looked up from her papers, he realized it was Susan!

  She smiled. "Well hello there! Fancy meeting you again! What do you need this time?" She joked.

  James chuckled. He was still on cloud nine that he was about to become an adventurer. "I actually could use some help. I have this note from Marcus saying I can become an adventurer. Where would I go to go about that?"

  Susan smiled. "I'd wondered if I would see you here eventually. I guess I get to be the first to say welcome to our newest adventurer! I can help you out with that. Follow me." She walked down a hall, leading James into a small room. "Wait here, I'll be right back." She walked out. There were a few stools in the room. James sat on a stool near the desk.

  Susan walked back into the room a few minutes later. She was carrying an artfully carved stone case with a hinged lid. She placed it on the desk, and sat on another one of the stools. "OK, so as I'm sure you know, becoming an adventurer is quite expensive. The first reason, as you've probably guessed, is gear. From armor and spellbooks to bags of holding, adventurers need some high value items. But those are actually secondary." She tapped the case. "I'm going to tell you about how we got what's in this case. It all began long ago, before there was any adventurer’s guild. It wasn't long after the wars following the annihilation of the dungeons. There were few adventurers, and the process to become one was far different. There was no guild to help you get started. You just walked into a dungeon and began fighting. Eventually, if you survived, you would undergo a change. You would unlock magical abilities that gave you strength above what normal men and women could achieve. If you reached that point your chances of death dropped significantly. To reach that point, however … not a lot made it. This all lasted until one day, a relatively strong adventurer got a vial as a drop from a dungeon’s boss. It was filled with a glowing liquid."

  She opened the case and pulled out a vial. "Filled with this liquid." The vial was glowing a dim white. It wasn't bright, but James could definitely see the glow, despite being in a well lit room. "Go ahead and examine it, see what he saw." James did so.

  "Huh?" It definitely wasn't water.

  Susan smiled. "Exactly. No one has ever seen anything other than 'Water' when they examine this liquid. Yet it clearly isn't normal water. The adventurer had no reason to drink it, but he put it in his pack anyway. He left the dungeon and went to eat at a nearby inn. While he ate, the vial was seen by a young stable boy, tending to the adventurer’s horse. The boy, dreaming of adventure, drank the vial, despite not knowing what it was." Susan paused. James looked at the vial. He imagined being a poor stable boy, seeing the vial. It clearly had some magic. It appeared the pull of adventuring was enough to offset the fear of the unknown for that boy.

  Susan continued. "He immediately gained the abilities someone who survived enough dungeon dives gained. When the adventurer returned, he of course noticed that the vial was gone. When he discovered what it had done for the boy, instead of punishing him for taking the vial, the adventurer took the boy under his wing and trained him. The adventurer went back to the same dungeon again and again. The vial didn't drop every time he defeated the boss, but he was soon helping those who wanted to become adventurers avoid much of the danger. Quickly, the demand for the vials exceeded the number he could get. Knowing he needed help, he arranged competitions to find those best suited to adventuring, and gave the vials to them, along with a charge to help others in return."

  Susan smiled. "That adventurer was Fillard Hingdore, founder of the adventurer's guild. Ever since, that dungeon has been used to provide an easier way to unlock the abilities of an adventurer. Still, the supply is limited. The dungeon only produces vials occasionally. And originally, if a vial wasn't used within a few days it would lose its magic, going back to being truly water like it says when examined. Eventually an adventurer discovered that if placed within a case made from dungeon-hardened stone, the magic would last. Now the vials are sent from the dungeon that creates them to the various guild strongholds to create new adventurers."

  As Susan finished her tale, James sat staring at the vial of glowing liquid. He knew drinking that vial would change his life forever. Susan proffered the vial, and James took it. The vial was slightly warm. Not hot, just warm. James removed the cap of the vial. Well, here goes. Down the hatch! He drank the entire vial in one swallow. It tasted like … water. He could feel a faint tingling as it went down his throat. He felt it settle in his stomach. That wasn't too bad. Suddenly there was a strange heat coming from near his stomach. It certainly wasn't comfortable, but James had experienced far worse. Then, suddenly, it was like a dam had burst.

  He screamed and fell off of the stool, curled up in a ball on the floor. It was the phoenix all over again! He was completely filled with fire!

  Susan stood up in shock and walked over to him. His back arched and he started flailing on the floor. "James! James!"

  He couldn't have answered if he'd wanted to. All he could comprehend was the pain. Suddenly a blast of fire shot out of his hand, hitting the wall of the room. Susan's eyes widened, and she backed away, summoning a shimmering magical shield. Just in time, as the next blast went right towards her.

  The fire felt like it was in his very veins! Occasionally another blast of fire would emit from some part of his body. Over time the burning lessened. It felt like hours, although it was probably under a minute. Eventually all of the fire was out of him, and James lay on the floor, panting and sweating. Susan cautiously approached him.

  "I think you'd better explain what just happened, as well as why you were just throwing phoenix fire all over the place."

  James lay there for a couple more seconds, catching his breath, before he sat up. "I have no idea." He looked at his menu.

  He stared. First, he hadn't taken any damage from that? How? And second, he had three menu alerts! Those were rare, and only occurred when you did something strange. "I don't know what just happened, but I have menu alerts."

  Susan nodded. "The vial will give you a menu alert, yes. But it should've been painless, and definitely shouldn't have made you shoot phoenix fire everywhere!"

  James shook his head. "I have three alerts." Ignoring Susan's look of shock, he opened the first one. As Susan had predicted, it was a notification due to taking the vial. It explained that he'd unlocked mana and two new stats, INT and WIS, which affected maximum mana and mana regen speed, respectively. It wasn't very long, and didn't seem unusual based on what he knew. He read it out loud, and Susan nodded. "That's standard."

  He moved on to the second alert. This one was far more interesting.

  That was … insane. The benefits were incredible for fire spells, but it looked like he wouldn't be casting any spells other than fire, light, or air spells. Especially not any water spells. He looked at his third alert.

  This was getting insane! His fire spells would be insane, but he was now also weak against water spells. He looked at his compass, curious. Indeed, he had unlocked other benefits.

  Well, James decided he probably wasn't going to be a rogue. At this point it was basically required for him to become a mage. He realized Susan was still waiting for his answer. "Sorry, I was reading the alerts. Um, well, I fought a phoenix a while back, and the alert says I apparently trapped some of the phoenix fire in my, uh, mana channels. I'm guessing somehow the vial let said fire escape?" He shrugged. That was his best guess.

  Susan's eyes widened. "You fought what? How did you fight a phoenix as a non-adventurer and survive?"

  James scratched his head. He didn't want to reveal his compass if he could help it. "Uh, belly flopped it into a lake?"

  Susan blinked. A couple of times. "So, you're saying you just grabbed it and belly flopped into a lake?"

  James nodded. "I landed on top, but it got me pretty good before we hit the water. Apparently some of the fire has been stuck in me this entire time."

  Susan shook her head. "Well, the vial does open your mana channels, so if the fire was somehow trapped in there that would probably have released it." She looked at James one more time. "I guess now you go to class. I bet you'll catch up pretty quickly, the first week or so is finding your mana channels, and based on what you just said I'm guessing you probably know right where they are."

  James certainly knew where the fire had been traveling, yes. He followed Susan out of the room and down a hall. As they walked, James thought of something. "Hey Susan? What do you do here?" He wondered if maybe she was a teacher for mages. He remembered the shimmering shield she'd called up, although he hadn't paid much attention to it.

  Susan smiled. "I'm actually in charge of the academy. I run everything here. It's actually fairly easy." She glanced at him. "Number one rule of being in charge of something? Have good subordinates. I have people in charge of running all of the different areas, and I only need to get involved when something affects two of them or the rest of the fort. Keeps a lot of the work off of me."

  James stared. She was in charge of the entire academy? What was it with him and just randomly running into important people? Still, before he could say anything, Susan opened a door in the hall. "Hey, Matt. Here's someone who's joining your class. And I need to speak to you for a moment."

  A man walked out. He glanced at James. "Just grab any empty seat. There are plenty." He then looked at Susan, who waved James in.

  As James entered the classroom, he did see that it was mostly empty. There were only three other people, two guys and a girl, all of whom looked about his age. They all were sitting quietly, James wasn't sure what they were doing. Still, he walked in quietly and sat in the back. As he walked, one of the guys waved to him. The other one looked asleep, and the girl was focusing and James didn't even know if she'd noticed him.

  James sat down, and the others went back to … whatever it was they were doing. James wasn't sure what to do, so he looked at his menu again.

  He definitely was stronger than that morning, although the only thing he currently could use was the increase in constitution. Still, once he learned some spells and skills, he would be a lot stronger.

  Just then Matt walked back in. Everyone glanced up, even the person James had assumed was asleep. "Keep searching for your channels." Matt said. The others went back to whatever they were doing, apparently searching for these "mana channels", whatever they were.

  Matt waved for James to walk up to the front of the room. When James got there, he gestured to another seat by his desk and started talking quietly. "OK, so Susan tells me you are allowed to join a bit late, but that you have a bit of a head start in that you have some idea about where your channels are. Sound accurate?"

  James nodded. Matt nodded, then continued. "She also said that despite kind of knowing where your channels are, you don't really know what they are. Right?" James nodded again.

  Matt nodded. "OK, well, what this first week is all about is finding those channels. Then after this week there are normal classes. Classes at the academy are super simple. If you want to join almost any class you can, that's why the guild taxes loot you get from dungeons. You can even miss classes without any problems. Still, the instructors move quickly, and won't slow down for someone who's been skipping classes."

  He thought for a second. "As for mana channels, in your body there are limited paths the mana can flow through. Once you find them, you know, but finding them the first time is a bit tricky. First you have to find your mana pool. Most people feel it in their lower chest area. It should feel like a reservoir of power. See if you can find yours."

  James thought about the fire he'd felt. There had been one spot with far more heat than anywhere else. Perhaps that was this "reservoir" Matt spoke of? He tried to feel inside of himself. He remembered right where the burning had been. He just … had … to … got it! He suddenly felt the same area he'd felt with the fire. But now, instead of burning pain, James had the impression of trapped power. It felt like a dam right before it burst, or the last second of blowing up a balloon right before it popped. James could tell this reservoir was filled to the brim, and adding any more would probably be a bad idea. "Found it."

  Matt had turned back to the papers on his desk, and he looked at James in surprise. "Really? Usually that's the whole first day! You keep moving like this and you'll catch up quickly!"

  He thought for a second. "OK, now for finding your mana channels. Basically if your mana travels anywhere but your mana channels, it will pretty much immediately break apart and disappear. So basically, start sending bursts of mana out from your pool in random directions. Once you find a direction where the mana doesn't break apart for longer, that's probably a channel. Try sending more mana down it, finding the paths where it doesn't break apart. Generally people have a channel to each hand, each foot, and to their head, specifically eyes, ears, nose, etc. These are the areas you can send mana to do various things, like strengthen your muscles or sharpen your senses or cast spells. Really, what is commonly called 'skills' is just sending essence to the right parts of your body and doing something with it. Eventually it becomes almost instinctive, and you can do it in seconds. That's when we say you've 'gained a skill', because that's when it's actually useful in combat."

  He thought for a second. "So for now, try and find your channels. Later classes are where you work on using mana in productive ways, but it doesn't work if you haven't found your channels."

  He turned back to his desk and James started looking inside of himself at the pool of mana. He had a pretty good idea where his channels were, the feeling of flame rushing through them wasn't something you forget easily. He decided to go with the one through his right hand first. Then he realized he didn't know how to move the mana. He figured the only option was to think about it moving. As he did, it kind of twitched, but didn't really respond. He thought about how he pushed his menu to open, and tried to do the same thing here. He gave a mental push on the mana. The pool of mana seemed to slosh around a bit, but not much. James realized he'd been trying to move the whole pool, and envisioned moving just a drop.

  This made it far easier. Soon he had a drop moving down his channels. He knew where his channels were, but he still wasn't great at controlling the mana so it inevitably hit one of the sides of the channels and broke apart. Fortunately his core refilled quickly, so he always had plenty to practice with. Soon he was easily able to move a drop of mana around his channel and back. It turned out his channel didn't actually go to his hand, it was actually a loop. But it went right next to his palm, and as one of his drops was moving past it James gave a mental shove and sent it through his palm.

  It cast a slight glow and gave off a small amount of warmth before fading away. It actually reminded James of a tiny ember floating on the smoke of a fire. Matt looked over from his papers. "Nice job! You got one. Again, that's usually at least a few days' work, but it looks like you're a natural at this. You can go sit down and work on finding the others. We aren't going to do much more today."

  James went and sat back down on the back row. He continued practicing on the right arm until it became super natural. Then he moved to the left arm, figuring it would be very similar. It was, and before long he had that one down as well. He moved on to his feet. Again, it wasn't long before he could easily move a drop of mana around the loop and back into his core. Then the other leg. Again, pretty quick. He had one strange moment where he accidently lost control of the mana and it went into a muscle in his leg. Suddenly the leg jerked, kicking the desk in front of him. Everyone looked up at the loud sound. He grabbed the leg where it had hit the table. "Sorry." He grunted. Everyone went back to what they'd been doing except the one who'd been acting asleep. He still watched James. James held onto his now-sore leg. He'd kicked the table hard! If a single drop of mana had made him do that, he could see how adventurers could do such inhuman stuff.

  Pretty soon the soreness wore off. Thank you, accelerated natural healing! He went back to working on his mana channels. He practiced the legs a bit more to get them down, then tried the arms a bit to make sure he was still good with those. Once he was confident with those four he moved on to the one going to his head. Again, he found it fairly easy and just had to become familiar with it. This channel was more complicated than the others, as it kind of spiraled through his head. It hit his right ear, up behind his right eye, down through his nose to the left side of his mouth, across to the right side of his mouth, back through the nose, behind his left eye and past his left ear before dropping back to the pool. With the more complicated path, he wasn't too surprised when a bit of mana got out of the path and sunk into his nose.

  Suddenly he smelled everything! It was cool for a split second before it absolutely overloaded his nose and made him sneeze. Then again, harder. The third time he sneezed so hard he smashed his nose on the desk in front of him. Again, everyone was looking at him. "Sawy," he apologized, though it sounded kind of strange as he was holding his nose. Everyone again went back to what they were doing, except the one person who kept watching him.

  Pretty soon his nose stopped hurting and he went back to practicing. He slipped up one other time, but the essence went into his ear, so he didn't make a fool of himself. And in the quiet room it wasn't too overwhelming, either. Still, he could hear everyone breathing, and heard Matt as he was muttering while doing whatever it was with his papers. "What if I … no, that doesn't help. Maybe if I were to use the … no. Oh, what if I start by …" he trailed off as he started writing.

  Pretty soon James was super familiar with all five paths, but now he was confused. The fire had burned one more place. He sent some mana down the channel. At first it matched up with the channel he called the senses channel, but then when the senses channel broke off to the right to head to the ear, this new path kept going straight. It went straight to his brain, then back down to the pool. Now James was curious. He purposefully sent a drop of mana into his brain.

  Something definitely happened, but James wasn't sure what. It only lasted for a split second. James sent a bigger drop of mana. Again, something happened, but it was over too quickly for James to figure out what it was. James had an idea. He practiced sending a stream of mana through his channels. Instead of a single drop, he now had a small but steady flow of essence traveling along the path. It was harder than a drop, but not by a lot. The mana seemed to prefer flowing like that, like a stream, instead of all at once like he'd tried at first.

  Now that he could do that, he sent a stream up and into his mind. This time, with a steady supply of mana, the effect stayed. James still wasn't sure what it was until he noticed Matt's pen moving super slowly. He glanced at the clock behind Matt. He watched as the second hand sloooooowly moved to the next second. Then sloooooowly to the next. Time was moving slower! Or, really, he realized, he was just perceiving it faster. He glanced inside of himself at the mana moving. It was strangely still moving at the same speed. In fact, the pool was getting low! He watched the clock tick one more time before his mana ran out.

  Suddenly time was moving normally again, and he had a massive headache. He groaned quietly and leaned back in his seat. He held his head. He noticed Matt look up, facepalm, and walk to the back of the classroom. He walked over to James and squatted down. "Um, I forgot to tell you this, but I would recommend not using the very last bit of your mana. That leads to something called mana exhaustion. At the least it causes a headache, but once you're casting stronger spells it can cause major problems, even death." He grimaced. "Probably should have told you that before you gave yourself a headache. Sorry."

  James nodded to him. "It's fine. I've had worse." While it was a pretty bad headache, it couldn't really compare to phoenix fire burning through his channels. Maybe that's why all of the pain since then had felt strangely dull. Even the headache wasn't that bad, it had mostly surprised him.

  Matt nodded. "Well, as a bit of good news, the vial you took to become an adventurer also dulls pain. That's why adventurers are able to keep fighting with wounds like missing limbs or arrows sticking out of them."

  So that's what it had been. James had assumed it was his improved healing, because every time he'd hurt himself it was a sharp spike of pain for a moment, but then it dropped off after only a second or two. "That's handy."

  Matt grimaced. "True, but it leads to one of the least enjoyable training exercises. Learning to instinctively know how much damage you just took."

  James wasn't sure he wanted to ask, but curiosity was killing him. "How do you train that?"

  Matt smiled like he was in pain. "You take damage and feel what it feels like to take various amounts. It involves lots of getting hit with weapons and spells, guessing how much damage you took, getting healed, and repeating. Not fun, but pretty important in a dungeon. You can't be constantly checking your menu to see how much HP you have left in the middle of a fight."

  That … didn't sound fun at all. Still, James could see the point. You had to know how much HP you had if you wanted to fight. Matt walked back to the front and James thought about what he'd been doing right before that. It seemed like putting mana into his brain made him process faster, but also used up mana insanely fast. He'd been basically full of mana, and had gone through all 100 within a few seconds. Still, he could see how it could be useful. Especially since he'd noticed his mana's movement sped up with his perception.

  He waited a few minutes to regain some mana and started practicing again. This was going to be awesome.

  Would you be interested in a patreon? I don't currently have plans for one, but if there was enough interest I might make one.

  


  


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