They had a big announcement for us today. We will soon have our first real fights and subsequently gain our first real levels. Apparently, there's an enormous cave system or dungeon under the earth, spanning even beyond the entire land that humanity still had in its grasp. Entrances to this mega-dungeon existed all over the kingdoms, and there was one near the palace as well. The guards used it for training, and also some high-class schools nearby went there occasionally with their students.
The further down you go, the more dangerous it gets. While there are creatures that even beginners like us can eliminate near the surface, even tier four creatures have been spotted way down low before. Nowadays, however, people rarely go that deep. The dungeon wasn't seen as a threat to the surface world, and going deep was not just dangerous because of the monsters but also incredibly exhausting and time-consuming. The entire thing is like a giant maze after all, and getting lost could quickly result in death. You also had to carry water and rations, camping gear, and all sorts of things that would allow you to stay down there for days. All in all, it was majorly unpleasant. Because of that, nobody, except for paid exploration or rescue missions, as well as some fanatics and lunatics, really went down deep voluntarily.
Despite that, it was still a prime training and hunting ground. Many people earned their livelihood from hunting monsters. If you wanted to level up quickly, you needed to fight strong monster. Going into the dungeon was the fastest way to get to higher-level monsters, which you usually wouldn't find out in the wild for quite some distance, if you even found any at all.
Our trip there is going to be tomorrow. We won't go deep though, just enough to get some real combat experience. Instructor Austen and Instructor Carmelia will guide the expedition, basically getting rid of any real danger and making room for mistakes on our part.
The entire day I felt a faint excitement. Finally it was starting for real. While I didn't necessarily dislike my class, I couldn't help but want to reach the first evolution, hopefully gaining something better than just another uncommon grade class in the process. Just twenty-five levels to reach tier two. It's not that far away.
With another combat-filled day, time passed quickly. Not much new happened today, but it was still exhausting. Exhausting every drop of mana I had was still extremely unpleasant, though it did get a bit easier every time it happened. Seeing that there wasn't much more I could do today, I went to bed early. Of course, the session of meditation that I did every evening couldn't be missed. I still wanted that [Mana Sense], it just seemed so incredibly useful to have. As fate wanted it, however, it wasn't meant to be today either. Giving up after an hour or so, I finally went to sleep.
The night was, once again, dreamless. When the sun peeked through the window, I woke up well rested. The instructors told us that sleep was important and we should be in top form for the expedition today. When you fight tiredly, mistakes happen. Mistakes that can very easily cost your life. It wasn't just for that, though. I liked sleeping and the feeling of being full of energy.
It had been a long time since I felt as good as I did today. Back on earth, I lived as if I were clockwork. The long, repetitive school days drained me, and I almost always carried a certain listlessness with me. That was gone now, though. This disruption of the usual that our transportation here meant was exactly what I needed, even if it took me a while to realize that.
After breakfast, we were told to meet up at the practice field. Interestingly, in this world, almost nobody wore any actual armor. Its usefulness when compared to the simple body strengthening that accompanied every level and tier up was simply too low to have any real benefit. Functional and sturdy, but still breathable and flexible clothes were preferred instead. It shouldn't break in combat, but it also wasn't there for protection. Many people either wore these as day-to-day clothes or, like many other also did, completely disregarded them, and fought in their normal clothing. Especially mages and mage-types often didn't use sturdy combat wear and instead just wore whatever they wanted. If something got close enough for it to be a risk to the clothes, then the clothes ripping or otherwise breaking is the least of the problem in that moment.
There were some exceptions though. While it was exceptionally difficult to do so, as a skilled crafter with a corresponding class, you could make gear and armor that fell under the jurisdiction of the system. That type of armor was reserved for the extremely wealthy or strong though, and far from being the norm.
I didn't want to wear combat wear, I didn't like how restrictive it felt, even if it was designed to be as free and open as possible. And so I didn't. Instead I chose what I always picked. A skirt, a t-shirt, and a cardigan. It would have to do for now.
As I arrived at the practice field, many of my classmates were already there. It was really easy to differentiate what kind of fighting style they each had from their clothing. All the mages, namely me, Aurelia, Dahlia, Carl, Eric, and John, wore our normal clothes and not much else. The only exception was Leyvin, but he wasn't a full mage anyways.
Almost everyone else wore combat wear of some kind. There was only one exception, a girl called Mary Ashflower. She had a bow strapped to her back though, so it made sense. As a [Storm Archer], she wouldn't do much to risk her clothes and just attack from afar like we mages would.
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This was actually the first time that I saw my classmates carrying real weapons, they had instead always used practice weapons in our spars. While real weapons wouldn't have been much riskier, the instructors could always interfere after all, we were supposed to learn to not be afraid of taking a hit occasionally. While getting hit with a wooden sword really hurt, I still had some bruises on me, it taught you to ignore some of the pain and focus on the fight instead. The instructors also had to interfere a lot less, not sure if that was a point of consideration for them though.
As the rest of our classmates finally arrived, instructor Austen stepped in front of us.
"Everyone is here now, so we can begin. As you all know, today we're going into the dungeon below the surface, also known as the Maze or the Great Labyrinth. The name comes from the interwoven layout of this thing. There are a million different pathways to take, and if you get lost, you're as good as dead. For that reason, please always pay attention and never let your guard down. Stay close to the group and don't stray too far away. We instructors might be strong and are there to keep you safe, but we're still not omnipotent. If you pay attention and behave predictably, you make our lives easier and your lives safer. Do you all understand?"
We replied with a short 'yes' in unison. We all knew this already, they had said stuff like this many times before after all.
"Fantastic. If nobody has any further questions, please follow me to the entrance. It's not that far from here, so we'll walk there."
The trip there was uneventful. My classmates chatted a bit, but they mostly tried to keep it quiet. There was a slight tension in the air, a strange mix of nervousness and excitement probably. After what must have been fifteen minutes or so, we arrived at our destination.
The entrance itself wasn't that fancy, it was basically just a big hole in the wall of a big rock that was integrated into the surrounding terrain. Were it not for the big hole, nobody would bat an eye at it. The only thing separating the inside from the outside was a grid of thick metal bars that left a sizable hole for a thick door in its center.
As we stepped inside, the whole thing felt a bit dreary. It was almost a complete atmosphere change, like you stepped into a different world. The air was a bit damp, and there was a slight chill, though not enough to be considered cold. Every surface was made of rock and extremely uneven. The floor, walls, and ceiling flowed seamlessly into each other. To be honest, it looked more like an unusually wide natural cave than anything else.
We were already briefed on what we should expect when it came to monsters. On the upper levels, it mostly consisted of [Dark Wolves], [Spiderlings], and [Slimes]. At least here where we were. Other entrances had some other creatures, but the general trend was similar. They were all very weak, and we shouldn't expect any monsters higher than level 9 for now.
About five minutes in, we had our first encounter. Before us stood a dog-sized creature whose silhouette resembled that of a wolf. Probably a [Dark Wolf] then. A quick [Identify] confirmed my guess and told me that the creature was apparently at level 2.
"Who wants it?" Instructor Austen asked us.
"I'll take it." Blake answered immediately, as if he had already expected that question. Maybe a bit unfair, but we couldn't really complain. He was the [Hero] and he did respond first, after all.
"Great, it's yours then."
Blake grinned before pulling a nice-looking sword from the sheath strapped to his waist. As he charged at the creature, it also started charging at him. The fight itself was rather unspectacular. The creature was weak and far from being a match against the legendary [Hero] class that Blake had. An iridescent sheen enveloped his sword as he slashed at the wolf. It futilely raised a paw in an attempt to block, but it was useless. It wasn't fast enough to do that anyways, and the slash cleanly separated its body into two halves. One attack and it was over, just like that.
"Good job on your first kill [Hero], it was a clean execution."
Blake resheathed his sword again, not even a single drop of monster blood clung to his sword. We didn't have to deal with the body either. Instructor Wyn told us that magical beasts like this [Dark Wolf] were inherently different from normal lifeforms like humans. Unless explicitly processed through a harvesting-type skill that preserved their persistence, their corpses just dissolved after a while. No idea how that works, but it's pretty convenient. If it weren't for that, everyone would have to somehow get rid of every slain monster's corpse. If they didn't, it would start to decompose, and nobody wanted that stench anywhere near them. Monster parts were also necessary for crafters like smiths to create weapons and other gear that was subject to the system.
For that reason, there existed harvesting skills as part of some classes or achievable as general skills, which were used to extract and preserve the most important parts of the monsters. None of us had one though, and the [Dark Wolf] wasn't valuable in any way. They were really common, and even ordinary humans could slay them if they had sufficient gear.
In the next couple of minutes, we encountered some more monsters. A [Spiderling, Lv. 3] that was slain by Leyvin with a well-placed wind blade, a couple more [Dark Wolves], also level 2 or 3 each, and some slimes. The slimes were mostly left to us mages. They were weak to fire magic and made good prey for us. They were also extremely languid, so the risk was basically nonexistent.
We continued inwards, further down the slight incline of rock that curved every now and then. There weren't many branches yet, and if there was one, it was significantly tighter than the main tunnel was. We also didn't mark where we came from. Many other groups had passed here beforehand, and every branch was marked with an arrow that pointed back towards the exit we entered from.
After I grilled a spiderling with a well-timed [Minor Fireball], I remembered to check my status screen. I should have leveled up by now, I slew quite a lot of those creatures already.
I checked, and apparently I was level 3 now. I didn't feel much different physically or mentally. If there was an improvement, it was slight enough to not be obvious to me. Maybe it also only came gradually and not immediately with the change in level. Despite that, the only thing that changed was my mana. As I was now at [76/130], I probably gained 15 maximum mana per level. I leveled up twice, so I jumped from 100 to 130. Seems reasonable enough to me. The maximum mana I gained did not fill up the reserves, though. It only expanded them by thirty, which is why my mana was not even sixty percent full right now.
