With two swords on my hip, a proud grin on my lips, and eagerness to test my newest creation I stepped through the portal, once more lamenting that the travel it caused didn’t feel any different from walking through a doorway. I stepped onto the green again grass, knowing it would be browned and dry by the end of this four hour session. Sat in the grass across from me, a hundred feet away, was Rhosha’s effigy. She sat calmly meditating, though as I approached she opened her eyes and tilted her head.

  “A new sword?” At my nod she scoffed. “And what of your assignment? Have you made new spells yet?”

  “Well, no, you see -”

  “I don’t care for excuses Alexilios. Let me see the weapon. Share its details with me.” Her voice gave no room for argument. Her face was still contorted to a frown.

  I passed the sword over to her, still sheathed. The blue and white sheath was pretty under the perpetual sun of the training facility. It was simply a wide open plain, with little cloud cover. Temperate and calm winds made it that much nicer, despite the warm sun still beating into my shoulders. As the sword master took my weapon from me I shared the details of my final attempt. I still had enough material for a smaller blade, one that I’d likely make for one of my teammates, but I wouldn’t be making something quite like this for a while yet.

  Cyclonic Saber

  Crafted within the turbulence of the Maelstrom Forge by Alexilios, the Hero of Linden

  Mistral Momentum: Gain speed and efficiency of movement with each uninterrupted technique.

  Cyclone’s Charity: Wind mana poured into this weapon grows more powerful for each spell cast through it. Feed the breeze and it will become a Whirlwind

  Torrent’s Fang: Wind mana drags downward along the edge of the blade, carving through anything it touches with eager abandon.

  “I see. A decent weapon. Your forgework could use some work though. The pattern isn’t perfect, though I understand that it is cosmetic.” I took some pride in Rhosha even calling my weapon decent. While I felt it deserved more than that, I couldn’t fault her critique. She was used to arms and armors created by experts in their crafts. With my relatively low levels I wasn’t up to the level she wanted to see.

  “Thank you Master Rhosha. I -”

  “I wasn’t finished. You disobeyed me. New instruction. You will complete three new spells before you begin another project. Next, You will not craft a new weapon for yourself until you surpass the level limit. As in, until you are past level one twenty five in both of your classes. You must take time to master the weapons you already possess and a new powerful sword will not aid you in your quest for mastery over bladed weapons. Lastly, find a healer if you can. There are few within the kingdom that are powerful enough to heal your hand, but you will want for it before the tournament. Am I understood?”

  “Yes Master Rhosha.” I replied solemnly, taking her words to heart.

  “Good. Now, what were your gains in levels from making this sword?”

  “I haven’t checked yet. One moment.” I hadn’t really thought to check it yet, being far too tired the night before and too eager to show off the weapon.

  [Compendium Actualization] LVL:62 ->74

  [Secondary Class]

  [Wayfaring Craftsman of the Tumultuous Maelstrom] LVL: 36 ->48

  [Secondary Class Skills]

  [Runesmithing] LVL:36 -> 48

  [Runeweaving] LVL:21

  [Ephemeral Forge] LVL:36 -> 48

  [Runic Inscribing] LVL:36 -> 48

  [Maelstrom Modification] LVL:34 -> 44

  [Arcane Analysis] LVL:25 ->27

  [Detect Metal] LVL:8 -> 16

  X3 Unavailable

  I shared with her my gains, surprised to see that [Detect Metal] had increased despite me mostly tuning out the information it provided. There was a thread of disappointment that my efforts hadn’t been enough to pass fifty levels, but otherwise I was fairly happy with my gains.

  “I see. Yes. You will focus on leveling up your class every other day, the other days will be spent creating new spells. Your class’s greatest benefit is your versatility, yet you are pushing yourself in a single direction. Most of your spells are replicates but with different affinities, but none of them take particular advantage of their elements. A flame blade will never be as potent as a wind blade. A wave of water will never be as powerful as a wave of flame. At least, not by themselves. Find what makes each of your affinities unique and you will increase your capabilities tenfold.”

  “Understood Master Rhosha. I’ll do as you say.”

  “Oh, and in the evenings work on your meditation. That skill can evolve eventually into one that allows you to visualize past conflicts or other combat styles so you may train while you rest. Figure out how to evolve it, but if you get stuck you may ask me one question about it per training session. Now, We should focus on training.” She grinned and rose up, holding my saber in her hand and removing the sheath. “Shall we see what your new toy is capable of?”

  She waited not for my reply, and what followed were three hours of getting battered as she grew faster and faster. My blade clashed with hers dozens of times before I was no longer capable of keeping up and then we traded weapons. She began to teach me the formations for a kata - a series of techniques that made up a more traditional style. She did not tell me the name of the style, but that this series of techniques was considered the first dance. Crane dance, she called it.

  It was a calm style derived from staying aware and perceptive on the battlefield, one used to test one's opponent and create time to craft a strategy against others. It used minimal movements to dodge and parry. The dance was primarily defensive due to these factors, but it was effective as I quickly learned.

  Rhosha, during all of this, kept breaking every spell even as she told me to keep casting. She didn’t so much as explain what she wanted from me but it was clear she was used to teaching through trial and error. Every time a spell would be broken and I suffered backlash she would only give me a half of a breath to recover before showing me where my defenses faltered.

  I still hadn’t managed to fire off a single spell, not even a quick one, as she forbade me using [Compendium Actualization] while we trained. The combat training was harsh, and grew harsher as I left and returned the next day, and then the next. With each day that I trained with her she sped up, she fought me harder, never allowing me to gain an advantage.

  In the time after training I spent every other day smithing, crafting a few hundred arrowheads for Eva. Although I didn’t add any enchantments to them in general, I would experiment with [Maelstrom Modification] and pour my intent into each arrow head individually, each one gaining an enchantment based on the mana I poured into it. Because the arrowheads were not overly complex to make and I wasn’t filling each one with runes, my class only leveled up once, but I could feel that it was getting close to its next level and hopefully a new skill alongside it.

  The rest of my time was spent in the tavern pouring over my notebooks, eager to complete my ideas for a few spells. What she had said about me not embracing the attributes of my spells and instead growing complacent with copying spells for the different elements. I took all of my learning from Kricket, learning more of the Frith runes in order to craft a spell that would adopt the volatility of the language and exacerbate it.

  The first spell I crafted in this fashion was the one of defense. I had been leery of making a spell devoted to defense with flame mana, unsure how I could defend myself with something that held little physical resistance. After a bit of thinking, and two weeks worth of research, I came up with something. A flame wall, one that surrounded me on all sides. I made one from both runic languages in order to have a more powerful variant that worked quickly or to have a separate one that gave me a long moment to recover and reevaluate a battle.

  I had made no progress on the other two spells at this time, but Rhosha reminded me that I had time. The path to power was either fast and rife with danger, or long and winding, filled with patience and learning. I tended to combine the two, taking on challenges above my level and sometimes being forced to sit back and take my time learning new techniques. There would be time to challenge myself soon, now I had to take the path steadily.

  I also took a bit of time to deliver the other two swords to Orvack who had yet to sell the flaming longswords just yet but had received many offers at a lower price. They were pretty pricey for folks at my level, especially for a weapon one would only use until the late one fifties unless they tended to fight weaker enemies. The swords would still be useful for dealing damage to higher level enemies, but would be worse in general than buying a new sword crafted by someone who had evolved their class.

  Five days after she started to show me the crane kata, She began to show me what she called the second dance. The Osprey kata. It was a dance filled with small, fast shallow attacks to slowly weaken an enemy while also taking advantage of larger openings to deal a fatal or near lethal blow to one’s enemy. This dance was a little bit less fluid than the Crane kata, but still used minimal movements when allowed.

  She taught it to me by leaving tiny openings that I could take advantage of, and forced me to relent by stepping back into the Crane kata after a strike. Like an osprey I was forced to swoop in for an attack only when there was such an opening, to take advantage of each and every opportunity to inflict some damage to my enemy. When I wasn’t attacking, I reverted to the crane techniques and defended, dodged, and waited until another opening came up.

  It was only after these couple of weeks of training and crafting that Eva, Rose and Leshal asked me to come along to another dungeon. It was called “Heart of the Wyrmwoods” and had me excited for a variety of reasons, much of which were the same as Eva’s reasons for wanting to tackle it. Wyrmwood was a sort of magical wood that could only be gathered from the sentient trees that were made of it. In particular, this dungeon was a hefty source for the lumber and where most adventurers near Ironfell could find it.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The wood had a variety of properties that could be exploited; from various alchemical uses to harnessing and channeling mana better than other types of wood. All wyrmwood trees were also sentient, which made them ever more difficult to harvest. But, since we were heading into a dungeon, even if I charged the ents with my flames we would still get the drops from it. This was mostly due to how the dungeon was set up, and the dungeon creator also typically gained far more wyrmwood that was then recycled to keep creating ents through a process I wasn’t privy to. Someday perhaps I’d learn more of dungeon creation, but it wasn’t a priority to me.

  Either way, I found myself excitedly waiting for my companions as I sipped on a warm cup of energizing tea. I had already eaten breakfast and had packed up my notes a while ago, unable to concentrate on spell creation as I waited for my party to arrive. Almost exactly on time, all three of them shuffled down the stairs and found me in my booth. There were a few other parties sitting and chatting as they prepared for their own journeys and quests, and several others who seemed to be drinking off a hangover already.

  “Eva! Give me a rundown on this dungeon again?” I called out as she neared, hoping to receive a frustrated grumble. Instead she simply answered.

  “The Heart of the Wyrmwoods is a dungeon created many years ago that has become the primary method to gather wyrmwood, save for delving deep into the Deepbloom forest. Not all trees within the dungeon are ents, but that will be most of the monsters we will fight. Aside from them, there are many poisonous plants, and various herbs that can be used in alchemy that we may wish to collect, as well as shrubgeists. The ents primary weakness is, you guessed it, fire and the dungeon spans hundreds of miles in all directions. There is only a single boss, no variants, and our primary goal is to gather as much of the wyrmwood as we can before killing the boss, as once it is defeated and we receive our reward we will be booted from the dungeon. Any further questions?”

  “No. Seems straightforward.” I said dejectedly, grumbling under my breath as the group sat and ate their breakfast. Luka and Sky eagerly took any scraps they were fed and then we were off.

  After a short time we collected Luna from companion daycare, as I liked to call it, and found ourselves in front of the purple portal. I checked my back one last time, ensuring I had food, water, and most importantly space for the loot. I also had a bedroll as when I did read about this dungeon a week prior I saw it sometimes took teams several days to find the boss’s grotto.

  “Okay Lios, lead the way. Not sure how but you made the spider dungeon easy, let's see if you can do so again." Rose patted my shoulder and I shot her a lopsided grin.

  “Aye aye captain! Wait, who is team captain?” I asked before backing up through the portal, going from a well regulated building filled with a half dozen portal doors and into a towering and dense forest. The sounds of birds and squirrels chattering reverberated through the massive trees beside the rustling of leaves.

  The temperature was mild, with low humidity contrasting what I had expected. Trees tended to trap heat beneath the leaves even as they blocked the sun, but this forest seemed to be fairly temperate. The others quickly filed into the dungeon after me, looking around with a bit of awe. The shortest tree near us was easily a hundred feet tall and would take a dozen people holding hands to wrap around its trunk. I chewed on my lip a little bit, thinking. Massive. If the ents are this huge I wonder if we will be able to deal damage.

  “To answer your question, Alexilios, I am the team captain.” Rose said confidently as she recovered herself fastest from taking in the view.

  “As if. It should be me.” Eva scoffed heavily, a teasing glint in her eyes.

  “Ladies ladies, Leshal and I will be happy to take orders from either of you.” I grinned as I started off in a random direction. “What's our formation? I know you three practiced some.”

  “You’ll be in the lead several feet ahead of us so you can cast spells if needed or bounce back to defend us. Leshal will stay just ahead of Rose and I. I’ll stay in the back with Luna in my amulet until we need her. When we start to fight, Luka and Luna will defend Rose and I, with Luka calling to you if we need any help.” Eva spoke with confidence, having clearly thought through the best formation for our party.

  “Got it. Let's get to it then.” I flared [Portent of the Thaumaturge], showing me that all of the trees in the immediate area were normal. I started to walk through them, weaving between the various trees until one was flowing with mana. I indicated it to the group silently, and drew my sword.

  Like the rest of the trees, this one was massive. Visually there were no real differences between this tree and the rest, save for the fact it was slightly shorter than the others. That didn’t mean much, it still appeared to be around seventy feet tall. It had large spindly branches and thousands of green leaves covering them. From a distance it would look like an oak or maple tree but as I got closer I could see silver behind the bark.

  Wyrmwood came in a variety of shades, each one powerfully magical. From my understanding, silver wyrmwood tended to be weaker physically but could hold more mana than the golden variant which tended to be physically stronger. Platinum wyrmwood was harder still and could hold more mana than both the previous two. There were other forms of wyrmwood as well, often noted by a different name. Entoak, azure sycamore, and others were all wyrmwoods of a sort though they tended to be lower tier and less pure than the ones named after metal.

  “Hey Eva, what was the recommended level for this dungeon again?” I asked quietly, feeling a touch nervous as I watched the silent behemoth ahead of us.

  “Level one fifty four. I know we are a fair bit underleveled but we can leave if this fight grows too dangerous.” She said nonchalantly, shrugging her shoulders as the party prepared for the fight.

  “Got it. I’m going to attempt to burn this fucker down, stay back. Leshal, got any ranged attacks? Might do you well not to get too close to me.” With that I stepped forward and began a runedance as I approached the massive tree. I spelled out the runes for “Visceral Conflagration”, eager to see how my spells and swordsmanship might hold up against a larger and higher level enemy.

  As I got within fifty feet of the tree, about five runes away from finishing my spell, I felt the roots begin to lurch and the tree begin to rise from the earth. It pulled itself out from the ground with a creak and a groan of wood, cracking emphatically. I hurried to complete the dance as two glowing yellow eyes blinked open and the trunk split into two halves, forming a mouth. The crackling of the bark as the silver insides of the tree were revealed sounded as though the tree were being felled.

  “Call me a lumberjack cuz you're going down.” I called out lamely, not even getting a snort of amusement from my companions. Mana poured through me and into the sword, activating my false flame aura. Instantly red orange flames surrounded me, and a second later as a tree branch came whipping into my view my aura turned white, conflagration activated.

  I pushed off with a burst of strength and speed, narrowly dodging the tree branch as it collided with the earth and sent dirt flying into the air. In retort, my blade fell like a meteor and slashed through the tree branch, the ambient heat coming off the blade in waves drying and engulfing some of the nearby leaves in fire.

  The ent screeched in pain and lurched backwards, pulling its flaming branch away from me. As it did so, I felt more than saw several roots coming toward me through the earth. As they came close to my feet I stabbed into the ground, piercing one of the roots and causing the ent to screech again, birds fluttering high into the sky past the tree cover. In the distance I heard the creaking of other ents as they woke up, but paid it no mind.

  With the heat vision portion of my enhancement I saw the fire slowly burning through the roots of the ent. Its other roots, poised as they had been to tie me up, retreated as the tree slowly backed up. It could hardly move due to its nature, but its massive appendages could crash into me and that was what it tried to do. A branch that hadn’t been lit swung toward me forcing me to leap backwards and parry the blow, burning my blade deep into the thick branch as it too caught flame.

  Around me, some of the foliage started to ignite as well, and I saw Sky, on my shoulder, redirect the flames toward the ent by fanning them with her wind. It was a pretty minimal influence but the fire quickly spread toward the tree as it continued to wail on me. The sound of slowly moving trees getting slightly nearer, but not so fast that they’d be able to reach us in time to help this one.

  It took around fifty seconds of me dodging the creatures unintelligent, flailing attacks before the fire caught up to the base of the tree, setting the bark aflame. I had thought its creaking and screeching was loud before, but quickly came to realize it could be so much worse. The monster yowled sharply, loudly enough to burst my eardrums. Despite [Pain Resistance] tears crept to the edges of my eyes as I lost all sense of sound. A trickle of warm viscous liquid trailed down from my ears, and I felt Sky shudder in pain.

  Still, she fanned the flames, bolstering them as they enveloped the ent. She twisted the wind, creating a cyclone and rushing the fire up the body of the tree, its bark catching flame easily despite its greenness. As the massive oak was turned to charcoal, it thrashed and roots flew from the earth to strike us, to stop those who would destroy it. Disoriented a sI was, it took more effort than I expected to duck and dodge and weave away from the roots.

  One of them managed to catch me in the gut, flinging me into another tree, this one not burning. As I lay there dazed and dizzy another root flashed toward me to turn me into a kebab. I saw it at the edge of my sphere and tried to rise up, only to find that another root had taken me by the wrist and waist. I hadn’t even noticed them.

  Panicking slightly I tugged at the root and called out to Sky but it was too late. As she cut the root I was able to twist a little bit, but still the root stabbed deep into my gut. It didn’t quite tear through me. I expected my aura to set the root aflame, but belatedly saw my sword had been dropped at some point. With my wrist free I growled, even as the root pulled me back toward the main body, whipping me through the air.

  I drew my saber, untested though it was, and started to hack at the root binding me. It was difficult to connect any blows, moving as I was through the air. The jerking motions disrupting my concentration, that and the likely concussion I suffered when I hit the other tree trunk.

  I was screaming as it slammed me into the ground, dislodging me from its grasp. Hurriedly, despite the likely broken bones throughout my body, I rolled away as it attempted to stab me again. Then I pushed off the ground as roots poked through the earth and attempted to stab me. None made it. The roots were all moving frantically, recklessly attempting to hurt me, to kill the person who hurt it. But they were slowing, they were slowing and they were growing weaker. Panting, attempting to breathe even though I was fairly certain there was a small hole in my lung, I backed away toward Rose and the others.

  As I left the trees range I watched as it tried to lurch in our direction, from barely a hundred feet away I watched as it stumbled and toppled, crashing into the ground. Its trunk was completely ignited at this point. The tree writhed and wriggled in pain as it tried to reach us with its roots, branches, anything.

  Once I was close enough to the group I felt Rose’s healing magic washing over me. I collapsed with my back against another tree and turned my attention to the burning tree. I don’t know how long I sat there before sound gradually started to return, for me to hear the dying screams of the slow tree. Nor do I know how long it was before the monster collapsed with a thud, tilting and growing silent before it crashed into the ground.

  Once it started to quiet down, I glanced up at my team and gave a wry grin. “Might be a touch weak for this one, aye?” It hurt to speak, my ribs had yet to repair themselves and my body was bruised all over. My lips were cracked as well, and my muscles were strained from using the enhancement spell. WIthout my aura to protect me I could feel the heat of the flames from where I sat.

  “Perhaps a little...” Eva trailed off, looking dejected. From a look at her quiver she had been firing arrows throughout the fight but they likely didn’t do much.

  “At the very least... I can see why the others couldn’t fit you into our formation well...” Leshal looked between me and the massive tree we had felled. We chuckled at that, though chuckling still hurt my chest.

  “The real question is, now that we know how they move and how tough they are, do we leave or keep going? I still need more healing, but once I’m all healed up I can probably go for another round.”

  “No, we should leave. Lets go collect your sword and the wood and get out of here. Come back when you are stronger, and maybe have armor.” Eva said decisively. “It's not worth the risk. Especially when you're likely the only one among us who can hurt it.”

  “I agree. My hammer is unlikely to do anything about those trees. Plus, I'm only level seventy five in my second class, I’d like to wait until we are all at the level cap before we try this dungeon again. Even then it may be a bit of a struggle.” Leshal backed Eva up.

  “Got it. Well, let's go see what we got for this effort.” I started to stand, groaning slightly as my bones were still not fully healed. In fact, many of them were still broken, but I could power through it. It was tough, but doable.

  I hesitantly walked toward the dropped loot from the ent. Part of me expected the other ents to have caught up, to have moved here, but Luka confirmed they were far away yet, being able to sense their roots under the earth. Soon I was standing above the rewards, wishing that we had fought an ent outside of this dungeon so we could get more lumber out of the deal. As it stood, there was enough silver wyrmwood for me to create five sheaths and handles, or for Eva to make dozens of arrow shafts if needed. I swept it away into [Ephemeral Forge] partly wanting to continue to fight the trees despite my injuries.

  “Well then, shall we head home?” I asked as I shared the details of what we got. It felt a paltry reward for the fight I had just had.

  “I suppose we should.” Leshal caught me as I stumbled, nodding agreeably.