The Strongest Spellblade

I stabbed out with a spear Jessica and given me, killing a wood sprite. It let out a shriek as it died, but I had long since learned to ignore the screams and cries of the monsters. It was only a week since we had entered the dungeon, but it felt far longer than that.

Jessica had told me it was killing mind. One got caught up in killing and lost track of time. Nothing too serious as long as one didn’t completely lose their mind. There were pieces of equipment that Jessica had that could keep track of the time and other such useful information.

She told me to focus on my skills and let her worry about our route and the equipment. I didn’t press her on the issue, since she clearly knew what she was doing. I felt dirty, tired, and miserable.

At the end of every day, she would use a cleaning spell, but that was it. “Spending Mana can attract stronger monsters in the lower levels of the dungeon. Also, it is an important resource that needs to be kept in reserve. If you are in a fight for your life, you don’t want to spend it wishing you hadn’t kept cleaning yourself. Once a day is more than enough, even extravagant by some standards,” Jessica had explained.

The stone tunnels changed to other material types with the occasional cavern and other tunnels leading all over the place. I had lost track of keeping any sense of direction after the first day.

“I am leading us to monsters you can handle. You aren’t ready to face more than five monsters at a time. While I can hold off the rest if there is a larger group, there is no point to putting you under such pressure so early on when you can’t handle it.”

Five monsters really was my limit. I had gotten hit, stabbed, and other minor wounds. All of which healed from my healing points that I had in reserve. Each fight felt a little bit easier, but I didn’t stop pushing myself.

I had grown up hearing stories about my mother and the other legends of the world. I wanted to be one. It was probably something I had picked up from the adults, the tone of reverence and awe in their voices when speaking of such people. That was why I asked why it was so hard to get more levels later on.

“Kid, the experience requirement goes up and up. That means you have to fight monsters much higher level than yourself if you are going to keep gaining levels. As that difference increases so does the difficulty. Anyone can reach level 20 with a bit of effort. Crafting doesn’t give nearly enough experience to get beyond level 40, and that is you have the resources to go all into crafting,” Jessica explained.

“Most jobs for people like me are escorting people who have coin to level them up with a degree of safety in the dungeon. Like your father, he got power leveled up to around level 60. After level 60, the cost and time just aren’t worth it, which is where most nobles and rich people stop.” I nodded at this, since it made sense when Jessica explained it to me.

“Then you have the elites around level 80 like myself. Then legends at 100 and supreme legends above 150. This matches up with whatever class you might choose as well,” she explained.

“How did my mother get such a high level?” I asked.

“Fighting by herself in the dungeon day after day, month after month, year after year. She was a relentless one woman killing machine. That is why she has the title of supreme legend. There are less than five known people who have been recognized as having that title at the Last Bastion down on the 20th layer of the dungeon,” she said.

“But she can’t go deeper?” I asked.

“The monsters get smarter. And it is impossible to form a very high level team. There needs to be a high level of trust which just isn’t possible. That is why most legends are solos. Since trusting someone can mean death. Even if it is an accident, the stigma of letting a teammate die is large. You either come back togeather or die togeather if you ever want to work with another legend,” she explained.

It made sense. People didn’t want others betraying them or abandoning them if a fight got tough. I had a long ways to go to reach that level, but it was good to have a clear goal in mind.

As we went down another tunnel that had green crystals growing out of dirt walls I heard noises up ahead. I looked back at Jessica. It was getting easier to see the longer we were down here in the dungeon. My skill was probably improving, but I didn’t look at it. Keeping my word to not look until the three months had gone by and my mother came to evaluate my progress.

“Other people, it is fine. It will be a good experience for you to see how other adventurers struggle even on the first layer of the dungeon,” she said. She stayed in front of me as we made our way through the tunnel to a larger caravan.

There were five teens fighting off eight goblins. Their equipment was shoddy. The leather straps were loose. The armor was heavily frayed and damaged. Their swords and spears had nicks in them. Jessica forced me to care for my equipment every evening before working on mental skills. Even before she would use her cleaning skill. They were also covered in blood, some recent, most of it much older.

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“It is polite to wait on the side in clear view of another team until they are finished fighting. Only stepping in if they are overwhelmed or ask for help, since if they ask for help we are entitled to split the monster cores with them,” she explained dungeon etiquette.

“Their stances and swings are all off,” I said quietly, and she nodded.

“They don’t have someone like me correcting them after each fight. They are tired, desperate, and struggling on the first level. If they manage to leave the dungeon, they will spend most of their money patching up what they have, to head down here again gambling with their lives. If they live long enough they will go down another layer with probably one dying to a champion the first time they fight one,” she explained.

“When will they make enough to stabilize their descent?” I asked.

“When they reach the 5th layer of the dungeon which means getting to around level 30 for each of them. That is when people have either died off or stabilized to a certain degree. Some keep going, pushing themselves to get stronger, go deeper. Others retire and take up other jobs,” she explained.

“Everyone descends?” I asked.

“Most people try, since it is a quick route to having a more stable and prosperous life. Skills and stats make everything easier. The real challenge is that people will get fighting skills going into the dungeon, which is why rich people pay for power levelers like me to disable monsters so they can get the kill and the experience,” Jessica explained, opening my mind to how the world truly worked.

It was one thing to read about this, another to see things in practice. The group of five managed to triumph over the remaining goblins. That was when one of them noticed us.

“This is our kill!” the teen shouted and pointed his sword at Jessica. The rest of the teen’s team turned to face us.

“Just passing through. You can keep your kills. We didn’t want to interrupt you mid-fight,” she replied.

A larger teen stepped forward. He had the best looking sword out of the group. “That is appreciated fellow adventurer. We plan to stop for today and rest, you are welcome to join us,” he said.

Jessica nodded at this. “We will rest as well. Peace for peace, fist for fist,” she said.

“Peace for peace, fist for fist,” the man declared back. Jessica turned her heads towards me.

“It is vow of adventurers to camp togeather in peace and not start trouble with each other. If there is a disagreement, it is settled with fists, not weapons or magic down here in the dungeon,” she explained. I nodded at this. We found an open spot and sat down on some rocks while the team processed the goblins.

“Thank you for your help,” I said quietly seeing them tear apart the corpses to find the monster cores.

“No problem. It gets better once your skills increase, but it is important you see and understand this. You will meet adventurers who aren’t as fortunate as you,” she explained quietly.

The other team finished up and got their packs over by one of the tunnel entrances. They didn’t have a spatial storage item like Jessica did. After they got their packs and whispered to each other for a minute they came over to sit down on nearby rocks, facing us. “I am Kurn. My teammates, Finn, Zane, Liam, and Jace,” the leader said.

“I am Jessica. This is Justin,” she introduced both of us. I noted that she didn’t use titles, just our first names. Another thing to remember. “Do you wish for me to use cleaning magic on all of us?”

“Um, yes, it won’t hurt?” Kurn asked and Jessica shook her head.

“No. But the smell will be much less. There will be some glowing white light, but the dried blood and other monster remains will be removed,” she said. There were no objections. She raised one hand. “Clean.” She repeated the spell once for each of us, leaving us all much cleaner.

I got this treatment every day, but it was clear that the team of low level adventurers had been suffering, since they all relaxed quite a bit after that bit of magic.

“Thank you,” Kurn said, and the others echoed him in thanking Jessica. “Surprising to see someone so young in the dungeon.”

“It is my duty to tutor Justin here. Have you been adventuring for long?” she asked.

“Second time down, but we are managing,” Kurn replied. His teammates appeared to not want to speak. They had probably decided beforehand to let Kurn talk, or it was another bit of dungeon etiquette where only the leaders of each group would speak. I would have to ask Jessica later.

“You are doing decently for a newly formed group. We have dried meat and hardtack,” she said.

“The same, standard adventurer fare, regardless,” Kurn said with a smile and Jessica nodded at this. We had much more than that including a cook set and prepared food that she made me cook with. Squire Jessica was trying to be polite as a much higher level adventurer could. Everyone got out their food and I noticed them looking at the spatial storage.

“How high level-“

“Shut up Zane. Don’t make trouble,” Kurn interrupted his teammate from asking a rude question.

“We are all adventurers down in the dungeon,” Jessica replied, and I noted some nods from the other team. She would later explain that since we weren’t teaming up, it was incredibly rude to ask such a question. The same for making a scene with better equipment.

Since she was power leveling me, even if it was only skill levels, she was far too powerful for this layer of the dungeon. This situation happened often enough that there were basically informal rules that had developed over time. The higher level people don’t stomp or embarrass the lower level people. The lower level people don’t make a fuss or cause headaches for the higher level people.

It was basically like two travelers staying at an inn. We might share the common room during dinner, but we weren’t tied togeather. This didn’t always hold true. There were people who targeted others in the dungeon, especially in the higher layers, which was why most people had a team to protect themselves.

Higher level people were more focused on monsters, since killing other humans wasn’t conducive to leveling. There just weren’t enough high level humans like there were monsters in the dungeon.

Troublemakers and dangerous people tended to linger in the higher levels. But there was the risk of running into someone like Jessica, who could kill them with ease. It was clear she was power leveling me, which explained her presence. But if there was a high level person, without a low level person they were power leveling, then it was clear they were only there to make trouble the vast majority of the time.

With Depth Sense, finding the route down wasn’t that difficult. So, if a high level person was wandering around alone, then they were most likely up to no good.