Chapter 49 – Magic Test

"That's a neat weapon you have there. Do you know how to use spears?" (Dream)

"Ya. I'm a healer, but we still need to know how to keep ourselves alive. And since we use staffs, we also practice the spear since they're similar." (Lory)

"Very cool. I never would have thought of something like that."

Lory smiled brightly at Dream as he thought about how intuitive it was.

"Hey Dream, what did you think of those rats? Could you guys take them?" (Elisa)

Elisa spoke as she walked up to him. Dream turned and could see Ryan cutting off the hands of the rats.

"We could. Though if the groups got bigger, we would need to be careful." (Dream)

"Well if you're confident, why don't you guys take the lead on the next group. If there's four, we'll take care of one, leaving the rest to you guys."

"That works. Just let us know which one you got."

"Sure." (Elisa)

"Yay! I'm excited to see you fight." (Lory)

"I'm also interested in your archery." (Carla)

"She speaks!" (Dream)

Dream put on an astonished face as he looked at Carla.

"Wha..? I introduced myself in the guild, of course I speak! What, did you not listen to me or something?!" (Carla)

"Hahaha, just messing with you." (Dream)

Dream chuckled as Carla got annoyed. The others also got a giggle.

"S-Stop laughing!"

"Hehe, Carla is shy." (Lory)

"Shut up! Ugh..." 

Carla blushed and walked away, putting her hood over her head.

The group got moving again and soon encountered another group of 5 rats.

"We got two. You guys take the others." (Elisa)

"Alright."

Dream answered and spoke in the channel.

'Alright, We each take one. Their hides aren't as strong as the bear's. So that means you won't have to worry about your ice lances not piercing, Luna. And Iris... I'm actually not sure how you planned to deal with them.'

'Well first, I was planning to transform back into a fox. Is that fine?' (Iris)

Ya, it should be. They know since you guys have your masks on.'

'Okay! And I was planning to fight melee. I know they got sharp claws but my body has gotten tougher, so I should be okay.'

'Umm...'

[It'll work. As a result of her [Devour] skill and [Predator] class, her body has been changed to accommodate such a style of fighting.]

'What she said!'

Sophia chimed in to explain to Dream. Iris agreed as she couldn't have explained it better herself.

'Oh, okay. Just be careful.'

'Yay!'

Iris quickly transformed into a fox. When everyone saw, they were surprised.

Dream was also surprised. This was because he saw that Iris looked different.

Her biggest change was her fur. The red tint was even more pronounced and glowed brighter, as if hot embers were underneath her fur. She was also a bit bigger. Her claws and teeth were much sharper as well.

'Why?'

[Let's just say her evolution didn't only happen in a day. Because of the path she's traveling, it took longer to change her body unlike the magic oriented Luna. She continued to evolve for a while after she got her class.]

'Gotcha.'

Dream nodded and thought that she really did look more like a predator. 

Soon after transforming, Iris charged towards one of the rats. She pounced on one and bit into its neck. After that, she began to breathe fire, incinerating the hair and making it easier to tear the flesh apart.

At the same time, Luna formed some ice lances. These lances were different, being easily created and much more streamlined than before. This was the result of Sophia helping her with magic.

Dream also took out his EM rifle. He quickly raised it and fired at the 3rd rat.

*Dsh*

<You killed a level 62 [Earth Rat]>

<You have gained experience!>

The body of the rat went limp, dead before it hit the ground. Apparently their skulls aren't as sturdy as bear's.

Luna, on the other hand, wasn't able to pierce her rat. This was because the rat raised a wall of rock, blocking the lances. The rat then went around the wall to continue to attack, but was met with more lances as soon as it turned the corner. They pierced its head before it could even react.

Iris was also finishing up. The rat couldn't survive for long under the barrage of sharp claws and super hot torches. It soon dropped dead with chunks of flesh on its neck gone or burned.

"..."

Altogether, the battle took several seconds. The rest of the group was astonished. Half the reason was because of how fast it was, the other was because of how effortless it seemed. Other than Iris who had a more brutish approach, Luna and Dream didn't even move from their spot, killing the rats from 30 meters away.

Ryan and Elisa turned to them when they were done.

"That was...good." (Elisa)

"Just good?" (Dream)

"Well...It was much better than I thought. I didn't expect it to be so easy for you. It seemed almost lazy. Which is good. Though I didn't expect Iris. That threw me off a little."

"Oh, thanks."

"Hey, Dream." (Carla)

"...Y'all hear sum?"

"You heard me, asshole! What was that weapon you used? That wasn't a bow."

Dream chuckled and turned around to the annoyed Carla.

"It isn't a bow. But I'm going to call it that. It's a special weapon and it's hard to explain, so I won't."

"Hmph, fine."

Carla huffed and walked away. It was rude to pry into someone's combat ability, and seeing how Dream wouldn't explain, she backed off.

"Well, now we know you guys can take care of yourselves. You'll need it since we're about to walk into a harder area. Enemies may get past us and attack you guys." (Ryan)

"That's fine. On our next encounter though, let's capture one." (Dream)

"Oh right, you said something about an experiment. Alright, let's keep going." (Elisa)

After Ryan cut off all the hands of the rats, they kept walking and came across a group of seven. They quickly got into a fight.

The battle went well with basically everyone taking one. In the end, two were incapacitated by Ryan and Iris.

Dream walked up to the one whose limbs were chopped off by Iris.

"So you needed to test some magic?" (Lory)

"Kind of."

Dream gave a vague answer and put his hand on the screaming rat. Sophia went to work.

[Searching for skills... Two skills found. [Basic Earth Magic] and [Keen Smell]. How would you like to proceed?]

'Hmm, well neither of these skills can help me. Break them down though.'

[Understood. Beginning Emulation...]

Right after that, the rat in question let out a horrifying scream.

*SCREEEEE!!!*

"Damn! Right in my ear."

Dream flinched as his super-sensitive hearing took the full brunt of that scream. The others though were less concerned about the scream than why it was screaming like that. 

The rat thrashed with every ouch of strength, but couldn't resist as Dream pinned it to the floor. Surprisingly, Dream could detect fear coming from the rat. He guessed that they weren't totally without an ego.

After a full minute of utterly desperate screaming and trying to bite Dream, the rat stopped.

[Breakdown complete.]

<The skill: [Basic earth Magic] has risen to level 25!>

<[Sophia] has leveled up!>

'Oh, sweet.'

Dream was pleased with the unexpected gain. 

[Since its level of Earth magic was higher than yours, you got the levels.]

'I can also feel the insights gained from doing so. It feels weird having knowledge just put in me though.'

Dream felt the weird sensation of understanding come to him. All this time, he had worked for his skill level-ups and understood it as it leveled. But this time he took the knowledge from something else and just...got it. 

As Dream sat there thinking, the others were baffled.

"What the hell did you just do?" (Ryan)

"Huh? Oh, just some magic of mine."

"But why did it scream like that?"

"Well, my magic isn't exactly painless. At least not in the way I used it."

"..."

Ryan stared at Dream, suddenly feeling a bit threatened by him. Anybody who could cause any animal, monster or otherwise, to scream that way wasn't someone he wanted to get on the bad side of. Not even chopping its limbs off caused something like that, so what the hell was he capable of that could drive an egoless animal insane?

The others felt the same, if not more fearful than Ryan. At least Ryan was a second class, but people like the twins weren't. Though regardless of how anyone felt about Dream, they all pitied the second incapacitated rat.

Dream killed off the first rat with his knife and walked over to the second.

[The skills are the same. How would you like to proceed?]

'This time, let's kill it while watching the soul. I want to see what happens.'

[Understood.]

"Hey Elisa." (Dream)

"Y-Yes?"

"Come here for a sec. I want you to kill this rat."

"Oh okay."

Elisa was actually a bit relieved that she didn't have to hear that scream again. She walked over and struck her spear down onto its head, killing it.

[Analyzing...]

Sophia paid extra attention to the soul, though not for very long.

[Soul has dispersed.]

'Literally?'

[Yes. When the body was destroyed, the soul retracted its connection to the body and was left in the 4th dimension. Quickly after, it unraveled and dispersed, unable to hold itself together.]

'Hmm...Alright. That told me nothing other than stronger souls might be able to hold themselves together even after dying.'

[I have the same theory.]

Dream stood up and nodded.

"Alright, I'm done."

"...Ok. Let's keep moving then."

Ryan nodded and everyone silently followed, going deeper into the tunnels.

.................

...........

......

<You killed a level 69 [Earth Rat]>

<You have gained experience>

<You have leveled up!>

"Nice."

Dream smiled at the level up after killing another group of rats. 

The group had been walking through the tunnels for nearly 9 hours, killing many rats along the way.

There really were a lot of rats in there. Eventually, they had started encountering groups of 10, then 18. The biggest group they came across had 27.

The rats also ranged a bit in level. Though they didn't encounter anything above level 80, they had met plenty of level 60s and some level 70s. And when you consider that they had killed hundreds, if not a thousand or so rats, it was definitely a great leveling session. At least for Dream.

This was Dream's Profile:

|Profile|

Name: Dream

Species: Human Male

Class: [Mystic]

Titles: [Origin Seeker]

Level: 57

Stats: Strength- D-      Agility- D

Stamina- D-       Magic- D+

Passive Skills: [Sophia] Lvl. 16, [MMA Mastery] Lvl. 30, [Vorticular Accumulation] Lvl 47,

Active Skills: [Summons From Another World], [Shooting] Lvl. MAX,

[Mystify] Lvl. 3, [Basic Earth Magic] Lvl. 25, [Basic Air Magic] Lvl. 1,

[Water Magic] Lvl. 20,  [Fire Magic] Lvl. 20, [Regenerate] Lvl. 15>

Dream checked out those sweet numbers. He also saw that he had all D attributes! His agility and magic went up from the enhanced senses and vortex regeneration. 

One thing that he had been confused about though was his skill levels. He had never used fire magic, water magic, regenerate, or vorticular accumulation at all. Sophia cleared this up for him.

[When we scanned the girls' Fire and Water manipulation, you were given a skill that was only a fraction of the level of their skill. Which was fire and water magic at level 20. The same went for regeneration which came from Luna's restore skill. Its a lower grade but it has some levels. As for the vortex, since we created it well enough we got a high level for it. I'm sure if we tried to make it better, it would keep leveling up.]

Dream realized what happened and understood. The girls' skills were to OP for him to scan properly! So the system gave him some levels. 

Either way, he was level 57 now. He never told anybody what his levels were though. If they saw that he was leveling so fast, they'd go ballistic. 

It wasn't like they weren't leveling up though. Pretty much everyone leveled up at least once. The two 2nd classes leveled up once each since they were on the front lines and killed most of the rats. Though it doesn't sound like a lot, they are still second classes. An odd thing though, was that the girls leveled up 4 times each. Apparently they had been killing a lot.

Overall, everyone was pleased with their hunt so far. Dream and the girls were a fantastic addition to the group which made their speed faster than normal. Ryan had even finished the quest for rat claws several hours ago. Iris had also begun to eat rats occasionally. After she would kill one, she would secretly put the corpse into her stomach to start digesting. Overall, she had already eaten and digested over 70 rats. As a result, she had her strength go from E to E+. 

After 9 hours had passed, everyone stopped for a break.

"So, we have two options. We can either hunt for another hour or two, or we can call it a day and head back. Usually we don't get this far so quickly, and it's just experience grinding at this point. How's everyone's energy, first of all?"

Ryan spoke to everyone and had them check themselves.

"My energy is alright." (Elisa)

"I'm fine, but I haven't needed to do much either." (Lory)

"I'm a little tired." (Carla)

"Same here." (Mark)

"I'm fine, but the repetition is getting to me." (Dream)

"What he said." (Iris)

Dream was honestly tired of just shooting the same rats over and over again. Occasionally he had even switched to melee to make things interesting.

"Hmm, well no reason to push ourselves. Let's call it and head back. I'll turn in the quest and we can enjoy ourselves tonight." (Ryan)

"Yay!" (Lory)

Everyone stood up and Ryan began leading them back. 

On the way back, everyone saw the corpses of the rats they killed. Iris even picked out some to eat as they walked. 

After an hour or so of walking, they finally came back to where they began. One interesting thing was that the corpses that they first killed were half disappeared. The skin and muscles of the rat were gone, leaving only bone and some other bits of flesh.

"So this is what happens in the dungeon?"

"Yes, It breaks them down and eventually they disappear. Though they all spawn back after that happens, so there's always more."

"Hmm..."

Dream got even more curious about how dungeons worked. But he decided not to think about it now. 

The group walked into the black fog and came out at the cave. Dream still doubted if it was still a separate space rather than a regular cave. The transition was just so smooth.

The area where people hung out was mostly empty since they were likely still hunting. The group checked out at the gate and began walking to the guild.

When they got there, Ryan turned in the quest. And with that, they were done for the day.

"Alright, you guys are free to go." (Ryan)

"Ok!" (Lory)

"Sweet. Oh, and thanks for letting us join today." (Dream)

"...It was no problem." (Ryan)

"Are you guys planning on coming back tomorrow?" (Elisa)

"Tomorrow? I'm not sure. I think we have other plans." (Dream)

"Well, If you're available, we wouldn't mind having you join again. You guys are good." (Elisa)

"Ya! You're... bow weapon was amazing!" (Lory)

"Thanks. If we can we'll show up in the morning. Anyway, we're gonna head on back early then." (Dream)

"Aww, you don't want to stay? I don't know about them, but I was planning on going to a restaurant or bar. You want to join me?" (Lory)

Lory walked and stopped in front of Dream, who was baffled.

'This girl, is she asking me out?'

[And your other girlfriends are right there.]

'I know right.'

"Unfortunately no. Since it was our first day in a dungeon and all, the dad wants us back. We also usually make our own dinner, so I'll have to pass. I'm sorry."

"Oh, no that's fine. I forgot it was your first day since you were that good. But hey, make sure you join us again. Maybe we can have a fun night out then."

"Sure. Alright then, goodnight guys." 

"Goodnight." (Elisa)

Dream waved everyone goodbye and walked off with the girls, glad he was able to get out of that trap quickly.