"Well, we’ll start with leveling up," he said to the system, and in response, it pulled out a notification screen.
[You have leveled up]
[You have gained 1 to each stat]
"Again."
The system responded to his request by assigning 12,800xp to level up once more.
[You have leveled up]
[You have gained 1 to each stat]
"What’s my balance?" Aiden asked.
[Exp Balance: 14,150]
He sighed seeing how he had lost more than half his experience points on only ranking up twice. "System, this is difficult."
[The Path To Dragon King is a long and arduous one]
"Oh, you don’t say," Aiden retorted, you could hear the heightened levels of sarcasm in his voice.
He sighed and looked through the requirents again. Leveling up again would require 25,600 experience points, which he didn’t have at the mont.
He was caught between making his fire magic stronger than it already was or sharing the remainder of the XP among the skills that were still serving him perfectly. There was also the option of saving the XP so that he wouldn’t need as much to level up later.
Now he was stuck in a trilemma, and none of the options seed to satisfy him completely.
"Well, I still have two more days with the XP boost. We’ll co back to all of these then," he whispered to himself. This was the only decision he could co up with right now; To wait.
He then delved into the next line of business: distributing his stat points. He assigned 5 points each to Agility and Endurance, then assigned 6 points each to Strength and Intelligence.
[Strength: 27 → 33]
[Intelligence: 36 → 42]
[Agility: 21 → 26]
[Endurance: 19 → 24]
With a feeling of dissatisfaction and disappointnt, Aiden went to bed without bothering to check anything else with the system.
...
The next morning arrived, and Aiden was already dressed in the guild’s uniform, staring at the notice board of mission requests. He was fixated on it for so monts, trying to decide how to go about the missions, then the others started walking into the main room slowly.
Kayden, Arianna, and Laela entered, with Elena following right behind the girls since they had all left their rooms at the sa ti.
"Good, you guys are here," Aiden said as he turned toward them. "We need to get permission from the captain and head out to clear these dungeons."
He sounded urgent, as if he was on a tir. Well, he was—he was impatient and wanted to get the XP coming in as soon as possible within the tifra his XP Boost Badge would last.
"Hey, slow down. Soone’s trying to grab all the rit stars," Arianna said with a smile on her face.
"Who said you could tell us when to go on a mission?" Kayden added. Of course, he’d always be on the side that seed antagonistic toward Aiden.
Aiden looked down at him with a taunting smile and said, "You do know I’m quite ahead of you. With the last dungeon, Laela and I have earned more rit stars that put us closer to Stage 2 Initiate."
Laela smiled awkwardly at that but didn’t give any input. Everyone knew to stay out of a squabble between Kayden and Aiden.
"Watch catch up," Kayden said, staring back at Aiden with determined eyes.
Kayden then walked away, heading toward the Captain’s chambers. He turned back toward them and said, "Well, are you guys coming or what?"
Aiden chuckled, seeing that he knew just the right words to provoke Kayden into action.
The others went ahead, and Aiden stopped in front of Elena montarily to say, "I promised to help with finding your stone, and I will. I just need to clear out these dungeons first, and then I’ll be on my way. Is that alright?"
Elena nodded affirmatively with a smile on her face.
Aiden nodded back and went with the rest of them toward the Captain’s chambers.
It wasn’t like the option of sending an avatar to do the task wasn’t available, but right now, he needed Piers to use his abilities to send them to the dungeons first. His avatar alone wouldn’t know how to get to the Geshu Mountains region.
...
When the team of four arrived at the Captain’s chambers, the first sight they saw was Piers crossing through a section of the room with a towel covering the lower half of his body, reaching for an ointnt.
He turned to see four of the initiates staring at him with shock on their faces. "Uh..." Piers’ face was startled, then went blank as he didn’t expect to see them there.
Then suddenly, the oblivious captain walked in too. Her short towel barely covered the lower half of her body, but she was entirely topless. Her breasts were out and bouncing in the open as she stepped right through.
Laela instantly raised one of her hands to cover Aiden’s eyes as he got dazed from seeing the captain walk in that way. Arianna and Kayden couldn’t even form words, they simply stared.
"Piers, darling, now rub my back with the oil," Katherine said casually, then noticed her initiates standing and staring in the distance out of the corner of her eye.
"Oh, good morning, my darlings," she greeted them as casually as if she wasn’t standing half-naked in front of them.
"I’ll be right with you shortly," she said, before dragging Piers by one hand. He followed her back into her chambers with a sheepish smile on his face.
Soon after, both Piers and the captain erged dressed in their guild uniforms. The awkward air relaxed as if all of that hadn’t just happened a few minutes ago.
Aiden asked the captain for permission to tackle the A-rank dungeon, but she refused vehently, stating she intended to lead that mission herself due to the difficulty level.
She did, however, agree to them taking on the C-rank dungeon and asked Piers to teleport them to the location using his magic and watch over them until they were done.
...
anwhile, Thamoryn in her chambers that morning was deep in thought concerning the revelation from the night before.
"Now I’m certain he’s not an infiltrator from Dragonhold," she said to herself.
She ca to that conclusion given everything she saw in their minds. From how Aiden t them at the tavern, speaking naively and asking for a ride to Xathia; to how they cleared the dungeon at Rivendale; to their arrival in the city and the horse ride that brought him to the Academy, and finally the recent Dynamic Dungeon incident.
Their thoughts and experiences with Aiden didn’t suggest the possibility of infiltration or threat toward Xathia.
She had two assumptions: one, he was certainly a noble, and two, he was most likely running away from ho in Dragonhold and seeking a new life here.
"Sothing would have made him run away from Dragonhold to lead a life here, and perhaps we could use that sothing to instigate him even more. A mage as powerful as that under our control would be perfect."
At that mont, soone knocked on her doors. She asked the person to co in.
It was one of the Academy’s servants. He asked, "They’ve all woken up. What shall we do with them?"
He was referring to Alaric and the others who were still being held in a dungeon-like room within the Academy.
"Send them away at nightfall, and tell Morgan I said he should make them forget everything," Thamoryn directed.
Morgan was going to cast a supplentary spell that cleansed the minds of targets—he would use this spell to make them forget their experiences from that night.
...
Piers’ transportation magic had brought them to the dungeon instantly, and after he conducted the magical readings, he pushed the doors open, and one by one they all went through the portal.
The system sent Aiden a ssage upon arrival: [Technique Copied: Transport Magic: Transport(B)]
Piers’ magic had been copied as soon as he used it to bring them all there.
When the party entered the dungeon, the system put out a screen in front of Aiden as expected.
[Side Quest: Clear the C-ranked dungeon]
[Rewards: ??]
[Bonus Reward: ??]
A grin appeared on Aiden’s face, and instantly he used his Dragon’s Sight.
[Dragon’s Sight]
His eyes took that peculiar draconian transformation and focused forward to scan out the monster threats to expect.
The rest of the team didn’t seem surprised by Aiden’s magical sight anymore; they naturally assud it was a supplentary spell he was capable of.
Without deactivating the skill, Aiden turned toward his teammates and was about to give them an overview of the monsters he saw ahead. That was when he realized that one of the effects of Dragon’s Sight was currently active.
This was the sight’s ability to see epheral material, which included ghosts, spirits, and things the human eye naturally couldn’t see; a new effect it had gained after the last ti he leveled it up.
Now when he turned toward his team, he wasn’t just seeing them. He saw what looked like whitish-blue lights floating within their bodies.
He stared at them blankly for a mont. They also looked at him with puzzled expressions until Laela asked, "Is everything alright?"
He shook his head quickly as if snapping out of sothing. The Dragon’s Sight deactivated as well, and he said to them, "Mud Wolves. About twenty up front. Possibly double that amount behind them."
"Alright, should be easy to deal with," Arianna said as she started making her way forward, leading the way with the others following behind.
Aiden followed slowly behind, but only because at this point he was engaging the system in conversation within his mind. "What were those things? They felt... alive."
The system replied: [What you just saw are the manifestations of souls in every living being. Perhaps this effect was activated unintentionally]
"Oh? Why did I see two of them in Arianna when the others had one?"
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