Training Dungeon (2)

"Alright, let's get going.", Tina exclaimed excited and then activated the teleportation.

<< Congratulations, you have entered Floor 1 of the Training Dungeon.

New Quest: Clear the Catacombs (1)

You have arrived in some old catacombs, which have been left alone for a long time. During this time, a Rat Lord together with its children has made these hallways his home. Now it is time for cleanup!

Tasks:

- Slay 200 rats

- Slay the Rat Lord

Rewards:

- Access to Floor 2

- 20 - 50 copper

- A random Skill Book (req. Nightmare Mode)

Remark: Rats really love shiny things. They bring them to their nests to enjoy them. Maybe you can find something good when plundering such a nest?

>>

After reading the description for this floor, Ivan looked around. They were in a small stone room, with only one exit. A few torches dimly lit the room. Interested in how they were able to sustain themselves, he went over to take a closer look.

These torches were made out of a type of wood he hadn't seen or heard of before. And what burnt wasn't the wood itself, but instead a type of energy emitted at the top of the stick of wood. At the same time, he could feel that the wood was absorbing energy from the surroundings.

*Interesting. Maybe I can use them. I should definitely try to take some with me.*, when he saw these properties of the wood, he decided to take some with him, so as to experiment with it. It seemed like the property of absorbing energy came from the wood itself, so if he could use it in pill refining, maybe he would be able to craft pills that were able to absorb energy, to strengthen their effects. Well, at least he could use it as a fire source. The only question was, why nobody else had tried it before, as he wasn't so vain as to believe, that he was the first one to find out the woods property.

"What are you looking at?", suddenly a question came from behind him, surprising him.

"These torches. The wood they are made of is quite interesting."

Susan, who was the one who had asked him the question, too checked out the wood, before asking, "What is so interesting? Isn't it just normal wood?"

"How is it normal wood? Can't you feel it absorbing energy?"

"It absorbs energy?", once again Susan took a closer look. "I don't feel anything. Are you sure about it?"

These words stumped Ivan. *How come she didn't feel anything? Could it be because she wasn't a mage, or was it something else? Whatever, for now, let's just take one torch with me.* Thinking so, he grabbed a torch and put it out, before putting it into his inventory. Instantly the already dim room became even darker.

"Hey? Why did you do that?", Tina questioned him.

"It looked interesting, so I wanted to take it with me." He then hurriedly changed the topic, "Should we start?"

"Sure, everyone, get ready."

Once again Ivan could only marvel at the usefulness of the inventory. When one takes out clothes, there would be the option to directly wear them, removing the need to laboriously change into them. Especially for armor, this was a great effect. Because of this, it didn't even take two minutes, before everyone had changed into their gear.

The biggest change was in Susan's look. While before, she was in jeans and a comfortable t-shirt, she now wore her armor. Unlike what Ivan had expected, it wasn't the type of heavy plate armor, often preferred by tanks, but instead, a tight-fitting silver shimmering version of her clothes before. It made her look very sexy.

"Wow, your armor looks so sexy!", Tina, who was wearing a standard leather armor, which too did nothing to hide her figure, exclaimed. In reaction, Susan blushes.

"How did you get such an armor?", Tom asked in surprise.

"My boyfriend gifted it to me, why?"

"Wow, your boyfriend sure is good off."

"Huh? What are you talking about? He is just a normal guy."

Tom looked at her with a weird expression but chose not to say anything. It wasn't his place to say anything. But even though he chose not to say anything, everyone knew that there was something up with that armor.

"Alright, enough about that, let's start. Ivan and Susan you two will be in front, with Lars behind you. I and my brother will keep a bit more distance. When we meet these rats, I hope you can completely block the hallway. If any of them slip through it's your job, Lars, to kill them as fast as possible.", Tina confidently allocated their jobs, evoking the feeling, that she had done it before.

Following her orders, everyone took their position and Ivan and Susan slowly entered the hallway.

It didn't take long for them to find the first group of rats, or to be exact, for them to find them. They hadn't even moved forwards for more than a hundred meters when a group of seven of these rodents came running towards them. They must have been drawn towards them, by the sound they had made, while moving forwards.

"Careful", Susan exclaimed, while readying her shield.

Seeing them, the rats, which were at least 40 centimeters long rushed towards them with an even faster speed. Obviously, they saw them as intruders and wanted to get rid of them as fast as possible.

Ivan covered his sword in flames, before slashing it horizontally, releasing a flame blade. The blade traveled so fast, that it seemed to appear almost instantly before the pack of rats. it then went through it, without losing much energy and vanished in the tunnel behind them.

The smell of barbecue permeated the air and before the stunned eyes of the group, all the rat's upper half slid down from the rest, creating a grizzly sight. Because of the heat of the flame blade, there was no blood, but just the halves of the rats.

"Gulp", the group swallowed in shock before staring at Ivan as if they were seeing a monster.

"Ups", Ivan looked at them with a sheepish look, "They were a lot weaker than I expected.", he then tried to explain.

"Bullshit. There is no way that they would be that weak.", Tina nearly screamed at him.

While it was true that the monsters on Floor 1 would be weak, compared to their level, there was still no way, that a usual mage would be able to one-shot a group of them with such ease. The explanation for that laid in the skill 'Shadow Stats' as well as his skill in compressing the flame.

Seeing that he was unwilling to explain, Tina didn't press him, but instead said, "Whatever, if you don't want to explain it, then don't. But from now on try to hold back except if the situation is dire so that we can get some practice."

She made a good point. If he cleared all the enemies so easily, then they would be unable to train their teamwork. Besides that, it would be good for the other members to gain combat experience against much stronger enemies. Of course, his strength would serve as a great fall back, in case the situation got dangerous, which would enable them to train even more efficient.

"Alright, I will try to limit my strength.", Ivan assented.

Meanwhile, Lars had gone and checked out the drops. In the training dungeon, the monsters could drop some simple items, which mostly meant body parts. As such the rats dropped two 'Rat Teeth' as well as a 'Rat Pelt'. Both of which were quite useless. But they would still fetch around 5 copper for the teeth and 8 for the pelt, so if one collected enough it was still worth it to pick them up. Of course, that was only the case, since all of them came from a poor background. Ivan himself only had a few silver and the other's situation shouldn't be much better, or they wouldn't be going to the same school. Of course for Tom money wasn't really necessary, since the temple would take care of all the necessities, but it was still good to have some.

After that, they continued on until they met the next group of rats. This time there were seven of them which like the one before came rushing towards them as soon as they saw them. This time Ivan didn't use his flame blade but instead choose to try to block them. It was an unnatural notion for him, since his usual style of fighting, which he had developed during his time where he was fighting solo or with Vlada, was to dodge as much as possible. As such his attempts to block them were clumsy and only relying on his superior strength and the small width of the hallway did he manage it.