"We still need about a dozen or so black iron fragments," Claire said from where she was looting the corpses from the last pull. "We seem to be averaging one fragment for every eight or so ghouls."

"At least they've gotten a lot easier over the last few hours," Lana said. "Tram's new area stun is a lifesaver on those larger pulls that get by Nia's barrier."

"Not to mention when we get hit right after a pull," Selenia added with a smile. "Though I can now cast two of them in rapid succession. I'm just a little sad we are already having to kill entire pulls to get a level up."

"Well, it was bound to happen," Ian said with a chuckle. "I think I've worked out the rough breakdown. Every hundred levels or so, the requirement suddenly doubles, and now that we are above level 1350, we are no longer getting four times the normal amount of experience and only getting double. The number of monsters we need per level has doubled again because of that.

"Or it could be that the monster is just giving that much less experience. Since we have no way to actually see our leveling progress or the numbers, it isn't possible to say for certain, even if it has been a long-lasting debate."

"You're such a nerd, Ian," Ashlyn said with a smirk. "Leveling is easy. We just slaughter things, and the numbers go up. If they aren't going up fast enough, we kill faster!" She stopped to look at Mara and nodded before adding, "Or kill bigger monsters. Either way works."

"Damn right!" Tram said, giving Ash a high five.

"Don't you even pretend to be a meathead," Lana said with a giggle. "You are by far the biggest nerd here, Tram. I remember listening to you talking about how you could increase efficiency by restructuring code or whatever magic you used to do on that computer of yours."

Tram started chuckling and gave her a shrug. "But I got better."

"I can respect that mindset, though," Ian said, looking over at Tram and his sister. "Keep it simple so you don't get caught up in maximizing everything and forget to enjoy the process. Even if we aren't doing this the most efficient way, it is still very fulfilling seeing the levels go up." Ian stopped for a second as he looked at his status screen. "Especially when it took so long for it to get moving."

Lana bumped his arm with her elbow. "No dwelling on the past. Now everyone knows you're showing your true potential and taking what you deserve."

"In bed," Selenia added quietly.

Ashlyn, Tram, and Ian began chuckling as Lana turned scarlet.

"Which one of these degenerates taught you that?" Claire asked, trying to stop herself from giggling.

"In my defense," Ashlyn said, trying to get her laughter under control before failing.

"There is no defense for you," Ian said, still chuckling. "That was a pretty good one, Nia."

"So, I used it right?" Selenia excitedly asked.

"Definitely," Claire answered before anyone else could.

"Alright," Ian said, getting everyone's attention. "We need to keep going for a bit longer. There seems to be a lot more people showing up, so let's see if we can finish up the rest of our gathering and get out of here."

"We've been here for nearly eight hours," Claire said after pulling a watch out of her item storage. "Besides, just a couple more pulls, and I'll be able to help!"

Twenty minutes later, Claire began cackling maniacally in the middle of a ghoul wave. Ian was focused on stabbing the impaled ghouls when a dozen daggers suddenly flew through the air and blew their way through the remaining four enemies. Each dagger had a purple glow and went straight through the ghouls' leathery hide and muscle like a hot knife through butter.

"Finally!" Claire screamed as all twelve daggers flew back and floated in a circular formation above her. "I'm not useless anymore!"

"Dimensional edge?" Ian asked, remembering her mentioning it a few days ago.

"Yup, and my inherent skill turns it into a real monster," she said with a huge grin as the daggers all floated into her storage. "The range isn't overly impressive, but I should be able to fight anything that gets close enough to be a threat."

"So, you have telekinesis now?" Lana asked.

"Not quite," she said with a frown. "It's more like being able to control an object's relative position in space, and then sending it to another one. Telekinesis is more like controlling an object directly, kind of like using a hand to move something. I'd also need to be able to see it for that, where I can do mine completely remotely.

"My only problems are with distance and my ability to sense creatures, allies, and objects. I have a fix for it, but it will take me a while to get it. I'd also probably run out of mana within a couple of minutes of fighting, and I won't get it all back in just a few minutes like Nia."

"That may be, but those are just normal throwing knives, and they just tore through these ghouls like they were made of paper," Ashlyn commented, looking at the wounds on the corpses as she collected her arrows.

"It gives them a very narrow cutting edge along the blade that is like a spatial tear. Certain magic-resistant monsters will take significantly reduced damage from it, but these ghouls are only resistant to darkness magic."

"Damn, you and I need to talk later about getting something like that for my arrows," Ash said with a smile.

"Like you need to be more dangerous," Tram said as the last monster was looted. "Let's keep going so we can get back before dinner."

~*~*~

"You all looked like you had some fun today," Jason commented as Ian took the seat at the table.

"Yeah, we had a blast," he said, taking a deep pull from his mug. It really hit the spot after the long dungeon run. "I think Claire's turned into a battle maniac, though."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Jason snorted as Vince outright laughed.

"I can't believe we had to have Ash talk her into leaving, of all people," Tram said taking the seat next to Ian.

"Right?" Ashlyn said as both she and Selenia sat down. "If I'm the voice of reason to the person who is supposed to be our voice of reason…we're in trouble."

"I wasn't that bad!" Claire said, joining them.

"It almost seemed like it," Lana said, taking the open seat next to Ian. "We got our eighty dark iron fragments, and how many extra?"

"I just wanted to make sure he had what he needed to make Tram's armor," Claire said, failing to hide the smile trying to sneak onto her face.

"Well, it looked like you all got a lot stronger throughout the day as well," Vince said. "I think your friends are scheduled to start their knockout round here shortly as well. There are way more low-tier parties than any other group, so they had to do the mass elimination rounds in multiple sessions. This should be the last one before the 1024 party slots for the rest of the tournament are filled."

Ian thought about that for a second and opened up his status menu to see how many SP he had saved up. He winced when he saw that he had earned enough to level up United We Stand again. Ten thousand points was a huge amount, even with his bonuses. He closed his eyes and willed it, knowing that he could have used the points to boost everyone's stats. He needed to max it out before he hit another milestone and hated the thought of letting that goal hang over him.

United We Stand 3/4 (Inherent): Boosts dedicated party members' statistics by 45% of the user's statistics. Allows the creation of alliances with other parties, boosting their members by 30% of the user's statistics. Current skill level allows the creation of 2 Allied Parties.

He was torn at the outcome. He was incredibly happy with the additional 7.5% increase, which would be noticeable for Worg's Fang during the fight—especially at their level. Looking at his stats, he knew their own power was going to be leaps and bounds over the other parties.

Name: Ian Spelling (Hidden)

Alias: Zero

LVL: 1364

Status:

STR: 17957

END: 16991

AGI: 16712

WIL: 15769

INT: 16053

Skills: Prestige Mode (Inherent), Prestige War Leader (Inherent), United We Stand 3/4 (Inherent), Everything the Light Touches (Inherent), Squeaky Clean (Inherent)

Common: Enhanced Body (M), Enhanced Mind (M),

Uncommon: Ascension (Uncommon), Conceal Identity, Analyze 1/5, Poison Resistance 1/5, Basic Item Storage (M), Basic Mana Regeneration 4/5, Soothing Touch 1/5

Rare: Magic Soul

Available SP: 4420

His buff was now providing them with the base stats of a level one thousand adventurer. However, the upgrade didn't increase the number of parties he could assist. He just hoped the final level would be worth the SP cost, since he was going to hold onto his remaining SP instead of spending it on more stat skills. Unless he found a way to increase his leveling speed again, he would finish off the current goal before creating another.

"I made it in time!" screamed Diana as she put two beer mugs down on the table and took the seat between Lana and Jason.

"I figured you would be with your family as they got ready to dive," Claire said, looking over at the newcomer.

"Ivy told me that I wasn't allowed to be there with them before their match because I would get in the way of their preparations," Diana said with a scoff. "Lies and slander. I'm always super serious."

"Speaking of serious things," Ashlyn said, looking over at Diana with sparkling eyes. "I need you to come up to my room after this, Diana."

When Diana looked over at her questioningly, Ashlyn gave her a huge smile.

"You need to come and autograph my old poster of you," she said with a shrug. "Dad always told me that getting them signed was stupid and refused to take me to any of your events. He's a dick, so it's kind of a moral imperative to get it done now."

"Oh, that's easy, but I want something in return," Diana said, giving her a big smile back. "You need to get me a signed poster of you! I need it to brag to my little sister and make her jealous."

Ashlyn choked on her water, barely stopping herself from spraying it all over her food.

"You want a poster of me?" she asked, getting an enthusiastic nod from Diana. Squealing, she grabbed Claire's shoulder and looked into her eyes. "I know I'm completely fan-girling out right now, but how hard is it to get a poster made of me?"

Claire snorted as she reached for her tablet. "I'll have one delivered to your room before dinner is over."

"You are the bestest Keeper ever!"

Ian shook his head as everyone got a chuckle out of his sister's antics. He was just about to ask Jason what other information he had on the tournament when the display began to show a giant dungeon from a bird's-eye view.

"Oh, here we go, and look at that spread!" Diana said, her voice filled with excitement. "It's as large as a lot of the high-tier dungeons, and it has four different biomes. That southern portion is a combat forest, similar to a real forest, but it doesn't have any undergrowth. To the West, there is the desert area, which is like a ranged damage dealer's paradise—even if it is super hot and uncomfortable there. The north is covered in snow, and it also has areas that are iced over, making it really hard to move quickly. The eastern area seems to be filled with rolling hills and giant rock formations.

"If Worg's Fang gets placed in the north or west, it is going to be a really hard fight for them. Other than Josh, they don't have any ranged damage dealers. He's a solid mage, but he is still too low of a level to have a lot of sustainability."

"Agreed," Jason said, watching the screen as it showed the loose rocks and gravel in the hilly area of the map. "They are also only a five-person team. I know they planned on finding another person before the tournament, but it has become a lot harder now that they are obviously allied with Second Chance here."

"Really?" Ian asked. "I thought we were pretty well liked by the new adventurers."

"You are extremely well-liked," Vince said, giving Ian a knowing look. "And that's part of the problem. They need to find someone who will mesh well with them, but they can't openly recruit, or they will be flooded with applicants."

"That Ivy has a good head on her shoulders," Jason said with a fond smile. "She even noted that she didn't want to create bad blood between her team and other parties due to people trying to abandon their own friends to join them. She seems to be able to read situations incredibly well. You should be proud, D."

"Oh, I am," Diana said, lightly elbowing the older man. "It always surprises me how much she managed to figure out growing up. Her mom made sure to hide most of the dungeon-type business from her and Liam. While I was raised with it, they are kinda blank slates.

"I tried to give them insights on how stuff worked, since they both wanted to dive eventually. However, those one to two week-long dives really limited how much I got to spend with them over the last few years. In the end, they seemed to thrive without me, even if they are getting some help from their friends."

Diana gave Ian a glance and a pout.

"Don't be jealous," Jason said with a laugh. "Making connections is an important thing for young adventurers. Those connections can make or break them later."

Diana shrugged as Ian saw her look at Lana, blink, then get a mischievous grin on her face. When he looked over, Lana's face was looking at Diana in return.

"Interesting," she murmured before looking back at the display.

"You okay?" Ian whispered as he leaned over to Lana. She jumped slightly and brought her hand up to her chest.

"I'm fine," she whispered back. As she went to say more, music began playing from the display.

"Talk about it later?" she asked.

Ian nodded, getting a mouthed "thanks" from Lana as they turned their attention to the monitor.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," came a well-known commentator's voice. "In a few moments, the final mass elimination round for the low-tier will begin. With so many parties involved, you will need to identify the party you would like to follow on your home devices. Remember, only the last sixty-four teams that outlast the rest of their competition will be seeded in the single-elimination tournament. The only rules are to try to finish with a qualifying place!

"I will be hosting an after-action breakdown of the fight with an expert panel of my fellow casters, so please take the next thirty seconds to ensure you have—"

The screen suddenly went blank, and the words "Worg's Fang" were in gold across the bottom.

"Let's go!" Diana screamed in excitement, earning an enthusiastic roar from the packed cafeteria.

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