The storm was still raging the next day, and I heard some worried comments about the ship. Hadal was extremely thankful he stayed as he didn’t handle seasickness very well. It would be a bad time to be on a ship.

  Eric and Yoboc took me with them the next day to help set some traps in the main tunnel.

  “There are several objectives here,” Eric explained. “The first is that if something attacks the Cavern, we want to be able to notify the main camp for reinforcements. Our usual whistles will not reach that far. The second objective is to slow down anything from which we have to retreat. Physical creatures are the easiest, and that is what pit traps and rock falls are for. If that fails, we fight. The worst case is we collapse the tunnel for a whole section.”

  “More problematic are the Elemental creatures,” he said, “especially the Rock elementals. Elemental Creatures are attracted to Spiritual Energy, which this place has in abundance. This is the trick to hiding from Elementals. You have to hide your spiritual energy. The second part is to attract them to certain areas where there is concentrated Spiritual energy, and they should stay there as that is what they are after. If all that fails, we fight.”

  “How do you hide your Spiritual energy?” I asked.

  Eric looked sharply at Yoboc,” You were supposed to teach him that.”

  “I did,” he replied. “Remember Ivan, where we were training your stealth before and after the troll.” I nodded. “Well hiding your spiritual energy is what we were doing when I was telling you to make your presence smaller. And you were doing that as part of your stealth skill.”

  “So I just need to go into stealth?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Yoboc replied. “The easiest way to train beginners is to link it to one of their existing hiding skills. Later, you can separate it out into its own skill as the basics are there. Elementals are not the only creatures that hunt by sensing Spiritual Energy. Here is a free tip for you. One of the easiest ways to get stealth to the Journeyman Level is to concentrate on all the different components that make it up. Stealth is a generalised skill that contains bits of all the more specialised skills.”

  “What is an example?” I asked.

  “You can track by smell, right? Stealth will dampen your smell a little. It will muffle sound a bit. It will blur your outline from being so obvious to sight skills. That part is what your Clearsight directly counters. Stealth is a generalised skill and does a little bit of everything, but each of those things can be worked on into its own specialised skill, which is what true stealth specialists work on. I was training you to dampen your spiritual presence through one of the components in your stealth skill.”

  “Now we are going to go further,” Eric said. “Remember when you asked about training to fight Rock Elementals?”

  I nodded, “but the training never came.”

  “No,” Eric agreed, “because you had so much Basic stuff to learn first. You wouldn’t stand a chance anyway, so the Commander was planning to stay the winter here as well to keep things safe, including you.”

  “Nobody said anything,” I said.

  “Thomwea wasn’t happy as it was going to cost her, but keeping Rock Eater working was going to be worth it anyway. They were still debating it up to the last minute. I think she was hoping you would be ready, but you only got the class a few weeks ago, and they should have been packing up Rock Eater before that. Now everything has gone to shit,” Eric explained.

  “So now we step up your training,” Yoboc said. “What is the main component of an Elemental?”

  “Spiritual energy,” I replied.

  “Yes, so it makes sense they will attack you from their strength, right?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “Every living creature has three parts, which are?” he asked.

  “Physical, Mental and Spiritual,” I replied.

  “Look at your Status. At the bottom, each of the strengths, agility, and perceptions are added together, which forms your life energy. What are your totals?”

  I looked and said, “Physical 84, Mental 45, and Spiritual 49.”

  “Each of these is your energy, and, put simply, if you run out of energy, you die. The physical energy is often called your Constitution or life force, but that can be deceptive. If you run yourself out of energy in any area, Physically, Mentally or Spiritually, then you will die. Obviously, there are skills that can boost these areas, but they are beyond you at the moment.

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  “Your Physical is your strongest because you have physical classes, which is how you are orientated. You are weakest mentally, so attacking you physically is the hardest way to kill you. A mental attack is where you are weak, although that also applies to spiritual attacks. These figures are mitigated by skills. You have a Tough Hide, which blunts physical attacks. You are agile, etc.“ Yoboc took a breath.

  “An Elemental is strong spiritually but weak physically, so we try to attack their physical part as it is the weakest. They will try to attack you Spiritually as that is where they are strong and we are weak.”

  “How does it attack Spiritually?” I asked.

  “The same way it lives,” Yoboc said. “It is attracted to spiritual energy and ‘eats’ it for want of a better word and then leaves spiritual droppings. It will attack you by eating your spiritual energy. Hiding that energy is the first line of defence as it will look for a stronger source. Actively resisting it is the second line of defence. How would you do that?”

  “I don’t…” I started and then I though about my Tough Hide. That wasn’t a random example, Yoboc doesn’t do that. “You create a barrier, like Tough Hide,” I said.

  “Exactly, and that is what we are going to train now as we build these traps. We will find the small rock Elementals and entice them to attack your energy, and you will try resisting. Spiritual strength is the key attribute to resisting, and later you will add spiritual agility as larger elementals will adjust how they attack.”

  Apparently, I was very lucky to be here with all this spiritual ore attracting all these elementals. Very few get to train like this. I located a small Rock Elemental with Spiritual Sensing, but it was not going to attack me as the Lightsteel or was stronger and more attractive to them.

  I held a strong gem in my hand against the wall to entice it to attack. It took a little while, but it started to draw energy from the gem and my energy was caught up in this and Yoboc had me try and resist it concentrating my Spiritual Strength in defense. I had to concentrate on my energy levels and drop the gem and withdraw my hand before it got too dangerous.

  Feeling Spiritually weak was a new sensation for me. It was weird. Yoboc had to instruct me to drop the gem the first few times, till I got the feeling under control. I just couldn’t resist, no matter how I tried.

  “Keep at it, lad. You don’t learn skills the first time you try. Well, most of us don’t, anyway.”

  I didn’t learn any new skills that day or in the next few days. I rotated on the watch in the cavern and outside and then went back to being spiritual food.

  It was exhausting, spiritually, and I had to recover my spiritual energy between tries. That slowed everything down.

  It was hard to keep going, but I kept at it. I earned a point in Spiritual Strength just for the effort and another in Spiritual Perception when I identified the difference in spiritual attacks from different Elements.

  I overhear Eric asking Yoboc why it was taking so long. Apparently, I am slow at this, as this is an ideal way to learn that most people don’t get. However, they haven’t given me any more advice on how this should be done.

  I used Identify to see where I am lacking in attributes. I sense a skill forming, and I have enough Spiritual Agility, and this is unexpected. I am missing a lot of Spiritual Strength. I am missing more than the five points I have available. Why? Yoboc seemed to think I would be close in strength but lacking in agility.

  I felt I was doing something wrong and went to Yoboc for help.

  “No, lad. You work the skill the way you want it to work. People try to copy others' skills, but they are never really their own. That is OK for some skills, like small blades etc, but the best skills are the ones you develop to suit your unique being. So I have given you enough guidance, and you can feel the skill developing, so keep working on it.”

  That was frustrating, but I went at it with renewed stubbornness and earned a point in Mental Strength for my effort. It's not what I was looking for, but I will take it and use it to keep going.

  My Guard Class levelled again, but the early levels were easy to get. This gave me a total of seven unassigned attribute points, as the Guard class gave me two free per level. I used Identify to try and feel out the skill and show me where I am weak and if I have enough to meet the minimum for the skill.

  It seems I might, so I add points to Spiritual Strength one by one until I reach the minimum. It took six of the seven to get Spiritual Strength to 25. I went out and tested against a small elemental and a skill appeared on my status.

  Yes!

  I went back to Yoboc.

  “It is called Spiritually Tough, you say?” I nodded. “That is not the usual skill we get. Tell me about it.”

  “It seems to be mostly passive, generally making my Spiritual energy tougher to damage or syphon away. I can strengthen it by concentrating on it with my Spiritual Strength. The minimum requirements were Spiritual Strength 25, Spiritual Agility 10.”

  “Passive over all your energy? That's new to me. You don’t have to direct it or change it to fit the type of spiritual attack?” Yoboc asked. I could tell Eric was listening closely.

  “No. What do you normally get?” I asked.

  “Most dwarves get Spiritual Shield, which you have to use actively and adapt to the attack. I wonder if it is a bear thing? Tell me about what you were trying to do with your energy.”

  “I was trying to make it like my Tough Hide. That was the example you gave me,” I said.

  “That is an interesting attitude. It seems to have worked. We will need to test its strength. Spiritual Shield’s minimum requirements are 20 in Spiritual Strength and 15 in Spiritual Agility. Let’s test it, and you can start levelling it.”

  It took us a while to find an elemental. I was losing less energy than I was before, and it went up a level, and I lost even less.

  According to Eric, the Spiritual Shield is Stronger at the lower levels, but you need to see the attack and focus your defence. Mine seems more versatile as I don’t have to think about it, and it should get stronger quickly. Plus, it will defend against more than one attack at a time. This is an interesting difference. I like the passive toughness. It leaves me able to concentrate on other things.