Surviving danger beget Levels.

  Levels beget power.

  Power begets advanced physical and mental faculties.

  And what would he do with such superhuman abilities?

  Why, he’d use them to get his work done more quickly, allowing him to actually get some sleep for the first time in almost two months.

  Yes, Rowan Frye, Director of the Bureau of Preternatural Affairs definitely had his priorities straight and was not in the least sleep deprived.

  Especially since he’d walked into a freaking Dungeon to gain that power … with company, of course. Wyatt Granger, the BPA’s foremost mage, had “invited” him along, to get a feel for how things worked in the field, and Frye had accepted. Now that the young man had reached early D-Rank, demonstrating his full power in the shooting range would have been a little risky.

  Besides, he could use the power boost, especially with Deputy Director Jaclyn Abrams in America to foster international relations and Director of Operations Nicole Foster, the only reason the agency was still intact, was off in the UK’s new capital. Frye’s own Logos Mage Class was built around the core principle of increasing one’s multitasking ability and leveraging that into devastating offensive power, but it could also be used to effectively take in a huge volume of information and fill out an absurd amount of paperwork in a fairly short amount of time.

  Using superpowers like that was sacrilege, according to some, but someone with such powers in his position was a massive force multiplier, if he could get them.

  Hence, his presence here, at the back of the Dungeon delving party, trying to not look too much like he was covering behind his subordinates. He still needed their respect after this.

  It was a little daft, but that was how the world worked. Even if he knew why he was staying in the background, doing very little making sure to keep Henderson between him and the boss monster, and everyone else also knew, that did not change the fact that people would likely see him in a different light.

  As “evolved” as humanity liked to consider itself, there was more than a little caveman instinct left.

  ***

  Wyatt

  Superpowers were cool. Magic was cooler. And the System, well, it combined both the superhuman strength of comic heroes and Anime characters with the world- and reality-warping mysticism of magic.

  Chaos and destruction aside, he loved the way things worked nowadays. Not enough to have chosen to have it happen in light of the state it had left the world in, if he’d been in a position to choose, that was, but he still enjoyed the positives of how things had worked out.

  Such as his new status as England’s best magic caster, being not just the highest-leveled and but also having created the Class everyone else used to learn spells.

  Apparently, even the System thoguht that was cool, considering that upon reaching D-Rank, the requirements for the unlockable Skills had literally been “overridden for Class creator.”

  As for the power he’d taken, it was called “Kernel of Truth” and let him strip away all the spellwork surrounding the core of any spell he knew and learn the “truth” of the element the spell manipulated, which he could then directly manipulate to a limited degree, and at an insane mana cost. It also made modifying spells of the same element a million times easier, and then his E-Rank ability, Arcane Library of the Mind, let him cast these modified versions as easily as he could the base version, making him something of a monster compared to the, well, actual monsters they faced in the dungeon.

  “Ready?” Henderson asked from his position next to the doorway that led to the first boss room, which contained a D-Rank champion sabertooth tiger with impossibly sharp claws that could be projected into ranged slashes, had a power that provided ridiculous bursts of speed, and was flexibe enough to singlehandedly proove the “cat’s are liquid” hypothesis. Oh, and the entire floor was covered in some kind of oil that made it slicker than a freshly-frozen pond.

  If Wyatt were to step in there himself, he’d die in less than a second, but Henderson was here to play tank. The burly ex-police officer had already looked exactly like a bear even before he’d chosen Anima Monk and picked a grizzly as a bond, then gone for the transformation path and finally grabbed an ankylosaurus as his second bond at D-Rank, which he’d reached as well, becoming the third British person to do so.

  Even in his human form, he was built like a brick shithouse and twice as tough, as well as being nearly impossible to move by force without having ridiculous strenght or an overly slippery floor.

  “One second,” Wyatt replied, raising his right hand to point his palm at the floor in the room beyond, magic gathering there, while he waved off the capuchin monkey in the concierge’s uniform trying to offer him a bag of sand.

  That was how you were supposed to beat the room, after all. If you weren’t out to actually destroy the Dungeon, you’d be offered a single bag of sand to counter the lubricant on the floor, and have to make do with that.

  Normally, that was.

  “Ready,” Wyatt announced, and when none of the gathered group stopped him, cast the first stone. Or rahter, the first spell. A modified and overcharged cleansing spell washed out from his hand and wiped the entire room clean, instantly transforming the battlefield from a slippery hellscape into something much more manageable. The floor was still made from unnaturally smooth marble, but ont problematically so.

  The tiger they were facing reacted instantly, claws unsheathing with nary a sound as it lunged at them so quickly all he could see was a blur.

  And then Henderson was between them, right fist cocked back as he fed the beast his left forearm, a combination of thick dinosaur skin and even thicker fur blunting the attack by the incoming razor claws. Not by much, but it was more than sufficient to allow him to keep his arm and then, his counterattack landed.

  As far as Wyatt knew, Henderson’s fighting experience outside of general police takedown techniques was boxing, and you never saw boxers throw those kinds of telegraphed, easy to anticipate punches because, well, any idiot could avoid and/or counterattack.

  But in this situation, it was Henderson who’d done the anticipating. His entire body rotated as he threw every ounce of power he could muster behind his fist as it crunched into the tiger’s ribcage in a thundering impact that could be felt even by the furthest-back individuals in the delving party.

  They should have both been sent flying, pushed apart by the tremendous force involved in that colision, but Henderson had two powers belonging to creatures known for being heavy, tough, and near-impossible to move. He stayed put. The cat … didn’t. In fact, it nearly bent double, folded in half like yesterday’s laundry as it went flying, rocketing into the far wall and bouncing off, landing lightly on the other side of the room.

  That initial clash might have looked extremely one-sided and weighed towards the humans to boot, but unfortunately, that could not have been further from the truth.

  While blood was already starting to drip from the four paralell gashes on Henderson’s left arm, the cat was looking fine, having bent to absorb the impact of the punch and then functionally ignored the impact against the wall and subsequent fall. Cats rarely cared when they could just land on their feet.

  But that had been expected. The dungeon boss was tough, and they’d just needed the breathing room to enter the boss chamber and prepare.

  Barbed wire enhanced by the holders of the Gearhead Class was thrown out between them and the cat, spells were prepared, “primitive” wooden crows feet made by Primal Warriors spread out as well, nets readied, and the first barrage of spells unleashed. Magic missiles, primarily, though the occasional fireball was in there was well.

  As for Wyatt, well, he’d spent the last month experimenting with every combination and variant he could from the spells he had. Lightning-infused magic missiles, each one individually controlled by one of his several paralell minds, launched themselves at the cat just as it tried to leap at then, aiming straight at where a regular tiger’s major nerve centers would have been, and impacting at just the right time to make its muscles spasm right as it tried to leave the ground.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The tiger promptly belly-flopped into the traps only for telekinetically flung razor wire to land on top of it, and then, slowly, wrap around it. At least they tried to do that … it failed. Miserably. The tiger was just too damn fast, too damn flexible, and too damn good at adapting to what they were trying to do. Or maybe it was just trying to avoid getting tangled up and was just running on pure instinct.

  A second salvo of spells was unleashed, far more ragged than the first, amidst continuous gunfire. Some missed, others only dealt glancing blows, but several connected. Including Wyatt’s own. Thirty tiny, incredibly underpowered Magic missiles divided into five swarms, each of which he individually guided into the tiger’s face, one for each eye and ear and the final one went down its open, roaring, maw.

  There was nowhere near enough power behind the attack to do real damage, but that wasn’t the point. No, it was just a distraction and irritation. A sucessful one.

  The sabre-tooth slammed its eyes shut and did a half-roar, half-choke thing as the projectiles hit the back of its throat, making it land badly and stumble instead of immediately savaging the ranged fighters it had landed amidst. Blind slashes of its claws still carved terrible wounds as it twisted and turned, striking out at anything it caught notice of using whatever sense of sight and hearing it had remaining.

  Blood flew, even a few fingers in one case, but it all seemed survivable. And then, Henderson was there, bodychecking the boss, them letting himself bellyflop onto it and transformed fully into an ankylosaurus.

  He hated doing that, he’d loudly proclaimed as such several times, it simply made it too hard to move, but in this position, with the monster under him? It was a genius move.

  And then, the delvers unleashed everything they had while the massive sabre-tooth twisted and bucked, clawing apart not just the stone beneath but also digging huge chunks out of Henderson before suddenly shooting out from beneath him … and the slaughter began.

  Lightning caused it spazam mid-attack yet the monster was too close for Chain Lightning to be used, and sadly, that was the only widely-known spell of that element.

  By now, the boss had to be close to death but it would still survive long enough for people to start dying if things continued on like that.

  Nope, not happening.

  Internally calling himself every synonym for stupid and reckless under the sun, Wyatt lunged and drew on the full power of his newest Skill.

  No spells, no control, no limits. Just every ounce of mana he had transformed into pure, raw, elemental fury and launched it at the tiger. It began to branch out almost immediately, splitting into countless branches that threatened to strike his fellows, but the boss was right there, not even two meters away, and with a tremendous exertion of will, Wyatt bent all the lightning back to draw a bead on the initial target.

  There was a tremendous burst of noise, and a flash of light that left him seeing spots as he stumbled backwards, but the thump of a heavy body hitting the ground was obvious even over the sound of the lighting. And then, there was a much louder crash where Wyatt had no idea what was responsible. He just had to keep retreating, keep opening up the distance, and trust that the mosnter was either dead, or that he’d bought the others enough of a chance.

  When he could finally see again, Wyatt immediately knew what had happened. Henderson had drunk the small vial of healing potion he’d been equipped with as the tank and was, once again, restraining the tiger, though this time, he was in his hybrid form and properly grappling it.

  From there, it was a simple matter of just throwing everything and the kitchen sink for anyone who could while the others slowly retreated to allow the ones who could still fight a better shot.

  After barely thirty seconds, the boss vanished beneath Henderson, replaced by several claws and a properly cleaned pelt, causing the large man to faceplant as the thing he’d been leaning on suddenly disappeared.

  Nothing hurt but his dignity, thankfully.

  As for the loot, well, it was basic and while the BPA didn’t have the crafters to make proper use of it, the Worldstrider Tribe did. And eventually, after beating the boss a few more times, they might even get fully-made magical gear?

  Something like his own bracers, which he’d been gifted by the Dungeon to him for giving it some stuff it wanted. They let him project and control linen wrappings, though he hadn’t used them in the fight. The tiger had been too strong and too heavy to be overly bothered by them, making their use a waste fo mana.

  Wyatt sighed as he leaned against the wall and let himself slide down it. That had been stressful, but they’d won. With zero fatalities, that had just been confirmed, but not without casualties. It was about as good as they could have expected, however, before the merge, this would have been called a disaster of epic proportions.

  Now … nowadays they picked fights like this without any reason save the pursuit of strength and loot. What a difference a couple of months made.

  This was their first proper, “clean” win against the tiger. Director Abrams would probably be dissapointed to not have been there, but oh hey, she already fought the thing to a standstill, if her stories from her time training in here were true.

  Wyatt glanced over at where Frye was coordinating the medics and trap collection. He already got along with Abrams, his direct superior, but maybe he should talk to the big cheese too? Once the medics were done, at least?

  A few minutes passed, and by then, things had calmed down enough.

  “Last week, I figured out there’s a really easy trick if you want to improve your senses,” Wyatt told the director, then winced internally. That was what he’d led with? Damnit!

  “You boost your Mind Stat?” Frye asked, only seeming to pay partial attention as he watched everyone else’s efforts.

  “Without that,” Wyatt grinned, trying to put on a confident face. “You know how deaf people’s other senses are enhanced?”

  “Yes?” Frye cautiously responded.

  “Well, they actually aren’t. They have the same sensory organs that everyone else does, it’s just that their brains spend a lot more processing power to devote to their remaining senses since sight draws on the highest amount of brainpower. It’s why food tastes better in those ‘dine in the dark’ restaurants. You can’t see anything, so your brain focuses on the input from your sense of taste.”

  “There’s a Skill for that, isn’t there?” Frye asked, clearly having realized what Wyatt was getting at.

  “Yep,” he grinned. “It’s called Sensory Processing, and I think you can get it from focusing on any kind of sensory input that isn’t your sight for a bit.”

  “Okay, but that means that you’re improving some of your senses at the cost of your others, right?” Frye asked.

  “Well, I figured not being able to taste or smell is a good idea in this mess,” Wyatt shrugged, gesturing at the slowly dissolving gore that surrounded him.

  “I can see that,” Frye nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

  So that, they did.

  ***

  Frye

  Or at least, that had been the plan. But some eagle-eyed berk had realized he was in town, and he’d wound up roped into a series of impromptu meetings, including what functionally amounted to a public forum that really just boiled down to “bunch of people understandably don’t feel safe and yell at whichever poor schmuck stood at the front of the room.”

  A wonderful waste of time.

  Frye sighed as he finally reached his office and let himself fall into his chair. What a shitshow.

  Not that he could get too upset about everyone’s concerns.

  It was easy to blame the government for bureaucracy and even urgent problems only being responded to at a pace that even “glacial” failed to adequately describe.

  Because it always took forever to get anything done, the processes and the checks and the balances and everything else had simply grown that complicated, the only reason the BPA had been created as quickly as it had was due to the fact that the United Kingdom’s leadership had been almost entirely wiped out.

  And sometimes, attempting to gain any kind of information felt like screaming into the void, without even the most infinitesimal chance of knowing why the things you were attempting to get done weren’t happening.

  Then, there were all the actions it took that, with just the teensiest bit of of hindsight, were quite obviously moronic. Brexit, for one. Offering a referendum, then actually listening to a non-binding decision by the people, then continuning to implement it even as many of the referndum’s most ardent supporters started to, quite publically, regret its outcome …

  Of course, there was another side to that, where actions and laws that looked ridiculous actually being strokes of genius, yet people were so used to governmental screwups that they rarely looked deeper.

  One such example was the American tax agency demanding taxes on criminal activity. It sounded idiotic, and like something no one would be stupid enough to do … except that was the entire point.

  It did not matter how well someone conceald their criminal activities, if they failed to disclose the income and law enforcement cared to look, all they had to do was prove that the criminal in question had money coming in.

  And so on, and so forth.

  Yet even decisive action came with its own issues, when the people in charge failed to consider potential consequences, swift action could have the exact opposite reaction, such as one of the British Empire’s attempts to curb the danger of venomous snakes in India, an incident had backfired so badly that it had, in fact, named the principle of a government action achieving the exact opposite of its intended goal.

  The Cobra Effect.

  Simply put, the colonial government had been afraid of the snakes and it had put a bounty on the heads of cobras.

  So people had started breeding them to earn money.

  So the government had realized that and stopped the bounty.

  So the people had thrown the snakes out because they were no longer profitable.

  And as for how it had ended … well, there’d been more snakes around after the bounty than before it.

  Frye sighed. Things were going well so far, but he knew that, as his agency grew, it would more and more resemble the rest of the government. Though right now, things were almost as slow, seeing as he was currently lacking both his left and right hands.

  He’d sent Foster off to Bristol, the new capital of the UK, to prepare their offices there, and Abrams was currently visiting only other semi controlled zone in the South Pacific. Intelligent inhabitants that looked just like Manatees, and the Marine Expeditionary Unit that had run squarely into the zone as it manifested.

  Based on the reports that had reached him, there were monsters around, but the ones that reached the inhabitated outskirts were weak and swiftly deal with. That kind of equilibrium would be nice to achieve in London as well, and potential access to the local System was be invaluable … even if it left him, personally, in an absolute bind.

  His own workload had balooned to the point where he was barely handling it, and even then, he wasn’t sure he could keep this up for more than a month at the very least, barring another disaster occurring locally … yeah, as though he’d ever get that lucky.

  But that was the job he had, perhaps foolishly, chosen to take up, so he’d do it until the day he dropped dead, be it from natural causes or something stress induced … the latter of which was growing ever more likely as the government healed itself.