Pov Carl

  My momentum was stopped by a tree. I could feel it crack, but it seemed like I didn’t have to worry about it falling on top of me. My shield arm hurt; that impact probably cracked my bone. The shield was also bent inwards a little bit. Yet through all of this, I never took my eyes off the monster I was fighting. I did not know what it was, but that seemed to be the case with every monster as I was now fighting with monsters that were just one step away from diamond rank, as I was.

  It kind of resembled a gorilla but also some sort of rodent. It had scales, and its front legs—or arms, whatever they were—were so thick, but they could move so fast. I had lost another weapon of mine, so I pulled out another spear from my storage ring. The monster immediately started charging toward me again, but this time I threw the spear, surprising it.

  It tried to dodge, and in doing so, disrupted its own charge. That attack itself was ineffective. The scales of the thing were simply too hard. I rushed the thing this time, pulling out a large warhammer. Let’s see if this thing can take blunt damage. It was already on me before I could reach it and deliver an attack. I dodged as fast as I could, but it always got so close to hitting me.

  I stopped wearing heavy armor long ago as it was simply too restrictive for these types of fights. Now I could understand why most diamond ranks never wore anything past medium armor. Speed and flexibility were simply more important. It took me precious seconds and dodging several attacks before I finally got a chance to deliver a proper attack.

  The monster screamed out in pain as I hit its back leg. Some of the scales crumbled to dust, but the bastard was still able to put weight on the leg. It had incredible intelligence and immediately started to focus on my weapon again, trying to destroy it or get it away from me.

  Its intelligence still wasn’t perfect, as I saw its focus on my weapon as a mistake. I now knew that these monsters were cheap imitations of real creatures that lived in this dungeon, and anyone this strong, I was certain, was as intelligent as me. I was certain I couldn’t survive against the creature this monster was trying to mimic.

  It took me nearly a minute to get another opening by baiting it to attack my weapons. This time, my attack crippled one of its back legs. I sighed in frustration, as this only slowed it down but didn’t stop it.

  It now had to rely more on its front legs to keep balance, but I had hoped this fight would be over. It took another three minutes for me to cripple one of its front legs, and only a few heartbeats after that to finish it.

  It has been a hard road so far, and all of my party members had already reached diamond rank. I was the last one. One of the reasons I was the last was because I was the leader of our clan and actually had to do some leading, which included a lot of diplomacy because of the situation inside the dungeon. As the dungeon opened up to us, there were a lot of opportunities to strengthen my clan’s position that we needed to consider; otherwise, we might fall behind.

  The strength of the monster empowered me as it died. No loot would be left behind, as these rooms were meant for us to gain combat experience and, of course, the strengthening of our power.

  My talent was a simple one, yet it was already causing me to fall behind as I needed more and more to reach my next breakthrough. I wondered if I needed to fight another one, but then I felt the crunch. Power flooded through me as I felt the breakthrough happening that would take me from a platinum rank to a diamond.

  Unfortunately, I needed to leave this place, so I quickly hurried out. There were two groups of people waiting for me: one that would take this room after me, and my clan members. I gave them a short nod, and smiles broke on their faces. Immediately we made for one of the gateways in the middle of The Line and we were soon looking at my clan hideout. I rushed to my own home and entered the breakthrough room.

  It wasn't anything special, just an empty room where you would not be disturbed and could let the breakthrough happen without any worry. I do not know exactly how long I was out, but even before I opened my eyes, I could feel that I was now diamond rank.

  I went and looked inside myself to see my inner space expanded, now having a shine to it. There were many skills here, and I saw another two empty skill slots. They were huge—bigger than any I had seen before.

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  I looked toward one corner where my talent lay, hoping to see another one. When I reached gold rank, I received a talent simply called More. When I reached platinum, it simply got stronger, and as I looked at it now, it seemed like it once again just got stronger. I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, as some of my party members got quite interesting new talents, but I couldn’t argue against the power of mine.

  When I first got it, it felt like I yelled out More, and an entire village went silent, listening to its power. When I reached platinum, yelling More felt like it would silence an entire forest. Yet now, when I touched and felt this talent, a scream tore out of me, “More!”

  It was said with such power and conviction that, in my mind, I saw a mountain being destroyed by it, nothing interrupting its path. My contemplation was interrupted when I heard cracking sounds outside my mind.

  Even before I opened my eyes, I could feel what was happening. A wave of power, in a perfect circle, was radiating from me. It had reached the walls and was now pushing them outward, destroying them. I could now see it happening in slow motion.

  I was confused as to how this was possible, but I could do nothing more than simply watch as the room I was in was destroyed. The ceiling and the walls were pushed outward. At nearly their center, the beams split, and the boards cracked under the pressure of this wave.

  I could feel and see it all happening in every minute detail. I started to truly understand what my talent meant. At first, ‘more’ simply meant more mana capacity, it was stronger, and so was my body.

  At platinum rank, my talent started to affect more things, like my skill slots—they became bigger than they should have been; they were simply more. Now, I didn’t exactly know what had changed, but I felt the ‘more’ encompass so much. I felt so powerful.

  The wave didn’t extend much further than the room, but I think the reason it didn’t was because I became aware of it and wanted it to stop spreading outward. Slowly, I started to get used to time being so slow, but I needed another 10 minutes to properly communicate with the people constantly trying to talk to me and asking if everything was alright.

  “Yes, I am fine, just taking a bit to get used to all the new things I’m sensing and experiencing. Could you please give me some time?”

  It was weird to speak like this. I was speaking so slowly, yet I could see that some of them were still having trouble understanding me, as I was still going too fast. If I understood this correctly, every diamond rank experienced this to some extent, but I think mine was more exaggerated.

  None of my party members could be here—they were all at the meeting of diamond ranks. Slowly, I was getting a handle on everything. Moving was truly annoying, but what was even weirder was that I could now feel and sense the dungeon around me, and not just the physical dungeon—I could sense it looking at me.

  I guess I could always do this, but now I could see its attention was constantly varying, like a part of it was doing something else, and when it had time, it focused a bit more on me. What a different way of living it must be.

  In the end, it took me nearly an hour to get myself to a point where I felt I would no longer be dangerous to others. It will still take me a while to properly get used to my diamond rank power and for that power to spread throughout me. But now, I could go to that meeting. The gateway wasn’t far away, but it was so simple to just walk a bit faster and cover as much ground as I did when rushing at platinum rank.

  As I touched the gateway, a new option was available to me, and I quickly selected a gateway named Diamond Meeting. As I stepped through, I could already see the dungeon's puppet looking in my direction. The flash of the gateway must have alerted others, as most turned to see who had come through. My party members smiled at me.

  "Took you long enough. We are currently discussing ways to delay the enemies’ advance in the labyrinth." Ziiipe said in a happy voice.

  The other adventurers here made way for me so I could get close to the planning table. They were still a bit too proud of the fact that they had made it to diamond rank before me. As I observed all that was on the table, I was surprised at how fast I could comprehend everything. So even my mental capabilities have been enhanced.

  The current plan seemed to be quite good. We were planning to add as many gateways as possible into the labyrinth where the enemy operated. They could stop the functioning of some of the gateways, when they influenced the space there and took control away from ETG, but it took a lot out of them. If there were a lot more gateways, even if only for a split second their concentration lapsed, ETG could activate some gateways, cutting some people off. After that, we could take care of them.

  "You know, when I was still quite young, a circus group came through our town. They had an interesting curiosity. I never entered it, but it was the talk of the town for quite a while. It was a room of mirrors. Does anyone else know of it?" I asked, and a few adventurers nodded their heads. I explained more about how it functioned, especially how they somehow made one person appear in all of the mirrors to scare the people inside.

  "Our enemies already know how to locate the gateways, and when you add them everywhere, it will be even easier. Would it be possible to make them behave like mirrors? We can also make terrible monsters appear like they are attacking. We might even scare them into moving through other gateways”

  “So, turn it into a puzzle room, the scary kind." One adventure asked and I nodded.

  I could see some of the adventurers shiver. Puzzle rooms could be annoying but also fun, but the scary ones were disturbing. It was simple to understand why they were needed, as training your will was as important as training your body.

  After a bit more discussion ETG wasn’t certain if that was possible, but he promised to look into it. The meeting continued for quite a while as I was brought up to speed along with a few other new diamond ranks.

  There were quite a few non-adventurers here. Some looked quite monstrous, but their eyes were so intelligent that there was no doubt in my mind they were as smart as any adventurer. When the meeting finally ended, my party members showed me the city outside, filled with monsters, mostly platinum ranks, but other Diamond ranks as well.

  ETG told us that it will take a bit of time, but he will be making a world just for us Diamond ranks—something about not wanting the power structure of this world to be challenged? Ziiipe explained in her exuberant way. She was like a tour guide as we continued to walk the city. It brought a smile to my face, even if we needed to go into battle against other Diamond ranks in short order.