Second Realm Read online

  Tan Xue wanted to know more about the village that had produced Erik and Rugrat.

  She held onto Julilah’s hand as she looked over the city.

  “What is that shining thing and why is there light coming from the ceiling?” the little girl asked.

  “Those shining things are magical formations. That thing on the ceiling must be some kind of illusion spell,” Tan Xue said.

  “That’s so cool! Why are their buildings strange and why isn’t it dusty?” Julilah had come out of her shell and her inquisitive nature had come out.

  Tan Xue sighed as they passed a large building with a red cross on it. Inside, people who were hurt were going to see people in uniforms.

  “What is this place?” Julilah asked.

  “That is the hospital, the first of its kind. Where healers and alchemists work together to help people,” Yao Meng said.

  “H-healers?” Tan Xue wouldn’t be able to find more than two dozen healers in Kaeju city, and there were tens of thousands of people. Now she was seeing a building filled with them.

  “Yeah, they come from the academy, learn how to increase their skills and they’re employed by the military and thus the Alva Dungeon council. Everyone has a right to healthcare in Alva Dungeon.” Yao Meng said it so casually but Tan Xue’s eyes nearly fell out as she found it hard to breathe.

  “You okay, Miss Tan?” Julilah tugged on her hand, giving her a worried look.

  “I’m fine, just a bit shocked. Healers are incredibly expensive in the outside world.”

  “Well, there are certain things that people need to pay for but the costs are bearable. If you want to do something like Body Cultivation, we aren’t at that level yet and it would take three or four healers to do it and you’d have to pay for their time.”

  “Body Cultivation?” Tan Xue was feeling light-headed now.

  “Yeah, we’ve theorized that we can do two temperings based on what Erik taught us, though only the special teams have been willing to carry it out.” Yao Meng shook his head and he turned a bit pale. “Probably be the only ones to try it out until we get some alchemists who can manage the pain side of it better.”

  Just hearing his tone, Tan Xue had a chill run through her spine.

  They continued into the city. Qin, Yui, and Tan Xue looked around in interest while Julilah continued to ask a stream of questions.

  The party with them answered the questions as they could.

  The houses looked brand-new. They were uniform but comfortable. Everyone had a home.

  There was a trading market and water was supplied to people, clean enough to drink.

  They got into the city center around the main building. There was a large manor, a trading area with only a few vendors, and a number of buildings around a tower that was the second tallest building in the dungeon.

  “That is the academy and this is the dungeon headquarters. The council is waiting to see you. Just go up the stairs.” Niemm moved to the side.

  The four new arrivals looked at one another.

  Yui was the one to take the first step forward, his finger on his ring, ready to fight.

  They went up the dungeon headquarters, passing a glowing gem.

  They entered a large room. In the center of it was a table with a thin thread of blue light coming down from above and into the chamber below.

  At the table, there were four people: three men and one woman.

  Another woman stood behind them. She had a kind of subdued beauty. If she smiled or wore the right clothes, it would bring out her looks. Instead, she stood back at ease, watching the new arrivals like a hawk. The two other people standing on either side of the table facing the new arrivals also watched them.

  Tan Xue felt as though she were being watched by predators. The guards were level fifteen, two of the men were level sixteen, the woman and remaining man were level thirteen.

  “My name is Elise. This is Glosil, Blaze, and Jasper. I am the council leader of Alva Dungeon. Erik and Rugrat left this dungeon in my charge. Most of you have been given an invitation to come here.” Elise looked over to Yui. She might be one of the weakest in the room, but the others all respected her word and she had a kind of power behind her words that only a leader could.

  Yui ducked his head. He glanced to his sister but she just gave him a displeased look.

  “So, there is a choice to be made. You can join Alva Dungeon as a resident, or leave. In both circumstances, you will need to take an oath on the Ten Realms. If you do join Alva Dungeon, then you can seek employment in our different industries or seek to create a business for yourself. You can look to join the academy, where we offer information on many different crafts, from cookhouse, tailoring, woodworking and architecture, formation, farming, Alchemy, and smithing.” Elise’s expression softened as she looked over to Tan Xue.

  “Which we are looking for another person to help with. We might not have much in resources, but we have a great amount of information that one can use and learn from. If you stay in Alva Dungeon and you live in a property, you can pick others and rent from them or you can rent directly from the dungeon. If you have the coin, you can pay for it that way or it will be put as debt to be paid off later. There are terms we can offer in that direction,” Elise said.

  “The academy—is it part of a sect? Will we have to carry out missions for them and give items up to it?” Tan Xue asked.

  She hated the sects. They basically took over people’s lives, demanding for them to grow stronger, to contribute to the sect no matter what. They were kind of like artificial families that only demanded more from their members.

  The people around the table and the guards frowned at her words.

  “It is free to use the library of the academy, but the classes with the different subject matter teachers will cost money. You can pay by term and you will have tests. By the end of a term, you can expect to be an Apprentice in the craft you have picked, maybe even higher if you have a greater aptitude for it. With your fee, the classes, workspace time, and materials are paid for. If you wish to sell the items you make, then you are free to do so,” Elise said.

  The room fell into silence.

  “What about fighting?” Yui asked after some time.

  The two higher-leveled men at the table smiled as they looked at Yui.

  “Spearman—looks like yours,” Glosil said to the man called Blaze.

  Blaze let out a laugh, looking over Yui. “Depends how good you are,” Blaze said.

  Yui stiffened, clearly offended. He was just a teenager, after all.

  She felt like these two men weren’t simple, not as dangerous as some of the people who had bought weapons from her, but they weren’t simple and not just contained by their level. Their combat power was much greater.

  “Shit! I forgot! Why didn’t you send anyone to find me!” A man’s voice came from the stairs as hurried footsteps followed.

  Elise sat back in her chair with a sigh. The others had pained smiles on their faces as the previous serious atmosphere dissolved.

  A large man entered the room behind the four new people.

  He was covered in soot and sweat. It looked as if he hadn’t slept or washed in some time, but his eyes were shining.

  “Taran.” Elise’s voice rose in warning.

  Taran looked at the people in the room and knelt in front of Tan Xue. “Please! Please teach this lowly one the way of refining normal iron into Mortal-grade iron! Rugrat might have beat me to it, that bastard, but I am more diligent and I will not let you down and call you Master for the rest of my life!” the man called Taran said solemnly as Tan Xue was thrown off by his actions.

  “Uh?” Tan Xue looked around in confusion.

  “That is Taran, the last member of the council,” Elise said.

  “He runs the academy and is our smith.” Jasper coughed awkwardly.

  Tan Xue had heard all of these amazing things from the council but now one of them
was pledging to become her student. “You want to learn how to turn iron into Mortal iron?” Tan Xue asked.

  She was nearly blasted away by the teary and shining gaze in Taran’s eyes, as if hearing about his lost beloved.

  “Please! I can craft Journeyman pieces all day long, but with just iron I am not able to pull out the full strength of the weapons. If I was able to use Mortal-grade iron, then I could make weapons that could capture their power and I might find a path to make Master-grade weapons. I might figure out the path to make Earth-grade metal even!”

  Tan Xue saw as a pure tear rolled down Taran’s stained face. She had never felt so awkward nor panicked. “It will cost you—” She cleared her throat.

  “What is money in the face of improvement! I will sell myself!” Taran yelled.

  Tan Xue couldn’t help but feel the corners of her mouth be pulled into a smile, seeing that passion in his eyes, seeing the surety of his words. She had seen it in two other people: in Rugrat and in her own eyes when she had been working on her projects, seeking the peak of smithing.

  She didn’t make them for money; she made them to show off her strength, to improve, to challenge herself and all others.

  It was the pursuit of something greater than oneself.

  Her awkwardness was pushed away as she thought of Rugrat. She didn’t know where this would lead, but seeing Taran, seeing the unrelenting passion in his eyes, she felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  A spark.

  A spark that ignited the fires of a blacksmith. Her hand opened and closed, seeking the feel of her hammer, the feel of heat blasting outward, standing against the elements and waging a war of stamina against the metal.

  Taran’s smile grew wider, as if he could see what was happening behind her eyes.

  “Well, Mister Taran, let’s see how much you can pick it up. Rugrat got it in just a week.” She held out a hand.

  “Hah! A week? I need just three days!” Taran boasted. He reached out, taking her hand as he got to his feet.

  ***

  “Well, that was not how I was expecting things to go,” Elise said to Jasper as they left the dungeon headquarters.

  All four of the arrivals had made oaths and become Alva Dungeon citizens. Qin selected to take a semester at the school. She was undefined so she got access to room and board as well as some time slots in all the workshops and the library.

  Yui had taken the path of fighter. Glosil and Blaze took him off to the barracks to add him into the ranks of those training.

  Julilah had become a blacksmith apprentice. Tan Xue was a potential teaching candidate, getting half of her time and materials for cheaper.

  “We’re running into the problem that we simply have too many high-grade items to sell,” Jasper said.

  “When Special Team Two heads to the Second Realm, we’ll make it part of their mission to scout out places to sell items,” Elise said.

  “In the meantime, we need to look for more places to trade with around the Beast Mountain Range and build up contacts with some of the surrounding Blue Lotuses,” Jasper said.

  “Well, thankfully there are a lot of trading outposts in the places around the Beast Mountain,” Elise said.

  “Are you sure about stockpiling a bunch of the higher quality items?” Jasper said. “We’re putting a lot of our money into holding them instead of selling them off.”

  “I have to think of the safety for this dungeon. We can sell a few of them here and there, but if we put them out too quick then people might be wondering where we got them from and then start looking into it.

  “Blaze had a good idea, actually,” Elise said.

  Jasper looked over in interest.

  “Have one or more of the groups head out to the cities, ones that aren’t close to us, then sell the items at the Blue Lotus there. Then move to another place and sell them there. Draw people’s attention away from here. So, it would need to be far enough away so there’s no connection to here, but close enough that the people here hear about it.

  “Then, if we sell more items in this area that are higher than normal quality, but less than the items farther away, people won’t be as shocked,” Elise said.

  Jasper nodded. He was now the quartermaster of Alva Dungeon. Elise took her time in raising him up into the position. She had been the main trader in Alva Village before so her information was invaluable to him and the other merchants.

  “That would be brilliant,” Jasper said. “I never thought that I would be talking about market disruption and changes in my life.”

  “I think that this is only the start of odd things,” Elise teased.

  “I know. We’ve still got five more floors to clear and there’s no telling what Erik and Rugrat have planned.”

  “If it’s anything to do with those two, I don’t think it’ll be simple.”

  ***

  Qin had been surprised when she saw Egbert for the first time. It was hard to not be, seeing a skeleton walking around the library.

  If you want to learn magic, then you need to find more books to read and he holds all the books in the library.

  She built up her courage and went over to Egbert, who was patrolling the library.

  “Uh, Mister Egbert, I was wondering if I could get some books?” she asked, unsure of where to look. It was only with her training as the daughter of a merchant that she was able to keep her voice level.

  He looked down at her. The twin blue flames in his eyes seemed to lock onto her.

  She couldn’t help but look up at them, interested by the flames.

  “What kinds of books are you looking for?” Egbert asked. “Alchemy, cooking, woodworking, structural design, romance—er, fiction, magical formations?”

  “Magical formations,” Qin called out. She had heard about magical formations and their abilities to create spells. She thought that it would be a good place to start.

  “Hmm.” Egbert grabbed his head and pulled it off. The sight made Qin shiver. Egbert lowered his head to look at his spine; one hand held the head, the other used the storage within his vertebrae to check what was inside.

  “Book of soups, planers, chisel information, pictures on beast rearing, no thanks—ahh!” Egbert cried out as he dropped his own head on the floor. His hands tried to grab his head but instead sent him flying across the room into a wall.

  “Oh come on!” Egbert yelled out, his head on the ground clacking along.

  Qin was looking at the whole scene with a pale face, before she finally broke into laughter.

  “Hey! That’s mean! I lost my head and you’re laughing!” Egbert complained as a spell formation activated and his head flew back to his body.

  “This isn’t right,” Egbert said, his head sideways on his vertebrae.

  Qin couldn’t help but giggling at the “scary skeleton.”

  “Let me help.” She grabbed his skull. He frowned as she put his skull back on the right way around.

  “Damn youth today—no respect for their elders,” Egbert mumbled as he pulled out a few books and handed them to Qin, who now had a big smile on her face.

  “Thank you, Mister Egbert. I’ll come back if I have any questions or spare time!” Qin said.

  Egbert looked at her. Even without facial features, Qin felt as if he were a bit stunned.

  “Have a good day!” she said with a wide smile.

  He sounds all annoyed and angry but he lost his head to make me feel easier. I feel like he’s been really lonely. I’ll make sure to say hello and talk to him when I can! Qin nodded to herself and smiled.

  Alva Dungeon was a place she had just entered and she didn’t know many people. Her brother was off training and she was left to find her own path.

  Egbert had helped her feel more at ease and make Alva seem a bit more welcoming.

  Chapter: A German and Redneck Walked into the Test Range One Day...

  Erik felt strength entering his body. It w
asn’t as much as when he had reached the Body Like Stone stage, but leveling up was still one hell of a drug.

  He sat up. Only a few hours had gone by since he had gone to sleep.

  Rugrat had finished with his testing models and was playing with a Mana gathering formation.

  Erik closed his fist, feeling the Mana and the Strength moving through his body. “Strength, Agility, Stamina, and Mana.”

  “What are you talking about over there?” Rugrat looked up. He quickly put away the formation in his hands, an excited look on his face.

  “I’ve changed what I want to increase,” Erik said.

  “Oh. Why?”

  “I wanted to focus on close quarters combat, leaving you to be ranged.”

  Erik checked over his new stat screen once again.

  ==========

  Character Sheet

  ==========

  Name: Erik West

  ==========

  Level: 16

  ==========

  Race: Human

  ==========

  Titles:

  From the Grave

  Mana Lord

  Dungeon Master

  Reverse Alchemist

  Poison Body

  ==========

  Strength: (Base 26) +15

  ==========

  410

  ==========

  Agility: (Base 19) +18

  ==========

  185

  ==========

  Stamina: (Base 29) +5

  ==========

  510

  ==========

  Mana: (Base 6) +11

  ==========

  170

  ==========

  Mana Regeneration (Base 10) +28

  12.15/s

  ==========

  Stamina Regeneration: (Base 27) +23

  10.75/s

  ==========

  “That makes a certain amount of sense,” Rugrat agreed. “All right, now stop hogging the limelight. Some of us aren’t all over the place and know they wanted to go rogue as soon as they started. Help me with this damn Mana gate, will you?”

  “You make it seem as if I’m helping you button the cuffs of your dress shirt up,” Erik said.