The march to the dungeon was an education in brutal pragmatism. Every rustle in the undergrowth made my new fur stand on end. I was no longer a player viewing a map; I was a potential ambush target navigating it. My senses, heightened beyond my human ones, parsed the forest symphony—the benign scuttle of insects, the warning shriek of a distant bird, the heavy, root-like tread of another patrolling Forest Keeper which Rael wisely chose to avoid.
My mind, however, was a whirlwind of analysis. I studied my Summoner. Rael's movements were economical, his eyes constantly scanning. He was competent, but his strategy was reactive, not proactive. He saw monsters as tools with simple functions: Tank. Healer. Damage. He didn't see the math.
As we walked, I experimented internally. I focused on the feeling of the wind-attuned energy inside me—a small, swirling vortex in my core. I willed it to my claws. A faint, cyan shimmer coated them for a second before sputtering out. Skill 1: Rage Shot. It was there, a program waiting to be run. I could feel its "cooldown," not as a timer, but as a subtle recharge of that internal energy.
I also felt the Link. It was a faint, psychic tether connecting me to Rael, and through him, to Belle, Grunt, and Cinder. I could sense their general state: Belle's calm, shallow pool of energy; Grunt's solid, earthy stability; Cinder's flickering, irritable flame. And I could feel Rael's own mana, a reservoir that fed us, that gave us form in this world. The implication was chilling. We were extensions of his will, sustained by his power. If that reservoir ran dry, or if he willed it, we would wink out.
"Here," Rael announced, stopping before a sheer cliff face overgrown with moss. He placed his palm on a seemingly ordinary stone. With a pulse of his mana—a flash of blue light from his hand—the rock face shimmered and dissolved, revealing a dark, yawning entrance. A cold, damp breath exhaled from within, carrying the scent of wet stone and ancient mulch. A spectral sign materialized in the air: <
"Alright, listen up," Rael said, turning to us. "Standard dungeon rules. Monsters are stronger, but drops are better. We're here for Swift runes, Speed primaries in slot 2 are the goal. Grunt, you're on point. Belle, keep the shields rolling. Cinder, focus fire. Wind Imp… just don't die and Team-Up when I say."
He didn't even give me a name. I was a function.
We stepped inside, and the entrance sealed behind us, leaving us in a gloom illuminated only by patches of bioluminescent fungi and Belle's gentle glow. The corridor was wide, the walls formed of tangled, petrified roots. The air thrummed with latent mana, a pressure that made my fur static.
We'd taken only a dozen steps when the dungeon reacted. From the walls and floor, shapes coalesced from shadow and vegetation. Two Forest Keepers (Lvl 12) and a new creature—a swirling, animate vortex of leaves and sharp twigs with glowing green eyes. <
My player mind screamed a warning. Wind Pixie. Skill 1: Tap (steals attack bar). Skill 2: Whirling Wind (AoE, reduces attack power). This changes everything.
"New formation!" Rael barked, surprise in his voice. "Grunt, provoke both Keepers! Belle, shield everyone! Imps, burn down the Pixie first! It's a support; it'll cripple us!"
It was the right basic call, but his execution was flawed. He was panicking.
The battle was joined. Grunt let out his Provoke, drawing the lumbering Keepers. Belle cast her shield, a bubble of water enveloping each of us. Cinder and I lunged for the Pixie. But it was faster. It giggled, a sound like rustling leaves, and spun. Skill 2: Whirling Wind.
A cyclone of razor-edged leaves exploded from it. The attack washed over us. It didn't hurt much, but a debilitating, green aura settled over me, over Cinder, over Grunt. I felt instantly weaker, my claws seeming less sharp. Attack Power Decreased.
"Damn it!" Rael cursed. "Cinder, now!"
Cinder shot his fireball. I followed up, activating Rage Shot on instinct. My body spun, channeling wind into my claws before launching me in a single, piercing strike. Our attacks hit, but the Pixie, bolstered by the dungeon's energy, survived. It turned its glowing eyes on me and waved a tiny twig hand. Skill 1: Tap.
A green tendril of energy shot out and stole something from me. I felt a sudden, profound lethargy, as if my very momentum had been drained. My next action would be painfully slow. It had siphoned my attack bar.
Meanwhile, one of the Keepers, not fully locked by Grunt's Provoke, swung a massive limb at Belle. Her shield shattered like glass. She cried out, a sound of tinkling fracture, and was hurled against the wall, her light dimming.
"Belle!" Rael shouted, real fear in his voice now. His mana flared as he poured energy into her, stabilizing her form. But in that moment of distraction, his control wavered. The Link vibrated erratically.
The second Keeper turned towards Cinder and me.
Chaos. This was the messy, terrifying reality of battle no game could simulate. The smell of ozone and burnt wood, the visceral shock of debuffs sapping your strength, the shared panic across the Link.
I saw Cinder preparing another fireball, but he was too slow. The Keeper's branch-arm descended toward him. In that split second, analysis overrode terror. The Keeper was Wind-attribute. I was Wind. My attacks would do less damage. But the Pixie, the real threat, was also Wind. Elemental disadvantage.
But Rael had said "Team-Up when I say." He hadn't said. He was focused on Belle.
Screw the command.
I didn't target the Pixie or the Keeper. I focused on the strongest single source of damage we had left—Cinder. I grabbed the Link between us, a thread hot and resentful, and yanked on it with my will. Skill 2: Team-Up.
"What are you—?!" Cinder's mental snarl was cut off as the skill took hold.
He was mid-cast, but the skill overrode his action. His fireball fizzled as he was yanked forward alongside me in a blur of motion. Our combined assault wasn't aimed at the threatening Keeper, but at the other one—the one still firmly locked on Grunt.
It was the wrong target from a damage perspective. But it was the right target from a strategic one.
Our dual strike—flame and wind—slammed into the already wounded Keeper's back. It roared and shattered, releasing another wave of life-force. The instant it died, a mechanic of the world, one I knew intimately from countless dungeon runs, triggered: Defeated monsters grant a small boost to the Attack Bar of all allies.
A surge of released energy washed over us. The lethargy from the Pixie's Tap vanished. I felt ready to act immediately. More importantly, so did Grunt.
The Garuda, now with a full attack bar, didn't need a command. It saw Belle, its healing partner, injured. It let out a screech and unleashed Skill 2: Heal Wind. A pulse of green energy restored Belle and mended some of our own scrapes.
The battle shifted. With Belle back on her feet, a new shield solidified. With the second Keeper gone, Grunt could fully control the remaining one. Cinder, furious but understanding the turn of events, blasted the Wind Pixie with a newly empowered fireball. I followed up with another Rage Shot. This time, without its Keeper guard, the Pixie disintegrated.
The final Keeper fell moments later.
Silence returned, broken only by our heavy breathing. Rael stared, first at the fading motes of light, then at me. His expression was unreadable—a mix of anger, confusion, and dawning realization.
He walked over to the loot. Two runes this time. One grey Energy Rune (1-Star). And one, glowing with a faint, greenish speed. <
A genuine prize. He picked it up, his eyes wide. Then he turned to me.
"You disobeyed a direct command."
His voice was low, dangerous. I felt a pressure through the Link, a threat of dissolution. Cinder watched with grim satisfaction. Belle and Grunt were passive, waiting.
I couldn't speak his language. But I could project intent, image, and emotion through the Link, the way Cinder had. I focused, pouring my analysis into the connection: The Pixie was Wind. We were Wind-attributed. Weak damage. The Keeper on Grunt was wounded. Killing it triggered an Attack Bar boost. It allowed Grunt to heal Belle, restoring our defense. It was the optimal action sequence.
I sent it not as words, but as a rapid flash of logic—elemental charts, turn order projections, the cascading benefit of the kill. It was the ghost of a strategy screen, a glimpse of the calculative engine that had lived behind my eyes.
Rael's eyes glazed over for a second, overwhelmed. The pressure on the Link eased. He blinked, looking from me to the Swift rune in his hand, then to Grunt and a now-stable Belle.
"You… you thought about the elements? And the… attack bar?" He spoke slowly, as if trying a foreign concept. Most Summoners, I realized, operated on intuition and power level, not on discrete, mathematical optimization. My actions weren't just disobedience; they were a revelation of a deeper layer of combat logic.
He crouched down, bringing his face closer to mine. The suspicion was still there, but now it was tinged with a spark of avarice. "Can you… do that again? Analyze like that?"
I nodded my furry head once, sharply.
A slow, calculating smile spread across Rael's face. It wasn't friendly, but it was the first look he'd given me that wasn't one of dismissal or annoyance. It was the look of a man who'd found an unexpected tool with a hidden, complex function.
"Huh," he grunted, standing up. He attached the new Swift rune to a bracelet on his wrist; it melted into the metal, leaving only its etched symbol glowing faintly. I felt a tiny, instantaneous ripple of increased speed flow through the Link to all of us. A minor stat boost, shared.
"Alright then," he said, his voice back to its gruff normalcy, but with a new undercurrent. "From now on, you're not 'Wind Imp.' You're Gale. And you don't just Team-Up when I say. You… advise. Project those thoughts to me before the fight gets messy. Understood?"
It wasn't freedom. It was a promotion from fodder to a tactical assistant. My survival was now tied to my usefulness in a new, more demanding way. But it was a foothold.
Understood, I projected back.
Cinder's mental presence was a simmering pot of resentment. Lucky move, wind-bag. Don't think it makes you special.
It doesn't, I sent back, my mental tone cool and focused. It makes us more likely to survive. Your fire is more effective when we're not all dead.
He had no retort. As we moved deeper into the dungeon, the dynamic had irrevocably changed. Rael started glancing at me before making formation decisions. When we encountered the next pack—two Wind Pixies and a Treant—I projected a plan: Grunt provokes Treant. Belle shields. Cinder and I focus first Pixie. Kill sequence triggers speed boost for Belle to re-shield before second Pixie's AoE.
The fight was clean. Efficient. We took minimal damage. No rune dropped, but the victory was smooth, a symphony compared to the earlier cacophony.
After the third clean engagement, Rael actually chuckled, a dry, rusty sound. "This… this is good. With this, maybe I can finally clear Stage 5. Maybe even get a 3-star rune."
His ambition had been ignited. And I was the spark. As we pressed on, I felt a grim satisfaction. I was using the only weapon I had—my mind—to carve out a place in this deadly world.
But as we rounded a corner into a larger, root-chamber, the satisfaction froze solid. The mana pressure spiked violently. In the center of the room, not merely coalescing from the dungeon but waiting, was a monster that shouldn't have appeared on Stage 2.
It was a towering, majestic creature of living wood and vibrant leaves, with antlers like blossoming branches and eyes of solid, mossy stone. A soft, green aura of regeneration pulsed around it. Text shimmered, red and threatening:
<
Rael paled. "A miniboss… here? That's impossible for this stage!"
The Guardian lowered its head, a low, groaning sound echoing through the chamber. It wasn't just a monster. It was an event. A deviation.
And its stone eyes were fixed not on Rael, but directly on me.
A new, alien thought-voice, ancient and rooted as the deepest earth, brushed against my mind, bypassing Rael's Link entirely.
<
The first true test had arrived. And it knew I didn't belong here.