Ney was sitting alone in the guildmaster's office, flipping through the pages of a book on combat tactics for adventuring parties. He was waiting for Cariene to come back and figured there would be no harm in taking a quick look at one of the books on display. Unfortunately for him, the diagrams and terminology within were far too advanced for a newbie, rendering the exercise mostly pointless.

Around him were an impressive number of trophies, from monster parts to enchanted weapons in glass display cases, all decorating the walls of the office. Behind the guildmaster's desk were also several certificates of recognition awarded at times to Cariene herself, and at times to her party. While Ney couldn't grasp their full meaning, he could easily gather that they had accomplished an impressive number of feats worthy of celebration. He even started wondering if his teacher, when she had given him examples of Legendary skill effects, hadn't sneaked in something she herself was used to relying on. The more he learned about her, the more grateful he felt that such an outstanding person chose to teach in Fibela.

Ney gave up on the book, closing it and putting it back where he had found it. He then took a closer look at some of the weapons on display, but was interrupted by the door opening.

"Ney! Your cool and very perfect mentors are here!"

Cariene entered in the office, followed by a group of four high-level adventurers. The first was a dwarf in heavy armor, holding a shield almost as tall as he was and carrying a war pick at his belt. His eyes and cheeks where hiding within the untamed wilderness formed by his brown bushy beard and long hair, leaving only his nose poking out.

Behind him followed a woman with fluffy, wolf-like ears at the top of her head and a puffy tail coming out of the bottom of her back. She was wearing a long robe that only barely avoided touching the floor and had a staff with a large gem embedded into the tip strapped to her back. Her ears twitched slightly as she smiled to Ney.

The third to come in was a human wearing strange, bright red and yellow clothes, combined with darker accents in blue and green tones. The weapon on his back looked like a bow that had been converted into a musical instrument, adding to the overall unserious look of the man. Every step he took gave the impression that he was about to break into a dance, but that expectation was never met.

And finally, a familiar elf walked in. Her blonde hair cascaded down her back, and her face showed an expression of complete serenity, at least until she saw the person she was going to mentor.

"Ney!?"

"Oh, uh... Hi, Amy?"

"So you're the 'prodigious kid' Cariene messaged us about. I thought you were just a normal newcomer when I met you earlier."

The guildmaster, witnessing this exchange, took a step forward and asked:

"So you're already acquainted?"

Amy laughed before explaining:

"Actually, I saw the Black Knight treat him pretty poorly this morning, so I stepped in afterwards to show him that adventurers aren't all bad people. I offered to help him if we ever met again, but I didn't expect we'd run across each other this fast."

Cariene nodded, satisfied, then said:

"Well, you'll be teaching him how to heal, so I'm sure he'll be relying on you plenty in the near future."

The man wearing the gaudy clothes stepped forward, asking:

"Right, I've wanted to ask this since earlier, but... Why are we all teaching him our individual roles? Shouldn't he just pick one and leave the rest to his future party, like everyone else?"

Cariene placed her hands on her hips and lifted her chin before proudly declaring:

"Under normal circumstances, you'd be correct, but this boy is unique. He received a Mythic skill that allows him to redistribute his Attribute Points whenever he changes class."

All four adventurers were stunned, staring at Ney as the implications of his power set in. Amy was the first to manage to speak again:

"Well, that... it certainly explains it. In that case, better all introduce ourselves properly. I'll go first."

She curtsied and, while keeping that pose, said:

"My name is Amiderineyel Felerova. It's a mouthful, so please keep on calling me 'Amy'. I'll be teaching you the tactics and strategies necessary for healers to keep their party safe."

The dwarf brought both hands to his chest, forming a symbol with his fingers, before saying in a deep and monotone voice:

"Giermar, at your service. I'm this group's defender, so I'll be teaching you how to handle combat on the front line."

The beastkin woman waved to Ney, her tail flicking around a few times as she introduced herself:

"I'm Isabella, or Izzy among close friends. In this party, I provide both the backline damage and the tactical control of the battlefield. On top of those, I'll also be training you in recognizing when your party needs you to fill multiple roles at once, and how to do it efficiently."

Finally, the human, seeing that he wasn't getting out of there anytime soon, grabbed a chair and sat on it, setting his weapon-instrument down at his feet before saying:

"Yo! Name's Igeas, and I'm the support in this merry band. I play magical music and it makes my friends want to kill our enemies faster, or die slower. So yeah, gonna teach you the ins and outs of that, if you want."

With everyone now introduced, Ney had a better idea of what to expect from this party. Thankfully, they'd be able to provide him with the foundations for all the roles that get picked up by adventurers, even if they'd probably all go about it in wildly different ways.

"I'm Ney. I'm new to all of this, so I'll be in your care."

Cariene, satisfied by the first encounter between the mentors and their new student, sat at her desk and grabbed a document from a pile. After reading a few lines, she turned back to Ney and said:

"Of course, these four aren't going to be your party. Their levels are so much higher than yours that it'd be a waste of time for everyone involved. However, I've been planning a little project for a while, and this year I finally have enough people to get it truly started. For now, I'll have you team up with other people who all have a Legendary skill, and who also happen to be relatively new in the adventuring business."

Amy frowned upon hearing that and quickly expressed her concerns:

"Wouldn't that lead to unrealistic expectations of the capabilities of their teammates if they ever go on to join new parties? If all you've ever trained and worked with have Legendary skills..."

"A fair concern, and one I share. That's why I've decided to keep this experiment as brief as possible. The idea is to group the guild's most promising talents together and get them used to their powers, and then make them join other parties before they get completely used to adventuring. That way, I only have to keep an eye on one party to see how they're progressing, rather than having to track them down not only across different parties, but also different branches of the guild."

"Right, the higher-ups did put you in charge of nurturing rare skills, to avoid a repeat of..."

Realizing that it wouldn't be prudent to continue her line of thought in front of a newbie, Amy briefly paused before concluding:

"... of that incident. Very well, I will trust in your judgement."

Ney was curious about what Amy was referring to, but he figured there was a reason she had stopped herself from saying it. He would have to ask about it once he had grown as an adventurer.

Cariene put the paper she held back in the pile it came from, then said:

"Your special party isn't scheduled to meet up until next week. Thankfully, we have a few dungeons within the city itself that are suitable for solo runs, even by people of your level. If you'd like, I'll show them to you once I take care of this paperwork."

Ney's eyes sparkled at the thought of attempting his first dungeon. He wouldn't even need to wait for a party, he could just go alone! However, a question crept in his mind:

"Which class should I pick to do those?"

"Any, really. You can just start with the one you were planning to pick before you got your skill, and you'll be able to manage just fine."

"In that case... Fighter it is!"

As he said it, he also accessed the powers within himself and, through a few manipulations, selected Fighter as his current class. A wave of new information flowed into his mind:

Class Change: Fighter

Class-Specific Benefits:

• Strength: +10%
• Vitality: +10%

Skills Learned (Bound):

• Provoke
• Rampart
• Power Strike II (Upgraded from Power Strike)
• Aura of Aggression

All Attribute Points (0) have been reset.

Seeing his new skills, he nodded with satisfaction. They were "bound", which meant that he would lose them upon changing to a different class, but he could make full use of them until then.

Seeing that Ney was done going over his status, Giermar stepped forward, saying:

"In that case, I'll start training you right now. The guildmaster will come pick you up when she's ready."

That sounded much better than staying idle, so Ney immediately agreed.

In a small study room tucked away in the guild's library, Giermar was trying his best to teach Ney the foundations of the Fighter class. He knew that he wasn't the best teacher, so he often paused between his explanations to find the right words to use, but his student seemed to be following without much trouble. While the worry remained that he would struggle to properly communicate more advanced material later on, he was relieved by the current turn of events.

"During combat, your positioning matters greatly, as the range on your [Aura of Aggression] is quite limited right now."

"That's the skill that makes it so nearby enemies want to attack me even more, right?"

"Correct. While [Provoke] can be used on a distant target, it does have a lengthy period during which it cannot be used again. As of now, your aura is the only way you have to passively attract enemy attention. I will add that it does not make the enemies more aggressive than normal towards you, so you can keep it active even when running a dungeon by yourself."

Ney nodded along, already visualizing different team scenarios and the best ways for him to react to them. [Provoke] would work great on an isolated enemy, but a pack split in two might require the strategic use of skills by other party members to funnel all of the enemies together. If he couldn't get the attention of every monster, it would be up to the damage dealers to focus their attacks on the ones outside of his aura.

He scribbled a few notes down, worried he wouldn't be able to remember everything at first. After a brief pause, Giermar added:

"Add to your notes that, even as a defender, the right move will occasionally be to ignore certain enemies and not get them on your back. The reasons for this can vary, but the bottom line is that it's better for your allies to handle some of the heat than for you to get taken down."

Ney remembered that Jell had said something similar during one of her classes, but coming at it from the angle that you should expect to take damage and to have monsters come for you even if your party has a defender. He wondered if she had met adventurers who would get frustrated from losing HP, prompting her to temper her own student's expectations early.

As he finished adding a few more details to his notes, the room's door opened, leading Giermar to say:

"I believe that will be all for today. I'll keep myself available in case you have new questions later today."

He got up and left the room as Cariene entered and asked Ney:

"Alright, my work's done for today. How about we hit up one of the dungeons?"

In the middle of a large park near the center of Lucria stood a tower, its architecture and construction materials clashing with everything around it. As Ney got closer, he noticed that it was built from the same stone as the crystal's room beneath the adventurer's guild, hinting at a shared origin. Seeing the curiosity written all over the newbie's face, Cariene explained:

"This dungeon used to be outside of the city, many centuries ago. It was integrated within the walls during the same wave of expansion that revealed our little toy at the guild, and a lot of people figured that they had been built at the same time and by the same people, maybe even as part of a greater network. But... nothing else was found. Some spells managed to reveal something deep beneath the city, but there's no way to access it. And the other dungeons within and around Lucria don't match the architecture and construction materials of these two buildings."

"So there's just two similar things right next to each other and nothing else like them?"

"Yep! But that's just one of very many mysteries we might never get answers to. You're going to see a lot of strange and unexplainable things as an adventurer, so a lot of the time it's better to let things go and pretend that everything is as it should be."

Ney was already familiar with some of the strange phenomena tied to dungeons, such as monsters coming back to life, or treasure chests replenishing their contents after adventurers left. Dungeons followed their own rules, and he was curious to see what else could happen in them.

As the two reached the tower, Cariene pulled the large door open and invited Ney inside. As he entered, he felt the same invisible wisps of energy filling the air as in the crystal's room, and noticed that the lobby was lit up by the same kind of artificial light. Aside from a doorway blocked by a shimmering substance and a large symbol covering the floor in front of it, the place was empty.

"And welcome to your first dungeon! You're still not technically in it yet since the lobby isn't part of it, but you're inside the building, so... close enough! Anyway, that big blurry door over there is the entrance, but be careful, it's one-way. That symbol on the floor is where you'll be teleported once you either clear or escape the dungeon. Keep in mind that, no matter how you end up leaving, the entire place is going to go back to its initial state, so there's no doing it in steps. Everything clear so far?"

Ney nodded while imagining the dungeon simply forgetting everything that had happened as soon as it was alone. A funny, if absurd, thought.

"Good. Now, this place isn't dangerous, but here's an Escape Stone, just in case. Once you cross that door, you'll encounter small humanoid constructs that will try their best to harm you, just treat them as practice for when you go against more serious enemies. Oh, right, do you know how dungeon rewards work already?"

Ney dug a bit into his memories before answering:

"At the end of a dungeon, there can either be a reward crystal, or a treasure chest. The crystal, when touched, will grant a new skill or class, while the chest will grant equipment or rare materials when opened."

"Very good. I'll be waiting for you here while you get through the dungeon, but don't feel like you have to rush or anything. Take it easy, figure things out, and tell me all about it once you get out."

Ney's enthusiasm spiked. It was finally time! He made sure his armor was properly strapped, readjusted his sword's scabbard on his belt, checked one last time that his pouch was full of potions, and finally took his first step through the portal. His vision blurred as the dungeon wrote on his mind:

Ey-Tzi-Er Tower

Level: 1-10
Danger: Low
Recommended Party Size: 1+