6

Jace peeked into the cave and saw there was a larger gruffling crouched near a campfire in the middle, he had four lackeys lounging around. He said larger gruffling but the thing was still a head smaller than him. The other grufflings barely reached his chest, He tapped his chin for a moment before He walked back a bit and gathered some spears.He handed one to Weira who raised an eyebrow.

"We throw these at the smaller ones, hopefully we finish them all off before we fight the bigger one. Pretty sure these ones are of a higher level. Ten at the least, they might have classes so we should minimize our risk."

Weira nodded and grabbed three spears herself. He grabbed his own and snuck back to the cave opening. He grabbed a spear in his hand and glanced over at Weira, He nodded held up a hand and counted down. Five, four , three ,two. He didn't make a motion for the one and the go and simply raised his spear and threw it. Weira matched his timing and two spears sailed through the air. Weira's spear hit a gruffling right in the head and it went down instantly. Jace's spear clattered against the ground, He cursed, a miss. He grabbed another spear as the group of monsters turned and charged, shrieking.

They threw another spear, this one taking on the smaller ones in the arm. It staggered but ripped the spear out and continued. Weira hit another one straight in the chest with a spear. Yup she had much better aim than he did. He threw his last spear and managed to get the last gruffling in the leg. Weira finished the one with the wounded arm off with her own last spear. Jace was not jealous of her aim, not jealous. Nope definitely not.

Then the bigger one was in front of me, it slashed at me. His speed was a good bit faster than those of the smaller grufflings. Not enough to make up for the difference of skill though, Jace guided away the blow and kicked at its knee, it buckled and that was exactly when a halberd swung over his shoulder and smashed its blade into its head. He watched as the greater gruffling went down. He frowned, well that was anticlimactic. He was honestly disappointed at how easy this was.

[Greater Gruffling slain, 203 experience gained.]

Jace waited for the title to appear but it never did, He glanced over at Trishla with a raised eyebrow.

"How come I didn't get the title for defeating a monster ten levels higher than me?"

She blinked at him in surprise then guffawed. "Cuz Weira and I are here you idiot, you'll have to clear the dungeon layer by yourself to get that title!"

Jace blanched, well damn. He hadn't thought this through enough after all.

The next two weeks were spent with him and Weira clearing the dungeon together. Although this time as practice we did it alone, with the other staying near to help as needed. It took awhile for us to be able to truly handle the dungeon alone, it took the entire two weeks in fact before we were confident enough in giving it an attempt. He would have liked to say that things went wrong or were difficult when they did finally do it without company, but nope. As the gamers back home said easy peasy lemon squeezy.

In the end the most important thing they got was those titles.

[The bigger they are the harder they fall : Beat a dungeon boss ten levels or higher than you by yourself. Gain 10 stat points per attribute.]

[Alone in the dark : Beat a dungeon ten levels or higher than your own by yourself. Gain 10 stat points per attribute.]

As the stat points rushed into his body it felt great, like a sugar rush. He wondered if this was what drugs were like. Some of his attributes doubled like strength and endurance. He had earned a few points in the months he'd been training. Other attributes like wisdom, charisma and luck tripled. He still had no clue what charisma and luck did exactly. They had an effect for sure, luck had a visible effect on loot droop, and charisma made you slightly more appealing. But unlike the other stats there were no numerical differences that could be measured.

Which brought him to another point, doubling your stat points in strength did not double your strength. Doubling it gave perhaps a twenty percent increase. Agility increased your speed and flexibility but by smaller amounts per stat than strength. After all a twenty percent increase in speed made a huge difference. Endurance affected your stamina, Constitution your toughness, and Dexterity your hand-eye coördination and for some reason had an effect on your perception as well. He wondered why there wasn't just a perception stat.

Thoughts for another day.

Well both him and Weira cleared the dungeon without too much difficulty and Weira was ecstatic by her progress. She hasn't been able to stop smiling since. It warmed the heart to see his big mute barbarian radiant like a glow stick.

They headed back towards the central building to meet gran, both of them proud of themselves.

He smiled, "Guess our new plan works huh, since we have thirty intelligence now the next step would be to figure out how use magic. I think our first priority should be something that enhances the edge of our sword. Mana Edge."

Jace glanced at Trishla, "I assume there is such a spell?"

She nodded, "There is, it's a good spell to start off with, it has a lot of potential and you can keep improving it as you grow. Another vital one would be barrier, it throws up a simple mana based shield that can block or deflect a hit. I can help you with neither however, I'm not capable of any magic. We do have a few mages however."

"Anyone you would advise us to go to?"

Trishla tapped a scarred finger to her chin. "I would advise asking the professor, he studied a bunch of magical theory. He knows his stuff and would be a lot of help to developing your own spells. He's already a teacher at the local school so he should have no issue in teaching you two the ropes."

Jace switched his gaze to Weira, "He teach you as well?"

She nodded and motioned for him to follow. He waved gran goodbye and followed her into the village. He greeted and nodded to the villagers he saw on the way. He knew a good deal of them. Being a guard let you interact with the people you protected regularly. Being a guard was something like a police officer and a soldier in one. You fought against invaders and anything dangerous, but you also broke apart brawls, captured criminals and investigated crimes.

Even though in reality not a single crime had happened in the village since he had arrived. The most he had to do was break apart and settle an argument and the occasional brawl. There had not been any attacks recently either, although the villagers stated that there were at least a few attacks a year. They lived in the ass end of nowhere so there was a strong monster presence in the area.

Jace smiled at the various children playing in the street, he liked kids. The feeling was often returned in kind, he was used to the rambunctious little buggers. Back in the orphanage once he was a little older he was the big brother to an entire horde of the little creepers. He missed them, sadness creeped in as he thought back to all the little brothers and sisters he had left behind. He wished there was an orphanage in the village that he could support or drop by, although he realised wishing for an orphanage was… not really a good thing.

Weira tapped him on the shoulder and looked at him with a frown. He smiled to her, "Sorry just thinking of the people back home."

She made a gesture, he shook his head. Then paused and nodded, "I suppose they would count as family, like you I'm an orphan but I grew up in an orphanage. It was like having a whole swaddle of siblings. Honestly I was pretty lucky, you hear a lot of horror stories about terrible orphanages or kids who keep getting kicked from family to family. Our place was run by an elderly woman and her son and two daughters. They had a ranch and they really cared about everyone. It was a great home."

She nodded in understanding and gave him a fierce hug, one strong enough that it lifted him of the floor. He chuckled, "Yup I suppose I'll just have to adopt you as me newest little sister."

She glared at him, pointedly looking down on him. "I don't care that your taller! I'm still four year olders than you and that counts!"

She sniffed in disbelief.