Somnium Online

Leveling

Eric opened his eyes cautiously, half expecting Anne to be sprawled on top of him again.

To his relief, she was merely sleeping next to him a few feet away.

He stretched quietly, careful not to wake her. Every now and then Anne would stir, but she remained asleep.

Eric was bored, so he practiced levitating small objects. He lifted pebbles and made them dance.

Soon he tired of this and decided to try a challenge. Then he had a great idea. He took his new coat and unfolded it. Then, he used wind magic to make it hover. He sent winds to inflate it, and soon he had a dancing coat.

It did ballet, breakdancing, and one laughable occasion he teamed up with it to perform an awkward waltz.

That was when Anne decided to wake up. She screamed. "GHOST!!" And lunged for her sword.

Eric turned and hurriedly looked around. Where!" he shouted.

Anne pointed to his coat. "I-it was right there! You were dancing with it or something."

Eric made the coat reanimate and bow. "Oh, you mean this?" Anne nodded. "It's just a bit of wind," Eric explained calmly.

Anne was still recovering from the shock, but Eric got the feeling he was in for an earful later.

Anne attempted to recover by putting her armor back on and buckling her sword in place.

After a brief breakfast, it was time for the day's training.

"Alright," Anne began sternly. "Today you're going to focus on leveling. Yesterday you demonstrated basic combat proficiency. You can fight. Today, you're going to get some practice.

Eric cracked his knuckles. "Let's get going then." He replied.

Anne guided him to the edge of a large pit. She then unsheathed her broadsword and planted it into the ground.

It began glowing, and soon the whole room was illuminated.

Eric surveyed the area. The room was circular and about 300 feet across. In the middle, a large gaping pit, also roughly circular was revealed. It was only a short drop, no more than ten or eleven feet.

"Now, remove your ring, it's not really training if you're already nearly invincible," Anne instructed.

Eric complied, leaving him with only his shortsword, his knives, and his fists.

"Begin!" Anne shouted. Then, without warning she roundhouse kicked Eric from behind, sending him flying into the pit.

Eric maneuvered to control his fall and landed on his feet, sword drawn.

From inside the pit, Eric realized that it was more complex than he thought. There were three tunnels that led into the enclosed area.

From the shadows, a few dozen skeletons rushed him. Eric got into a fighting stance and grinned. So this was today's training, huh? Well, he could deal with this.

The first skeletons rushed him, Eric planted his sword and balled his hands into fists.

"N!" He called. "Run multi-entity elimination program."

"Initiating program," N replied automatically.

Eric became a fluid fighting machine. He sidestepped and maneuvered with perfect precision, always just out of reach of the skeletons blades.

Then he went in the offensive. He grabbed a skeleton by the artist and swung it around his head, sending the other undead sprawling.

Eric was on them instantly, bones crunching beneath precise and deadly kicks. He disarmed two of the skeletons and turned their own blades on them.