The Arcade Series

Guild Master Augman P.O.V.

There were several surprising things inside this Arcade, but none more surprising or welcome as the mental buzzing in my mind from my special ‘truth sense’ skill that has been continuously confirming that the man in front of me was being completely honest. Though this was definitely a first for me that a business man of any sort was this honest with me.

Then there were several things that stuck out to me from the way he described a few things. The sale of Artifacts was ‘not something that he controlled’ and had to be earned in the Arcade, he even mentioned that he was not exempt to this rule as he said that he had to earn one through his own time and effort. That was confusing. His backer must have set these rules, but why? What is the point of doing that?

Just what sort of backer has access to a supply of Artifacts, and is able to provide revolutionary enchanted objects, but chooses to force them to be earned by winning games? Games that made a boy think that a man was a god sent to earth, no less.

However, as deals go… the proposal that the shopkeeper gave was more than generous. Heavily discounted artifacts and a tier four artifact was a good offer. Though I would have liked to purchase artifacts outright, he did say that was not possible for either of us and my skill confirmed it.

“That sounds like a good offer.” I acknowledge, after swallowing my bite of this ‘pizza’ as it was called. “How much would this deal cost the guild?” I asked, looking over to the shop owner with a calculating mind. This is the sort of question that would reveal what kind of person this man really was, and just what kind of person his backer was.

“Um… how about eight thousand dollars.”

“What?”

“Eight thousand dollars.”

“...Deal.”

Leonard P.O.V.

I think I might have underestimated the price for the deal a bit too much. I mean, eight thousand was the price for buying a new location in a random universe so that's why I decided to offer that exact price, as a way out. Not that I was planning to leave unless it becomes necessary, but best to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. That always tends to be the smart thing to do.

Judging by his instant reaction of instant acceptance and his stunned face… I think that the system is rubbing off on me. That's fine though, especially with the situation being as it is. No better time to undersell and do a little charity when there is an invasion on the way I suppose.

We went over the details of the deal after he accepted it, which to my experience is not normally is not the way it goes, but who am I to judge. The people with a membership to the Adventurers Guild and associated local militia would have to pay at a reasonable 60% discounted rate with tickets for Artifacts, and I would work towards earning a tier four artifact. I knew that would take time though, as eight hundred tickets was… hang on, could I give myself discounts? Would that work?

Well… that would need some testing. If I had been paying for Artifacts at full price for nothing all this time…

But that aside, we finished our deal rather quickly and I even got the chance to help get the Guild Master win a few games to earn his forty tickets and get his own tier one Artifact. The Artifact wasn't anything much, it was a pendant that had the effect of giving a 8% experience bonus to nearby allies and the wearer, but he seemed impressed all the same. Then he told me he would be bringing a crew of people to start working in the morning, and left in a bit of a rush.

The news that I would be getting some company in the Arcade during the day was good for the most part, but it did make me realize that spellwork testing would have to wait until the people have all left… So I decided to work fast on the spells that I have listed up for today, and use work time to try and come up with different strategies and tactics of spells instead of making new ones.

Though my variety will somewhat go down from what it could have been, it might be better to focus on learning to use what I have.

All of that is unimportant for right now, because it was time to head out for the night. Back to a live presentation of what spellwork does to a monster in the dungeon.

I walked through the city at sunset, taking my time as I did. Sunset was my favorite part of the day. The clouds in the sky were immaculate, with purples and pinks alongside reds and oranges in splashes and bubbles of light. The buildings of the town were blocking a bit of the sky, but that was fine. I could see enough.

It didn't take long for the sun to completely disappear behind the buildings and bringing the start of the night, but by the time that happened I was standing in front of the dungeon entrance ready to go inside. Honestly, the walk over to the center of the town was so peaceful that I kind of lost the mood to delve into the dungeon.

I sighed as I opened the door to the dungeon, walking inside and letting my mind sharpen as it started getting ready for a fight, and using the ability of the dungeon core in my pocket to make two more minds, all of them ready to fight some monsters.

I stepped carefully down the stairs, and into the stone hallway that leads to the first cave inside the dungeon. I started letting all the mana I had accumulated over the last few days into the air around me, hovering and bobbing along beside me gently as I walked through the odd stone corridor.

I walked until the entrance to the main part of the dungeon, where I stopped for a second remembering that there was usually a rat hiding away out of sight from the entrance. This is actually just about the perfect place to use two abilities that my dungeon core gave me, the dungeon senses inside its domain and its ability to shape mana within its domain. Shaping mana with the dungeon core is a little bit unnecessary because I can shape mana fine with my monocle, and even just with my mind, but for some reason it is easier using the dungeon's own mana control within its domain.

I walked up to the entrance, and I concentrated on using one of my minds to find out where the rat was, which was coincidentally just a few feet away to my right. Then my two other partitioned minds started to move a small ball of fire mana to the edge of the dungeon cores limited domain, letting one mind make the ball of mana transform itself into a fireball that floated inside the chamber beyond the entrance, and using the other mind to force the mana to fly at the rat.

1 experience point gained from death of ‘Juvenile Dire Rat, Level 1.’

If I didn't mention before now, the experience that was gained from mobs below your own level went down pretty drastically. I am level nine now, so I got a single experience, but when I was level one, I would have got a lot more. It's fair… but I still hate it.

I walk out into the first natural cave of the dungeon, looking over at a charbroiled rat corpse that had been recently alive and was now stinking up the cave around it.

‘Taking this amount of time for such a low level mob really needs to change.’ I thought to myself, my mind trying to come up with a solution. Then an idea occurred to me that I hadn't really thought of before. ‘What if I just start running through the caves and picking up a trail of rats, then I use my flamethrower to kill them all at once?’ Was my thought process, and a grin came over my face. Now that sounds like fun.

I had a good section of the dungeon mapped out in my mind, so I started jogging along to my right. I didn't bother keeping my feet quiet, as the entire point of doing this was to attract some rats. I jogged a little slower than I could have to keep my energy up as I jogged straight down a pathway and after a few seconds into another larger stone cave.

The three rats did not seem pleased about me being inside and started to hiss up a storm, but I didn't care and continued to jog, turning to my right where I knew there was a group of four rats in a dead end passage acting as a sort of miniboss as far as I could tell. I needed a large train of rats following me for this to be really worth it.

I ran into the room after a second of running, with two of the three rats from the other room just behind me, and I saw that there were the same four rats as the first time I was here. I gave one of the rats a kick and then I started to run back out of the smaller cave, almost stepping on the other two rats that were following me and were clearly not prepared for me to turn back around.

“That's six!” I say amused, counting out how many rats were struggling to keep up behind me.

I ran through the caverns quickly, letting my following group of rats grow with every room, until I ended up with twenty six rats scampering after me with rage in their eyes, and their claws climbing over each other in an attempt to get at me.

I had ended the chase in a larger cave, where there was another squad of four rats in a dead end room, though these ones were a bit higher level. That was when I turned around with a grin, as I watched the mass of bodys’ move to cut me off from escape and finally catch me. Then I started moving my fire and air mana around, getting ready to finally cast the spell that I had waited to use for a few minutes now.

“FLAMETHROWER!” I shouted out for the heck of it and ignited the fire mana I had floating around, causing a mass of fire to appear in the air. Then the really interesting part of the spell happened when I shoved a whole bunch of air mana inside it, letting it push through the mass of fire and causing a stream of fire to spray out into the mass of overgrown rats, and wave from side to side as they all went up in flame at once.

I only stopped when the system notification appeared in my vision.

63 experience points gained from death of 26 ‘Dire Rats’ with levels varying from 1-4

I panted as I stood in the smoky room a bit out of breath. Honestly, you don't think about the aftermath of setting a bunch of rats on fire until it happens. There are twenty six charred rat corpses on the floor according to the system, with some patches of fire spread among them and smoke wafting from them.

The smoke inhalation was probably not very healthy, so I decided to set up a small bubble of fresh air around my head with a modified air shield to keep the smoke from my lungs. I created it quickly, and to my relief it worked wonderfully and my eyes stopped stinging quickly while I could catch my breath. “This was a useful way to use this spell…” I mused to myself as I started walking through the pile of smoking corpses and out of the room of death.

“Not too bad experience wise either. I am over two thirds of the way to level ten.” I said with a grin as I walked out. I think that this was pretty successful. If a bit risky towards the end. The caves that this dungeon was made of were not great for helping me out in a situation like that, in fact they seemed to be made to go against me.

As I walked out of the room, I let the air shield around my head fall away. It took one of my minds to sustain it constantly, so it was more of a when it is necessary spell then a constant one.

I jogged down the longer pathway that took me down into a larger room again, from where I could kill the other half of the rat zone. I had only ran through half the rooms of rats, believe it or not. There was about the same amount of rats to the left side of the entrance as there was down this side, then the boss straight ahead. It was an odd arrangement, but it worked I guess. Plus, it would help when eventually these lower level mobs didn't give me any experience and I needed to get into the deeper zones to properly level. I was close to that level range now in fact.

“So this is what you do on your off time, huh? Funny, I wouldn't have thought you were the mage type.” I heard ring out through the stone room from behind me, making me stumble and whirl around in shock to see the Guild Master standing behind me, armour on and sword in hand.