Against his instincts and desire for vengeance, Ronan didn't immediately rush down the dark corridor of stage 4. From experience, he knew that there shouldn't be a time limit to this part of the tutorial.

With sorcerer now a permanent class, he wanted to take some time to continue practicing his system-less magic. Before he discovered the ability to breathe in mana, which allowed him to defeat the goblins hiding in the dark fog, Ronan had almost figured out how to produce mana outside of his body.

While he wasn't planning to spend a crazy amount of time here—delaying too long might mean Jenna, Howard, and Alyssa ended up dying as they fought without him—he felt that some practice wouldn't go amiss. Especially as his plan after defeating Tharaxes was to immediately attempt the next difficulty of the tutorial.

Ronan sat down under the flickering torch-light, reaching inwards towards his heart; the source of mana. Once he had a firm hold, he began to cycle it around his body, preparing to practice manifesting it in his palm.

For what was at least two hours, Ronan did nothing but attempt to maintain the structure of his mana outside his body. His early attempts, much as they had the first time he practiced this, were complete failures.

As he continued to attempt it, figuring out the failure points, improving his mana control, Ronan started to see patterns. By the end of the two hours, he was able to create a single mote of mana that floated one centimetre off his palm. It only lasted three seconds before popping, but he was ecstatic.

It was proof that hard work produced results. Even if he had to spend a dozen more iterations to simply create a stable mote of mana floating in his palm indefinitely, Ronan would be satisfied.

He felt that if he delayed any longer, one of the other three might die to the various traps and challenges that awaited them in the dungeon of stage 4. Before reaching his temporary allies, however, he had to face the hidden goblin rogues once more.

This time, they didn't stand a chance.

Silent slicer lived up to its name. Ronan inhaled the dark fog, revealing the first rogue before it could even draw near. For the first time since he created the skill, Ronan activated the third chained strike of surging strikes.

Unlike the ghostly apparition that double strike created, the bladed strikes the new skill sent after his foes had more weight to them. That was a double-edged sword; they hurt more, but could potentially be more easily evaded.

Unfortunately for the first elite rogue, it barely saw the first attack coming. Its chest was sliced open in a crimson spray. The second slash spilled guts onto the ground, and the third cleaved the goblin in twain.

The amplified damage for each consecutive attack had devastating results. When the second rogue was revealed to his right, Ronan used the same strategy.

With a fraction of a second more time to react, the second goblin rogue was able to mitigate the damage of Ronan's opening slice. However, the second and third struck true, the exponentially increasing damage slaughtering it where it stood.

The shaman spotted him earlier than the rogues, to Ronan's surprise. However, it wasn't ready for him to practically teleport in front of it and decapitate it with a well-placed double surging strike. Charge of the juggernaut was just as lethal as it had always been.

For this run, he decided to keep things simple and stick with juggernaut as his class. It was poetic, in a way, to use the same class that had frustrated Tharaxes so much to slaughter the lich-lord.

The list of classes he'd unlocked had swelled in size, and Ronan was looking forward to trying some of them out when he advanced in difficulty. A few of them looked extremely interesting. There was also the possibility of synergising sorcerer with his main class, leading to interesting interactions.

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He had endless attempts at the integration, and infinite ideas.

When he reached the room that he'd encountered Howard the previous iteration, there was no one to be seen. Only the flickering light of the flaming torches in the braziers gave Ronan reprieve from the darkness.

Without delay he rushed into the corridor that led to the dungeon. He hoped they hadn't encountered a challenge too deadly yet. As long as he reached them before they fell into the mini-boss chamber, there was hope.

Howard threw himself to the right. A fireball screamed past his ear, singing a few of his hairs as it narrowly missed burning off his face.

He tried to roll into the fall, but twisted his ankle as he stood. Still, through sheer force of will he managed to stand. The pounding of his heart in his chest was deafening, drowning out all ambient noise. Choking down his fear, he reached for his only lifeline; the uncommon skill, conjure weapon, and formed a knife that he launched at the skeletal monstrosity.

Earlier that morning, or possibly yesterday, or a week ago—he'd lost track of time in this dark, twisting dungeon—he'd been standing in his bath, holding a toaster in two hands. Plugged into the wall, he had been prepared to end it all.

Right before he was about to release his grip, the world had frozen. The system saved Howard's life, only to plunge him into hell.

Things had gone wrong a few years back. He had problems of his own, sure, but he didn't think he deserved to have his wife leave him. That his kids had gone with her only made it worse.

Not that he'd been a great husband, but damn, he'd wanted to work through their problems together. Now, he might never see her face again. His daughter, his sons, or his wife.

In an ironic twist of fate, his life being thrown into jeopardy was what made him realise he wasn't ready to lose it all. And so, Howard fought.

Hard difficulty.

Why the system had judged him worthy of such a thing, he wasn't certain. When he'd arrived in that first stage, facing down a stumpy green monster, armed and armoured, ready to slaughter him like a pig, Howard nearly froze.

He'd been out of the service for 6 years. Constant drinking, and the fact that his only exercise was walking to the shops every so often, had dulled his edge. When push came to shove, however, those 9 years, 6 deployed, proved their worth.

With four stab wounds, and a dozen more bruises, he'd finally emerged victorious by snapping the goblin's neck. The rush of strength, the healing that had cleansed all the damage alcohol had done to his body, it was addicting. Howard felt that life hadn't turned its back on him just yet.

The greatest reward of all, however, hadn't been the stat points, or the healing of the almighty system. No, it had been the myriad skills tome.

That divine book had granted him his first skill, and what a skill it was. Conjure weapon gave an old soldier the edge he needed to fight his way through the torturous stages of the hard difficulty tutorial.

While the size of the weapons he could conjure was limited, Howard utilised his niche throwing knife abilities with the relatively mana-cheap skill to dominate the goblins, and the other monsters that stood in between him and his family.

At level 10, he'd even earned a 'special' class, thanks to his previous talents and skill synergy: dagger specialist. It was uncommon, like his skill, and provided him with two class skills that improved his accuracy with thrown weapons, and the damage they dealt.

He gradually mastered his skills. When he arrived in stage 4, he expected it to be much like the previous stages, except he found himself in a dingy tunnel with little light. His summoned weapons gave out a gentle glow, which allowed him to advance into the darkness.

About a hundred metres in, he had an odd feeling. Clinging to the wall, he carefully observed his surroundings, doing his utmost to not make a sound.

His caution proved wise, when, not five seconds later, a goblin threw itself seemingly from out of the wall, stabbing into the corridor. It seemed confused when its knife bit into empty air. The elite goblin rogue was even more confused when it found a magic dagger buried in its throat, followed by a second piercing its heart.

Even with his first enemy defeated, Howard remained cautious. Advancing slowly through the dark tunnels, he gradually foiled ambush after ambush. He nearly died to the final opponent, a warrior, who'd had sufficient armour to survive the initial attack from Howard.

Even so, he'd made it through. When he entered the well-lit room, he expected more enemies. He found none. About four minutes later, he heard noise from one of the other three tunnels leading into the room. He prepared a knife in his hands, expecting a fight, but instead a young woman stepped out. Howard almost fainted at the sight of her.

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