Lucas looked down at his body. The memory of the pain from having his Chain Lightning backfire, like what happened to a certain evil magic user in his favorite space war saga, still lingered. “Let’s see what my penalty is,” he said, pulling up the HUD.

His first attempt at trying to beat Level 3 had been free. It hadn’t cost him anything, but where the button had originally just said “Level 3,” it now had additional text under it. It had “5 gold worth of monthly territorial income” underneath the icon, and Lucas knew what that meant. “Five gold doesn’t seem too bad,” he said.

“It doubles if you lose again. You don’t have six more tries; you’ve got two more at best,” she said. “But it will reset to free if you manage to finish off Level 3, but I recommend holding off on trying until you’re more competent.”

“Does the dungeon’s difficulty scale up with my level?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” Xun Guan began. “At the moment, you’re not even Level 1, and you’re on the noob island. This means that the enemies, while more skillful and with better stats, will still be geared toward a Level 1 dungeon master. As you level up more and more, however, you’ll find that they reach a cap of 30 since this is the beginner’s zone. If you were on the mainland, the cap would be 100.”

Lucas nodded. “That seems reasonable. I’ll take your advice into consideration.” If I use some of the stat points I got earlier and sink them into Fortitude, I might have a good chance at winning, especially if I open up with a quick Chain Lightning and then transition to Meddling Minds.

“Don’t worry about the loss so much,” Xun Guan said, interrupting his thoughts. Having stolen his attention, she used a nod of her head to signal behind her. “The others have finally returned, so you can start preparations for joining a new quest.” Behind her, instead of the three teachers silently watching Lucas, only one remained: his teacher. The other two were talking with Bonnie and Nick, who were at the entrance to the throne room. Lucas had completely missed their arrival and wasn’t sure if they had shown up during his last attempt or while he was talking with Xun Guan.

Nick was apparently horrified by whatever the Dark Knight Bjurstrom had said to him, and he had turned paler than Lucas had ever seen him after only a few seconds of conversation. Then, as the lecture continued, he turned from pale and ghost-like to slightly green, until finally he turned his head away and started walking toward Lucas, bearing a “save me” face. When he saw that Lucas was watching him, he broke off the conversation and rushed across the room. “I got the materials for my class. Can we leave?” Nick asked impatiently.