Ben was currently swimming through a narrow tunnel submerged in water, a great opportunity to level his currently fairly low level and in all honesty. The constrictive environment which halted more standard swimming motions and made turning back around a troublesome affair was sure to both increase difficulty and risk to the degree one of the two would level soon.

  Luckily however- Or unfortunately considering that its use probably decreased skill leveling speed- He had even if at a depressingly low level of 6, it being an art which allowed him to take in deeper and more prolonged breaths.

  However the most troublesome thing was not any of that, instead it was the total lack of light. Not being able to take a regular torch into the water and Iles and Kail not being proficient enough to allow them to create an arcane lantern that he could bring with him for any prolonged period of time.

  But it was fine, it was actually great actually. Though it would be a bit troublesome if the passageway he was currently in also collapsed, which had happened a bit more frequently than one would expect. Though it was at least a bit expected considering they had bypassed the burrows, the frequency was somewhat worrying though.

  But it was also a great thing, had leveled up once already even when the dungeon had for some reason not reinforced its walls. If this continued he might get about three levels out of the whole ordeal, getting it up to level 25. If he got even more lucky and somehow found some more Acel or any other aspectual mineral, even if it were only one or two nuggets he could get an extra level or two as well.

  When he finally felt something with his protruded left arm, he asked

  for which direction to go, getting nothing for his troubles. Worrying, but understandable considering the current circumstances. With eyes closed and mouth keeping in air, he felt around him and easily found four directions to go. One forwards, one backwards, one towards the left and one towards the right.

  After a few more moments of using his hands to feel the form of the tunnels offered, he found they were exactly the same as the one he came from. More seeming as continuations of it than new ones, all square in nature and just- Or at least approximately- as narrow.

  Then he once again pulled at

  , and an arrow formed in the darkness of his closed eyes. Directing him in a certain direction, that which would be considered 'Left' when he first arrived at the crossroads. Turning his hands, he returned to his previous posture, one hand forwards the other on the bottom of the tunnel and stuck at its side as to slowly push him forwards.

  Feeling a certain shortness of breath, he increased his pace somewhat as he felt more and more comfortable with what he was currently doing. He wasn't exactly sure how long the underwater section would take, but he did in fact soon find the next change in direction.

  Though luckily this one was more simple than the ones before, directly pointing him upwards for a somewhat troublesome ascent, but it was fine. Though the hard rumble did direct him to believe another collapse had taken place even if it hadn't occurred while he was swimming for whatever reason.

  Luckily however he found himself with a notification to congratulate him as his hand seemed to press through a weak membrane of sort before breaking into the open air.

  Clawing himself out of the cold water with both hands, he let the air enter his lung after a deep exhale before he instantly began to chant "O' violent flame,"

  Attributing to his mana to both air and fire, he projected it outward before of him and forced it to follow a particular form in his mind's eye "Pierce through the darkness and reveal that which hides within; revelatory blaze."

  With the vague snap of his wet fingers resounding, a certain warmth burst out of what he had created as it shone with a resplendent light orange tint. Closing his eyes for a moment to let the change in light levels not disrupt him, he opened them again and looked around for any danger before once again feeling the whole world rumble.

  Actually, he even heard it rumble behind him. But before looking behind him he found something a bit more troubling, the place where he entered had no exit. Though after noting that he found no dangers in mere moments he looked behind him and found the rock and stone that had presumably been above the tunnels which he had swam through.

  ...He sighed slightly, while watching the roof above him also falling through. Though with just a bit of intense focus on his part, all the rock that came directly for him drifted to the sides. Though the larger pieces of rubble still reached him, it was easily handled with him redirecting them out of the way with his stretched out fingers.

  The collapse of his own location was not what had disappointed him, it was merely a trivial issue on his part that had forced him to expend a bit of mental energy using his somewhat new for training purposes and for anything the more general skill derived from it could not handle. Before then climbing out the rubble and taking the pickaxe he had on his back.

  Somewhat dried from the blaze aspect spell he had cast, he started to mine towards where he felt the others in his team should be. Slightly annoyed that after the collapse the stone had become far less troublesome to dig through, he casually asked

  for directions and getting nothing from it while rapidly pulling out stones from the rubble.

  Though after only half a minute of digging and multiple meters of rubble traversed, he found himself once again troubled by a collapse. Though this time it hadn't been caused by the dungeon itself but instead the unstable nature of his tunnel working together with the people that had literally clawed their way in from above.

  Without even being explained the situation, Zander punched through the already collapsed rubble once again collapsing on them- Ben really had to find the time to learn that art from him- And Nuri hurried atop his shoulders shouting "We need to go, right now!"

  Taking her word for it, and taking her and the backpack she was carrying for him onto a wonderful and rapid little tour of a rapidly collapsing tunnel ten meters in length.

  He didn't know that skill existed, but he wasn't complaining! "Hell yea!"

  Using to sway all the rubble out of the way- At least out of the way of the ever fragile

  - He burst through the somewhat dangerous situation with little worry on his mind. Noting the strangely damaged leg of the slower than usual Zander.

  Actually, all of them were at least somewhat damaged. Though Iles was the most severe case, a whole section of his side- His cloak and the armour beneath it being included along with his flesh- Being clearly taken out.

  Though the nature of the wounds were strange to say the least, he had never really seen anything similar to them before. It was not as if the clothes were torn and the flesh clawed out, no. It was more like it had been grinded through, the wound itself was far too clean in a way even while it was bleeding profusely. Even the revealed rib had been smoothly filed off... An interesting thing to be sure.

  With pickaxe in hand he entered the rubble-filled room he had come from himself and asked "Which direction?"

  "Forwards!" He heard from above him, obviously Nuri. Then he also asked his own

  skill, which actually directed him upwards. Then that meant she had decided on another shortcut, probably. Though it was more notable that there wasn't any real pathway evident, meaning that the dungeon had probably closed it off.

  Taking up a swing of the pickaxe, he found Iles chanting animatedly as a barrier of pure mana formed around them for some reason.

  Having placed a hand on the open wound of Kail- Their designated mage- And started with an animated chant "O' flesh and blood writhe according to my whims, restore yourself and proliferate despite any pain, for your survival is my design; tissue replenishment."

  The process of a person's flesh extruding to fill in the gaps of a wound was still as interesting as the last time, it was a shame that the flesh aspect was quite an unruly thing. If not then it would've been a lot more popular and a lot less reviled in religious circles for the frequent cases of outliers- Who were more likely to gain access to the aspect- Playing with the bodies of others for whatever reason outside of the admittedly immense potency and efficiency for healing flesh wounds.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  If he remembered correctly the guy had a shockingly high affinity for the aspect and a respectable affinity for the bone aspect even if he rarely practiced the associated , something like 74% for flesh and 39% for bone.

  Though he didn't know his own despite his interest in it, testing an affinity was quite the expensive thing. Not extremely expensive, but for a non-relevant aspect it wasn't exactly worth it.

  But one day it would become relevant, and then he would get to testing more affinities after his savings once again reached a suitable size.

  "The dungeon directed dust mana towards us," Nuri stated after having hopped off his back, a bit of a shame since the restriction of movement caused by her sitting on his shoulders was probably good for training "It's very possible its either a dust- or a wind-earth dungeon. So expect both dust monsters and materials, along with dust mana encroachment."

  So that was what the wounds were, while he had used before he had never really used it beyond basic practice due to a lack of affinity and viability. It made some sense, one or two of those slimes had shot out some kind of dust even if it didn't do much to the big guy and was easily countered.

  "Any advice on how to deal with any dust mana?" He asked Kail while quickly putting on his backpack, returning to mining all the while Zander was getting a quick cast of 'Mend flesh' on his leg.

  Though he did get a response, it was a little disappointing to be honest "I'll tell you later!"

  While understandable considering both the wound itself and the pain of fixing it, along with the still lessened rib, Ben still found himself lamenting that he didn't tell him.

  All while enjoying his protection from the collapse, he continued his job of going through the rock with rapid pace. It took a bit of effort, yes, but it was somewhat of an annoyance that hadn't leveled yet.

  But it was fine, five meters of stone later and one or two heals later he broke through the section of rock into the top of a room. It was a bit surprising that its roof directly took up the room of his own tunnel, though he just took it as coincidence.

  He took the initiative to shoot out a spell into the abyss "O' flame bring light to a land without sun; flare."

  Stowing his pickaxe while pointing his free hand into the darkness as a three-digit finger gun, a shining dark-ish orange ball of sorts shooting out and revealing the surprising size of the room. More specifically its depth, for if Nuri had jumped down she would've likely have died an swift and merciful death if she didn't sacrifice her legs for a few extra minutes of life.

  Though the rest of them could probably make it out alive, Kail the worst off with broken and profusely bleeding legs.

  "Let me just say that the dungeon isn't just giving up with the dust mana." The mage informed, still maintaining the non-physical non-spell unaspected barrier.

  While not interesting, it was important information. That meant letting someone out of the mana bubble would be dangerous, though Ben wasn't assured of his safety in the barrier. The chances of Kail being overpowered by pure volume was not unlikely considering it was a dungeon of all things, the reason why it hadn't yet flooded the entire area with madness mana eluded him and it probably would for the rest of his life.

  "Any ideas, leader?" Zander asked, looking down the steep and tall drop like everyone else. His dislike of her once again popping-up like a nail that refused to be fully hammered, even if only superfluously.

  After a few moments she asked the silent Ben a simple question "Do you think you can soften the fall?"

  "Probably, though I don't know any specific spells so I'm not exactly sure. Especially when dealing with five people and everything on us." He stated directly, already beginning to think about the possibilities. He had so many options on him that deciding which to take was a little troublesome, the cloud and mist aspects were less than suitable while wind was more suitable but less developed.

  Kinetic would probably suit their needs quite well, but his arts didn't really fit and was only level 3.

  The biggest problem would be the inertia that came after landing, both Kail and Nuri didn't have enough physique to bear with or resist their insides violently sloshing from the sudden change of velocity. So it would be possible to only focus on those two, narrowing the effect of any abilities and also increasing their potency.

  ...Yea, that should be possible.

  "Okay, so-" The moment Ben began to speak in an attempt to communicate his plan, the moment he felt his arm touching something he instinctively waved it away. But seeing nothing he only felt confused, of course only until he felt the same thing on his legs and felt something there with a skill he desperately wanted to level but just couldn't- .

  He couldn't tell what kind of mana it was with the level 2 skill, at least not when he was actively using it. But just from the effect he felt on his leg, the feeling of his calves being grinded down ever so slowly, he could easily reason what it was.

  Kail called out urgently, probably having been preoccupied saving his own sensitive hide moments before "Cover yourself with mana! It can act as a buffer!"

  It took a moment for the {Jack of all trades} to decide whether he should do that, it could totally be possible that there was a 'Dust resistance' skill he didn't know about considering existed. Getting two new skills in the course of a few minutes would be pretty good...

  He finally decided to just make a small layer of mana over his skin to report when any dust mana came knocking, hastening his decision making process because of the worrying fact that he hadn't felt the dome of mana around them open up in any way. Though yes, he could only vaguely feel that they were enclosed by the mana, if there were a hole he would probably be able to feel it.

  The owner of the mana would almost certainly feel it also, and the mana would probably have reached him after warning the others about it "Get ready to jump, I have a plan!"

  It seemed there wasn't really time to explain it seeing from their current predicament, though there was a surprise he found with a quick glance to the situation of the others. It seemed Nuri wasn't targeted, why? Ben wouldn't really know why, but it was certainly a good thing to have their guide unharmed.

  "O' vapor, hear me and come to my aid," He began to speak as he took out 11 mp, burning it as he splayed out one of hands upwards "Comfort the weak and protect the meek; clouded descent."

  He targeted only two people, trusting both Zander and Iles to survive the fall he used a third of his maximum mana to protect the {Flesh mage} and {Pathfinder}. Feeling dust mana instantly gnaw through the thin layer of mana on his back without any forewarning he called out to the already steeled people around him "Jump!"

  Not waiting for them for even a moment, believing they would do the same, he instantly hopped down with the still air passing by him he had already begun to chant the beginning of one of the easiest but usually on of the most useless spells using kinetic mana "O' speed starve, O' force perish,"

  And as he fell only about three seconds he continued to chant while keeping his gaze on the ground he was planning to land on, already using to shift his velocity in a more horizontal direction even if only meekly "May all motion expire;"

  Landing with a roll, he instantly turned around and snapped his fingers towards where the others should still be falling. Kinetic mana converging in two directions to enforce a new truth "Diminish velocity."

  Instantly the two more fragile of his party of delvers had their speed stifle, their already somewhat slowed descent seemingly stuttering from full speed to something far less dangerous right before they landed. Leading to the two merely collapsing to their knees instead of breaking every bone in their body and having each and every internal organ fall apart from the inertia, even if said inertia still wasn't the best for their insides.

  With the velocity of the entire body being directly lower, though excluding the clothes merely for efficiency reasons, the process had no issues related to inertia. Concussions and other issues related to rapid changes in speed were because of the squishy insides not being directly connected to the rest of the body, making them crash into the rest of the human body that had already slowed down or stopped entirely.

  But if both the innards and the rest of the body slowed down simultaneously there would be no such issue, at least according to the theoretical knowledge that Ben held.

  It was lucky that 'Diminish velocity' was a very simple spell, so simple that he had actually simultaneously casted it twice unlike 'Clouded descent' which had been only one spell extended to two targets.

  It was very lucky in fact, though Ben honestly felt like what he had done deserved another level. But it was fine, he was still happy with what he got to the point of laughing "I knew today would be a good day!"

  It was probably just near the threshold for level 5 anyways.

  If there was another fall he'd use it again, though he was kind of interested if there was another spell that he could wring out of the skill now.

  Once again noticing dust mana degrading his small layer of detecting mana on his left arm, he paced away from said direction "More dust mana! Which way should we go?"

  After a moment of pause from the strangely unharmed Nuri, she pointed to her left. Not directly left, but probably only a few degrees off from it. Though strangely she asked someone else to do the deed "Big guy, punch through it!"

  "Aye, aye boss." Zander merely responded, running over towards the wall as if the fall had done next to nothing. It probably hadn't actually, considering his level and class.

  It was a bit of a shame to see the wall directly broken through with a single punch, revealing a pathway forwards as everyone had once again gotten into proper delving form. Ben taking up Nuri, Kail being barely picked up by the also struggling Iles before being handed to Ben on his request.

  He might not have known about

  before today, but that didn't mean he was going to let it rot at level 1. Was it uncomfortable for Nuri, who was pressed between two men? Maybe, she wasn't complaining at least. Did Ben honestly care? No.

  Taking the time to catch with the already running Iles and Zander, Ben found himself with the benefit of being directly protected from any dust shenanigans because of Kail. A bit of a shame, he was hoping for a level to

  But it was fine, this was going to be a good day either way.