When Vivi could see again, the giant skeleton's katar was aimed at her face. Vivi sprung to her feet and rolled to the side. The katar pierced the wall where she'd just sat.

The skeleton was slow to recover. The katar swung fast, easily at the same speed as Vivi's strikes. But the skeleton still had a boulder stuck on its right hand. Its stance was off due to its unbalanced weight. The boulder in its right hand clumsily dragged along with its swings like a shackle keeping it away from full strength.

"Attack its right side, Vivi," Lucius said. "And don't hit the boulder. There might be another katar underneath."

Vivi was barely listening, too focused on keeping herself alive. The skeleton's swings were far stronger and faster than what Vivi could keep up with. She couldn't counterattack; the skeleton's arm was too long, and its reach was as long as Vivi's lunging range.

Her only chance was to step back and avoid attacks. Blocking was impossible. Her footing wasn't strong enough to withstand heavy blows, even if her sword was stronger.

Ideas? Vivi asked in a panic.

"I don't know, kill it!" Lucius said.

Vivi gritted her teeth. She activated Shadow Swipe, focusing its powers to her left hand, on Lucius's claws. She threw aimless attacks at the boss's head.

As expected, Shadow Swipe's aura confused it. The boss blocked Vivi's attacks with its katar, pausing its charge.

"The claws won't do damage," Lucius said. "We'll need a clean hit!"

With the boss's charge at a pause, Vivi ran forward directly at the skeleton, throwing claw-swipes forth. The boss blocked the first two before realizing the claws were barely a threat. It thrust the katar down at Vivi.

Fast! Vivi thought. The katar's tip came down at her faster than she could evade. She held Abyss Destroyer above her head, blocking it.

The katar pushed her down with the weight of multiple buildings. Vivi's legs felt like they wanted to snap, barely keeping her standing. She held her sword above her with two hands, one on the grip, one on the blade, touching venerium directly. Its poison quickly pushed to her left hand, numbing her immediately.

Vivi yelled out, pushing with all she had. The skeleton's katar slipped, piercing the ground beside her with explosive force. The weapon was stuck on the ground.

Vivi charged forth immediately, cutting down the skeleton's leg. Then the other leg. The skeleton fell on top of her. Vivi threw an overhead swing, cutting the ribcage as it fell on top of her.

The crush runes of her sword destroyed its insides. The burning ether sizzling within its ribcage brushed against Vivi before the rest of the skeleton shattered to pieces, disintegrating.

Vivi collapsed right after. The veins of her left hand were purple. She'd touched the blade for less than five seconds, and she'd been poisoned.

Antidote… Vivi thought. She called the vial from spatial storage and downed it in one go. Then she lay on the ground, trying her best not to pass out from dizziness.

Lucius collected ether around her. The six lesser skeletons dropped over four thousand ether. The larger skeleton gave them 3486. Vivi's debts lessened to 76118.

"Ugh…" Vivi said. "I'm about to pass out."

"Vivi, look," Lucius said. He flew around the corpse excitedly. "That's a big one!"

Vivi lifted her head. Something was spinning inside the skeleton's head. A larger wisp of ether, colored green. "A skill?" Vivi asked in surprise.

"A skill from a regular monster!" Lucius gushed out. "This dungeon is insane!"

We nearly just died… Vivi thought. But she collected the skill and asked, Is it a good one?

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Lucius took his time examining the wisp. "It's a common skill. That's to be expected. Ythar's encyclopedia says it's called 'Basic Ascension.' Vivi, it's an ascension skill!"

What does it do?

"Ascension skills are the best skills that exist," Lucius said. "It raises the maximum limit of ether we can use. Exalted ascension skills can double the amount of ether your core can handle. Basic Ascension… Well, it raises our limit by five hundred."

That's pretty good, Vivi thought. We're ten percent stronger, then.

"It's expensive, though," Lucius said. "Wisps dim out a lot quicker with ascension skills active."

Right away, Vivi zoomed in on the skill's structure. The runic branches of the skill were hazy, as if the skill hadn't fully materialized yet, though the sight was similar to her previous skill. The ascension skill had a starting point, which led to strength runes, then to an assortment of new runes Vivi didn't even recognize. The skill didn't seem to have an alternate path like Shadow Swipe.

Vivi would probably need to work with a real scientist to figure out what every function of the skill did. The structure was far too large and convoluted for her to make sense of it.

Lucius, let's talk in Paradise, Vivi thought. She lay on the ground and stared at the ceiling. The world was spinning around her. Let's hope the antidote works a second time. I need to recover from venerium poisoning.

"Yes. You were hit badly," Lucius said. "But you should be fine."

Let's practice channeling, Vivi thought. Take us to a more private place this time, please.

*

Vivi woke up in Paradise and spent the next five hours sitting underneath a scorching hot sun while her body was probably dying from venerium poisoning.

Practice continued where it had left off. Vivi tried to catch one of the active wisps to examine their structure more thoroughly. She already knew what inactive wisps looked like, and she knew she had the ability to see the wisps inside her core more thoroughly. But had anyone truly seen an active wisp underneath a microscope? What did one of them look like?

Lucius wasn't too enthusiastic about Vivi's practice method. He said that examining an active wisp had nothing to do with channeling ether. Vivi's job was to control the wisps, making the most out of their powers. Approaching this with the goal of studying the wisps was counter-productive, according to him.

Vivi decided to ignore him. She was a runesmith at heart. The entire goal of runesmithing was to shape ether into a form that metal could understand.

If Vivi could see what a wisp looked like when activated, perhaps it could help her with runesmithing.

Throughout the hours of practice, Vivi managed to see glimpses of ether's microscopic structures. Branches, elements—she spotted something every time the active wisps passed by. But each time she focused deeper, the wisps escaped, and Vivi couldn't keep up.

Lucius reminded that Vivi should work on her control over ether first. It would be easier to see the wisps if Vivi could actually channel the wisps as she wanted to.

She gave in and practice began. Sadly, Vivi was far from a genius when it came to elevating her core.

Vivi wasn't any better at channeling ether today than she was yesterday. Seeing the wisps was one problem; interacting with them was a whole new difficulty. The scorching, sweat-inducing sun overhead certainly didn't help.

Lucius activated a single wisp of ether into her core and gave her the task of keeping it active for as long as Vivi could. The task was utterly impossible. Vivi couldn't keep the wisp active for more than a few minutes, let alone the thirty minutes required to reach the first elevation. She kept trying different things with Lucius with little success.

Realistically, her lack of talent was to be expected. Most hunters required at least a year before they could reach the first elevation. Expecting progress on the first day was stupid.

By the end of their five-hour practice session, most of Lucius's reserves were dimmed out. He flew off from her core and, with a troubled expression, said, "I guess this is a good start."

Vivi sighed. "You don't look impressed."

"We can't all be geniuses," Lucius said. "It's going to be hard for you to reach the level of mastery my previous wielder got to. But I still think we can become strong. Your runeswords bring you up by at least two elevations."

"I don't plan on being stuck at elevation zero," Vivi said. "We'll come back here tomorrow."

"Of course," Lucius said.

"When is collection day?" Vivi asked. "Have you kept track?"

"Uh, I think it's tomorrow again?" Lucius said.

"We'll probably need one more week to clear this dungeon," Vivi said. "Maybe two depending on how deep it goes. Then we'll have to start thinking about escaping. Bring me back to the dungeon. Let's see how badly the venerium damaged me."

*

The venerium hadn't killed Vivi, but she felt far from amazing.

Her left hand was still numb. One of her nostrils was runny, and the other was clogged. Her head was clouded, and standing gave her a headache. She was sick enough that the fog in her head would have affected her runesmithing. She knew that every doctor in the world would have probably told her to rest for longer.

Nevertheless, Vivi caught a few fish for Eem and herself from the lake and drank water to combat the headache. With some ether to help out, she was strong enough to keep swinging a sword. She called forth her katana and headed back to the dungeon.

By now, Vivi had fought the same skeletons so many times that dealing with them wasn't a problem, even when sick. She could still use Shadow Swipe to confuse their senses, and her runeswords were still more than strong enough to cut through everything the first level had to offer. She cleared remaining rooms of the main dungeon's first level, leaving only the first two rooms untouched.

With the first level completed, her debts lowered to 72851.

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