Dakota Krout - Dungeon Born (The Divine Dungeon Book 1)

“A Spotter?” Hans whined, “Do we have to work with one of those stuck up bastards?”

“Nope! You could take the day off of dungeoneering and help me out instead, we could use someone to dig a new latrine, ours is near overflowing.” Frank deadpanned with a gimlet stare.

“Oh, look at the time! It is work-with-the-Spotter o’clock.” Hans chattered cheerfully as he made his escape from the room.

“Mm hm.” Frank grunted. He waved the rest of them off, “Let me know how it goes, now shoo! The portal Mages will be arriving here in the next few days and I need to find a suitable location for them to set up. Good call giving that lot to the church, Dale, I hadn’t thought about a possible monster breakout.”

Dale, feeling a bit down about not dungeon diving this morning, brightened a bit upon hearing these words. Craig noticed his emotional shift and shook his head, sometimes it was easy to forget that Dale was so young. They stepped out of the tent, at a loss for what to do for the next while. Walking around, they played a game of ‘notice some random detail’, a way to train their perception and attention to detail by looking at all the new people that had arrived. Not all of them were Guild members, quite a few were simple treasure hunters, while others were people interested in joining the Guild.

“Half of these fools will be dead in six months.” Craig muttered darkly.

Dale was taken aback by the normally good spirited man's sudden mood shift, “Why would you say that, Craig? They all look decently strong to me, look at that massive guy, he looks like he could throw me over the mountain!”

“I forgot that you are looking with just your eyes all the time. I think you are ready to learn how you use your Essence, at least a bit.” Craig decided aloud, ignoring the surprised looks of the men around him. They stopped and the other men in his group, Hans, the near silent Josh, and the ranger Steve, now looked upset at Craig’s words.

“You think he is ready?” Steve quietly questioned, one of the very few times Dale had heard him speak.

“He’s been progressing quickly, much faster than we were able to when we became cultivators. At this pace, if we can get back into that dungeon soon, he’ll be breaking into the D rank within six months to a year.” Craig told the group.

They looked at Dale with surprise, then all seemed to simultaneously squint at him, nodding after a moment.

“Looks like it.”

“Yup.”

“Unfair.” Pouted Hans.

Dale looked around, “I know that is good; why are you acting like that is that strange?”

“Normally it takes quite a few years to get out of the F-rankings, Dale. You got very lucky, a solid group and a good dungeon to train in.” Craig informed him, “Listen, it’s time for you to learn how to be, well, actually useful to us, instead of a liability that just so happens to kill a few rabbits each day.”

Dale winced, “Ow, my pride. I thought I was doing better than that.”

“You are; I was exaggerating to make a point. So far though, you have been doing everything with just the strength of your body; when you can use your Essence to supplement your weak points, life can only get better for you.” Craig explained, “Time to let you in on a poorly guarded secret. You have a Chi spiral, but have you found your meridians?” Dale shook his head, knowing the lesson would progress faster if he didn’t pretend to know things he didn’t.

“Sit down, and get comfy. Good. Now, feel your center.” Dale focused, and was soon able to perfectly see his small Chi spiral. “You are looking at the spiral, good. Instead of looking at just your spiral, look around. Look in any other direction. Find the ‘walls’ that are holding your spiral in this place, the boundaries that contain your Essence.” Dale was easily able to follow these instructions, easily feeling his limits as they were so small currently.

Craig’s voice was soft as he continued directing his protégé, “Find the holes in the wall, the empty spaces that move further into your body, and extend some Essence to these places. Don’t be scared when your Essence begins flowing on its own.”

The Essence, not used to doing anything but spinning under Dale’s control, initially was too slippery for Dale’s mind to grasp. He had done a very good job of purifying, and the thread eluded his grip for several long minutes. Finally, of course, he managed to hold it, then was able to extend the Essence to the hole, but missed several times, bouncing it off the wall. This was as difficult to him as threading a small needle to sew with. Slowly, carefully, he poked the thread into the hole, succeeding this time. Thankful that Craig had warned him, Dale was still startled at the rapid pace the Essence unspooled from his center into the meridian.

“Good, now wait a moment before you try anything else. Follow the thread with your thoughts as it moves throughout your body. Also, you may notice this hurt a bit, but it should be nowhere near as painful as the last time we made you do things with Essence.” Craig chuckled a bit.

The thread left his center and traveled directly toward his heart. It impacted with the force of a hammer, for a few moments Dale’s eyes boggled as he clutched his chest. The thread looped around his heart in a tight weave, until the organ had the thread moving through every part: tissue, artery, and capillary. The purified Essence moved onward, leaving the weave intact as it continued. The pain subsided in its wake, and his heart began to beat regularly again.

Flowing downward, the thread hit his lower intestine with less force, and only created a weave in a small area before moving up to his lungs. It split just before them, and impacted them both at dangerous speeds, enough so that he coughed up a bit of blood and lost his breath. The weave placed on the heart repeated itself, forming tightly around both lungs, making it hard to breathe until the pattern completed. The split thread moved up his arms until it wrapped around the little finger and began its travel down along a slightly altered path until it found another hole in the walls of his center, rejoining his Chi spiral from an unexpected angle.

Dale opened his eyes, and wiped a bit of blood from his mouth. He felt calm and rested, heart beating powerfully while he breathed more deeply than he could ever remember doing. The sense of calm lasted only until he looked up into the expectant eyes of his groupmates, who had looks of relief on their faces.

“What?” Dale nervously stammered.

“That was an interesting choice for the first meridian to open.” Craig’s eyes were inspecting the weave along Dale’s heart and lungs.

Dale was surprised, “I had a choice?”

“Of course. It is good that this is the one you used though. The heart meridian can be… Somewhat dangerous to open once you get older. The initial hit to your heart can kill those that are unprepared, or try it without help. Don’t worry overmuch, if yours had stopped, we would have of course restarted it.” Craig informed him seriously.

“There are twelve paired meridians, six ‘yin’ and six ‘yang’. Then there are two single sets, the ‘governing’ and ‘conception’ sets. Those are what allowed you to formulate Chi in the first place, and were forced open when you were younger, usually at birth. You can reinforce them with your Chi, and you should, but make sure we are around any time you plan on opening a new meridian.”

“Right, so what just happened?” Dale examined the group surrounding his prone form, “I mean, I feel good, but I was bleeding. Did I hurt myself? Did I do it wrong?”