Hans was awake in time for the next reset. Before he checked in on his experiment, he used his connection with the dungeon to trace every wall and passageway for changes. The in-person patrols would continue, but having visibility into the entire dungeon put Hans’ mind at ease.

  Quest Complete: Monitor for independently grown sections of dungeon.

  He probably could have closed that quest a while ago, but he didn’t completely trust the dungeon roots at first. If there were limits to its reliability, he didn’t want to get caught unprepared. Or worse, he didn’t want one of his adventurers to get caught unprepared. Only a few short weeks since his resurrection, Hans felt like the whole of the dungeon was his, making every inch his responsibility even more so than before.

  No, that wasn’t right.

  It felt like the dungeon was him. Hans almost mentioned that feeling to Olza again now that it felt more certain, but he realized he had no way of explaining what that meant, at least not yet. Still, it was how he felt.

  Satisfied with the security of the dungeon, Hans turned his attention to his experiment. He mentally traced the roots back to the house where he grew the box goblin. As he had requested, the box goblin was gone, and the dirt basement floor had been replaced by cobblestones and a heavily secured trapdoor. Next, he checked in on the passage leading to the dungeon core. He found that there was now a solid wall on the other side of Dunfoo’s enchanted door.

  Hans smiled.

  He went downstairs to Olza’s lab. She was busy with apprentices, so all he did was pop his head through the doorway. “I’ve got an errand to run before my lesson with Quentin. Need anything?”

  “I don’t think so,” Olza answered, smiling.

  With a Gruwalda sword under his arm, Hans walked up the street, checking over his shoulder periodically for witnesses. He didn’t expect anyone to follow him, but he also didn’t want a random civilian stumbling on his experiments.

  New Quest: Run future tests in a secure part of the dungeon.

  That probably should have been the first step, Hans realized, but he also didn’t anticipate results that were anything like this.

  Coming down the old wooden stairs, Hans confirmed that the basement had been transformed. The trapdoor, as expected, was locked and sealed. His first instinct was to smash through it with Devon’s strength or a monster ability like Earth Smash, but he didn’t want to make that much noise.

  So he phased through the trapdoor with his cave crawler skill, descended the stairs, and stepped into the chamber. Torchlights came to life one at a time all around the room, and a golem rolled to the center.

  “You’re the only man for me,” the golem said.

  Active Quest: Learn to help your advanced students as much as you help beginners.

  Theneesa,

  Devon and Mazo promoted me to Diamond. It’s a long story, but I got a boon. There’s too much to tell in a letter, but I wanted to let you know directly. I know you think of yourself as my student, but I’ve learned a lot from you, and I wanted to thank you for your part in making me the adventurer I am today.

  Thank you. For everything.

  I have a proposal for you as well. Your and your colleagues’ work with Cursed memories has impacted me, as you know, and it’s becoming more and more obvious to me just how much adventurers need this research. I knew from the start that it was important, but the more I think about it and the more I talk to other upper-ranked adventurers, the more urgent the work seems.

  I don’t want my name or the Association’s on any of it, but I’d like you to consider distributing a manual of sorts to every chapter in the kingdom, whether they’re ours or not. I’ll personally cover the costs, and I’m happy to fund future research into this topic as well.

  I understand if you’re not ready to publish. If you are, though, I want to help get it in the hands of every adventurer we can. Let me know what you think.

  Stay safe.

  -Hans

  Hans folded the letter and set it with the rest of the outgoing mail. Tandis’ team would take care of the rest.

  “Are you avoiding me?”

  Looking up, Hans saw Ozzy the halfling strolling through the guild hall.

  “Not deliberately. It’s been a busy few days.”

  “Indeed it has been. Congratulations on the promotion.”

  “Thank you.”

  “My first piece is going out with the merchants,” Ozzy said. “I wanted to let you know.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Maybe not, but a little courtesy doesn’t hurt. Besides, we’re starting the serial in Hoseki. That seems like something you’d want to know.”

  “Serial?”

  “Think of it as a chapter-by-chapter publishing model. Hoseki readers can buy each piece as they come out, and then the full book releases after that.”

  “People still buy the book if they’ve read the serials?”

  Ozzy grinned. “If they want to read the last five chapters, they will.”

  “What are you covering in this first one?” Hans asked.

  “I’m afraid I don’t let subjects read or make changes to something before I print.”

  “Not asking for either of those. Just the general topic.”

  “The murder of Hans Prig, of course.”

  Hans winced. “I don’t use that name anymore.”

  “I’m afraid it’s how you’ve been referenced in official reports, so I’m just being consistent. I wanted the first chapter to focus on the dungeon, but a murder is too juicy to ignore. This will ensure the royal family has the opportunity to read the tale as well.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Unsure of how to feel about someone being so entertained by his death, Hans pressed onward. “Do you level accusations?”

  “I report what people say to me. I don’t offer my analysis. But yes, several of the people I interviewed were plainspoken about their thoughts.”

  “I always pictured the royals seeing it before anyone else, but thank you for the warning. Can I do anything else for you? I’m afraid I have a class coming up.”

  “Would you mind if I sat in?”

  “Not at all. We’re using the classroom in the back if you want to claim a seat.”

  “By now, you’ve picked up on how I feel about research,” Hans began, standing in front of a chalkboard in the guild hall classroom. “Today, we’re going to cover a strange kind of research: Yourselves.”

  Hans turned to the board and wrote “Debriefs, Tactics, Drills” in big letters.

  “For most adventurers, instructor feedback dries up at Iron or Bronze. You’re in the field doing jobs unsupervised, and unless something catastrophic happens, your job reports mostly end up in a folder somewhere. On top of that, you’re not spending much time in the training room either, and I get it. You have bills to pay and such.

  “Doing jobs will lead to natural improvements in your personal abilities as well as your party’s overall performance, but the best adventurers I’ve met treat training like part of the job. They take their field experience, and they use it in deliberate ways to help themselves improve.

  “And the process starts here.” Hans tapped his chalk against Debriefs. “With no one actively critiquing you, you have to learn to do it yourself. Identifying an error is easy enough, but tracing back to the root of that error requires a great deal of self-awareness and no shortage of thought. You can’t just say, ‘That didn’t work.’ You have to figure out why it didn’t work and then come up with a potential alternative.

  “For example, Devon showed me a type of pivot he likes to do, and I’ve been working on incorporating it into my own style. The majority of my practice happens without him around, so it’s my responsibility to uphold his standards. By the time we train again, I’ve gotten a few hundred reps and come up with a couple of questions too. And this is only one piece of footwork.”

  Hans turned to the board and added “Perfect, Compare, Experiment, Adjust.”

  “You have to know what you want to achieve before you try figuring out how to achieve it. That’s what I mean by ‘Perfect.’ It’s the ideal that you’re aspiring to. In my mind, I can picture Devon using the technique live. I can recall the details he pointed out when he explained it, and I’ve got a list of critiques he’s given me as I fine-tuned the movement for myself. If you apply this process to a job debrief, Perfect is up to you to decide. The easier way to think about it is, ‘What should I have done?’

  “Deciding that gives you a frame of reference, and then all of your analysis fills in the changes you need to make between where you are now and where you want to be. This is the Compare stage, but in practice, this stage never really ends. Every rep of a technique should be compared to the Perfect version in your mind, so you’re constantly measuring yourself against the goal.

  “Now, Devon’s taller than I am. Our styles have a lot in common for how much we’ve trained together, but he has plenty of his own flair mixed in as well. While I’m working the Compare step, I’m also assembling a list of questions. Some of those are for me to ask directly, but most of them are meant to be felt out during my drills. What happens if I change the angle of my post by a few degrees? Why does he come up on his toes here but not there? My position looks similar to his, but mine feels weak as hells. What might I be doing wrong?

  “If we zoom this out to a job debrief, these are the kinds of questions you and your party should be asking during group drills. If you borked a room breach, you should probably run some breach drills before your next job. The ‘ideal’ expression of that tactic will vary by party for all kinds of reasons, so you have to be hard on yourselves to figure out what isn’t working and why.

  “Those experiments help you to better define what ‘Perfect’ means for what your party specifically must accomplish to improve. With that new definition, you make the adjustments, drill them until they feel natural, and then field test them all over again, starting this process over.”

  Young Charlie raised his hand. “How are you sure you’re making the right changes if an instructor isn’t helping you?”

  “Fair question. True certainty is tough, but you have plenty of guideposts to work with. For my footwork example, I know that a good movement won’t expose me to more danger. I know it shouldn’t put me in a bad position. I know that the simplest, more direct options tend to be best, so I ask myself if what I’m doing aligns with that. And then there’s how it feels. If it feels like shit when you do it, then it probably is shit.”

  The class laughed.

  Seeing no more hands raised, Hans moved on. “I want everyone to write down three things that you as an individual can improve, and that’s a broad question by design. If it makes you better in the field, it’s fair game. That might mean a sword technique for some of you, and for others that might mean better calls and communication. Once you have those three items written down, think of at least one way to improve each of those. We’ll go around the room with these, so don’t skimp.”

  After they worked through individual opportunities for improvement, pulling a handful of the students from the class to use as examples, Hans moved the class onto applying the same process to a party. For the adventurers who had party members present, Hans had them group up and do the exercise as a group. For the freelancers in the room, Hans broke them into parties to discuss their individual lists. They might not be running in the same party, but they could still practice talking technique and strategy with other adventurers.

  Ozzy quietly exited the room at about that point. The halfling had taken more notes than anyone else in the room, but Hans imagined that wasn’t unusual for an author.

  When class ended, Hans reminded everyone that he was paying top dollar for Holy Water. Anyone willing to hike out to where it flowed in the dungeon was welcome to make extra coin. He needed a lot but wouldn’t reveal for what. All they needed to do was deliver it to Dunfoo’s doorstep and let Hans know what they were owed.

  Soon the room emptied, and it was only Hans and Quentin.

  “Are you really taking lessons from Master Devontes?” Quentin asked.

  “Yep.”

  “But you’re the one who taught him.”

  “Do you remember way back when we talked about your skills having ranks? Someone could be a Silver with the sword but an Iron with the bow, and their overall rank be Bronze.”

  “I remember.”

  “Anything new starts at the beginning, so if I’m only at Bronze with whatever it is I’m learning, it makes sense for me to seek out someone with more experience in that thing.”

  Quentin thought. “I’ve seen you spar. You always seem ahead of him.”

  “You’ve seen us spar without boons.”

  “What?”

  “Devon trashes me if boons are allowed. I’m still learning how to think about my boon and how to make it part of my style. Devon’s put those hours into his practice already. I’m not there yet.”

  “I didn’t know you sparred with boons.”

  That might have been too shiny of a sidenote for a conversation like this. Quentin’s attention seemed to be drifting away from his initial question.

  “That’s not something we’re advertising, so please keep that between us,” Hans said.

  Quentin nodded dutifully.

  “The point is this: There’s always someone better than you. Overall, they might be a lower rank, and they might not even be that much trouble when you spar, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t ahead with a specific feint or a particular shield movement. If I want to get better, I have no problem going to the person with the most knowledge about whatever it is I’m trying to improve. I don’t care what rank they are.”

  “Can I watch you guys spar?”

  Hans sighed. He had lost control of the teachable moment. “Probably not for a while.”

  Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

  Complete the next volume (Bronze to Silver) for “The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers.”

  Learn to help your advanced students as much as you help beginners.

  Relocate the titan bones to the dungeon entrance.

  Master your Diamond boon.

  Get Dunfoo the materials he needs for a Holy enchantment.

  Learn more about the limits of the dungeon roots.

  Test the extent of your dungeon influence.

  Brainstorm more competitive dungeon games.

  Run future tests in a secure part of the dungeon.