The Genesis Game

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Standing up, Seraph clenched and unclenched his hand, going through the motions to see if everything still worked as it should, and while he was unsure of some of the sensations he was feeling coming from the restored limb, overall he had no complaints, his body was whole and he had gained an ability that might make him near unkillable, and with all the changes he was already seeing to the lethality of the dungeon, he would need it.

"You alright?" Asked Paul as his eyes shifted over to examine Seraph's new physique.

Looking down, Seraph realized the intent of how much he had changed. He was much larger than he had been before, Paul had been taller than him, and yet now he was at least a stone taller if not more.

Taking a second to look himself over Seraph carefully answer. "I'm fine. Better then fine. This is a big upgrade for for. I had forgotten what it felt like to have a powerful body, if I'm able to upgrade this, it just may be stronger than my Black Seraph form."

Seraph thought for a moment and admitted "It's going to be difficult though. When I first entered the dungeon, that form was automatically unlocked, I've never had a need to truly grind a skillset or abilities."

Something about the way Seraph said that made Paul inwardly groan. "I'm curious, and I need you to be honest with me, just how much training have you actually done over these decades you say you've been in the dungeon?"

Memories shifted in his mind as Seraph combined for an answer. "Barely, if ever." Admitted Seraph. "I never had a reason to. I had raw power that nothing could withstand, finesse wasn't needed."

Shock nearly overwhelmed Paul as he heard that. "Listen Seraph, you should have mentioned that. Right now you're my teammate and I'm yours. I'm relying on you to have my back, and part of that means understanding what your true limits are. Because they might be completely separate from what you've known in the past."

"I'm not sure how you fought before and it doesn't really matter now, but you're going to need to figure out a way to fight that isn't so physical, even with your new abilities, we can't sit around for hours afterwards waiting for you to heal up and hope to be safe like we are right now." Continued Paul.

Seraph nodded his head in agreement, he had come to the same conclusion. Already he had more than enough close encounters that should have ended in his death.

"I agree, things need to change, that's something we need to talk about, going into the city in the distance, I know nothing about it. We are going in blind. I've never been here before, this entire place is new to me, you and I might actually be the first people to have ever set foot inside this floor. I need to do things differently, in the past I was given nearly overwhelming power from the beginning, and this time I don't have that crutch and the dungeon keeps changing. Even my knowledge of the past is quickly becoming useless and this journey has only just begun."

Seraphs father stood up and looked out from the shore near the pier into the city. "Let's do this the old fashioned way. We know that the ocean behind us is full of horrible things, so let's assume the same applies for any other standing body of water, sewage or otherwise we might come across."

Seraph nodded that made sense to him.

"Next we need to figure out a goal. Because I am not ok with us just wandering around trying to find something to do. That's a good way to get killed and I'm sure that you've noticed, but we've an entire city in front of us. A city with a lot of places for nasty things to hide, and not much light to see by, so tell me, what would you have done in the past?"

"Our goal needs to be finding the ability said." Said Seraph as he thought of the past.

Seraph looked up toward the city, noticing it's dark skyline with its dead buildings and lightless skies sitting in a general darkness. "If I know anything about the dungeon it is that it hates to be a repeat itself. A different monster will roam those streets then what roams in those buildings or flies in the sky, I'd want and need to know what those monsters are."

"Alright so Seraph, you know some of the patterns of the dungeon. Even if things are different now, a tiger isn't going to just change its stripes so maybe your future knowledge isn't useless. What would you do next? Rationalized Paul as they worked through the planning.

"I'd put together a few no name teams of unranked and disposable people that I could easily right off of as due to their unimportance iif trouble came up. To each team would be assigned someone with high survivability to conduct overwatch, somebody fast who can easily escape a confrontation and evade detection or someone with a high defense and an ability to disengage in case the teams were in danger of being destroyed so the rest of us would have some idea of what we were up against." Replied Seraph

Paul shifted uncomfortable before addressing him. "So basically, you admit to being some sort of demigod, and as a demigod, you sent your weakest people into danger, supported by an elite team, not to assist if needed, not to get help if trouble comes up, but to gain intelligence from it? So what? You just leave them to die and then you do what? Send another team?

It was clear that Paul was struggling to maintain his composure amidst his anger and disappointment.

Seraph glared back, he wasn't used to his decisions being challenged, especially not the ones that saved more lives than it took. "Yes. I let them die but never in vain. At that point their wasn't much I could do but hear about what happened and then head out with some of the other legendary classes and take out the monsters. Then we would send out another team and repeat the process until we at least found the ability to shop and worked our way from there."

"That's not acceptable. You don't just leave people to die. You don't send people to their deaths just because it makes your search easier. That's not the kind of man I raised you to be, that's not the kind of person you were meant to be. People die and sometimes leaders have to make hard decisions that get people killed, if your going to be a leader you need to learn that and also learn to think of ways to keep your people alive in spite of the odds. Do you understand?

Seraph said nothing, it was not that he disagreed with the meaning behind what was said, it was that he didn't fundamentally think it was reasonable or doable. Lives were currency to be used, but not squandered, and he would not squander the lives of his people when the life of a nobody was so readily available, all this he kept to himself before relenting with a "Fine, agreed."

"Good, now let's go find this ability shop." Suggested Paul.