When Jeremy suggested he'd had enough training, Clown Lord laughed. “Such a funny little adventurer you are. I will try to kill you with an axe. You will defend yourself with your sword while holding it in your other hand...”

  And Jeremy was back in hell. The only positive part of this is that he was so distracted he stopped thinking about how much he missed home and what his mother must be going through.

  ***

  Jeremy lost count of the days he lived in fear of what tortures Clown Lord would put him through next. He learned how to use every melee weapon he'd ever heard of and a few he hadn't. What on earth was an adze? It turned out an adze was like an axe, only the blade perpendicular to the handle.

  One minute he'd be defending himself with yet another weapon, the next he'd be dunked in a bucket of water. Each time Clown Lord dunked him, it would be for a little longer. Soon Clown Lord was dunking him for a length of time that would have killed him pre-dungeon.

  Every couple of days, the magic loom would need more mana, and Jeremy was given a welcome break while he slowly replenished it.

  Every three or four days Jeremy would have another recurrence of mana sickness. It was hard to say what was worse, mana sickness or the brutal training sessions.

  One day, when Clown Lord was swinging a staff at Jeremy's head. Jeremy found he could slow time for a few seconds. That is, Clown Lord's staff appeared to slow down, allowing Jeremy to watch it approach and collide with his forehead, just hard enough to leave a bruise.

  This wasn't a skill. Jeremy couldn't move any faster during this time. All he could do was watch and think about how much the staff would hurt when it connected with his forehead, which it inevitably did. This time dilation seemed to come and go, depending on how frightened he was.

  “I see,” Clown Lord said when Jeremy mentioned it. “I guess I'll have to move faster.”

  Fortunately, despite Clown Lord's continual threats, the monster never hit him hard enough to do serious damage.

  The torture Jeremy was put through wasn't wasted. Jeremy's Swordplay skill turned into Melee-Weapons skill. He became a tougher, more capable fighter and soon had a long list of passive skills. Rapid Movement, Rapid Healing, Toughened Skin, Pain Reduction, Breath Holding, Enhanced Hearing, Enhanced Reflexes, Poison Resistance. Mental Fortitude, Decreased Need for Sleep. Enhanced Balance... to name a few.

  Between torture/training sessions, Clown Lord would have him meditate, focusing his awareness on the surrounding mana. The catch was Clown Lord would stand behind him with an axe. Every so often, the monster would make a quiet hissing noise as a warning and then attempt to chop Jeremy's head off. Jeremy couldn't say he sensed any mana during these meditation sessions, but he did manage to avoid being killed.

  Jeremy felt the swishing of air and ducked as the axe blade missed the top of his head by millimeters. “You didn't make any noise.”

  Clown Lord chuckled. “I knew I was forgetting something.”

  Before Jeremy could get angry at the unfairness of Clown Lord's actions, something happened. Most of his passive skills vanished from his stat sheet, to be replaced by Enhanced Physical: 1

  “Clown Lord!” Jeremy told the monster about how Enhanced Physical: 1, had replaced most of his passive skills.

  “Excellent.” Clown Lord's smirk widened. “Your body is learning to better utilize the ambient dungeon mana in a desperate attempt to keep you alive.”

  Clown Lord put away his axe and stared off into the distance. “Over a thousand years ago, I met an adventurer from a clan that didn't believe in dungeons. He had some interesting explanations for my presence. I believe he thought I was a hallucination brought on by a poisoned mushroom. Instead of leveling in dungeons, this boy, along with his clan, chose to dedicate their lives to developing their passive skills. This boy was an Enhanced Physical: 4, and though he was only a Level 1 Child Fighter, he was stronger than any Level 10 adventurer I've encountered.”

  Jeremy jumped up and down. He felt lighter, stronger, and able to jump higher than he could have seconds ago. “I'm strong! I'm strong!”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Clown Lord chucked. “Foolish adventurer. You're still weak... But I've put your foot on the path to strength. That in itself is an amazing achievement, and I impress myself once again by my own brilliance.”

  Jeremy jumped on the guillotine and used it as a platform to leap up to the Fun House balcony, where he hung over the edge of the balcony with his fingertips. He felt so much stronger and lighter now. “What do you mean by 'path to strength'?'”

  “That clan was weak. Many years after I met that adventurer, a high-level spellcaster came along and wiped them all out. But. If you were to raise your physical enhancement to 10, while at the same time seeking out and killing every boss monster in this dungeon, you would be well along your path to true strength, and by the time you leave this dungeon, very few intelligent adventurers or monsters would seek to fight you if they could avoid it.”

  “What about Mezirma?” Jeremy asked, thinking of the spellcaster who had killed his friend and nearly killed him.

  “Yes. If you do what I say, even this Mezirma would think twice before threatening you.”

  Jeremy pulled up Enhanced Physical 1 and looked at it.

  Enhanced Physical: 1.

  Your mind and body have learned to use the ambient mana continually, to make you, on average, half again faster and stronger than you were previously, toughening your skin and increasing your resistance to standard monster attacks.

  “Physical Enhancement: 1 doesn't seem to affect my Attributes,” Jeremy noticed.

  “It doesn't,” Clown Lord responded. “Physical Enhancement is like a lever allowing you to make better use of your Attributes. You have an Attribute Strength of 7. But now your functional strength is 10.5.”

  “Wow. That's amazing.” Jeremy thought about this and did some mental arithmetic. “If Physical Enhancement 1 increases my strength by half, this boy you mentioned with Physical Enhancement 4, would have a Strength of 21.”

  Clown Lord chuckled. “Even better. Each strength increase is on top of the previous one. Physical Enhancement 2, for you, would be a half-again increase from 10.5. This boy at enhanced physical 4 would have had a functional strength of 35.4, and since that boy's Strength Attribute was a good deal more than a pathetic 7, his functional strength was well over 40.”

  “Wow,” Jeremy said. “Why isn't everyone doing this?”

  “Who says they're not? But it takes years of brutal training to raise passive skills. That boy had been training since before he could walk and had been the recipient of his clan's secret training techniques. He was also one of his clan's more gifted fighters.” Clown Lord walked over to Jeremy and patted him on his head. “You have the advantage of being a mana-sensitive adventurer in a mana-rich dungeon, but even so, the path to true strength is hard, brutal, and very dangerous. Take the day off, get some rest. You will need it.” With another chuckle, Clown Lord walked away.

  ***

  The next morning, the Fun House was empty.

  All the clowns were gone and the magic loom was quiet. Jeremy left the loft and examined the spool of spider silk. Most of it was gone, but he felt a silk thread coming off the used-up spool. He unwound it, wrapping maybe twenty feet of thread around his wrist, adding it to the invisible bracelet of spider-silk thread he'd gained previously.

  The Clown Lord wouldn't notice, he hoped. He wandered over to the clown's long, yet-to-be-cleared dinner table, covered with half-eaten dishes and unfinished pitchers of monster blood.

  “Little adventurer. So nice of you to join me,” Clown Lord said from behind him.

  Jeremy jumped.

  “Come this way.”

  Back up in the loft, Clown Lord held up what looked like empty air, then flipped the air over his arm, causing his arm to vanish. “What you are not seeing is a cloak made from Chrysoti spider-silk.” Clown Lord placed the cloak on the table and stabbed it with a knife. The knife shattered. “Feel it,” Clown Lord placed Jeremy's hand on the cloak. It felt smooth and soft, without the slightest sign of damage. “Besides making the wearer invisible, this cloak will also act as armor, protecting the wearer from sharp objects, though not blunt trauma. It's charmed to fit any wearer perfectly.”

  “Wow,” Jeremy said.

  “So tell me, little adventurer, do you want it?”

  “Yes.” How could he not? Such a cloak would be a huge asset to him.

  “How badly do you want it?”

  “Very badly, Clown Lord. Would you make it an award for your third quest?”

  “I would. In addition to this cloak, you will receive lots of experience and monster loot.” Clown Lord said. Smirking, he stepped forward, towering over Jeremy. “Your third and final quest is to kill the Lord of the Clowns in single combat.”

  YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED YOUR THIRD QUEST!

  The Lord of the Clowns intends to kill you and eat you for breakfast. Your quest is to kill the Lord of the Clowns in single combat!

  If successful, your reward is one charmed cloak of invisibility, lots of experience, and monster loot, and not getting eaten for breakfast. Failure will mean death, and being eaten for breakfast. Refusal of this quest will mean death, and being eaten for breakfast.

  Accept? Yes/Yes - Trick question. You have no choice.