"One." A swift jab from my left.
"Two." The right hook impacts the punching bag, the chain it hangs from rattling.
"Three!" I let out a puff of breath as my fist impacts the punching bag oncemore. I take a few steps backwards to catch my breath, wiping my brow of sweat.

It's been about a week since I entered the dungeon for the first time, and I've refrained from going back in for now. In hindsight, it was a stupid idea to do what I did, and I simply got caught up in the moment. I needed to get stronger than I was then if i were to guarantee my safety when I eventually take on the boss.

So, naturally, I got some exercise in.

On the first day, I did my exercises in the Golden Oaks Library as the place didn't get visitors all too often. It also gave Twilight and I some time to talk our heads off about the kinds of exercises humans do, much to Spike's amusement. It was only after our lunch (where we decided to eat out this time) that she suggested that I'd have a look at Ponyville's Gym.

It was run by an Earth Pony stallion by the name of Steady Hoof. He had a silvery mane and a dirt brown coat that barely concealed the jacked body he had. Even by racehorse standards, he was probably the most muscular equine I had ever lied eyes upon. Very impressive.

It cost 10 bits for one week of gym access, which cut my funds down by a third, ouch.

The gym itself wasn't anything too special, though a lot more modern looking than I was expecting, given that Ponyville looks like what amounts to a medieval hamlet. Though it was a little disappointing that some of the machines there definitely weren't designed with bipeds in mind.

There were about a dozen or so ponies there, too. Seems like a slow day.

I spent about 30 minutes or so doing some bicep curls with 10kg dumbells (which were noticeably wider than normal), taking appropriate breaks in between sets, when an Earth Pony mare approached me, smiling gently.

Blossom Lovesong
LV 4

What struck me first when I looked at her was her eyes. A pair of beautiful light pink eyes made eye contact with mine, her soothing gaze easily, gracefully disarming me. She was the first mare that I had seen that made me think "beautiful" when I saw her. Her platinum blonde mane was in two separate braids, one tied off with a blue ribbon and the other a red ribbon. Her smooth, shiny coat was the same shade of pink as her eyes.

"You're that new girl in town that saved those foals at the schoolhouse, aren'tcha?" She spoke.

I quickly broke out of my reverie, slightly flushed.

"Yeah, that was me." I awkwardly squeak out, rubbing the back of my head as my blush makes itself even more known. Blossom giggles, clearly finding something amusing.

"There's no need to be embarrassed, sweetheart. What you did was good! Celestia knows I could never do something like that," the mare praised, outstreching a foreleg. "My name is Blossom Lovesong, yours?"

"Aria. Aria Lee, it's nice to meet you, Miss Lovesong," I shook her hoof, wearing a content smile. Blossom then got comfortable on the floor, sitting on the haunches.

"My, how polite! I was under the impression that you would be a little... 'rough around the edges' as it were. I'm pleasantly surprised."

"You've heard about me?"

"Of course!" – She clapped her two hooves together daintily. – "You've practically been the talk of the town ever since you got here. I'm surprised you haven't noticed yet."

"... Let's just say i haven't really talked to much of anyone yet. Though I guess it does explain the staring. Me not being from here also probably contributes to that."

"Where are you from then? You seem a little young to be travelling, and I haven't seen any of your species before."

I tensed for a moment before ultimately relenting.

"Well, to be honest with you. I'm from a different world than this one. Planet? Huh. I haven't really thought about it yet. Though I suppose it'd be more accurate to say universe since this place doesn't seem to run on the same rules as mine does. I never would have even thought magic was real until like, three days ago. As far as I know, it doesn't exist where I'm from. I certainly couldn't do magic back then, that's for sure."

She simply blinked, "... You don't have magic where you come from?"

"Yknow, it's pretty funny that's the one detail that gets you, and not that I'm effectively an alien."

"A world without magic just sounds wrong to me! How did you... uh... hoomans?"

"Humans." I deadpanned.

"Right, how did you humans survive without it?"

"Simple." I smirked, "We humans had nothing but our bodies and the natural world. We've gone from barely understanding how fire works to building machines able to reach our moon in like... forty-thousand years? Give or take, it's a little contentious at what time we actually started making fire."

"... You're serious," She uttered, eyes as big as dinner plates.

"Yup. Technology sure is great, ain't it?" I spoke, rubbing my chin pretentiously. "I'd rather not stand here and explain all the stuff humans have made, though. We would literally be here all day and then some."

"Aw..."

"Besides, didn't you come here to work out like me? You could come visit me whenever; I live in the giant tree, you can't miss it."

Her face lit up, "Golden Oaks?"

"That's the one, now, you gonna get started?" She got up on hooves.

"Right, I'm going to go on that treadmill over there. Thanks for the talk, sweetheart." She trots up and almost nuzzles my side, quickly backing off as she realised she almost just rubbed her face on my sweat-moistened t-shirt, to my amusement.

"You ponies are heckin' silly. You're like very friendly cats, nuzzlin' up on someone you barely know." I jokingly admonished, reaching out and scratching just behind one of her ears.

The effect is immediate. The pretty pink pony leans into my touch, and the very pleased little pony became as malleable as clay in my hands as I continued my machinations. Ears? Scratched. Chin? Scritched. Cheeks? Rubbed. I swore she even started purring! After about five or ten minutes of this, I stopped.

The pink pony was particularly petted.

After that, I decided to join her on the treadmill for a while to get my cardio in, and it wasn't until an hour had passed that we stopped. Blossom waived me off as I went to leave, as she wasn't finished with her own session yet.

Thankfully, I had gotten what I came here for.

Your rigorous exercise has improved your body.
STR: 20 -> 21
VIT: 23 -> 24
DEX: 25 -> 26

One point in each wasn't too bad for only like, an hour and a half of work.

My entire week was more or less, just like this. I got up, I trained until lunch, trained a bit in the afternoon, and went home.

I wasn't only working on my physical body, however.

"So, Twilight, I've been meaning to ask you how exactly I should train my magic. I have read some of the books you recommended to me, but they mostly just talk about practising a particular spell over and over again until you master it. But that's not the same thing as, say, training to increase your reserves and control, is it?" I pointed to a paragraph I was reading of Five Cantrips For Your Camping Needs that illustrated my point perfectly.

She swallowed the chunk of syrup-covered pancake (courtesy of The Chef, commonly known as Spike) that was in her telekinetic grip before answering.

"Do you know what meditation is, Aria?"

"... I don't know why I didn't think about trying that sooner, honestly."

"I really should have thought about that."

"Anyway, all you need to do is meditate while also focusing on cycling your mana throughout your body. You'll know what to do," she explained concisely.

"That's it? I was kind of expecting something a bit more involved. If that's the case, I suppose I'll just be in my room. See you in like, an hour?"

"That I will! Tell me about what it was like once you're done, won't you?"

"Sure," was the simple answer I gave her as I headed up the short flight of wooden stairs leading to a short hallway, leading to four rooms; Twilight and Spike's room, my room, another guest room, and the bathroom. Part of me wondered how this even fit inside Golden Oaks Library; space certainly isn't playing by the rules here. Either that, or it's just perspective.

Musings aside, I walked down the hallway and entered my room. I sat down in the middle of the room, eyes closed, legs crossed, and took a deep breath. I focused on my core, my Magic Core, allowing my Mana to flow freely around my body.

I quickly slipped into the routine of deep, controlled breaths. I felt the flow of Mana through my Magic Circuits. They were like pools – no – lakes of gathering Mana interconnected by what I could only describe as "rivers."

There were ten Magic Circuits located around my ten fingers, the largest collection of them in my entire body, followed by the five on my head, one on each eye, one on each ear, and one on my nose, the four in each of my legs, two at the knees, two at the heel of my feet, and the three within my chest arranged like an upside-down triangle.

With each breath I took, my Mana pulsed within for a moment, becoming more vibrant before dying back down, not unlike fanned embers, or thin metal heated up until it glows, only to dim almost immediately. It was as though my breath – my continued existence fueled my Mana.

I continued the exercise, and before long, the world around me quickly became irrelevant. I quickly fell into the infinite void that my perceptions bestowed onto me during meditation. There was nothing but me. Me, and this ember, this flame within me that needed to be nurtured. Cultivated even.

Just then, I swore I heard... something. It was like T.V. static, but the more I focused on it, the more obvious it became that it wasn't simply just some noise. The static rose and fell with the distinct rhythm of speech. Curious, i reached out towards the presence with my Mana, allowing it to flow freely towards whatever was calling out to me.

Then, I felt compelled by the presence to open my eyes and, in doing so, was perplexed by what I was seeing. Or rather, what I wasn't seeing. I truly wasn't in my room anymore. The void had been actualized in full, an infinite expanse of nothingness in all directions, even up and down.

I swivel around, looking in all directions, noticing how each step I took made the ground "ripple" like water. Then, I saw it.

There was some kind of figure juxtaposed against the black of the void, its silhouette clearly humanoid in nature, though I swore that I could see ears on the top of it's head, rather than the sides. Was that also a tail that i saw?

"Alright, just what exactly are you? It'd be nice if yo-"

The silhouette dashed forward much faster than I could even keep track directly towards me. Within an instant, it closed the distance between us (does distance even matter wherever this place was?) as though it was nothing more than a walk for it.

Despite its physical proximity, I wasn't much closer to discerning what I was looking at. It's – rather – her form, from what little I could parse, was far too blurry for me to make out any concrete details about its appearance, though the figure was definitely feminine. What was most striking to me, though, was her pointed ears jutting out off of the top of her head, vulpine ears, along with a foxes' tail swishing lazily behind the figure.

The figure reached its blurry hand outwards, and before I could protest, gently takes hold of my face, staring into my eyes appraisingly. An odd sense of calm washed over me as she did this, and I dared not to make a sounds until she was finished with whatever she was doing.

"You... No, not yet, it seems...."

"...who – no, – what are you?" I manage to wheeze out.

"Child, you are not ready. Not yet. Even if you managed to... call me here. However, I will give you the answers you no-doubt want once the time is right. For now, you must leave this place."

"B-But wait, just who ar-," Before I could finish, a snap of the apparition's fingers snaps me back into reality.

There I was. Back in the room.

You have been meditating for 1 hour 32 minutes and 9 seconds, and have therefore permamently gained:

+6 Max MP
+3 MP regeneration

What the hell just happened?

"Stele," I called out to my mental companion.

"I don't know what that was, either, if that's what you were going to ask me. Although..."

I then felt a familiar hum in the back of my mind, as though Stele was processing something. Processing... Processing..

That wasn't a memory of ours, nor a dream. That thing... if we had even a shred of knowledge on what that thing was,
subconsciously or otherwise, we would both know...

"...meaning that we're missing something, here," I conceded, brow furrowing.

With a sigh, I leapt off of the bed and streched my stiff muscles, earning myself satisfying pops as the gas between my joints were released. Deciding to leave that topic behind for now, I turned my attention to the screen infront of me.

Such a small increase... I hope it doesn't stay like that forever. Any increase I can get without needing to spend attribute points is welcome one, but not when I would be better off going back in the dungeon for faster growth...

Although, the merit of the excercise wasn't lost on me. Although subtle, a quick flare up of my magic made me notice a slight change. It felt more... malleable, like it would bend to my will just a little bit more than it did before.

It then came to my attention that the library was silent. Leaving the room, I see that Twilight and Spike are absent. I then spot a note on the table where we had eaten...

"...Remind me again why this was a good idea?" I questioned, narrowly avoiding a thin beam of lavender magic.

"Because you're the kind of pony who learns much faster from practical application, than just textbooks," Twilight Sparkle shot back, barely even registering my magical counter-attack as the orb of raw mana dissipated against her ever-strong barrier.

"That doesn't mean I have to enjoy," — I paused as another bolt flies forward and nearly grazes my side, — "What's essentially a boss fight I can't win!" I moan, leaping backwards to avoid the mare's arcane assault.

I'm was down to about half of my total mana pool as this point. If I want to win, I needed to pull off something new.

I looked upon my teacher, a thin, glass-like lavender sheen covering her.

Wait, glass!

A new idea began to brew in my mind, an idea catalysed by a new tool at my disposal.

"Alright, I'm going to give this everything that I've got!" I declare, standing resolute. Cold focus enters my mind as I flow mana into the circuits in my hands in preparation for my gamble.

"Persist in defending life..."

Alarm is evident on her face as I begin the incantation.

"The smallest spark from the heart..."

The rest of my focus is dedicated to amplifying my body, as I rush towards Twilight, her stance wide, and horn glowing intently.

"Becomes an inferno, blazing down..."

My arms feit number and number with each blast of magic I attempted to fend off, along with the growing pressure of my own spellcraft.

I kicked off of the dirt with great velocity as my spell began to reach it's conclusion, speeding off and through her ranged defence. With the distance finally closed, with my opponent within arm's reach...

I let the spell go off.

"To warm even the heaviest day!"

The spell's embrace erupted my arms in blood red flame, a [Produce Flame] bolstered by incantation, directed and feeding upon the magical aura covering my arms.

I planted my legs, pulled my burning fist back, pivoting, and finally allowing the chain of the body to deliver the full force I could muster, along with the radiating heat of magical fire, straight into the barrier covering Twilight, hoping that the force, along with the rapid heating would shatter the barrier.

The impact sends feedback throughout my entire body like I had just hit steel with a sledgehammer. Absolute resistance. The barrier held true despite my best efforts.

I didn't even have time to follow up with another blow as Twilight finally releases the spell she had been charging.

In an instant, my body felt a hundred times heavier as I was immediately forced into the dirt, [Produce Flame] immediately ending due to my broken concentration, and unable to offer any resistance even at my maximum output of [Magic Aura]

Thankfully, the increased gravity went just as quickly as it came, and I lied there in the dirt for a few moments contemplating my life choices up to that point.

"...For what it's worth, you did far better than I was expecting you to," She commended, helping me off of the ground.

"Can't say I didn't try. I didn't even know you could fight this well," I praised the victor, absentmindedly wiping my face of the dirt I had just become acquainted with.

"I can see why you'd think that, but I am Celestia's personal student. Self-defence magic is just one of many things I've studied." She stated matter-of-factly, without a hint of gloating.

"I'd say that reading about something isn't the same thing as actually doing it, but you've clearly proven me wrong," I admitted.

In truth, the only reason I was even able to get as close as I did to her was because she was holding back. If she didn't, my bolstered defence would have been torn straight through.

"Well... my brother may have taught me some things too, he's part of the royal guard," She admitted sheepishly.

I made note to never piss off Twilight lest I wish for one of the worst ass beatings of my life.

"THAT WAS AWESOME!" The resident baby dragon cheered, now making his way towards us as he had been watching from a distance, for safety.

"Well, I suppose it's not every day you get to watch a magic duel," I reply.

"That won't be true for long..." Twilight cut in.

Oh?

"As your teacher, it's my responsibility to help you grow as best as I can. It just so happens that fighting is very effective for you. Speaking of your ability, did another one of those screens pop up?"

Right on que, like it was waiting for an opportune moment...

Despite your loss, sparring with an opponent far stronger than you has pushed you beyond your limits!

STR: 21 -> 23
VIT: 24 -> 26
DEX: 26 -> 28
INT: 42 -> 44
WIS: 34 -> 36
[Magic Aura]: 2 -> 4
[Mana Ball]: 1 -> 3
[Unarmed Proficiency] 1 -> 2
New Skills:
[Produce Flame]
[???]

A new skill has been created, what would you like to name it?

I stared blankly at the screen for a moment. It had never asked me to name a skill I've acquired before. Thinking back though, the stunt I had pulled wasn't really [Produce Flame], rather, something derivative of it.

Firstly, the spell was never meant to be used on the caster, especially in this manner. That book, Five Cantrips For Your Camping Needs, told me that it was meant to be cast on a source of fuel for combustion, such as wood shavings or charcoal. It was a gamble trying to use my own mana as a fuel source instead, and was likely part of why the fire had been so intense.

Secondly, the incantation. It was crudely cobbled together after recalling that tidbit about spellcasting, sure, but it was an incantation regardless. That additional amplification of power turned what would usually be a small fire into an inferno that i was wearing!

Musings aside, I decided on a name for this new skill.

"Inferno Install." I coined.

Produce Flame (Active) (20MP) (Level 2) (31.37%)
A basic cantrip level flame spell. Mostly used for survival purposes and has little use in combat. The colour of the flames of this spell are determined by the caster's magic.

Inferno Install (Active) (init.100MP, 20MP/min) (Level 1) (78.31%)
A derivative skill of [Produce Flame]. It covers the arms of the user in brilliant red flames as long as concentration is not broken. Provides additional fire damage with unarmed strikes, resistance to other sources of heat, and causes unarmed attackers to suffer fire damage by hitting you.

I look at Twilight with a smug grind on my face.

"Yes, yes it did."

The next six days went by with much the same minutia. Physical training, meditation, and training with Twilight, along with learning some more about magical theory from her. Explosive growth had been made.
By the time the seventh day had came to and end...

"Status."
Name:Aria Lee
Class: The Gamer
Title:None
Race:Human(?)
Level: 7(87.33%)
HP:427 ((VIT x 10) + Level) Regen: 42 (42HP/Min)
MP:609 (((INT x 10) + Level) + 42) Regen: 55 ((34MP/Min) + 21)
STR: 39
VIT: 42
DEX: 44
INT: 56
WIS: 48
LUK: 11

I was far stronger than I was a week prior.

Author's Note

It certainly has been a while, hasn't it?
There's been many reasons why I haven't been working on TGwP, some mundane, some personal. However, my ideas for where this story will go have never ceased, even if they have changed behind the scenes. Rest assured, this fic is not dead in the water, no matter how long it'll take me to write. Motivation is my only limit.

Enough about me, though.
I'm looking forward to what you readers may think of this chapter. Soon, the gears in the background will begin to turn, and some more... original content will begin showing up.
I won't reveal much about the future, my readers, but I will leave you with this:

Chapter 6: A Summons.