Making my way through the 12th floor and reaching the stairs to floor 13, I think back on how my return to the dungeon has been so far.
In short, it has been easy.
Incredibly easy.
Although I’ve already become accustomed to my new strength as a level 2, I didn’t fully understand how substantial the difference in levels is until I began fighting monsters once more.
I breezed the first nine floors, racing to get to the upper floors.
While I always remain vigilant in the dungeon, with the combination of my essentially doubled endurance stat and my new first-class armour, I doubt I could get harmed by much on the first nine floors of the dungeon.
Floors 10 to 12 were similar in difficulty, though I did have to be careful not to get hit, after all, the strength of Orcs and Silverbacks is not to be underestimated.
I doubt any monster on the lower floors except for Infant Dragons could put up a fight against me as I am now.
Entering the 13th floor, the beginning of the middle floors, I regain my focus, thinking over the monsters that occupy the next two floors.
I am already practically immune to Bad Bats, so they will not be a problem even with their enhanced strength being on a higher floor.
The most common monster on this floor is the Almiraj, a cute looking bloodthirsty rabbit monster, it attacks using crude weapons, often knives.
On its own, it is the weakest monster on the middle floors, but it attacks in groups and has impressive teamwork amongst its allies, making it a level 2 monster for its group tactics.
Next would be Hellhounds, dog-type monster that breathes magic flames to attack.
It's weak other than the fire attack, but the magic flames make it almost a requirement to wear fire-resistant Salamander Wool while exploring floors where they appear.
It is, for this reason, I’m wearing a robe of Salamander Wool over my armour on these floors.
Also because it looks cool.
Dungeon Worms are worm monsters that attack using their teeth.
They are fairly harmless, assuming you can dodge their linear attack, though they are nasty in an ambush.
Lastly, the Crystal Mantis, as the name implies, is a mantis-type monster that body is made of crystal.
They are rarely found except for on the 15th floor, high defence and devastating attacks make it the most dangerous monster on this floor, though to compensate, its drop items can fetch quite a bit of valis.
Although I do want to check out the 15th floor with my new combat prowess, Alise is right in that I need to get back into the swing of things, and the next two floors are perfect for this.
Spotting a couple of Hellhounds, I walk toward them with leisurely steps.
While I could easily end the fight with an ambush, my goal right now is to regain my fighting habits and fix any kinks in my fighting style remaining from my week of training.
Finally detecting my approach, the Hellhounds leap to my sides to surround me.
A good opening move, I never noticed when I came here before, but could the monsters be getting smarter the deeper the floor?
No, it must be fighting instinct at most, if this trend continued then we would be hearing stories of intelligent and sentient monsters roaming the lower floors.
Bending backwards to avoid the joint fire breath attack, I leap to the Hellhound to my right, punishing the beast for leaving itself wide open after attacking.
Keeping my sword to the side, hiding the blade behind my back, I eventually get within range, slashing will as much speed as I can muster.
The monster jumps back to avoid the strike, but it seems to have misjudged how long the blade is while not taking into account my continued movement, as I cleave the Hellhound nearly in two, spraying blood onto my already red robe, before promptly disintegrating into ash.
Not wasting my momentum, I do a quick turn while enhancing my legs with stellar magic, I leap towards the final monster with great acceleration.
Swiftly reaching the monster, it doesn’t even have time to react before it's beheaded, my sword finishing its swing and pointing upwards in a calm and controlled manner.
Yes, calm and control.
These two things were the hardest to relearn with my new strength.
It was so bad that I could even say the me before the level-up could beat the me right after it.
Analyzing the fruits of my labour of the past week, I can’t say I’m disappointed.
Kaguya even praised me for my work as she had a similar problem after levelling up, especially her first time.
Looking back on the fight, I noticed that I could ‘feel’ the magic fire attack before sensing it, and it didn’t feel instinctive.
I could even somewhat guess where the ‘core’ of the magic would be.
Is this Magic Sense?
I’ll have to fight more Bad Bats and Hellhounds to confirm, but if this is what it can do at rank I, I’m excited to see what it can do in the future with training and experience.
—-- 3 Hours Later —--
Having the confidence to say I’m one hundred percent back in the fighting habit, I am now in front of the staircase leading to the 15th floor.
This is the floor where the ‘true’ middle floors start.
While the 13th and 14th are part of the middle floors, many of the monsters are only classified as level 2’s in groups.
Save for the rare Crystal Mantis, which changes on the 15th floor, where monsters categorized as level 2 are done so on their strength alone.
With the large change in difficulty and this being my first time on this floor, I must remain vigilant constantly.
The 15th floor does not have Almiraj or Bad Bats, instead containing Minotaurs and Ligerfangs.
Minotaurs are humanoid cow-headed monsters, with slow and simple movements but containing terrifying power, enough to be considered the ‘strongest’ of the middle floors, if we’re talking about raw strength.
Ligerfangs, on the other hand, do not use strength as their main weapon, instead possing immense speed and agility, using their claws and fangs to deliver critical blows.
Entering the 15th floor, I cast Celestial Ascent, coating my body in stellar magic.
During my training stint on the past two floors, I discovered that my control over magic has gotten to the point where I can constantly have the enhancement active without needing a thought or draining any ‘mind’.
Though using the stellar magic does use ‘mind’ and manipulating the concentration and position of the enhancement still needs active thoughts.
This new state of always having my body enhanced makes surprise attacks much easier to deal with while not needing to take a moment to activate Celestial Ascent in a fight.
Much better!
After a few minutes of searching for a monster, I finally spot one.
Standing at a little over 3 meters, around double my height, a large creature with a large, triangular head and a thin, nimble frame, its body glittering from the artificial light of the dungeon.
A Crystal Mantis, although more frequent on this floor, encountering the monster is still quite rare.
Not messing around, I concentrate stellar magic around my feet, accelerating me toward the beast.
It intercepts my attack with its large, sharp legs.
I instantly know that my current power won’t be enough to deal a killing blow.
Jumping away, I begin to move stellar magic through my body, before concentrating it on my hands, slowly forcing it into my sword.
Yes, while I was training to get acquainted with my new level, I also practiced enhancing my sword with stellar magic.
While I can now do so, massively increasing my attack power and sharpness, it takes a moment of concentration to perform the technique.
Since most monsters do not require the enhanced attack and sharpness to finish the job, this will be my first time using this technique today.
I hope that with more practice and a higher magic stat, I’ll be able to use this technique as easily as breathing, greatly increasing my combat power.
Maybe I should name it something?
Celestial Sword?
No, that’s my alias.
Stellar Sword?
Yeah, Stellar Sword.
No!
Crystal Mantis now, technique names later.
Once again leaping towards the monster, now with my enhanced sword slashing downward, the Mantis raises its arm once again to defend, bringing the other to the side to finish me off.
It seems that it didn’t account for my sword enhancement, as I cut through its arm like butter, causing it to flinch in shock.
Using its moment of weakness, I follow through with my strike, doing a midair front flip before slashing down onto the monster's skull.
With the added rotational force from my flip, I easily cleave through its head, causing its body to burst into ashes before I can carve into its neck.
Landing with a light stumble, I see that it, unfortunately, didn’t drop any items.
Damn, I would be well on my way to regaining my wealth with one drop from this guy.
Packing the magic stone into my bag, I take a look around the rocky terrain that occupies the 13th to the 17th floors, this section of the dungeon being called the Cave Labyrinth.
As the name of this area implies, it has numerous caves littered throughout the floor, maybe I can get another Crystal Mantis in a cave?
Now with the objective to search some caves, I begin walking once more, all while familiarising myself with the land.
—-- 6 Hours Later —--
Exiting the dungeon, I begin making my way home while contemplating my experiences from today.
Having spent 4 hours on the 15th floor, I was able to familiarize myself with both the monsters and the land.
Minotaurs were quite easy to defeat, essentially being an improved Orc, easily exploitable as long as you could dodge its attacks.
Ligerfangs on the other hand, were much more difficult.
Although I could deal with them due to slightly outpacing them, I wouldn’t want to face a group of them, or the Ligerfangs on the 17th and 18th floors.
At least not yet with my current abilities.
After my time on the 15th floor, I then spent an hour on the 10th floor, training my Magic Sense with Bad Bats.
Even though I was tired from exploring the middle floors, I could still easily survive the lower floors, so training with the Bad Bats posed no problems.
My Magic Sense, at least at its current level, is only at the level of instinctually sensing magic and where its cores are.
While training with the Bad Bats did help me use this instinct, it didn’t increase the clarity of said instinct.
I can only presume that my Magic Sense will only increase with status updates, like with my other stats.
I only wonder whether Development Abilities have stats, but they are hidden, or if there are only levels in their ranks.
I’ll have to monitor my progress with Magic Sense to confirm any suspicions.
Reaching home, I see that the common room is practically empty, only seeing Mother Astraea reading on the couch.
“Hey, Mother Astraea. Where did everyone go?”
Raising her head, she gives me a warm smile before answering my question.
“Nice to see that you’re back, Sirius. Alise took Ryuu, Kaguya, Lyra, and Celty into the dungeon, since they plan to level up during the coming expedition, they want to raise their stats as much as possible with the three months they have left. Neze, Asta, Ryana, and Maryuu are having an afternoon in the city, while everyone else is resting.”
“Oh, so I guess we’ll soon have a few high-ranking adventurers?”
“If everything goes as planned, yes.”
“They said that they were going to kill Udaeus on the expedition with a small force, I guess they are hoping that will do it.”
“Mmm.”
“How’s Haru doing?”
“She is quite good. It seems the constant training has made it so she can’t focus on her previous experiences. I hope that by the time she confronts her trauma, she will trust us enough to seek our help. Although, it seems that she already trusts you deeply and warming up to Kaguya, so I am hopeful about her situation.”
“Yeah, I’ll be sure to live up to her trust. By the way, don’t you like reading outside normally? It’s a beautiful day out.”
“Yes, unfortunately, the hammock and gazebo benches are still wet from yesterday's rain, I also wanted to be able to answer any Familia matters since Alise, Kaguya, and Lyra are all out right now.”
“I see, well I’m going to go for a nap, I decided to skip depositing my loot since the guild was so busy, so I might do that after dinner.”
“All right, have a good rest, Sirius.”
I then head upstairs, taking off my equipment and then wiping it all down, mainly to clean off the blood on my armour.
Taking a bath to wash out all the sweat and grime accumulated through today's adventure.
Feeling the drowsiness begin to set in while exiting the bath, I rush to my room and close the curtains before slumping onto my bed, instantly falling into the sweet embrace of sleep.
Making my way through the 12th floor and reaching the stairs to floor 13, I think back on how my return to the dungeon has been so far.
In short, it has been easy.
Incredibly easy.
Although I’ve already become accustomed to my new strength as a level 2, I didn’t fully understand how substantial the difference in levels is until I began fighting monsters once more.
I breezed the first nine floors, racing to get to the upper floors.
While I always remain vigilant in the dungeon, with the combination of my essentially doubled endurance stat and my new first-class armour, I doubt I could get harmed by much on the first nine floors of the dungeon.
Floors 10 to 12 were similar in difficulty, though I did have to be careful not to get hit, after all, the strength of Orcs and Silverbacks is not to be underestimated.
I doubt any monster on the lower floors except for Infant Dragons could put up a fight against me as I am now.
Entering the 13th floor, the beginning of the middle floors, I regain my focus, thinking over the monsters that occupy the next two floors.
I am already practically immune to Bad Bats, so they will not be a problem even with their enhanced strength being on a higher floor.
The most common monster on this floor is the Almiraj, a cute looking bloodthirsty rabbit monster, it attacks using crude weapons, often knives.
On its own, it is the weakest monster on the middle floors, but it attacks in groups and has impressive teamwork amongst its allies, making it a level 2 monster for its group tactics.
Next would be Hellhounds, dog-type monster that breathes magic flames to attack.
It's weak other than the fire attack, but the magic flames make it almost a requirement to wear fire-resistant Salamander Wool while exploring floors where they appear.
It is, for this reason, I’m wearing a robe of Salamander Wool over my armour on these floors.
Also because it looks cool.
Dungeon Worms are worm monsters that attack using their teeth.
They are fairly harmless, assuming you can dodge their linear attack, though they are nasty in an ambush.
Lastly, the Crystal Mantis, as the name implies, is a mantis-type monster that body is made of crystal.
They are rarely found except for on the 15th floor, high defence and devastating attacks make it the most dangerous monster on this floor, though to compensate, its drop items can fetch quite a bit of valis.
Although I do want to check out the 15th floor with my new combat prowess, Alise is right in that I need to get back into the swing of things, and the next two floors are perfect for this.
Spotting a couple of Hellhounds, I walk toward them with leisurely steps.
While I could easily end the fight with an ambush, my goal right now is to regain my fighting habits and fix any kinks in my fighting style remaining from my week of training.
Finally detecting my approach, the Hellhounds leap to my sides to surround me.
A good opening move, I never noticed when I came here before, but could the monsters be getting smarter the deeper the floor?
No, it must be fighting instinct at most, if this trend continued then we would be hearing stories of intelligent and sentient monsters roaming the lower floors.
Bending backwards to avoid the joint fire breath attack, I leap to the Hellhound to my right, punishing the beast for leaving itself wide open after attacking.
Keeping my sword to the side, hiding the blade behind my back, I eventually get within range, slashing will as much speed as I can muster.
The monster jumps back to avoid the strike, but it seems to have misjudged how long the blade is while not taking into account my continued movement, as I cleave the Hellhound nearly in two, spraying blood onto my already red robe, before promptly disintegrating into ash.
Not wasting my momentum, I do a quick turn while enhancing my legs with stellar magic, I leap towards the final monster with great acceleration.
Swiftly reaching the monster, it doesn’t even have time to react before it's beheaded, my sword finishing its swing and pointing upwards in a calm and controlled manner.
Yes, calm and control.
These two things were the hardest to relearn with my new strength.
It was so bad that I could even say the me before the level-up could beat the me right after it.
Analyzing the fruits of my labour of the past week, I can’t say I’m disappointed.
Kaguya even praised me for my work as she had a similar problem after levelling up, especially her first time.
Looking back on the fight, I noticed that I could ‘feel’ the magic fire attack before sensing it, and it didn’t feel instinctive.
I could even somewhat guess where the ‘core’ of the magic would be.
Is this Magic Sense?
I’ll have to fight more Bad Bats and Hellhounds to confirm, but if this is what it can do at rank I, I’m excited to see what it can do in the future with training and experience.
—-- 3 Hours Later —--
Having the confidence to say I’m one hundred percent back in the fighting habit, I am now in front of the staircase leading to the 15th floor.
This is the floor where the ‘true’ middle floors start.
While the 13th and 14th are part of the middle floors, many of the monsters are only classified as level 2’s in groups.
Save for the rare Crystal Mantis, which changes on the 15th floor, where monsters categorized as level 2 are done so on their strength alone.
With the large change in difficulty and this being my first time on this floor, I must remain vigilant constantly.
The 15th floor does not have Almiraj or Bad Bats, instead containing Minotaurs and Ligerfangs.
Minotaurs are humanoid cow-headed monsters, with slow and simple movements but containing terrifying power, enough to be considered the ‘strongest’ of the middle floors, if we’re talking about raw strength.
Ligerfangs, on the other hand, do not use strength as their main weapon, instead possing immense speed and agility, using their claws and fangs to deliver critical blows.
Entering the 15th floor, I cast Celestial Ascent, coating my body in stellar magic.
During my training stint on the past two floors, I discovered that my control over magic has gotten to the point where I can constantly have the enhancement active without needing a thought or draining any ‘mind’.
Though using the stellar magic does use ‘mind’ and manipulating the concentration and position of the enhancement still needs active thoughts.
This new state of always having my body enhanced makes surprise attacks much easier to deal with while not needing to take a moment to activate Celestial Ascent in a fight.
Much better!
After a few minutes of searching for a monster, I finally spot one.
Standing at a little over 3 meters, around double my height, a large creature with a large, triangular head and a thin, nimble frame, its body glittering from the artificial light of the dungeon.
A Crystal Mantis, although more frequent on this floor, encountering the monster is still quite rare.
Not messing around, I concentrate stellar magic around my feet, accelerating me toward the beast.
It intercepts my attack with its large, sharp legs.
I instantly know that my current power won’t be enough to deal a killing blow.
Jumping away, I begin to move stellar magic through my body, before concentrating it on my hands, slowly forcing it into my sword.
Yes, while I was training to get acquainted with my new level, I also practiced enhancing my sword with stellar magic.
While I can now do so, massively increasing my attack power and sharpness, it takes a moment of concentration to perform the technique.
Since most monsters do not require the enhanced attack and sharpness to finish the job, this will be my first time using this technique today.
I hope that with more practice and a higher magic stat, I’ll be able to use this technique as easily as breathing, greatly increasing my combat power.
Maybe I should name it something?
Celestial Sword?
No, that’s my alias.
Stellar Sword?
Yeah, Stellar Sword.
No!
Crystal Mantis now, technique names later.
Once again leaping towards the monster, now with my enhanced sword slashing downward, the Mantis raises its arm once again to defend, bringing the other to the side to finish me off.
It seems that it didn’t account for my sword enhancement, as I cut through its arm like butter, causing it to flinch in shock.
Using its moment of weakness, I follow through with my strike, doing a midair front flip before slashing down onto the monster's skull.
With the added rotational force from my flip, I easily cleave through its head, causing its body to burst into ashes before I can carve into its neck.
Landing with a light stumble, I see that it, unfortunately, didn’t drop any items.
Damn, I would be well on my way to regaining my wealth with one drop from this guy.
Packing the magic stone into my bag, I take a look around the rocky terrain that occupies the 13th to the 17th floors, this section of the dungeon being called the Cave Labyrinth.
As the name of this area implies, it has numerous caves littered throughout the floor, maybe I can get another Crystal Mantis in a cave?
Now with the objective to search some caves, I begin walking once more, all while familiarising myself with the land.
—-- 6 Hours Later —--
Exiting the dungeon, I begin making my way home while contemplating my experiences from today.
Having spent 4 hours on the 15th floor, I was able to familiarize myself with both the monsters and the land.
Minotaurs were quite easy to defeat, essentially being an improved Orc, easily exploitable as long as you could dodge its attacks.
Ligerfangs on the other hand, were much more difficult.
Although I could deal with them due to slightly outpacing them, I wouldn’t want to face a group of them, or the Ligerfangs on the 17th and 18th floors.
At least not yet with my current abilities.
After my time on the 15th floor, I then spent an hour on the 10th floor, training my Magic Sense with Bad Bats.
Even though I was tired from exploring the middle floors, I could still easily survive the lower floors, so training with the Bad Bats posed no problems.
My Magic Sense, at least at its current level, is only at the level of instinctually sensing magic and where its cores are.
While training with the Bad Bats did help me use this instinct, it didn’t increase the clarity of said instinct.
I can only presume that my Magic Sense will only increase with status updates, like with my other stats.
I only wonder whether Development Abilities have stats, but they are hidden, or if there are only levels in their ranks.
I’ll have to monitor my progress with Magic Sense to confirm any suspicions.
Reaching home, I see that the common room is practically empty, only seeing Mother Astraea reading on the couch.
“Hey, Mother Astraea. Where did everyone go?”
Raising her head, she gives me a warm smile before answering my question.
“Nice to see that you’re back, Sirius. Alise took Ryuu, Kaguya, Lyra, and Celty into the dungeon, since they plan to level up during the coming expedition, they want to raise their stats as much as possible with the three months they have left. Neze, Asta, Ryana, and Maryuu are having an afternoon in the city, while everyone else is resting.”
“Oh, so I guess we’ll soon have a few high-ranking adventurers?”
“If everything goes as planned, yes.”
“They said that they were going to kill Udaeus on the expedition with a small force, I guess they are hoping that will do it.”
“Mmm.”
“How’s Haru doing?”
“She is quite good. It seems the constant training has made it so she can’t focus on her previous experiences. I hope that by the time she confronts her trauma, she will trust us enough to seek our help. Although, it seems that she already trusts you deeply and warming up to Kaguya, so I am hopeful about her situation.”
“Yeah, I’ll be sure to live up to her trust. By the way, don’t you like reading outside normally? It’s a beautiful day out.”
“Yes, unfortunately, the hammock and gazebo benches are still wet from yesterday's rain, I also wanted to be able to answer any Familia matters since Alise, Kaguya, and Lyra are all out right now.”
“I see, well I’m going to go for a nap, I decided to skip depositing my loot since the guild was so busy, so I might do that after dinner.”
“All right, have a good rest, Sirius.”
I then head upstairs, taking off my equipment and then wiping it all down, mainly to clean off the blood on my armour.
Taking a bath to wash out all the sweat and grime accumulated through today's adventure.
Feeling the drowsiness begin to set in while exiting the bath, I rush to my room and close the curtains before slumping onto my bed, instantly falling into the sweet embrace of sleep.
