With their first nibbler group dispatched, the bodies dispersing into mana dust, leaving behind four, small crystal cores, and Ria collecting said cores, their group proceeded further. Just a few minutes later, another group of nibblerscame into their sight. A few of the monsters seemed to be munching on something, and as soon as Rex's group came into their view, the same fox's like yip resounded, followed by the few nibblers charging towards them, just like the ones before. The only difference this time was that while the few charging were of no actual threat, the ones emerging from the walls around were more so.

As Rex quickly wounded and incapacitated the two nibblers that reached them first, he noticed another ten or so 'spawning' from the walls. He wasted no time whatsoever to charge towards the nearest one, delivering a powerfull slash to its neck, effectively ending its short life. veena and Samanta were not idle either, launching arrows with precision towards the emerging creatures, each having chosen a diferent side to start their onslaught with, ensuring there was no overlap and wasted arrows. Even Alurial was prepearing a fireball, launcing it towards the largest cluster of the emerging monsters, wisely left alone by any other of the groups members. Rex could only smile at the great cooperation among the girls, always staying within a certain distance to intercept any possible threats going towards his backline, just like he noticed Meru doing. The only idle one could be said to be Ria, yet even she was already a step ahead, applying a small buff on the two archers in her vicinity.

The emerging group of nibblers proved to be a non issue for them, making Rex to compliment the teamwork the girls had. It was trully impressive, only their individual power being the bottleneck that was currently preventing their quick ascention through the ranks of the Guild. Though he did add that he was in total agreement with their slow, methodical and carefull aproach to solving said hurdle, notihing that only absolute monsters and madmen could and might push themselves forwards through countless life and death battles.

In return, Samanta praised Rex as well. She had not seen anyone else who could so seemlessy integrate themselves into a fully functioning party as if they had been a part of it since the very beggining. Rex did ask a rather interesting question, regarding their retatively worse performance back during the kobold raid. Sure, they were competent back then, but nowhere near the flawless and wordless cooperation they had shown just now.

"Our apologies for that." Samanta bowed apologetically to Rex. "We did not know enough about you to risk showing our full capabilities, back then. There have been more than one attempt to add another front liner to our ranks for quite a while now, but each time said possible candidate proved to be some sort of plant. We were put into a rather dangerous situations because of that, and having extremely powerfull trump card seemed like an obvious choice, if such a situation would happen again. Though now we believe that you have proven your intentions and character, thus allowing us to lower our guard around you. Knowing a rather sensitive secret of yours, we believe it is only fair we do the same. Once again, we apologize for our wariness towards you."

"No harm no foul." Rex just shrugged at that. "We good to continue on?" he asked as he started to colect the monster core of slain nibblers, handing them over to Ria. She was the first of the group to hold some of the loot. "By the way, have you thought of adding a holder to the group, since I doubt that space mages are so easily aviable for small parties such as ours?" Rex questioned as they moved forward. Holders were a rather special profesion, often employed by larger parties. They were sturdy creatures, capable of carrying impressively weighted backpacks without slowing them down, allowing parties with them to grind in dungeons for notably longer while returning with much larger bounties.

"We have yes, though since we had not focused on dungeon exploration all that much till now, it never became a neccesity." explained Alurial. "Besides, a holder is a serious and long term comitment, as such we do not feel it the right moment to even try and find one."

"A solid choice." Rex nodded his head in aproval, even more impressed with the decision making of his new party. "if we ever reach the point of neccesity, lets have a detailed discussion, shall we?"

"Of course Rex." agreed Samanta "After all, you are a full fledged member of our party now."

For the next few hours they continiued on, every few minutes encountering a new group of nibblers, ratehr easily dispatching them all, then looting the cores and proceeding further in the cave. Eventually, they came upon another cross section, with multiple tunels leading in quite a few dirrections. Just like last time, near each new tunnel there was a marking, left by adventurers who had mapped the place out. The most important were two of the multiple tunnels they saw.

Two different monster habitats that could be crossed, should one decide to head towards the exit gate. As Rex's group was considering their choice, they noticed another adventurer party, consisting of five members emerge from a nearby tunnel. Unlike the pathetic looking trio they saw at the very beggining, this group seemed much like them- decently armed and aroured and in a good condition. Two chainmail wearing men with kite shields, a robed healer holding a staff and two archers.

"Howdy, fellow adventurers!" exclaimed one of the warriors, his face, as much as could be seen through the helmet, and the beard with the white streaks in it indicating teh advanced age of the man.

"Havent seen you around here. New to the place?" he asked as his group stopped ten meters or so away from Rex's group.

"Yes." replied Samanta, slightly guarded, just like teh rest of the group.

"You are wary. Thats good." the older gentleman spoke up once again "Never know just who you could encounter in the dungeon. One error in judgement could lead to your demise. I am Otto, and this is my party Peacefull Meadow." then he continiued "I see you are deliberating which path to take to return. Since we are doing the same and you seem to still be in doubt, mind if we go ahead?"

Realising that their party was somewhat in the way of the other one, and Otto with his party could not get past, without making it seem like they had some suspicious plans, Samanta quickly apologized as their party cleared the way. "Our apologies, please, go ahead. if you would thought, does that mean that these two are the paths that we did not take when entering the dungeon?"

The question caused Otto to chuckle slighty, clearly reminiscing about something from the past." No dear. There are multiple gates to exit the dungeon. The likelyhood that you somehow return to the start is incredibly low, and you have to have a terrible sense of dirrection to pull that off, unless of course the dungeon is playing a trick on you. Ha ha ha, I have heard of such thing, long ago."

"Thank you for the information sir. Have a safe trip home." Samanta bowed to Otto once more.

"Dont mention it lady. We should try and help each other out, if given the chance. You never know, one day it might be my ass and that of my friends that you save in return." With that said, Otto and his party continued onwards, slowly dissapearing into one of the two tunnels.

"So, we pick the other one?" Rex asked a few moments later.

"Yes. While it might be much faster, we still have plenty of energy left and I doubt any of us want to give up our chances to earn a bit more. Those horses did pad our purses quite a bit, but there is never a moment where more coin is bad." Confirmed Samanta, earning nods of agreement from the rest of the girls.

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"Since they took the path with werbols, I suppose that leaves us with morboons" Rex summarized. Werbols were mole like creatures with oversized front paws and small, akward back legs. They would attack by rolling toward someone and then at the last moment using their huge paws to slash at their target. The same oversized paws would be used for digging and expandng the tunnels, creating new branches over time.

Morboons on the otehr hand were chimp like creatures with red, glowing eyes and some stone growths on their backs and shoulders. They had quite powerfull arms, usable to both smash or trow rocks. Unlike Werbols, who were mostly solitary creatures, Morboons lived in groups, making their path notably more difficult, but at the same time making it much more rewarding.

"By the way Rex." whispered Samanta. "With the monsters scattering into mana dust, are you getting any blood for your projects?" Rex had shared how collecting blood would make his gear much more powerfull, so she, and tehrest of the girls were worried that his growth would be crippled in a dungeon.

"Dont worry about that. Each slash I make with my weapon collects a slight amount of blood, ensuring that I dont leave empty handed. Add to that the fact that there are countless monsters around here, as well as the fact that the blood here is much more potent, I have to say that Iam still coming out on top. I dont have to spend any extra time to drain all that blood either. Its a win- win situation. And to top it all off, I am also growing stronger with each kill we make, just like the rest of the group." Rex smiled, slightly touched by the gesture.

"Ah, that great then." Samanta smiled back, signaling for the group to proceed now that their worries had been laid to rest.

Much like nibblers, Morboons would charge at their group the moment they were noticed. Unlike nibblers though, Rex could not simply brace himself to shield smash them in the face, creating opening to imobilize the monsters. he had to addapt a strategy of misdirrecting the strikes, while moving his body to side and inflicting a debilitating cut to teh back of their knees, effectively roothin the monsters in place, leaving the msitting targets for veena and Samanta to make pin cusions out off, somthing the two archers did not hesitate to do.

With the larger and bulkier frames of the monsters, Rex had a harder time to controll the entire groups advancement, making Meru deal with soem of them as well. Not that Meru complained at the fact. Sure, she was enjoying the task of taking down whatever creatures Rex was leaving in his wake in heavily weakened states, or covering the back line when necessary, but she also enjoyed using her shield to intercept and tank the creatures. It was a win- win situation for her either way.

Heavy controll thanks to their two archers and mage, powerfull support from their healer with buffs and healing, if needed. A true monster of a front line juggernaut in the form of Rex, who could turn into a true terror if backed into a corner and a second front liner covering any gaps in their formation. And while there would be groups that glorify the monster or damage dealers, Meru was apreciated and recognized as the important part of their new teamwork that she was. She was the lifeblood that ensured that the organs could fulfill their funcions in unison. A rather interesting comparison that Rex had made, but nonetheless apreciated.

"Thats new." Rex spoke as they had one more obstacle in their way before the gate leading outside. They had spent a few hours on their way through the morboon territory. What awaited them was a morboon of a much larger proportions. While the average one seemed to be the same size as an adult human male, this one was well over two meter tall, closer to three, with logs for arms, covered in rather impressive crystal like growths instead of stone that covered the ordinay rank and file morboon.

"Is that a rare variant or boos of some sort?" he grinned, prepearing for battle.

"Well, I would be willing to bet it drops better stuff than the normal ones." with shiny eyes commented Veena, her hand quickly reaching for one of her arrows and notching it in her bow, already prepeared for the incoming fight.

"Just one way to figure out then." Rex grinned as he moved himself in the right mindset. "Keep a safe distance for starters. I am much more durable and trained to test out the waters here." He spoke in a calm manner, sounding as both a suggestion and somewhat an order, though none of the girls took it as an attack or anything. Rex had already proved enough times that he was having quite a bit of fun as part of their group and as such, whenever he spoke in somewhat commanding tone, it was with their safety in mind.

"Its your lead Rex." reaffirmed Samanta, allowing Rex to have the shotcalling rights, something he rarely called for, though whenever he did so, Samanta was glad after the fact. He seemed to notice things borderlining future sight, or so she thought, knowing full well she would have made other decisions, likely resulting in rather severe consequences, from broken limbs to heavy, life threathening injuries. Their teamwork was great, sure, but there was an entire other force, namely their enemies, be it monsters, enviroment, or perhaps other adventures, that could affect and change the board.

With the green light recieved, Rex advanced forward, the girls having their eyes locked on their enemy to hunt. The moment it noticed Rex, a loud and threathening roar escaped its maw. Then, it charged towards Rex, its crystal clad arms smashing into ground. "Its slow." Rex spoke loudly, his first observation shared with the girls, who noticed the same. When the monster was within range, it used its two arms to try and smash Rex into a pancake. An attempt that failed as Rex rolled out of the impact point.

"Powerfull strikes. Dodge only." he delivered the next observation, having calculated the probability of Meru blocking such a strike. Following Rex dodge, it tried to swipe on of its arms Rex's way, once again awoided by Rex, this time with a precise step back, followed by a quick slash at a less crystal covered spot on the monsters arm, achieving a small cut and coating his blade in slight amounts of bloody sheen.

"Relatively soft skin, where its not covered by the crystal." yet another note was shared with the group.

With each strike that Rex avoided, teh beast was getting more and more enraged and desperate, wildly flaying its limbs a few minutes later, trying again and again to land a hit on him. Noticing the slightest slow down of the beast, the first signs of fatigue after such intense thrashing, he exclaimed to his group. "Its tiring, Join in!" The girls in turn did not have to be told twice, with arrows flying towards the monster in rapid succesion, soon joined by a fireball or two, heavily singing the monster fur and causing it to stagger. As the arrows punctured its skin, combined with the burn from fireballs, a loud and feral scream excaped the monsters throat, yet before it could fully turn around and charge at the new threat, Rex released whatever bloodlust he had managed to supress during the day, causing the monster to instinctively tremble for just a moment and then quickly flip back towards him, its arms raised as if blocking a lareg overhead swing.

Rex took the advantage of the moment of confusion, moving in proper melee and delivering a nice slash on its unprotected abdomen, quickly dodging back afterwards, avoiding yet another smash, performed by the monster on instinct, acompanied by a powerfull roar of pain. The same pattern was used for a few minutes, with Rex stepping in and delivering yet another particularily painfull slash, thus keeping its attenction on himself, allowing for the girls to wittle it down, one attack at a time. They had to split apart and semicircle the monster, its backe heavily covered with crystals.

Eventually, the monster succumbed to its numerous wounds, falling on the ground with a loud thud, quickly dissipating into a notable cloud of mana dust, leaving behind a notably larger monster core as well as few chunks of the crystal that covered its arms and back.

"Its speed is rather lacking, aside from the innitial charge. I believe that with that knowledge, Meru could safely tank a minster like it, using the same strategy that I did, with you girls lowerign the rate of attacking by half." Rex spoke once the loot had been secured.

"And why is that, if you dont mind me asking?" Samanta inquired.

"My strikes are much more threathening to the monster, since I was using trace amounts of my mana every time I inflicted a wound. When used in such a way, with the miniscule amount of mana, my blood magic manifests as searing pain in the wound, at, least in this case. I dont think I have to explain why it was more afraid of turning its back to me for any time at all."

"Whne compared to my fireballs, how much of a difference are we talking about?" asked Alurial.

"From pure pain point, I would guess the comparison would be something like a small candle burn on your hands versus searing brand on your neck, though note that is only sensations, blasting ones nerves." As he explained, wisible goosebumps rose on the girls skin, Rex earning himself a few odd glances and a coment.

"Remind us not to spar with you, thank you very much." said Veena as the group left the dungeon.