In a relatively small mansion in the noble quarter of Blythe the mood was quite gloom. Kanaelia was furious. The audacity of the mage, the sheer gall of the man. The tone and actions he took showed no regard for their noble blood. What even worse is that Ainyliala has somehow managed to exile herself, and could no longer be used as a trading chip. The rumors of their intimate relationship their agents had asumed seemed to be false. And their act seemed to have enraged the mage. Even worse, it seemed this one was far above the average level of blood mages, from what ther guard captain had told her. Right now she was relaxing with a massage.

While that was going on, the guard captain was setting up a comunication device, to inform their king of the situation. While quite rare and expensive magical tool, the envoys always were provided with one, in case something urgent had to be reported back. And once the captain had secured a well warded location, he initiated connection. He had to wait for aproximately ten minutes before the crystal dysk he had placed on the floor displayed a holographic image of a table surrounded by five aged elves and one who seemed middle aged.

"Captain Oronas reporting from Blythe."

"What is so urgent that you have contacted us?" asked one of the elders, his tone of voice slightly irritated, apparently he had done something rather enjoyable when he call was made, souring his mood.

"Tell us of your progress." Another of the elders spoke "I am sure that is the reason for your call."

"Yes elders" Oronas lighty bowed to the elders, then bowed to the middle aged man in the hologram "Your highness. Unfortunately, the information we recieved from our spies was only partially correct. While Anyliala had been visiting the mage and were on friendly terms, there had been no physical connection. And as we feared the younger generation is indeed to pridefull."

"Speak, what exactly happened?" the king spoke. They needed the full picture to understand the nuances of the situation. Then Oronas recounted the encounter. And while there was a silence at the end, no elder was trully suprised by Ainas self exile from the family. Unlike most of the younger generation, these elders and the king had spent their time in the library, just like Aina, and were well aware of the same condition. The knowledge in of it self meant nothing, and as such it had been left in the library as a novelty. An extra insight in the complex weave the magic can create.

"No blood was spilled. That is quite good. It should meant that it is not unsalvageable." The king spoke "What do you think of the blood mage himself Oronas. His capabilities and potential?"

"May speak freely sir?" he asked, hesitating for a moment, and when the king and elders all noded in agreement, since Oronas was quite seasoned and gifted captain.

"That mage is terrifying. He was wearing magic clothing that disguised his persona. but the aura he exuded was brim with youth and strenght. It is very likely he is young for his race, whatever it may be. In addition, to the three champions the city lord has on display in the city, I heard one will be auctioned as well at the grand auction. And what even more, he had orc valkirie and lesser orc oracle under his control."

One Oronas finished, a deadly silence overtook the elves present. had the blood mage been ordinary, even if incredibly rare, they could somewhat ignore this soured relationship and look for another one. They trully regretted sending anyone from the younger generation over. They were all aware that youngsters tedn to be arrogant and foolish, but Kanaelia was one of the sharpest in this generation. Had anyone else been sent, they might have even considered using brute force to make the mage work for them. It was not a fault of only elves. Any aristocrat youngster acted like that if they were not dealing with another aristocrat, asuming similar standings, or friendly relationships between houses.

"Another thing, Your highness." oroans added, and with the kings nod he continiued "I have strong suspicion that the blood mage might have some extremely powerfull feline monster branded and protecting the property."

"What makes you think so?" king questioned.

"Whne we were escorted outside, i felt a predator stalking us, expecting us to stir trouble, so it could pounce. And since Anyliala had been visiting the mage often, and there was talk of cats, I believe she should have seen it and most likely had interacted with it as well. Unfortunately, we will never know now. The predator also gave me bigger chills than the valkirie or the oracle, so it must be the pinacle A class."

"There have not been such a mage for more that hundred years anywhere near here. We must think on this." the king concluded "Return immediatly with Kanaelia and her entourage, lest she does something foolish and destroy any chance we have with the mage. Foolish children."

With tha the connection was severed and Oronas proceeded with his new orders. He quiclky ordered the guards, and although unwilling , Kanaelia and her entourage left the city to return home by the evening.

During the day the elves were discussing and planning on saving their chances of dealing with the blood mage, Rex was back in the dungeon, murdering his way to floor thirty one. It was barely half effort try on Rex part since he was only killing creatures around the Return tori. He had sent a message to Victor, informing of the shitshow that was the elven delegation, and kindly asked that no other aristocrats would be sent his way, unless of course they were offering insanely beautifull women for Rex to claim as his slaves for the meetings. Then and only then should Victor consider forwarding the envoys.

Murdering till late evening, he returned, and as per ussual stacked meat, fed cats adn returned to the mansion. He spent some time with Aina, who was very quiet and distant, but that didnt stop Rex from his ussual way of action. He still spoke of the same stuff they always did, with her somethimes nodding absentmindedly, he made some light jabs at her and himself as ussual. He was the same as before, a constatnt in this world of hers that was crumbling with the betrayal of her family. Mel was nearby all the time, should her mind sink too deep in despair. Days went on with the same routine. The only truly great thing was that Aina was starting to slowly come out of her barely responsive shell. Mel magic and Rex being Rex helped a tremendous deal. And at the end of two weeks she was already half way herself.

She smiled much less now, but she was talking, and she was spending her time with the cats quite a bit, since she was living in the mansion. She had also shown quite the apreciation for Aisha, since her cooking was just heavenly, and once she learned what the people were eating in this household, her mouth had hung open. It was just a few days ago, that she had finaly actually paid attention to the insane quality of food, making her apreciate Aisha. When she learned that the meat was from floor thirty, she alomst flipped out. That was some insanely expensive stuff. Rare too, since it was very dangerous to hunt for it. She was quite adamant and said they shouldnt use such super luxurious food to care for her. Imagine her shock when she was informed that Rex just hunted there whenever he felt like it, but it quickly dissapeared when she remembered that the cats she was cuddling were the apex predators of that floor. Of course Rex could hunt there, just bring one of the adult cats here to hunt and it would be easy as hell. She did declare, that Rex had to take responsibility for her exile and she would be staying here. And while her words were boisterous and somewhat bratty, Rex knew she still needd time to trully heal, and he had noproblems whatsoever with indulging in her wishes as long as it helped her. Within reason of course. He had grown quite fond of her after all of their interactions.

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Brogni and Eredar visited Rex mansion from time to time, and planned for the auction. There wher only a bit over fifty days untill it would be happening, and they were obviously quite exited and even a little nervous. There had been quite a few aristocratic families snooping around, looking for properties in the noble quarters to purchase, and they were quite sure that after the auction, they would flock here even more, and bring their best trained and most beautifull daughters to perhaps catch the eye of a certain blood mage residing in this city. They also informed Rex of the countless inquirees the had recieved from their guild regarding the matter. The city would experience quite the boom in the near future.

Victor too was bussy beyond reason since he was taking the brunt of the aristocratic questioning, He had taken a harder stance with those oportunistic bastards though. He was from quite a long standing noble family as well, and he had suddenly, for some 'mysterious' reason recieved quite a few letters of encouragement and promises of backing from his distant relatives. Word of the elevs getting an audience wit hthe blood mage had spread, as such there was a belief among the nobles that Victor could somewhat recomend or encourage the blood mage to hear them out, so naturally Victor had also recieved quite a lot of offers for marriage and other lucrative deals and the like. The man however had been very elusive, using the auction as an exuse to avoid most of such trifles. He even started to visit Rex mansion in the evenings, taking up a room in one of the guest wings of Rex mansion to get some peacefull sleep. He had even suggested Rex could outright make up some insane requirements to be met so they stop pestering him. Rex had laughed at that, pointing out that in such a case the nobles would pester him even more, hoping to bypass the ridiculous meeting fees.

Wha tthey came up with was rather simple solution. A simple rumor was spread that just happened to coincide with the truth. The blood mage had met a member of their family before, and as a favor for said members help, he had promised to assist once. and that was the favour being used. Mage agreed to meet them as the repayment of the favour. After the rumor had spread and Victor confirming it as such, the pestering he recieved lessened quite considerably.

There were also a few retarded attempts to sneak in his mansion, that obviously ended in exemplary failiures. The two cats were just that increadibly scary and good with their senses. Anything wandering over the walls was immediatly captured adn wery soon disposed of. There was no trespassing in a blood mages territory.

The next four weeks Rex was grinding hardcore in the dungeon, finding his way to the thirty first floor. He had quite the prosperous grinding sessions in this last month. He would spedn almost a week inside, grinding away, returning afterwards to off load the meat he had farmed and any other treasures he had found. Still not a single encountered chest, but he reasoned that was because this was an open floor dungeon, and as such, chests would be a rare occurance, there were no trap rooms here either after all.

Aina was now back to her cheerfull self, with the only change that she no longer delved in the dungeon. As she herself had said one day said to Rex:

"That broke me. Without you, Mel, Irina and everyone here I dont think I would have ever recovered. I would have most likely one day entered the dungeon and die there. I no longer feel the call of adventure. What I need is people around me who care for me, truly care, and i believe I have found them. Will you let me stay with you and everyone else here?"

Rex being the jerk knew he had to be here, to make sure she knew he isnt going to change answered the way one would expect

"Sure, just warm my bed somethimes, and we are all good. Cant have you grow lazy after all." That had her blush quite hard and look down. Rex laughed hard at that, and just patted her shoulder afterwards "As a true friend, it is my duty, to not just help you up when you fall, but to be next to you and laugh, so can grow tougher, and I expect the same from you. No matter what shit happens, you bet I will be right next to you to poke fun, and watch you overcome it all."

At his words she looked back at him with a bright smile, like she used to, and there was a hint of something little more in the depths of her eyes. What she saw in front of her was not just a friend whose shoulder was there when she needed it the most, she saw a wall, a mountain that will protect her from the terrifying wiind and waves coming her way. She had found a new home, and she was damn sure to cherish it. And whatever he actually meant when he joked, she knew she would one day indeed sneak in and warm his bed.

"Damn, forgot bout those elven slaves I wanted Brogni to keep track of." Rex spoke to himself suddenly remembering something that had skipped his mind as he was standing in front of the stairs to floor thirty one.

"Well I will do that once I return from this run. Gotta ask about other nearby dungeons as well. I want some magical monsters to fight. This one liek the history channel of my world with some fantasy character races muddled their way in. Could it be why I was transmigrated close to here of all places?" Rex mused. He had spent almost four months fully awake now but had gotten absolutely nothing regarding why adn how he was here. Not that he cared too much. Grinds was awesome and the three ladies he was spending his nights made it all the more awesome.

He had gotten much better with the few skills he had developed and and his chains now could be used as much to capture and restrain as to use like meat slicing chain swords. He could now comfortly use a single chain to hold restrain a great sabertooth, and the amount he could now controll had risen to ten. He had also managed to create his own personal buffing spell. It strenghtened his body more the more mana was infused in the spell. All Rex had to do was start the spell and regulate the output as necessary. The hardest part was getting used to the increased strenght speed, and the defensive capabilities, since the spell doubled down as both an ofensive increase and a layer of defense.

Rex had also tampered a bit with detached mana constructs to use as projectiles against oponents that would keep themselves at a distance but that particular project was still in the early stages of development. But Rex wasnt overly worried about it since the speed at which he was growing was monstrous. And as long as the dungeon had deeper floors with more powerfull monsters to hunt, he saw no roadbloks for his continiued growth.

Another quite interesting bit of knowledge Rex had aquired regarding the deep floors was related to the meat he had been eating and selling with Eredars assistance. The reason why the meat was in such increadible demand and its cost would almost never drop, was because since it was so rich with mana, constant consuming of it almost entirely stopped the aging of the people eating it. To Rex question why then there were not countless super powerfull adventurers from ages past, grinding there growing stronger and stronger, since they have almost unlimited time on this plane. And the answer was quite simple- natural limits. Each race had a natural ceiling in the power they can attain, and very rarely did there appear individuals that managed to break past them. There are no knowledge, not even rumors of such knowledge that would allow one to berak past those limits. And since the natural limits for most mortal races is mid to high A class, it means the deep floors are still a great danger and the raids that are organized from time to time always entail the danger deaths adn possibly even entire raid wipes.

So Rex, who seemingly had no limits, and was alrady capable of soloing the initial deep floors was in a unique position to have nigh unlimited time to enjoy his new life. What was there not to like- the ability to grow ever stronger, rare and wery lucrative skill that ensured he never would lack money, and in turn he could have all the women he could ever want. The countless different races that existed ensured he would not lack for variety exitement in that regard. Plus with his knowledge of how technology can be developed, because of his past knowledge, would be another avenue to explore in time if needed. Sure he was no scientist, but having the overall idea any random person would know, with the dirrection he could spend a lot of time researching and the like. Hell there was even some insanely fanatical nation of zealots that seemed to want to kill archons on sight, so even if he ever gets bored with his current life and he sinks in decadence and depravity, there was boundless fun to be had.

With his small self reflection over, Rex once again looked at the stairs to the thirty first floor and spoke "Well, guess its time to see what you have to offer."