Zalroth crouched down and inspected a large orangey green vine while the others looked at the many, similar coloured, vines that encased the large chamber they were in. Kusana intently stared at one of the vines before poking it and noticing it was rock solid.
"How strange," Nola commented before she floated over to Zalroth.
"Say pops do you know what we're meant to do?," Nola asked as she poked Zalroth in the side of the head. Zalroth grabbed Nola's hand before she could poke him again.
"I can sense a mana core in the room so my best guess is that we need to hydrate the vines in order to open the flower bud the mana core is stored in," Zalroth explained as he stood up and let go of Nola's hand. Kusana glanced up at the ceiling and spotted the large shrivelled-up flower bud that Zalroth mentioned.
"So do we need to revitalise the plants to get proceed through?" Kusana inquired as she floated around Zalroth. Zalroth created a small water magic circle and dropped a few water droplets onto a vine causing it to become a more vibrant green.
"It seems that we need to use mana-infused water to..." Zalroth said as Nola and Sophia watched him water the vine, with Sophia doing the same(without the use of a water magic circle).
"Understood," Kusana monotonically replied before raising her hands over her head. Zalroth and Nola raised their eyebrows.
"Water..." Kusana said before Zalroth and Nola instantly raised their heads.
"Wait Kusana," Nola frantically blurted out, but it was in vain as Kusana had already finished casting her spell, signified by the large ball of mana-infused water floating above her head.
"...Wave," Kusana said before the ball of water exploded into a torrent of oppressive, surging and raging water. Zalroth didn't have enough time to turn completely around before the rushing water thrashed into him and knocked him over, with Sophia teleporting onto some vines on the ceiling while Nola simply flew upwards, as the surroundings and the group glitched out for a split second.
The water quickly covered the entirety of the chamber's floor before rapidly filling about a quarter of the chamber before suddenly stopping. Sophia and Nola watched as three dark spots rose to the surface of the water before Zalroth, Lola and Kusana broke through the surface of the water.
"What was that?" Lola confusedly asked as water drooled out of her mouth and she flapped her drenched ears.
"It appears Kusana missed," Kusana said as she watched her book sink to the bottom of the water and land next to the sleeping Minia, who seemed unfazed at being underwater.
"No I think you got it, sweetie," Nola remarked as she pulled Lola and Kusana out of the water with her scarf, while Zalroth climbed onto a magic barrier he created. The water level slowly started to decrease as the vine absorbed the water and turned to a vibrant green. The green colouration raced up the vines and gathered into the flower bud before all the vines disappeared when they absorbed all the water in the room.
The flower bud's petals began to shine and become extremely saturated before fading away and revealing the red mana core. Lola grabbed the mana core with her wet tails before everyone dropped back down to the ground. Lola gave the mana core to Zalroth, as he was placing the half-awake Minia on her feet before Lola rapidly shook the water off her body like a dog.
"Well, that was easier than expected," Zalroth remarked before crushing the mana core in his hands. The mana shield over the hole in the centre of the room faded away.
The group was about to enter the hole but the screen started to become distorted and fuzzy as present Lola lost her concentration before the memory on the floating screen completely disappeared.
Lola fell backwards and landed butt first onto the table she was previously standing on as Zalroth and Chronia were sitting on chairs, inside of a private room.
"You've gotten really good at using your azure ability, Fluffkins; I'm impressed at how much you've increased the duration of your Memory Screen skill," Chronia remarked as she patted the head of a fatigued Lola. Lola gave a weak grin before asking if Chronia would like her to continue.
"As much as I'd like you to, I don't want to push you too far..." Chronia said before getting an idea.
"Say Zalroth, do you think you could let Lola use your staff to help her focus?" Chronia asked as she scooted across the sofa and poked Zalroth in the cheek. Chronia continued to poke Zalroth in the cheek until he sighed.
"Fine..." Zalroth said as he reached into his tails and managed to pull out the handle of the Hakai no Michi before he slowly closed his eyes.
"Umm, Zalroth?" Chronia asked as she snapped her fingers in front of Zalroth's face until he opened his eyes again. Chronia gestured to the Hakai no Michi until Zalroth realised he had got the wrong weapon. Zalroth placed the katana back and pulled out his Crescent Moon Staff.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Lola somehow spun around on the table(without using her hands, feet or tails to do so) and excitedly stared down the Crescent Moon Staff while reaching out her tiny gremlin hands in an attempt to grab it, as Zalroth was about to hand it to her.
"Is that any way to act when handling someone else's property?" Zalroth asked as he pulled the staff away. Lola slumped her head while realising she probably wouldn't be allowed to hold the staff before Zalroth tapped her on the head with the Crescent Moon Staff.
"Could you show me your magic ring?" Zalroth requested. Lola raised the tail she had the blue metal ring on and Zalroth tapped the ring with his staff. The ring began to glow before morphing and transforming inside a veil of mana. The mana dissipated leaving a mini golden and blue replica of the Azure Moon Staff made of transparent metal.
"I was planning on unlocking this for you when you completed your mana control training before I got sidetracked with the pocke-" Zalroth tried to say before noticing Lola was too busy pretending her staff was a gun while she made pew pew noises.
"Looks like I won't be getting the rest of the story in video form," Chronia remarked as Lola raced out of the room.
"Alright you better skip to the actual reason and not describe every footstep," Chronia demanded while grabbing the Crescent Moon Staff and jamming it into Zalroth's tails.
"Alright alright," Zalroth said before quickly muttering the story to himself until he arrived at the incident. Zalroth explained that when they entered the boss room; the flower spider dungeon boss managed to bite Nola with a surprise attack which made her pass out and, after Zalroth one-shooted the boss with a headshot, the group hurried over to Nola.
"And I can assume you can figure out the rest," Zalroth remarked.
"So the boss had some sort of memory-altering toxins, or something like that, that caused Nola to think she's your sister but if that's the case why didn't you just get Minia to use her azure ability to wish it away?" Chronia asked.
"Well, I tried to but Minia said it seemed like a waste of a wish but mainly because she thought Nola's situation was funny I guess," Zalroth explained, which managed to elicit a chuckle from Chronia.
"She really is a girl after my own heart, although I think it was probably your torment that she found funny,". Zalroth sighed and asked if Chronia knew when the toxin would stop affecting Nola.
"She got bit almost a week ago right? So, she'll probably be back to normal in a few more hours or tomorrow morning, since remnants of a Magic Dungeon tend to have dissipated by a week," Chronia explained as she jumped onto Zalroth's tails as he was standing up and exited the room.
Zalroth and Chronia returned to the reception area where Lola was showing her staff to an excited Scarlett, Snow, Kusana and Kiki.
"Woah, that's so cool what's it called anyway?" Scarlett asked. Lola quickly glanced at her staff, and then the surroundings before looking back at the group.
"Ummm... Dream Wever, I guess since papa gave it to me with the intention of-" Lola said on the spot before remembering why she had been given it in the first place.
"Oh shoot," Lola said as her ears slumped down before Kusana patted her on the head.
"Don't worry about it, Fluffkins, you running off was a good thing since it gave your papa a chance to tell the rest of the story properly for once," Chronia remarked as she hopped onto the receptionist counter.
"Yeah, papa isn't very good at telling stories without a book," Lola joked as she transformed her staff back into its ring form and placed it back on the tip of one of her tails. Zalroth glanced at Chronia as she began to talk to Surfinia before he sighed. He felt someone tug on his arm and looked down to see it was Kiki.
"Say Mr Zalroth, since everything seems to be done with; does that mean you'll participate in the Maxicannion Tournament now-?" Kiki asked before getting extremely excited and doing a double fist pump at being able to say Maxicannion Tournament without stuttering.
"Yeah you should totally enter the tournament thingy," Scarlett added. Lola and the others started to join in on Kiki and Scarlett's pleading, with an unsure Zalroth being unable to decide.
"I don't know, I was planning to check out the mayjorka tree in the city centre today," Zalroth explained. The girls seemed disappointed at Zalroth's response and collectively whined. Chronia glanced behind her before noticing a Maxicannion Tournament promotional participation ad on one of the quest boards and smirking.
"You know I think that flyer over there says the grand prize of the Maxicannion Tournament is an azur-" Chronia managed to say before Zalroth suddenly appeared in front of the flyer, so fast that he appeared to have teleported. Kiki and the other rushed over to Zalroth with Kifia walking slowly behind them. Zalroth read the contents of the ad and confirmed that the grand prize was an azure gem.
"Big bro thought if he made the glowing blue gem, he found, the grand prize it would bring more contestants but it seems it had the opposite effect, so the tournament might get cancelled," Kiki stated as she disappointedly sighed.
"That's probably because nobody knows what ability the gem will give, so people are apprehensive because it could be above a grade B and might be illegal," Kifia explained as she picked Kiki up and allowed the adventurer Kiki was blocking to walk past before putting Kiki back down.
"It's understandable, it'd be pretty stupid to enter a tournament if you weren't sure what the prize was; so you're saying if the azure gem's ability was identified the tournament wouldn't be cancelled?" Zalroth said as he turned around.
"Wait are you saying you're able to tell what an azure gem's ability is while it's still in a gem?" Kiki asked with a surprised expression.
"Well I am a kitsune," Zalroth remarked while giving a cheeky grin.
"Wait does that mean you'd be able to tell us if we have azure powers too?" Scarlett asked as she, Snow and Kiki, with even a few adventurers that overheard their conversation, struggled to contain their excitement.
"Well, first of all, everyone is born with at minimum one unique azure ability, so you having one is a given, and second unless the ability is already awakened I won't be able to tell what it is," Zalroth explained. The girls seemed a little disheartened but not entirely since he did say they did have a unique azure ability at least. While Chronia was listening to the group's conversation, she noticed that Iris seemed to be missing.
"Say Surf, do you know where that pixie went?" Chronia asked. Surfinia rubbed the back of her head while gesturing to the empty bowl on the front counter with the note reading free bread sticks where Iris was in the middle of eating a bread stick.
"Oh..." Chronia murmured while remarking that Zalrothh seems to always make friends with food lovers.