Returning home, Melissa threw herself on the bed and Cassandra rested against the wall. They both seemed way too exhausted for a simple outing, though for some reason Kiel had the inkling he was at fault for this. Kiel sat next to Edel on the floor, rolling on his back and staring up at the ceiling.

Cassandra started speaking a few minutes later, breaking the silence. Melissa translated for him, "We need to start searching for a new party member, preferably someone who can stand in the front line because none of us really have that capability. It probably won't be an issue for the bronze-ranked dungeons, but soon we will be completing silver-ranked dungeons."

Melissa struggled but managed to lift herself from the softness of the bed. "I hope you aren't thinking about what I'm sure you're thinking about."

Cassandra didn't back down, "We need to grow stronger, and I think it's high time we pushed ourselves," she said, looking at her friend with equal measures of worry and excitement.

Meanwhile Kiel was trying to follow the conversation relying as little as possible on Melissa's translation. This line of conversation was making him want to push himself further.

His usage of ether could use work, and his fighting style relied overly much on his teleportation skill. He guessed the scholar title and the dungeons were a hint about how higher levels of the system worked. He had yet to see an example of a high-level human or monster, so it was all speculation, but...

He doubted high-leveled individuals relied solely on levels to grow stronger.

It also brought into question, could a gold-ranked adventurer hunt all bronze dungeons they could find and end up stronger than whatever Onyx ranked was?

"We should complete the remaining bronze-ranked dungeons as fast as we can." Cassandra said and Melissa looked hesitant.

Kiel meanwhile was still caught up in his own thoughts and barely paid any attention to Melissa's translation.

For some reason he didn't think the system would be kind enough to allow them to farm bronze-ranked dungeons ad infinitum. Melissa and Cassandra didn't know anything about a limit, but he didn't think that was weird seeing how mentions of higher levels were erased from almost every book in the library.

This kind of thing made his opinion of the nobles and the king of this country drop even lower. Why would they even want to limit knowledge about higher levels? Heck, Melissa was now a silver-ranked adventurer, yet even she wasn't able to find out what happened when you crossed the threshold to gold-rank.

If they asked the guild master, would he tell them? Could he? Removing this much information from everywhere spoke to something unnatural.

He tried not to think about it. All they had to do was get stronger and answers would come.

"I know that a dungeon a day is an unforgiving pace, but if something is going on, I don't want us to be caught unprepared," Cassandra said to Melissa, hugging her.

Hold up, what did I miss?

Melissa stared at her, "I wasn't going to talk about that- what do you mean a dungeon a day?" She pushed herself out of the embrace and looked at her with narrowed eyes.

Cassandra looked sad when Melissa escaped her hug, but she didn't change her mind, "I mean, we should push ourselves."

He could feel from their bond that Melissa wasn't hesitating because she was scared. Rather, she felt that if she agreed readily now, there wouldn't be another person to bring them back, to let them enjoy life outside of growing stronger.

He decided to cut in at this point, "We will enjoy life when ours isn't in danger," he said, lazily resting next to Edel. "being weak is being like that."

He could feel that she wasn't satisfied with his answer. She seemed... angry?

Taking a deep breath, her eyes glowed red, and he could feel ether gather inside her body. "Very well... if you want to do it like this," she let the fire ether express her emotions and he was taken aback while Cassandra's smile grew wider.

"Me and Cass have completed four bronze-ranked dungeons in total and there are five more for a total of nine." Her voice held a kind of power that he wasn't expecting from the woman in front of him. "We are going to finish in a week, and you are all going to shut up for the rest of the month."

He opened and closed his mouth, not making any sound.

I thought you were the only sane one in this group and I'm not sure how to feel about being this wrong.

Kiel recovered the very next day, and Melissa instead threw him two full crates full of camping supplies.

Now that he had his spatial storage, camping outside seemed like the best way to save time. He didn't know if food spoiled inside his spatial storage, but even then, he was able to store more than double the amount Melissa and Cassandra could carry on their backpacks, all without influencing his ability to move or fight.

She seemed less angry than yesterday, instead feeling more determined. Meanwhile Cassandra couldn't stop laughing, "This is the Melly I fell in love with," she said and Melissa translated to him instinctively before her brain registered the words she translated.

She lost some of her steam which turned her ears into a rosy red for the better part of an hour, all the while Cassandra seemed to be having the time of her life. He was forty-nine percent sure Cassandra was just teasing her and fifty-one percent that she was serious.

For some reason he hoped it was the latter.

The mood of the party only improved as they traveled through the forest, and soon they were back at laughing and joking with each other. With him trying to explain what the words "I ship it" meant to Edel and meeting confusion at every turn.

Soon they were standing in front of another dungeon and while none of them knew the particulars of this dungeon, none hesitated.

They entered the faintly lit dungeon and quickly encountered the first monster. A pale blue and faintly glowing butterfly slowly approached the four of them, and they got ready for a fight.

He felt something touch his mind, and lost track of his thoughts. He was confused for less than a second, but even that second made him indescribably angry. The only appropriate response to someone violating the sacrosanctity of his mind was a simple one, extreme violence.

Teleporting next to it, he barely had to hit it with his paw before it died, splattered into the walls of the cave. If it wasn't so gross, he would have smeared it into even thinner paste.

Examining the butterfly's remains, he couldn't help but remark on how weak it had been. He felt like he could have hit it with his tail and it would have died, which he didn't think was possible for any highly leveled creature before this.

After the butterfly died, the rest slowly blinked their eyes awake, realizing what had happened.

He didn't know exactly why he'd been less affected, but he had to ask Melissa, "What happened?" He meant to ask this because the butterfly had taken them all by surprise.

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Melissa paused to think before answering, "A type of weak mental attack. I'm not exactly sure why you weren't affected as much, but protecting ourselves with ether would be a good start."

Cassandra interjected, "I apologize for this dungeon... the few people I asked just told us to avoid it, and I can see why now," she said, "though in my defense the adventurers seemed half drunk and it was hard to say if they were serious."

They debated giving up on this dungeon, and they were about to, when Melissa spoke up, "I think we should try. Their attacks aren't difficult to defend against, we were just unprepared."

Trusting Melissa, they hesitantly headed deeper inside the dungeon.

The next pair of butterflies flew slowly towards their position and Kiel was ready to act. Melissa on the other hand was cycling the ether inside her body. This time their mental attack didn't affect her in the slightest and she burned the two butterflies to a crisp.

She smiled brightly and they continued after copying Melissa's technique. It was a simple result of ether running interference inside their body, they probably wouldn't even need to concentrate it on their head, but Melissa told them to do so just to be safe.

They continued further inside the dungeon with Kiel paying more attention to his friends than before. With how physically weak the butterflies were, he was afraid how strong the boss was going to be.

Of course, with him being the least affected of all they were able to tear through the dungeon with minimal difficulty. Even without cycling his ether he was able to resist better than most, so when he did, the butterflies felt like they were trying to tickle him, though most of the time they didn't manage to attack before being killed.

The only scare was when they didn't manage to kill all the butterflies in one go and over three dozen of them attacked their minds at once. He felt his consciousness grow hazy, but knowing what to expect from the others, he focused his ether in his head and managed to regain his senses a second or so later.

Or at least it should have been a second, but the butterflies were a lot closer than they should be able to travel in a second.

Sweet Jesus, that scared me.

He jumped in the midst of the entire group, wreaking havoc and ending their lives in fractions of a second. This time he did kill a few of them using his tail, and before they had a chance to attack again, over half of them were dead.

After making sure there weren't any other monsters nearby he turned to check on his sleeping friends. Thankfully using his bond he could see that they were just asleep.

At least he got a level for his troubles,

Name - Kiel

Level - 17

Titles - Traveler, Unyielding, Ritualist, Scholar

Body - 27

Mind - 27

Spirit - 35

Skills - Unbound Adaptation (Lvl 15), Climbing (Lvl 7), Ether Sense (Lvl 10) [Max], Spatial Sense (Lvl 4), Spatial Manipulation (Lvl 10) [Max], Spatial Rend (Lvl 5), Spatial Shift (Lvl 10) [Max], Ether Manipulation (Lvl 10) [Max], Spatial Storage (Lvl 2)

Two attributes went to Body and one into Spirit. Melissa told him that the process was mostly based on what attribute he used the most when leveling up, but that didn't always make sense. This time he guessed that in resisting their mental attacks his spirit played a big role.

Checking back on the three of his friends, they were still sleeping.

Now he could wait for them to wake up, or... he could have some fun. I heard it helps with the stress... worse case it helps with my stress.

Thinking about possible pranks, he remembered taking a little something from Melissa's office before they left.

Before doing anything, he scouted a bit further ahead. A few turns ahead was the boss room, and he'd yet to see monsters leave that room, boss included.

Returning back where his friends were sleeping, he accessed his Spatial Storage, and removed a small container of ink.

Opening it wasn't anything difficult and he dipped his paws in it, careful not to waste the ink. He stored it again immediately after and approached the three sleeping beauties. Okay, no, he didn't do anything to Edel. Dying her perfectly pristine and white fur wasn't something he was willing to do as a prank.

Melissa and Cassandra though? He was definitely taking advantage of this once in a million chance.

When he was finished with the mustache on Melissa, he moved to Cassandra and inspected his work. Inspecting it again, he drew a monocle on the two of them and decided it was better to wait than risk getting caught drawing.

Regardless, he felt proud of his work. It wasn't his best drawing, but it was probably the best he could manage with paws and claws instead of fingers and maybe a brush.

He contemplated drawing something else too, when he felt Melissa stir awake. He was deep in thought which was why he was startled when Melissa started laughing. "Your lines could use some work. We could hire a teacher or two next time." She said, chuckling and tracing the lines of ink on Cassandra's face. She booped her nose in the end and got ink there too.

First of all, rude.

Cassandra started waking up slowly too with Edel joining her a second later. When Cass looked at Melissa she held herself better. "You look good," she commented, trying not to laugh before noticing something black on her nose.

She tried wiping it off, only smearing herself even further and noticing she had ink on the rest of her face as well.

It didn't take long for both of them to look towards him and a spot of black ink below his paws. Darn it, I should have hidden the evidence better.

"I can understand drawing on Cass's face, but why me?!" Melissa whined. He tried to ignore her, even as she shook him back and forth.

Cassandra's face on the other hand was almost completely black, alongside her hand and shirt sleeves. "Water," she demanded. Her mood was pretty poor, and he immediately acquiesced.

He was able to respond immediately, not needing Melissa to translate. Simple words were easy to understand, and he felt like it wouldn't be long till he could follow basic sentences. For now, however, he needed not to get himself killed by an angry Cassandra.

Almost half an hour later they were ready to move, with Cassandra glaring at him and Melissa not bothering to wipe her face after seeing how much success Cassandra had.

Standing before the large cavern, they knew this was either going to be the easiest boss fight, or their most dangerous.

Kiel was positive that even if the boss monster was thrice tougher than the strongest butterflies he could kill it with one hit. If that were the case, there was no reason not to go guns blazing.

He closed his eyes, feeling the dimly lit cavern in front of him with his Spatial Sense and pointing out where the enemy butterflies were hiding. As for the boss, that wasn't hard to find. A large butterfly, almost taller than a one-story building, was perched in the furthest corner of the room surrounded by a few of the smaller variants.

The boss butterfly had red wings, as opposed to the blue every other one had, and he didn't know if that translated to a different kind of mental assault or was just a cosmetic effect.

Not willing to underestimate their enemy, they decided that the best plan was one where the enemy didn't get a chance to act. Melissa gathered her ether slowly, and he could feel the heat rising in her surroundings. Meanwhile Edel was doing much the same and the air gained a static feel to it.

The butterflies inside became agitated, flying all over the place, but none ran towards them, or attacked them. That was until they walked inside the cavern and all hell broke loose.

Melissa's massive fireball mixed with the lightning ether Edel fired at the butterflies and the two attacks seemed to enhance each other. The boss died nearly instantaneously almost before they stepped into the cavern. "Well, this was a bit anticlimactic," Kiel couldn't help but exclaim. That was a mistake. A death flag of the highest order.

He barely had a chance to notice the usual pop-up message informing him about another point in mind before Melissa grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and started running.

The electrified fire enveloped everything in its path, burning the butterflies instantaneously and coming right back at them. Kiel's view was filled with a terrifying wall of fire chasing them as lightning snakes coursed through it.

They weren't going to outrun it, but instead of feeling scared, he was mesmerized. Idly, he pressed his will against the space behind them, infusing it with his ether and commanding it to freeze. More interestingly, however, the space obeyed.

The wall of fire slowed down and a few seconds of running later they were able to run out of the blast radius.

Melissa dropped to the ground, exhausted and panting heavily. Cassandra was better off with her hands shaking a bit, but it hadn't been from the exertion. Meanwhile Edel was growling in excitement.

He could swear she was asking him how cool was that?

He could barely think about anything at this moment, his mind still caught up by image of the fire ether eating and expanding with the help of the lightning.

Since when can they do that? No, scratch that, since when can I do that?

Cassandra was the one to break the silence after Edel stopped growling, "Let's not try that again," she said, looking pointedly at Melissa and a much too proud wolf to admit that could have gone worse.

She shook her head, "Alright, this one barely took two hours, and almost half of that was trying to wash Kiel's prank off... which one's next?"

Well, he wasn't going to dwell on it too much. Next up on the list was a lizard dungeon, and he knew he was going to have fun with that one.

The others checked to see if there was anything they could salvage in the boss's room while he observed the space around them. If he was being honest, the space inside the dungeons felt... weird.

It was something he recently noticed, and even more so now that he'd managed to manipulate the space in a life or death situation. The space around him felt like it was hiding more, and since he was dying to use his new-ish skill, he put Spatial Rend to the test.

It was an honest, simple test. He wasn't even planning on doing anything after creating a Spatial Rend, something which for some reason was extraordinarily difficult inside the dungeon.

Fortunately, he succeeded before they needed to leave.

Unfortunately, the system really did not like that.