Pear shaped the Dark mana as quickly as he could while Savantha attempted to distract the Arcane Elemental king and avoid the creature's massive physical attacks as it sent a barrage of Force Missile spells flying toward Pear. Just before impact, Pear sighed in relief as the Dark mana snapped into place, replacing his Force Shield spell with a Dark Shield.

Immediately, he noticed that his shield spell was being overwhelmed by the damage from the Arcane mana in the air as it empowered the Missiles that flew through the air. Cursing, he began to draw another Force Shield with his wand as he pushed more mana into the crumbling Dark shield. Watching his MP drop rapidly at his efforts, Pear hoped he'd be in time to keep himself alive.

While Pear worked to cast his spells and prepared to attack the Arcane Elemental King, Savantha employed every ounce of her concentration to avoid the attacks from the elemental, taking advantage of the lulls in its physical attacks to hammer it with her fists and feet, wrapped as they were in what was left of the sleeves of Pear's robe he'd given her.

As her fists thudded into the strangely gelatinous form of the king's body, Savantha wondered how bad slimes would be to fight if this one was an elemental and it could change its shape and negate nearly half of her attack's damage. Shaking her hand and dancing backward from the creature's grasping motions, she hissed in pain as the cloth on her fist smoked.

"Hurry up!" she yelled at Pear as the short Elf waved his staff wildly in the air, barely visible through the now shadowy ball that surrounded him. "I can't keep this up that long!"

"I'm almost there!" he assured her as the last of his spell formation snapped into place and a much larger, smoky bolt of Dark mana flew toward the king. "Don't let it run away from that!"

Wincing internally at what she was about to do, Savantha drove her fists into the elemental's body as deeply as she could before repeating the process as fast as she could.

Hearing his companion groan aloud in pain, Pear watched as the dead spot in the mana that made up her body in his sight, seemed to pull large portions of the Arcane mana off of the king's body before whisping away into the air. Unable to help her and hoping that her efforts would work, he began to form another Dark Missile with his staff as the first pierced through the king's Shield spell and impacted the body.

Grasping her ears, Savantha stumbled away from the Arcane Elemental King as it screamed in pain from the Dark mana that spread through its body, reaching hungrily for its core.

As Pear watched the Dark mana eat the Arcane mana and sweep toward the core, he released his second Dark Missile toward the creature and watched as it was covered almost halfway through with the Dark mana. Redoubling its scream that was deafening Pear and driving Savantha to her knees, the Arcane Elemental King began to smoke as it shrank down, losing the mass of near liquid mana that formed its body as it shrank to half its size, its core nestled safely at the center of the much smaller, faster body.

"It's faster!" Savantha yelled at Pear as she worked to dodge it physical attacks.

"But it's casting a lot less than it was," he told her as a third Dark Missile was fired.

Dodging the attack, the Arcane Elemental King redoubled its attack on Savantha as Pear began to change gears.

"If projectiles are too slow, let's try to tie it down," he muttered to himself as he drew the circle criss-crossed with lines over a second smaller circle to form the Bind spell. As the Dark Bind spell raced along the ground to the elemental, Pear examined them closely and saw that they were smaller chains that looked as though they'd been made with barbed wire, rather than the thick, heavy links that he was used to seeing from Force Bind.

As the much faster chains snaked across the ground, winding through Savantha's dancing feet as she dodged the king's attacks, the elemental pulled itself up and sent a much larger bolt of Arcane energy flying toward Pear.

Pushing more mana into his shield, Pear felt the blood drain from his face as the bolt smashed into his Force Shield and shattered it with a crystalline sound. Screeching in victory, the Arcane Elemental King fired a second bolt toward Pear as his Dark Bind spell wormed its way up its body before tightening visciously.

As the Dark mana bled into the Arcane body, Pear threw himself to the side, dodging the massive bolt of Arcane mana as it flew over where he'd just been. Unable to watch as the elemental shed more of the mana from its body, he was startled to look up and see that the creature was now barely the size of Savantha as she hammered relentlessly into the creature's body and grasped desperately for the core of the elemental.

"I've got it!" she called gripping the core and pulling it from the elemental's body and throwing it toward Pear. "Destroy it!"

Not needing to be told twice, Pear aimed his wand at the core and blasted unfocused Dark mana at the purple stone of Arcane mana. With a twinkling sound that echoed through the area, the core cracked and flaked away slightly before shattering into a pile of dust.

With one final scream, the Arcane Elemental King let out a last cry as the mana that made up its body began to smoke away.

Breathing heavily, Pear looked toward the dead spot and spoke to Savantha.

"Let's go," he said. "We've got to finish my quest before something else comes up."

"You go ahead," she told him tiredly. "I'm almost wiped. Only got 31% HP."

"Stay safe," Pear ordered as he pulled himself to his feet and began to set out for the hill at the center of the dungeon's room as fast as he could without keeling over. As he approached the strangely empty area, he couldn't help but chuckle to himself as he examined the heavy ball of mana that floated in the area.

Dragon King's Right Eye: The right eye of the now deceased King of Dragons. This eye is a powerful source of Arcane mana.

"Mine," Pear muttered as he grabbed the fist sized orb and held it in his hand. "Oh, I'm so glad that this isn't squishy."

You've completed a Dungeon Quest!

Claim the Dragon King's Eye: You have laid claim to the eye of the Dragon King that was driving the Arcane Elementals to fight one another! In your hands, the Eye will no longer expel copious amounts of Arcane mana, and the Arcane Elementals will calm down in time.

Rewards:

Dragon King's Right Eye.

Passage to the Second Floor of the Dungeon of Elementals.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Arcane Perk: Arcane Skin: You have been bathed in massive amounts of Arcane mana. You will benefit from faster MP regeneration in areas heavy with Arcane mana. You will have a natural resistance to Force spells.

"We ready to go?" Savantha's voice pulled Pear from his examination of his notifications.

"Yeah," he nodded. "Let's go to the next floor."

"How many of these are there?" she asked.

"I'm going to say that there's a total of nine," Pear told her after a moment, not seeing as her face twisted unhappily at the thought. "That's how many base mana types there are."

"Dammit," Savantha groaned as they approached the swirling light that appeared at the edge of the floor's room, illuminating the area around it in multicolored light. Pear only shrugged as he pulled his status up and examined it.

Pear

High Elf

HP: 63% SP: 22% MP: 17%

Mage

Inventory:

Simple Robes(equipped)

Simple Wooden Wand(equipped)

Simple Wooden Staff(equipped)

Cloak of the Grandmaster’s Student(equipped)

Skinning Knife

Pack[Filled]

Currency:

B; 2I; 11C

Perks:

Darkvision

Arcane Usage

Magus’ Sight

Arcane Skin

Feats:

Mana Scorched

Skills:

Examine

Meditate(Common)

Harvesting(Lesser)

Mana Manipulation(Lesser)

Mana Shape(Lesser)

Spells:

Missile

Bind

Shield

Air Manipulation

Arcane Manipulation

Dark Manipulation

Death Manipulation

Earth Manipulation

Fire Manipulation

Life Manipulation

Light Manipulation

Water Manipulation

Force Missile

Dark Missile

Fire Missile

Light Missile

Force Shield

Force Bind

Dark Bind

Force Barrier

Force Hand

"I need to clean it up again," he muttered unhappily as he examined the long list of spells that had been added by the floor.

"What?" Savantha asked as she walked in front of him.

"Nothing," Pear told her. "Actually, can we wait before we go into the next floor? I want to adjust my status screen and cast my new spells with the other mana types."

"I can eat," Savantha agreed, holding out her hand.

Sighing, Pear passed her a ration as he pulled his wand out and began to work through his other spells.

"I already hate this," Savantha said as she watched the water fall around them and the ankle deep puddle they stood in extended across the entire floor.

"It could be worse," Pear assured her as he examined the new floor, watching as blue mana flowed smoothly through the air, trying to ignore the cold water that he was standing in and the falling rain that dripped down his back. "It could be fire instead."

"I hate you for putting that idea out there," Savantha told him.

"Wonder what the Dungeon Quest this time is," Pear said as he looked toward the largest concentration of Water mana.

Water-drowned Cypress: A Cypress tree that has been steeped in Water mana until it has absorbed enough to be drowned by the mana itself. Items made from the wood of this tree will have Water-aspected properties. If taken to a desert, a seed from this tree will form the start of an oasis. Dungeon Quest: Prune the Water-drowned Cypress Forest has been started. You cannot refuse this quest due to your status as the Apprentice of Theobald Ripspell.

Prune the Water-drowned Cypress Forest: A forest of Water-drowned Cypress trees has covered this Dungeon's Second Floor. Remove a minimum of 50% to a maximum of 83% of the trees that cover this floor to complete this quest.

Rewards: Passage to the next floor; Water Perk; As much Water-drowned Cypress as you wish keep; Enchanted clothing for a monk.

"Did you get a Dungeon Quest?" Pear asked Savantha as he read the last reward from the notification.

"Sure did," she said happily. "Let's get started. Just have to knock a bunch of trees down and I get new clothes! Whoo!"

As Pear watched the dead spot move through the blue Water mana excitedly, he shook his head and followed after her, Dark mana swirling around his wand as the Water Elemental sprang up and ambushed her.

"This is not a Japanese porno!" the monk screamed as the elemental wrapped its tentacle-like appendages around her legs and flowed up her body. Before it could reach her face, Pear's Dark Missile spell impacted the elemental and ate through the creature, causing it drop his companion.

"You okay?" he asked her as he absently fired a second spell at the Water Elemental writhing on the ground.

"I'm cool," she said. "But maybe you should lead?"

"Can do," Pear said as the Water Elemental lost its shape and fell harmlessly to become simple water. "I think before we start looking to complete the quest, we should focus on the best way to fight these elementals and figure out how you can spot them."

"Sounds great to me," Savantha said as she stood up and followed after Pear. "And on the way, you can figure out how to dry us off and warm us up."

"I'm already working on it," he assured her as he cast a Fire Shield and they watched it sputter out before it could shape itself around them. "It might take some work, though."

"Be quick," she urged. "I don't want to freeze."

As they moved through the forest of Water-aspected trees, Pear worked to shape a barrier spell that would keep them dry from the falling water and a way to keep them warm as they moved. Finally, they reached a large mound of flat stones that rose out of the water and offered the best place either of them had seen for resting.

"I'll be able to figure something out a lot easier here if we're not moving," Pear told Savantha as they examined the stone with their respective sights. "Plus, I need a chance to recover from my Debuff."

"Debuff?" she asked curiously as she sat carefully on one of the wet stones.

"Oh yeah, I didn't tell you before this," Pear realized. "I managed to burn my mana channels pretty badly before I entered the first floor from the safe room. Now, if I use too much mana too fast, then I can't regenerate my mana cause of the condition that it caused. I should be good in another few days."

"Why didn't you tell me that before we went after the Arcane Elemental King?" she asked.

"It wasn't a problem before and during we had more important things to worry about," he told her.

"Don't suppose I can borrow your cloak to keep dry?" she said with a sigh as they settled in to wait.

"It's making things worse for me cause it's really not that thick," he told her, "but if you really want to try, you can. Just don't try to take it off me."

"I'll just hold it up cover myself with it," she told him scooting closer to him and awkwardly wrapping the cloak over her arm as she ducked beneath it and avoided the dripping water. "I hate this floor."

"Could be worse," Pear told her with a small smile as he closed his eyes to shut out the shifting blue that filled his vision.