Never mind the agitated motes of light or the life-threatening horde of slimes just up above them, Rob’s entire mind was focused on the blinding light of luck ahead of him, illuminating his vision in a colorful vortex of colors.
Anna’s luck was the same as before, a vortex of light with a bright flame in the center, yet the motes of light spun at a crazed speed, far faster than its usual calm state.
S Rank Luck… S Rank Luck?! Not just that, it’s continuously rising! Just what kind of Opportunity is in this dungeon that caused her A Rank Luck to surge to such a high level?
Even though he was shocked, Rob had experienced more shocking things in his lifetime that spanned eons and immediately reacted upon witnessing her absurd luck.
He activated Fortune Stealer and conjured a golden thread of light that extended out of his own luck. Then, with a wave of his hand, using their group luck as a medium, he clashed the thin golden thread against the raging vortex of light.
A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead as he pushed Fortune Stealer to its limit. He has already cut off his luck with the bakery, but his luck remained at B Rank since the majority of it belonged to the Crown Prince, and it had even doubled since the luck flowing into the bakery returned to him.
I need to be careful. If I’m too forceful, I’ll establish a connection that would instead disrupt her luck’s growth, stagnating her fortune and cutting off my potential gains. A Rank, all I need is A Rank Luck! Once she has the luck of multiple Crown Princes and Emperors, that’s when I’ll deepen our connection and push my own luck to S Rank!
The golden thread in the air flew through the raging vortex of light, avoiding each mote of light as if they were dangerous rocks flying at breakneck speeds. All it took was a touch and the thread would be destroyed.
Swoosh!
A surge of golden light flowed through the thin connection, creating a formless bridge between his luck, and Anna, siphoning a bit of it into his own and boosting his own luck to a level that caused him mild levels of surprise and joy.
A Rank. Rob silently smiled as he felt his luck surge to unprecedented levels. He then removed the Luck Stack he created prior to entering the dungeon as a plan was already brewing inside his mind. He needed all the luck he could get while lowering the luck of others as much as possible. It seems like this was his chance to steal a fortune.
Rob used Earth Magic, spreading his mana through the cave’s walls and expanding his senses into the far distance. When he felt his mana split into two paths, creating a clear visual image inside his head, Rob knew that he was on the precipice of success. It was a lucky find, and luck was on his side.
My luck is continuously increasing, and has already reached… Rob paused, his eyes beaming with delight as he decided to come up with a new naming system for luck, to create a more precise description while lowering the convuletedness of his thoughts …10-A Luck. 10 for quantity, and A for quality.
“Hey, Earl,” Rob said. He squatted down on the ground and dug his hand into the hard ground beneath him as if it were soft soil, “We need some torches to conserve our mana. I’ll deal with the coal problem, so go create some wood handles.”
While he did find his orders a bit too direct and not so well-mannered, it was still a good suggestion. Casting a light ball would just mindlessly drain their mana and exhaust their minds, sometimes, it’s better to use a torch instead to illuminate the darkness if they can.
Melvin opened his palm to cast a spell, manipulating the mana flowing inside his body outward to form a twisting branch of wood, with a thin bottom and a thicker top. He activated his magic once more, manipulating the wood to have a small indent on top to provide space for the coal.
Rob then pulled out his hands, holding a handful of coal, and passed it onto Melvin for further processing. A while later, they each held a torch in their hands.
Anna quickly lit a small flame in her hand and allowed the others to hover their torches above it, lighting their torches ablaze and illuminating the dark cave much more clearly.
“Great thinking, Rob!” Leo praised as he waved his torch to inspect the surrounding cave. He tried to look for important details that might serve as an important nugget of info, but nothing really strange came into view.
While looking around, Melvin Dolton approached the cavernous walls and touched them, and his eyes squinted in surprise. His intuition and experience seemed to call out to him as he realized something strange.
“It’s like this cave is man-made,” Melvin Dolton said with a curious tone.
“It’s definitely man-made.” Rob was also inspecting the walls and the ceiling, and he agreed with Melvin Dolton’s suspicions. “Albeit, not every part of it. It seems that someone else had tampered with this cave before.”
“There are some unnatural contours on the walls here, some parts are just too smooth,” Rob added while pointing at some of the details he found.
“Well, what does that mean then?” Anna inquired. She wasn’t able to understand the significance of the cave being partially made by other humans. So what if it was man-made? It’s still a cave.
“It ain’t important. I was just being curious.” Rob chuckled and patted his arms, staring at Anna as if she asked a stupid question.
“Hmph, I thought it was going to be an important clue or something,” Anna huffed.
“Sheesh, don’t get so angry, Viscountess. Anyways, we better look around, maybe we’ll find some goodies while the slimes above are still crazy.” Rob shook his head and started to walk, forcefully leading the group forward to the place where the cave splits into two.
Soon enough, the four found themselves at a crossroads, and as he silently checked his luck to divine which place was luckiest for Annabeth Auburn - not for himself, he once again took the lead of the conversation.
“We should split up and check the two paths. I’ll team up with the Viscountess and go here, while the Earl and Duke should go to the right,” Rob suggested with a smile.
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“Wouldn’t it be dangerous? Splitting up is an unnecessary risk, right?” Anna started to worry. She had watched all sorts of horror movies in her past life, and she knew what kind of fate would befall her if she were to “split up” which was synonymous with dying for her.
“Hmm, that is correct. We can still just-“
Before Leo Regulus can finish speaking, Rob interjected and said, “It’s not a risk. No matter how dangerous this dungeon may be, it’s still an F Rank Dungeon. At most, the biggest threat here is the Boss Monster.”
“Slimes are inherently slow creatures. We can easily outrun them, and inside this cave, my Earth Magic receives a huge boost in power.”
“So, if you were to calm down and think, you’ll realize that nothing can truly harm us in the gravest sense of the word.” Rob smiled.
His words were as slippery as a snake. In just a few sentences, their minds were already in the place he wanted them to be, and soon enough, they finally agreed with his plans.
This is just too easy! Rob thought. Success was pretty much guaranteed for him, so he wasn’t that surprised or happy with this little achievement.
The four then finally split up into two groups, with Rob and Anna heading to the left, and Melvin and Leo going to the right.
But they prepared as much as they can before doing so. Rob gave them extra coal, while Melvin gave the team extra wooden handles. Leo also passed forward some life-saving healing potions for a “just in case” situation, and they waited for their mana to refill.
Now, with everything said and done, Rob and Anna headed out into the silent darkness ahead of them.
Anna and Rob strolled through the jagged rocks and rough walls of the cave, looking around for any possible clues that might help. While that happened, Anna silently grieved. Just why did Rob have to put her in the same group as him?
Couldn’t she have been teamed up with Leo or Melvin? But on second thought, she realized a little something - she was the weakest in the entire group, while Rob was the strongest. It was a simple strongest-weakest link that had caused her to land in this position.
With a helpless and dejected sigh, Anna followed from behind while carefully checking the surroundings to make sure nothing would come out to surprise attack them. The tunnel-like path wasn’t that big, so the torch could illuminate the surrounding area without much problem.
“Wait…” Rob stopped in his tracks, alerting Anna from her stupor.
“What is it?” She whispered and looked to the front, but then heard the sound of something akin to moving gelatin, very squishy and wet gelatin, moving along a rocky ground.
The squishing sound echoed through the cave, a sound that belonged to the most abundant monster in this dungeon, a slime.
“It’s just a slime.” Anna shook her head and even chuckled at how scared she was when Rob suddenly paused.
Rob remained silent and walked forward, and soon enough, the two found a brown slime with jagged rocks on top of its body moving around the empty cave.
So this is a slime in this world. How unoriginal. Rob smiled.
He then walked forward, and without stopping, stomped down at the slime, directly breaking its core, causing it to transform into a pool of liquid ooze.
“Yuck…” Anna scrunched up her face as she stared at the sticky brown liquid on the ground, and looked away in disgust.
“It’s just a slime,” Rob rolled his eyes. “Besides, our uniforms are enchanted so stuff like slime would slide right off, see?”
As she stared curiously at the slime dripping down his legs, Rob looked around, and sure enough, there was a deposit of magical minerals in a nearby corner. Earth slimes usually meant that there would be minerals, usually magical, nearby when encountered inside a cave or in an underground area.
So, unsurprised by this little boon, he placed it in the basket Melvin gave him for storing their loot and proceeded to walk.
“How did you know there’s gonna be some special rocks here?” Anna asked, curious as to how Rob knew something so random.
“Just read some books, then you’ll be as smart as me,” Rob replied with a smile, annoying Anna once more to no end. He really didn’t want to explain it to her, he was too lazy for that.
As the two bantered, they were met with their second group of slimes. This time, it wasn’t just a lone slime, but a group of Earth and Crystal Slimes.
The crystal slime ahead of them was mostly purple in color, while some were yellowish brown, with crystals growing on top of their bodies, kind of like a porcupine.
Anna swiftly launched an attack, sending out three fiery arrows onto three different slimes, accurately hitting their bodies and causing them to squirm in discomfort.
Rob was more brutish in his approach, creating an earthen staff and swinging it with his puny physical strength and sophisticated skill.
…
Rob and Anna walked through the silent cave with bulging pockets and a basket filled to the brim with loot.
Just as Anna was inwardly complaining about her dirtied shoes and socks from fighting all those slimes, she suddenly paused and stared ahead in confusion.
Rob noticed her sudden pause and felt his heart thump in excitement. Her luck has grown larger, and by his estimates, was reaching 2-S already. Once that happened, well… this would mean that he’ll also have S Rank Luck!
But that’s for later. Instead, what excited him more was that Anna’s luck has changed, and inside the rotating vortex of light, there stood a ghastly figure, as if it was an old ghost with a long beard and a wrinkly visage, in front of the bright orange flame.
Rob could smell it. The Opportunity was near.
“Something’s… here.” Anna started to walk forward, with each step propelling her faster as she walked at a brisk pace.
Rob followed behind without uttering a single word, and eventually… they found themselves arriving in front of a dead end. It was an empty wall, with nothing else to take note of, but Anna was sure, she was confident that there was something else nearby.
But, where? Where is it? What should I do?
As she wondered in confusion, Rob widened his eyes in surprise as he instinctively felt that Fortune Stealer has made a breakthrough, a timely breakthrough. He wasn’t that startled by this fortunate change, rather, he should have expected it. A Rank Luck was great after all, and he even suspected that he was the key to opening this piece of the puzzle to allow Anna to acquire her golden finger.
Luck was truly mystical, Rob concluded.
So, without wasting a single moment, a flash of golden light appeared in his eyes, and he activated Luck Inspection once more.
And, like magic, he was greeted by an entirely new world, with motes of light swishing around him, or more specifically, Anna and the wall in front of them, in excitement.
Rob then silently patted Anna on the back, and pushed her forward, surprising her.
She instinctively stretched out her hand, to stop herself from colliding with the wall, but as soon as her hands touched the wall, the invisible motes of light hovering in the air gathered at the wall, and seemed to have activated a hidden magical mechanism.
What a key. It was all just his delusions. Rob almost burst into laughter after realizing the wall was only an illusion and nothing more.
A burst of blue light erupted out of the wall, forming a strange circuit, which then caused the wall to disappear, and the two were greeted by a wide room with a coffin in the middle. With instinct alone, Rob can tell that the coffin hid the mysterious Opportunity that Anna would get.
A piercing golden light erupted from his eyes, with Fortune Stealer about to activate and steal her Opportunity, but unfortunately for him, Anna’s luck was simply too strong.
Before he can even take action, the coffin in the middle of the room released a flash of blue light, which pierced through the air and entered Anna’s head.
“Eh?” Anna mumbled in surprise as her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and with a loud thud, she fell to the ground like a lifeless doll.
Rob was left there all alone, his arm stretching out a second too late, and now he was standing there with an outstretched arm, pointing it at the coffin like a fool.
“Well, fuck,” Rob sighed and silently approached the coffin with a dejected smile. “Let’s just hope that I’ll also receive an Opportunity here.”
…
“Annabeth Auburn, my descendant, it seems you are talented beyond measure in Spirit Magic!” An old man floated in the air, his astute eyes staring at Anna’s ethereal body with joy.
“W-Who are you?!” Anna asked, taking a step back in fear and apprehension.
“I’m your ancestor, and the great founder of Spirit Magic, Van Hisprite!” the old man exclaimed, both with pride and an egotistical tone.