As he looks around, he spots some more rat-men, but they look better equipped. Along with a few lanky-looking lizard people. However, they don’t close on the party, even under his gaze.

[why are they staying back like that, this is annoying, it’s like they are scared.] he thinks but looks to Claira as she pulls out the book again.

“Ok, on this floor we can expect rat-man soldiers, and lizardmen scouts, along with a chance to find a lizardman mage. The path is relatively easy,” She adlibs out of the book but stops and flips back and forth between two pages “Umm, okay, we just need to keep a solid wall on our left, not counting doors.” She closes the book puts it away, and looks to the group, “We should reach the treasure room after we pass seven doors, so let’s go.”

They all nod, before taking up their formation, and start walking.

Blake again spotted the monsters on this floor, but they didn’t engage. [What the hell is this, it is like they are terrified of me like I am some kind of ….] Something dawned on him, and he came to a stop and started to laugh quietly, but the volume slowly grew until the others turned to him, a bit of fear and confusion on their faces. But Blake had to keel over a bit and rest on his knees.

“Blake, are you okay?” Jessica asked, her voice sounded concerned, and her posture shifted a bit as she reached over but faltered short of touching him.

“Yeah sorry, I just realized why, on the last floor and on this one, none of the monsters have attacked us,” he said while standing upright. “I have a title that cuts their will to fight in half when i am in a forest territory.”

They looked at him, and Claira leaned forward "What the hell are you talking about?" She asked with a bit of annoyance.

"I got a title that halves the will to fight of creatures that are weaker than me, but only when i am in a forest," Blake said back with a bit of nervousness, "I forgot about it because it has two effects, so the willpower one was not the thing I remember the most, because the second effect is a powerful recovery at night.”

The three shuddered and inched away a bit. “Blake….” Jessica started but faltered as Blake focused on her, making her take a deep breath and look back at him with determination, “What title is this, I saw three, but there is no human title that gives recovery benefits.” Her tone sounded a bit fearful, and she backed away a bit more.

Blake just blinked a few times, [Wait, why is she scared…] his eye jumped to Claira and she was the same, [You too Claira, why are you both so scared,] he turned to block, and noticed that he seemed interested over scared, however the look made Blake shudder under the look in his eye [what, why do you look like you want to dissect me.] Blake took a step back and inhaled deeply, “Umm, it is a title I got from a goblin, I got it the day I fought the tribe. One of the goblins I spared called me a Daemon of the Forest Moon. Then it showed up on my sheet.” he said with a calming tone.

“Oh, that is cool the goblin said it to you, it could speak the human tongue… interesting” Block said while rubbing his chin.

Blake waved his hand, “No, it was speaking in goblin, but I can understand any spoken or written language that has living races on Idralmain.” Blake said quickly.

“But you become your title, so you are a daemon?” Jessica said as she shifted her staff forward, Raising the tension in the air, as Claira followed after her in suit out of fear.

“Calm down. Please I am not your enemy.” Blake said as he backed up a bit more and unshouldered his halberd.

The air held still as the two looked determined to fight, but their stare down with Blake was broken as Block stepped between them all. “Calm down everyone, I think I can explain all of this and Blake, I hope you will understand the fear the ladies have right now,” Block said as he waved both sides down. “Blake when someone gets a title, that title is believed to shift that person towards that title, but they can only get a title if someone calls them by that title with an absolute conviction to that name. Because of that, it means that a goblin, a race that doesn’t speak human, called you a demon because it thought you were a real demon, so they are afraid that you are one too.” Block smiled, “As an example, about six years ago a ruthless adventurer was called a demon by a former teammate, the next night he grew horns, got extremely violent, and gained wings. He went on a three-day-long rampage in the town of Liener to the east, It took the whole guild there to take him down, now anyone with a title like a titan or a demon is normally hated or attacked on sight...”

“And they are hesitant because they don’t know if they could win…” Blake cut him off, and relaxed while leaning back against the wall. “But I am not a demon, I am a daemon, D,A,E,M,O,N, the words sound close but are fundamentally different.” Getting a confused look from them all, he sighed, “D,E,M,O,N, or demon, is an entity that is malevolent as a part of its core nature, like devils or imps, or monsters from the underworld, they can’t be trusted or reasoned with, as their main objective is to inflict suffering in any form. A daemon, D,A,E,M,O,N, is an entity whose core nature is determined by its place of creation, A daemon made in the heavens will often be called an angel or seraphim, while one made in the hells is a demon. So, I guess that I would be a daemon of Juad, Jal, and Geie, as I have sworn an oath to them.” he crossed his arms and watched them closely, Block was thinking over his answer and nodding to himself, while Claira seemed overwhelmed a bit by the information, and Jessica looked a bit confused, not that he could Blame her. [I did just say she doesn’t really know what the difference is.]

The silence as each absorbed the information. And Block seemed to accept the information first, “Ok, so you are more like an apostle right now or something.”

Blake shrugged.

“Then you are not going to go on a rampage?” Claira asked slowly as she lowered her staff.

“Not unless someone tries to hurt or kill someone I care about.” Blake said with a deadpan tone to add force to his words.

Jessica looked away from him and looked back, before she spoke, “I am not sure I understand but I think that if Claira can trust you then I am going to stay my tongue.” She as forced a smile “I need time to see how you will act, I hope to see you as a good entity.” She stiffened up after a second and glared at him, “But if I find you lacking then I will not let you live, even if you are an agent of my goddess.”

Blake smiled wide, “And I would not expect anything less from you.” he said back, with joy that she would not be his enemy for a bit longer if at all. “That being said, let's go, We should check the treasure room before confronting the boss.” he then turned and started to walk breaking their formation for a second.

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They started up their march, for a while, until they got to the treasure room, finding no guards and according to Claira barely anything of value, before continuing on their walk to the boss room, stopping outside as Claira got the book back out.

“Ok, this boss is called, Illrian the Quick.” She reads out, before reading the book closely, “It says that there is a set of three pillars in the area around the door, and if we stay there the gaps are too small for her to get at us, so we should retreat to there whenever she starts hopping.” And they all nodded before she kept going, “It also says that she has only two abilities, one will allow her to dash at a target of her choice that is a viable target. The second is the one we need to avoid, we will be able to see it coming as she will move to the middle and hop in place five times.”

Blake strokes his chin, “that first one may be an issue, it sounds like something my heavy guard may not keep her from targeting someone else.” he said then thinks over the information. “But if she can’t get between the pillars, then if we get her trapped between them and me it will make this easier.”

The three look at him with a bit of trepidation, and Claira finally sighs, “No, we aren’t doing that, I want to test your theory, so I'll open the battle with my best attack, if it kills the boss then we will know that your theory is right.” She turned and opened the door, “Now let's do this.”

As they walked into the room, the area was a large pentagon with sets of three pillars in the corners, each was about five feet apart and away from the wall, making small triangles of safe area. And in the middle of the room was a large monster about seven feet at the widest, and about twenty feet long, and it looked like a large lizard.

The boss looked up and turned its head over its form looking at them. Its scanned them with cold and calculated eyes like it was studying them. But they all got ready, then glanced to Claira.

Claira raised her staff high and collected her power in the gemstone, the air got colder around her, and whipped her robe around, before opening her eyes and glaring at the boss before leveling her staff, “Come howling winds of the north, cut down my enemies and shudder them from my gaze, freeze and shatter them with my wrath, Great Ice Breath of the Winter King.” She chants, and the growing wind unfurls into an uncountable number of ice shards above her and fires them at the boss.

They all are forced to step back, brace for the force, and shield their eyes as the spell causes an explosion of frost. They all look up and see a mostly frozen and partly shattered boss, and look back at each other, while they relax, before laughing.

“I wonder if the head is intact.” Block said between bellows.

“I hope so too, I don’t want to find all the pieces.” Blake says with a stretch.

“Yeah, this is the strongest spell, and it's not meant to beat a boss, like not really, woops.” Claira says while putting the staff back down.

Jessica seemed stunned then joined in with a giggle. That drew Blake's eye at the gentle display of the break from her hardness after their earlier conversation.

“Ok so, theory proven, loot the treasure room before fighting the boss, will make this easy.” Block said as they all calmed down. “We have like three more hours until sunset I think, so we should be good to keep going for a bit.”

They all nodded and got the head of the boss before going to the stairs, clearing the next five floors without issues until they took a rest to eat and sleep. The following morning the got back into diving deeper, reaching the stairs to the eleventh floor with ease.

During their dive, they went over and bounced ideas for their future plans, Claira’s plan was just to get her sister out, but after a bit of poking and prodding from Jessica and Block, she accepted that it may be better for the nation, and the world if she or her sister take the throne. And they came up with a plan of forming a mercenary company for a few years, then coming back to lead a rebellion.

Block had the idea of forming a subgroup of thieves and scouts to gather information for him on the fall of his house, and Blake pointed out that he should add a few mages and priests so that the common folk and nobles would talk, which Claira said was a good plan.

Jessica’s plan so far was something completely ill-prepared, and they had to spend the greatest amount of time discussing, even taking breaks to reset and talk about other things, but Jessica agreed to the idea of utilizing the team name and mercenary company time to form an all-inclusive healer core, that would go and tend to anyone and everyone while preaching the true word of Geie, and after a bit of poking from Blake, also Jal and Juad.

Blake’s goals were basically all met, so he decided on a different idea, he wanted to attain knowledge and skilled individuals to form an Order that handles the demon lands, that the nations and the adventurer’s guild work through, and that this Order will be made up of people who will be trained to free and undo the curse that the dark lord made.

Finally, they also went over the information they had proven about this, and Block suggested that for now, they shouldn’t tell the guild only teammates they trust, only when the guild recognized them as a mercenary company, then they should tell the guild as a sign of goodwill.

“Wait, our team can become a mercenary company while staying a part of the guild?” Blake asked, a bit confused about how that would work.

Claira looked over, "Well a team of adventurers can have up to six groups, of up to ten people in each, however after that they are normally considered too many to do normal missions or dungeons, so if they want to grow their numbers they either have to go on their own, which means they need to get their own headquarters and find jobs, which usually come down to either escort caravans or hunting into the demons lands, one pays poor and the other is really risky, or they can get recognized by the guild and made into an external task force meant to have high-risk issues, like disaster recovery, monsters stampedes, or dungeon cracks. They get to keep taking jobs to train newbies and they can dispatch groups to do missions they deem usable. They also have the benefit of using the guild's authority to move freely as long as they keep the guild rules." She explained with a smile. "It would serve us well to be recognized as it would give us more opportunities to gain on our numbers, but I am not sure how many we will need to oppose the army, Block?"

Block looked to the ceiling for a second, "if we can get a company made up of A rankers, we will need about three hundred I think, but that is hard as it is considered difficult to reach past rank B" Block said after a second, "I would say add ten more pre a rank downwards."

Blake thought over the information, "getting people to A rank will not be as much of a problem." He said aloud while thinking, then glanced over to them, "oh right, I have a unique skill called trainer, it boosts power gain, i am sure you haven't noticed yet but you three are way stronger than before we started." He said nonchalantly, then smiled, "wait you didn't notice?"

Claira stared at her hand, then looked up to him, "Now that you mention it, last time i casted the Great Ice Breath of the Winter King spell I passed out after, but we took on three more bosses after." She said a bit bewildered.

"True, and then there is this when it comes to me." Block said and held his axe up, Blake and Claira noticed cracks forming along the ax head, like the shaft was trying to smash its way out.

Blake dropped his halberd and took a closer look at his weapon, and saw the cracks on his too, but his were smaller.

"When I think about it, in that last fight I did cast a stronger type of bindings. I normally can't pull a monster down completely but that one was immobile when my spell hit." Jessica added.

Blake nodded along, then thought about it, "hold up i want to check something," he said as he held out his left hand "open rank" and looked over his stats, before dropping his head with a sigh.

Name: Blake Winters. Class: Paladin. Race: human.

Current power rank: 102, current biological age: 25, actual chronological age: 25.

Health points: 325/325, Spell Points: 162/200, Spell Power: 73, Energy points: 100/145

Strength: 76, Dexterity: 56, Constitution: 66,

Intelligence: 47, Wisdom: 42, Charisma: 46,

Trust: 38, Faith: 16, Honor: 7.

Physical Skills: Halberd proficiency(mastery), longsword proficiency(skilled), bow proficiency(trained), heavy armor proficiency(renowned), shield combat proficiency(trained).

Magic Skills: Basic Light Magic, Intermediate Light Magic, Advance Light Magic, Basic Holy Magic, Intermediate holy magic, Advanced Holy Magic, Grand holy magic, magic proficiency(Famed).

Abilities

Energy point abilities: Power Strike, Rend, Shield Slam, Heavy Guard, Devastating Blow, Rebuke, Cleave, Sunder, Blade Wind, Power Lunge, Earth Shatter, Skyward Spike, Tortoiseshell, Wall of iron.

Spell point abilities: Smite, heal, cure conditions, dispel curses, dispel magic, quick recovery, holy blessing, holy ward, holy shield, Hallowed binding, death respite, sun flare, burning smite, greater heal, Solar Forge, Light Prison, Light Weapon, Light Barrier, Angel's Songs, Hallowed bastion.

Unique abilities: Judge’s eye (passive), Trainer (passive).

Blessings: Blessing of the Long Breath, Blessing of Life tongue, Blessing of the Peerless, Blessing of the Indomitable (16%), Divine Emissary (Justice, Honor, Life), Blessing of farewells x 2, Penta-loved.

Titles: Troll Slayer, Daemon of the Forest Moon, Champion of Yari’s Yard.

Current equipment.

Weapons: Long sword, halberd.

Armor: Scale coat, oak shield

"What the fuck. Hey, Claira, what's the level of power you need to be a S rank?" He asked a bit sarcastically.

Claira looked over " um, like over a hundred..." she said back.

Blake gave her a nervous smile as he flipped his palm up and watched her and the others read over his stats and shudder in a deep state of bewilderment, even after he dropped his hand.