"Shh! Can you hear the people talking there?"

"I do and it looks like the sound is coming from the direction of the dungeon. If they are going towards the dungeon then we should warn them of the dangers inside," said Jasmine as she stood from where she sat, following her everyone else also stood and headed towards the voice after exchanging a nod of agreement with each other.

They walked towards the dungeon where the sound was coming from. They came across two people casually strolling towards the dungeon, the two people were clad in silvery glittering full-body armour to protect their body. It seemed like they just arrived in the vicinity of the dungeon and their intentions were unknown but none of them were cautious.

The group rushed towards them and blocked their path. Both of the people were wearing helmets so they couldn't see any recognizable features on them but from their voices, they were inferred to be in their late 20s or early thirties.

Suddenly watching four teens walk out of the bushes startled them a bit but they were probably relieved to find out it was just some humans. And elves.

"Hey Kids, what are you doing here? This a very dangerous area to wander off. The goblin cave is just there, you lot should be a lot more careful," The tall guy on the left said with a very flat voice as if he couldn't care less even though his words were one with concern.

"We are students from Caladric Academy, we were here to raid the dungeon but it didn't go as we planned," Darrick filled in on what they were doing here.

"You are not supposed to go inside, the guards should have... Ah! The dungeon is flooded with the overpopulation of the goblins so the general public is not allowed but guards are also afraid to stay here so you guys were able to just walk in. It's a miracle that you guys are safe after entering. So anything unusual inside or just goblins?" The other man asked as he was a bit interested after hearing they entered the dungeon.

"Nothing new I think. We went inside, killed two goblins in the first room then killed six in the next room but before entering the second room we had laid some traps in the tunnel. The fight in the second room barely ended when tons of goblins rushed and we ran as we activated the tunnel traps. It's a mess in there." Darrick answered before anyone else could answer the question.

"It's good that nothing happened to you guys. If you killed some goblins with the trap then that just makes work less for us, we are sent to cull the big portion of the goblin population to maintain the dungeon." The armoured man said as they stepped past Darrick's group, Darrick said,

"How long would it take to do the cleanup?"

"According to authorities it should take a week but with how fast the goblins are multiplying it would take a lot more time. We have been on it for three days and cleared up to four rooms but they are filling back up again and again. We have to get going now, be careful while returning." said the guy as he kept walking.

"You too, be careful in the dungeon." He waved and left the scene with the group.

***

The group was in a fancy restaurant for dinner. After that insanity of a dungeon, they returned as quickly as possible. They weren't raiding the dungeon for long but walking there, fighting and resting inside, escaping, recovering and walking back took a long time.

They had planned to get a carriage while returning but couldn't find any at the edge of the slums so they had to walk again. When they reached Caladric it was already late as it was dark outside so everyone decided to get dinner after freshening up.

And now they were sitting in a private room waiting for the food they ordered to arrive. Darrick was resting with his head on the table, there was no one here to give him a piercing gaze for his lack of manners so he was relaxing however he wanted.

"Darrick, I was meaning to ask, why did you lie to those two mages? I have a guess of why you did that but I want to confirm it." Leon asked as he took a sip of water from the glass. Besides him, Jasmine was still scouring through the menu to order something more and Jasper was just sitting there staring out of the window.

"It's a very daring thing to suspect but I'll talk about it at the end of dinner. For now, we should review how horrible our adventure and the fight was."

Jasmine chimed in agreeing to the statement, "I was waiting for someone to talk about it since we came here, thankfully we started that discussion."

"We had to settle in after all that happened. We were exhausted and hungry so ordering naturally comes first and now we can talk while waiting for it."

Darrick nodded to what Leon said as if it was true. None of them were in the right mind to discuss about anything before but now they were in way better shape and prepared to take criticism for their actions. Leon took the lead in the conversation as he initiated the first question.

"What was our first and biggest mistake?"

"Preparations."

"I wholeheartedly agree. Not doing enough research about what we are getting into and not having enough tools ready to safely escape was the biggest mistake I can think of immediately." Jasmine agreed with Jaspers's comment as she expanded on it.

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"We didn't even know the dungeons were closed, we just blindly rushed in like it was a playground."

"I'm sorry for that. I should have done extensive research on it and brought factual info rather than unreliable things."

Darrick was about to agree with what Leon said about how it was all his mistake but stopped when he heard what Jasmine said.

"No! We can't blame you for that. We are all responsible for it, we never assigned a role to anyone but you still did it anyway. In the future, we should plan the raids and assign each other roles."

Woah! Almost blamed the guy openly. Can't do that and what Jasmine said also sounds logical.

"Yeah, I was short on time but next time I won't be like this with the information. I'll take on that role in the future. Jasmine and Jasper can worry about our equipment and necessity, Darrick and I can carry them after Darrick inspects them."

"Why am I an inspector? I never did that kind of thing."

"If you didn't then you can do it now. Overall you were the most level-headed person when we were inside the dungeon. I couldn't even believe you were so calm, it's not like you have some unique advantages like us. That's not what I expected from the guy entering the dungeon for the first time." Leon said.

"I didn't expect that either. I was sure I would freak out when I saw the goblins splattering in pieces in the second room but I was still so calm. It's like something was suppressing my emotions. Anyway, what about you guys? I'm sure you weren't scared when we were running out of the dungeon. Why is that?" Darrick asked raising an eyebrow.

"That was our second mistake. As Leon said we have some.. things specially for these kinds of things and also we three were never in danger, only you were. Leon, Jasper and I are from the great clans remember? We have very strong protection spells on us, some strong artifacts protecting us from different kinds of life-threatening attacks and we can revive."

"Huh?" Darrick's mouth was wide agape with the revelation. It was one thing to live for a long time and it was totally something else to revive even after death. Jasmine didn't even factor in his question as she continued.

"Yeah, we forgot about your circumstances. We also take damage and such but we can't really die from the goblins but you on the other hand, you're not like us so sorry about that."

They are fixated on different things when I'm curious about the revival thing and now I can't even ask, it would be so awkward. The conversation is moving very fast.

"Uh... Yeah. It's okay, I guess?" Darrick answered still unsure of how to respond.

"Then what else? I think we should have consolidated our Tier 2 energy. We couldn't employ any of the Tier 2 firepower there. It would have been a lot easier but now that we are officially Tier 2 we can upgrade the sigil." Leon said to Jasmine and Jasper as they were the ones who were Tier 2.

"Why are guys only Tier 2?" Darrick asked bluntly. When others turned towards him he hurried to explain himself.

"What I meant is you three are from the Great clans so shouldn't you have some things that let you grow stronger far faster?"

"We do have those things but why would we use those when we are this young?" Jasmine asked with a confused voice but Leon who understood what Darrick meant intervened in the conversation.

"The members of the great clans live for over thousands of years so even if we start our path of power slowly we are bound to get very strong eventually just because of our talent and resources available to us. This early age is meant to play around a lot according to our ancestors who are still alive."

"So you do all this just casually to have some fun? Hmm.. Well, that's understandable if you live for so long." Darrick nodded sagely. Only then did he realize that their perspective was never on the same level from the start.

"Basically you can grow to a certain level even without grueling hard work but then you have to work for it like everyone else. Since you can reach the level that takes a century in a decade or less, you are always ahead of most in the line but go slow for refining your skill."

"That's one of the best summaries I've heard but let's just leave that topic aside and focus on where we were for now. That is Tier 2" Leon continued as he pointed towards Darrick and said,

"You are also at the brink of breaking through to Tier 2. You only need to convert all your Tier 1 mana into Tier 2 and our team will be set to fight the most dungeons here."

"Wait, I'm on the verge of Tier 1? How did that happen? I didn't even have my sigil for more than a week and am already advancing. Is there anything wrong and how do you know that?" Darrick asked in a single breath but others weren't taken aback by the behavior.

"Yes. I don't know. Maybe fighting was your true call all this time and only now have you arrived at your natural habitat. I think you have a great connection with the sigil as it responds to you so smoothly even without the chanting. There is nothing noticeably wrong with you and for the last question, I can see a lot of things like flow and burden with few other things so I just guessed it"

"He uses untamed essence as his power source, the untamed essence is pretty dangerous for us but apparently not for Darrick. They have a very high chance of detonation so nobody uses that but Darrick here is absorbing them like it's a refined mana source." Jasper answered Darrick's second question which Leon was uncertain of.

"Uh.. What's untamed essence?"

*Is that what I think it is? There is no other thing I can think of right now that can connect the dots so well. Haha! It is the experience point. Or maybe it's not?*

Darrick was almost convinced it was the experience point when he remembered the last four of his levels didn't happen when he was killing the monsters but when he created an artifact. It was a topic of contemplation at a later date, not now.

"Every being has an essence, some strong and some weak. They are the cluster of life force. The essence maintains the body by managing the life force but most of the time there is always a bit of free essence which does not do any work and they are dubbed as untamed essence."

"Whatever the things you are telling me sounds so important and you are revealing it to me casually. Do you guys trust me so much? We didn't know each other for more than one week."

Jasmine's gaze as she squinted towards Darrick looked like it didn't know what nonsense he was talking about. In contrast, Jasper just nodded, with no mention of what and why, just a nod out of nowhere without any further context. Then Leon talked.

"We are friends and you look trustworthy so why even bother too much with hiding things in our casual talks? I think those two do the same too."

"If you say so." Darrick shrugged in response and continued, "Now, is there anything else we need to discuss about our dungeon raid?"

"We should discuss more about our preparations but before that, I'm more interested in the fact that you lied to those mages. I'm really curious about that, here Leon has already guessed something about what is your reasoning and Jasper has his own thoughts he doesn't speak out but I want to know from you what it is now if I can."

"If you don't want to wait till the dinner ends then all right. I'll talk about it now." Darrick leaned forward in his chair as he said,

"Astoria is in grave danger and those guys are responsible for it!"