Landing gracefully, a click was heard as Arashi was sheathed. Behind Logan, nearly 50 armored orcs with stone clubs were frozen but slowly they each began to collapse.
Logen drew in a deep breath and released. What he had just done was bliz through yet another group of monsters but the number of creatures had been increasing as he had Jin and Storm draw in more groups each time.
This time, there were 50 orcs in a single group and together with Arashi in her katana form, he had removed every head from their neck. Reaching the 3rd cycle had a massive effect on his endurance. Although he was starting to feel it as he was testing his capacity to deal with groups of weaker enemies at once. He felt he would be pushing it after 50 in a group appeared.
It should be said, among them was a War orc. It is a higher evolution generally much stronger and about 20% bigger. Naturally his fat and muscle were denser but it didn’t mean much even if it had been E rank. It was only a basic E rank.
The forging done to him and Olivia had as much of an effect as the first time. Of course his body strength wasn’t D rank or anything like that.
His pure physical might could have been regarded as equal to the war orc he just killed before. Now, if translated into mana development cycles. If it was doubled as Olivia said and he had six cycles to complete F rank, then E rank would have 12. His strength was as if he had 6 cycles of E rank strength.
That is why he was testing his speed. It should be said, he left Olivia to her own troubles in the 20th city, now he was already on the 30th floor. E rank leaders were already common and you would find several in each pack or raid group.
His target for truly testing his power were the true bodies of the monsters used as floor bosses.
In fact, he had claimed the bounty of six such figures already. Helix made it a strange drop but in fact, the solid head of the monster actually dropped to be turned in. In this single run he already cleared six of the 100.
Among them, the weakest was the first to be his test subject but as you would expect from a hobgoblin it was easy even if it manipulated the entire clan of 50 hobgoblins like a well oiled machine. It meant nothing when Logan burst out with speed and chopped its head off.
The second he took out was on the 25th floor and was an alpha lesser Drake, the pack leader of a small pack of lesser drakes. These were all young adolescent or hatchlings and it didn’t have a lot of dragon abilities. The result was the same as the boss Olivia had trouble with. He chopped its head with a single swing when it roared at him.
Then he proceeded to decimate the pack. He was happy because he got a pile of lesser drake scales, an immature dragon heart and young lesser drake bones. From the others, he got some a full meaty tail without the hide and to his utter joy, he got a complete hide from one of the others. It wasn’t from the alpha but it would make great armor.
Storm wanted to eat the tail right there. He said he felt like his blood was boiling for something like that and it was likely to do something to his bloodline.
Logan kept it when he heard that making him frown.
“I don’t need a common drake’s blood contaminating you. I want to see the true form of what a fully developed S rank Crystalback Lightning Lizard will evolve into without the interference of other dragon’s blood mixing in.” Logan said.
When he said that, Storm’s eyes suddenly shined and he felt a sudden pride in his own blood. The temptation vanished instantly because he wanted to see his true limits as well now. In fact, he wanted to see if he could not rise as the progenitor of a completely new breed of thunder dragon.
Logan turned around and already walked towards him, Jin and Jade were running around grabbing the mana stones. After bringing it to him, they turned and began to gather drops.
Orcs generally dropped armor pieces, weapons, orc fangs, feet, ribs, meat and fat. It seemed strange the body parts but they were technically humanoid monster pigs. Honestly no one had a problem with the fat either. Under a tiny bit of cooking, it released a huge amount of fat and oil which is extremely healthy for making food. The price of the kilo was shockingly in tip. 200 Tips for a kilo of 30th floor orc fat. Multiplying by 500 means 100,000 gold coins or 10 gold bars.
It was honestly a huge market for the food industry and the dungeon even exported a lot. Now for the meat, it was a lot more of a picky matter but for the most part, it was just regarded as magical pork ribs. This is only second to young lesser drake ribs as dragon meat is immensely tasty and sought after.
When the two finished cleaning up the battlefield, Jade came over and took out the wand as she began to cast healing magic.
“I’m fine.” He said.
“I saw master huff!” She said firmly. Storm had told her a lot of signs of their master’s fatigue and when he started to actually sigh, huff or take deep breaths it meant his body was starting to stress.
He just smiled and let her magic take effect while taking the magic bag from Jin and storing it.
“Where do we go now?” Storm asked.
“Good question, i feel like I understand my limit for dealing with weaker foes. The problem now is dealing with groups of strong foes.” He said.
“I feel it is too dangerous to aim for any of the stronger floor bosses.” Storm said.
Logan sighed, he wasn’t lying. All the stronger floor boss level enemies were all elite creatures with bodies and mana in the upper levels of E rank and some people who have faced them and gotten away say that it is likely that in a few months or years they will go up a level and get sent to the 41st floor to not break the balance anymore.
Above the 30th floor, the bosses all had E rank groups. From ogres to War Orcs and even wolves, all their leaders were immensely dangerous because they have equally strong groups behind them. Logan could be said to be a loner and he only had Storm as his equal among the spirits. Every one of them had weaker mana and only these two had stronger bodies but one of them was weakened as a result of his mana being weaker while the other was stressed because of the imbalance.
Going up truly was a problem and Logan wasn’t in that great of a hurry to die.
As such, they decided that they would go down again. He pulled out the scroll and from the 30th floor, they were teleported back to the city.
He stretched his body as he felt the tension die down but he still needed to redeem the bounties.
Any creature who is a boss has a big bounty. Even the hobgoblin pack had an amazing bounty of 50 gold bars. The young lesser dragon, 200 gold bars or 2 silver chest keys. It goes without saying that the bounty, in dungeon money, was high priced.
He went to the adventurers guild and asked where to redeem bounties.
“Which bounties are you here to redeem?” the receptionist asked.
“Floor boss bounties.” he said.
She looked surprised and unconsciously felt the magical pressure. She couldn’t feel a strong mana but she could see he was very physically strong so it still made sense. Talented humans could usually reach D rank with physical brute force before mana in some cases, of course, his armor blocked his body but if he removed his armor and shirt what would be revealed was a chiseled body of a young adult.
“Alright, please wait a moment.” she said.
She called someone and an older gentleman came and pulled him to the side of the main line.
“Which floor boss did you successfully kill?” he asked.
Logan reached behind him and put down a magic pouch. The older man looked confused. The rare times that a bounty is redeemed the person usually takes out the head but he touched the bag and scanned the internal and gasped. “Six heads!” he said.
Suddenly there was more attention from the exclamation. No boss is easy and the only people who can hunt in mass are people which have some form of absolute strength over the people and creatures of their own rank. Superior strength, regeneration, mana. Speed was the hardest to pick up on because if Logan did not reveal it himself, no one would notice but people who had super strength generally showed that with their massive builds.
The next moment the old man drew out the weakest and was the head of the hobgoblin but he jumped over the counter and the next moment, everyone watched the huge head of the young lesser drake that was no smaller than Storm come out. Following that was the head of a variant black furred minotaur, the head and neck of a young lesser basilisk, the head of an owl like creature but it was massive, this was called an owlbear, it was a huge winged owl with the build of a full bear but the strength of an ogre and speed of a bird of prey.
The final head was from the 28th floor, the head of a young lesser wyvern. Among the dragons, wyvern are more annoying to hunt compared to drakes because they are born flyers and they hunt like birds of prey. They are also more prone to escaping to call backup so killing it had to take one attack or it would have brought more problems than it was worth.
It was the only time he had pushed his speed to the limit and had used his sword skills to instantly chop the head. He had collapsed breathing hard and spit some blood during the healing after that.
Everyone was shocked as they saw a few massive heads. The higher a person’s rank the more likely they won’t be in this city, only the staff members were higher rank, most of the rest were F or E rank adventurers. This was a shocking display.
“Can you please calculate the winnings?” He asked.
“Ah! Yes sir.” the old gentleman said as he confirmed the bounties and presented each of them.
“The bounties are as follows, Hobgoblin Hyrim, 50 gold bars or two iron keys. Young alpha lesser drake, 200 gold bars or 2 silver keys or any lower grade, Black minotaur variant, 400 gold bars or 4 silver keys or any of the lower grades in proper number, the young basilisk, 1 gold key because of it’s danger, the owlbear, 500 gold bar and finally a young alpha lesser wyvern, 1,000 gold or a gold key.” he said in a low tone.
“The hobgoblin I will take in money, the rest I will take in keys.” he said.
He nodded and took the head and bounty to a magical platform before putting the specific reward. Both of them were covered in lights and formed gold bars.
After that he took one head at a time and it was converted into the number of keys but he left the keys on the platform. The first two keys were loose but when the minotaur was charged, a key ring formed to hold it all. When the last two keys were cashed in for the two gold keys, the key chain was complete with 6 silver and 2 gold keys while he stored 550 gold bars.
It was no wonder they say successful and powerful adventurers had few financial problems, going into any areas to hunt will always bring in great amounts of money. That amount of gold would equal 11,000 Tips outside. It was a good sum of money for Logan.
He took the key chain with a smile and walked out.
Next to him, Jin vanished and Storm took his smallest size before he picked up Jade and walked out.
Before the doors even closed, a few people moved to leave and getting out, they instantly started to run to the redeeming center.
Of course, with that much riches, Logan was not stupid and instantly burst out with Lion’s Step and Lightning Clad.
He weaved through the crowd and part way, Storm began to channel healing lightning and Jade used healing magic. Finally Arashi released its own healing energies to sustain his speed until he reached the door while huffing a bit.
With Jade in his arms he walked in and looked for an employee and asked for a private room and just barely flashed the keys making her shocked by the number.
As he entered the room, he could hear a ruckus as dozens of people walked in but he just smiled and closed the door behind him.
“Hey, what happens to people causing trouble?” He asked.
“You mean that noisy bunch?” she asked.
She took a moment before something clicked in her mind, “Please proceed, i shall return in a moment.” She said.
He nodded with a smile and let her leave before tossing the key chain into the platform.
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The intensity of the mana drawn was even more intense from the first time. Six beautiful silver chests and two golden chests appeared.
Even if he got the lowest prizes, he would be getting a few hundred in gold bars. It was a gamble of course and he knew that Helix would not do the same thing he did as before. That time was clearly special so he walked up to the first silver chest.
A shiny light rushed out before exposing the reward. Inside was a pair of tiny golden hammer that barely fit in his hand. It was almost like a baby toy but without his call, Jin appeared and with sparkling eyes, he stuck his hands and small sparks came and those two tiny hammers flew out and each into one hand.
He laughed and instantly his rings spun and circled him.
Mana channeled in and the hammers grew to his hand size as he struck down.
Storm instantly erupted with sparks.
“Stop!” he shouted.
Before he did though, the little spirit began to drum fast like the rumbling of thunder causing Storm to have to mobilize his mana intensely to control it and glare at him.
Finally he lost his patience and jumped at him and smashed him right on the head of the distracted spirit and shot him all the way to the wall.
He hit and bounced off but got up and shook his head and growled.
“Jin, stop playing that.” Logan said, feeling a headache as Arashi’s lightning energy was going a bit crazy.
Jin pouted before vanishing but shockingly, the hammers followed him.
“Huh?! He exclaimed and called him out and asked to see the hammers.
Logan took one but as he tried to lift he groaned and tried even harder before frowning and letting go while activating some identification magic.
It actually bounced off and he went progressively stronger until it neared his current trained limit when he finally got a name, “Spirit hammers. I see.” He muttered and rubbed his head.
“So these are kind of like equipment for spiritual beings. I should keep that in mind, there might be armor as well.” he said and looked into the box again.
As you would expect from something so rare, the empty box clearly showed the value of the item. That or it was low value, of course, the value of an item was dependent on the conditions. It was utterly useless to those without something like Jin.
He stored the box and opened the next one. It was a partial dud but the box released 800 gold bars, the lowest for a silver chest is 50 so it wasn’t a total loss.
The third silver box was a true dud with 50 gold bars. The fourth box finally had a different item, it was a very strange object and only a single item at that. The item was a crystal glass orb and inside was a barren grassy piece of land.
He took it and turned it but amazingly the piece of land remained facing down. It was clear that it was some kind of magical item so he tried injecting mana and as he expected, it reacted by starting to bend the space in front of him, while draining a lot of mana, and trying to open a doorway.
He stopped and knew it was likely some kind of special land item. The interior was not as small as it looked and could possibly have lived inside.
If it did then it was an amazing item for sure.
“The items of this chest draw are truly strange.” Storm said.
“Yeah, from spirit items to a possible portable island.” Logan said.
There was a small instruction pamphlet which simply explained the least exhausting way to activate it so that it doesn’t waste as much mana.
It required a door frame to act as a medium. If not, the doorway formed with leaks. There were no great blueprints for some magical doorway. Of course, it noted that items that channeled mana better are better as they reduce costs with better efficiency.
That was about it.
When the sixth one appeared, he smiled as weapons appeared. With a red metal tip and a black wooden shaft with red engraved metal along its length and releasing a strong presence of fire. A magic spear hovered over the chest. He took it carefully.
He calmly channeled mana into the wood but had to move his hand along the body until he found two entrances which is the location that hands normally hold spears when using low stances.
The mana channeled in and he could tell it was an undeveloped magic weapon but that much was obvious. Even Jade’s equipment was undeveloped but she was personally developing it already.
He put it away in a magic pouch first before he figured out how to have Arashi assimilate that and then spend some time opening the channels.
Storing all the silver chests, all that was left were the gold ones.
He opened the first and he was surprised instantly because what floated there was the same as before, weapons. This time there were actually two at once. The one on the left was a longsword and shield combo. The sword sheathed into the shield forming a clear combo however it wasn’t so long that it couldn’t be used with a second sword. The other was a red long sword that looked to have been made of rocks and forged to have an edge. The crack lines of the rocks glowed with a brown light showing the magical energy inside.
He took first the sword and shield and from the handle he spread the mana and surprisingly, when in the sheath, the mana spread through the shield as well.
The entrance of mana for the shield was through the area his arm was touching and holding the shield and channelling through it caused the small round shield to suddenly transform into a kite shield making it far more imposing.
He also had control of its position, the reason being that it was the sword’s sheath and so, in a sense, would make Arashi’s sheath become that.
He had Storm punch it in its full Kite shield form and mana shined brightly as soon as the hit connected instantly deflecting a lot of the power. It was a strong magical defense. He tried magic with Storm’s lightning ball and surprisingly, it encased the orb and shot it back without exploding it and storm dodged and it exploded against the cloak.
“Magic deflection!” Logan said. “Definitely worthy of being in the gold chest.” he said. He then tried the stone sword.
He took a few swings and felt it was very heavy for a sword. It felt twice as heavy as Arashi when she didn’t have her true form changing ability.
He channeled mana and the brown glow in the cracks began to shine and he was shocked as suddenly the cracks split and spread and the mana formed blade and all which connected and channeled through all the pieces.
He blinked in shock and frowned as he felt the flow. “This sword seems almost incomplete. This is a great heavy sword, it is supposed to be like a monster chopper almost but the mana flow is unstable and undeveloped as if it is missing half of the body. This clearly is a finished magic sword but because of the magical flow, it is unreliable until it is fully opened.” He said. Still he swung at Storm with the blunt side but not hard but it still pushed him about a meter back after he blocked it.
He groaned, “It is extremely heavy.” he said and Jade sent healing magic in case someone got hurt.
He stored both and the gold chest before finally opening the last one. Was also a weapon but it was the most surprising.
Looking like a full leather gauntlet, a pair of magic crystal paw gauntlets rose up out of the chest followed by a yellow spear that emitted lightning energy.
“These claws?” he muttered.
Logan took them but they were clearly big for him but he just looked at Storm and knew what kind of weapons they were and so did he.
He walked over and after learning how to open the bindings which magically retracted into the main glove, storm put it and and his claws and paw fit snug while the bindings wrapped around his arm.
He channeled mana and instantly the crystals began to shine a green and emit a lot of lightning.
“It truly is dragon claw gauntlets, however, like master’s weapons, they are quite undeveloped.” he said.
“Even if they are great, they still are only so good for the 20th floor city.” he said.
These were clearly weapons that low or mid ranked adventures could use but could not survive the high rankings. Furthermore, not a single one was developed and would take time to open up. He hoped there was a passive method or if Arashi could do it herself.
The last weapon was the spear of thunder and he was heavily attracted to it. He had not seen a pure weapon of lightning magic besides Arashi herself. He took it and instantly felt the sting. This was a wild weapon but the sting was just that and just feeding Arashi hurt more. After the initial shock, it stopped hurting despite it still discharging.
He found the openings and channeled mana into it. Like the others, the discharge is caused by undeveloped mana channels and was the natural mana that couldn’t pass areas causing discharges.
He finally stored the last items and the barrier vanished and he walked out.
He was shocked when he found many people clearing the way near the door and many powerful guards beating up on groups of adventurers. Some of them looked so serious that they might already be dead.
Logan closed the door and walked into the crowd, “What is happening?” he asked.
“A group of people came claiming someone stole some high grade keys but the rules of the hall is that the one who claims it is the owner. They tried to force it so the security came out. It would have ended but it seems greed got the better of them and this is the result.” the man said without looking back.
Logan agreed with this result. Greed might work out in the wild or in the dungeon where there is no protection but that didn’t mean it worked inside dungeon establishments. People who work here were much stronger than the adventures who were based in this city.
It was a gruesome process but it ended soon after he exited and those left on the ground were picked up and the maids came to clean the damage and mess while asking that those present please excuse the mess and allow them a few minutes to fix it up before returning to functioning order.
Logan took this time to leave and return back to the inn.
He ordered dinner for them while Olivia joined them but was very depressed. She had decided to make a new generation of Golden Lion mercenaries but didn’t even know where to start.
“Just call Maxwell. He knows all the rules and regulations that need to be followed or maybe as Helix in private if he has an ancient rulebook of the knights order.” He said.
She thought for a moment and agreed with that idea. She decided that Maxwell was better since it wasn’t a knight’s order.
They finished and entered their respective rooms and he sat down and drew Arashi. He entered in contact with her and began to examine the armory. It was a slow process because it was like an innate skill. They had to try several things until he felt some strange feelings during one time.
He drew the flame spear and activated that feeling while holding Arashi, golden light flooded out and surrounded the spear before it broke down and was sucked up.
His eyes still closed, he was pulled in and as his body formed, the golden lights gathered and formed the spear.
The armory was already opened and he began to look. Arashi pointed to some racks that held spears each separate from one another in a beautiful display. He looked at it all and soon found images representing different elements. He placed it in the one that represented fire magic and instantly that segment began to shine. Arashi’s mana began to flow through it and change it.
“Is your mana developing it?” He suddenly asked.
She nodded happily and intents began to appear from her.
He could soon understand what she wanted to say, her mana came from eating all elements and absorbing natural mana. What was important for her was not pure mana but it was her mana channels being opened. All her weapons would slowly develop as time went on until they matched the development of her base form and each would feed back to her.
The flame spear would give a slight boost to her base form’s fire magic techniques but using it directly would drastically improve it as long as the mana channels were properly opened to her degree.
Of course, he could actively open them himself that would speed up the process but he didn’t have to as it would cut into his own training time.
He sighed when he heard that and began to absorb all the swords.
The sword and shield were surprisingly separate from the lone swords because it was a fighting style of it’s own.
The one that was most well received was the thunder spear. When the lightning connected, instantly the realm rumbled once more and the most abundant elemental energy she possessed was drawn in.
“Right, so that means I can draw in all kinds of natural forces and they instantly feed back to the weapons of their element.” he said.
He could clearly see as the yellow sparks came out of the spear, purple and green ones came from the stand into the spear itself clearly having the greatest source of energy to develop.
He honestly didn’t know what to do about the wild forces required but he knew at the very least he needed to figure out the harder ones like fire and ice. In fact, earth felt like the strangest as it clearly was all over but he never felt earth mana. There had to be unique places with specific types of mana.
“After everything is said and done, the biggest concern is my capability of reaching these places.” He said. From the time he was talking about Weifang to receiving the bolt for Arashi the first time. It all stemmed from one requirement and that was the strength to handle everything.
At the very least, Helix did not have every type of mana he needed for this. In a sense, he would need to go to specific dungeons such as underwater ruins, desert dungeons where earth and maybe wind would be present and maybe even volcanoes.
“Is master thinking of closing up again?” Storm asked.
“The final three layers I supposedly require will probably get harder and harder. We have ogre horns and I feel that I might personally eat one just to get large quantities of mana to try and go faster but I know better. Still, I really do need to reach E rank quickly.” he said.
“Master does not have much financial problems anymore with all the gold. Even if you go into the wilds around the floor you will still have this great quantity of mana.” he said.
That was true but he has found that the quantities were starting to lack a bit. It could support his needs for sure but he had that very vague feeling that the quantity was starting to be unable to support his needs. It was just an illusion of his head though, it is mainly due to the fact that he had been exposed to so much mana recently from forging and training his channels. Even a D rank could train in the 20th floor city much less the 40th floor.
He went to Olivia’s room and asked her plans.
“I’m honestly thinking about studying up on the rules of the mercenary guild, ask father about the rules of the golden lions and probably start picking up members even if that means taking orphans.” She said.
“If that is what you are going to do then I am going to close up to fully reach E rank before I leave Helix.” he said.
“Leave Helix? What about higher floors?” Olivia asked.
“I could do one final run to the 40th floor to reduce my troubles later on but that doesn’t change that it is getting boring the repetition. By E rank, Jade will likely be a hobgoblin and I want to visit Mortis Desert where the saint paladin of the Water god made his city. Helix suggested this to obtain holy water for Jade.” he said.
“Oh…” She said, a bit sad.
“Did you want something?” he asked.
“Well, i was hoping you would become the vice leader and work together with me to rebuild the order?” She asked.
“That isn’t my path. Maybe in the future but you know my goals best. I need strength but i also want to explore the world and live a life worth living to reach my goal of saving any of my family or die trying.” He said.
She became sad when she heard that, “Try not to die. Running from dangers instead of fighting everything is also living life. Throwing life away is stupid so promise that you will be careful when you travel outside.” She said.
“I’m always careful. I’m more worried about you stumbling into some high ranking monster’s nest instead. Your sense of direction and ability with tracking is about as good as a blind man in the forest and a deaf man trying to listen for clues.” He said.
“I’m not that bad!” She shouted, “I’ve gotten better.”
“Fine, a color blind man in a forest and an old grandpa with hearing problems then.” He joked.
She instantly jumped and kicked his shin.
He winced instantly at her sharp kick and while he hopped in pain she kicked his other leg out from under him.
“Hmph, that is for making fun of me.” She said and took a step to the door but as she was stepping down, Logan’s arm shot out and pulled the back leg and she fell forward barely saving herself.
She instantly glared and they began another sibling fight but thankfully it didn’t end in property damage.