The final enemies of the sixth floor seemed simple in theory. We were only facing two of the Turtles, after all.

If we could deal with the single foes with ease, then surely facing two would only require a little more effort to subjugate. The truth of the matter was a lot more complicated.

The various pools around the two beasts allowed them to slip in and around the delvers with ease. We wouldn't be able to keep up with them underwater.

With their incredible speed, they were able to move from one pool to another, their shells striking us as they danced around.

The strikes didn't do much damage.

The circle of Leader, Striker, and Yerin around Scout and I was more than enough to block the majority of the damage they could have wrought.

They would eventually tire, allowing us to strike then, but I wasn't really in the mood to wait for the turtles to finish their little dance. I was itching to practice with my mage hand. Giving it extra strength now that I could was genuinely great.

Judging the pattern of the turtles was also very straightforward. They didn't have the intelligence for more advanced tactics, so It was a simple waiting game until they returned to their original pattern allowing me to strike.

It only took a few seconds of stomaching the blows before they came out of an expected pool.

With a large amount of mental effort, I sent the two hands flying to intercept the beasts. Grabbing on to their shells, their momentum was near overwhelming. It took an enormous flare of mana to keep them in position.

Yet keep them there was what I did. They unfurled from their nigh-indestructible shell attack form, returning to their normal far more vulnerable appearance.

With that and the mage hands still holding onto the creatures, they were easy pickings for the rest of the Silver Bees. Quickly splitting, they hit the weak spots of the animals with deadly efficiency. The strain was higher than I was expecting to catch the two creatures.

Realizing them nearly sent me reeling. The change of concentration was abrupt, to say the least. That allowed them to return to their natural form within the Dungeon.

The single chest that rose out of the ground was interesting to look at. Like the turtles, it was a great shell encompassing the treasure. These new themed chests were really something. Open them up revealed some lackluster loot.

A simple defensive token that was a step up from the one I had received was all the treasure that was on hand. We all decided that we would sell it when we returned and split the profits appropriately.

That decided, we all proceeded down towards the seventh floor. This one shouldn't cause too many difficulties either. It was similar to the boss battle on the sixth floor.

Nearly all the cave pockets were a combination of multiple pools of water and two turtles. Of course, the first few caves had far fewer water pockets than the boss battle, so their movements were even more predictable. As such, there was no need for me to get involved at all with the fight.

They were knocked away from the pools with ease returning them to their slow speed. In which case, they were easy pickings for the well-equipped team.

I was once again reminded of my luck with choosing this team to delve with. Even any regular team I had chosen wouldn't have had the strength to rip through the Turtles' weak spots like the Silver Bees. Their sting was truly excellent.

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Of course, I wouldn't have delved this far with an average team anyway, so it was pretty much a moot point.

The cave pockets continued in that fashion; soon, we faced the turtles surrounded by far more water than had been around on the sixth floor.

When it came to that, I began to step in more and more, causing our pace to slow down considerably. It wasn't an easy feat to slow down the speeding turtles in such a manner. As such, I had to expend quite a bit of mana to get them back to the ground.

There were far more efficient ways to take down the turtles, of course, but I didn't want to reveal too much about myself. I wanted to leave a good impression of a talented yet elementally inept young mage that would be an aid to bring along when facing the 27th floor. He was a graduate of Forpus, after all.

That would hopefully be their thought process in a few years. I would doubt it would be so easy. Still, as long as I built up a reputation of being both an upstanding citizen with being a powerful mage.

Then it would be relatively easy to join their ranks a few weeks before the discovery. Plus, it would be far less suspicious with this earlier connection than if I were to participate out of the blue.

I astounded even myself with my genius sometimes.

I was broken out of my musings as we reached our next big enemy of the Delve. The seventh floor's boss was very different from any of the bosses that came before, as it was an entirely different creature.

The Elder Crab was the first crab type to appear in the Dungeon.

The introduction of the Crab created new foes on the eighth floor. This became far more common in the later floors as the Dungeon created entire fake ecosystems. This was just the first attempt at such a thing.

The Elder Crab also wouldn't be too difficult to deal with. While it was fast, and its claws could do quite a bit of damage. Its carapace was nowhere near as strong as the Turtles armor, making it easy to pierce with the group's superior weapons. Thus the battle was a foregone conclusion.

That didn't stop the Crab from putting up quite the fight. It had near-boundless health, so it shrugged off all but the most debilitating blows.

Its defense wasn't enough for it to be unhurt from my attacks as well. So with a constant barrage from me taking up all of its attention, the others could just follow and deal blows at their leisure. Of course, it tried to swing around to take them out whenever they struck a heavy blow.

With Yerins defense ability taken into the mix as well, the Crab had no chance to retaliate.

Yet I wasn't so unskilled that I couldn't judge the attacks' timing, making it turn its attention back to me whenever it tried to break through his defense. Of course, I kept moving around the room, avoiding the pools and the sand that was beginning to appear in the cave.

Leading the creature around, it wasn't long before Striker could deal a deathblow.

With that, the Elder Crab let loose a final shriek before succumbing to its death. It would have been a lot harder for them without me, but I had no doubt they would have been able to do it.

Their confidence moving around the Crab had come from facing it more than a few times, I wasn't sure how long they had been stuck on the seventh floor, but I was pretty sure it had been for quite some time. I was happy to help in that case.

I wasn't sure how it would help them that much. They were going to be stuck on the eighth floor just as much in the future. With their team makeup, they couldn't do much to the boss anyway, but I was more than happy to participate. More experience for me, after all.

The chest was undefended. The Dungeon decided to be nice for this battle. Less so with the loot, so we only collected the few silver that it left and a health potion, which was always handy to have around.

Somewhat happy with our spoils, we went down the stairs to the eighth floor—our last stop for the day. I was a little excited to face the various creatures down here. I had never been in a real dungeon ecosystem.

While this was the most rudimentary one around, it was still something I had never had the chance to experience in the past. That, in itself, made the journey more than worthwhile.

The eighth floor was far more open than the others had been. While it was still under a cave, it snaked around in a tight route that circled around so that the floor to the next level was nearly beside us. Only that it was through some near-indestructible dungeon stone.

The beach of the cave was cool to see. While stone still hugged the left side of the cave, the vast majority of the land was sand and water.

Making ambushes from either a Giant Crab or a Turtleloid the main form of attack as we made our way through. It would be a challenging path to get to the boss of the beach cave.

With a nod from Leader, we began on the treacherous broken path around the cave.