The army was marching towards Bonpei. Following the main force with Blue and Alex as commanders of the army. Hera had left with the scouts to check for traps on the way. She was about a quarter of the way to the first checkpoint when Ooze noticed something on the ground. There seemed to be a patch of dirt on the road that had a slight discoloration compared to the surrounding area. Hera signaled for the rest of the scouts to stop and walked forward to this area that could be a trap. It was good that they still weren't in sight of the checkpoint. They would have to make a turn in the road down before even seeing the structures. Because of that, they would be able to inspect the area without having to worry about sneak attacks or revealing their position to the people of Bonpei.

Hera walked over to the apparent trap and used her pulse spell to try to understand what was going on. The mana penetrated through the soil in a very unique way. Most of the area was solid. It was like she was trying to pass through a wall. However, when the mana passed through the discolored ground, it felt like Hera was looking through some bed sheets. It hindered her ability to see beyond it somewhat, but it was nowhere near like it was in the areas where it was solid ground. Not wanting to get hurt, she told Brute to try to poke at a trap after she moved away from any possible blast area. It didn't take long for the blade to scrape off some dirt and review what was under it. When that happened, Hera told the rest of her blades to help them so that she could see what the entire trap actually was.

By the looks of it, the trap was a bit of a mix. It had the magic circle to activate some effect, and another long stretch of ground was just dug up. She tried to understand the magic circle itself, but only the trigger was visible, the rest of the spell circle was hidden from sight. Turning back to the scouts, Hera warned them that she would try to trigger the trap and told them to all move back. With a nod, the captain moved backward, bringing the scouts along so that Hera could activate the trap without anyone being in danger. Anyone but Brute. Hera told her blade to touch the magic circle and even used her court conga-line to be far enough away from the trap not to be hurt by anything.

To her surprise, the trap wasn't an explosion. It wasn't a burst of stone coming from the ground or something that could wrap the army and hold them in place. Instead, the spell circle simply created water and filled the pit with it. Hera frowned and looked over to the captain, calling him over.

"Do you know why the people of Bonpei would make a trap like this?" Hera asked.

The captain chuckled, " I believe those stupid beings think that we are vulnerable to water. I suppose this is something that people could assume, but it's much farther from the truth than they could possibly imagine."

"Does that mean that water makes you stronger?"

"Stronger, no. But increases our defense by a lot. Water turns our fire into igneous rock. A trap like this would only make our frontline much harder to kill even if they lose some of their mobility."

Hera stopped for a moment, just staring at the captain, "Why did none of you tell us that sooner? Information like this could really change our strategy. Is there anything else we should know about? If we throw fire at you, will you get stronger?"

"Not really. Our fire is our own, and adding more won't change things. But if you are considering creating a strengthening effect, we need something that could fuel our fire."

"Fuel? Would something like this work?" Hera used her poison spray to create a small pool of poison beside her.

The captain touched the orange poison, which was quickly engulfed in flames. The flame humanoids stop to ponder for a moment before replying, "Yes. If we drink this, I believe our powers might be strengthened. But since this is poison, it will also hurt us, and in the long run, I believe it will kill us."

"How much stronger do you think you will be if you drink, let's say, a glass of this?"

The captain stared at the flaming puddle on the ground, "Considering how long this is taking to burn, a full glass with 200 ml should be enough to increase our power by 10% for five minutes. However, we will require healing or a way to remove the poison after the effects are over. We would also be much more vulnerable to damage during the effects."

"That sounds like too little. How much poison do you think someone would have to drink for them to become considerably more powerful?"

"I believe that if someone drank a full liter of this poison, their strength would be doubled for around 2 minutes. But doing so would be a death sentence. The reason it would only last for two minutes is not because the poison would only burn for that time, but because your poison would kill them before reaching the 3-minute mark."

Hera listened to the explanation while thinking about different options. She did not like the idea of making the army more vulnerable to damage, and allowing them to double their strength for just a few minutes didn't seem the best idea if that would mean they would be losing troops in the process. While she was considering her options, Lurize sent her a message.

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'Control your poison. Make it remove pain.'

"Oh, that's an idea," Hera created another puddle of poison. This time, she used her poison control spell to change how the poison would act. She removed almost all dangerous aspects of it and changed the main effect of the toxin to remove one's sense of pain. Unfortunately, there had to be some negative effects. Her spell wouldn't allow her to make the poison completely harmless. When the spell had changed the poison completely, she turned back to the captain, "What about this one?"

The captain tested this new poison, and after a moment, his demeanor changed. Since these fire people had very unique ways to express themselves, Hera wasn't able to discern which emotion the captain was feeling, but her best guess was surprised, or maybe alarmed, " This one should increase our abilities by around 40% with a single cup, and I don't think you would have any significant negative effects. Well... They will still receive the effects of the poison itself, meaning they won't feel pain, which is a problem when we fight in a war. If people don't feel pain, they don't know how injured they are and can't tell when it's time to defend or retreat."

With that new information, Hera called Alex through the communicator and explained her idea. There was a quick discussion and questions about water bottles or other containers that could hold large quantities of liquid. Eventually, it was decided that they would have at least one barrel of what was being called booster juice by Blue, as long as Hera was able to fill it up with her specific brand of poison.

Doing so took around half an hour. The army stopped moving and waited for Hera to fill up the keg with poison. That took about 30 thousand mana, but since this was supposed to be a long dungeon, it was very likely that Hera would be able to recover her mana before it was needed. Not to mention, she still had a few extra mana storing items that could cover her needs.

Thanks to this new development, Alex changed the strategy they would use during the war. Now, they would have a spearhead formation made to break through any of Bonpei's defenses. Doing so would allow them to Target the back line sooner, which should give them an edge during the attacks. Because of the poison and the knowledge that water would make them sturdier, this became a more feasible strategy since the buffs and the extra defenses would be able to offset some of the danger the vanguard would face.

All that preparation made Hera forget what they were fighting against, and for a while, she was generally enjoying herself in the dungeon. The lava tribe was very unique. They had weapons that looked like what Hera was used to, but also some that she couldn't even understand how they worked. It was like the body of the people could become weapons in themselves. Some of the warriors could just wave their arms, and a wisp of fire would come out only to be solidified when it was about to hit the target. But the weirdest part was that when their weapons would hit the mark, they would fizzle out almost like embers in the wind. What baffled Hera was that the weapons had some sort of impact damage but should you try to touch them, or even if the tribesmen try to touch them, it wouldn't have a solid shape.

Another thing that was incredible to her was that the scouts could change the temperature of their bodies to become hot enough so that the flames, which usually were a bright spot in the middle of the field, turned almost invisible. They would still be emitting light which meant that any night raids were completely useless, but during the day, the scouts could move practically unseen, even in an open field.

This was what was happening right now. Hera was walking seemingly alone on the road leading to the checkpoint. In reality, she was surrounded by the scouts who were keeping a safe distance from her so as not to burn her because of the heat.

She was distracted by all those thoughts when a group of human scouts appeared just after they made the turn on the road. There was a momentary pause when both groups found each other. Even the humans seem surprised by the presence of the volcano tribe. Still, it didn't take long for the situation to devolve into an all-out fight. The captain struck one of the humans with his weapon, cutting off the man's arm. While a couple of the soldiers lunged forward, striking down two of the human scouts.

Hera froze while watching the fights. She thought she would have more time. She thought she would have a moment to prepare herself and her mind before starting to fight like this. Unfortunately, dungeons were unpredictable, and she couldn't control when she would start fighting. While she was too distracted by the surprise encounter, one of the humans came at her swinging, yelling and calling her a traitor. Hera took a step back, not wanting to attack the human, but her court had another idea. Lurize jumped in front of her to parry the attack while Beam fired two attacks at the man's legs. The human fell to his knees and Executioner came right at the same moment, spinning and chopping the human's head off with a clean strike.

"Mum, you are in a dungeon, don't forget," Daskka tried to comfort Hera while still around her neck.

"I know, it's just harder than I expected," She looked around and saw how all the attackers were quickly killed off by the volcano tribe scouts. To her right, the tribesmen were moving around and double-checking if no one was hurt. Hera turned to the left to look at the Outpost, but she ended up tripping on the body of one of the humans. Despite the battle being over, this woman was still alive, even if hanging by a thread. The Explorer hesitated for a moment, thinking about how she could try to help her somehow.

The human just looked up at Hera with an angry expression and said, "You will lose, I promise you that," With her last breath, the woman tossed a spell in the air, which was close to a firework.

There was a loud noise accompanying the bright light and what followed was a battle cry coming from The Outpost. Now the humans were aware that the volcano tribe was coming, and Hera wouldn't have time to think if she should fight or not.