Over the next few days, Dream and the girls focused on practicing their magics.
Luna and Iris made pretty big gains. Luna was able to leave bigger dents and cuts in the scrap. She even began using other weapons like swords and axes to cut at it. Overall, her ice was getting harder and she was also gaining more maximum mana.
Iris was able to make her ring as well. Though she could only hold it for several seconds, it remains that she succeeded. Her feelings of victory only lasted a short bit, however, as Dream gave her the harder task of making multiple rings at once. Her response wasn't happy, to say the least.
Dream also wasn't idle. He could be said to be the busiest one. After he attained those new abilities, he had been designing and making weapons all day every day. Everything was made from titanium, which proved quite a bit more difficult to work with than iron. Nevertheless, he was able to make melee weapons as well as ammunition for his gun.
He also modified his armor suit. He took off the armor plates that he could and replaced them with titanium plates. All he needed to do was create an exact replica of the pieces and swap them out. Though there were some portions he couldn't swap, but the important areas were covered so he considered it successful.
As a result his [Solid-State Magic] leveled to level 29 and [Thermal Fluctuation] leveled to 18. The best part though was that his magic attribute rose to D+. He wasn't far from C attributes which made him excited.
He couldn't stay in a bunker experimenting all day though, so on the 4th day, he decided he should go to the dungeon and level. The girls were more than happy to follow him.
It was after the twins had left on that day following breakfast that Dream and the girls went to the rat dungeon they were at previously.
"Won't we run into that group though?"
Iris spoke as they walked down the streets. She clearly didn't want to see Lory again.
"I doubt they go to the same place every day. We'll probably be good. Look, there's the check in."
The trio went through the gates like last time and made their way straight to the dungeon, walking through the fog.
"See? Nothing to worry about. Now, as long as we don't run into any hunter groups, we can pop off as much as we want. I don't plan to go at a turtle's pace for several hours again."
"Yes! How about we go deeper in? Rats aren't enough to level much more." (Iris)
"Ok. Though I have no idea where that is, so we'll need to explore. Just stay together. Let's party."
Dream grabbed their hands and made a party, letting them share some experience. After that, Dream kicked off the ground and began running. The girls followed close behind.
Dream decided not to take the same route as last time, instead finding paths leading deeper. They didn't have to worry about getting lost since Sophia remembered everything. And just as a safety measure, Dream activated Mystify for the three of them.
Just like last time, it didn't take long to find a group, but unlike last time, the group of 5 rats was massacred in seconds. Nobody even cared to use projectiles, just slashing their way through.
The same thing occurred for every other group. Iris in her fox form used claws, teeth, and fire. Luna used her sword of ice, and Dream used his armor's arm blades.
It was when they encountered the larger groups of 10+ that they began slowing down. They didn't mind though. It just took a few extra seconds before they kept moving.
Much blood was drawn and since it was close combat, each of them were soon stained red. Iris looked fine, but Dream and Luna stood out. Especially Luna. The red, white, and blue combined with her ruthless throat cutting was rather sexy. He might've have a patriotic boner if not for the guts flying everywhere.
After a little less than an hour of ripping and tearing, they finally came across an enemy they hadn't seen before.
'What is that?' (Iris)
'Not sure.' (Dream)
The three observed the creature while in stealth. It seemed to be some sort of small tiger except made of stone. Neither Dream nor the girls had ever seen anything like it.
Dream took out his rifle to test the durability of the stone creature.
*Dsh*
*Crack*
*Grrrrr*
A low growl came from the creature after the bullet punched a hole through its body, embedding itself in the wall across the way. Right after that happened, Dream could sense the creature activating its mana. All the rocks around its body began shifting until they aligned perfectly with each other, looking like armor. He figured it was some sort of reinforcement ability. He took aim and fired again.
*Dsh*
*Crack*
The bullet tore another hole through its body, not hindered at all by the reinforcement.
'Can I try?' (Luna)
Luna spoke while in hiding. Dream nodded and she walked over while still in stealth.
As she approached, she formed a big ice hammer in her hands. She then reinforced the whole thing with mana before slamming down on the head of the creature.
*BOOM*
The head was totally shattered under the hammer head. Rocks flew everywhere, and underneath the rocks, Dream could see flesh and blood.
"So it wasn't totally stone." (Dream)
"I guess not. Though only the head seems to have flesh." (Luna)
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"Interesting. Go ahead and eat, Scarlet."
"Ok."
Iris went over and put the creature in her stomach. The three moved on.
They soon found another stone creature, except there were two this time. Luna smashed one while Dream shot the other.
The same happened for the next group of two. Though when they began encountering three or more, Iris had to join in. It was safe to say though that she didn't have an easy time.
The only way she was able to defeat the creatures was to attack their heads since that's where the flesh was. Using her teeth and breathing fire was the best combination. Either she clawed the rocks off or boiled its head, whichever worked first.
The group got their rhythm down as they moved from group to group.
................
"Nice." (Dream)
"Leveled up again?" (Iris)
"Yup."
"Oh, so did I." (Luna)
Luna smiled, as did Dream. For Luna, she had gotten to level 62. And Dream was level 68. Iris was lagging a bit at level 60. She just wasn't able to kill as fast as them.
They had been moving around the caves for the past couple of hours. They had killed a couple hundred Stone Beasts in the process as well.
At first, they could kill the beasts before they could retaliate, but as they came across groups of 6 or 7, the numbers got to them. Luckily, the beasts only had intermediate Earth magic and the reinforcement skill, so they only had to deal with walls or spikes of stone. Dream had also tried to get the reinforcement skill, but since he wasn't a stone beast he couldn't.
Dream decided to take a break after leveling up. Everyone sat down and munched on snacks
"If I'm not mistaken, the king of this dungeon should be level 100. The levels of these stone beasts are going above level 90. So If we go deeper, we'll probably come across the king."
"Are we going to fight it?"
"Well, it'll be dangerous and difficult considering we've never encountered a 2nd class. Graff said that it takes 6 average class 2's to take down a class 2 king. We're only 3 people, and not class 2 yet, so we shouldn't even be close to being able to kill it. But I can't say that we're 'normal' either. I also have a couple of failsafes in case we would ever get in deep shit. Either way, I'm not opposed to it. It depends on you guys though."
Luna and Iris went into thought over what he said. They had a hard time believing that a king was that difficult, but when they thought about what their dad would say, they decided against it.
"I don't think we should. At least right now." (Luna)
"I agree. We can always try later. I think we should get a higher level first, if not reach 2nd class." (Iris)
"Hmm... Alright. We can fight it later. But I think we should fight it before 2nd class at least." (Dream)
"Ok! Then we should get back to leveling up." (Iris)
The three stood up and got back to searching for groups.
.................
............
.......
With a goal to pursue, all three were motivated to level up and become more proficient in their skills. And although fighting Stone Beasts was repetitive, they did it anyway.
After killing a couple thousand of those stone beasts over the course of a week, Dream reached level 85. The girls though had only reached level 75. So Dream began letting them get the kills during their hunts like they did with bear hunting. This went on for another 2 weeks before all of them reached level 90 at the same time.
And although they hunted whenever they could, Dream made sure to allocate time for practicing magic. Whether it was building weapons, honing control over skills, or experimenting, they spent a few hours every other day practicing.
The time practicing produced good results as well. Everybody's skills leveled up multiple times, which was essential if they were going to fight a hard boss monster. Dream made weapons for himself and Iris to combat the stone beasts like hammers and axes. Dream also made several explosives with the metals of this world as a fallback plan.
Iris was able to create multiple rings of fire, which she was thrilled about. Her magic also went up to D+. At this point, after eating so many beasts her other attributes were also D level. Another unexpected gain was her claws and teeth getting sharper and harder, allowing her to fight better.
Luna had basically completed her task as well. She was able to punch a hole in the titanium plate with an ice lance as well as slash it an inch deep. The reason why it almost didn't count was that the plate was very worn down already. But nevertheless, she had completed it. And she wasn't about to do it again, so Dream could only yield.
While they were doing their tasks, Dream was focusing on leveling his skills. His [Mystify] skill had reached level 20 from all the use in the caves. His [Solid-State Magic] had gone up to 36 from all the weapons building. [Thermal Fluctuation] leveled to 24 from heating tons of metal, as well as cooling it down.
Another thing he tried to do was get the Solid-State equivalent for air and water magic, but damn was that difficult. Let's just say he got neither. Gas was neither easy to control or easy to heat. Gas particles are also extremely erratic, and trying to target a tiny high-speed object proved impossible for now. Though since air magic was his only basic skill and he practiced a lot, he leveled it to level 71. It was progress.
For liquids, he thought he could get the skill but nothing he did ever gave results. Since it was liquid and not solid, he had a hard time getting it to act the way he wanted. He froze, boiled, shaped, everything. But he never got the notification. He was able to level [Water Magic] to level 41 though, so it was some comfort.
The last thing he focused on was [Vorticular Accumulation]. He had neglected it since he didn't know what to do to improve it. But after experimenting/losing lots of mana, he and Sophia were able to optimize it a bit more. Because apparently an omnidirectional accretion disk wasn't enough.
What Sophia told him was that she needed to optimize the vortex for the 4th dimension more. But since neither she nor the people of Earth knew much about the 4th dimension, it was difficult. However, Sophia's efforts weren't for nothing and she was able to get the level from 47 to 67. A solid 20 levels that increased recovery rate by 20%.
All in all, on the third week they had prepared as much as they could. Skill levels, weapons, their own levels, and everything in between. So they finally decided to tackle the king of the dungeon.
.................
Dream, Luna, and Iris were walking through the cave systems.
One thing that Dream made sure to do in preparation was to find the actual dungeon king. And it took almost two weeks, but they eventually found it. This is what they were moving towards.
The dwelling of the dungeon king was an open area. It looked similar to an arena, being a huge chunk of Earth cut out of the ground. With ceilings 30 meters high and walls 100 meters apart. You could easily fit a football field inside it.
The dungeon king itself, was a monster whose size was rather befitting such a big area. Standing on four legs was a 14 foot tall stone beast. This stone beast was much more streamlined than the others though. With smooth segmented stones that glowed red in between, showing its signature element of fire. It had razor-sharp claws that looked to be made of metal, and almost as sharp teeth. So basically,
"It's a lava tiger."
Dream and the girls stood at the entrance of the dwelling. The whole place was empty with nobody around. The only reason for this was because of the time.
When they had first found the dwelling, they saw that there were many people attempting the raid. Several groups of 2nd class hunters gathered every day to kill the king multiple times. Its body was supposed to be valuable loot, which is why they did it. There was even a schedule that everyone was supposed to be on.
Dream and the girls didn't feel like waiting on a schedule though. So they decided to go to the dungeon past midnight when everyone was gone.
"It looks like we're clear."
Dream checked a couple of tunnels to make sure nobody was there before turning to the girls.
"You guys ready?"
"Yup." (Iris)
"Yup." (Luna)
Both girls answered at the same time. They were both nervous, but so was Dream. That lava tiger was really intimidating. Either way though, they were going to try.
"If we get in trouble, I'll blow that thing to the high heavens. So if we need to we'll be able to escape. Either way, let's stick to the plan, and we'll be good."
The girls nodded in silence. Together, the three walked into the arena. While stealthed of course.
*Grrr*
A low growl was heard as the tiger was alerted. It turned to the direction of the entrance, but got confused when it didn't see anything.
The tiger looked around. It knew someone was inside its dwelling. It was its instinct. But it couldn't see them, which pissed it off.
It wasn't confused for long though. It was soon subject to the attack of its enemy.
*Dsh*