10th floor, Anglaria Kingdom's Public Dungeon

Cecil and his party were currently facing off against a horde of skeletons. Cecil flashed into the horde head-on. He raised his fist that was already empowered using Mana Burst and struck the ground right in front of the horde.

"FISSURE!!"

A scar was formed on the ground that extended deep into the horde of skeleton lizards before rupturing with a loud explosion, sending the monsters flying into the air as shrapnel of overturned earth shot everywhere, crushing and burying some of the monsters. The skeleton necromancers at the back had already sent fireballs the size of buckets flying towards Cecil. Instead of backing away, he rushed headfirst into the volley of flames.

"LULU!"

"SCORCHING WAVE!"

After Lucia finished her rapid incantation, she fired her magic into the array of fireballs in front of Cecil. Lucia's spell immediately overwhelmed and swallowed all the fireballs that were flying towards Cecil and the spell continued onwards, baptizing the skeletons in its path in a tidal wave of fire.

"RAWWRRR"

On the side, Silver sent a tornado spell into the flames. The wind fed the flames and only made them stronger. The other half of the horde that wasn't in range of Lucia's spell was immediately caught in its area of effect thanks to Silver's spell empowering it. Cecil went around the battlefield at high speeds using 'Shukuchi' to pick off any skeletons that weren't caught in the firestorm. The fight didn't take long for the party of 3.

Cecil looked around at the scorched remains of what was left of the horde. After seeing that there were no more monsters, he turned back to Lucia and Silver and sighed, "If we use our skills like that, there isn't much we can collect. Isn't this world way too realistic?! Shouldn't they drop mana stones or something after we kill them?!"

Lucia was already used to the incessant nonsense that Cecil would sometimes spew ever since they dived into the dungeon. She looked towards Cecil and said in exasperation, "Seriously, what are you expecting anyway and what do you mean by 'too realistic', huh?! Dungeons are just like this! They're even described this way in the books at home, didn't you read all of them before we left, Cel?!"

All the fantasy novels on Earth described dungeons as something awesome and one would get a plentiful amount of rewards from clearing one. Unfortunately, the dungeons on Alterna weren't really anything special. They were nothing more than mines–very dangerous mines. From the books Cecil's read, he had already came to this sad conclusion, but he still wanted to experience it himself. He hoped that the actual dungeon experience was more exciting than his sad conclusion. Unfortunately, the results left him extremely disappointed.

Other than the treasure chests that randomly popped up on the dungeon floors, the only other use of a dungeon would be to mine the mana crystals, minerals, and ores that were created in the lower floors of the dungeon.

Since the concentration of monsters inside a dungeon was at least 10 times that of what's in the wild, there were frequent dungeon requests issued at the adventurer guild to clear the dungeon for the workers and miners that would mine the precious mana crystals, minerals, and ores. The kingdom's army would occasionally clear out the monsters in the dungeons as a form of training for their new recruits, but since the respawn rate of the monsters in the dungeon was too high, adventurers still had to do this tedious work most of the time.

Cecil, Lucia, and Silver had arrived a month ago in Angla City. After the Hunting Event was over, Cecil and Lucia stayed together with Scarlet Blaze for another month, doing various quests in the area before leaving on an escort mission that accidentally made them go to a city that went past the capital. This escort mission lasted for almost a month because Cecil mistakenly registered their party for the full escort request that were usually for the mercenaries.

It was a blunder he made because he insisted on filing the paperwork, thinking that his language skills had finally improved. His blunder earned him a good beating from Lucia, but since they already took the request, they couldn't just back out of it or else they'd have to face the consequences. Because of his blunder, the two had a month roaming the kingdom while escorting the caravan they were working with around the various towns and cities that they needed to visit.

People even mistook them for mercenaries and for a time, they were dubbed the youngest mercenaries in the business. Speaking about being the youngest, it had to be mentioned that Scarlet Blaze, Cecil and Lucia were the youngest party to become the runner-up of the monster hunting event. To their disbelief, Cecil and his party finished 2nd during the event. The number of monsters they hunted tied with the first place's amount, but they couldn't finish first because the quality of monsters they hunted was slightly inferior to the ones in first place.

However, because this was a competition about the amount of monsters and not the quality, it was declared that the results was a tie and despite being officially ranked number 2, Cecil's group were able to win the 1st place's prize and managed to promote their guild ranks to Silver, but after completing the 1-month long escort quest, Cecil and Lucia managed to increase their rank yet again, so they were now gold ranked adventurers.

The blunder that Cecil made actually managed to net them some good results in the end. That was how they were able to meet the criteria of being gold ranked adventurers and managed to get a dungeon clearing quest from the capital city's adventurer guild.

Cecil was clearly hyped up for this quest. When they first dove into the dungeon, he was really impressed because the dungeons were really magical in his eyes. The first floor of the dungeon wasn't really anything special. It was just a regular cave, but the moment they stepped into the 2nd floor, it felt like they stepped into a completely different world.

There was actually a sun and sky on the second floor. It was interesting at first for the two of them, but that enthusiasm soon waned when they proceeded further into the dungeon. Other than clashing with the frequent monster hordes, nothing else happened. There was the occasional pitfall, monster house, and such, but it was pretty uneventful. Most of their time was spent walking through the dungeon.

Cecil was honestly hoping that they would come across some secret monster room that had a legendary sword stuck in a rock waiting for him to pull out or something like that. They didn't find any legendary sword, but on their 3rd day in the dungeon when they were on the 9th floor, they did manage to find a legendary ore. This was enough to bring up Cecil's spirits again.

"Hey~ Cel... let's head back now!" Lucia said while pushing Cecil in the direction that led to the 9th floor.

"Okay, okay... it's been 5? Or was it 6 days? Anyways, we should head back to the capital to try and craft the adamantium... I at least want a weapon that could hold my mana without breaking."

"Well, it's a good thing that Silvy found that chunk of adamantium for us, huh?" Lucia said with a grin.

"Heh," Cecil grinned at the thought and called over Silver who was patrolling the area as usual, "Come 'ere Silv."

Silver came up to them and leaned down. It seemed as if Silver had also heard Lucia's suggestion and was in agreement with her. It was finally time for them to head back. He immediately offered his back to the two to travel faster out of the dungeon.

"RAWR!"

"Hahaha~ even Silvy wants to head back! Hmmm, good boy~" Lucia laughed when she saw Silver bending down and started petting him.

"...Fine. Let's go then."

Before Cecil climbed onto Silver's back to join Lucia who was already on him, he leaned next to his partner's ear and muttered, "Traitor..."

Silver looked back at him and responded with a bark. He wore a 'smug' expression on his face and when Cecil saw that, he rolled his eyes at him. He immediately found it somewhat funny though.

'How is Silver acting more and more human? All his gestures and expressions are becoming way too similar to us.'

"Alright let's head back then!" He jumped onto Silver's back and landed right behind Lucia. He wrapped his arms snugly around her waist and exclaimed, "Full speed ahead Silv!"

Cecil and company had already spent 5 days in the dungeon and they were very tired from the experience. It wasn't fun at all diving into a dungeon. Lucia, for one, immediately thought that the cons of dungeon diving outweighed the pros.

All the 3 got was a fatigued mind and body, plus Cecil's incessant and odd complaints. The only positive thing was that they had a pretty decent harvest of monster subjugation proofs and materials, mined a good amount of mana crystals and ores and unexpectedly, they actually managed to mine the legendary ore, Adamantium, in the dungeon.

Silver was the one that found the adamantium when they passed by an inconspicuous area on the 9th floor. They didn't have any mining tools and Silver communicated to Lucia that it was a rare ore vein since he felt the mana emanating from the vein to be very dense and it held a unique feeling to it.

Cecil also activated his mana sight and saw the uniqueness of the vein. They had no choice but to mine the ore since it was rare, so Cecil used a very crude method of 'clawing' the ore out of the ground with his mana-enhanced hands. When they saw the ore, Lucia was able to immediately identify the small chunk of rock as the legendary ore, adamantium. The adamantium chunk was chrome in color with a slight azure tint to it. Lucia said that it was a very rare mana ore that boasted 100 times as much magic affinity and conductivity than the three staple mana ores of Alterna, which were violet gold, orichalcum, and mithril, put together!

Lucia said that they could turn in the ore to the kingdom or guild and they would be rewarded very handsomely for doing so, but after hearing the word 'legendary', Cecil immediately wanted to go ask a blacksmith to smelt the ore into a weapon. However, the ore was only around the size of an adult man's fist. He was rather disappointed since he believed that with such a small piece, he wouldn't be able to create a sword with it, but Lucia thought otherwise.

She remembered hearing from her mother that the elven kingdom, Elfenheim, had once discovered an adamantium ore that was the size of an apple, which was smaller than the chunk that they had, and the kingdom's blacksmiths were actually able to smelt that small piece of adamantium into a whole armory of weapons, enough to equip one of the kingdom's army battalions.

Cecil was immediately psyched to hear that. He then started planning out the array of weapons he wanted to create, as well as a suitable katana for Lucia that could also act as her wand. He was already teaching her the Silvaria family's martial arts which included swordsmanship, so she obviously needed a better weapon! She could be a magic swordswoman in the future.

Now the only problem was that they needed to find a trustworthy blacksmith that had enough skill to smelt their adamantium as well as being willing to keep the adamantium itself a secret from the kingdom and other people.

Since the guild and the kingdom was willing to reward someone handsomely if they turned in adamantium to them, Cecil figured that people who possessed adamantium and didn't turn them in would be wanted because they possessed such a precious ore. He wasn't willing to give such a precious thing away when he could just use it for himself. Call him selfish or whatever, but he, Lucia, and Silver found that chunk of adamantium, so it was theirs!

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There were only a few who could smelt that kind of ore and Cecil already had a person in mind. He honestly couldn't wait to get back to the capital. A weapon that was made solely for him was just around the corner, so Cecil asked if Silver could go a little faster.

"Silv, can you pick up the pace? The faster we go, the quicker we can get to the surface and get you some food!" Cecil encouraged.

Silver responded with a spirited bark and picked up speed. He continued on like this for 3 hours and despite running at full-speed for so long, he wasn't anywhere out of breath. He even started using his mana to enhance his speed using his wind magic.

"Haha, faster Silvy, faster~"

Lucia, who was seated in front of Cecil, wrapped her tails tightly around him and leaned back to let the wind caress her face as she giggled in delight. She had already cast a cleaning spell on them before they mounted on Silver 3 hours ago, so right now, they were clean and didn't smell of sweat. Her water elemental spells after half a year of constant training were finally on par with her fire elemental spells, although she still preferred using fire magic when in combat.

Since her water element was proficient enough, Lucia had already started her training on using the earth element. At the moment, she was still getting a feel for the earth element, so it wasn't yet battle-worthy. While Lucia was leaning her head back against Cecil's chest, her fox ears started rubbing onto his face and he felt a little bit ticklish.

"Hey, Lulu... that tickles, stop it."

"Ehehehehe~ nooo~"

'I've spoilt her too much,' Cecil thought. He could only leave her be while he shut his eyes and started concentrating on the mana cores in his eyes. After 4 months of constant training, Cecil had finally acquired perfect Mana Eyes. The color of his eyes had permanently changed to a golden color after he successfully condensed the mana cores in his eyes.

Even without Lucia's transformation magic, his eyes would still be gold in color. It felt weird for him at first, but he soon got used to it. With his perfect mana eyes, his control over mana had reached the point where it felt like it was as easy as breathing and it became second nature to him.

Cecil was now also able to use Mana Burst for as long as his mana allowed him. He also constantly kept his mana circulating in his body. This way, his body was always empowered 24/7 and it also served as a good method of mana control training. Although it felt like controlling mana had become second nature to him, how to effectively and efficiently use the mana still eluded Cecil, so he came to the conclusion that he could only continue training non-stop to learn more about this new ability of his and completely master it.

As he was training, he turned his focus on his mana point. The mana at his point had finally condensed into a liquid form, but he still felt that he wasn't in the mana sea stage yet. However, if anyone else measured his level, then they would claim that he was already at the mana sea stage. The only reason why he felt like his stage wasn't at that level yet was because of his unique constitution where his mana was distributed evenly throughout his body, and only the mana in his mana point was in a liquid form while the rest was still in gaseous form.

Cecil wanted to turn all of the gaseous mana in his body into liquid state before acknowledging that he had finally stepped into the mana sea stage. After cultivating for a bit, Cecil finally opened his eyes and sighed, he then turned his head down to look at the fox girl who was comfortably snuggling up to him.

'Lucia had stepped into the man sea stage a month before me... even Silver reached the mana sea stage 2 weeks ago! I can't let myself fall behind!'

Cecil resolved himself to train even harder and catch up to Lucia and Silver no matter what!

"YEAH, LET'S DO IT! HAAAAHHH!!!"

His shout startled both Silver and Lucia whose ears were right in front of him.

"O-Ow! Cecil?! What the heck?!"

Thinking that there was an enemy nearby, Silver grounded to a halt while Lucia began patting her poor ears. Cecil immediately started to apologize when he realized that he had actually let his thoughts out.

"Sorry, sorry! My bad, I was only trying to motivate myself!"

Lucia sighed and said in exasperation, "Haaahhh? Come on already... stop being such an idiot. Stupid Cel, because of you, my ears hurt!"

"RAWR!"

"Ehehe... sorry, sorry!" Cecil said this and began massaging Lucia's ears.

Lucia immediately perked up when she felt his hands rubbing her ears and her face blushed red, but she didn't push him away. Instead, she leaned back into his chest and started giggling. Silver, on the other hand, let out a bark before resuming his fast trek through the dungeon. They passed a few adventurer parties, but didn't make any contact with them and thanks to Silver's speed, they were able to arrive at the exit on the next day.

After finally making it out of the dungeon, Silver took a break at the entrance to catch his breath and recover his mana. Lucia and Cecil waited for him. The two made sure to compliment their trusty companion who ran nonstop for an entire day to get them back to the dungeon's entrance. Cecil even promised him that he would buy a lot of steak for him to eat later once they get back to the city.

Once the break was over, the party began walking towards the city. Now that they were out of the dungeon and able to breath some fresh air, Lucia skipped ahead and said with a smile, "Ahhh~ finally, we're out of that stuffy place!"

"Come on, it wasn't that bad." Cecil retorted.

"RAAH!" Silver barked in disapproval. He clearly chose to stand on Lucia's side.

"Not you too Silv!"

With Silver backing her up, Lucia continued, "Come on Cel, you have to admit that it was pretty boring diving into the dungeon. What was the difference between that and hunting monsters normally in the field?"

"..."

Seeing as Cecil had fallen silent, Lucia continued to jab at him, "Besides... who was the one that kept on complaining in the dungeon~? Was it you, Silv?"

"Ruff..."

"Wasn't it me?"

Cecil furrowed his brows at her words and started sulking. Lucia smirked after looking at his expression. She had undoubtedly won this argument. Even Cecil had to admit that there really wasn't anything special about hunting monsters inside the dungeon. It was more trouble than it was worth because the monsters in the dungeons always traveled in large packs and sometimes even hordes.

In fact, during their whole trip into the dungeon, everyone started to feel disgruntled by floor 5. They had to constantly fight, fight, fight, and fight. There were little to no breaks in between due to the sheer number of monsters that were constantly rushing at them. Normally, Cecil would be happy when seeing so much monsters as he welcomed just about any fight, but even he had to admit that the monotonous monster killing had gotten to him.

"Tch... you can't blame me! All my hopes and expectations were dashed with this dungeon!"

Cecil was feeling a little glum after recalling all his experience in the dungeon. He felt someone staring at him and looked up, only to find Lucia smiling smugly at him. She was totally mocking him with that look on her face.

"What's with that look, huh?! Lulu!!"

"Heh... it was like this when we first registered as adventurers. Now it's happening again!" Lucia mockingly said.

"Hohoho~ looks like someone wants to get punished, huh?!" Cecil said while cracking his knuckles.

"Oh, boohooo~ I'm so~ scared~" Lucia mocked again. This time, she stuck her tongue out cutely and hid behind Silver.

Cecil felt like he had popped a nerve. He directed a glare at Silver and said darkly, "Silv, outta the way... haha... someone's asking for a beating right now."

"Grrrr..." Silver only responded with a low growl, indicating that he did not want to move. Cecil's face immediately turned black at the response. He only responded with a dark laugh and stalked forward. Lucia moved out from behind Silver and strutted bravely towards Cecil and said seriously, "Well, anyway. With that disappointing experience out of the way, what're we gonna do... with 'that'?"

'That' was referring to the adamantium. Cecil and Lucia already agreed that they wouldn't say the word out loud, just in case someone overheard them which might cause them some troubles. Adamantium was a strategic resource for any kingdom and faction. Just mentioning the word might cause you to get into trouble, whether it is from the people of the kingdom or other factions.

Upon remembering that they had a legendary ore in their possession, Cecil's attention was immediately averted from the previous mockery. His face turned serious and he spoke to Lucia in a low voice, "I already have someone in mind to smelt 'that', but the capital is honestly too dangerous, even if we go to him, I'm not sure we can keep away any prying eyes. So maybe we should investigate the towns in the surroundings. It's better if we can get a blacksmith who's far from the capital that also can't recognize 'that' to smelt it for us."

Lucia frowned at his suggestion and said, "Hey Cel, 'that' can't be handled by just any blacksmith. We need someone who's magically capable as well as a good blacksmith with experience in smelting magic ore. If we handed 'that' to someone inexperienced with handling magic ore, then they might even ruin it!"

Cecil could only sigh after hearing what Lucia said. He spoke up powerlessly, "Well, looks like we can only go to him, right? But the capital... it's still too dangerous though..."

The two stopped and fell silent and began weighing their options. Cecil and Lucia really wanted to use the adamantium right away because the longer they held onto it, the more they ran the risk of others finding it in their possession.

An entourage was heading their way as the two stood still in the middle of the path that led to the dungeon. They didn't realize the group had already walked right up to them since they were so deep in thought. The lizardkin man who was in the lead, cleared his throat to catch their attention, "Ahem..."

Lucia and Cecil turned towards the man and stared dumbly at him for a moment.

"We'd like to pass."

"Ah! S-sorry! Sorry!" Lucia immediately realized where they were standing and pulled Cecil to the side while apologizing.

"Hurry up and move brats! You're blocking the way!" One of the people in the group shouted at them rudely.

Lucia furrowed her brows in annoyance and turned towards the person who had shouted at them. Seeing that the person was actually a smug-looking teenaged male lizardkin, she gave him a nasty glare. Seeing as Lucia was glaring at him, the boy didn't quite like that so he shouted back, "HAAAHH?? Got a problem ki–"

"Stop it, Aiz! Like you're one to talk, being a brat as well! Remember, we didn't come here to pick a fight!"

"Tch..."

The lizardkin teenager, Aiz, scoffed, and turned away. The lizardkin who seemed to be the leader of the entourage turned towards Lucia and apologized, "Apologies, he's still just a kid. We'll be on our way now."

"...Yes," Lucia responded curtly.

The lizardkin group proceeded into the dungeon while the lizardkin who shouted at them, Aiz, gave the two a dirty look and sneered before following the group into the dungeon. Lucia didn't respond to him and only pulled onto Cecil and headed towards Angla City.

"Hmph, what a clown! What's to be proud of going into a boring old dungeon?"

"Ignore it, Lulu. There's no point in thinking back on it."

Cecil was dragged behind Lucia. He knew that Lucia's mood had gone sour with their earlier encounter.

"Hey, Lulu... remember, we still got some mithril from the dungeon, we could use it to craft some new equipment for us. Let's hurry on back to the city and head to the smithy."

Lucia looked back and smiled a bit, "Okay! Let's get going then!"