My mana had once again bottomed out after casting my concealment spell, and I began to feel that sickening feeling once again. It was bearable, as long as I didn’t try to use mana while I was low, almost like the feeling of being extremely full after eating, as long as you didn’t eat more it would be bearable.

While I was recovering my mana, I began to reorganize my approach to this level. The hostile entities on this level were obviously much stronger, and were comparable to what might normally be seen on the 12th level. This was a problem, because every 3 levels there would be a jump in difficulty. For example in the first 3 levels everything would be Rank 0 Tier 1-3 Level 1-3 but when it reached level 4 everything would jump up to Rank 0 Tier 8-Peak 9 Level 4-6. Then at level 7 everything would be Rank 1 Tier 1-3 Level 7-9.

With the current level’s difficulty being what it would be at level 12 everything was Rank 1 Peak Tier 9 Level 12. I was confident in my strength, but I was still suffering under the effects of my (Ornate Chains of Talent) which restricted me from certain types of growth until I completed my first Tribulation. So I was currently Rank 0 Peak Tier 9 Level 0.

I estimated that at my current strength I might survive up to level 18, key words being ‘might survive’, but in actuality with the Wider Difficulty Range challenge if I went any higher than level 5 and had an unlucky +10 added to the floor difficulty I might not be able to handle it and die a miserable death. I might be greedy, but I don't like to play with randomness with my life on the line, lest I get unlucky once again. That’s not to say that I was a coward, I just didn’t have a good enough relationship with lady luck to take such risks.

Currently, with the difficulty of the level increased so much, I had to start taking extra precautions in order to ensure my completion of this level. No matter what, I have to steal from that Dragon’s hoard somehow. Think Radiant, lay out all the possible courses of action and then gather information.

First option was robbery.

Slay the Dragon after following it to its hoard. But I currently lacked the ability to accomplish this feat so this one was off the table for now.

Second option was grand theft.

Wait for the Dragon to leave its hoard before making my move. But I had no idea when it would leave again. After all, it had just had a large meal, I didn’t know if it would leave any time soon.

Third option was petty theft.

Steal some of the Dragon’s hoard under its nose before escaping. This plan was easy to accomplish, but the thought of leaving so much treasure behind hurt my soul, so unless I absolutely couldn’t achieve the other two options, this one was a last resort.

Every option was less profitable than the last, but way easier to accomplish. The only thing I was lacking in order to make a final decision was information.

So the first thing I did after I recovered enough mana to not feel sick was to fire off a few divinations. With divination the more something had to do with oneself the better; if I had tried to find the Champion before I met the Dragon in person, then it would’ve been close to impossible with divination. However after having come face to face with the Dragon, I was able to easily determine its location for at least a day. With this I wouldn’t have to worry about locating the Dragon and could patiently wait for my mana to recover before tracking it down.

With the heat seeking wolves outside I wasn’t comfortable wandering around while I wasn’t at my full strength, so for the first time since I had left the prison I had some free time, and with this freetime I decided to try and make something out of the Raijū’s materials, at least until my concealment spell wore off in a couple hours.

My goal was to make an enchanted item that I could use to increase my strength. I could keep the materials in order to sell them for a lot of money later, but I already had money that was currently in Genesis’ hands. Besides, I had a large stockpile of mana crystals that I could use for trading purposes as well.

While sitting alone inside a small freezing tunnel, I took out some of the Raijū’s teeth to use as pieces on a wooden necklace. For the necklace part I took out a branch of a tree that some of the Raijū’s blood had soaked into. I pulled out all of the materials and set them down in front of me.

A moment after I was getting ready to start, a loud ‘CRACK!’ similar to the sound of a gunshot, sounded right in front of me. I immediately jumped and hit my head on the ceiling of the icy tunnel, but I ignored the pain like usual and got into a defensive position as I looked for the threat that had broken the silence of the forest.

Under my vigilant gaze I noticed that the branch beside me had a major split in it that wasn’t there before, looking at it I realized what had caused the sound. The branch, after being exposed to such extremely cold temperatures, had exploded due to pressure.

“Holly Jilly that scared me.” I put my hand over my racing heart and felt the adrenaline coursing through my veins.

I totally forgot that that could happen. I probably just alerted everything in this forest to my location. But at least I’m not in any immediate danger. That really scared me!

The branch was starting to freeze solid which wouldn’t be good if I wanted to use it for crafting purposes. I had intended to use this branch as a sort of band that I would use to thread the Raijū’s teeth onto and wear it like a necklace. However now that it had exploded like this I didn’t have the luxury of waiting here and potentially having my crafting interrupted.

Ugh, well I don’t like it but I’ll either have to leave behind this ice vein and get away from here, or take my chances staying here and just assume that the wolves were scared away by the loud sound.

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I was really close to reaching the ice vein, about 80%, but there were always more ice veins I could excavate, and the sooner I took care of the Dragon’s hoard the better. So I got up from my seated position and stored away the materials I had taken out. Then I made my way out of the cramped tunnel and into the darkening frozen forest. Now I had to get as far away from here as I could, hopefully the Dragon didn’t hear the loud sound and decide to investigate, then I would have to wait even longer to find its hoard.

“This level just doesn’t seem to vibe with me.” Although I said this out loud, no sound escaped my lips as I walked back out into the now darkened snowy forest. I shot off another divination looking for the Dragon and promptly headed in the direction I needed to go. The sooner I robbed the Dragon, the sooner I would be able to continue plundering the ice spires.

-Break-

It took a long time for the Dragon to finally reach its destination, it slowly walked its way through the forest like it was on a casual stroll. After over an hour of following the Dragon it finally made its way to a large cave, seemingly carved into the side of a hill by the claws of the Dragon, its claw marks clearly visible along the sides of the walls.

When I peaked my head over a small hill to observe the Dragon, it was already laying down and blocking the entrance into its cave, not leaving me any room to sneak past it, unless I wanted to try and teleport behind it. Teleporting behind it would definitely give me access to the treasure, but with how sensitive almost all Dragon's senses were, I had no chance of stealing much from its hoard before it noticed me.

No, if I wanted to steal from this Dragon I was going to have to wait for it to leave again, or find some way to lure it away. It had obviously decided to leave its hoard once, so there must be something that motivated it to leave, I just had to find out what.

Thinking back to what I knew about Dragons, I knew that they were extremely powerful with all of their different metaphysical organs, definitely one of the top creatures in the food chain, but that also meant that they required a lot of food to function. This meant that this Dragon would definitely have to leave the cave sometime, but with it already having had such a large meal, I didn’t know how long it would be until it naturally went looking for food again.

Think Radiant, what else would a Dragon leave its hoard for?

I tried to think of something else, but I came up blank. It would seem that I had to wait for this dragon to be hungry naturally.

Then I recalled something about Dragons that lived in sparser environments, they would never pass up the opportunity of more food, because Dragons needed so much food, they would eat as much as they could, whenever they could, and take any extra food back with them to save for later. Seeing as this was a cold environment with little wildlife, this Dragon might just take the bait if I set up something to lure it away.

So, with this in mind, I began to walk far away from the Dragon. An hour and a half later I stopped walking and took a look around the small ravine I had found myself in, it wasn’t much but it would be sufficient for my needs. I promptly started to booby trap the ravine before taking out some of the lizard corpses from the first level.

By this point I had already lost my concealment magic, and now I had used about 50% of my max mana. Using about 20% of my mana I recast the concealment spell on myself to last about an hour, and augmented my body to be lighter and faster so I could get back to the Dragon’s cave faster.

Not 10 minutes after I had started running back to the Dragon I fired off a divination to see if it had taken the bait. The answer was yes, and it seemed to be quite the distance from its cave already. Is it running or something? How did it get so far so quickly after I put out the bait?

20 minutes later I felt the ground start to shake once again, and through the trees I could make out the shape of the Dragon heading my way with its normal lumbering gait. It hadn’t even been that long since I had gotten the lizard corpse out, certainly not long enough for the dragon to have come this far walking at its current speed. Thinking about it as I ran past the Dragon, I did some calculations in my head based on the Dragon’s speed and realized that for the Dragon to have made it this far it would have started moving roughly 5 minutes after my concealment spell had ended, meaning that the Dragon had been coming after me.

I was the food.

This sent a chill through my spine despite the warming spell running through my body. If I didn’t have this concealment spell on me then I would be hunted down by the Dragon wherever I went within this level. This was a sobering thought, that I was happy to realize sooner rather than later.

Continuing to run, I made it back to the Dragon’s cave after another 30 minutes. Rushing into the clawed out cave, I had to put out a light spell from my skin so that I could see in the darkness. When I made it to the end of the dark cave that went downwards into the earth, I laid my eyes on a veritable mountain of treasure lying in a beautiful pile at the end of the cave.

I nearly cried looking at this, but I didn’t have any time to admire the scene, because the Dragon would no doubt be on its way and I had to make away with everything I could before it got back.

So I used my (Fractured Space Channel) on the room to make transporting everything into my Internal World easier and faster. Going around I stored everything as fast as I could, starting off with the most valuable things I could see before moving on to the loose items that made up the majority of the pile.

I madly dashed around to pick up the various larger items, but after there were only small items left I made a small portal over the palm of my hand and started to scoop as much as I could into my Internal World. I got through about 70% of the pile before I could feel the shaking of the earth and hear a Dragon’s roar run down the cave tunnels and into my ears. It should take the Dragon at least a minute to make its way down here from the cave entrance. I should teleport out of here now.

At this point it was mostly just coins and other insignificant things left, so I decided to take this chance and teleport out of here before the Dragon showed up and burnt me to a crisp.

As I was starting my teleportation spell my eyes took one last sweep over the glittering pile of treasure I would have to leave behind. As I was doing this, a certain symbol on a piece of leather that looked like a collar of a coat caught my eye. This was the symbol of Underrich’s main family. Maybe it could have something important in it?

The shaking of the ground was growing by the second. Should I go for it or not? My accelerated minds went into overdrive as I warred within myself whether or not I should go for the item before I left. I would be cutting it close, but I should be able to grab one last thing before leaving. So I dashed towards the leather with the symbol on it and sent it into my Internal world as soon as I laid my hands on it. I wouldn’t know if it was worth it until later, but I sure hope it was.

Resuming my teleportation spell I rushed to complete it. As I was feeding the spell with the mana it needed the Dragon came into view. The look of rage in its eyes as it took in the intruder that had stolen its treasure was enough to make anyone tremble, but before its open maw could send a stream of fire my way I disappeared from its sight leaving behind a much smaller pile of treasure than it had been when I had arrived.