Chương 370: Dinner Time

After collecting the monkey-cicles, Damion led Phil to the fourth floor. As he was passing through the entrance he could not help but think to himself repeatedly that the fourth floor was not going to be a complete water world. When the pair emerged from the entrance on the fourth floor Damion was happy to see they were not in the middle of the ocean, instead they were in the middle of a desert. The desert went out for as far as he could see.

Scattered about the dunes were a number of what appeared to be marble pillars and other bits of ruined buildings, buried in the sand. Pulling out his tablet, Damion started looking at the map for the floor. To his surprise the entrance to the third floor appeared to be in the center of a ruined temple, quite similar to the temple at the bottom of the sea on the previous floor. He quickly pulled up the map of the last floor and took a look at it.

After a few back and forths between the two maps, he set his tablet to project them both, so they overlapped each other. The detail the auto-mapper picked up through the sand and seabed revealed that despite the vastly different appearance of landscapes, the ruins were the same.

Damion really did not understand it, but if you got rid of the giant pillar islands on the last floor and cleaned up the seabed and cleared out all the sand dunes on the fourth floor, the auto-mapper revealed the layout of the ruined city was the same. What it meant, Damion had no idea, but he did know it was rather bizarre. The auto-mapper showed the core for this floor was only a few hundred meters away, however, beneath the sand lurked what he suspected were either Sand Sharks or Inferno Sand Swimmers.

Damion was confident he could deal with either one, but he wanted to lure them out to be sure what kind of Demonic Beasts people would be dealing with once adventurers started coming in.

"Phil, you fly up high so they can't detect you. I want to kill a few of these Demonic Beasts, so I'm going to walk over to where the core is."

'Hunt good,' Phil sent back, which Damion took as good luck. After Phil took off, Damion walked out onto the sand and after taking less than twenty paces he had killed six Sand Sharks. After killing a half dozen effortlessly, the rest quickly learned the danger the magicless presence represented and kept their distance. Each of the beasts were F Rank, which made Damion wonder if he was still on an F Rank floor or if he had reached an E Rank floor yet.

As he approached the core, Damion felt the sand shifting around him and he quickly jumped to the side. From where he had been standing just a second ago burst an Inferno Sand Swimmer. The scorpion like Demonic Beast quickly dove back into the sand before Damion had a chance to hit it with a spell. The quick glimpse of the Sand Swimmer Damion did get; told him it was only an F Rank Demonic Beast. Since the Inferno Sand Swimmer was the floor guardian, it meant he was still on an F Rank floor, which was fine.

More floors of each level meant more room for people to hunt Demonic Beasts. And since the last floor would be difficult for most, having another F Rank floor for people that did not specialize in Water combat would be useful. Damion began tapping his foot on the sand, hoping the slight vibrations would attract the guardian. A moment later he was rewarded when he felt the sand beneath him shifting again.

This time, instead of jumping out of the way, Damion cast his Ice Armor spell and let the Demonic Beast burst out of the sand and clamp its mandibles around him. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Even without the extra protection his armor spell offered, Damion did not believe the Inferno Sand Swimmer would be able to hurt him.

Still, it was better to be on the safe side, and he often overlooked his Ice Armor spell, so he wanted to take this chance to use it. The Demonic Beast's mandibles tried to squeeze Damion, but his spell held and after a few moments the creature was starting to release him. Not wanting to let the Demonic Beast escape, Damion cast Ice Shard. The deadly ice crystal hit the Demonic Beast in the head, killing it in an instant.

Once Damion collected the carcass, he moved on to the core and crushed it, revealing the entrance to the fifth floor. The fifth floor turned out to be similar in many ways to the second floor. The auto-mapper revealed a large plain with a few scattered trees and three lakes. None of them were as large as the lake on the second floor. But the lakes formed a rough circle around the central most area of the floor, which was also where the core was.

The map told him there were a number of Demonic Beasts in small groups moving around the area between him and the core. Damion decided to let Phil once again scare the local Demonic Beasts into running towards him as he made his way to the core. It was good practice for his spells, and it meant he did not have to chase down any beasts in his search for spoils. After about an hour of walking, killing, collecting and more walking, Damion reached the core of the fifth floor.

The Demonic Beasts on this floor were a mix of the land beasts he had encountered on the other floors. Which was nice, since it granted him a dozen more Lightning affinity cores. He also suspected that the Demonic Beasts his artifact detected in the lakes would be the same water type beasts in the prior floors. Destroying the core opened up the entrance to the next floor, but Damion stopped himself before going in. He would have liked to continue exploring, but he felt that it was getting late in the day.

Returning tomorrow, well rested, he could speed his way to the sixth floor and then work his way through them like he had with the first five. He knew if he proceeded forward he would not be able to stop himself from opening the entrance to the seventh floor, and then he would be in the same position once again. After summoning his Ice Sword, Damion flew with Phil back through the prior floors until he reached the exit of the labyrinth.

Considering there were no Demonic Beasts willing to fight them and that they were both flying quite fast, it did not take long to exit the Realm Breach. Outside the Breach Damion found Ethan waiting for him. Phil's presence was a bit unnerving for the C Rank knight, but Ethan knew Phil would not harm him, so he did his best to ignore the feeling of dread the B Rank Demonic Beast instinctively inspired in him.

"You haven't been waiting out here this entire time have you?" Damion asked Ethan as he got off his Ice Sword and dismissed it.

"No, only for about twenty minutes. Mage Teft thought you'd probably be coming out soon, so she wanted me here to collect your spoils for processing."

"Oh. I guess it is getting close to dinner time isn't it?"

"Yep. Did you find anything good?" Ethan asked eagerly.

"I only went through the first five floors. They are all F Rank, but I have here 438 F Rank carcasses for processing."

"438 Demonic Beasts? Even just F Rank that is quite the haul. Anything rare?"

"A couple of the floors had a bull with the Lightning affinity, so I have a bit more than 100 of those. Then some Wind and Water, but mostly Fire and Earth."

"Nice," Ethan commented, behind his eyes, Damion could already see the merchant knight calculating the profits.

"Do you still want just the cores?"

"Yes. The rest can be used as funds to get more things up and running in the city. Also, see if you can get a deal trading the Lightning cores for more common cores. Same Rank is okay, if you can get me 4 or 5 to one on the trade. Otherwise try trading up for D or C Rank cores one to one."

"I think that can be done. Lightning affinity Demonic Beasts are not common in the lower Ranks. This labyrinth is going to be drastically changing the market for them in the future, but right now I can for sure get you some D Ranks, probably even some C Rank cores in trade."