Chương 473: Chapter 471 – Returning To The Mother World

By the time Damion returned to the fifty-fourth floor, it and the subsequent SS Rank floor and S Rank floors were cleared. Evidently, with the promise of being allowed to return home, Mage Moretti's faction of the S Rank Assembly was quite motivated. Even though they still had more than a day to clear the S Rank floors, they had not held back.

With all the SS Rank and S Rank floors cleared it was now time for the A Rank and weaker floors to be tackled, finally allowing Damion and his expedition to make their way to the Mother World. Despite many of the A Rank and S Rank mages moving on to the A Rank floors, Damion remained on the fifty-fourth floor. He wanted to take the opportunity to train and get used to the sudden power boost Mage Harris had gifted him. Ordinarily, magic power rose gradually, and a person adapted to their strength as it progressed.

But with the sudden rise Damion had received, he was worried he might overpower a spell and harm his allies by accident. The danger was less pronounced for Mage Veers, as while the Void mage also received a sizeable boost to his magic power, he was already an S Rank mage. The boost was more of a supplement. Damion on the other hand had more than quadrupled his magic power. After a few hours of experimenting with a few of his spells, Damion was beginning to get a firm grasp on his new abilities.

While he was resting the thought occurred to him that he might now have the magic power and mana necessary to open a Portal directly to the Mother World. The possibility nearly made him want to leave the labyrinth and attempt to open a Portal to see if he could. There was, however, one big flaw in that plan. If he failed, he would suffer from mana exhaustion at best and at worst be out of commission for a day or more.

Better to wait until they reached the Mother World, perhaps Mage Fletcher would be able to open a Portal and that would solve a good many of their problems.

"Taking a breather?" a female voice asked Damion suddenly. A quick look around and Damion spotted Mage Parivar walking towards him.

"Just using the lull for a little extra training," Damion smiled.

"Haven't seen you with the bulk of the forces. What have you been up to?"

"My magic doesn't lend itself well to large group battles against Demonic Beasts. Too easy for someone to forget a beast they are aiming at could be me. Instead, I've been helping out with the supply runs. Though, now that we are into the A Rank floors on the other side, I suppose my talents may become of greater use."

"How's that?"

"I might not be able to cast flashy bolts of lightning or toss fireballs around, but I can scout around Demonic Beast territory without arising their ire. If what you say is true about the area we will have to travel through, then having me as a scout will be quite useful." Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Damion could not find any faults in Mage Parivar's logic, so he chose not to say anything.

After flashing a quick smile, the Transformation Mage headed towards the passageway to the next floor. He would have liked to move on to the next floor and join the teams in clearing the remaining floors, unfortunately, Phil, Nyx and Peter were feasting on the remains of a few Demonic Beasts. The leftovers were of little value to the cleanup teams, having been killed in a manner that left little value in the carcasses, but for his familiars the S Rank flesh provided a strong boost.

Already Nyx and Phil were steadily increasing their A Rank strength while Peter had progressed from E Rank to C Rank in just the short time they had been bonded. Damion knew part of the reason for their rise in strength was the bond they shared. His magic power helped to feed their potential and accelerate their growth. But a larger part of it was them consuming the flesh of stronger Demonic Beasts. Since Demonic Beasts were creatures of magic, magic coursed through every ounce of their being.

In the wild an A Rank Demonic Beast would never be able to kill and feast on an S Rank beast. However, because of the expedition, Damion was able to provide prime nourishment to his familiars, and it was greatly enhancing their growth. If he had a week, maybe two, he was sure he could get all three of them to S Rank. However, as things stood, it looked like he would have to settle for two mid A Ranks and one B Rank familiar.

When Mage Levine returned to the fifty-fourth floor after escorting Mage Moretti and his faction out of the labyrinth to ensure they were Portaled away from Atlantis without incident, Damion's training time came to an end. With the departure of those not willing to continue on, the expedition was cut down to 1 SS Rank mage, 14 S Rank mages and 55 A Rank mages.

Damion had hoped more of the A Rank mages would have been able to advance to S Rank, unfortunately, aside from the three that initially advanced, none were able to take that next step. Most of the A Rank mages had struggled to reach A Rank because of the stringent restrictions the Mage Association and nobles had imposed on the entry requirements for A Rank and above dungeons and labyrinth floors. Without suitable areas to train and advance, these mages had been hard-pressed to even make it past low A Rank.

Training in the Avalon labyrinth helped, it was still a long journey from A Rank to S Rank and the expedition did not have enough time for all of them to sit around for months to train. After recalling Nyx to his shadow and having Phil and Peter return to his Familiar Space, Damion headed with Mage Levine and a few other A Rankers who had been training deeper into the labyrinth.

Floor after floor they descended, however, because they were coming up behind the rest of the expedition and the floors were growing easier with each passing one, there was nothing any of them needed to do. Damion and Mage Levine caught up to the main group of the expedition on the D Rank floors. Once the D Rank were done, all that remained were ten E Rank floors, which with their team of A Rank and above mages, were easily cleared.

Damion's A Rank auto-mapper was able to map out 100 kilometers in every direction so finding the core of every floor was easy. With the map created, it would also provide a great foundation to future teams coming in to explore and farm the labyrinth, though he doubted too many teams would be coming this far. Any team that could make it past the SS Rank floors had no reason to go further, since those floors would provide them with the most valuable resources.

Still, Damion thought the information could be useful on the way back or for the Iblis to farm this half of the labyrinth.

"There it is," Mage Teft said as they expedition reached the final exit passageway. This one would lead them not to another floor, but to the Mother World.

"Damion, I think you should have the honor."