Chương 80: Gather The Team

Damion took Mage Fletcher's permission to heart and stopped caring about burning the Forest Froth Spiders to a crisp. If they didn't have much value, he would not hold back. He had been using just enough mana in his attacks to kill the Forest Froth Spiders. Now, Damion did not hold back.

"Watch yourselves," Damion called as he channeled his mana into his fire attack glyph. Damion quickly unleashed his attack against the wall across from him. The curved nature of the wall enclosing the dungeon portal channeled Damion's pillar of fire around the wall, catching many spiders in its path. Not all the Forest Froth Spiders that got hit by Damion's attack died. Many only received burns, but those burns singed off the hairs from their legs and thorax, greatly reducing the danger they posed.

A few of the spiders were actively running around on fire until they succumbed to the pain and collapsed either dying or in too much pain to bother fighting any more. With that attack, Damion had effectively eased the burden on everyone else. Knight Heath and Knight Raiford actually darted into the circular area around the dungeon portal, each headed a different direction around the portal and quickly began finishing off the injured Demonic Beasts.

Once they had cleared out all the Demonic Beasts, they began lopping off their heads and kicking them out of the opening in the wall to harvest their cores.

"That was a heck of an attack," Knight Raiford said as he took up his position again at the gap in the wall around the dungeon portal.

"With that kind of fire attack, taking down a group of Demonic Beasts is a piece of cake for you," Mage Glint said as he started opening spider heads for their Demonic Cores.

"It does take me a bit to channel the mana, and it is rather draining," Damion said trying to play off his advantages from the Magic System and his sole spell, Mana Absorption.

"Well, we've cleared this wave of Demonic Beasts, but there could be more," Mage Fletcher said.

"Don't let your guards down." For the next hour Damion sat on top of the wall with Knight Health and Knight Raiford guarding the gap. A few Forest Froth Spiders emerged, but not near the numbers that had come through after the Aerico had been eliminated. When Manager Halsey returned with reinforcements, Damion happily jumped down off the wall to let a group of knights with bows and a couple of mages take up watch over the perimeter.

Now that Damion was free to rest he took a look at the notifications the Magic System had sent him after they had killed the Aerico and Forest Froth Spiders. Ding {Quest Completed} [Quest: Kill Ferocious Beasts or Demonic Beasts – Status: Complete – Reward: 100 Experience, 1 Store Credits] Ding {Quest Completed} Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

[Quest: Kill Ferocious Beasts or Demonic Beasts – Status: Complete – Reward: 100 Experience, 1 Store Credits] Ding {Quest Completed} [Quest: Kill Ferocious Beasts or Demonic Beasts – Status: Complete – Reward: 100 Experience, 1 Store Credits] Ding {Quest Completed} [Quest: Kill Ferocious Beasts or Demonic Beasts – Status: Complete – Reward: 100 Experience, 2 Store Credits] Ding {Quest Completed} [Quest: Kill Ferocious Beasts or Demonic Beasts – Status: Complete – Reward: 100 Experience, 2 Store Credits] Ding {Quest Completed} [Quest: Kill Ferocious Beasts or Demonic Beasts – Status: Complete – Reward: 100 Experience, 3 Store Credits] Damion was quite satisfied with the completion of the quests.

The Magic System experience bar was now at 1, 800 of 1, 000 needed to level up and he had 34 Store Credits. Damion was not sure how much experience he would need for the second level increase, but he thought he was off to a good start. Perhaps by the time Damion reached his eighteenth birthday he would be greeted by not just the Magic System unlocking and one level increase, he would get two.

As for his 34 Store Credits, Damion was happy they were slowly adding up, but without knowing what was in the system store and for how much, Damion had no idea how far his 34 credits would go.

"You've had a long day," Manager Halsey said to Damion as Damion was setting up his tent along the rim of the hole where the dungeon portal was.

"But a successful one I think," Damion answered.

"Indeed. You have assisted in locating a Dungeon Breach, killed quite a few Demonic Beasts and earned a fair bit of renown for yourself."

"Will my team be able to go into the dungeon tomorrow?"

"Your team is being gathered and will arrive in the morning. You will get to be the first group into the dungeon. It is important to be very observant and methodical in your search for the dungeon core."

"We did pretty well on our search through the Wind Wolf forest dungeon. We managed to find quite a few things overlooked by the teams that went in ahead of us."

"Yes you did. The thing to remember this time, though, is that there will be more Demonic Beasts than normally found in the dungeon."

"Do Dungeon Breaches cause more beasts to form or something?"

"That is a good question, one better asked to Mage Fletcher or his student. More Demonic Beasts appear after a Dungeon Breaches and they continue to fill the dungeon as the Demonic Beasts find their way into our realm. There are many theories on the subject and on what causes the breaches or where the Demonic Beasts come from? But no one has any concrete answers. Most likely no one ever will.

"Last thing before I let you get to bed, your payment card please," Manager Halsey said as he took out his tablet.

"For your help in discovering and locating this dungeon, as well as the value of the Demonic Cores from the Demonic Beasts you've killed, your reward and share comes to 582 gold." Damion tapped his payment card on Manager Halsey tablet and received his payment. He was not sure how the amount broke down, but Damion was certainly happy to take the money. In the morning Damion woke up to the sound of ground cars, magic and trees being felled.

The group of people Manager Halsey brought in had cleared a path from the dungeon portal to the edge of the Benault Forest. Smoothed the ground to create a road and the staging area around the crater. As Damion ate his breakfast he saw Arica, Ethan and Theodore coming to greet him.

"Seems you've been quite busy the last few days," Ethan said as he sat down next to Damion.

"I could hardly believe it myself when I suspected there was a dungeon underground," Damion said to them.

"It looks like it is in a hole, not underground," Ethan said as he peered over the edge of the hole to look at the dungeon.

"It was in a cave and Mage Titus Glint, B Rank Earth affinity, raised it up and cleared the forest all from underground. It was quite the sight."

"I bet," Ethan said.

"I heard this expedition was led by Manager Halsey."

"Yes."

"What is he like?" Ethan asked.

"Powerful," Damion said. The word was the best summary he could give. He knew he had not seen a fraction of Manager Halsey's power and that he was capable of more than Mage Glint's impressive display.