D-Rank Dungeon Raid (IV)

Karan felt as though he'd been resurrected from the dead. When the poison liquid was shot at him a second ago, numerous thoughts flashed through his mind. At the moment, it seemed as though his life journey had come to an end far sooner than he had anticipated, but then, just out of nowhere, a savior appeared, clad in silver armor and wielding a golden shield!

Igor's figure, as he held out his hand seemed like a guardian deity, and a faint urge arose in Karan's heart to give him a quick worship. Maybe this was just a feeling he had as a result of being narrowly rescued from the jaws of death…

He clasped Igor's outstretched hand tightly, like a lifeline in the midst of a raging storm, and was pulled up to his feet.

"Thank you," He said as complex emotions flashed through his eyes.

"There's no need for that, it's my duty anyway," Igor patted his shoulder lightly. "Now let's get finished with what we started, shall we?" He added with a smile.

"Sure."

During their brief period of discussion, other awakeners had already engaged the monsters once more in a frenzied attack. Both monsters, having noticed their precarious situation were starting to pull back from the fight, but the awakeners didn't give them a chance to do so.

Karan rejoined in the fight with an increased tempo, ready to vent his resentment on the monsters responsible for sending him to a crossroad of life and death. After an extended period of fierce battle, the two large bodies of the poison steel spiders lay lifeless on the ground much to the delight of everyone.

The raid leader ordered a group of D-rankers to process the body of the monsters, after which the materials would be distributed to each guild. Although the number of awakeners who took part in this raid was much, the poison steel spider was a large monster and the resources to be obtained from both of them would amount reasonably when distributed.

The eyes of the E-rankers brightened and they watched enthusiastically as the exoskeleton and other valuable parts of the monsters bodies were collected. As E-rankers, they have never possessed such level of resources, and the thought of having It made them excited.

D-rank resources were very precious in Regan. Whatever purpose they were used for, whether being sold or used for artifact refinement, they were sure to be of great benefit.

After about an hour, the group was finally done with processing the bodies, and they placed the resources collected into a small space storage bag. The small bag was like a bottomless pit as each material that was put into it disappeared without a trace.

A space storage bag was a storage artifact that could simulate the principle of space manipulation, whereby acting as an interdimensional vacuum that could store a large number of resources with convenience.

The lowest rank of the artifact was C-rank because the materials needed to make them were space spirit crystals and they could only be obtained from high-level dungeons. For this reason, space storage bags were not available to every awakener in Regan save for a few key experts.

After the materials were stored, the group then continued their advance into the dungeon in search of more monsters. Their enthusiasm was at a peak level because of their earlier victory, But after several hours of searching, they couldn't find a single trace of any monster.

A clear disappointment was crested on their faces as they traversed the rocky plain. This kind of situation wasn't new to them. There wasn't a fixed number of monsters in each dungeon, the number varied from time to time and this was because a dungeon was just a broken part of another world that had an interdimensional intersected with their world.

Because these dungeons were dying worlds, there were flaws in the dimensional principles, and this was the cause of the intersection. The world principles always did what it could to repair the dimensional flaws but this only resulted in a switch between different broken worlds. As a result of this, depending on the time an awakener entered a dungeon they could appear in any of the broken worlds, and the number of monsters and resources in each of them varied.

There were even cases where a particular dimension would be empty, leaving the raid team with nothing but disappointment. Knowing that they had to be cautious with their actions, and to really be sure that there weren't any monsters left in the dungeon, they decided to do a thorough search.

After a few more hours of searching, the entire raid team stood at a mountainous path leading to different directions. There was a sudden change in the scenery as if the world turned still. It was a terrible calmness. The ground was covered in snow, with traces left by lacerating hurricanes and whining winds, mimicking the desert sand. The skies above were an unholy mixture of shale-grey clouds and pasty streaks. The icy breath of winter was felt.

They had been wandering around for over a day in search of more monsters to hunt, yet they couldn't find any. Seeing the situation, they lost all hope and their motivation was dwindling with the wind. But at this moment, for some reason, the expressions of the group soared into the skies and above the clouds that some of them couldn't help grinning and cackling excitedly.

'Dungeon stone'

The rich and pungent smell that wafted the air was the reason for their speculation.

Dungeon stone was a crystalline object that bore numerous similarities to power stones. Power stones were mined in their world and were condensed from of essence energy containing various wills and principles. Also, a dungeon stone was a condensed form of essence energy belonging to their respective dungeons.

The quality of a dungeon stone was dependent on the rank of the dungeon they were found. Their value far surpassed any power stone because the amount of essence energy in a dungeon stone was several times more than a power stone and the chances of them appearing in any dungeon were very little.

Because they contained the essence energy belonging to another world, they were of great benefits to an awakener. People who absorbed dungeon stones in the past had fewer restrictions placed on them and some of them were able to awaken special abilities belonging to the particular dungeon where the dungeon stone was found. They were called double awakeners.

Numerous thoughts flashed through the minds of everyone present. They couldn't tell the number of available dungeon stones but they all knew that it wouldn't be enough for everyone. Many of them were bound to end up empty-handed. They silently weighed their chances while flashing impatient looks at the raid leader.

"Since there are no monsters in this dungeon, everyone can split up to find their own opportunities," the raid leader glanced at the group and said. Although his expression remained calm, he couldn't hide the trace of excitement in his voice.