Newbie Levels
The morning light was shining through the windows and the citizens were waking up to go about their day once more. Among them were two elves, who were preparing to dive into the dungeon once more.
"Brush your teeth, idiot!" A yell froze the younger one in place, making him adopt a sheepish expression before rushing to the bathroom.
"Haah, I swear to goddess that dumbass would probably forget to breathe if it wasn't automatic." Letting out a sigh of exasperation, the older one continued packing supplies for the day.
Yesterday they had not thought of the food problem, especially bothersome because of the energy-intensive tasks they had to do, but today they would bring a packed lunch that they could eat down in the dungeon.
After all the preparations were done it was time to set off to the new floors.
They headed towards the dungeon, but Cassian took a left turn at the first interval.
"Huh? Hey, where are we going, the dungeon is straight ahead?" Nico was confused about the abrupt turn.
"I checked the city map yesterday, we are unfortunately close to a place we should avoid like the plague for now, so we're going to take a roundabout way to reach the dungeon."
"What place?" What place was so dangerous that they should avoid it like that?
"Hostess of Fertility." Replied Cassian with finality.
"Wait what? Why are we avoiding that place? I was hoping we could go there and eat one of these days?"
"Are you dumb?" Cassian looked at his little brother dumbfoundedly. "Remember who exactly works there?"
"Oh yeah, Freya… Maybe she won't be interested in us?" He asked a little hopefully.
"With the way Hecate described my soul? Fat chance. And who knows what that lunatic yandere goddess will be like if she sees my soul. She became obsessed with Bell thanks to his unique color, now what will happen if she sees the cosmos in mine?"
Cassian shuddered just thinking about it. Yeah, the Yanderes may be hot in fiction, but in real life? When they're chasing after you and psychotic enough to brainwash an entire city if pushed far enough? No, thank you.
"I- Okay I can see the problem now. That sucks, dining there is like a rite of passage." Nico whined, the food was also supposed to be very delicious.
"Don't worry, I somehow doubt we'll avoid her for long with her habits and abilities. I just want to delay it as much as possible. We'll go there once I feel it's alright to." Which brightened Nico right back up.
They made their way to the dungeon and started making their way down the floors. The first 5 floors were a breeze and they got through in less than an hour. Then they stepped foot on the 6th floor. After a bit of maneuvering, they got away from other adventurers and started hunting.
Cassian easily detected the croaks of the frog shooters and went to their location, ending up in a room with 6 frogs inside.
As soon as the frogs saw the two, they shot out their tongues looking to hit and entangle them.
Immediately Cassian ducked and weaved through the tongues before shooting off to the frogs, meanwhile, Nico instantly summoned a wind wall to deflect the tongues before firing wind bullets through the huge eyes of the frogs, that practically screamed 'Target Me!'.
Cassian's sword flashed and instantly cleaved through two of the frog shooters before darting off to the third one to finish it off, while Nico drilled a hole through the brains of each of the frogs.
"Not hard at all, it seems we can han-" Just as Nico was concluding that sentence, Cassian's long ears twitched and he immediately ducked, black claws passing through where his neck was supposed to be, while simultaneously shooting out his hand and shouting "Aard!".
A telekinetic blast of energy shot out and impacted a war shadow that was about to cleave through Nico's neck, the force of the blast making it explode into a dark gooey substance and smearing the walls behind it. Then he brought his sword up and cut the assaulting war shadow in two.
"C-Crap that was close!" Exclaimed Nico with fear, as without his brother's intervention he likely would have died. Just like that, his throat sliced open.
"Mages are supposed to be party divers, they don't go down solo or in duos because at least one person has to be constantly defending them due to their lacking physical capabilities, otherwise they will die extremely quickly. You won't be like that because you are special among them." Cassian said this while starting to harvest the monsters, he already knew the two war shadows that were waiting to ambush them.
He let them come close and launch that attack because he wanted to teach his baby brother a lesson. This wasn't a game. Letting his guard down like that would get him killed. And there wasn't a respawn point where he could hop back to life easily. The dungeon was deadly and vicious.
"Because I can develop and use many spells right?" He asked a little uncertainly.
He noticed the lighthearted nature with which his brother was approaching the dungeon and monsters. It resembled Tiona's. But unlike hers which stemmed from years of battle experience and hid a constant war readiness under it, Nico's stemmed from carelessness and ignorance. It seemed he had not yet processed their situation properly. But now…
"Yes, that is what makes you special. No mage can solo the dungeon, except you. Because you can develop all the spells you may need to make up for all the weaknesses of a mage. A Quen-like spell that always shields you or a sensory spell to make you aware of the dangers approaching. All you need to do is reach out and grasp that potential."
Now Nico's eyes were shining with steely determination. He would do it. He would become the greatest mage. And if he wanted to do that, a 'Newbie Killer' almost taking him out was unacceptable. He couldn't half-ass this. He would need to work himself to the bone.
And he would gladly do it. He will not let himself fall behind his brother, they will rise to the top together.
"I'll do it! You'll see! I will be the best!" He declared resolutely.
Cassian smiled at that. This was the push he needed. So Nico could finally set foot upon his path. Of course, he himself was not planning on slacking off. What kind of lousy older brother would let his baby brother get ahead of him?
"Let's go!"
--- 9th floor ---
Cassian ducked as a needle rabbit flew over him, before lashing out with a kick and breaking its neck, before unleashing an Aard at a Killer Ant, trying to bite his ankle, crushing its carapace and killing it instantly.
His vision was a little blurred thanks to the purple dust getting in his eyes, but his hearing made up for it. He was surrounded by a dozen Purple moths, constantly spraying him with their poison dust, but he was completely unaffected thanks to his resistance.
In the corner of the room was Nico casting spells and hurling attack after attack at all the monsters. Each of his Wind cannons and Wind blades killed two or three monsters, while his Air wall expertly guarded him against any stray monsters that broke off of the horde that was attacking Cassian.
They were currently in a monster pantry. Special rooms formed in the dungeon floors, where the monsters fed on the sustenance provided by the quartz pillars in them.
Monsters had the ability to live off the energy in their magic stone, but that weakened the stone and in turn, the monster got weaker themselves. To avoid that, pantries are used by monsters to get food and keep their energy up, allowing them to live longer and remain at their peak.
That meant that the pantries were extremely dangerous places packed full of monsters ready to attack at a moment's notice. Most adventurers at appropriate levels tended to avoid the pantries because of the risk of being overwhelmed they presented. But some of them saw the pantries as excellent places that allowed them to farm a ton of monsters without wasting time, traversing the dungeon looking for them.
Cassian and Nikolaos were among the latter.
Jumping on top of one of the ants, Cassian discarded his sword and brought a hammer kick down on top of the monster, crushing its head under his might.
His sword has become useless. It was an ordinary steel sword, so it was utterly incapable of slashing through the ant's hard exoskeletons. The few times he tried, his sword gained chips. Chips that were exaggerated by clashing against multitudes of horns of the needle rabbits, to the point the sword was about to break at any second now.
This was normal. The deeper one went into the dungeon, the stronger the monsters became, especially their toughness and so weapons were incapable of keeping up. That is why one needed a better weapon for practically every 5 floors at the beginning of the dungeon.
And this problem was not limited to beginning floors. The higher-leveled adventurers faced the exact same problem deep into the dungeon. Even if they got a weapon that was capable of handling itself against the toughest monsters. The weapons became damaged extremely quickly and needed maintenance and repairs.
Only the weapons made with the attribute 'Durandal' could handle prolonged strain and even that required maintenance at least once a month. And that was if the monsters encountered were standard. If especially hard-to-handle monsters were fought, like the acid caterpillars Loki familia fought, then even a Durandal weapon would require immediate repairs.
This is why blacksmithing was such a lucrative career, matching or even surpassing adventuring depending on the skill of the blacksmith in question. They could earn unfathomable amounts of money. Tsubaki, the level 5 captain of the Hephaestus familia is one of the richest individuals in the city.
And it is why the adventurers needed to sink astronomical amounts of funds into their gear.
Cassian punched the rabbit that was looking to impale him on its horn from the side, bursting its head open and spreading gore all over his hand.
Killer ants surrounded him, but he made a powerful leap and instantly got out of their encirclement, the two ants that had their back to him now got grabbed by their mandibles and had their heads crushed together, covering the entire front side and face of Cassian in blood and gore.
"Fuck!" some got into his mouth and the smell was like a jackhammer to his overstimulated nose. 'Shit, I miscalculated and used too much power.'
Cassian's current strength was more than enough to crush the ant's exoskeletons as if they were made of drywall. He was, in short, over-leveled for these floors.
The remaining monsters were already upon him, so Cassian decided to ignore the gore that was making him nauseous and instead concentrated on annihilating all the monsters in the pantry.
The fight lasted for 10 more minutes, with Cassian rampaging around smashing the monsters with pure strength, while Nico barraged them with spells.
Finally, the only monsters remaining were the Purple moths still futilely trying to poison Cassian. He dealt with them by using Igni and setting them on fire. After thrashing around on the ground for a while burning, they finally went still and died.
The brothers looked over the scene of carnage-filled with monsters before setting their eyes on Cassian's blood and gore-covered body, to the point even his white hair was dyed red.
"Ewww, you look disgusting." Nico called out with both disgust and amusement seeing his brother in that predicament.
"Shut up. New order, develop a spell that can instantly clean targets." Ground out Cassian with annoyance while trying to get some of it off of him.
"Heh, so you admit to mages being superior to muscle-headed warriors like you." The tone was packed so full of smugness, it made Cassian want to smack the little prick.
"Shut up you wand-whipper, at least a goblin isn't enough to fold me."
"I can handle a goblin just fine!"
So they continued bickering until they were brought back to the situation at hand and saw the room full of monster corpses once more.
Despair filled their eyes when they realized what they had to do now.
"We need to find a supporter to shove this crap onto them." Drawled out Cassian.
"Yeah…" Nico had tears in his eyes.
It was going to be a long day.