Travel Diary I

POV Julián Kingscrown

It's been half a year since I started traversing the beast clearings. Initially, I wanted to enter the dungeons that housed corrupted beasts, but I realized it was suicide unless I reached the silver rank. I still lacked strength and, above all, experience in dungeon traversing.

That's why I started with class B dungeons. I made small incursions with others to better understand how they did the job, and three months later, I began to do it alone. During that time, I stole—ahem! I mean, I kindly took several mana beast cubs to be class S bonds in the future.

I'll probably be hated in the beast clearings, but I didn't care. Besides, it's not like I plan to sacrifice them; on the contrary, they will be exceptional mana beasts, bonds for people I will personally choose in the future, of course, with their approval.

One of the captured—cough! Adopted beasts is one that Virión, the Shadow Panther, will love.

The other would probably go well with Aya; it was a nightmare fox, so both with illusion magic would be a rather tricky duo to deal with.

Then there was a beautiful Ice Bird called Falcon, Queen of Frost. This would be a perfect gift for Queen Priscilla.

Lastly, there's a beast that Ingram brought, a tiger? I think. It was very adorable, with green and white colors. I couldn't find any record of it at the guild or anywhere else, so I named it Boreas Tiger due to the wind mana I saw in its core. I thought of giving it to Tess, but Ingram argued against it, so in the end, I thought of giving it to Tessia's parents.

With this, these people will be safer and have a better chance of survival.

While evolving the beasts, a sudden thought occurred to me. In Epheotus, there are several Asura clans, and each represented a kind of mythological beast in my past life. So far, it has been confirmed that their lower-ranking relatives have been seen, the Wyrm Phoenixes, for example. Following that line of thought,

Doesn't that mean the clans have distant relatives living on the continent?

I wonder if near the coasts of Etistin or the coasts of the beast clearings there might be Leviathans. Moreover, if I think about it, where could the relatives of the Hamadryads, the Sylphs, and not to mention, what does the Pantheon race represent?

These are things that require investigation, but to verify them, I must go even deeper into the beast clearings, and for that, the silver rank is essential. Besides, I need the first four beasts that were with me, in addition to Silvie, to reach rank A or AA.

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That's how I began to raid rank B or A dungeons, just to obtain cores and sell them to feed the beasts that followed me for the next half year.

I didn't report everything I did to the guild; after all, it would raise too many suspicions. That's why I only sold the cores anonymously through Vincent or Cynthia and immediately gave that money to Gideon for the defense system was almost finished, and we will soon start with the tests.

When I found out about this, I decided to give Gideon the next task, rings that will allow communication, also show the status and what their bearers were seeing.

At first, I wanted him to make pendants that function as beacons for teleportation, but I wanted to add a reverse option when their bearers were in danger.

"You're thinking of merging the system devised by Miss Watsken to project things, the rings that are on the market to know your physical state or mana, and you passed me some plans for a system to transmit sound. It's something interesting, but the Aurora system is still in testing. Are you going to do it yourself?" Gideon said.

"Yes, isn't it better to test them against mana beasts?" I asked while looking at the bracelet with the engravings of the runes for the Aurora system.

"You know it's suicide if the system doesn't work. At the very least, you'll hurt several parts of your body if it goes wrong," he said while reading the plan of the engraving for sound magic.

"Don't worry, I'll do it carefully. See you in a week. I'll come and give you my impressions," I said, waving my hand in farewell as I left through the door.

The system tests were positive, so I told Gideon to think from now on about ways to improve it and apply it on a larger scale to use it in buildings or large structures.

I also decided to buy Ironite diamonds to use them as batteries in the process of bringing Silvia back, but I know that too much mana and Ether will be needed to do it.

That's why I went to Eden. With the help of Barbatos, we built an area where Ether and mana would be absorbed from the environment naturally. I had to use Dryas's help a lot for the Ether, but I could handle the parts involving mana calmly.

I dedicated part of the cores and funds to this sanctuary I made to bring Silvia back. I wanted to thank her for everything she had done for me, that she could finally be with her precious daughter.

I didn't want to involve her in the war in any way and hoped it would be so, but deep down, I know it won't be like that.

As time passed, I continued hunting in the clearings, absorbing the mana from the beast cores I had and purifying my own. I also gave mana to Silvie, and she looked even stronger in her dragon form.

For some time, I was worried that she wouldn't have a good teacher in the arts of Ether, but Dryas told me she had memories of Silvia and, as a user of Vivum-type arts for recovery, she could guide her.

So another half year passed where I reached the initial Silver Rank.

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POV Note

"Hey, have you heard of the lone adventurer with white hair?" said a skinny adventurer.

"Isn't that supposed to be a lie to impress rookie adventurers?" replied the bald friend who was drinking with him.

"No, no, I heard it's completely real, and some were with him more than a year ago. They also said he was a very skilled adventurer," spoke the skinny mage sitting at the next table.

"Almost no one has seen him, and even fewer know his name. Obviously, it's fake, an invention. No one could be raiding dungeons solo," the bald man retorted disdainfully.

"But they say the guild has been receiving information from Him about unexplored areas of the dungeons," the friend at his table replied.

"That must be some facade of the guild. It has to be a group of unknown adventurers," said the bald man.

At the counter, there was someone waiting to receive their rations while listening to the conversation that caught their attention.

He looked like a dwarf because of his height, but he was too skinny to be one. His hair was red, and he had a distinctive white mask.

"Is that Julian? I haven't seen him in a long time. But what is he doing? It seems he's generated some kind of urban legend. I'm going to tease him with this when I see him."

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POV Samantha Tempest

Dungeon The Arctic Caverns Rank AA

"It seems that we are all gathered," spoke my group's companion.

"If it's a pleasure to meet your Adventurer group, Leon," spoke a woman with black hair who had just arrived with her group, carrying a quiver on her back and a bow in her hand.

"The pleasure is all mine, Miss Helen, I've heard much about your group, the Twin Horns," Leon spoke again.

"We're not that incredible, these are the members of my group: Adam Krensh, an enhancer without affinity; Angela Rose, a conjurer specializing in wind; Durden Walker, another conjurer specializing in earth; and I am Helen Shard, a wind enhancer."

"If I know some information about you, we are not a formed group, but we all accepted the mission to explore this newly found dungeon," Leon spoke.

"My name is Samantha Tempest, I am a conjurer with a specialization in water," I responded after him.

"Mine is Dix Graves, an enhancer with a fire affinity," spoke another person who was with us before.

"Mine is Leon Bale, Emitter," responded lastly the person who started the conversation, his tone was one full of pride, sounding very egocentric.

"Well, now that we have all introduced ourselves and know our roles, let's move forward," said Helen, urging us to enter the dungeon.

This cavern was a structure built by a series of corridors and labyrinthine rooms that had not been thoroughly explored according to the guild; its walls were covered with frost, snow, or ice.

It was a rather cold place, and only Dix seemed able to counteract it with his flame enhancement, so we constantly turned to his help.

We walked around five floors without anything too interesting; the mana beasts were around B rank at most, but after the sixth floor, we began to find battle marks, from shapes of lightning strikes to completely melted areas.

There were several bodies of mana beasts scattered on the floor, "None of them have the core, and some have marks of cuts and others of claws," Adam spoke.

"Do you think someone passed through here with their Bond?" Helen asked.

"Most likely, but the claw marks on their bodies are irregular; it seems they were not from the same beast," Dix responded.

"Wouldn't it be dangerous to continue? There are many strange things in this place," Leon spoke in a frightened tone this time.

I thought the same, there are very worrying things, but we finally decided to continue a little more to confirm what was really happening.

The situation did not change even when we reached the tenth floor; all the rooms or corridors had slain beasts without their core, and the few that remained were easily swept away by us.

Only the dungeon boss's room remained, or so we estimated, as there were no more paths.

We opened the door focused, with tension running through our bodies and sweat sprouting from our foreheads.

As the doors moved, an unbearable screech was heard that became eternal, and when it finally opened, what it showed was the body of a large mana beast completely inert.

A Wyvern, and not just any, was one that had a prominent size of about five meters long by four meters high; if it were alive, its scales would be a brilliant frosted white color, but now I could only see marks of a fierce battle on its body.

Its body had scars from burns caused by high-temperature flames, and a huge area of its back was completely charred, it even looked like melted material; seeing that image caused me some repulsion, so I decided to divert my gaze to other parts of its body, and the number of cuts was enormous, there was no need to mention who was the winner.

"By the size and presence it emits even being dead, it is an AA rank boss," Adam commented.

"Yes, and something else that seems strange is that it doesn't have claw marks or wounds from other mana beasts like the ones in the corridors," Helen said this time.

"If you see, the marks of the cuts were made by a similar weapon, which leads us to the conclusion that a single person killed the beast or it was a group with the same weapon," Dix added.

"If someone really did it alone, they must be extremely strong to leave that melted mark on its back," Durden said this time.

"That makes it even stranger, why if it has fight marks with an enhancer, there is a large wound that could only be made by a conjurer," Angela spoke.

"We don't know, but for now let's look around for more clues, then we'll think about what to do," Helen ordered.

After searching the surroundings, we couldn't find anything that could give us a clue about what had happened.

Only Angela seemed to find a few drops of blood, but they were so scarce that we couldn't tell if they were from the beast or the person who defeated it.

"Let's get out of here, we have to make a report to the guild about the situation," Helen said.

"Tch, what a waste of time," Adam replied in a tone of dissatisfaction.

"You shouldn't let your guard down before leaving here, besides, the beasts we managed to kill provided us with good loot, what are you complaining about," Helen replied.

"She's right, Mr. Adam, if it had been us, we might have had to withdraw with injuries on the sixth or seventh floor," Leon responded this time.

"That's right, Adam, I think it was good to be able to reach the last floor because the dungeon was mapped and we obtained cores from some B and A class beasts," Durden spoke up to try to calm his comrade's mood.

"Doesn't this situation seem familiar to you?" I commented, remembering everything we had seen in this dungeon.

"If you're referring to the rumors of the adventurer who cleans dungeons solo, I've personally never seen him, and no one has confirmed any link with him," Helen said as we walked towards the exit of the dungeon.

"I was with the person from those rumors over a year ago, it was on a B-rank dungeon raid, although I can't affirm it's the same person, their appearance and that of the person from the rumors are very similar," Leon said this time.

"It's not something we can find out with the information we have, just take the information to the guild, it will be their decision what to do," Adam said, as we all headed upstairs from the dungeon.