43 (43) You again

"That's what death is like"

Celeste opened her eyes to find that she was back in her room she rented, she glanced at her level and was somewhat depressed. She had only just gotten to level 14 but now she was back to level 13, it was fortunate that she kept a high-grade artifact on her which reduced the experience loss by 70%, but losing a level meant that she lost the assigned attribute points at that level.

Although it wasn't much, anyone would feel weaker after losing strength all of a sudden (duhh). There was a case in which a player invested all his attribute points into intelligence, but after losing a level he couldn't figure out what all his hypotheses in his notebook meant. That dumb guy was at level 70, so all the advanced notes he made at level 70 became redundant to him until he levelled up, and that took a long time.

Celeste recalled the final moments of perishing, she remembered looking at the crystal wall, but it had felt like it was staring right back at her. Near the top of the wall, she could recall two concentrated balls of light and she didn't know whether they were real or not. After all, she was surrounded by tiny glowy dots of light at the time, and the crystal defracted the light behind it in many unnatural directions.

Her curiosity piqued at the strange recollection, she definitely had to investigate it, even if what she saw was an illusion of the mind, she still wanted to find out how she died and how her spell didn't work.

...

Back in the Boss Room Kraton had finally revived, he glared at Barren and demanded answers from him.

"Why didn't you stop me from dying!!! Ungrateful Golem."

Barren looked wronged, he had truly tried to protect everyone from the flame, but Kraton was just too large, I meant too close to the flames to save in time.

"I tried, but does it matter anyway? You didn't lose anything."

"I have pride as well you know! Besides, dying still doesn't feel comfortable so why would I want to die. Humph" Kraton fumed at Barren's lack of pity, what type person would let their resurrector die?

It didn't take long for Kraton to calm down as he had benefited from the battle as well. A segment of his experience had increased, but that wasn't the best of it. Kraton's own skill Analysis had now become tier 2/3, this meant that there would be more information and data shown, as well as being able to work on opponents with a weak disguise skill or low-levelled monsters with the Conceal skill.

Another benefit of the battle was that he felt his understanding of spells and elemental creatures increase a bit, transforming some the potential in his Subconscious Knowledge into Advanced Knowledge on this matter.

Because the Golems Sapphire and Jade had beaten everyone earlier that day, no-one bothered to challenge the two Bosses as how could anyone get past these Golems and retain enough strength to beat the Bosses inside if even the Fiery Princess Celeste fell to these two Bosses.

Whilst there was a huge commotion in the upperworld about Celeste's vow and who she would form a party with, inside the dungeon there was peace. With no human entering the dungeon, this left the monsters to have some free time. In the case of the Gargoyles, they continued mining away.

A few Gargoyles had already grown, or evolved in a way. Tribus, the lazy Gargoyle, was the first to show signs of molting, his outer skin grew cracks and between these cracks one could see a darker coloured stone, some places even had a faint metallic luster to it.

The Gargoyles evolution was the fruit of their hard labour, by consuming denser, older and stronger rocks and ores, they would become stronger as well, most of the time mimicking the consumed mineral. Gargoyles and other rock monsters could directly skip to eating the hardest and purest minerals such as crystals as these crystals were much to hard to consume and absorb, it would just be wasted if they were to try consuming it at a lowly stage.

During the rest of the afternoon, Kraton spent his time trying to design and manufacture an item that could utilise the explosive paste of nauseating smoke, however even after racking his brain for a couple of hours, nothing came to his mind, or when something did, it never seemed to work.

Lysine left Kraton to his own struggles as she trained herself against Barren, from today's fight, she felt that her techniques weren't good enough. Barren, being an ancient being had vast amounts of knowledge, during the sparring, he pointed out weaknesses, techniques and other helpful advice. As well as this, his indestructable composition made him the best training partner - able to withstand all of Lysine's attacks.

...

Outside the dungeon, Celeste felt more fatigued than she had been when fighting the two Bosses. As soon as she had left her accomodation, she was met with a crowd of hundreds of fans, reporters and gossipers. She had already grown sick of the questions they asked.

"How did you get defeated?"

"Who will you party with?

"Are you going back to the dungeon? Revenge?"

Being strong and a prodigy of the generation had as many disadvantages as there were advantages, why couldn't the crowds of people piss off and mind their own business?

It was only a matter of time until false rumours spread out as well, as well as those who despised her and would use this defeat as a means to target or break her.

At a point, the crowd grew so big and pestful that she couldn't even take a single step forwards. Celeste retreated hurriedly around a corner before the crowd of fanataics could catch up, checking that there was no-one in sight, she took out a tiny scroll and lit it on fire. When the scroll had been completely burnt, Celeste's figure was nowhere to be seen.

A second later, the crowd of zealots flooded round the corner of the building into the large footpath, the people at the front became confused and tried to back out, but they were only pushed further in by the rest of the mob behind them.

Far away from the commotion, a figure with long, fiery red hair materialised sighing with relief. Celeste stood infront of the entrance to Ophid Crypt, she wasn't here to re-challenge the dungeon as she wasn't that pretentious. It was also pointless to challenge it again as the Great Families only cared about the first time they challenged the dungeon. This was in order to assess their preparation and investigative skills, something one would need as they grew stronger. It was probably also to assess the prodigies' pride, someone who could not take a loss would be of no worth for a Great or Noble Family.

--

Kraton was currently in the process of hammering out a metal dome, beside him were dozens of metal domes with dents in them being piled into the large stone block with a pit, molten metal drained out of the hole into a large rock bucket. All these domes were wasted, the single dent in them made the mcompletely unusable for their required purpose.

Kraton was focused completely on the current dome, his hands already ached and were numb from the continuous hammering, this dome used up the last of the scrap metal before he had to reuse all the other metal domes. If this didn't work, then he might as well finish for the day and continue tomorrow.

*Thud*

The loud thudding made Kraton flinch, the hammer slipped past the dome and struck his own hand, resulting in him dropping the dome and roaring in pain.

Lysine and Barren halted their training, first glancing at Kraton, and then the source of the noise.

One of the large, magnificent doors had opened, the two Golems stood at the doorway, peering in.

Kraton continued howling in pain, and chucked the wasted metal dome towards the doorway in anger.

"How rude.." Celeste murmered as she stepped out from behind the two Golems. A glowing symbol attracted Lysine's attention, it was made of a simple triangle, with the shape of a lotus flower inside it. She remembered seeing it once in her old pack, in one of the disregarded scrolls.

The symbol hovered above Celeste's palm, similar to how a rune would appear when casting a spell.

"You know of the Ancient Bond?" It was Barren who spoke, his voice carried a trace of nostalgia as he gazed at the symbol.

Kraton finally sobered up from the pain, he glanced at the doorway only to find himself suprised to see Celeste standing at the door, "You again?". He chucked another metal dome towards Celeste just to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

"Damned barbaric oaf" Celeste swore as she dodged the incoming projectile.