45 (45) Evolution

Two months after Celeste's battle; near the start of the 3rd month, everything turned back to normal in the dungeons. In the upperworld, the Prodigy Competition as the reporters called it had finally come to an end. Out of the 200 chosen prodigies, Celeste came 32nd. That one loss had a detrimental effect to her ranking but then again, it was a double Boss dungeon with an absurdly low clear rate.

Celeste had long left Florid Boulevard taking the giant mass of people with her. The town had earned big during this period of time, especially taverns and the guilds which owned them.

This event was also prosperous for some of the local dungeons, but not so much for others. One of the dungeons which benefitted the most, was of course Ophid Crypt.

Many parties and players had become curious after Celeste had lost to the dungeon, even with the cost of losing a level if they died, none of them could resist the urge made by their curiousity. Some parties prepared expansively in order to survive, but in the end, curiosity had killed every single ca- player that entered the dungeon past Floor Two.

By the end of the third month, the Dungeon itself had progressed by a large amount. The Gargoyles had finished excavating the Fifth Floor, there were three main passages that led to this floor and over ten spacious rooms were nestled inside like a pharaoh's catacomb.

Lysine felt that she had put too much work into the current Boss Room and Starry Corridor to move out, therefore they decided to add one of the rooms from Floor Five into Floor Four, the plan of swapping the Floors was for the future.

For now, since there the Nagas or any of the other monsters didn't need this floor, it would remain as a basement until someone inhabited it.

The new layout of Floor Four was similar to before, but after descending the stairs and traversing through the Starry Coridor, the players would now enter a small-to-middle sized room with the Boss Room's double doors at the end. This adjustment gave Sapphire and Jade enough room to fight whilst also constricting a player's raid party space to move.

All the Gargoyles had now broken through and 'evolved', their skin now resembled more closely to basalt than granite, their weight had also increased, but their agility wasn't affected much at all.

With their evolution and bountiful feast in the past few months, the Gargoyles had reached an average level of 8.

The Nagas didn't wait for the Gargoyles, with their efficient slaughtering through teamwork, most Nagas had reached level 11 or 12. Because they weren't a Boss Monster, or a monster of higher lineage, the specialisation process wasn't as significant as Kraton's or Lysine's.

The Nagas abilities had improved in an all-round fashion, but an emphasis could be seen on speed or power. This also created a small sub-class division between the Nagas, but that didn't divide them as a family in any way.

The most notable improvement with the Nagas was Calea, she had now become a level 12 monster, close to level 13. There was no denying the fact that she was most likely an elite or rare monster. Many Nagas were awed and maybe a tinsy bit envious, however it was very far off from jealousy.

Calea had decided to specialise in speed, she was already one of the nimblest of Nagas in the swarm, but now her speed was a whole step higher than the others. When Calea activated the skill Dash, her speed could almost reach Lysine's when she wasn't using the skill or her wings.

Naturally, the Bosses hadn't slacked off either. In the two months, Kraton had Lysine had increased their level by 2 and 3 respectively.

Barren had become less active, but he was largely uneeded anyway. For the most of the two months, Barren had stayed as a crystal; meditating and absorbing the natural energies from the earth.

At the end of the third month, the two Bosses were once again shocked. The Dungeon had displayed a message to the two, similar to the one before. It read:

"Due to sharing the dungeon with a third Boss, a very inefficient decision. This dungeon now multiplies experience and knowledge given by deceased players. If a Boss is to leave, the multiplier will reset back to it's previous amplification.

<Dungeon amplification = 200%>"

The Dungeon didn't seem to know that Barren hadn't done much at all, and even if he had worked, he didn't need the experience from the players. This was basically just giving the two Bosses the normal amount of experience they would have earned by killing the player by themselves. And since there were two (plus one) Bosses, killing players and reaping the benefits was much quicker and easier.

With this, the target of reaching level 30 by the end of this year wasn't an impossible feat for Kraton now. Hato had given out this target to the Novice Bosses so that the geniuses wouldn't actually feel that proud.

For a genius, this target was hard, but for the regular Bosses, this target was too far-fetched! Hato would have loved to see the despair in everyone's eyes when they finally realised that they couldn't do it. Those monsters would also naturally feel that they had let Hato down. That sly, wicked demon!

Though Kraton knew that both he and Lysine were improving at incredible rates, he still couldn't help but feel left behind by his two friends. Kim and Psychi had already broken past level 20, and although Psychi's levelling slowed down slightly, he had made up for that by learning various skills and mastering the usuage of quite a few of them.

The two of them had also reaped plentiful benefits during the Prodigy Competition, and since their region was more wealthy than Florid Boulevard, more people had stayed behind. This led to an increase in daily dungeon raiders, which would further increase their levelling rate.

After conversing for a while, Kim had shocked Karton and Psychi. Compared with Psychi's attainment of numerous skills, Kim had also evolved. She described herself with the same beautiful body, but now a pair of wings were growing on her back.

Being a chimera bloodline had limitless possibilities, even twins of this bloodline would never look the same. Just like how two snowflakes are never the same.

Kim had seemingly awakened a dragon bloodline, her wings once grown, would give her more back protection, as well as even more mobility. Kim's and Lysine's fighting style were remotely similar, their application of dash, lethal tails and mobile wings gave the two females many things to talk about.

The two got on so well that Kraton and Psychi forced them to talk on a private channel.

In the evening, when Lysine had finally finished talking, she gave Kraton some suprising news; Kim had been thinking of exploring the wilderness and forests outside, of course she wasn't abandoning her dungeon but was just trying to experience how forest hunters differed from raiders.

During their discussion, Kim had asked if she could visit Ophid Crypt, after all it wasn't that far away and she needed to travel through a forest to get there. It was like killing two birds with one stone.

Lysine had, of course, readily accepted and invited Kim to come over, it made Kraton think that he held no authority in the dungeon anymore.

The evening seemed full of suprises, as later on Psychi had informed Kraton that he would also be inviting himself to come over. It had been a year without them meeting up, and Psychi wanted to see how much Kraton had improved by.

Kraton sorely doubted that Psychi would just want to come over because of that, it was more likely that he didn't want to be left out.

With Kim and Psychi planning on visiting Ophid Crypt in around a months time, Kraton suddenly felt pressured to sort his dungeon out and to hurry up and level up, otherwise Psychi's friendly 'sparring' will leave him in a very embaressing and bruised situation.

At least the Fifth Floor might have a use sooner than expected.