39 Chapter Thirty-Nine

"Shit," Edward mumbled as he closed the book in his hands. He turned to look at his two companions and sighed. Ikarus was playfully spinning in a circle with a massive smile on his face. There was no point in Ikarus participating in the reading, considering the dragon couldn't read English, so he was spending his time playing.

Markus was hovering in the air only a few feet away from him. Without looking up from his book, he spoke to Edward with a voice filled with boredom.

"What'd you find?" Markus asked.

"Absolutely nothing," He sighed, "The only reference I found stated that Dragons went missing five centuries ago. But the book itself is a copy from a tome published nearly a thousand years ago. I'm no closer to finding more of them than I was an hour ago. What about you, what have you found?"

"Not much, unfortunately," Markus looked up from his book, "From what I've learned, Titles are created by the system itself. Usually, they're given to warriors who show great feats of strength, but I've found a few cases where they were given for reasons that don't make sense. One person was given a title for inventing a device that was essentially just a printing press- just worse."

"So you'll have to accomplish something amazing?" Edward asked, "Maybe you could fight a boss on your own?"

"I don't think I'd be able to do that," Markus laughed, "But yeah, something along those lines should give me a title, but I don't see us doing anything like that soon. Maybe I should start looking for a better Origin, like you did. Where did you find yours, anyway?"

"At the bottom of a dungeon," Edward answered. Markus's eyes widened in surprise, "My Maester teleported me directly to it. I didn't clear the dungeon the normal way."

"That was an option?" Markus grumbled as he turned back to his book, "I'll keep on looking through this book, but what will you do? It doesn't look like you'll be finding a dragon any time soon."

"I'll find the next best thing- Dungeons," Edward answered. His body glided to a nearby bookshelf- where he returned his book on dragons. From there, his body flew up to another bookshelf. This one contained information on dungeons, much to Edward's delight. He had already memorized the location of every relevant bookshelf near him, luckily, so he wouldn't have to search as hard when he was looking for the right book.

From there, he gazed upon the book spines in front of him as he read the titles.

"'Dungeon History in the World of Avalon', 'How to conquer your first Dungeon', 'The Dungeon incident of 1457 5E', 'Dungeon Basics'," Edward mumbled to himself. Eventually, he found a book that piqued his interest, "'The Detailed Record of Avalon's Vast Dungeon System'. This'll tell me all of the information I need."

"Don't you still have that map I gave you?" Markus asked. Edward removed the book from the shelf before gliding back to his friend.

"Dude, that thing barely held any information. At most, it told me a dungeon's name and a few fun facts. I need more if we're going to go dungeon diving," Edward smiled. Markus was silent after that, so Edward turned back to his book and opened it to the first page. Luckily the author of this book had done Edward the favor of organizing everything into neat paragraphs and lines of text. Because of that, it didn't feel like Edward was reading a college textbook but instead a guide from an internet wiki page.

The book's chapters were organized based on the location of the dungeons, rather than their types. Only through the middle of the book did Edward find information on the dungeons in the nation of Pathia.

"'In Pathia, there are a total of five Dungeons- each at the second difficulty. Your party of five should hope to be at least level ten before even attempting any of the dungeons found in this list,'" Edward read aloud. Markus looked up from his book and smiled.

"Five of them? That's good," He said, "If we use the same strategy as yesterday, we should be able to reach level ten by tonight."

Edward nodded in delight before turning back to his book. This time, though, he read silently to not disturb Markus or anybody else near them.

'The Dungeon of Winter Catacombs is a cold-based dungeon with a castle interior. Total of eight floors. Most of the enemies in this dungeon resemble frozen skeletons. As such, they are weak to fire-based attacks and holy magic but resistant to ice and shadow magic. The castle interior is like a maze, but you won't have to worry about traps as you're walking through it. Make sure to bundle up with additional layers before you explore this dungeon or your party might freeze to death. When you reach the boss room, know that you'll be facing a large undead yeti- target its back.'

Edward was not super excited about the prospect of fighting in the cold, but he was glad the enemies were weak to fire damage. He made a mental note to seriously consider this dungeon as he turned his attention to the rest of the page.

'The Fire Crypt is a dungeon resembling the inside of a volcano. Twelve floors. After a dungeon breach in 1202 5E, the dungeon became impossible to traverse without magical protection. You'll have to have one cleric focusing on protection spells for every three people- so it's best to ignore this dungeon if you can. There aren't any monsters and the few remaining traps have been melted away. The only enemy you'll face is the boss, a large magma snake, that is weak to ice and immune to fire damage.'

Edward didn't even consider this dungeon as it was the opposite of what he wanted. Not only was it too dangerous to traverse, but the only enemy was immune to his magic. He moved on.

'The Caverns of the Nameless Cult is an underground dungeon with an environment of a buried fortress. Two floors. The enemies are all vestiges of ice mages with considerable strength, though there aren't many of them. You'll find that the dungeon has a few traps- nothing dangerous- so bringing a thief to find them ahead of time is always a good choice. There are three bosses in the form of three powerful mages. Each of them has ice magic and necromancy. To defeat them, you have to kill them all at the same time. If one boss dies prematurely the other two will raise it back to life.'

Edward was sad the enemies didn't have any particular weaknesses, but he eventually chose to skip this dungeon because of the boss battle. Having to kill three bosses while coordinating them to die at the same time sounded difficult.

'The Shadow Vault is a dungeon with a single floor- the boss room. This dungeon functions as a wave-defense dungeon. The enemies are all shadow creatures, so their exact appearance will change depending on the day. Some will look like dogs while others will look like bandits. After twenty waves, the boss- a large shadow bat- will appear. All of the enemies are weak to light magic.

Edward didn't know how this type of dungeon would go- as the size of each wave wasn't mentioned. He didn't know whether to skip or consider this one, so he shelved that issue for later.

'The Burrow of the Beast is an underground dungeon resembling an animal's burrow. Twenty floors. Because of the dungeon's nature, the dungeon ceiling will always be covered in massive tree roots and the majority of the dungeon will be made out of dirt. All of your enemies will be brown bunnies the size of a large man- there will be hundreds of them. None of the enemies are particularly strong, but make sure your party isn't overwhelmed. The boss is another bunny similar to the basic enemies, just much larger and stronger.

It sounded like a very basic dungeon- if a bit long, so he chose to consider it. This left him with three options: The Winter Catacombs, The Shadow Vault, or the Burrow of the Beast.