Entering the Edgar's labyrinth
After having dinner, we moved according to the plan.
I gave the tent to Nina and Tia as I already had ten more tents of same type.
My plan was simple. Defeat Rank A and Rank S monsters and store the points. Complete the quest and win the skill.
Defeating rank A or rank S monsters won't be much difficulty. The real difficulty is to actually find them.
While moving around on my hoverboard, I discovered a labyrinth.
"Should I take my time to conquer it?" I pondered for a while.
"Going inside a labyrinth would take too much time. There is even a chance that it won't have any monster." The lonely spirit floating besides me said.
"Well then, Lilith, can you just go inside and check for monsters?" I asked her.
"Yeah yeah, treating me like a slave of yours." She went through the ground with a annoyed face.
After some time, she returned back.
"There aren't that many monsters. There are a few B-ranks but they are in lower floors. The spatial turbulence is also strong around the walls of this labyrinth."
"Is that so... Then I think this would be better." I thought a little before hesitatingly casting a magic.
A small candle flame appeared on top of my pointer finger. With a flick of my finger, the flame floated and entered the labyrinth.
I casted dark barrier around my body.
After a few seconds later, a bright flash came through the gate of labyrinth followed by the world shattering noise and immense heat.
[Mega nuke]
[Affinity : Fire]
[Tier : 7]
[Mana : 98,000]
[Mastery rank : D]
"It's done now." I looked my watch's screen.
Nice. I alone have a little over 80000 points now and my rank also has changed.
[Rank : 20]
"Let's move on, Lilith." I started walking towards the next condensed mana signatures.
"WHAT THE FUCK?! You are just walking away after such a thing?!" Lilith screamed but just got dragged behind me.
She was bound by my magic and recieves mana from me so there is a certain distance away from me that she can never cross. If she tries, she would be dragged back.
Ah! There is something I remembered!
"Infinite weapon affinity : divine weapon summoning. Summon : Scythe."
The darkness and shadows from the surroundings started to crawl. Getting out of their own existence and separating themselves from their concept of darkness, they all gathered in my hands and took a creepy looking form.
"Ok then, let's go hunt some more monsters."
.....
After a few hours, I finally found an A-rank labyrinth.
Most of the monsters here were rank B and A. One slash of scythe was enough for all of them.
The boss of the labyrinth was a rank S goblin emperor.
Goblin emperor used earth magic and summoned an army of goblin lords and commanders.
"Weapon skill : curse of death."
A dark aura exited the scythe and manifested in the form of many reapers. Bodies of the goblin lords and commanders started to rot with a touch from the dark aura.
Goblin emperor was a matter of a single slash.
After exiting the labyrinth, I checked my watch again.
[Rank : 1]
I had successfully entered the top and gained more than 2,000,000 points myself.
"Lilith, can you search for some other labyrinth? Please find a bigger one."
"Okey-dokey. Let me help you this time." Lilith flew towards the sky.
After a few minutes later, she flew back with a happy face and said, " There is a really huge labyrinth towards the east 500km. Coincidentally, your team members are approaching there too."
"Is that so..." I wondered which labyrinth it could be.
"What would be the grade of the labyrinth?" I questioned.
"Probably S-rank."
"Ah! Then it must be elder's dungeon." I exclaimed as I remembered the plot.
Without any further wait, I rushed towards the labyrinth.
...
Around fifteen minutes later, I met with Nina and Tia in front of the labyrinth.
"Hello. World really is small, right?" I waved at Nina and Tia.
"Oswald!!" Tia happily rushed towards me.
Before Tia could reach me and catch me in a hug, Nina defeated her in the race.
"You are safe..." She sighed in relief while hugging me.
"Oh? Were you worried about me?" I teased her.
"Y-You are my teammate afterall ." She said while breaking the hug and looking away.
"Well, how about we enter this cave first?" Tia interrupted.
"Sure."
"Mmh."
We stopped at the entrance for a moment to prepare ourselves.
"Are you ready?" I asked Nina.
"Yes." Nina nodded.
"Then let's go." I took the first step forward, entering the cave.
The following moment—
<You have received a Special Quest>
[Quest: Reaching the core]
[Description: Reach the deepest part of the cave and gain a new affinity.]
[Time Limit: 10 days]
[Progress: 0/1]
[Reward: 300,000 Magic Experience, 1,500 Magic Points, affinity upgraded to infinity.]
I wonder what this new affinity is.
"This cave is quite narrow." I said shortly after they entered the cave.
"It will get wider as we travel deeper." Nina said.
"I hope so. It's going to be difficult fighting in such a tight space with a giant scythe."
"Oswald, I'm going to scout ahead." Lilith suddenly said to me.
"Alright." I nodded slightly.
A few minutes later, we encountered our first monster, and it was a rat the size of an adult hippopotamus.
"That's a Cave Rat, an E-Rank monster." Nina said to me.
"You can leave the small fries to me and save yourself some energy and effort for the harder monsters later." Nina said to me while summoning a skeleton and killing the rat.
A minute later, a dozen Cave Rats could be seen running towards their direction, clogging up the entire path.
Once they were close enough, Nina killed them using skeleton mages.
Over the next 30 minutes, Nina would continue killing Cave Rats as we delved deeper into the cave without stopping.
However, we were eventually forced to stop when we encountered a small problem.
"The path is split into two… Which path should we take?" I asked Nina, who had been here before.
"I took the right path the last time I was here," she said.
"Then let's take the left path this time and see if there's any difference. If it's a dead end, we can just walk back." I suggested.
"Okay." Nina had no complaints.
Thus, we started walking the left path.