Chapter 15(The First Solo Expedition Pt.4)

Please read the author's notes. (Examples and explanation of moves and appearance+ Monster Sources)

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CHAPTER START------

---Hephaestus's Office...

Hephaestus: "What do you mean he went in alone?"

Tsubaki: "He said he would figure out his own team then just went in alone, he probably let all the talk about him being something special go to his head and is gonna get himself killed. If he's learned anything from his last trip in there I'd expect him to run out of there any minute now. Not like he can fight those new monsters alone anyway but he might be able to escape."

Hephaestus: "Yes I suppose so, I'd rather not have him die but I can't babysit everyone in my familiar especially every new member. I expected him to be smarter than this especially after what he went through."

Tsubaki: "Some people just don't know better I guess."

Hephaestus: "Yeah I guess so. He should be back any minute now hopefully."

---Meanwhile in the dungeon...

A young man could be seen slowly walking down the connecting tunnel between floors 12 and 13. Now mostly healed by the effects of the many potions and hours of using his healing skill as well as using it right now as wisps of flames move across his face. Yang felt sore and mentally tired more than anything else. Healing magic can fix the body but only proper rest can heal the mind, taking a nap in a dungeon is a fast way to die, however.

It's been almost a day of constant fighting since he entered the dungeon and he was fine before the last room with that damn burrowing creature. Now he just wanted to get to the 18th floor and see it with his own eyes. Entering the 13th floor he finally saw something that brought a smile to his face, Hellhounds occupied this floor. These are exactly what he wanted, now he could hunt them for materials for his new sets of gear, at least until he got to the lower levels.

'Ok this is good, I need to make sure I sweep the floor properly and not miss any, I should use melee hits to hunt them so I don't damage the materials, huh, ok let's do this'. As he jumped into the rooms and hunted the monsters by sweeping room to room and slowly clearing the floor whilst allowing his mana to slowly refill as the monsters launched fireball after fireball at him. As the minutes passed there were fewer and fewer of the 4ft tall jet black dog creatures to spit fire at him as they had all simply became materials for him to use in the future.

Using them as both a heal and rest spot of sorts as they weren't much of a threat to him as they only really had fire elemental magic and in melee, his AMP was too much for them to keep up with the simply allowed their flames to move past him every time as he punched and kicked them to preserve his mana. Quickly finishing on the 13th floor he collected all the Hellhound parts and crystals before sauntering down to the 14th floor with his mana and health back at respectable levels. Now he was confident to advance further.

As he stepped into the 14th floor and walked around for a bit he was greeted with the sigh of a 16ft tall muscular silverback in the second room of the cavern. Immediately jumping into the action he activated his Mage Armor and AMP and boosted his way to the monster's face. To his surprise and mild annoyance, the monster had quick reflexes and swung its arm towards him as he was in mid-air, instead of hitting him as the monster expected he simply boosted himself over its attack and accelerated faster into the creatures face before placing his hands together directly in front of its head and exclaiming "FLAMETHROWER" as a torrent of flames engulfed the monsters face lighting it on fire before he aimed the jet of flames to the rest of its body. Before he could even land the monster had wholly ignored him as the pain of being burnt alive sent it into a frenzied panic moving frantically unsure how to resolve its situation. Instead of letting up on his assault he simply pivoted in mid-air with the use of flames at his feet and swung his palm at the monster using 'GALE' to generate heavy winds to further empower the flames on the monster and accelerate the damage.

The force of his wind attack pushed him away from the monster and he landed safely on his feet 10 feet away from its frantic form. 'I need to remember to use the boost to compensate for the recoil of some attacks in the future' he thought as he placed his hands together and made a small sphere between them before diving it into 2, then 4, then 8, then 12. Releasing his 'FIREBOLT SWARM' to put the suffering monster out of its misery. As the magic attacks impacted and explode the monster seemed to tire, before it released a hellish roar "RARRRRGRRRR!!!" and made a mad dash towards Yang completely ignoring its burning body.

'It's making a final stand?' he thought as he boosted himself backward and launched more single firebolts at the creature. To his shock and horror, the monster took the damage without trying to dodge as it was dead set on killing him. The monster managed to close the distance and land one solid hit on him before it became ash leaving behind a monster crystal. Having a fist half the size of his body slam into his torso knocked the wind out of Yang as he was rag-dolled across the floor of the cavern. He quickly used his flames to stabilize himself and boost himself back onto his feet with his hands poised for more attacks only to be greeted by the sight of a dead silverback. 'I really need to get tougher armor' he thought as he felt the bruises on his body from the long day of combat he has had.

Yang: "Ok that was easy enough, helps when they aren't armored naturally, with hunter the rest of this floor should be way easier so best get to it."

Yang slowly made his way through the 14th floor whilst focusing on his long-range fire attacks to avoided a physical confrontation with the massive apes. Eventually making it to the end of the 14th floor he decided to wait and restore health and mana before continuing further to avoid another experience like his Bulette run-in.

Entering the 15th floor Yang noticed something very different about this floor. The ceiling was almost 200 feet high and the rooms were massive. Seeing this immediately triggered his 'It's a boss room' reaction but after sending mana into the earth to sense the room out he hadn't felt any major movements. Slowly and cautiously making his way through the room he began to hear faint screeches and scraping sounds from above. Pausing in his spot and quickly craning his neck up he was greeted by the sight of a swarm of 12 ft wyverns descending onto him. 5 wyverns all with protruding scales, wide wings, and spiky barbed tails dove towards him.

'High ceiling for flying, that's kinda unfair' he thought as he quickly used Mage Armor and AMP to move out of the way as he launched a 'FIREBALL' at the grouped monsters. To his surprise, the wyverns were capable of making sharp turns as 2 of the immediately adjusted course and flew to opposite walls of the cave whilst the 3 in the middle took the blast head-on. The entire massive cave shook and the flames even engulfed Yang much to his surprise 'Ok that's new, looks like my magic has gotten a good bit stronger since I've come down here, need to keep that in mind and dial it back in smaller rooms' he thought as he felt the flames licking at him.

As he waves his hand and uses 'GUST' to clear the smoke from his view he sees 2 monster crystals where he was previously standing and 1 wyvern with its wing badly burnt and torn up bleeding on as it barely manages to stand in defiance and look at him. As the smoke clears the 2 wyverns in the air quickly release a screech 'Reeeaaaaaaa!' and begin to dive once more towards him. Unfortunately for them fighting him in a group is simply unwise because between the fact that the hunter skill triggers if he kills even 1 of them and he just killed 2 of them alongside his large area attacks they were doomed to fail. He ignores the monsters above as he dashes at the grounded wyvern using his flames to boost him and slams his fist directly into its chest as his Mage Armor flares up and incinerates the monster. As the others close in one of them reaches his position and descends to swing its poisonous barbed tail at him but misses as he boosts himself into the air and uses another boost to propel himself to the wyvern that's further into the air. This catches the monster off guard and gives him enough time to close in and use 'FLAMETHROWER' to target its wing and send it crashing to the floor.

As the monster crashes he boosts to the only other remaining monster and uses the full strength of his Mage Armor and AMP with the boost from the Hunter skill and slams onto its back pummeling it into the ground and activating a 'PYRO-NOVA' to completely incinerate it. As once again the smoke clears he can see the final wyvern slowly picking itself up off the ground before he rushes it and delivers one quick kick to end its life. Clearing these wyverns took less than a minute as Yang used quick bursts of large amounts of mana to deal with them so he wouldn't be terrorized by enemies that could indefinitely fly unlike him. This caused him to have to take breaks between the rooms and take another break at the end of the floor before descending to floor 16. After collecting his crystals and monster components he rested and slowly walked to the tunnel to descend into floor 16 as he thought '1 more floor then it's just me and the goliath, level 3 here I come'.

END CHAPTER------