Chapter 59: Dungeon Dive.

One fine morning, it was very peaceful at the Black Bulls Head Quarters. Charmy was cooking, Luck was doing his own thing, Vanessa was dead drunk, Magna was having his breakfast with Asta and Noelle, and Aster on the other hand was sitting on the windowsill and reading a tome on Ice Magic and it's history.

A portal opened out of nowhere, but none of the Black Bulls were the least bit bothered by it, or they were already used to seeing Yami use Finral as a means of transport. The man came in with a cigarette in his hand as he took a cursory glance around the room.

"Rejoice! you have a job to do." Yami declared.

"I'll pass, I have a lot of coins from the last time." Aster said with his same smooth and chill voice, without even removing his eyes from the tome in his hands.

Yami simply chose to ignore that statement and continued, "a dungeon has been discovered along the borders of the Clover and Diamond Kingdom, we gotta get that dungeon before the Diamond Kingdom decides to come around snooping."

"That's so awesome, I wanna go!!" Asta raised his hands excitedly.

"Well, this time around, you can go, you have been asked to join the mission by the Wizard King himself," Yami said taking another puff.

"Wow, did you ever meet the Wizard King?" Magna asked with the same fervor as Asta.

"Nope~" was the simple answer.

"Ok, take Noelle with you, Luck will be the leader and and the icy brat will go in as assurance." Yami declared.

"I don't need a job right now..." Aster drawled.

"Sure, reject this and I will throw you in the Royal Manor to join the security details for the noble women. The last few missions you did escorting nobles have gotten you 9 stars, and you are certainly popular among the ladies of the Noble realm." Yami chuckled as he exhaled a puff of smoke.

"Twist me arm~ Alright, I will help these guys with the dungeon mission, not that Luck would have been enough for something like this..." Aster sighed as he closed the tome and let the snowflakes place it in the library.

Aster was unwilling to join in on this mission because he had already prevented Noelle's growth from the last mission they did together in the Saussy village. He knew that they had to face the hardships by themselves and for that, he had to take on a more 'lassiez fraire' approach.

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Finral opened a portal outside the forest surrounding the dungeon and the guys walked in...

"Stand still and don't resist in any manner if you want your limbs to remain attached to your body," Ater said with his same monotone voice and the four of them blinked and appeared next to the entrance of the Dungeon.

"Wow! You can use spatial magic?" Asta wowed at the sight of Aster's magic.

"I can, as long as I can sense the place or remember the place, I can get there. Now, let's capture that dungeon and head back home, I want to get back to the tome I was reading." Aster sighed and vanished from where he was standing.

"Wow, must really like that book he was reading," Asta murmured while Noelle just scoffed at how Aster was ignoring royalty. Luck simply kicked in a wall and the trio of Black Bulls entered the dungeon and after telling them a bit about the traps and making Asta trip over them to have some fun.

A while later, Luck sensed the wizards from the Diamond empire and rushed off to fight the smoky fellow from the Diamon's side. While this was going on, Aster was looking around the treasure room and started gathering all the gold and treasures in a spatial pocket while the trinkets he found interesting went to a separate pocket, ahem...

So, after a while of careful sorting and pilfering, Aster broke the wall and took the rusted sword out, the moment he touched the sword, it started devouring his mana. Aster chuckled at that and started charging it with his ice mana till it could eat no more, the sword was now shining with an ice blue color and radiating wisps of icy fog.

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Meanwhile, Mr. four-eyes from the Golden Dawn had finished wrapping up Mars after Asta gave him a nice thrashing and Asta cut open the door to the treasure chambers only for them to find Aster fiddling with a rusted sword in an empty room with the wind passing by to show how empty it was.

"Where is the treasure?" Klaus/four-eyes screamed in outrage.

"It's in the Black Bulls HQ, captain Yami is probably making Finral count them all up to make the final report. What took you guys so long to get here? The mission is over, come on... let's go home." Aster spoke with an uninterested voice that made tick marks appear on Klaus' forehead.

"You peasant, you dare rob the treasure that was for the Golden Dawn's taking?" Klaus pointed at Aster with a finger trembling with all the rage he was feeling.

"Well, take this..." Aster threw the scroll containing Sylph<wind spirit>'s contract to Yuno.

"Open it, it's a gift." Aster smiled and the wind mage complied despite being a bit uneasy about it.

The moment he did, the scroll glowed a brilliant shade of green and the writings vanished from it. Before anyone could continue, "take this sword and touch your grimoire with it." Aster popped up beside Asta and held out the sword in his hand.

"Shit! Everyone get down!!" Luck screamed and the walls shattered with Mars bulldozing his way in.

The next thing that happened was Luck was put out of commission and Mars was regaining his HP with Fire Magic: Phoenix Robe. Klaus was too gobsmacked to do anything constructive and Noelle jumped in to try and snuff the flames with her water magic, but a single smack left her battered and bloodied on the ground.

Aster sat back and watched this happen without a care in the world as Mimosa was healing Noelle's wounds and Asta was madly attacking Mars. Asta took out the smaller sword that Aster gave him and slashed at Mars, the slash extended in the form of an ice blade and sliced through the armored form of Mars, leaving him frozen on the floor.

"Whoa, that was Aster's magic right? How did you do that?" Luck exclaimed.

"I messed up~" Asta whispered and fell down with a diamond blade stabbed in his gut, while Mars appeared again in a bid to finish what he started and Yuno happened, his tremendous will to save Asta woke the wind spirit and she helped him save Asta before vanishing again.

The sword flew into Asta's grimoire adding another page to it and the dungeon started collapsing. The wizards from the Black Bulls and Golden Dawn were going nuts in the escape rush when a familiar cold voice spoke, "we were not supposed to break it..."

They turned their heads to see Aster tapping his foot on the ground and the whole building get encased in ice and the cracks and craters got mended. The building that was about to tumble stood firm once again and the guys were slack-jawed at the display of magic on such a scale.

While all of this was happening, the smokey guy from the Diamond did a fast one on them and swiped the injured Mars and other defeated members he brought on the mission and escaped.

"That was a chore... Come on, we have to get back, and don't worry about Noelle and Asta, we will get them patched up, and to the Golden Dawn folks, please do not resist the teleportation." Aster waved his hands and the Golen Dawn members got covered in snowflakes and vanished and found themselves before their Head Quarters.

"Come one, let's get back." Aster waved his hands again and the four of them found themselves in the Black Bulls Head Quarters.

A/N: Well, we might not have gotten to 1K but since I received a nice review, you will be getting a bonus chappie, thank Daoist for that!

Meanwhile, I am writing the bonus chappie, be prepared to feed my addiction to POWER STONES...

GET ME TO 1.1K, and I will get you the bonus chappie...