Hello everyone here is Chapter 12 and we are now officially halfway through book one wooo. Does that mean book one will have 24 chapters? I have no idea but this is halfway through the story line I have planned for book one. I have the ending ready but as for how many chapter it will take to get there I'm not sure at all =X

Enjoy Chapter 12!

The door opened to reveal a dark room. Alex’s team carefully entered, and after they had all entered, the door suddenly swung shut behind them. Then the room began to slowly light up from where they were and extended down the room until it revealed a 6 foot tall lizard man. This was all Alice’s idea to make the boss room more dramatic. Sage thought it was pointless but in the end give into Alice and set it up.

“Is that…” just as Josh was going to finish speaking Xanthe suddenly burst out “KOBOLD LORD. MUAHAHAHA, just when I thought the dungeon couldn’t get more interesting.”

Alex recover from the shock and said “Indeed, this dungeon is full of surprises. That old man wasn’t wrong, if a normal dungeon evaluation team had came in they would have made it here with some struggles but would have been very dangerous to fight this boss.”

“This one is mine!” Xanthe step forward getting right to fight.

“Alright but be careful. All the monsters here have been stronger than normal so it’s most likely that the dungeon boss will be the same. If it goes bad intervene Elsa.” Alex give out the final order before the fight starts.

“You worry too much! This is going to be fun!” Xanthe shouted in excitingly as she dashed forward.

“RAWRRRRRRR” The Kobold Lord let out a fierce roar as he readied the sword and shield in his hands for battle. As Xanthe came into the Kobold Lord’s range it slashed diagonally at Xanthe. Xanthe calmly dodged by ducking to the left and sent out a straight punch with her right hand. The Kobold Lord reacted quickly and raised his shield.

BANG, the first connected with the shield and to Xanthe’s surprise nothing happened. The Kobold Lord notice this small opening and slash down vertically at Xanthe. Xanthe quickly recovered her sense and took a step back exiting the range of the slash.

“Not bad, that punch would have easily knocked down a goblin elite yet wasn’t even able to faze you.” Xanthe let out a bright smile as she is getting more pumped up about this fight.

Although the Kobold Lord looked fine that punch caused his hand to feel numb. In fact if it wasn’t for the Armored Scale Cultivation its arm would have been broken already. The Kobold Lord was feeling the pressure from Xanthe and now had a much more serious expression on his face. The two stood there for a few seconds before Xanthe once again dashed forward. The Kobold Lord once again swung his sword diagonally and once again Xanthe dodged and went for a counter. However the Kobold Lord’s swing suddenly accelerated and was way short of hitting Xanthe but by using that momentum the Kobold Lord turned its body and swiped its tail at Xanthe.

Due to the sudden rotation Xanthe’s punch hit the air and the Kobold Lord’s tail smashed into his sides sending her flying into the wall.

“RAWRRRRRR!” The Kobold Lord let out a shout of victory!

“Hahahaha, not bad, not bad at all.” Xanthe slowly pulled herself out from the small imprint she made in the wall “This dungeon is fun, too bad it is too weak right now.”

The Kobold Lord immediately became very cautious again as he finally realized just how strong his blonde human really is. Xanthe once again dashed directly at the Kobold Lord but the Kobold Lord no longer attacked but quickly dodged to the side hoping to catch Xanthe off guard. However with Xanthe’s skill how could she ever let that happen. Soon Xanthe begin to pressure the Kobold Lord heavily with her punches. The Kobold Lord dodged what he could and blocked what he couldn’t. The Kobold lord could feel that each punch he blocked was slightly stronger than the rest. This caused him to become very nervous as he wondered how much power this human really had.

Xanthe, who is fully enjoying herself, didn’t want the fight to end too quickly so she started the power of her punch at that of a rank D and slowly increased it. She was shocked at how the Kobold Lord was able to block punches of upper tier rank C punches. This went on for 10mins and finally after 10 mins Xanthe’s punch strength reached that of a barely rank B and it smashed the shield in the Kobold Lord’s hand and broke the hand as well.

The Kobold Lord let out a howl in pain as it swiped it’s tail at Xanthe to gain some space. Xanthe wanted this to last a bit longer so she give him the space and jumped backward. The Kobold Lord quickly retreated towards the back of the room before stopping and facing toward Xanthe again. Xanthe thought she give it enough time to catch its breath and charged forward. She decided that she’s had enough fun and was going to end it. As she drew within about 10 feet of the Kobold Lord something unexpected happened. Suddenly a large circle lit up under her feet like the time with the snare trap. At first she thought it was the same as before and only applied a little extra force to move. However she didn’t break out as she expected and soon chains made of light appeared and coiled around her body.

This was a more powerful disable restriction Sage had manage to construct but only inside the boss room because it provide the trap with enough mana to activate. Normally even with this restriction its effect would be the same as the snare trap outside to a rank A adventurer if Xanthe didn’t let her guard down. The split moment where she didn’t use all her strength to break free allowed for the next trap to occur.

As the trap activated the Kobold closed his eyes, this caused everyone else to be very confused. But just as the Kobold Lord closed his eyes a very bright light suddenly appeared in the room and completely blinded everyone. Adding on to Xanthe’s carelessness that allowed her to get trapped this was the perfect chance for the Kobold Lord to attack and he aimed his sword at her neck.

Xanthe was someone who has been through many fights and many much more dangerous than this one. Even though she can’t see for the moment she could feel the sword coming at her neck and she used all the power in her body and pushed herself backwards.

*Whoosh* the sword missed its target and only manage to a few strands of Xanthe’s long blonde hair. Xanthe and her team quickly recovered their vision and were all in cold sweat. They didn’t see that coming at all and Xanthe got away due to being way more powerful than the enemy. Had it been an enemy more evenly matched with them then they should have easily lost Xanthe right there, or at least she would be severely injured.

Xanthe’s heart was pounding fast at what had just happened. While even if it had really hit her it wouldn’t have done much, it was the fact that she got caught off guard by something so much weaker than her shocked her. As she looked at the Kobold Lord she suddenly notice something slowly floating down in the air.

“Is.. that… my… hair?” Xanthe said as she stared at the blonde strands of hair slowly falling to the ground. Suddenly the atmosphere around Xanthe changed and her eyes became shined a golden light as she shouted “You MONSTER!”

She kicked the ground to launch herself and arrived before the Kobold Lord in an instant. The Kobold Lord didn’t even have time to react as Xanthe let out a flurry of punches one after another so fast that the Kobold Lord couldn’t even react. After 50 straight punches she channeled the mana into her hand and let out an empowered punch that obliterated the Kobold Lord. Only after that did her eyes return to normal and she finally calmed herself down,

Alex could only let out a sigh because once Xanthe lost her temper like that it is way too hard to calm her down again, though since there wasn’t any real danger it wasn’t such a big deal.

“Well that was more fun that I ever thought I could have on a floor one dungeon boss.” Xanthe has calmed down and was reliving the fight. “I have never fought a Kobold Lord this strong or smart. I think it might be some sub species as its scales were way harder than normal. It was able to withstand punches of rank C.”

“Too bad when dungeon monsters die their bodies disappear into mana. It would have been a great specimen to study the effect of mana on evolution.” Elsa sounded very disappointed by the turn of events.

“Our job is almost done. Now we just have to confirmed the final boss’s loot and then we can head back out.” Alex calmly stated as he walked deeper into the room. When he saw the chest at the end of the room he suddenly hesitated and turned to Xanthe “Since you defeated the boss you can have whatever is inside.”

“Aww how sweet, don’t regret it if it something really good!” Xanthe said with a mischievous smile on her face as she quickly ran toward the chest and opened it.

Once she took out what was in the chest her whole body froze. Her teammates notice that she stopped moving and became curious.

After a while Josh finally said “Come one Xanthe no need to pretend to be shocked that it’s a good item to spite Alex.” However his words didn’t do anything so the part decide to go see for themselves.

Just as they got closer Xanthe suddenly turned around, her eyes glowing as she show off a book in her hand and shouted “IT’S A RANK C SKILL BOOK!”

*Sage’s Secret Chamber*

As the members of team STAR were shocked over the discovery of the rank C skill book Sage was thinking about the fight that just happened. With that fight he finally had some kind of gauge of the strength of people in this world. He estimates that this current Kobold Lord can be consider a low tier rank D adventurer in strength but if he managed to get the Kobold Lord to get the most from this fight then the Kobold Lord’s power can raise up to that of a mid tier rank D adventurer.

Suddenly he felt the Kobold Lord’s soul return to his crystal body, it is something he never felt before so he couldn’t help but mutter “It returned…”

“Oh? Did the dungeon boss return already? I guess with how close the two rooms are it won’t take much time. Now you can just use the same process that you used to create dungeon boss to create a new body for the Kobold Lord. Remember that as your dungeon boss gets stronger the more mana it cost for you to resummon it a body.

Sage isn’t worried about mana at all right now so he poured in mana and the Kobold Lord was as good as new. Right after it was reborn Sage immediately sent it to a small room and made it reflect on the battle it just had. Right now he still hasn’t thought up of a solution to his monster training problem but at least dungeon bosses were something he could train and they would be his elite forces.

Sage followed the Kobold Lord and give it a lesson based on the fight it just had. The Kobold Lord isn’t too smart so it took some time for Sage to explain it all. When he finally left the Kobold Lord alone to cultivate and returned back to his secret chamber he found the adventurers are all gone.

“What happened?” Saged ask Alice who was here watching the whole time.

“You missed the best part sage. When the blonde chick opened the chest she froze from the shock. Then her teammate came to check what was going on. When they got close she showed them the book and they froze in shock as well. I think the leader guy is really regretting letting the blonde chick have whatever was in the chest. Finally they talked for a bit and decided to head out to report their finding. From the look of their reactions I can say this was a success.” Alice is also very happy right now as the rank A evaluation finally left and they are likely to get a good evaluation.

*Camp outside the dungeon*

*Bang* The guild master’s hand hit the table causing everything on it to jump up. Luckily all the fragile cups were already gone and the only thing sent flying into the air was a book.

“A rank C skill book…” The guild master caught the book and closely examine it. “This is without a doubt a rank C skill book. Soaring Dragon Cultivation Method… never heard of a skill book like this before but it is indeed a rank C skill book… I know the dungeon was special but didn’t think it would be this special.”

“Yes, all the monsters were stronger than their normal counterpart and the final boss was even an extra powerful Kobold Lord. Adding on some very interesting traps it even manage to catch us off guard.” Alex’s expression is very serious as he give his report. “However, the fact that it had a rank C skill book really overshadows everything else. Since it’s such a high ranking skill book that means this was formed during its awakening!”

“You are correct Alex and you know what that means…” The guild master’s eyes lit up brightly “That means this dungeon will specialize in skill books! Although the chances are very slim, this dungeon will still be more likely to give another skill book! But they’ll probably only be rank G for awhile. More than enough to attract new adventurers to help this little dungeon grow. Hahahaha”

“Yes this will definitely be an hot spot for rank G and F adventurers for a while.” Alex nodded his head in agreement.

“So what do you guys plan to do with this skill book? If you were to sell it it would go for a lot.” The guild master asked Alex with a curious look on his face.

“No, it was already agreed that loot of the dungeon would be given to Xanthe since she did most of the work. Also from reading the description of the skill we find it extremely fitting for her as well.” Alex replied as he took the book back from the guild master.

“Yes, if what the skill book says is true then it really does fit that girl.” The guild master let out a smile “Like I told you before, she’ll pass you guys soon and with this she’ll do it even faster. Hahahaha.”

Alex was startled for a moment and then let out a bitter smile as he thought back to how seriously she took every fight and how much of a battle maniac she really is. Xanthe was waiting for him outside the door and immediately took back the skill book as if he had just stolen her baby. If it wasn’t for the fact that they had to show this skill book to the guild master for the request she would have used it back in the dungeon.

Her hands trembled as she held it. She had read and reread the description again and again. Finally she took a deep breath and concentrated on the book. Soon the book glowed, the light from the book entered her head and the book disappeared.

In her head information began to fill up her brain “Soaring Dragon Cultivation Method is…”

*Sage’s Secret Chamber”

“So Sage, how much did you level up from them being in here.” Alice finally asked the one thing she has been wondering about.

“I manage to gain 5 whole levels and went from level 15 to level 20. It’s really amazing at the difference in quality of mana coming from these rank A adventurers. Level 10 to 15 took 3 weeks of low rank adventures but level 15 to 20 took just a bit under half a day from rank A adventures. But the real reason I got so much was due to the damage the Kobold Lord was able to do against that long hair blonde girl.” Sage explained as he felt his own growth.

He checked his summon monster menus and was happy to find Elite Goblin, Elite Kobold, and Elementary Elemental Slime were added there.

“Finally I have access to better monsters…”

Edited by: mossclaw64