Once they returned home, Cless had a plan. Her Desire was to forge bonds. Her Legacy shaped that Desire into her contract Skill. It felt natural for her to strengthen those around her. And her maids and servants would be no different. She gathered everyone. Except for Jason since it was daylight. She planned to introduce the vampire that evening. But now it was time to delve.

"Suit up, everyone. The ten of us are going to delve right now," She told her guild.

"Ten?" Vic asked. He looked around and fixed his slitted pupils on the maids. He then grinned.

"Indeed. It won't do to have weak servants," Cless said straight out and finished matter-of-factly. "That said, it is a matter of strengthening the ones we have. Therefore the ten people here will delve today. I intend to put everyone well into the second tier or even right next to the third, so we need to hurry."

"We don't know how to fight," Hope mumbled.

Cless smiled. "You don't have to. All of you will pick Mage as your class and whichever Profession you fancy for your daily activities. We are probably swapping the Mage later but I want the four of you to have the 'Magic Maid' as your second-tier class. Heimdall can choose any second-tier class he wants but he is still getting Mage as his first pick."

"I have the Warrior class at level eighteen already," Heimdall announced. "Should I drop it?"

"Yes. First thing I'm doing is revealing my first secret to you. I'm Royalty," Cless said. "And I have a Technique to appoint my personal cadre of defenders. I hereby admit Tina, Gracie, Hope, Helga, and Heimdall into my Knighthood."

The five unfocused their sight, a sign everyone knew they were interacting with a prompt. They gasped and cheered as the boost of fifteen to all their stats meant a doubling for some of them. Cless waited before continuing.

"Now I need you to make an agreement with me. First, you'll relinquish all the Experience you have to me, making all of you level one again. During our delve, all the Experience you gain will belong to me. In exchange, I'll provide ninety percent of that Experience back to you once we return to the Association plus whatever you need to reach level fifty-one. Should the Experience gained be enough for the fifty-one, I'll keep the rest."

"Fifty-one in a day? It is rather impossible."

"It will be hard, that is why we can't lose time. Do you agree to it?"

Cless did the contracts and gained their Experience. However, she was dismayed the world wouldn't just give her a free lunch.

You gained 900,000 temporary Experience points. As these are temporary, they are not applied to your tallies.

Well, she would still benefit from it. They left and moved to the Dungeon Road. In an armor shop, she bought gambeson armor for all of them and reinforced the armor using her weaving Skill. They went to the Association and changed the five servants' jobs to Mage. Cless was excited everything was working as she planned. After trading some words with the delvers lounging in the tavern, she was about to leave when one delver, a guildmaster of one of the top ten guilds approached her. She couldn't remember his name.

"Guild master Cless! How fortuitous to meet you here," The man bowed before her. He seemed polite but she could see a twitch of his mouth when he saw her face under her hood. "I have a business proposition. I learned you absorbed the Steelhammer guild, but you did nothing to their guildhall. Would you be interested in selling it to us?"

What the? Did she get their guildhall along with the charter? Was she cheated out of the other guildhalls too when she sold the other charters? Maybe these were not so valuable.

"Can we schedule a meeting in three days? I'm running my new team through the Dungeon right now and my schedule is too cramped."

The man didn't seem pleased bu the held back. "That is acceptable. We meet for lunch here. I'll reserve a room for us. Three days from now."

Cless thanked him and moved to the dungeon with everyone else in tow. She thought about it and decided to test something.

"I declare the Steelhammer guild house as my second Stronghold." She whispered. The Technique activated and she immediately gained awareness of the place, including its location. At least now she would also know if thieves or any intruders wishing to do her harm entered it.

They reached the Dungeon and divided themselves into two parties. Cless, the three maids, and Helga in one, Heimdall and her usual party in other. She used her prerogative as sixth to skip the line and delve right away. They would still need to respect the interval of one hour between parties, but Cless could go down in a few minutes. The parties in the waiting area were not happy but she couldn't do anything. She earned the right and needed to make use of it.

Dark thoughts were creeping up her mind again. That haughtiness was not her. Or at least she didn't want it. Cless would need to police herself harder. Maybe it was an effect of her growing power. Anyway, into the Dungeon.

She was going to exploit the Experience awards system. A person earned Exp equal to one thousand times the level of the opponent divided by one's own. Some monsters had multipliers the stronger they were and the really weak ones had a divisor. It meant that a level one person killing a level twelve orc scout would earn twelve thousand Experience. That person would level and lose that benefit so the second orc scout would be worth only twenty-four hundred Experience but she locked the girls' levels as she would be earning all of it. Therefore all orc scouts would b worth twelve thousand Experience without the diminishing returns. And she would dump back all the Experience once they left.

The first floor was called "The Noob Floor" for a good reason. Most guilds would run past to the stairs leading down. The oversized rodents and bugs were not a challenge but they were so many that you had to fight a few dozen to reach the boss room and go down. Cless knew she had the floor to herself and was going to make use of it. The first floor looked like dry sewers. Somewhat circular tunnels with a half-meter-deep groove running in the middle, probably where the sewage would seep through. Cless wondered who designed the floor. She gave the girls lit torches.

"Buckle up girls. I'm going to go ablaze. I'm using the [Fear Aura] to keep the monsters away. You just follow me and fight back the aura's effects."

The girls nodded, still unsure. Cless knew that nothing alive on this floor could resist her aura. She triggered it and move ahead slowly, making sure the girls were coming behind her. The scuttling noise of the rodents and bugs running away of her flooded the corridors. After she noticed the girls could move even though they were clearly affected by the aura, she grinned and picked up the pace. She eventually reached the end of a tunnel and a mass of bugs and rodents were crawling over one another, some even biting their fellow Dungeon monsters. Cless used magic from as far away as possible, using the corner of a T-shaped intersection as cover.

"Fireball."

There were light, heat and then silence. She glanced and saw that not all the monsters died. There were so many that they protected those at the back from the blast of fire. She tossed two more fireballs and that combat ended.

Your contracts earned you 22,640 Experience Points. You gained 203,760 Temporary Experience Points.

Not bad. Not bad at all. It was a fifth of what she needed to level but the risk was zero. Cless spent the next part of the hour clearing the tunnels of bugs and mapping the first floor. She earned one million and a half more Experience for the girls when the rest of the Blind Eye guild entered the Dungeon. She backtracked to the entrance and they kept on hunting for the next hour.

She would need to stop because the next Delver group was coming down. They went away from the path to the next floor and Cless deactivated her [Fear Aura], giving the girls and Heimdall time to rest and have a light meal. She sent Silverfang in wolf form to scout the moment the part went down to the next floor and fifteen minutes later, they moved on.

Cless noticed the "breeding area" walled off on the first floor. She used Earth magic and opened a side tunnel to go over the enchantments and kill the monsters on the other side, making sure to close it back the way it was after they returned. After four hours she'd mapped the whole floor, earned another two million temporary Experience, and knew there were only a few pockets of monsters left. She dropped the Aura again and moved to the boss room. The monsters would go there to feed on the miasma vent, all she had to do was follow the miasma flow she could see. She secured a spot on the path and ordered Kurt and Silverfang to stay behind and guard the place. She wanted to do a full clean of the floor. Reach that hundred percent clear at least once. She used [Fear Aura] again and they went in. Vic and Venaris went down a few tunnels and cleared them.

Once the tunnels were clear she stationed the gnome and lamiak on the ramp and regrouped everyone. They reached the boss room and several rats were fighting for the vent. She just ordered everyone to go all out. The floor was clear.

For clearing over 99% of a lower-level floor for the first time in a decade, clear rewards were improved. Miasma production on floor 1 suspended for one year.

Not a full clear then. Maybe she missed some monster somewhere. Or they wandered around during the times she kept [Fear Aura] off for the delver group to cross. And why this Dungeon operated this way? Was this why the Association frowned upon floor clearing? The other Dungeon by the gnome village doubled or tripled the miasma production. It triggered several migrations in less than a month. Cless would have to keep quiet about this. People wouldn't be happy.

The chest came up from the floor in the middle of the room as usual. Inside there were ten tabards with the emblem of the Blind Eye guild. The fabrics were amazing, something Cless didn't see even in the fancy haberdasher she shopped at after her visit to the Lord's mansion. She felt an enchantment on it and tried to make a cut on the back. The tabard repaired itself.

"What an amazing gift!" Heimdall said with a hint of envy. "And this for just the first floor!"

"Yes, but we need to keep quiet about it. People won't be happy the floor turned off because we cleared it," Cless warned them. "Let's go down to the second floor."

She needed only seventeen hundred thousand more Experience to reach her goal. Cless had already earned three levels from her ten-percent share from the contract and would earn two or three more before they were done.

The second floor had the same bugs and rodents from the first, a bit stronger. Also those Rot Foxes. She heard some delver parties fighting around, probably some neophytes and apprentices. She refrained from using [Fear Aura] because it could lead these low-level delvers to their doom.

There wasn't much to do. The Experience per kill was higher so they needed fewer monsters to reach their quota. They wandered the tunnels competing to see who could shoot a killing blow faster if her crystal darts, Venaris' sling bullets or Vic's poison blow or magic missiles. Kurt and Silverfang were in charge of the rear guard to avoid ambushes on the low leveled party members.

Three hours later, Cless reached her quota. She earned the sixth level of the day from the contracts and was halfway to the next. They retreated to the surface and met one delver party on the first floor.

"Where are all the bugs?" Cless could hear a girl asking. "I'm glad they are gone but the silence is eerie."

"Attention!" A booming male voice rang. "There are people coming up ahead. Hold your fire!"

"Blind Eye coming through. We're friendly and just returning up!" Cless shouted back.

"Blind Eye!" The girl squealed. "It is that guild I told you, the one that rose to rank six meteorically."

She could see them ahead now. One of them, an archer quipped. "Yes, meteorically murdering the opposition. That girl leading them there," He pointed at Cless. "She eliminated four guilds in the top twenty in the month since she arrived."

"All rumors, I assure you, master Archer!" Cless rebuked. "I didn't go after anyone, they were stupid enough to try to harm me and mine. I pray to the One God you are wiser."

"Oh, we are," The strong and tall warrior with the booming voice replied. "Just some of us give too leeway to rumors and slander." He glared at the archer.

"What did you guys do to the bugs?" Cless asked with an inquisitive gaze.

"Nothing. We got down and the floor was like this. Almost dead. We found one rat on our way but he was going to the boss room."

Cless looked around and found the faintest traces of miasma seeping from the second floor. Oh, well, better. Monsters would still be contained and lured to the Dungeon but they would not settle the first floor.

"Okay, good delve."

They parted ways and Cless waited until they were down on the second floor. She gathered her guild and gave them the good news.

"Well, now it is time to reap our rewards. Gracie, Heimdall, Helga, Hope, and Tina. Thank you for believing me. Now your rewards. Fulfill the contract with them. Return the temporary Experience.

6,375,000 Temporary Experience transferred. You gained 32,230 leftover Experience. Contract fulfilled.

The five cheered as power flowed to them. Cless wondered, was this the fastest party to reach level fifty-one ever?