They walked a mile upriver from where Serena lived the last... two and a half weeks, in Dungeon time. It was time to leave the nest. The turtles weren't a problem. Nero found that using a four as the X in [Empower Attack] with his new Attributes didn't overheat the rifle too much that it wouldn't be unusable against the next turtle. And he got his yellow [Archer] Class back, as well as his rifle. He missed those.

They reached a tall rock hill that gave them a view of the giant donut-shaped forest and a bit of the flower glade on the other side. The forest was almost a mile wide, he noticed. The river area was even larger. He could spot several dozen turtles sunbathing around the hill they were on hundreds of yards away.

He sighed. The hatchery raiders had very little supplies on them. If they weren't so damn good at tracking Serena, she could win just by stretching out the chase and letting them die of infighting. In fact, they hadn't a whole stack of sixty cards on them, all things put together.

Nero made stone benches and an overhang to provide some shade A table and they were set to eat breakfast and talk. Bruce was running around the rock, sniffing things and marking the territory with his musk.

"We have ways to bring you out, Serena," He told her, the princess' eyes shone at the mention of getting out. If Serena one day chose [Blighter] as her Class, Nero wouldn't blame her. She must be sick of staying in this Dungeon. "And we have the support of the Lyceum."

"So, who wants to talk first," Altia proposed as if it was a game. "Us or you?"

Serena shrunk a bit on the bench, nesting herself a bit more in Altia's embrace. "I'd rather have you talk first. Or I don't talk at all," She mumbled.

"Good. So, we found out the motivation of the people that 'rescued' you from the castle. It is not good..."

They told her of their encounters with Holmes and Chrysopae. How the half-elves doublecrossed them and were keeping her inside this Dungeon just to avoid having her level up and use the Skills, and that the huge parties that entered were hired by someone colluding with the now-dead couple. When they finished the story, it begged the question.

"Serena, please don't be offended by the question I'm asking. How much are the Skills you are holding worth?"

"[Siren's Song] alone is priceless. It only exists in epic or legendary grades. That's purple and orange for you. The legendary is only rumored at. It represents the nature of my people. The nereids, naiads, and mermaids, at least. Girls, I mean. Oh, this is awkward."

Nero chuckled. "I got it. Even in my backwater village, we heard tales of mermaids singing sailors into ruin."

"Nero," Serena fidgeted and sunk even deeper in Altia's embrace, "I told Altia already and she dismissed it, but I must tell you. I used a lot of the Essence you left me."

He just smiled. "Did you tell her?" he asked Altia.

She waved the left hand, the other still caressing the nereid's green hair. "No. I'll leave the honors to you. You defeated them."

"Holmes and Chrysopae had forty million Essence on them, now mine. Their cards and some assets were given to us by the Dean. And I think it wasn't the whole pay. The fifty people that invaded this Dungeon to hunt you, the Adventurer's Guild thinks they spent thirty million equipping them. I don't doubt there was more money thrown around by whoever wants your unused Skill cards, Serena."

In fact, the Dean gave Nero ownership of Holmes' mansion as part of the spoils but he and Altia decided to donate it to the Lyceum as repayment for everything they took. They didn't need a mansion. They had the next best thing.

"So," Nero continued, "Whatever you used of the things we left with you to stay alive, we would be willing to part with a hundredfold more to see you smile."

Altia frowned, angry. Nero didn't understand why. Wasn't it obvious? They both wanted to see Serena smile. Serena removed herself from the Serena-shaped indentation she made on Altia's body to talk to her.

"Don't worry about me, Altia. I can't anymore."

And there they were, talking in code again. Altia relaxed and calmed down.

"Now, do you have enough Essence left to re-summon Daisy?"

The princess looked offended by the subtle accusation that she'd spent all the fifteen million Essence. It was a joke, why did they always have to overreact?

"Good gracious, I only used a million and a few!"

She opened her dimensional pouch and took crystal after crystal, feeding them to her Arbitrium. Once the required amount was met, Daisy sprung back to life. But Nero was astonished. She used a million Essence on what... the dungeon device! What could drive her to these extremes? The thing could've exploded.

After Daisy was back and Serena calmed down, Altia pulled the girl's attention to her.

"Serena, Nero wants to kill Rafflesia. Maybe farm her a few times for cards. We can take you out of the Dungeon now but we probably won't have the chance to return. Things are hectic outside and whatever organization is after you will keep sending people in. What do you want to do?"

Altia could tell she was divided. Serena didn't want to come back but she understood the value of farming a purple-grade boss. Worse yet, Altia phrased it that way for a reason. She didn't say "we want". She said, "Nero wants". There was a budding feeling of jealousy in her that conflicted with the love she had for Serena. She wouldn't share Nero with the nereid but at the same time, her mind told her she didn't have to worry. Serena herself just said she can't see herself with a man anymore. But her intuition told her the princess liked Nero. What kind of 'like' was that then?

"Yes, let's farm Rafflesia. But how are we going to repeat it? If we reset the Dungeon, a day will pass outside. The guards will mark you as dead. If we get out, they will arrest us. Me. Probably us. And execute you for treason."

Altia ruffled Serena's hair. "Silly princess. Show her, Nero."

Nero waved his hand and an Essence crystal worth a thousand Essence, the cost to summon a portal to the Shelter inside a Dungeon, vanished from its resting place on the notch of his Arbitrium. A shimmering disk opened and on the other side, Serena could see something wonderful. The princess squealed and jumped through the portal.

Nero looked at their shelter, the result of his black Skill with pride. After he summoned it at the gymnasium, he did a good deal of experimentation with the help of the research trio. Nero found out it was a spell just like any other. Not like any other, this one was unique even in the name, but it could be affected by other Skills like any spell. The original shelter the Skill summoned was based on Nero's Attributes at the time. It had fifty-two feet of radius and only seventeen feet of height. The faux-sky seemed very, very fake. The shadows under the "sun" would shift with every step you took inside.

He dismissed it and tried again, with the fireball [Mage]. It increased to sixty-five feet of radius to eighteen feet tall. It was still too small. Cramped. Then he created a build made especially to modify his mana pool and the effects of his shelter. It was necessary because the creation of the shelter used up all of his mana if that resource was based entirely on Willpower.

Nero's shelter-summoning build (warning: Math Ahead!):

[Scout] - green - bound to Nero.

+4 Dexterity [+2]

+12 Reason [+6]

+6 Willpower [+3]

+8 Perception [+4]

Special: Add a quarter of your Dexterity to Perception.

- [Boundless Mana] - Increase your mana pool by 25%.

- [Sharp Senses] - Add a fifth of Reason to Perception.

- [Agile Mind] - Add half of your Agility to Reason to determine the effect of your Spells.

- [Mens Sana in Corpore Sano] - Add half your Vigor to Reason to determine the effect of your Spells.

- [Fickle Intellect] - Reduce your Willpower by half. Increase your Reason by the same amount.

- [Enlarge Spell] - Spend 1 point of mana and stamina in addition to other costs as part of casting a spell. Multiply the area or volume of a Spell by Reason / 3.

His relevant modified Attributes for the purpose of summoning the shelter became like this:

Dexterity [+40] (Base +40)

Reason [+85] (Base +35 +17 from [Agile Mind], +20 from [Mens Sana], +13 from [Fickle Intellect] )

Willpower [+13] (Base +26, -13 from [Fickle Intellect])

Perception [+55] (Base +21, +20 from [Scout], +16 from [Sharp Senses])

Mana Pool: 16 (base 13 plus 25%)

The base radius for the shelter became ninety-eight feet and the base height, fifty-five feet. The cost to create the shelter was 13 mana, the upkeep, 9 mana. That was before he used [Enlarge Spell], a copy of the same Skill he used to make his humongous fireballs. It increased the volume by a factor of 27, the cost to 14 mana and the upkeep to 10 mana.

[Enlarge Spell] increased each of the three dimension three times (actually, it was the volume that increased by a factor of 27). The new radius became 282 feet and the height, 165 feet. Until he used the Skill to modify the size of the shelter, he would lock the upkeep at ten mana every midnight, well below half his base Willpower even without a Class active.

The walls and roof of the shelter could be anything. Nero chose a fantastic roof. It was a veil of water, less than two feet thick underneath a calm ocean. Frolicking waves rolled and crashed above, creating just a bit of foam. Above the water, the sky in all its glory could be seen. The summer sun would follow the same day-night pattern as the outside world and through the refraction of the water, one could see the sun, a perfectly blue sky, and cotton-white clouds. The walls were a coral reef. The sunbeams filtered down and lit up the corals and sand. Unfortunately, Nero couldn't add fish or any aquatic life to the illusion of the walls. They followed the slope of the terrain inside. The shelter wasn't flat.

The floor of the shelter was half stone and half sand but it couldn't be seen. As the inside could be shaped to the imagination of the creator, Nero did what he wanted. There were three sections to the shelter. A third of the circle was underwater, thirty feet of saltwater at the deepest spot. A strip of white-sand beach twenty-foot across rose from the pond in a gentle slope. The slope rose into a soft hill covered in viridian grass for another twenty feet and at the top of the hill, a thick oak tree, a hundred feet tall and more than thirty feet across stood. The top leaves brushed against the illusionary roof. A path made with flat stones led from the beach to the base of the tree.

Nero left the portal to the shelter open the whole afternoon and night they spent resting in the Lyceum detention room. While they were resting, elven [Treeshapers] working for the lyceum used their skill to turn the trunk of the massive oak tree into a four-bedroom house. It wasn't cheap either. They used two hundred thousand Essence to shape the house and charged two million for their work. Nero paid with a smile from the spoils of the duel. Finally, There was enough room along the slopes of the hill. for herb gardens where Altia could cultivate her medicinal plants. Picket fences marked these gardens.

The sunlight filtering through the waves above gave the whole place an eerie, calming aura as the flickering lights danced along the grass, sand, and the leaves of the oak. Finally, a stream of crystal spring water flowed down from behind the tree, doing a quarter of turn around the hill slope and reaching the "sea".

The theme of the shelter was a bubble of air under the ocean. A house-tree where they could live and rest. For as long as Nero remembered to keep 10 mana available at midnight. Once his Attributes increased enough, he could recast the Skill to enlarge the shelter, but that was far, far away.

Finally, he could choose where the portal opened. There was a platform to the side, twenty feet from a fork of the stone path halfway between the beach and the house-tree with a stone arch. Visitors would enter looking at the entire majesty of the shelter.

Serena ran through the grass, looking around her and laughing. She spent almost ten months trapped in Rafflesia's. To see another environment after all the despair was like heaven. To see the ocean, vivid coral reefs, a beach.

"How?" She asked at the ape-kin couple that crossed the portal behind her. "How can this be possible! Nero! This is fantastic! Is this real? What keeps the water from flooding this place?"

She couldn't believe. As a princess, she was taught magical theory, some Skills and what they could do. Teleportation existed in the higher tiers. But what kind of magic could do this? From a level zero person of all people?

"The walls and roof you see are illusions," Altia explained.

The princess spun and ran up and down the path. "How! You, Mr. Nero, is a box of surprises!"

"I obtained a black unique Skill. Let's sit and I'll tell you what happened," Nero pointed at a patch of grass.

They sat on the grass, Serena's eyes darting to and from between the roof, the walls, the three with windows and a door in the trunk, and the beach. Nero had to wait for her to catch up during the explanation but they told her of the card, the adventure they went through to obtain the Skill, the Dungeons they visited, and finally, of Holmes and Chrysopae betrayal. Her excitement all but faded when he told her of the duel.

There was a moment of silence. Serena still considered Chrysopae a friend, kin even. The bonds between those of the same race, even if she was a mixed-breed, were strong.

"You did all this for me?" She asked with a coy smile.

"For Altia, for you, for me. I believe having a safe place to retreat during the night, to be able to sleep safely without worrying about wandering monsters, to always have a way to reach home anywhere we might be, to safe-keep all our stuff and have it close by, is invaluable.

"So, to answer your question, Your Highness, I didn't obtain this just for you. But we did keep you in mind during our adventure."

Serena giggled. "Have you always wished to live underwater?" She met Altia's eyes with a mischievous face. "We'll make honorary nereids out of you two! Thanks. It means the world to me, to have friends like you."

"We can do a lot of things now, but you are the one to decide, Serena," Altia said. "We can go out of the Dungeon. We'll smuggle you out of the Dungeon inside this shelter when it is time to leave. We can go clear the Dungeon and kill Rafflesia. We can even spend a bit of time here and decompress, then go fight in the Dungeon. What will it be?"

Serena let her herself fall, looking at the waves. "I was a prisoner. Rafflesia, in a way, was my jailor. I say let's farm this boss until it drops to trash-grade."

"Trash?" Nero asked.

She stood up, dusted her dress. The shelter lifted her mood and she felt energized. Serena smiled and waved a finger in front of Nero's face. "You call it gray, we call it trash. Yes, let's see what the boss looks like."