Lariel opened his eyes but found himself not in his room. Instead, he was in a dim-lit cavern. All he could see was black, and the six people walking, most with torches in their hands.

The one on the front was giant! At least two and a half meters tall, wearing bulky armor that seemed to shine and reflect the light of the torch he carried. Occasional flashes of purple light went through the armor in the form of weird symbols. Enchantments, or runes... was Lariel's immediate thought. The giant carried no weapon whatsoever that Lariel could see, but he knew that the armored beast was way more powerful than him.

The second person wore almost no armor if compared with the first one. You could see the shape of the body beneath the casual light armor, that indicated the wearer as being a female one. But not a human. The horns she had on her head made it clear she was a beast-kind woman. Unlike the previous one, she had a small sword on her side. The blade looked to be thin, like a needle. Her armor did not flash like the other, but still, red symbols could be seen lighting up periodically on some parts of the chest plate and sword hilt.

The third was perhaps a mage due to his robes. He was a man since he had no head protection and his face was there for everyone to see. From his specific angle, Lariel could not see the face that well, so the details went unseen by him, but the fact that he was a man was as clear as day. His robes were the most interesting part about him. Not even his twisted wood staff with the yellow gem on top that was emitting light could fight for Lariel's attention like the robes. At first glance, they seemed like normal robes, just some sort of animal skin dyed green. But to someone that paid more attention, it was clear that this was no mere leather. The robe reflected part of the light while also absorbing some of it. It was clearly not leather. It was metal. Lots of extremely tiny metal pieces intertwined together to give a sense of fluidity and smoothness to the robe. Weird white symbols could be seen occasionally under direct contact with the light.

The fourth person was the one that caught Lariel's attention the most. He did not seem like a warrior. At least not like the ones present in this group. He wore no protection whatsoever. No robes made of metal. No bulky or light armor. Gauntlets, helmet, chest plates, nothing. He wore simple day-to-day clothes. Pants, and a shirt alongside some shoes. Perhaps the reason for that was the map that he was holding in his right-hand hand, and the pen floating above it, drawing. He was likely a cartographer, accompanying this party to draw a map of where they were. His left hand was inside of his pants pocket, and he was looking around with curious eyes. He carried no source of light whatsoever, and both the remaining people in front and behind of him gave him more space than they gave each other.

Like the first one, he carried no weapon whatsoever, but anyone looking at him could tell that he was well built. Not overly muscled, nor bulky. Just... fit. He could pass for a warrior if he had armor and a weapon.

Despite not carrying a light source, he looked around like someone that could see perfectly around himself, which was curious and fun in its own way since the man behind him, who was carrying a torch, was squinting his eyes trying to see something beyond the circle of light.

The man was wearing a more armored version of the light armor, grating him a little more protection for the sake of flexibility. He wore no helmet, and there were no indexes of any existing one. He carried a longsword, which made it obvious that he was a swordsman. Again, weird symbols showed up from time to time on his armor and weapon, this time, light blue ones.

Then, Lariel saw the man's mouth move. Trying to get some information about where he was and who these people were, he decided to move closer. Except that he was already moving. He gave this a reason: his subconscious had kicked in and perform the task without him noticing. But when he looked down to see where he was stepping, since he could feel nothing, he found... nothing. His legs were gone, but still, he was moving. He looked at his hand and found nothing yet again.

He was going to start to panic but remembered to keep calm in an unknown environment. He started processing all this information while still moving in the direction of the man. He tried to stop himself but found the attempt useless. He had no control over his body.

He analyzed what was happening to him.

He could not move. He could not see his body. He had no knowledge of how he got here. The last thing he remembered was getting into his bed. He had a light sleep, so anything would wake him up. Conclusion: he was in a dream. A weird dream to be sure. A realistic one also. He was also seeing everything from another perspective, which was normal for a dream.

He finally got close enough to the man to listen to his words. And just as he expected, he did not even acknowledge his presence.

"I still don't know why the hell he needs to be with us," the man said. "And why the hell are we protecting him. Isn't he supposed to be here to evaluate us? He should at least be powerful enough to defend himself," he completed in a low voice so that no one else except the person next to him could hear him.

"Really, Salazar?" the feminine voice said. Lariel had no way no tell that the person next to the man was a woman except for the voice. She was wearing armor similar to the man in every way. The only difference, the color of the weird symbols, which were dark blue instead of light blue. "The Guildmaster told us that he was more than capable and that protecting him was part of our test. If we cant perform simple protection missions how do you expect us to rank up to Ruby ranked adventurers?"

Lariel was... surprised, to say the least. Apparently, these were adventurers here on their rank-up evaluation. And most important of that all was the fact that they were Emerald-ranked adventurers. Lariel needed to rank up seven times to be on the same level as them. And if they were here to rank up, they were probably the top of Emerald. There was a huge difference between new Emerald adventurers and ready to rank up Emerald adventurers like there was in every rank. These were professionals. Veterans seasoned by many fights against beasts that would make even the Warlord Boss pee his skirt by just thinking of them. These were adventures that could defeat Lariel only by snapping their fingers.

The man that Lariel now knew to be Salazar turned to the female warrior and spoke.

"Yeah, yeah, I know all that. But still. Who is the idiot that brings no protection nor weapon when he comes to the one-hundredth floor of a dungeon?" he spoke in a loud whisper.

So. This is what the floor one-hundred of a dungeon looks like? Lariel thought. It was... quite bland to say the least. But it was a supposedly extremely dangerous place nonetheless.

"You heard the Guildmaster. He has his own ways," the female repeated.

"I know, Selena. I just wished I knew what rank this Bob was," Salazar said.

"Bob?" Selena, the woman asked.

"Yeah, the Guildmaster gave us no name, remember. Told us to call him whatever we wanted," Salazar responded.

Selena for her turn just turned her helmet towards the armored man.

"The Guildmaster surely had his reasons not to tell us the rank of this man," she said. "Think positive. Now we have a map of every floor until now. We are lucky he is a cartogra-".

She was interrupted by the sudden appearance of the man that was at the front of the group by her side.

"We have company," was everything Lariel heard before the man vanished again to the front.

Is that... teleportation spells? Lariel asked himself surprised. Spatial magic was one of the rarest things to find. And even more in a person that was apparently a Warrior. Apparently, there seemed to be more people that pursued both magic and weapons at the same time.

Everything moved smoothly after that sudden appearance. The Warriors moved closer to the cartographer and made a hand signal signaling him to move back. They then continued forward and positioned themselves between the bulky man and the mage. The light armor beast kind woman moved closer to the mage. She was probably in charge of protecting him.

All of this movement was performed in silence. The mysterious man just stood there at the back. His arms behind his back. Typical instructor pose, Lariel thought.

They all stayed still for about thirty seconds. Lariel's perspective having moved to be near the cartographer.

Then, the cavern went from complete darkness to complete brightness. Lariel looked at the source of this. A huge Dragon was lying there, his huge body lit up by fire moving on his scales. It looked at the adventurers and a deafening roar went through the cavern, shaking its walls. The adventurers stay still and brave. Then, Salazar shouted.

"It's a fire Drake! You know the drill!" he then moved to separate himself from the rest of the party, circling the huge monster from the left. Selena did the same but in the opposite direction.

The bulky man disappeared again, and Lariel was able to see him appear next to the head of the drake that was five meters above the ground. To Lariel's disbelief, the man punched the Drake's head. Literally punched it. And to increase Lariel's disbelief, the Drake actually suffered from that, being knocked to its right side, where Salazar was waiting.

Lariel thought the man was going to be smashed by the huge Drake, but he just moved at an amazing speed, even faster than Ivan's dash, jumping faster than the eye could track and piercing the monster's neck from side to side. The monster, seemingly unaffected by all this tried to balance itself, but the mage moved his staff, where the previous yellow ball turned ice blue, and a huge spike made of ice came out of the ground, piercing the Drake on his head, and stopping his movement. The Icycle was so big, that it was able to drill a hole half the size of the Drake's head. Silence then fell, and the cavern went back to its previous darkness.

The Bulky man reappeared next to the rest of the party, followed by Salazar and Selena. After a couple of seconds of quiet, Salazar spoke again.

"Alright, it's dead, let's move out," to which everyone started moving, passing by the dead Drake, and completely ignoring the body that could very much pay for a whole life's worth of expenditures.

So this... this is the power of the truly powerful, was Lariel's last thought before he too started moving behind them. They had completely obliterated a beast that even White Gold-ranked adventurers would run from at full speed.

Lariel lost himself on his thoughts, and the party continued to progress, killing the not Dragons but Drakes on its way.

After what felt like hours, they encountered another Drake. But this time, everything went differently right from the start.

When the bulky man tried to punch the Drake, it moved at an even higher speed and avoided the strike, then proceeding to smack its tale against Selena that was sent flying at least a couple hundred meters.

Salazar tried to perform his piercing attack, but the Drake avoided it and tried to bite down on the bulky man, only for an Icycle to appear below its belly.

Lariel thought the fight was over, but the Drake surprised him once more by creating a shell out of stone on his underbelly, and stopping the ice attack, making it crack against the rock hard protection.

The fight continued for another ten minutes, the bulky man going for openings when they were presented, the mage changing the element he was using to attack the Drake, Salazar, and Selena who eventually reappeared, trying to cut its legs and tail, also going for openings when they presented themselves.

Lariel also saw that the needle-like woman stayed in her place next to the mage, probably useless against this type of opponent with her weapon. The man that was there to evaluate them had a normal look on his face. Nor worried about the prospect of the party losing the fight, nor impressed by the fact the party was still hanging on.

Then, the fight escalated. The Drake managed to bite down the bulky man's arm, and he immediately teleported to the mage, that started healing the wound, with no time lost.

The loss of the tank and mage simultaneously made it impossible for Salazar and Selena to continue to fight and both were smashed against the ground, coughing blood. The Drake roared to the sky, or in this case, to the top of the cavern, and while it was showing its dominance, all the party moved to the instructor, but it was Salazar who spoke.

"We need, to go, and now, or we are all going to die. Please."

To Lariel's understanding, it was the mysterious man that decided whether or not they went back. Which was kind of psychotic. They could all die there if the man decided they would not move. Of course, the party could face the man, but their adventurer carrier would be over it the man died.

The man was seemingly thinking about it when the Drake finished its roar and turned to the adventurers, a glimmer of intelligence on its eyes, and what seemed like a grin on its mouth, showing a wide long row of sharp teeth.

The man then decided to speak.

"No!" was all he said. The adventurers for their turn started a complaint.

"Bu-" They were shut up by another roar of the Drake and its charge towards them. The adventurers started to consider running, but the evaluator looked at them and just... smiled.

"There is a reason why I was allowed to come here alone you know?" was what he said before he started walking towards the Drake.

The adventurers looked at him like he was stupid, but then something impressive happened before Lariels eyes.

The man started.. shifting. His casual clothes disappeared, and a set of thin plate light armor appeared on his body. The armor war dark green, with weird symbols on it. But the ones on the man's armor were not the same as the ones on the remaining of the party. These ones seemed more complex. They were also tinier and covered more of the armor. They shone with a golden color, emitting a constant light, noticeable even on the cavern lit up by the flames on the Drake's body.

A deep blue steel spear appeared in his hand. The spear was over two meters long, but the mysterious man seemed to prefer it that way.

The Drake ignored this transformation and moved to attack the man in his new armor. When the tail was getting close to the man, the spear blurred, and next thing Lariel knew, the scales protecting the base of the tail were cut, the same scales that the Emerald-ranked adventurers could not cut, and next came the meat and bone on the base.

The tail, due to being cut with momentum, completely missed the mysterious man and continued flying with impressive speed towards the end of the cave. The Drake roared yet again and went to bite the man, only for the target to blur and appear next to the party again, his armor and weapon replaced by his casual clothes, map, and pen.

"Shall we continue then?" he asked Salazar while the head of the Drake fell to the ground, its head severed with a clean-cut, dark blood pouring on the floor through the opening on its neck.