“Ah! Finally, it’s over.”

“You think so?”

“Right?”

Rockies first ever clash with the humans ended with him gaining a tired soul, and a massive amount of constructional headache.

He had somehow, held on to his life, although most of that was taken care of by the humans.

The damages from the skirmish were still huge.

The amounts included, the death of over 1800 ants including the queens spawns. A completely destroyed room and that’s it.

Though it doesn’t look much at all, but the cost to cover the damages, the owners didn’t have. And even after collecting dungeon credits from the archer and the assassin’s bodies, their wealth only amounted to a total of 688Dc.

Which although had evened out their expenses, but had failed to gain them a substantial profit.

That was until this message hadn’t come.

Congratulations!!

A feat of strength has been performed.

You have protected your dungeon from an enemy that was way above your level and even made them retreat!

Rewards: +1000Dc, +6th floor rights.

And for the first time in their short lives as a partner, Minnie and Rocky understood that there were other ways to gain money, than by killing humans. Though even those paths demanded death and destruction.

“You didn’t know?”

“No. No one ever told me this. Maybe…” Minnie thought that maybe everyone who knew such information simply just decided to not make it public and profit alone on it.

“Anyways, we have enough credits now to buy the wolf, complete the dungeon to the tenth floor and then buy some monsters over it. So what do you want to first?” Rocky poked Minnie over her shoulder and asked her.

“But first, let’s check our gains other than the credits.” She spoke while playing with his hair.

“As you say.”

On checking they found out that Rocky actually didn’t gain any levels from the skirmish.

When he asked Minnie the reason, she said, “Probably because you or your summons didn’t deal the final blows to the humans that died here.”

And here guess was right on point.

Rocky sulked because he was just a little shy from that tenth level and the skill store.

Though checking the inventory did improve his mood, but not by much.

From absorbing the archers body he got, 1 Iron back rhino light leather set, which included boots, pants, jacket, and gloves. It had the set bonus that increased Defense by +15 and dexterity by +12 and gave a skill [Super shot].

He also gained a simple and defenseless cream colored satin shirt, one processed iron dagger, a short bow and its accessories. In term of accessories he got; a ring that increased agility, one that decreased wind resistance and a bracelet which increased critical chance.

On the other hand the assassin gave, one shadow leopards light armor set. Which included a pair of shoes, cardigan, robe, gloves, and mask.

Assassin’s equipment was incredible to look at, its every piece increased the agility by at least 5 and critical chance by +2% and the set bonus doubled the previous bonuses and gave the [Shadow walk] skill.

His two daggers were rare black Iron enchanted daggers.

Dagger of sharpness.

Quality – Rare©

Class- all from the Thief tree.

Restriction- Rank 1

Stats: +20 Sharpness, +5% critical chance, +100% critical damage

His rings also increased critical chance and agility by a total of +30 and 2%.

They also got 3 Gold and 20 silver coins from these two. Most came from the assassins pockets.

Other benefits included a level increase in Fireball, Mana regeneration and Mana manipulation, while 2 in mana sense and soul manipulation.

Rocky and Minnie decided to set the order of things as;

First, buy floors up to the tenth level. They already had bought five floors before the fight, 6th was gifted, so after spending 400 Dc Rocky bought the rights to expand up to the tenth floor. But he didn’t directly order the ants to dig up to the 10th floor, because he didn’t have enough mana for that.

His first three floors reserved a total of 300Mp, Queen needed 100Mp, that wolf whom they wanted to bring back demanded a staggering 300 Mp. These three alone reserved 700Mp, while his mana pool only amounted to 1140 Mp.

And Rocky wanted to expand the dungeon to the fifth floor, but stopped at the fourth, and that’s 200Mp more. Minus 100 Mp for his personal expenses and there was only 240Mp left to buy ants. Means, the day till ants ruled the world was still far; too far.

Second, was to buy the monsters. After all the digging was done by the ants, and the earlier they bought them the earlier would their floors be ready.

“So, whom one should I buy first?”

Minnie snorted, but didn’t reply to his silly question.

“Okay, wolf come out.” Rocky yelled with sparkling eyes.

And the same phenomenon midst which the wolf had vanished appeared once again.

The tri colored pentagon emerged on the ground, and burst into a bright glow of light.

A black paw came out of the pillar of light, and just as it touched the ground, the pillar broke and light particles scattered into the little dots.

Stone smirked when he saw the crystal and asked, “What took you so long?”

But his owners were too busy being astonished from the changed that he had went through.

Appearance wise, he had gotten over five foot tall, but looked slender than before. His black paws didn’t change much other than getting bigger and meaner. Moreover, three one inch nail adorned his jet black feet.

His once red streaked tail had turned completely red, and he grew three colored circular patches on his spine. The biggest circle of 5cm diameter was silver in color. The next one was black colored, and the last one, Red.

Rocky checked his status and saw that other than a change in his appearance he had also come anew with an increase in power.

Stone the single tailed wolf (UQ)

Once a white wolf, now an existence reaching transcendence. What will become of it is not know at the point.

Level

4

Race

Wolf

Rank

1

Affinity

Wind(90),Dark(7),Fire(3)

Titles

The awakened.

Skills

Shadow dance (1), Fire typhoon (11), Half-moon blade (8), Shadow bind (1).

The biggest surprise was that he had ranked up. His name changed from wolf to single tailed wolf, and Rocky thought that maybe next time he would evolve to a double tailed wolf and giggled.

But his skills surprised Rocky even more. Though he didn’t gain an individual skill from the fire element, but its presence changed his Wind cyclone to fire typhoon. His wind blade changed to a half moon blade and he even gained two completely new skills from the dark element.

Rocky asked him to display his skills, so that he could grasp their destruction capabilities.

Stone smirked and complied; “Happily!” he said and turned to look the other side.

Firstly he used shadow bind and nothing happened. He tried one more time, and they came to the conclusion that it probably needed a target to activate or shadows.

Next, he used [Shadow dance], which was more akin to a martial skill rather than a magical one. Using it increased his agility and flexibility. Then he displayed a set of movements which could have easily made any master swordsman sweat.

[Half moon blade] was just an evolved form of [Wind blade], but their destructive ability was on a whole another level.

“Half-Moon blade!!” he shouted and without a single second delay an almost two meter large and half a meter filled crescent blade made of wind energy zoomed past everything that came its way.

Those huge pieces of stones were cleaved so finely that they didn’t even fall down, and to the observer it looked as if the blade had simply passed through.

But the skill which impressed Rocky the most was still the [Fire Typhoon], which just decimated everything around the wolf. It was an AOE skill and behaved just like a real typhoon. It kept Stone in the eye at the center, and the fire storm rotated around him.

The storm had a slight delay time, as it needed mana and time to setup the storm, and other than having a short duration of just five seconds, it also had a cool down of one hour, but the destruction was enough to deter all the side effects that came with it power.

One another side effect of it being that it was a last effort kind of skill. Because it didn’t have an upper limit, its destruction capabilities depended on the amount of mana poured into it.

When Stone displayed it, it drained all of his mana leaving him in a weakened state and dozing conscious.

The skill display had started with Rocky looking over the wolf like a boss, and ended with the wolf rising to being the new star of the dungeon.

Stone took a quick five minute rest to restore a thread of his mana and they continued.

“Damn!! Are you really only a first ranker?” Minnie couldn’t help but ask him, because the skill display was too amazing.

“Hahaa, aren’t I amazing?”

But Rocky stopped them from hitting it off and wasting time.

“Okay, stop. We have work left to do.”

Rocky said looking at the perfectly charred and smooth room that the fire typhoon had created.

“So, how many credits do we have?”

“Minnie checked and replied, “788…”

“That’s a lot if you think about it.”

“Yes.”

“So, how many and which ant should I buy?”

Minnie didn’t take much time to get to a decision and answered, “If we think about it clearly, then I think that it would be better for us to buy eggs and soldiers rather than workers.”

“But what if the invaders attacked while the eggs are still in their incubation period?

Minnie opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it again. She couldn’t come to a direct answer and stone interjected between them, “If I am not wrong then that is what I am here for right? To kill the invaders, right?”

And Minnie smiled hearing that. Rocky thought a bit more before giving up.

“Fine, let’s buy the eggs then.”

Because only workers would be born from the eggs, they decide to use 500 credits to buy five ant soldiers, and broke their piggy bank to buy the eggs.

They became dirt poor once more, but the satisfaction they gained from having a small force, and the future chance of having a whole army made them contempt.

Their dungeon stats after the shopping looked like this.

Dungeon Interface / Status

Home

Monsters / Store

Name

…

Type

Insect

Floors

3/10

Total no of monster

1+1+5+28=7+ 29

Queen+Wolf+soldiers+eggs

Rooms/Floor

3

Total no of invaders

0

Mana used / Total mana: (940/1140)

Floors

300

Monsters

640

Resources

0

Upgrades

0

Dungeon Currency

08

Reputation

+56(Neutral)

The bought soldiers appeared in the room, and Rocky sent them directly to dig the fourth floor.

Before he bought the eggs he created a small nursery at the end of the room, near his crystal. And to do that, he collected dirt from the room and made a soft cushion for the eggs.

But as he was collecting the dirt, something attracted his attention. He told Minnie and she went out to see what it was.

She removed the dirt, and dug the thing out. It was an egg, but one which didn’t show its presence on the dungeon status. Meaning it was not an egg bought by them from the system.

The egg was fist size; just the same size as the queen’s eggs, but the queen didn’t show any reaction to it.

A question mark floated above Minnie head when Rocky asked her what it meant.

Rocky then used dungeon analyze on the egg.

Chaotic Egg A rare egg that may come into existence in an unstable environmentally Will become bound to the first entity the new born sees.

The new born is guaranteed to be a new existence.

After deliberate discussion they came to the result that it will see Rocky first, to bind it to the dungeon. Then they placed it with the other eggs in the nest.

Minnie checked the egg for more information about their hatching time.

While the rare egg didn’t show any such information, the other eggs did and made them understand why they were five times cheaper than the instantly delivered ants.

Ant egg Rank(0) Time left till birth: 18 hours.

It rained that night, and by the time the ants dug through the fourth floor, it was already noon of the next day.

Rocky trained through the night and leveled his [Soul manipulation] 1 level, while [Mana manipulation] and [Meditation] increased by 2 levels each.

Minnie spent the whole night away, and only came back in the morning.

“ Follow me.” She didn’t greet him, neither did she let him greet her, and ordered him to follow. And Rockycould only comply.

He wanted to refuse and interrogate her, but seeing her looking excited after so many stressful days, Rockies heart softened and his inner voice told him to just go.

Her eagerness and confidence raised his expectations, and added a sweet charm to their little interaction.

He followed her, obliviously in his soul and noticed that they were going toward the entrance.

“Is the surprise that you are flaunting about, waiting for me at the entrance of our dungeon?”

To his question she behaved… questionably. She giggled instead of answering him and increased her speed.

“Hey, come on and tell me.”

“Don’t be like that!”

“Hey, At least give me a clue!”

But to all of his persuasion and rumble, she answered with a simple sentence.

“Just see it with your own eyes.”

Both of them, one fairy and one soul travelled through their familiar, yet unfamiliar dungeon, as they reached their destination.

And Rocky couldn’t close his mouth.

“Woah” his response came directly from the soul, and why would it not, the view was that beautiful.

It was like an ocean. Blue, light colored and truly marvelous. The entrance to the dungeon, which once used to look like the aftermath of a hard fight, changed completely in one night to look like a soul cleansing, mood soothing, mind relaxing, tourist spot.

“How did this happen?” Rocky didn’t even look at Minnie.

“It rained last night when you were training. The clouds that covered thousands of miles of sky quenched the thirst of these barren lands. The rain not only changed our dungeon, but also brought life back to the barren patch of land near our dungeon.”

“I never knew a simple rain could change a completely devastated area into something this encouraging!”

“Yeah, this could very well turn into a heaven for adventurers to relax at.”

Minnie’s eyes shined as she thought about the future. They watched the nature blooming to their heart content, before getting back to business.

“Now, we need to make sure that no monsters emerge from this pond or any ants come to attack here from the deeper parts of our dungeon!”

And it was decided to make the region a monster free tourist spot. They at the moment didn’t know that this single decision and its future possibilities would end up saving their lives.

Actually the water filled pit was not the actual attraction.

If light falling on still water could make it look mystic and enchanting, then those ovate things which were radiating that blue light and soothing aroma were really out of this world.

The pit from inside to the out, the walls, floor almost everything was covered by blue glowing patches of some kind of a plant.

Every single one of them had a big ovate shaped head, stuck on a slim pole. The head was blue in color and was covered in shining white dots.

And according to Minnie it was their natural glow. They didn’t need sunlight to charge, and were a good source of light.

Rocky was so engrossed in looking at them that he spoke out loud.

“What are they!?”

“What don’t you like it?”

“Like… I love it. But what are these? There is no mention of these things in my borrowed memories.”

“Well, we can only know what they are by analyzing them.”

Replying to her with an ‘Okay’ Rocky appraised the entity to see what kind of a thing could look so beautiful.

Blazing Frost Mushroom [Ingredient Rank : A]

Blazing frost mushroom are a rare variant of light mushrooms. They grow in a dark and humid space, but the most important thing needed for their growth is abundant mana.

Species : Fungi

Grade : Rare

Growth Area : 25m

Price : 1Dc/Mushroom

Rocky was checking their information, when Minnie at his side started giggling

“Ha-ha, they are exactly like what their name implies.”

“Yes they are. Bright, bold and beautiful, just like their name.” Rocky replied.

They sat on the edge and stared at the mushrooms for a whole hour.

They shared some laughs talking about their first some interactions, and tried to hold hands when they talked about their invaders.

Rocky shared his wish to become able to talk with her face to face in the real world. He told her how scared he becomes sometimes, and want to hold her hand and place his head on her shoulder to which Minnie smiled and replied saying that day would come.

They shared a heartwarming and peaceful moment at the pond, and then a blue screen popped up in front of them.

Ant eggs Rank(0)

Incubation period is over.

Waiting for the ants to wake up.

They smiled looking at the blue box, and their parental values came to surface, but then at the same time the intruders came to invade.

Warning: Intruders Alert.

Rocky used his Mana sense and to see who had come this time and trembled. His mana sense covering 50 meters he saw what was attacking him.

“Fuck, Minnie run! The whole forest is coming!”