The feeling of pure mana and impure mana in the body was amazingly different. Before it was like prickling ants and honestly painful but when doing this with pure mana, although it still hurt since the mana pool and mana channels were sensitive, it was far better.

This is the result of using stable mana to train compared to unstable.

While training for two month's with Storm, the pure mana would constantly replace and consume the many different types of impure mana in his body through the grinding. One thing that was different was that despite wanting to start grinding after refilling his mana pool from the point he stopped, that didn’t work.

He had to start at the mana pool and go up every time until the impure mana was fully replaced before that worked. It took nearly 10 times to fully consume all the impure mana in his body but every step of the way, his body felt like it was getting stronger despite the pain.

During this time, he would also leave for fresh air and to learn about many things. The nation was called the Union empire. It was the result of several hundred years of the main empire marrying other royal families into themselves. The original royal family originated from this capital and a small territory and over the last thousand years since the fall of the demon lord, their territory expanded both through conquest and through political marriage combining territories.

This dungeon had been the cornerstone of their early expansion but as time went on, the large territory naturally needed other dungeons to compliment further areas.

There are a total of 10 dungeons in the Union but they are nothing compared to the extremely old Helix.

Now, about the dungeon itself. The dungeon is divided into ‘levels’ every 20 floors is a level and the difficulty of monsters rapidly ramps up each time.

The first twenty are referred to as the training ground and has F rank monsters and E rank boss monsters.

Don’t let it fool you, dungeon monsters have vastly more mana than wild monsters. That said, Helix’s monsters were different from the general dungeon’s. To produce a lot of monsters and use up a lot of mana, instead of them being completely true physical bodies they are instead a sort of magical construct.

Their actual true body is a mana crystal which powers every monster and destroying it means instant death.

When monsters die, their bodies rapidly burn away leaving the stone but in a lot of cases, they also leave behind drops.

Drops are body parts, weapons or more that concentrate most of the body's mana and become true matter and possess stable structures. The funny thing is that drops can be really different. From weapons to body materials and a clear indicator that this wasn’t a friendly environment, even potions and pills that adventurers carried into the dungeon.

Most items containing mana that remain on corpses are actually used by Helix as a medium for slightly better monsters and to gather more mana into. Killing these hard to distinguish creatures will result in mana rich armor that can be taken to master smiths and reforged into even better items so as to not lose the stored mana.

That said, because of so many monsters existing, Helix is a dungeon that is suggested for parties. Naturally, strong people don’t have to worry in areas below their level but that isn’t always the case as many things could happen and even a powerful person could fall.

The list of drops was incredible but what was important was the rare and epic drop list.

There really was no exact ‘rare’ or ‘epic’ rank of quality, instead these ranks represent item drop rates instead.

For instance, there are dump zones in the lower floors of the dungeon where rusting items like armor, animal bones and more are deposited to let Helix use or to let his slimes consume. These breeds common rank items lightly restored with low presence of mana.

On the other hand, there are actually naturally dropped items which you might not encounter for months or even years.

Even boss monsters don’t drop complete corpses and though a lot of them would drop hide, scales, bones and more because it takes months for Helix to gain sufficient mana to spawn these. Their body structures are also much more stable and this results in them being more powerful.

The funniest part is the richest but most common drop that Helix gives and that is the gold coin.

Gold, without saying much, is a very valuable thing, even when bags of it come from the dungeon, it doesn’t change because magically spawned gold isn’t like normal gold.

These gold coins perfectly contain a bit of mana and it is exactly the same amount. There is actually a system within this that normal minted gold coins can’t ever achieve and that is called stacking.

Gathering 100 gold coins in a stack will actually cause them to react and their mana forms a flow and the stack will instantly compress into a perfectly minted gold plate containing the exact amount of mana the coins did without losing anything. There is a number ‘100’ on the top showing the value, the same as the coin generally has a ‘1’ on the top face.

In the same sense, gathering 100 plates will merge them into a gold bar with the value of 10,000 coins.

The amount of mana a gold bar has actually makes it on par with some magical metals and this means that gold bars are gathered to be used for forging. Despite pure gold being liquid, mana solidifies it and forged metal is generally with other metals making the forged alloy extremely hard and powerful.

It was an amazing system to rapidly compress mana.

Logan was surprised by the creative nature of the dungeon and how flexible it can be. Of course, he naturally didn’t know about the much more unique dungeons out there.

Of course, with his investigation, he naturally came to realize that he personally wouldn’t have trouble on his own in the first 20 floors. Though he did learn that the residents of the dungeon cities would not accept Tip, they worked under dungeon coins, aka gold.

It made sense as it was the money the dungeon naturally produced and the most likely result is the sentient monsters actually absorbing mana to allow them to slowly enhance their body structure until it gets to a stable state.

This was actually also a big problem in the case of hidden criminals. Because these sentient monsters had such stable bodies, their drops were naturally much richer and some particularly cruel people would go to hunt them. The country actually had to put high ranking police forces in the dungeon cities at every 20 floors to make sure that didn’t happen and anger Helix.

Even so, those who go outside the main city are still subject to hunting. It is dangerous being a dungeon creature since they are not able to leave until they have a completely stable body and transform their monster core into a mana pool. That isn’t possible without a fully solid form.

That is why the two main currency in the dungeon are so desired, mana stones from monsters and gold.

Funny enough, even humans can absorb mana from mana stones to train their mana but it isn’t as worth it because humans have training techniques for it while dungeon creatures don’t or the market would break and there would be a huge number of them coming out.

The few who do come out are given full rights as civilians of Union and are instantly given rank equal to the highest city they ascended to.

With 150 floors, there are 7 cities and the highest ones would give birth to S rank.

Now, during the two months of training, the biggest change in the two was for Storm. Him replacing the impure mana and achieving pure F rank mana caused him to instantly enter a growth spurt until he finished a full cycle alongside Logan and at the end, he was 2 meters in length and gained a few abilities it didn’t have before.

Because of the skillful usage of mana, Storm was actually learning to blend lightning into mana and from his fangs and claws, he can channel lightning and after having it swipe at his leg, Logan realized that it released a big burst upon impact like that of a bolt of lightning.

He called this simple move bolt slap. He asked if it worked with the tail but the flow of lightning wasn’t extremely good through his body.

Logan actually wanted him to learn lightning clad because it would benefit him greatly but even now, he didn’t know how to properly teach it.

Still, two months was the correct estimate to completely change to complete pure mana and enhance their base strength to that level.

Logan honestly thought that it would be interesting to fill in the remaining two spots he had for battle beasts but he honestly didn’t know what he could get. Although a flying beast was probably the best option as it would help cut travel costs.

Still, anything of great quality was expensive and he didn’t think much of it at this moment, it was a fleeting thought and what he truly wanted was to test his power as well as Storms.

Until now, Storm had basically had the strength of a common Crystalback Lightning Lizard but he never truly tested and watched him fight.

As such, he took him to the adventurers guild which was actually situated next to the grand opening of the dungeon and at the register, he registered his ID for the first time here as he had not done much besides training.

“Alright, your ID is updated. You can access the Nexus here freely.” she said.

“Great, can you tell me if there are any restrictions on battle beasts in the dungeon?” He asked.

“No, there are none. Although you should make sure your beast eats monster cores, or mana stones as they are usually called, in moderation. It is said that if they eat too much, Helix could actually corrupt them into dungeon beasts.” she said.

Logan frowned at that and kept it in mind. “So under the 20th floor everything is F rank?” Logan asked.

“Are you from a foreign country?” She asked. Logan replied with a nod and she took out a graph, “Monsters between floors 1 to 5 are a mix of unranked and F rank. Unranked is just animals and common human strength. Above the 5th floor is basically all F rank, animals that you previously saw will also be monsters and any humanoids will start to form hunting parties. The 10th floor has a boss but it is an elite F rank making it much smarter than it’s companions but not actually stronger but knowledge is power.” She said.

Logan nodded in agreement and knew the value of knowledge.

“Floor 11 to 19 begin to show more elite monsters and even a rare E rank roaming boss in very rare cases. 20th floor boss is an E rank and basically every party is drawn into an instance zone though that has it. It is a floor boss but it is weak compared to higher level ones which take much longer to respawn. Once you beat it, you get access to the city and a transport circle that you will see on the first floor entrance lobby. It helps save a lot of time but you can still climb from the start if you want. If you do, you don’t need to kill the floor boss but that is valid only for 1 month since your last kill.” she said.

Logan nodded and kept that in mind.

The elite monsters she mentioned are unique and more powerful versions of the same creature. In retrospect, Storm is an Elite Crystalback Lightning Lizard due to all the training put into his body. He is a notch above the pack and even if he wasn’t trained, his biology was already an elite alpha and could grow to E rank just through natural growth.

Boss monsters and Roaming monsters are similar because they are elite among elite so they are always much stronger. Taking Storm as a benchmark. A boss crystalback lizard would be an elite alpha. In other words, if a normal pack had 1 alpha at E rank, a boss would be the alpha of a pack of alphas as an elite E rank or even a D rank, something not seen in natural crystalback lizards.

"I see, thank you.” He said.

“Oh, one more thing, the nexus here has two category. One for outside missions and another for dungeon requests. Dungeon requests ask for different kinds of materials gained from monster drops. You should also always make sure of the dungeon coin to Tip conversion rate to make sure that gold gathering missions aren’t underpaying.” she explained.

“Oh, that is good. Thank you.” He said with a nod and went to one of the many Nexus globes and began to check out. As she explained, outside missions were help requests and hunting requests while dungeon missions required certain gathered resources from specific nodes and veins, monster drops or specific quality of monster cores.

He went to check the limit of monster cores that monsters could eat without being corrupted and how it can process them.

If it was a natural undeveloped monster, it would generally be between 100 to 200 grams of cores. Most f rank cores were tiny fragments so basically it would be gathering to the limit of their bodies mana tolerance. Developed ones though could eat double and as long as they trained for about a day the crystals would be processed and consumed.

The effects were varied but the mana was very good for continuous training within a short time and it was perfect to help break limits by overloading the amount of mana while consuming it. For trained monsters this was particularly true when compressing mana to a higher rank and forcing the rank another step.

If a bag is force fed to a dungeon monster, it could even cause them to burst and evolve into a stronger breed but that wouldn’t make any drops because the body was still unstable.

He didn’t know what was available so he just ranked it at F rank since he was going to have to pass through but the drops and prices were quite low. He just sighed and knew that it was much better to first get to the 20th floor.

He did check maps and downloaded those so that he wouldn’t get lost.

Finally, they headed out and into the dungeon.

The very first floor was a massive lobby with several large magic circles which people would appear every so often or go in and vanish.

At the walls, there were several stairs and after checking he realized that each lead through different segments of the dungeon and every one of them connected and disconnected and some random points with each other and there were a few stairs going up.

There were also territories of different monsters so since he didn’t want to stay on low floors he decided to go a more straight path.

Before going though, he pulled out the bone armor and stepping in he had Storm assume his full size.

“You will fight them, let me see how you fight.” He said.

He just nodded understanding and together they walked through the dungeon.

It didn’t take long to encounter monsters but it was the dungeon’s weakest monster, goblins.

From the records, every dungeon spawned them first and they were the weakest known dungeon monsters ever. Storm rushed forward but it wasn’t a fair fight. Goblins were only as strong as adult humans with no training. It made sense that none of them lasted more than one attack from Storm.

That said, Logan got a clear view of the attack tactics. Storm liked to sweep with his tail and the slow goblins would die with any attack. The claw swipe caused their bodies to burst with the electrical discharge and biting did similar as the body was ripped and the wound would actually char from the contained discharge but it was a heavy wound.

When it was done, only some tiny fragmented crystals were left.

Logan casually picked them up and tested the amount and was surprised by how little mana they had.

Looking around he also found a few of the goblin fangs or their ear and just picked it up because he didn’t know if it was valuable but he doubted that since they are the weakest monsters.

They continued on steamrolling through the entire goblin territory until they breached into a large room that looked like a mushroom forest and monster mushrooms and bats were plentiful.

Storm continued his rampage and Logan just killed those that came at him while examining how Storm fought.

When they finished and gathered everything and continued to the second floor they stopped at the first room and he began to point out some things to Storm that he should watch out for. His mana control was far weaker in battle and he released a lot of sparks despite having good control and he also had a lot of openings and monsters generally attacked. He only didn’t get hurt because his scales were much stronger but this would be dangerous against equal or stronger foes.

Sadly Storm didn’t have unique magic, skills or abilities, it was something related to his biology, they simply didn’t have that many abilities and it is why they were easily hunted.

As expected of a dungeon, the fights became progressively harder. Storm actually found his hardest fights against golems where lightning meant nothing. And Logan stepped in. This is why fighting experience was so important.

That said, they were surprised when they reached the stairs to the 6th floor.

A huge mob of monsters were surrounding a group of people consisting of several novice parties.

Among them were heavily injured older adventurers who were struggling to keep the monsters at bay.

This is the danger of the dungeon even in low floors. Once you show weakness, it is like all monsters smell it.

Logan took only a moment and pointed to the left, “Storm, destroy the goblins, I will deal with the others near the group!” He ordered.

Instantly, Storm’s eyes turned sharp and it hissed a low rumbling growl like that of a crocodile and rushed at the pack.

Logan drew Arashi and extended to full length to deal the most damage, he aimed at an angle away from the group and charged his wind clad and roared as he ran forward and stopped at the line of monsters and swung horizontally.

This was the same attack he had tested when he finished developing his mana channels.

A bright green glow shined as the monsters turned and the 120 cm long blade expanded as it slashed through the nearest monster and as soon as the slash finished, the wind blade broke free and accelerated like a tempest. Like a sideways tornado, it ripped through the entire right line and everything was instantly split in half while the left over tempest shredded them to pieces as their bodies burned away.

The group watched in awe and horror as he cleared nearly three dozen monsters in a single swing like reaping wheat.

Then his body began to glow as faint sparks came out from the bone armor, which was not like Arashi who had mana channels.

He accelerated into the main pack and his sword swung with shocking speed for the length and weight killing two and three at a time and in those three bursts he reached the frontline where the adventurers were having trouble and instantly slashed the head of the nearest monster.

Landing he turned to the side with golems and without asking he cleaved them each with a slash to each.

“Look at that!” Someone shouted and they looked at the side with goblins as Storm hissed and swung its tail or hit down and swung them like dolls.

Even lifting and stomping down on their bodies, it was like watching a berserker all the while the green crystal was glowing bright until something strange happened.

Probably filled with blood thirst, it hissed while lightning began to gather on the crystal before it suddenly burst out slammed into all the nearby goblins.

Crowded as they were, it instantly travelled and formed a huge chain that killed nearly half of the goblins.

When it was done, he turned his glare to the deeper areas and growling he jumped. The crystal, however, was fully active and where he ran, bolts of lightning would randomly attack out like an automatic defense. Logan was shocked about how he did that but he continued his massacre until the last monster was stabbed dead.

Both his and Storm’s breathing were a bit rough but he smiled after feeling the rush of using his strength. Still, he knew he hadn’t used the peak of his strength. He only used the lowest speed of lightning clad and this was true for wind clad as well. He hoped that reaching the 21st floor, he would finally find stimulating fights that would finally push him to fully exert himself.

When he was done, he took out a few pills for him and Storm and then turned to the group. “Are you all alright?” he asked.

The older adults came over and gave him a bow, “Thank you for your timely rescue. Our groups are from the Union capital magic academy. The children here are from our 5th year class and we teachers were meant to teach them coordinated fighting.” he said.

Logan looked at them strangely, “You teachers are F rank?” he asked.

“Yes, it was supposed to have ended here but due to our bad luck, a shadow cat from the floors above had come down and heavily injured the first group that arrived here and those who came later were also injured. The blood naturally attracted monsters.” he explained.

Logan suddenly looked serious and asked where the injured were and headed over.

There were a lot of injuries so he took out Arashi and shrank her down.

Lightning started to gather.

“What are you doing?” one teacher asked.

“Don’t worry, my lightning type magic sword has a special ability to produce unique healing magic. It compliments greatly with other healing magic.” He said and slowly the lightning sparked green and he released the spark by nearing it near the body before he charged again and released it on all the injured.

The academy students were much more competent than him in healing magic.

Like that they began to cast heal and the open wounds finally closed and the injured started to wake up. After that they were given healing pills and told to rest.

“Are you still going up?” Logan asked.

“Of course not, the first 5 floors are the true training grounds. There are unranked and F rank monsters here and it is much safer. Going to the 6th is asking for trouble with these children here.” he said.

Logan nodded. “I’ll stick around in case there is more danger but I am still going up to the 20th floor city.” He said.

“Alone?” the teacher asked.

“Is there a problem if I am alone?” Logan asked.

“Well, the more you go up the larger the number of monsters and the more coordinated. Floor 10 is another big milestone where you even find monster settlements with hundreds of monsters. If they are humanoids, you might even find elite monsters.” he said.

“I’m already E rank so you don’t need to worry about me. If anything happens, I can easily run away.” he said.

They weren’t convinced, spells to speed up didn’t last long but they naturally didn’t know about him using lower outputs.

He stayed for about half an hour until the shallow wounds were healed and first aid was put on the more severe ones.

With them together, it was much safer in the lower floors so they left towards the entrance and he went up with Storm.

As explained, there was a big jump in danger after the 5th floor because now everything was F rank at least. Even the deers and birds released here to add to the population of weaker creatures were no different.

The scariest were monster bugs that appeared on this floor but in return, the drop rate of items radically increased. Of course, Storm began to show off his new ability and despite the bugs supposedly being a harsh counter, the new ability he seemed to achieve countered them like a bug zapper. Even the glow of the crystal drew them in like a bug lamp and the only problem was the mana required to maintain it. Logan needed to make sure to give him breathing room and take some time to rest in safe areas.

Sometimes he even had Storm go into his back to rest while he just climbed up.

During that time he would climb pretty quickly but at the 15th floor he encountered a goblin camp and unlike the early floors, even the weaker goblins were adult sized and the leading one was rippled with muscles and used a large bone and had a skull over his head like a helmet.

They were far stronger and pressed hard on him but he started to use a lot more mana for lightning clad and accelerator to dodge four attacks at once and attack. He had to use Arashi as a Katana due to close quarters and from then he kept Storm from coming out because that was dangerous for him.

Finally after a full 10 hours, he reached the floor boss and walked in with Storm on his arm, the space distorted as he stepped through the door.

In the room he found a large body. Sitting down it was already 2 meters tall and in around it were bones and within the large hand was what looked like the bottom half of a monster.

It raised it and raw, it took a forceful bite and ripped chunks off of it.

The two horns on the head caught the light of the flames on the wall and the sickly green skin looked more disgusting while tribal tattoos covered its body.

He stepped in and the door swung closed with a loud noise making it look back and growled. It grabbed a massive black metal club and used it as a support to stand a staggering 3 meters of height.

As it shoved the rest of the monster in it’s mouth, it turned and roared as blood from the kill still remained.

“Storm, get in my bag!” Logan said and pulled Arashi instantly and her size reached max as the Ogre stepped forward and with speed uncharacteristic of its size, rushed at him.

Logan didn’t charge anything but pulled Arashi back and timing it, he swung as the club came down.

BANG!

A shocking explosion came between the two and they stopped each other but with a roar, the ogre’s tattoos shined and it suddenly boosted its power and pushing to the right, Logan was thrown against the wall.

He groaned as he narrowed his eyes, “So that is what makes it a boss monster. Ogre’s magic tribal tattoos. This is going to be a bigger pain in the ass than the pack of lightning wolves.”