The two adventurers were going down a tunnel, completely dark. The only thing stopping the Darkness was the bright orb of light standing over the duo. Eventually, they reached the end of the tunnel, to which they let out a groan. “Gods damn it all... another dead end. I might as well blow the whole dungeon sky high.” Derb’s teacher said, annoyed at the fact they had to turn back once more.

Derb just started walking, unfazed at his teacher’s remark. This place was too fascinating for him to feel annoyed. He felt like a child once more as he gazed at the plant and animal life. He gazed as a fist-sized dragonfly flew onto a flower. It slowly pulled apart the flower for no discernable reason, fascinating him immensely. His attention was broken immediately when Gerald smacked his head. “Stop dilly-dallying, we have nowhere near the materials needed. At this rate, we might have to stop this project.”

Derb rubbed his head, annoyed at the constant hurrying. Two hours had passed and all they’d found in that time were two other shades. His imp was able to take them on easily enough, so he and his teacher were left to not do much. “Seriously, in this type of darkness, we should have seen much higher-ranked demons. I don’t understand why we’ve only been coming across lessers.” He looked at his teacher zapped the dragonfly with a small flick of his finger, exploding it immediately. “No!” He shouted, running towards the poor insect. He tried to find any part of it but only a black spot remained.

Gerald could only roll his eyes at the scene. “It was attempting to destroy the flower because of its medical properties. We have better uses for the flower, so remove the petals it was ripping apart.” Derb was still startled but followed suit. As he removed the torn petals he noticed that they were slowly rotting. He made a mental note to trust his teacher more often as he put the flower away and carried on.

His teacher was grumbling, crossing out yet another mark on his map. “There’s one more spot, I’m pretty sure it leads to plenty of those cursed monsters.” The map flashed and disappeared, once again reminding Derb about how easy it’d be to carry his items if it wasn’t for his teacher. They finally arrived back to the room right before the entrance, taking the time to eat a quick bit of rations. “Derb, understand that where we’re going is much more dangerous than the top floor.” He took out the soul stone and handed it to Derb. “Keep this with you, it’ll protect you from demonic attacks. Just make sure you don’t lose it, I’m not able to afford another one.”

The soulstone felt heavy in his hand. The pull from it was very slight, however, nowhere near the amount he felt before. “The stone is a tool similar to your weapon, just pump mana into it when you need to use it. I’d rather you don’t, though.” Gerald stood and point to one of the openings they haven’t entered yet. “We’re going a level deeper, the mana is stronger there, and so are the monsters.”

Derb smiled anxiously, unsure about the expedition. “There isn’t going to be higher ranked down there, right? How strong are the shades, by the way?” His teacher shrugged, moving into the path anyways, Derb quickly following along. “The shades are all lesser, but they’re almost as powerful as your imp in terms of magic.” Derb’s brain hurt trying to process the information. “Wait… so my imp is a lesser rank but can beat small ranks… and the lesser rank shades are just as powerful?”

The teacher shook his head, remembering the lack of common sense his student had. “A tiger and a rabbit are both common beasts, but the rabbit cannot beat the tiger, is that right?” HIs student nodded but still looked a bit lost. “Monsters of the same rank aren’t usually the same strength, even amongst their own species. In between ranks are predator and prey, each with their own methods of gaining power. Though, some have little to no chance of evolving in the first place.”

They kept going deeper and deeper into the narrow hole, eventually becoming barren of all life. At some point, they stopped talking altogether, the lack of space making them tense... Gerald paused before reaching a turn in the tunnel, putting a hand out to stop Derb... “Damn… a reaper. That’ll be a tough battle for you... Come up front, see if you think you’re ready to take it on.” Derb slowly moved up front, peeking the corner to see what the monster looked like.

What he saw was terrifying… and awesome. The shades from before were too simple to be considered cool, this thing blew simplicity out the water. It slowly skulked the room, turning left and right before once again floating along. Its head consisted of a large black ball, like those of the shades, fire wasn’t surrounding it, however. The sphere instead seemed to be charged with electricity, large streaks of lightning occasionally crashing into the ground. There was no body, a giant and torn black cloak was in its stead. The most prominent part about it was a hand and lantern, both floating in front of it.

The lantern shone dimly, adding an oppressive tone to the beast. Its hand looked more like monstrous hooks, lantern gently hanging off its loose grip. The beast turned towards their location, and Derb leaped back to safety. “Yeah, I’m not touching that thing, let’s go find another place for shades, yeah?” His teacher nodded solemnly. “Yes, unfortunately, there are no more places to go, I’m not planning to give you this one without you earning it, so we’ll have to leave today.” Derb was shocked, they spent all that time here and came out with nothing!?

“I’m NOT coming back to the house to have Tiff and Hannah laugh at me… Connor, do you think you can go to the other side without alerting the reaper?” His teacher watched on as Derb tried to set up a plan with pride, not paying mind that it was doomed to fail. Oh well, he’d just heal him later. After a few minutes, he stood up and prepared for the fight. He ordered Connor to move in, having him fly high over the reaper. He was planning for his summon to shoot at the demon from the other side. He’d charge in while it was distracted and hit it in the core, what he assumed would do the most damage.

Eventually, Connor arrived and began the second step. The imp charged a purple fireball, making it revolve in place as he muttered in guttural tones. The moment it threw the spell derb charged in, sword at the ready. The reaper instantly reacted to the fireball, shoving its lantern in the way. The lantern in his hand glowed as a barrier of light resurrected between the two. The explosion was deafening, but the barrier remained unchanged. A series of smaller fireballs were streamed its way, also hitting the barrier with little effect. The sphere crackled with lightning and shattered the ground it was on, it seemed it got angry at the barrage.

The lantern glowed once more, a ray of lightning bursting through the barrier and at Derb’s summon. The imp simply Flew out of the way, a burst of fire coming from where the ray hit. Derb was finally close enough to step into the fight, but the moment he swung disaster struck. The reaper noticed him at the last second, Throwing its lantern in the way of the swing. Derb smashed the lantern, causing a huge explosion that threw both of them back. Derb crashed into the wall, groaning at the pain in his chest. He tried standing up but the blast shook his head enough to have him off balance.

He looked towards the reaper, who was too busy with Connor to worry about him. IT was no longer blocking the blasts, dodging left and right as fireballs were thrown at it. Lightning was being thrown with reckless abandon at his poor imp, and it wasn’t long before one crashed into its body. With a cry Connor fell from the sky, crashing behind one of the columns of rocks. Before another lightning strike came it’s way Derb had already gotten up, swinging his giant sword directly onto the orb. The thing dodged his attack, striking his left with its claws.

Derb continued his swing, using the momentum to swerve out of the claw’s way. The sword swung upwards and through the robe, directly into the orb. It slashed through, taking a chunk off the side. The demon didn’t like that. Its head gleamed a bright blue, whistling disturbingly loud. All of a sudden lightning burst directly at Derb, leaving him with nothing to hide behind except his sword. The force of the blast was pushing him back and he could feel his grip slipping.

He knew he couldn’t stand the blast with his current strength. He bet everything on if his demon was awake or not. “Connor! Charge me!” The demon couldn’t be seen, but all of a sudden the orb in his chest Started pumping his mana intensely. He was already half empty so he had to be quick. The burst of strength allowed him to Push back towards the blast. He decided to take the brunt of the beam, attacking through it striking the demon's core. The extra strength helped gouge his sword deep into the orb, whirring and sputtering sounds were heard from where the blade hit, and the orb darkened back into its original color.

The whirring hum died down and the robe fell to the floor, leaving nothing but the orb still stuck on his sword. Derb was left alone, gasping and in pain. The orb in his chest had consumed all his mana and turned off. His skin was burning and bleeding, his shirt and padding were completely in tatters. He was staring at the ceiling, trying his best to keep himself from fainting.

“Teacher… help.” Derb groaned. His cracked and bleeding lips hurt terribly when he spoke. Gerald wasted no time jumping in, grinning uncomfortably wide. “What a fight! You really had to pull everything out to beat that demon, didn’t you!” He swung his arms wide, and for a second Derb was scared that he was going to get hugged in this state. Instead, a circle expanded around them and Derb immediately felt better. “Angel’s domain”

Derb closed his eyes in comfort, relishing the experience. He still couldn’t move but the pain was fading into the distance. After a bit longer his teacher fully healed the superficial burns in his body, leaving him raw but able to move. “Derb, put your imp into your soul, trust me when I say you don’t want to see him right now.” Derb looked towards the column his imp was hiding behind. If the imp couldn't even crawl towards the fight then it must have been in a really bad condition…

He sent it into his consciousness, his imp’s soul looking like a candle about to burn out. “You can’t heal him, right? Something about him hating light?” Derb was panicking about Connor’s condition. It had been his first demon and he didn’t want it to die. “Unfortunately I can’t do anything for the thing, but you don’t have to worry about it. As time passes by it’ll absorb your mana to heal itself.” He picked up the shadow’s robes, INspecting it with absolute greed in his eyes.

“You’ve done a fine job with this one, you kept this almost completely unscathed. Speaking of which… hand me the soulstone.” Derb reached for his shirt… only to remember he had none. He eventually found the spike next to the wall he crashed into, completely fine. Gerald pointed the end towards the area the reaper died, releasing his mana into it. The world shifted once more, though this time something different happened. It was like when he summoned, he could feel the powerful soul in the air trying to pull away from the soulstone.

“Oh no, you don’t… Domain.” The mana around his teacher instantly grew in intensity, causing the struggling soul to weaken and fly directly into the stone. The pull instantly stopped as a short explosion burst out from the stone, pushing Derb His teacher was left alone in the middle, grinning as he put the soulstone into his robe. “Your robe is going to be magnificent. I can even make some gloves at this point.” He picked up the robe, and in a flash of light, it was gone, probably back to the house.

He turned to Derb, saying exactly what he wanted to hear. “Let’s head back, shall we?”