¨So Lilia… I will go check out the floor forty right now. Will you go with me as a guide?¨

Okay, just by watching her facial expression I already knew too well that she isn’t about to do it…

¨No. Only Aqua can withstand that floor¨

Well not that I would expect her to answer differently… but Aqua can withstand that floor eh? Interesting, so Aqua is either strongest or somehow otherwise equipped to deal with the floor.

¨What does that mean? Is Aqua that strong?¨

I don’t think she likes this question that much but she will probably answer? Maybe?

¨She isn’t that strong… none of us is. She wouldn’t be able to even scratch anything on that floor. Maybe confuse or so but she isn’t that crazy to attempt fighting anything there. Its more like she is brave enough to even go there. Also the mana density is starting to get truly ridiculous. We can die there purely because of that without any countermeasures¨

That’s… I am even more interested in that floor right now. I have seen Candace and I didn’t felt fear most of the time at all. She was saying something about floors with so much mana density that it would kill me. I have my doubts about mana killing me but I can see why that would be a problem for other creatures.

And Aqua is brave… why the fuck would she act like giant crybaby when I met her then? I can understand her getting emotional because of her people and she found potential savior but before then she was so scared of me and desperate to get out of my reach… what is going on? Is what Lilia said just false perception by her people? I mean I get that Aqua would be putting on a front before her people but still. What is it that made her so scared of me if she can literally handle the floor forty monsters? At least mentally. There is something that doesn’t add up.

Oh well no use trying to figure that out by myself. I will either ask her directly or not give a fluffy fudge. I am fluffy after all… haha. Not that much underwater though sadly…

Anyways, if Lilia wouldn’t do it… I don’t think I want anyone else guiding me there. Aqua somewhat pissed me when she was about to kick me out of there. Unless she apologizes and I think its honest I wouldn’t really want her company.

¨Okay Lilia can you just guide me towards the specific shortcut leading to that floor?¨

¨Yes, that’s okay with me but I wouldn’t go there even if you forced me…¨

Okay… I mean I wouldn’t really do that but sure.

¨Don’t worry I will just check it out myself for a bit. I can hide myself pretty well so I think I should be safe… quite likely I could actually hide you too but I am fine exploring on my own¨

¨That’s good because even if you hid me perfectly I still wouldn’t go there¨

Man she has some scary look in her face. I think she would rather fight to the death than go there. No jokes… well I will have to see for myself.

We swam towards the shortcut leading to floor four. I hid me and her just in case. Nobody bothered us because they didn’t even know we are there.

I find out that I don’t even have to create a bubble and can just hide other presence directly. I also can make it so we perceive each other but nothing else could. That’s some impressive feat if I do say so myself. I knew erase presence is overpowered. I just didn’t knew this much. Wait… that would actually be presence control now.

The travel towards the shortcut was really uneventful, it is actually very weird that there is this giant floor that is empty besides the mermaids. Really weird.

¨Hey Lilia did your people do this?¨

She was a bit confused by my question but I guess she isn’t completely stupid because she realized quickly.

¨No Humans did this. They destroyed the spawn points for some reason there¨

Why would they do that though? Man… the more I find out about things the more questions I got. That’s very annoying.

We didn’t really talk. I would assume she is very comfortable just swimming me towards my possible death but maybe she just trusted me on that. Anyways we were on the floor four shortly. The passage leading there felt weird again and even though I focused really hard I wasn’t really able to pinpoint what the fuck is exactly happening. I know it has to be some sort of spatial magic or so but damn that’s so well made and hidden… its hard to really understand what is up.

I think if I try really hard once I go back there I might be able to figure something out.

There was something a bit puzzling me though. I am very certain that there are humans on this floor. How the fuck would they even survive this floor?

After a bit I realized they travel with something around them. Probably a barrier of some sorts. I am quite far away from them so I don’t really see them but I can tell there is about forty of them. Actually it is exactly forty, all seem very deadly to my sense. Nothing scary such as Candace but one of them in particular seems insanely strong. I also cannot shake the feeling that I met that human in the past but there is just no way. I saw one girl that I saved and she was so weak compared to this beacon of mana that is literally a bit blinding to my senses.

Not that I wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else… it is just a bit pressing and I can feel it way to well. Yea… I got it.. danger… yea she is strong.

Well who cares. They can do whatever they want. I think even Lilia is able to sense them somehow.

¨We need to move it. I will guide you to the shortcut but we need to make sure humans don’t spot us at all…¨ She then also paused and looked at me…

¨Can you hide my presence even when you are not around? I cannot make it past them without your help. Not everyone is as good as you and Aqua with this¨

Yeah well I can try. I just don’t know how it would work. I think I can. We will see…

¨I think I can do it. Lead the way¨

It didn’t take us that long to reach the shortcut. I think they made it somewhat close to each other but not too much.

I have made sure to erase Lilia presence completely and tried to somewhat leave it like that permanently. Lets hope it works as intended.

¨Thanks. Now go home and I will try to scout the scary floor¨

¨Good luck. You might need it¨

Then she swam back. Didn’t really take her long to disappear in the shortcut and I am sure she was hidden the entire time.

The humans seemed going towards the entrance to floor five that I was looking for before. Nice. We will not cross paths.

Great lets go to this floor.

Just as I was about to enter the shortcut I could feel something happening. I wasn’t really sure what it was for a while but then I realized that the boss is respawning. Poor little cthulhu. The system chose really wrong time for him to respawn… haha. Well not my problem.

Onwards to suicidal place. Lets a go.

I have swam through the shortcut. This time it felt quite differently and despite me focusing it was really hard to notice all the changes. There were too many. But I can feel it… maybe eventually I can actually mimic even this?

Once I was through. Oh god. OH GOD.

I am super glad I am hidden and I am super sure it is working… but there is this super giant eye of what I would assume lizard or dragon. The eye completely blocks my entire view. I think this fucker is waiting for someone there. Maybe it felt whatever the shortcut was doing while it transported me there?

I think this dude might be even bigger than Candace.

I am really glad he doesn’t see shit. He just stood there watching me… well watching the space I was in. Then decided its too much bother or I don’t really know what this giant lizard decided. I didn’t even dare to move one bit to not move the water around me in the slightest. I have no doubts he would notice it.

Wait… I think he actually DID NOTICE IT BEFORE I STOPPED MOVING…..

Oh my god did the fucker decided it is not wise to piss of something that’s able to hide its presence completely? Oh my god… holy… oh well… I mean sure be scared haha.

When he is going away from me. I finally got some time to properly digest the floor I am currently in. Well not that I would be able to… watching the massive dragon swimming away from me is certainly distracting. He is so fucking insanely big. He might be comparable to Candace but definitely more massive overall.

I think he has lower amount of mana but I wouldn’t dare to go and tell him that. I am so sure he would manhandle Candace physically. Candace might have a couple of hundredth thousands mana worth more but her body seems so weak compared to this giant monstrosity of a moving muscle.

I also remember that magic isn’t usually worth jack shit going against dragons. Not to even mention I have my doubts Candace would be even able to properly move in this environment.

And the cute part is. I swear to god. I am nearly certain that the regular eye sight would not work in this floor at all. It seems that the mana there is so dense that you basically are nonstop in a blue fog of mana.

I feel so good that I think If I wasn’t smart about it I would just pick up fight with anything right now. Including the dragon. I cannot put it into words but I think I might be literally a god on this floor.

The floor twenty felt like heaven for me. This feels like at least ten heavens to me. There is probably no words that could describe this feeling but I feel Eternal. I also felt something click inside of me when I was thinking about it but I am sure that’s just my imagination.

I swear to god I don’t want to move back to lower density places. I could spend Eternity there just lazing around and it would feel perfectly normal.

There is also one other thing about this floor. My senses are insanely good. Sure. But there is so much going on around me that I have trouble discerning the specifics. I think the main culprit would be the omni presence of the damn mana. It almost feels alive.

However slowly but surely I am getting used to it. I can filter that out of my reception and notice the surroundings. I can feel the dragon already fighting some giant fish. I am not able to tell from the senses so I swam closer to take a look. Those monstrosities fight so hard that the shockwave from the fight itself was enough to put me on my mana reserves life. It always regenerated instantly but I am nearly certain that if I got hit directly by single of these attacks I would straight up disappear.

That’s some impressive spiky fish there. It seems like weird mutant of hedgehog and a fish.

The dragon noticed my presence. Even when he was fighting I am sure he picked up on the slight water movements. I thought he didn’t really give a shit… I was wrong. He started flexing so hard. He was super easily manhandling the fish from the moment he noticed me. Tanking its hit like nothing and then killed it with his tail by squishing it until it exploded. Then he just gave me this weird smirk and swam away. This time so fast I had no way of following.

What the actual fuck… okay. Just a little bit more of exploration and cya floor forty. I am sure that the fish would kill me in single hit with any of its abilities. The dragon nearly killed me when he started swimming away this time. That’s some insane monsters.

Are you telling me Aqua regularly visits this floor? WHAT?

After the fish and dragon fight I picked up on a massive barrier quite a distance away. I knew it is not normal and it has to be some magic so obviously I decided to check it out.

It doesn’t matter what it is. I decided that after this I will just go back to the mermaids to chill out for a sec and then properly ascend through dungeon from the floor four. No skipping floors. I might be able to easily handle some floors but I am not risking dying on floor fifteen in single hit or so.

Well. I was prepared for a giant turtle or something that would cast barrier to protect itself.

Nah.

What the actual fuck am I seeing right now.

Right before my eyes…. There is a freaking underwater city. Its absolutely fucking massively big. Aquantum is like a tenth at most of this city.

It also isn’t the kind of city Aquantum is. It is clearly human city protected by barrier so it doesn’t get flooded. I can see quite a bit of activity going on inside as well so it isn’t certainly some lost Atlantis kind of city or so.

There Is also insanely big radius around the city that is void of any monster activity. I have seen only two so far but I have felt at least ten before I got there. This floor is very…VERY big. It is completely unnatural for monsters to give this city so much space so I would assume they avoid it for whatever reason.

That’s insane. This is even more insane than people trying to colonize mars. We are talking about mars being constantly in danger of being invaded by space monsters. Surely that is insane for normal humans right?

Alright. I think I understand why everyone who talked with me so far stressed out humans are kinda crazy… because they fucking are. I will go back to the floor four now… seriously I am crazy… but not this much crazy.

I have felt really strong and totally undefeatable but now I realized that I need to take this freaking seriously. This is not a game. It might be game like world but it is real af. I need to not lazily approach this. One mistake might cost me my life. Honestly even ascending the dungeon right now seems quite crazy but I still think I have to do it for some reason.

I swam towards the shortcut back. It didn’t take me long and only a weird looking giant jellyfish was between me and the place. It also noticed the water movement but didn’t care. Probably busy eating the weird whale.

Funny. Second time seeing jellyfish and they both ate a whale.

I didn’t even hesitate to move past the shortcut.

Yeap. The boss was a poor dude. I can clearly feel that he isn’t present and neither are the humans. I have no doubts he got annihilated.

Well time for me to take ascending seriously. I promised few things already and I have no way of achieving them without getting stronger. Maybe I will even visit Candace for some advice before I go… maybe.

I decided to go to Aquantum to just undo the presence hiding on Lilia. I can imagine that it might make her life quite difficult if I don’t.

The travel to there was quite uneventful again. The underwater floors have quite a bit more activity compared to regular floors that I have seen so far but being completely hidden from them makes it really hard for anything to slow me down.

Once I got into the Aquantum I just undo the presence hiding on Lilia from very long distance and was about to leave. Hm.. maybe I should tell them at least something.

Nah.. I am sure they will understand. It is not like they are in that much of a hurry. Also the more I think about it the more I want to be stronger the next time I am negotiating anything with anyone.

I have swam past the shortcut again into the floor four. I am sure that if I really wanted I could maybe mimic the process happening in the passage. Not sure if it would be smart on anything living… well who knows, I will try it eventually.

I swam across the entire floor four until the entrance of floor five.

Here I go dungeon. I take you seriously now.

ASCEND!