The more dungeons they cleared, the more intuitive dungeon limitations and abilities became. Levi had never really thought about what dungeons did or what they could do before, in the original timeline they'd been nightmarish realms of countless monsters, soaked in fear and loss and death. Things to survive, not things to understand.

These smaller, safer dungeons were different. Easier to analyze. Plus, he'd run more dungeons in the past two weeks than his entire first timeline, so that was also a factor to consider.

Dungeons started out with up to five possible creature types - except Beast, which had ten. They ascended in a scale, with the stats of each tier roughly the same as other dungeons' creatures. Gremlins, Cactus Hares, Glitterlings, Dilophosaurs, and Storm Caterpillars were all tier one creatures with variations in their stats based on their species and dungeon type, but approximately equal in overall strength. Above them were the tier twos, Mirror Sprite, Spitting Slime, Rust Scarab, and so on.

While all the creatures had different strengths and abilities, and the lower tier creatures leveled at a bit faster rate, the higher tier ones were undeniably superior.

From what they’d seen the tier four and five creatures only appeared as bosses, and very rarely at that, until the dungeon was over its first threshold. After level 5, all bets were off.

So when they entered the Lightning dungeon, Levi had full intention of catching some higher tier creatures for the long term.

Levi had grabbed one or two of the normal types from each dungeon on a temporary basis just to add their stats to his mental database in the system, but even then he wasn't sure exactly what he wanted. He'd probably end up grabbing every plus creature he came across until he could decide.

Two gave him a worried look, as though his contemplation were concerning his gremlin, but Levi shook it off and waved Two's concern away.

While Skarm was a great companion and often exactly what Levi needed, it tended to be Two who was most in tune with his mental state. He wasn't sure why that would be the case. All his minions had the same mental connection to him, why would some pick up on his mood shifts with uncanny clarity, while others seemed entirely oblivious?

Two poked Levi's leg and he chuckled. "Thanks. You're right, it's time to move."

Lash had already started drifting casually toward the the archway that marked the entrance to the Lightning dungeon.

“I see that.” Levi snapped, and the Soul-Seeker’s whiplike shadow tendrils curled up over his eye as if they were playing peekaboo. “You know that doesn’t make you invisible.”

Lash pretended it made him deaf, instead, and drifted faster.

Levi did a quick scan of everyone’s health totals. "Everyone recovered? Gordon?”

Gordon nodded. They'd lost a couple minions the previous day in a particularly nasty boss fight, but their revives had come off cooldown while they traveled. Health regen still took time, but not so much that they weren't ready to fight by the time they arrived.

“Then let's go."

The first room of the Lightning dungeon was still guarded by the Storm Caterpillars, but this time in much greater quantity. They covered whole patches of the wall and ceiling, sparking and sizzling with electricity jumping between their spines. Sometimes it had harpies or sparkhounds too, but today it was just thousands of caterpillars.

"Lash? Pierce?"

Their two heavy hitter area attack guys leapt forward eagerly. Lash swatted the caterpillars off the walls and ceilings gleefully, while Pierce stood below and slashed them down. The stone centipede didn't seem to have much difficulty with their lightning attacks, despite his legs ending in metallic blades, but they were only level 4 while he was level 17.

Firelord was not to be denied his part in the fun, however. The kobold magus may be the silent hanging-back type, mainly due to his incredibly low health totals, but when there were fireballs to be cast there were fireballs.

While Lash cleared the left wall, Firelord blasted the caterpillars on the right with fireball after fireball, crisping them and dropping their scorched husks to the ground.

Skarm sat astride Centoo, observing it all with a directorial air. More and more he'd come to act as Levi's secondary commander, directing their forces whenever there was too much going on for one person to handle it all. Even Lash, who would disregard orders unless worded very strongly and clearly, didn't disobey the gremlin. Skarm's seniority among the minions was clear and undeniable to them all.

Tink... well, was Tink. The mirror sprite tended to get the short end of the leveling stick purely out of his low damage outputs. Until he got some more thresholds and morphed into more of a fighter than a utility support, he just wasn't gaining experience as fast as those like Pierce or Lash who could clear out a whole room in twenty seconds. He'd taken to acting as carrier for Shadevine whenever his illusions weren't needed, while Frosty remained the transport for Plus.

Between them, the first room was clear of caterpillars in just under half a minute, Pierce stomping the last few Lash knocked down from the ceiling. Lash had sustained minor damage, Pierce was down to 98%, and everyone else remained fully uninjured.

"It almost seems like we're cheating," Gordon commented as they strolled casually through the carnage, minions flanking and preceding them.

"You keep saying that."

"Well, it's still true. We're all so much higher level."

"And then when we get to the boss you'll take it all back. Again."

"Bosses are a different thing entirely."

The second room was a trap room, with conductive plates in the floor and ceiling and ominous openings on the walls to either side. Maggie slithered cautiously forward, crossing the first plate without incident, then the second. The third triggered the instant she touched it, lightning arcing out from the walls in both directions, and she hastily coiled back. However, the trap must have been set to change its sequence every time it was triggered, because the second plate immediately started arcing as well.

With an irritated hiss, Maggie surged forward through the storm of lightning, pressing onto the now-safe third plate. Magma dripped from her bared fangs, sizzling onto the metal below.

"Well, this is going to be a pain to solve," Gordon commented.

"Yeah."

The corridor was seven plates long, and while any one of them was wide enough that they could jump over it if they got a running start, there would be no time to stop or hesitate once they started. If they got the sequence wrong and ended up triggering it, they'd have to start all over.

Maggie was down by about 10% from the plates she'd already triggered, and given how much repetition would be required to figure out the sequence, Levi suspected they'd need more than one person working on it.

"Can we brute-force it? Just run straight through?" Gordon suggested.

"We could, but I'm pretty sure that's a miniboss."

Gordon leaned and squinted at the room visible at the far end of the corridor, a round chamber with what looked like a dragon-headed horse made of flowing water. He cursed softly. "Eqralne. Yup, that's got to be a miniboss."

Eqralne were only half tangible, made of some kind of electrified plasma substance that looked like water but would burn and stun anyone who touched it. The favourite move of the eqralne was to run around and around the room, flowing through and over everyone in its path until they were all stunned, then summoning a whole pack of sparkhounds to finish them off.

They'd lost six minions to an eqralne the last time they cleared this dungeon, but that had been the final boss on the second floor. As only a midfloor boss, this one should be less dangerous than that one.

Slightly.

Physical attacks would be entirely useless, but manablades could still damage it even if they couldn't cut it. It would be a long and slow fight, with more emphasis on evasion and retaliation than toe to toe.

They’d have to either solve this puzzle or figure out a way through without tripping it, because this was not a fight they wanted to run into with half the team at half health already.

Gordon sighed. “Alright, Pierce, looks like you’re up.”