The bottom of the valley in the Thirmal Waters was very unique. The place was permanently covered in a thick layer of warm steam that fell from the waters of the room, which caused the entire floor to feel like wet clay. Each of their steps slopped on the ground, and if they stopped, they slowly started to sink. It wasn't like quicksand, but after Hera asked Lurize to come out as a test, the Royal Tutor ended up getting waist-deep in mud before he finally reached solid ground and stopped. Another interesting thing was that there was a small stream of water flowing in the middle of everything. The stream itself was tiny, being less than a meter wide, but it was incredibly deep. Even when testing things out, Hera sent one of her blades just about 50 meters down before the heat and pressure became too much, and it was still going. They could see some of the water that was flowing from the top of the valley, but it seemed to vanish before hitting the ground, turning into more of the steam that covered this part of the room.

Another issue they were having was that the air was too thick, making it a bit hard to breathe. It wasn't to the point where they would have problems moving around, but they had to be a bit careful, and if things got too intense, they could just take a moment to climb up from the valley and get some fresh air. They didn't see any monsters while walking for the first hour or so. That is until everyone noticed a pastel green sphere moving around. As they got closer, they could see a transparent shape, as if it was the smudging that hindered their vision but a condensed version of it that had a specific shape. Despite realizing that, they couldn't see the actual form of whatever this was.

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Steam Elemental - Level 38

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"Careful, guys. That's the elemental," Hera announced.

"Yeah. I know the levels here a higher than us, but I think we will be ok. I just don't understand why we are only seeing what I'm assuming is the core," Blue said before trying to use the surrounding mist as part of her storm hands, but that didn't work. Instead, the spell had to push out the mist and even began to be pulled along the current.

"I think that's on me. The enchantment works on steam, so a steam elemental would also be transparent to us. It's a good thing they have a core," Shane placed a projectile in her launcher and aimed at the monster, "Can I?"

"Explosion?" Mylo asked the enchantress.

"Giant icicle."

"Let me help," Helena took an archer stance, and a bow made out of light appeared in her hands, as a single shadow arrow was already being drawn by her other hand.

'We got this!' Crimson yelled, with Viper running right behind her.

'Go for a pincer move!' the white dagger called and moved to the left.

'Wait! Get back here!' Hera called, but since she told her court to never consider something an order unless she specifically said so, the daggers continued.

Viper came from the left, trying to hit the Steam Elemental, while Crimson attacked from the right at the same time. However, the creature noticed the incoming attack, and the daggers weren't able to see its actual shape. They didn't have many options, using their own senses, everything around them was just the same opaque evaporated water that Hera saw before Shane used a spell to change that. While using the Empress' senses, they could only see the core and something moving around the steam. This stopped them from seeing the extra arms of the creature that started attacking Viper and Crimson, trying to break the daggers.

The Steam Elemental roared and created more limbs that were hidden from Hera and her party, but Helena and Shane had their attacks ready. They fired the spells singing as they moved through the air and hit the monster's core. A giant icicle pierced the pastel sphere, and the shadow arrow followed right after, hitting the ice instead of the core but bouncing inside it almost as if it was a ray of light refracting inside a crystal before disappearing completely, having impaled the creature's core and shot out from the other side. The monster lost its shape, and the pastel green sphere fell to the ground, motionless.

"Did… did your shadow arrow just act as if it was light?" Bonnie turned to Helena with a confused expression.

The mage smiled, "Ying Yang, mage. A mage who uses both shadow and light and can make them act like each other. That's what I always wanted to do."

"Isn't Yin Yang? The name comes from the Chinese philosophy of opposite forces working together, right?" Alex asked.

"The philosophy is Yin-Yang. But the name of my thing is Ying-Yang. I wanted that to be my explorer name and didn't want to steal the name of a cultural thing," Helena replied.

"So you just added a g at the end of the first word?" Bonnie had a confused expression.

"Well… Yeah…" Helena replied.

"When did you come up with that idea?" Shane asked.

"I was 15," the mage looked away.

"Oh, that explains it," Blue said, and everyone nodded in agreement.

"Shut up!" Helena huffed and walked towards the now broken monster core.

While that was going on, Hera was having a conversation with her court, 'Viper, Crimson. Why did the two of you go after the monster on your own?'

'I thought we could take it,' Crimson replied.

'Yeah…' Viper added.

'Why? And I want you to tell me honestly. Why did you think you could take it?'

'Because we are strong?' Crimson asked.

'Nimbus, hold both of them,' the Sentinel did as Hera asked and held on to the two daggers by the handles, 'Now, try to escape him. Since you are strong you should be able to do that.'

The Empress felt like the two of them were feeling cocky and thinking that what she asked was too easy. But, as they tried to move away from Nimbus, his arms didn't even budge.

'So? Are you strong?' Hera asked after a few moments.

'We are… Nimbus is just stronger,' Crimson huffed.

'Yes, and the monsters around here are even stronger. They are higher level than us,' Hera added.

'Then, what are we supposed to do?' Viper asked.

'Fight as a group. Don't rush out on your own, and listen when I tell you something. I don't like giving orders, but I might have to if you two start acting like that. We never fought one of those things before, and we need to be more careful while we still don't know what they can do,' Hera continued.

'Then what can we do?' Crimson asked.

Hera turned to Lurize, who was now in his weapon form, 'Your title is Royal Tutor. I know I chose that thinking more about teaching me and my friends, but do you think the rest of the court would be part of who you can teach?'

'Absolutely. In fact, I think that teaching the court would be much easier than teaching your friends. Not that I have much experience with that. Even in the Abyssal Deep, I didn't get to train the party all that much,' Lurize seemed excited about the idea.

'Ok then. I'll leave it to you. Teach them the basics of how we do things. Oh, and if you have any ideas about how you can help them improve, go for it,' Hera turned back to Nimbus, 'You can let them go. Crimson, Viper, I want the two of you to learn from Lurize. Pay attention and follow what he says. It's fine if you question things you don't understand or agree to, but if it's an emergency or we are in the middle of a fight, just do what he tells you and ask about it later. Ok?'

'Ok,' Crimson mumbled, clearly upset about this.

'Yes, Empress,' Viper said with more conviction, but he still sounded like someone who was just scolded by his mother, which hurt Hera's heart for a number of reasons.

Pushing those feeling down, she focused again on the path, and, to her surprise, she noticed something very different from what they were seeing so far. From the destroyed monster core, a trail of mana flowed along the river, following the same direction. This was odd because mana shouldn't follow the course of a river, not in the way that was doing right now. Even if the mana was the same element as the river, which in this case was, part of it would seep to the ground. Yet everything from the monster core kept being pulled to… somewhere.

"Is anyone seeing that?" she asked, but even with the new titles and the seeming connection with magic forces that came along with it, no one understood what she was talking about, "Ok, just follow me. The mana here is acting weird."

"What do you mean?" Bonnie asked.

Hera started explaining, talking about how mana behaved in nature and how this place was somewhat different, but in the middle of that conversation, they all stopped, having arrived at something different. It wasn't a sphere this time but a diamond-shaped structure in the middle of the valley. All the mist was being drawn in by this object as if it was a vacuum sucking everything to it, but instead of storing it, it was sent it back down through a constant stream of water.

"Is that… peeing water?" Blue asked.

"Blue…" Bonnie shook her head.

"What? That's what it looks like," Blue crossed her arms.

"Ok, but can you not say it like that?" Bonnie continued.

"What's the problem? Am I going to hurt the crystal's feelings?" Blue huffed.

"No, but it kind of takes away the magic from it," Bonnie continued.

"But it's peeing. Peeing green, maybe it should get that checked out," Blue looked back to the crystal.

Bonnie groaned while Hera just chuckled and approached the object. It was considerably big, almost half the size of her own body, and it was pulling not just the mana but the steam itself towards it, gathering inside it and letting the steam condense before dropping the water back in the hole under it. Looking inside that opening, she could see more water, the same water that was flowing from the small stream getting caught in a whirlpool bringing it down into the darkness below. She also realized that the entire crystal was stuck to the ground, embedded into some rocks, and there was a thick layer of that smudge representing steam wrapped around it, even denser than the Steam Elemental itself. Focusing on the object again, she used her [Inspect]

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Steamweaver's fake loop

This object was created by a monster who wished to harness the healing power of the waters to help him recover from wounds.

This crystal pulls the steam created by the waters with healing properties and sends it back into the underground source that fuels all the thermal pools, increasing the healing effects.

While this crystal is active, all the waters involved in this cycle have their healing properties doubled.

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"Ok, this is kind of neat," Hera said.

"What?" Shane asked and got closer and did the same as Hera, "Oh? A monster made this?"

"It seems so. I wonder how it managed to do that," Hera asked, knowing no one would have the answer.

"I think we can find out," Alex said, making the entire party turn to the left, where the assassin had her hand out in front of a cave, "This is the entrance of a dungeon. It's called 'Steamweaver's struggle.'"

"Well. There we have it. Aside from this, which I don't know if we should mess with, we found a dungeon," Hera smiled.

"Do you guys think we are the firsts to find it?" Blue asked, her eyes already sparkling with excitement.

"Maybe, this is not something easy to find, and if it wasn't for Shane, we might have trouble getting here," Helena walked closer to Alex, "But, there is only one way to find out. Shall we?"