All things came to an end though and I finally decided to go deep into the dungeon once again. My preparations mirrored my previous ones but this time I had an extra step in mind. I planned to stay much longer this time, at least a month in fact. This was a bit risky since that would be a whole month in which I was unavailable to help or deal with any emergency situations but I felt it needed. The amount of smoke I needed to push my stats to the max so I could level up was enormous.-
Nothing less than constant high level slaughter in the dungeon would suffice to raise my stats in a timely manner. Needless to say some people were VERY unhappy about this decision of mine.
"We just took the next step, must you really take this trip now?" freya demanded with a heavy frown.
"I'm with her here, why must you be gone for so long?" Hephaestus demanded just as upset.
"Time waits for no one. Plus I've had this growing sense of anxiousness for some reason the last couple of days and feel like I can't wait anymore." I said frankly.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Freya asked confused.
"It means that my instincts are warning me and I have no idea why. What I DO know though is I want to hit level six as fast as possible. Whatever might come will be a lot more manageable if I do." I said honestly.
"I still don't like it." Hephaestus said with a sigh.
"I know. You both have a coin though so it's not like you can't hear from me or anything." I said with a reassuring smile.
I got a kiss from both of them and finally set off after that. I ignored the hustle and bustle of the city even as i got to the dungeon square. Without any hesitation I sprinted down the stairs to the first floor and kept up a jog through the first eight floors before taking chutes down to the seventeenth floor. I murdered the goliath took the stone with me and kept going without slowing down at all. The goliath wasn't weak or anything but compared to the Balor or two ancient calamities I merely touched it once and the thing burst into smoke, no challenge. -
I skipped the dungeon town and great tree labyrinth as there was nothing worth fighting there and once I reached the water palace floors leapt off the great fall and into the lake below. Amphisbaena had respawned and came roaring at me but I froze it solid before shattering it without any trouble. The smoke I got was much greater than any monster between this floor and the Balors floor but barely a drop in a lake for what I needed. I skipped the next several floors with constant high speed movement from one entrance to the next exit in a bee line. Once I finally reached the white palace I slowed down though.-
Not because these monsters were well worth killing but because they respawned at a very fast rate. Especially so the closer to the colosseum you got. Unlike last time when I wiped out the many monsters on the floor the dungeon didn't warn me away from it at all. If anything it actually sped up the respawn rate like it wanted me to grow stronger quickly as well. THAT got me particularly worried as what could make even the dungeon nervous to such a degree?-
I had a potential answer but wasn't sure I wanted to entertain it. Whatever the reason I wasn't going to waste even a second of this accelerated smoke acquisition. I flooded the floor with my flames that devoured the newly born monsters the moment they touched the air and fed the smoke into myself. After three hours of this however I ran dry on cursed energy as that was not a small area to keep covered in flame. Even more so that the dungeon itself seemed strained to keep the respawn rate so fast.-
I downed a potion and moved down to the next floor where I killed everything until I finally reached the Balors floor. I decided to camp out here as it had already been close to a full twenty hours since I entered the dungeon and needed the rest. I didn't need to worry about being attacked here as the Balor wasn't due to respawn for another eight and a half months and few monsters willingly trespassed onto this floor. I ate a heavy meal before calling it a day and sleeping finally. When I woke up I ate a light breakfast and headed down to floor fifty.-
I wasn't surprised to run into the Loki familias campsite remnants on the flat stone overlook before the floors vast grey leaved forest. It wasn't much but there were a few ruined tents and place marking flags left over. I was more interested in the trees than that however. These trees were as I said grey leaved and strange as they grew upward as though drawn to a sun they've never seen or needed. The color of the leaves proved this along with the dull pale white glow of the crystals at the ceiling of the floor.-
Additionally these trees were harder than any species you'd find on the surface and considered a luxury wood to boot. The wood from these trees was strong enough even after being process to withstand up to level three force which was a highly valuable trait for things like practice dummies or even buildings. I considered swapping out the wood of the church for this sort of wood but chose not to in the end since it wasn't needed. That said I did dig up a small sapling and the surrounding soil before putting it in my bag, bragging rights are always worth the trouble.