Chapter 159 - Cap 158: The Sixth Floor

"Master, it's already dawn, wake up."  (Freya) 

I wake up suddenly to a familiar voice calling me and someone shaking my shoulder. 

"..." (I) 

"Master if you stay sleepy like this you'll be late for the dungeon, the others have already woken up and are downstairs waiting for Caryna to finish preparing the food."  (Freya) 

I open my eyes and see Freya in a stylish and pretty maid outfit in black and white, I have Tanya make one for Freya before making one for Caryna and Alice. 

After opening my eyes my confusion starts to fade and I remember my nightmare. 

I was close to being caught by what was hiding in the darkness of the library in my dream, but just then I woke up because of Freya. 

I feel my heart beating uncontrollably with fright, when I get up from the bed I put my hand where I was lying and see that it is drenched in sweat. 

"(How scared was I exactly?)" (I) 

"You're sweating a lot, what's going on?"  (Freya) 

"What's happening is I'm going to end up having a goddamn heart attack."  (I) 

"What is a heart attack?"  (Freya) 

"Nevermind."  (I) 

sigh 

"(Is this really just a nightmare?)" (I) 

"I think you'd better go take a shower before going down to eat."  (Freya) 

"You're right, I need to wipe off all this sweat."  (I) 

"Let me take care of Layla. That she's still sleeping."  (Freya) 

"All right."  (I) 

I get up and leave the room going straight to the thermal waters, I must say it was one of the most expensive things I asked to put in this mansion, but it's worth every coin I spent. 

After taking a shower and cleaning my teeth, I go to where the others are supposed to be eating. 

As soon as everyone finished eating we all got ready and left the mansion going to the Dungeon of the Great Serpent, this time I don't need to go to the Guild, I also remembered to pick up some quests there yesterday. 

The trip to the Dungeon went as I expected, we found many adventurers coming and going the way we were walking, the ones that were coming were mostly younger, they were dirty, injured, and tired, they seemed to be in their early teens. 

When we get to the dungeon we go straight to the fourth floor, I plan to get as many snake bloodlines as I can in this dungeon, this will help me with my special project that I'm keeping secret from the others for now. 

As soon as we reach the fourth floor I ask Diana which monster is on this floor, she replies that it is a monster called the Thorny Serpent, this Serpent has poison not only in its teeth but also in its thorns. 

It looks like a complicated monster to fight melee, but we'll probably finish it off with ranged attacks. 

I advise Layla to finish off these Thorny Serpents with ranged attacks, then I tell Ibuki and I will take care of the other Serpents, I'm doing this because I want to evolve soon and I also want Ibuki to evolve, for that, we need more EXP, but no I want to make others immobilize the monsters for me or Ibuki to kill, what I want is for us to fight and kill the monsters with our own strength regardless of whether it is a weak monster or not. 

In the first battle we fought 11 monsters, three of them were Thorny Serpents that had thorns growing from the top of their head to the tip of their tail. 

"< Ice Needles >" (Layla) 

"< Fireball >" (I) 

Just as I said before Layla creates nine ice needles and directs three needles to each Thorny Serpent, meanwhile I use my fire magic and cast a fireball killing three snakes and leaving two wounds, Ibuki runs to the snakes with a similar move to Diana's and cuts the heads off of two snakes, then she jumps up and kicks a third snake upside down, killing her. 

After Ibuki finished the three cobras I told her to kill the two I left wounded with my attack. 

Ding!  Ding! 

After all the snakes are dead I control their blood and gather it into four spheres of blood, I drink all the blood from the Thorny Serpents and keep the rest of the blood in bottles that are expanded storage items, I will take that blood to serve as food for me, Irina, Irius, Alice and Nolan. 

After that we continued exploring this floor of the Dungeon for another two hours until I had drunk a large amount of Thorny Serpent blood, then we head for the stairs to the fifth floor. 

As soon as we get to the fifth floor we go to the crystal in the middle of the safe zone to register our presence, then soon after I see a glow come from the crystal, Diana tells us to move away because someone is teleporting here, so after we move The crystal's glow gets stronger and I see the space around the crystal ripple like water before eight Human men appear where there was no one before, all armed with swords and spears. 

After this group arrived they looked at us, then one of the men signals to the others and they go explore the fifth floor. 

"This group is weird."  (Diana) 

"Why you say that?"  (Érica) 

"Look at their weapons, everyone is using swords or spears, there is no one who appears to be a wizard, neither has a shield, and I have not seen anyone who appears to be a Thief or Assassin among them."  (Diana) 

"And why would a Thief or Assassin being in your group matter?"  (I) 

"From the fifth floor onwards, traps start to appear, Thief or Assassin works have a high chance of learning a skill that allows them to detect traps, which is something that becomes more and more important the deeper you go into a dungeon."  (Diana) 

"With so many people attacking from close range, they won't do well against monsters either, they need someone to attack from a distance."  (Diana) 

"Adventurers often assemble diverse groups to have different types of tactics to adapt to different monsters and situations."  (Diana) 

"Those who don't do this end up dying early, even the Guild advises them to do this."  (Diana) 

"Changing the subject, what is the fifth-floor monster?"  (I) 

"A Paralyzing Serpent, this is the evolved form of the monster on the first floor, it is twice the size of the other and twice as strong."  (Diana) 

"Thankfully, I was getting tired of facing weak monsters, but before we go I have to do something."  (I) 

Ding!  Ding!  Ding! 

<[ You gained 281 EXP from enemy kills ]>

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<[ You gained 101 EXP for killing enemies by party members ]>

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<[ Your skill leveled up [ Basic Fire Magic: 3 > 4 ] ]>

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<[ Your skill leveled up [ Basic Magic Circle: 1 > 2 ] ]>

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<[ Your skill leveled up [ Detect Presence: 1 > 2 ] ]>

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<[ You have acquired the following skills:

• [ Thorny Serpent Onslaught: 1 ]

• [ Production of thorns: 1 ] ]>

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<[ You have acquired the lineage [ Thorny Serpent: 07% ] ]>

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<[ Your bloodline has become stronger and purer [ Thorny Serpents: 07% > 100% ] ]>

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<[ You have leveled up ]>

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<[ Your work has reached the maximum level ]> 

It looks like the bloodline has reached the maximum purity level, I also gained a lot of EXP and managed to evolve some skills. 

I'm also going to take advantage and switch to the [Newbie Mage] job as I've already reached the maximum level of my current job. 

"Can we go now."  (I) 

We started exploring the fifth floor. 

Just like I've been doing since before, I've been using my detection skills to find the closest monsters, that's why we've faced so many monsters. 

We soon found seven green snakes that are almost my size, they are actually bigger than their versions before they evolved, their teeth are now so big their fangs are sticking out of their mouths. 

They were stronger but still too weak, only Layla and Ibuki were enough to kill them all, Layla used her space magic to cast a blade bar that cut the heads of two snakes, while Ibuki moved between the snakes slicing through three heads when a snake would attack her from behind she does a spinning kickback while cutting off the head of a fourth snake, then Layla finishes the last snake with an icy needle in the eye that goes to the brain. 

After the fight, I drink the blood of the Paralyzing Serpents before picking up some of their body parts and continuing to explore the dungeon. 

Ding!  Ding! 

We explore the fifth floor for a couple of hours or so, then head towards the sixth-floor stairs. 

During our exploration, we only found two or three traps, in our group only Kira and I have trap detection skills, so we always noticed the trap before since we have had this skill working since we started exploring the fifth floor. 

Kira took advantage of these traps to teach me how to disable these traps, she taught me how I could interrupt the mechanisms of a trap in many different ways depending on the trap. 

Ding! 

I even thought I might have learned a skill from it, I hope I'm right. 

Then we go downstairs to the sixth floor and head straight for the crystal, at Diana and Kira's suggestion we throw dirt on our clothes by rolling around on the floor a bit so as not to draw too much attention. 

While we were in the safe room on the sixth floor the same group as earlier made up of men using swords and spears passed us on their way to explore the sixth floor. 

When they passed I could see blood on their clothes, for some reason something was drawing my attention to them but I couldn't tell what it was. 

But it seems that Diana and Kira knew something, the moment that group entered the safe room the two had a serious expression on their faces and avoided looking at them. 

I waited for that group to leave before making the others wait for a little while I switched jobs to [ Newbie Warrior ] this time. 

But before changing my job I checked the notifications from the previous floor. 

Ding!  Ding! 

<[ You gained 311 EXP from enemy kills ]>

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<[ You gained 142 EXP from enemy kills by party members ]>

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You have acquired the following skills:

• [ Paralyzing Serpent Onslaught: 1 ]

• [ Charge of the Paralyzing Serpent: 1 ] ]>

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<[ Your bloodline has evolved [ Little Paralyzing Snake: 100% ] > [ Paralyzing Snake: 57% ] ]>

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<[ Your bloodline has become stronger and purer [ Paralyzing Serpent: 57% > 100% ] ]>

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<[ You have leveled up ]>

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<[ Your work has reached the maximum level ]>