Chapter 196 It’s Been A While!

Despite not knowing what exactly the content of the secret page within the Control of the Ancient Monarch manual was, Nial could tell that it would help him accelerate the creation process of his first Origin ring.

Even if it wouldn't be helpful in a direct sense, at the very least his improved control over mana would allow him to absorb, annex, and liquefy mana.

The creation of the Origin ring would be much easier with a higher proficiency in wielding mana, which was why reaching a perfect mastery over the Control of the Ancient Monarch's technique was something Nial had to do either way.

With that in mind, he spent several days practicing the Control of the Ancient Monarch technique. Nial had read through it more than a dozen times and every single word of the entire manual was imprinted in his mind.

Through his already high mana control and the fact that his Mana veins were still growing while already being Superior in the first place, Nial progressed quite quickly.

'When I reach the 10th Origin rank, I should be able to reach perfect mastery too, right?'

Nial created a tight schedule to fit in everything he had and wanted to do in 24 hours. That was quite a lot, so his sleeping breaks were rather short.

The schedule included researching everything about runic armaments to improve his equipment in the long-term and to earn enough funds for his expenses, practicing the Control of the Ancient Monarch technique to increase his control over mana and to improve his combat prowess with perfect control over mana, practicing the Ciran taria technique to enlarge his mana core, and last but not least to conquer dungeons.

To Nial the last point was extremely important because there were several things he had to figure out.

Occasionally, memories of the late Darkness God resurfaced in his mind. Until now, the memories had resurfaced every single time when he encountered something the late Darkness God had faced in his life as well.

This included some beasts, information, and landscapes.

Other than that, conquering dungeons allowed Nial to increase his combat experience, improve his mastery of the Elementus Mylee technique, earn a small fortune, and stay abreast with the improvements of his body, and every single change that was about to happen.

With that in mind, Nial didn't even feel like wasting his time anymore after he had created his schedule.

"I'll enter one of the low Expert dungeons. Do you want to tag along?" Nial asked nonchalantly while holding a spoon in his right hand.

It was already early in the evening and they were having dinner as Nial revealed his intention. Mathias looked at Nial in doubt for a second to ensure that his friend was still sane.

"Why….would you go in an Expert dungeon…I mean…I know that you can defeat one or two Low Prym-ranked beasts…but there will be hundreds of Low Prym-ranked beasts in a single Expert dungeon…It's not even unlikely to find Mid Prym-ranked beasts with two Origin rings there.

At least the rare bosses and the final Dungeon Boss will have two Origin rings."

There was a huge difference in the quality of dungeons after the Rookie grade.

First of all, as long as one had a powerful ability and enough mana or physical strength the threat of death will be far less in Rookie dungeons. The monsters didn't have much intelligence and they wouldn't resort to using sly tactics to frighten their opponents.

However, if one wanted to survive, let alone conquer an Expert dungeon, one had to be far more careful.

First of all, Expert dungeons were several times larger than ordinary Rookie dungeons. They harbored several times more beasts and those beasts would mostly hunt or stay in groups.

There might be exceptions but nearly every loner beast inside an Expert dungeon was quite powerful as well.

Low quality Expert dungeons would mostly harbor beasts with Basic Origin rings. They rarely had Rare Bosses or Dungeon Boss with Intermediate Origin rings.

But that didn't mean they were weak, at all, simply because the Bosses' strength rivaled other beasts, who had Intermediate Origin rings.

There were even rare occasions when a Boss had the innate strength rivaling that of a beast with an Advanced Origin ring.

Everything was possible inside Expert dungeons but Nial seemed to be ready to face such dungeons, even before he reached the 10th Origin rank.

Thus, Mathias frowned deeply before glancing over to Miranda, who had yet to say something. She merely smiled as if she was looking forward to seeing Mathias' reply.

"Alright, I'll go with you. But it has to be one of the Low Expert dungeons that have already been conquered by others before. I don't really want to enter an unknown dungeon, where I cannot find any information about it…"

Miranda's smile turned brighter upon hearing Mathias' reply.

'Good job. You guys have Tier-1 and Tier-2 runic armaments, so what is there to be scared about. If you two cannot even clear a Low quality Expert dungeon, I would die in regret, knowing that I wasted my time with you guys!'

The existence of runic armaments would soon change mankind's view of dungeons. It would change everything they had ever known about dungeon conquering and Miranda looked forward to it, if she were to be honest.

Even if it would take a few years, maybe even longer than a decade before the first powerful Tier-1 runic armaments would be created, for the time being, ungraded and Tier-0 runic armaments were already quite helpful for less talented Originals to conquer various Rookie dungeons!

The casualties within Rookie dungeons would decrease drastically with an influx of runic armaments in the market.

Miranda wanted Nial and Mathias to improve as quickly as possible which was why she felt that fighting against stronger beasts, and conquering dungeons above their usual level would pressure them more than enough to force them to improve.

Furthermore, the fortune one made by conquering an Expert dungeon was hundreds of times higher than the little pocket money one could earn from Rookie dungeons.

"Let's look at some nearby Expert dungeons after dinner then." Nial nodded his head in satisfaction before finishing his plate.

Afterward, he didn't waste any time as he opened the holographic screen of the Originals Bracelet to start his research.

He shared the information about the dungeons he found appropriate for their first visit to an Expert dungeon with Mathias, ignoring the fact that he was still eating.

Mathias looked at his soup plate and frowned deeply upon seeing that.

'I lost my appetite…' Matthias thought in disappointment before he put aside his plate as well.

He began to comb through the pieces of information Nial had shared with him afterward before starting to discard the dungeons he didn't like.

'Why do I have such an overly ambitious friend?'

Mathias' earlier dream of living a peaceful life had long since been scrapped. The incidents that had occurred in the short period the Teradan military camp has been held were more than enough for him to feel suffocated.

That was also why he had agreed to follow Nial to Liondra.

He had to become stronger, to survive on Jundra, and to start a lazy and peaceful life…if that was still possible to achieve in this era and time…

'Couldn't I have been reincarnated somewhere else? It's not like I have great combat talent or some other unique talent!!'

After some time had passed they finalized the dungeon they 'wanted' to enter.

Nial prepared everything necessary and set out while dragging Mathias behind him.

They booked a shuttle, and it took them around 20 minutes before they reached the dungeon portal, whose size was more than five meters in diameter.

The mana fluctuations the dungeon portal radiated were, at least, ten times stronger than the mana fluctuations of the ancient ruin's dungeon portal, and this already said a lot about the difference between Rookie and Expert dungeons.

"Hello Sir, we made an appointment at the Urifaer Silverwood dungeon, under the name Orin for two Originals," Nial said the moment they reached the public dungeon.

The Guard, who was standing next to the portal with a notebook in his hand, was in charge of making sure that not too many Originals entered the portal at the same time.

He regulated the appointments and he also notified the Originals association about how often the permanent dungeon was fully conquered in a day.

If the dungeon was not conquered often enough and the daily quota was not met, it would be necessary for the Originals association to send out hunters to clear the dungeon a few times.

That was important to prevent the permanent dungeon from accumulating enough energy to cause a dungeon break.

A dungeon break would be quite dangerous in the middle of the shelter with the largest population, after all.

Under normal circumstances, one wouldn't be too stern when regulating the number of Originals, who wanted to enter a dungeon.

However, it was also important for the Originals association to know how many Originals had entered the dungeon so as to launch rescue operations if something were to happen.

And to add on, the Urifaer Silverwood dungeon was unique. The more Originals were inside the dungeon at the same time, the stronger the dungeon beasts within.

The dungeon beasts would receive an overall strength amplification if more than 5 Originals were inside the separate space of the Urifaer Silverwood dungeon!

Taking a look at the appointment before he averted his gaze to the two young men, who had arrived in front of him, the Guard frowned.

"You guys are still at the Origin rank. Nobody will save you within the dungeon… the two of you know that, right?"

Both Nial and Mathias nodded their heads as if it was obvious that further deepened the Guard's frown.

"This is an Expert dungeon…are you guys sure that you want to enter it? You have only one life, you know…treasuring and protecting it is the most important…"

Once again the two young men nodded their heads. Mathias looked a little bit frustrated but that had to do with Nial's enthusiasm to enter an Expert dungeon less than a week after they had arrived in Liondra.

It was also the first dungeon they had entered since the Ancient ruin's dungeon, so it had been quite a while since he had entered a regular dungeon!

"We know that, please let us go in. We know what we're doing!" Nial said in an extremely confident voice.

However, the Guard could only sigh deeply before making space for the two young men.

From the information mentioned in the appointment, the Guard was able to tell that the two young men were far from normal.

They didn't have to undergo the usual screening to receive an appointment for an Expert dungeon. Instead, they could immediately make appointments at any dungeon, ignoring the screening process that was created to make sure that all dungeon venturers were strong enough to conquer the dungeon they wanted to enter.

But owing to the fact that both Nial and Mathias were Miranda's disciples, they received special permissions, which was something they had yet to understand.

"Finally we are back inside a dungeon. It has been a while, hasn't it?" Nial asked as he emerged on the other side of the dungeon portal he had just stepped through.

"Yeah…it has been a while, I guess…" Mathias answered before stiffening as he heard an extremely loud chirping noise that reverberated through the entire forest.

'Is it really okay for us to be here?' He first thought.

'Will Nial be my death if I keep following him?!'

**

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