Chapter 556 Back Together (2)

Looking at Quillon in confusion, Marcus wondered how he knew that the next set of floors had to be challenged in groups.

And when he asked as much, Quillon said, “I was the first one to make it here, and that guardian as it calls itself told me that for the next ten floors, we would have to enter in groups of two or three and that it could not be challenged until all of the upper floor challenges were done other by completion or failure.”

Hearing this Marcus laid back in his seat on the couch next to Mrazivý and began contemplating how to group themselves.

There was a pretty big disparity in some of their levels, and he had no idea how it would affect the challenges if one of them was much weaker than the other.

Naturally he was not the only one who had been pondering this dilemma, as all of them had thought about it a decent amount.

Still, they would need to wait until the remining members of their group finished their own challenges before they could really decide.

Therefore, all they could do was continue to wait and see what happened.

Luckily, the others slowly trickled in, with Aurelia coming in only a couple hours after Marcus.

Though just like her sister, Aurelia had now evolved into an epic grade beast. Becoming a gleaming golden lion.

She now had a light elemental affinity and was actually the same race that her father had been when Marcus killed him.

Along with her new race she had gotten a bit bigger, and her fur was shinier than it had been before..

Not long after she arrived, she ran up to Zareen and the two of them began sniffing each other before rubbing their face together.

Once the two lioness sisters were finished greeting each other, Fallon approached them and began asking Aurelia what she had expected.

Luckily Aurelia had gotten a telepathy skill orb as one of her rewards, so she was able to communicate her experiences to everyone without having to have Fallon interpret like with what had been needed for Zareen who did not get the telepathy skill.

Soon all of them had been told what the young lioness had experienced and it had apparently been a pretty brutal experience.

Her first opponent was a diamond maw wolf who could cut through her near impenetrable fur and had nearly killed her.

She only won thanks to her intelligence and using the potions in her possession to her advantage.

After that she had to learn a certain skill within a time limit, and so on and so on.

With Aurelia now here, that only left four remaining still taking their challenges, and the next to arrive a day later was Lyra.

When she appeared, she looked wore torn and battered, and there was a cold almost dead look in her eyes.

No doubt she had faced something the tested her heart and mind like all of them had.

At the very least when she saw everyone else that was waiting, the mistiness in her eyes began to clear a bit, and she walked over and explained what she had been through.

Hearing the last challenge that Lyra had been forced to endure everyone could only feel sympathy.

For her, the dungeon had presented her with all of them in a similar position to what Marcus had to deal with.

Except instead of the dungeon making her choose who to let live, it told her to kill all of them, and in return it would bring her parents back to life.

It had even conjured their forms and made them call out to Lyra and divulge information to her that only they should have known.

However, she could not bring herself to kill all of them for her own selfish wish, especially when there was still doubt that her parents could be brought back.

“It is okay Lyra. We were all put through similar hardships. This dungeon likes to play with our minds and hurt us, but it is best that we take what we learned about ourselves and grow from it.” Marcus said to comfort his old friend.

Eventually they were able to get Lyra to calm down after they told her about their own experiences on the tenth floor.

Following Lyra, Roxene emerged her fur disheveled,

Yet unlike everyone else, she had a proud expression on her face as if she had not just been through some sort of emotionally demanding scenario

‘Hm, what did I experience on my tenth floor? It was a huge battle between a massive swarm of monsters. But I easily came out victorious.’ Roxene said while holding her head high.

Apparently, she did not have an emotional chink in her heart, and the dungeon had no way to test her the way it had everyone else.

Truly if they all died, she would not care on any emotional level, as the only ones she really cared about that way were her parents. Naturally the dungeon already knew there was no logical way that it could try and make a believable mimic of Roxene’s parents. Since after reading her mind, it found them to be beings above this world.

Therefore, instead Roxene just received another battle to push her beyond her limits.

Next after Roxene was Blitz though when he arrived it was clear he had evolved.

Now his body had actually shrunk down a couple of feet and the bolt patten on his fur was more pronounced.

‘A sky stag, huh.’

Looking at Blitz’s status Marcus found that he had evolved into an epic grade beast called a sky stag and had reached level forty-two.

He was now quite a bit stronger, and instead of just running on the ground, now he could run on the wind as well.

It was quite the remarkable power up, but Marcus was not complaining since his companion was getting stronger.

‘I wonder if by the end of this if he will have evolved into a mythic grade beast. And if that is the case, how strong is this place going to make all of us.’

Thinking about it now, Marcus could understand why the administrator had directed him to find this place, since there was no doubt that it was probably one of the best training grounds in the world.

Of course, to obtain this greater power they had to suffer through brutal and harsh challenges, but there was no denying the results that all of them had gotten stronger.

Still now that Blitz had arrived, that left only Lilia who was taking her challenges.

Unfortunately, they had no way to know where she was or how she was doing.

All they knew was that she was still taking her trials on the first ten floors.

Another two days went by for them as they waited for Lilia, but she did eventually appear.

But when she did, Marcus felt himself shudder seeing her condition.

Her left arm was now missing.

Though while her physical condition was bad, the look in her eyes was far worse.

It almost looked like she wanted to die, and Marcus could not take seeing her like this again.

She looked almost like how she had when he first found her in the slaver’s base.

Running up to her, he tried to begin mending her arm with his spirit healing, but she just pushed him back with her right arm to his surprise.

She then said with a cold tone, “Please stop. I do not deserve to be healed.”

As she said this, she refused to look Marcus in the eyes and shuffled off into the corner of the room and slumped down.

Turning towards her, Marcus wanted to rush over, when the guardian appeared in the room once again and said, “Congratulations, all current users of the dungeon have completed the first ten floors and the next ten are open for entry. To proceed you will need to form groups of two or three. You may pick and choose your groups however you wish but do know that the trials may be more difficult for some of you than others depending on how you arrange yourselves. Also, you are free to leave and come back whenever you want to continue your challenges. But do understand that to continue all of you must be present.”

After saying this the guardian once again disappeared, leaving them to themselves.

With the momentarily distraction now gone, Marcus headed back over to Lilia whose emotional state was obviously in turmoil.

However, even as Marcus stood over her, she refused to look at him and under her breath said, “Please just go away. I do not want to be around you.”

Nevertheless, Marcus disregarded what Lilia said, and squatted down to be at eye level with her.

As he did this, she turned her head and made herself smaller so that he could not look into her eyes.

“Lilia please tell me what is wrong. It is obvious that something happened. Not only are you missing an arm, but you are not being your usual cheerful self. I understand that you went through a difficult challenge that hurt you emotionally. We all went through the same thing. So, I know that it must be difficult, but if you talk about it you will feel better.”

Unfortunately, Marcus’ attempt to break through to Lilia seemed to fail, and she kicked him away, before saying, “Leave me alone! I do not want to see you ever again!”