Nearly a week and a half went by before both of them emerged from their respective trials.
The first to come out was Inten to no one’s surprise. He had only needed a week to clear all ten floor and had returned to them quite a bit stronger than before.
“I see, that is quite the impressive skill you learned, and you managed to level up once which is good.” Marcus said, praising his beast companion for his hard work.
The entire party then sat around to listen to Inten’s retelling of his trials.
A few days after Inten had made it back Alaric who everyone was starting to get a bit worried about appeared on the teleportation circle and began shambling off of it.
With his arrival everyone went wide eyed became he was in pretty rough shape.
One of his ears was missing, his left foot appeared to be crushed, and there was a large puncture in his right shoulder like he had been pierced with a spear.
Lilia practically flew towards him in a panic, but Marcus held her back and approached himself.
“Looks like you had a pretty rough go of it. Allow me to fix you up.”
Holding out his hands Marcus enveloped Alaric in a soft white glow and soon the young boy’s wounds began to rapidly heal.
In only a minute his ear had been restored to its former pointy glory, his left foot was no longer crushed, and the hole in his shoulder was sealed up.
There had also been a number of scars over his body and some of his internal organs were roughed up a bit. But thanks to Marcus’ healing he looked the same as before entering the special dungeon.
Luckily unlike Lilia who looked broken both physically and mentally after she finished the first ten floors, Alaric still had a fire in his eyes and Marcus smiled to see that his determination had not waned.
Once he was certain that Alaric was fully healed, he stepped out of the way and allowed Lilia to come over.
As soon as she was able to, she ran up and hugged Alaric with practically all her might. Which caused him to start gasping for air and his recently healed body creaked.
“Lilia I am happy to see you too, but I did not get strong enough to take you full force hug.” He said with a strained voice.
Seeing that she was hurting him, Lilia pulled back and began profusely apologizing.
“So, mind telling us all what happened? You were pretty beat up when you got here.”
Nodding his head, Alaric prepared to answer Marcus’ question, but before he could his feet feel out from under him, and he fell to the floor.
Watching this happened Lilia was stunned for a moment, before being taken over by alarm.
But when they crowed around to check on him, it became clear what had happened fairly quickly, and they all relaxed.
“Looks like he was quite worn out. Let us give him a more comfortable place to sleep.” James said, having seen this happened a few times to his men that had pushed themselves too hard.
Nearly a whole day went by as they waited for Alaric to wake up, and when he did, after a very large meal prepared by Marcus, he began regaling them with what he had been through on the first ten floors.
“Damn, to think that you would have to fight an inferno wyvern for your first challenge. I can imagine that must have been very difficult.” Mrazivy said, remembering when she had fought one herself along with Eirwen.
It was dunging this battle that Alaric had obtained most of the injuries he had come back down with. Having used up all of his high-grade healing items dunging the fight and not having any left to fix his worst injures when it was over.
After that he began quickly going through everything that had happened on each floor, including the new skills he had been forced to learn before advancing.
“Well, it is good you managed to obtain mana barrier and heightened spell. Those are both very useful skills to have.” Marcus said.
Alaric soon had finished telling all of them about what had happened and how his last floor challenge had indeed been different.
“I am glad you did not have to go through anything as bad as us. Though having to take command of a losing army and navigate the best way through a bloody war sounds pretty tough.” Lilia said to comfort him.
Eventually things began to wind down and everyone looked towards Alaric with the same question on their minds.
“So how long do you want to recuperate before we head to the next floor?” Quillon said, taking the initiative.
It was fair to say that all of them were feeling a bit antsy to get going after being cooped up in the same room for a week and a half.
And with how they were all pretty much wearing their desire on their sleeves, Alaric said that just one more day would be fine. Even though he would have liked a little longer.
“In celebration of Alaric and Inten completing the first ten floor I think a feast is in order. Mrazivy, Lyra, Quillon, and Lilia. Would you mind helping me out?” Marcus said to break the somewhat tense atmosphere.
At the prospect of a feast, everyone perked up and soon the preparations were underway.
A few hours later they had quite the party going that was filled with good food and drink. Obviously, no alcohol for Lilia and Alaric though as they were still young, and Marcus put his foot down about it.
The next day quickly arrived and after having their spirits raised by the feats and party, they were all ready to move out.
“Okay, Mrazivy, Roxene, and I are going to be the first going out. Wish us luck.” Marcus said as he stepped onto the teleportation circle and promptly disappeared.