Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Chuck looked at the Silver crystal on her hand and that beautiful smile on her face. He couldn't help but tease her "Do you mean this crystal? The other team found them a long time ago".

"Eh?" Lina looked like she received the shock of her life. She glared at one of the warriors who was the leader of one of the teams and pouted.

Snort, she thought that since the mist restricted their vision, nobody would be able to spot the Silver crystals growing on the walls. However, it seems that wasn't the case as the other team was also able to spot them.

Seeing her pout, Chuck couldn't help but smile. "Alright cheer up, I was just joking. Other than me nobody else was able to spot these crystals that are growing everywhere on this floor". It was as he had said, nobody else was able to find these crystals other than him and Lisa due to the thick mist covering the floor and obstructing their vision.

The mist was so dense that it made their surrounding field of vision quite narrow. Fortunately, they had skills such as [Trap Detect], [Location], [Mental Map] and were able to explore through the mist.

However, since the Silver crystals were naturally growing minerals and not a trap, they weren't able to detect it. If it was not for him and Lina accidentally stumbling upon it, they would have missed it entirely.

Although the Silver crystals are not that precious, given the quantity of them growing around and the size of the floor, there would be tons of crystals to harvest.

In addition to that, the Silver crystals were growing inside a dungeon. They could harvest the crystals every few days after they are replenished by the abundant mana inside the dungeon.

Up until floor five, it was smooth sailing as the monsters were weak and the traps could be easily avoided by their skills. On the fifth floor, they were besieged by Stormwolves. Though these monsters were stronger than the ones on the upper floor, they were still no match for their team.

Pondering over his options for a while, Chuck asked " Did you guys find that chimaera?"

when asked such a question, all of them shook their head and replied with a no. After the three chimaeras charged at them, at the southern region of the Ghastly Winding Forest, a fierce battle erupted that went on for a while.

Though the Dark Wing Tiger-Python and the Elephant Snout Wild Boar chimaeras were strong, they were still overwhelmed by Chuck's group of twenty-five adventures as they beat them off with a rock-solid formation. After all, they all had a fair share of their own adventurers and were quite the veteran.

Magic and skills continuously flew from the backlines healing the allies and damaging the Chimaeras. The warriors surrounded the chimaeras and cut off their escape all the while the [Wizards] supported them from the backlines and bombarded the enemies with their spells.

After a while, only the Falcon Wing Bull-Ox remained which managed to escape deeper inside the forest. Thinking that the chimaeras could be the reason behind the disturbance that led to an outbreak of monsters out of the forest and towards the border of their city of Mountmend, they pursued the Falcon Wing Bull-Ox.

The chimaera flew through the forest and ultimately disappeared near a tall spiral tower. Even when they searched all around, not even a trace of its presence could be found. But that was not the only thing weighing in their minds.

Given the aura and demonic presence oozing out of the tower, one look and the adventurers were able to see that the spiral tower was no ordinary tower but a dungeon. A demon's lair.

"Was this dungeon always here?" Chuck asked the question, the answer of which he already knew.

One of the adventurers from his party gave a deep look at the tower and the mysterious carvings on its walls before saying "I came to the eastern part of the forest a few months ago to hunt some orcs. But at that time there was no signs of such a huge tower being there. If something so conspicuous was there, I definitely wouldn't have missed it".

"I see... that is to say..." Chuck knitted his brows and murmured. He could already guess that the tower, the dungeon to be more precise was a newly emerged one. After all, if there was a dungeon this close to the city of Mountmend, as the branch manager of the Sea God's trident guild located at the city, he would have already known.

If the dungeon was not there previously, then there was only one possibility that it was a newly emerged one.

"Earlier it was the Chimearas and now this... seriously what is going inside the forest" one of the adventurers spoke in concern.

Now that they had seen a dungeon, as adventurers they couldn't just ignore it. The dungeon could also be the one behind the disturbance and even the chimaera they were chasing disappeared around it.

Everybody was convinced that the chimaera went inside it and must be one of the minions of the demon that was living inside. The adventurers deliberated whether to explore the dungeon or not.

They did not have the necessary equipment and items to tackle the dungeon plus they had a pretty solid reason to believe that the dungeon was behind all the monsters running out of the forest. If they relayed the message back, they would have already completed the mission assigned to them by the mayor.

However, since they were adventurers the best of the best the city of Mountment had to offer, they naturally wanted to explore it first. Who knew what kind of monsters and treasures was waiting inside, their sense that have been refined after years of adventuring, started tingling.

Chuck deliberated for a while before deciding on exploring the dungeon. He was the leader of the party and the branch manager of the guild thus his words possessed the most authority. Their party could have gone back without entering the dungeon and relaying the message back to the mayor.

But given the strength of this team, Chuck believed that even if they explored a newly emerged dungeon they would be fine for a while. Plus he didn't want to leave a potentially dangerous dungeon without knowing it a little.

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On the fifth floor of the dungeon, Chuck played with the Silver crystal in his hand before ordering "Take out your equipments and harvest all the ores growing on the walls. We will mine this floor before descending, rest of you be on alert and protect the one's mining from any monster that may have survived".

They have already collected all the valuables from the monster that they killed up until now. Chuck looked around the floor and the amount of Silver crystals being harvested before walking towards the adventurer who previously said that he came to the eastern part of the forest a few months ago.

Seeing that their leader was coming towards them, the adventurers thought if there was something wrong.

"Don't mind me, I'm just here to look at the quality of the crystals" Chuch grabbed a chunk of Silver crystal that was bigger than his palm and inspected it. The purity of the ore could be said quite good, heck it was even better than some of the Silver crystals that are available in the market of their city of Mountmend.

It made him think even more. 'How can a newly emerged dungeon produce Silver crystals… not to mention of this purity?'.

All the adventurers were mining the Silver crystals with high spirit but they all forgot that the dungeon they are mining is a newly emerged one. The Silver crystal was one thing but the size and length of each floor that kept on increasing was another. Even the density of manas inside the dungeon was many times higher than any lower rank dungeon Chuck had ever delved into. The dungeon was clearly unusual.

After a couple of hours, the adventurers finished mining all the ores from the fifth floor and stored them inside their space rings. All the adventurers kept their instruments back and were in high spirits as they gathered near the entrance to the next floor.

When Chuck saw that all of them had gathered, he instructed "Alright we shall descend a few more floors and end our exploration before retreating back".

"Ehhh?" all the adventurers made confused and discontent faces before throwing out complaints "

Why are we retreating so fast leader?"

"That's right it's only been a day since we delved inside the dungeon"

"We have plenty of rations and can easily hold on for as long as a week".

Everyone was disgruntled by the sudden decision of Chuck and felt it was quite a waste to retreat now.