Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Simon understood that one mana crystal of grade [1] wasn't enough for him to level up. He needed at least hundreds of them to even level up once.

With a glance, he could see approximately 40-50 crystals growing in each of the twenty or so trees of mana crystals. These trees were still in their sapling stage and with time and adequate mystical energy, their growth might produce more of these crystals and even some higher grades.

Not to mention there was still Cecilia whose powers was like a mystery to him and might even induce some more changes like these in the future.

"Honestly, even I'm impressed by what this girl can do at her age. These mana crystals although they are only grade [1], they are still useful to you at this stage. There are more than 900 of these mana crystals and it seems that the numbers would go up every month. With these, you can gain a few levels".

Irene stated as if reading his inner thoughts.

Earlier it was that mysterious woman and now it's was Irene. Was his expression that easy to read? Both of these women were absolute beauties and can endlessly evoke one's desire.

If Irene was cold and icy beauty, then the woman he had met had a childish personality that wasn't drowned by her alluring yet noble aura. Back when he met the mysterious woman that appeared and disappeared out of nowhere, he was able to keep his thoughts in check.

However, why is that when meeting Irene, his mind starts running rampant and his thoughts turbulent?

Realising that he became absentminded for a while, Simon hurriedly dissipated all his thoughts.

"What about you and Cecilia? Are these mana crystals no use to you" he asked perplexed.

"Yes, Grade [1] crystals are of no use to me. They at least need to be grade [3] or [4] to be useful to me" Irene said looking a little lost.

"As for Cecilia, absorbing mystical energy would mean nothing. To her, the thing that she needs the most is time. With time, she would be able to unlock her powers and with that, her level would also go up".

Simon nodded and did not ask any further, to him both of them were oddities with an unbelievable amount of power that the current him couldn't comprehend.

Speaking of them, he was reminded of the emblems that his dungeon produced every month. These past few weeks he had been quite busy with his training and remodelling his dungeon for the new inhabitants that he completely forgot to use his emblems.

By now, he had collected four emblems that were sitting quietly in his inventory. Thinking that it was time he used the [???????] function once again and learned a thing or two about his new bugged function, Simon decided to inform his two Guardians.

When he brought this issue to them, they immediately seemed interested and decided to tag along. While they have the authority to use the [Main Menu], the Summon (now [???????]) and a few other functions can only be used by the Dungeon Master and no one else.<br/><script>ChapterMid();</script>

"Isn't that the function that was able to summon me? Of course, I'm curious" Irene explained her reasoning for tagging along.

Although what she said wasn't false, she also wanted to know more about this function and which tier it belonged to. This suspicion was plaguing her from the moment Simon told her about some of the special functions of the [Main Menu].

On the other hand, Cecilia's intention for coming along was plainly clear. She had nothing better to do and just wanted to see what the summoning looked like.

Since they decided to observe, Simon did not stop them.

Coming to an area that was a little distant from the white palace and the pond of serenity, he came to a stop. The reason for him coming here was so that in case of any malfunction with the [???????] option, the white palace that guarded the dungeon core and those precious assets of him doesn't get destroyed in the process.

The Main Floor was ten kilometres wide and did not have much attraction other than the white palace, pond of serenity and the area near it.

Though Cecilia and Irene did some gardening and installed mountains in some of the places, it was still mostly empty. And the place he was in currently was one such area.

Simon took a deep breath and brought the four emblems out from his inventory.

"So this is the emblems that big brother's dungeon produces every month. It is quite pretty" Cecilia said while looking at the emblems.

Simon did not know what was so cute about these coin-shaped, charcoal grey emblems with a demon with golden tattoos engraved in it.

Taking a deep breath, he called forth his [Main Menu] and stared at the [???????] option. The black spiral that looked like the eye of a black hole of the silently rotated inside and gave him chills whenever he saw it.

Clenching the four emblems in his hands Simon said "Here we go…". Other than hoping for a good subordinate, he was also experimenting something.

Before the merger of the two menus, three emblems were the maximum one could use at a time. However, the merger changed all of that and the result was this mess. Now given the option, Simon wanted to see if the parameters of the summon function still applied onto the [???????] option or not.

Steeling his mind on whatever the outcome may be, he tossed the four emblems into back spiral inside the option.

As if gobbling it down, the black spiral easily devoured the four emblems without any difficulty.

Slowly, the black spiral started rotating before getting faster and faster and coming to a sudden halt after some time.

Simon knew what this phenomenon meant as it wasn't his first time seeing it. Immediately after the back spiral in the [???????] option stopped, the space in front of him started cracking as if it was made of thin glass before shattering completely.

What appeared was a black spiral exactly like the one in his option but many many times bigger.

The moment the huge black spiral appeared in front of them, Irene suddenly locked her delicate brows and stared intensely at it. The mysterious glow in her eyes were more profound than ever and it seemed like she wanted to unveil every secret there was related to this option.

Silently, the black spiral started rotating, the space around the main floor trembled and the light coming from the phosphorescence crystal dimmed as if being devoured by the spiral.

There was no sparks of lightning generated unlike the last time nor was there any intense disturbance all around the dungeon.

Seconds passed and minutes became hours but the black spiral kept on rotating. There was no hint of a new entity coming out of it and the atmosphere around him became deathly silent.

Simon would have doubted the summon as a failure if not for the black spiral slowly becoming smaller and smaller with every passing second.

"Big brother… nothing is happening. Did the option really work?" Cecilia who was a bundle of excitement up until the back spiral appeared, asked with a tired tone when there was no other movements happening for so long.

While Cecilia was bored out of her mind, Irene seemed to be caught up by something as she intensely observed the black spiral, her eyes never left the thing.

When the black spiral shrank to a few meters in size after some time, her brows that was locked together, suddenly twitched.

Simon observed the shrinking black spiral with bated breath, the phenomenon that occurred was completely different than what it was during when he summoned Irene.

He could not determine whether the summoning was a success or not since the back spiral was still there; nonetheless, this wait was killing him. 

After what felt like a long time, the spiral finally shortened to a mere few meters. There was no way any person could fit through that and it looked like the summoning was a dud, when suddenly some changes started to occur.

The light in the floor started coming back to their former brightness and there was finally some movements with the black spiral.

[Beep-Boop-Ping] a resonant sound like that of a sonar echoed across the whole floor and the being which it came from, soon exited out of the black spiral.

The moment it appeared every one of the onlookers was stunned as they looked on with wide eyes at the being that just appeared.

The thing… yes, the thing that appeared was a ball of light that looked like a wisp. It was no more than half a meter big and appeared to be full of life.

The space mended itself and the back spiral disappeared leaving behind the ball of light behind.

[Beep-Boop-Ping] it made some noise and started becoming more active.

"What is that?" Cecilia tilted her head, her emerald green eyes reflected the image of the ball of light.

Simon opened and closed his mouth many a time unable to even utter a word.

It was at this moment when the two of them were having a headache trying to figure out what it was, Irene softly mumbled.

"A Null Elemental… how can it appear here?". Her voice was shaking and her tone was full of disbelief.

Hearing her words Simon turned towards her, pointed at the ball of light that was levitating above the ground and asked "What did you say it is?".