D-rank dungeons were small, generally the size of a major area of the labyrinth’s first floor.
Despite showing phenomena like the sun or moon, these dungeons had fixed boundaries according to their size.
Some dungeons were entirely enclosed, resembling large castles, peculiar towns, or sprawling settlements inhabited by various monsters like goblins and orcs. Others took the form of intricate networks of tunnels and caverns, forests, mountains, various unique biomes, etcetera.
As Lily entered the dungeon door, she found herself in a lush meadow with domes made of colorful flowers.
The dungeons had some similarities to each other, no matter the rank.
The starting area—filled with normal mobs.
The inner area as one progresses further—resources and elite mobs.
And boss room—the final boss, whose defeat would lead to the appearance of the exit portal.
There were also mini-bosses, but those only appeared in B-rank dungeons and above.
After the final boss is defeated, the dungeon door remains in existence for 24 hours, allowing the adventures to explore it and possibly find a magic crystal vein to farm.
D-rank dungeon meant the monsters inside were only up to Bronze-rank level 10.
It was like a walk in the park for Lily as she leisurely killed the monsters using new styles.
Her second SSS-rank class skill—Dreadspire Mantle, was a perpetual booster as long as it remained activated.
[Dreadspire Mantle]
-Skill rank: SSS
-Type: Toggle.
-Cost: 0.5% to n% of Blood every second.
-Effect:
—> Adorn the outfit of Dreadspire Mantle over the user. While the skill is active, all attacks of the user, be they magical or physical or both, can drain the vitality of the target based on damage and fill up the gauge of Dreadspire Call. The higher the activation cost, the stronger the vitality drain. You can also channel drained vitality to another target.
—> Dreadspire Call-[0/100]: Once filled up, the user can call upon a Dreadspire Elemental to aid in combat. Once summoned, the gauge resets. These elementals have the same stats as the user. You can summon up to four at once.
—> Dreadspire Elementals: 1. Lupine of Darkened Flame, 2. Roc of Withered Wind, 3. Whale of Curseweaved Water, 4. Golem of Gloombound Earth.
Lily wanted to see these Dreadspire Elementals, but the monsters here were too weak, such that it was taking time to fill up the Dreadspire Call gauge.
‘It seems that the higher the damage I deal, the faster it fills up. But since these monsters have such a low maximum vitality, the damage it registers, which is based on their maximum vitality, is also considered low even if my attack is stronger.’
Lily was slightly annoyed at it, but there was nothing else she could do.
Fortunately, by the time she arrived at the boss room—a beautiful garden with colorful flowers—the gauge had finally filled.
The boss was a massive flower with five writhing vines and a circular, tooth-ringed mouth.
‘Let’s see…’
Lily summoned Lupine of Darkened Flame as a five-meter-tall badass black wolf manifested. It had crimson aura waves and some patterns of red on its fur, with deadly shining black claws covered with translucent red aura.
Lily’s eyes sparkled as she saw the wolf.
‘Attack!’
The wolf transformed into a dark red stream of flame that formed a massive claw, slashing through the flower and tearing it to pieces before reverting to wolf form behind it.
“Awooo!!”
[Congratulations, you have defeated the Dungeon’s Final Boss.]
‘Wow! But this isn’t enough. I need to enter a stronger dungeon as soon as possible!’
Lily was in a good mood as she tested her new skill, even though it was only a part of it. She was raring to fight more, so she exited the dungeon and saw there were already normal members of the guild present whose job was to secure the area around the dungeon door.
“You brat, you couldn’t contain yourself, eh?”
Lily smiled as she saw the speaker—a gorgeous woman in her thirties with dark silver hair, wearing a black robe embroidered with silver design and a sword at her waist.
Ranked 12th on the Global Leaderboard, she was Aria of Crimson Shadow, the second-most powerful member of the League of Firefly guild.
But her gaze shifted to behind Lily as the Lupine of Darkened Flame also emerged from the dungeon door, startling the surrounding people.
“What is that?” Aria looked at the wolf and raised her eyebrows, her eyes glinting. ‘Interesting. It’s a pure elemental creature.’
“Lupine of Darkened Flame,” Lily replied with a smile and waved her hand, causing the wolf to vanish as she dispersed it and also found another thing regarding the skill. ‘It seems that once an elemental is summoned, it stays even if I deactivate the skill. Which means it needs to be defeated unless I disperse it, huh? Cool.’
“It seems that you got a pretty interesting specialized class,” Aria smiled and stretched her hand towards Lily. “Come, we’ll talk in detail about that.”
Lily nodded and grabbed her hand. In the next second, she only saw darkness around her before she appeared right in front of the League of Fireflys’s gate!
‘Shadow Transport,’ Lily blinked and looked around. ‘Pretty handy skill.’
“Come, let’s finish the guild matter first. After that, we’ll do a thorough evaluation of your current combat power.”
“And I can go to dungeons, right? I can’t wait.”
It was already almost one o’clock in the morning. The sky was fully dark, and stars were visible.
By the time Lily finished with guild matters and her evaluation, three hours had passed by.
There wasn’t any need to sleep for her yet, so she asked to dive into a dungeon and went on.
Meanwhile, Natalia spent the night at her Grandparent’s place. They were Gold-rank adventurers and progressed slowly as they also had a company to handle.
Natalia’s uncle was in jail, but his wife, daughter, and son were living with her grandparents. All of them also abhorred him because they knew of his crime and were accepting of Natalia.
She had a real family time after years and spent the night with her cousins, roaming the city as they showed her around.
Lily cleared a big C-rank dungeon until seven in the morning, with Aria accompanying her for observation.
Upon returning to the guild, she fell asleep and met up with Natalia after waking up.
Aria agreed to let Natalia train and give her guild entrance examination a day later.
Meanwhile, Almond was on the cusp of clearing the entire first floor of the Labyrinth.
The second cycle’s third day had just started, but Almond was ready to summon the Floor Boss as he stood at the center of the Heart of Wildered.
Summoning his eight exotic Spirit Wraiths around him, Almond put the four special items at the center of the eccentric stone circle and initiated the Floor Boss summoning.
[Floor Boss summoning…in ten seconds.]
“Get into position. Eight of you in eight directions. We are going all out once the boss appears,” Almond commanded his Spirit Wraiths.
Alfred stood at the north.
Chimera Viperfiend stood at the northwest, entering its Synthesize tank mode.
Chimera Frank stood in the south point, entering its Monster Lord form.
Dark Pope appeared at the southwest spot.
Forest Maid Sylvia entered her Forest Queen form and rooted herself in the western spot.
Chimera Crystalist, in its Crystal Artillery form, floated in the eastern spot.
Starlight Beast crouched itself in the northeast direction of the circle.
Finally, the Infernal Knight, wielding a massive greatsword and shield of lava patterns and ashen rock, positioned itself on the southeast point atop its fiery horse.
Almond stepped back from the center, stopping on the south side five meters in front of Chimera Frank as the countdown hit zero.
[ Floor Boss—Lord Wildered the Broken has been summoned.]