Chapter 69: This Dungeon Might Be My Soulmate!

Chapter 69: Chapter 69: This Dungeon Might Be My Soulmate!

Kael looked around the cavern, unimpressed. "This place is really creepy."

"You say that like you expected a dungeon to be pleasant," Zalor said.

"I was hoping for treasure, considering its a new dungeon and all the hype surrounding it."

"There will probably be treasure later on," Vex said.

Kael brightened. "See?"

"...And a lot of monsters guarding it too."

"Why do they need to do that? It’s not like they have any use for it!"

He squinted into the darkness. "I can barely see anything. Rika, don’t you have mana lights?"

"Yes."

"Then shine one down here, o great and mighty madam Rika."

Rika stared at him before smacking him again. "Are you stupid, you oaf?"

"Sometimes?"

"Or maybe you actually like being smacked by me? Shining a light down here in complete darkness would basically paint a target on us for all the bats."

Kael nodded slowly. "...Good answer, it was a test and you passed successfully."

"You can pass unsuccessfully?" Zalor asked Kael.

"Maybe, I don’t know, but I am sure someone has passed unsuccessfully before, right?" Kael asked back.

’At least he’s learning,’ Lucien thought, amused by his nonsense.

"Get in formation," Rika called, and everyone shifted automatically.

Rika and Vex up front, Lucien and Zalor in the middle, and Kael bringing up the rear.

"We don’t know how many bat’s we’re dealing with down here, but there should be hundreds, if not thousands on thus floor." she said. "So move quiet, move quick, stay in sight of each other." Her eyes landed on Kael. "And don’t chase anything."

"I wasn’t going to."

Everyone looked at him.

"...I promise."

Rika sighed. "If we hit too many bats, we retreat into a tighter passage, so fewer of them can reach us at once."

’She’s genuinely gotten better,’ Lucien thought, watching her direct them with practiced ease. ’Ironfang really did change her. Same competence, but way more caution behind it now.’

They pressed deeper, and Lucien kept Sanguine Perception running alongside his passive Night Vision trait.

Small traces of blood flickered through his awareness, insects, tiny cave-dwelling creatures, things scuttling through cracks in the rock.

Then something else registered, above.

"Wait," he said.

Everyone froze.

"What?" Rika asked.

Before he could answer, Vex spoke first. "Bat’s above us again."

Kael tilted his head back, squinting uselessly into the dark.

A drop of crimson liquid landed square on his forehead.

He wiped it away, staring at his fingers.

"...That’s blood."

’Too much blood up there,’ Lucien thought, expression tightening as he stared upwards.

WHOOSH.

The ceiling erupted into motion, hundreds of shapes dropping at once.

Kael sighed, hefting his greatsword. "Well, here we go again."

The fight moved fast this time, no confusion, no hesitation, everyone already fluent in the rhythm from the last swarm.

Rika’s shield redirected dives while her blade finished each kill clean. Vex’s mana arrows filled the air in a steady rain. Zalor cut through gaps in the formation like a shadow given purpose. Kael swung wide, this time actually aiming for cores instead of just flailing.

Lucien’s twin scythes carved through the swarm in smooth arcs, chain snapping taut and releasing in a rhythm that felt less like a beginner and more like someone who has done thus numerous times before.

’Definitely smoother than the first fight,’ he thought, hooking a bat mid-dive and redirecting it into his second blade without breaking stride. ’Not thinking about the manuals anymore and just doing it, but I could be better, Aurelia would still smoke me.’

SLASH. THUMP. BOOM. SCREECH.

Then silence.

The last Nightbat dropped.

"...How many was that?" Kael asked, chest heaving.

"A lot," Vex said.

"More than last time," Zalor added.

"Let’s move," Rika said, already collecting herself.

They gathered the loot quickly, Lucien tucking away another round of blood samples while nobody was watching too closely.

Vex suddenly stopped, pointing at a pile of loose rock nearby.

"Wait."

A faint crimson glow pulsed beneath the stones.

Rika crouched, and together with Zalor and Kael, they cleared the debris aside carefully.

CRACK.

A small crimson crystal sat near the rock, shining faintly.

"A crystal, " Vex said.

Rika’s expression sharpened. "That’s a Blood Mana Crystal."

Lucien stepped closer. "Can I?"

She handed it over.

He activated Appraisal.

[Blood Mana Crystal]

[Rank: C ]

[Type: Resource]

[Description: Naturally formed crystal containing condensed blood-aspected mana. Highly compatible with blood-based cultivation techniques and crafting.]

A smile spread slowly across his face as he read this.

’Oh, this is going to be fun

"So how much is that worth?" Kael asked, eyeing it.

"Three to five hundred gold, since its C Rank only and, " Rika said. "Depending on the demand."

Kael’s eyes went comically wide. "WHAT, THAT MUCH?"

"Its standard market price for it."

He looked around the cavern like it had personally insulted him by not existing sooner. "...Guys. We should rob this entire place of its fortunes."

"It’s a dungeon," Vex said.

"Exactly, so we can rob it legally. "

Lucien turned the crystal over in his palm, feeling the mana thrum faintly against his skin, his bloodline stirring in quiet recognition.

’Mana crystals help cultivation normally. This one’s saturated specifically with blood-aspected mana. And my bloodline and talent are both built entirely around blood.’

’This dungeon might genuinely be a goldmine, for me amd maybe other vampires too.’ He thought as the Aethernis family would definitely have variuos types of Blood Mana Cultivation Techniques.

"I’d like to keep this one," he said.

"Fine by me," Rika said. "Just don’t take from the shared pile without asking, we split everything fairly when we’re done."

"I can compensate you for it."

"We’re a party," Rika said, like that settled the matter entirely. "You don’t need to buy your own share."

’Gotta respect her hustle,’ Lucien thought. ’Genuinely.’

They found more scattered through the surrounding rocks as they moved, a small vein feeding several more, almost 10 in total, nothing overwhelming, but clearly not an isolated find either.

’If this small section of Floor Two has this much,’ Lucien thought, pocketing another fragment, ’what’s waiting on Floor Five? Floor Fifteen? Or Lower? Amd what happens at the boss floors?’

His pulse quickened slightly at the thought.

They started moving again after seeing no more, as Lucien let his senses stretch out once more, Mana Sense, Sanguine Perception, layered together out of habit.

The mana felt denser here than it had on the surface, a little sure, but still dense.

As they moved his gaze caught on a narrow tunnel branching off from the main route, something faint and crimson pulsing just beneath the rock at its entrance.

’Interesting, what’s that, more crystals?’

"Yo guys, I think I sense something from there, could be more crystals." he said looking at the tunnel.

Rika glanced at her map, frowning. "That route isn’t marked as having anything good."

Lucien smiled.

"Then maybe we just found something the Guild hasn’t, or they left it out on purpose."

As Lucien had expected, it was a Blood Mana Crystal, adding one more to there inventory.

While sifting through the debris searching g for more, Vex crouched near a set of faded footprints pressed into the mud near the tunnels edge.

"Adventurer tracks," he said. "They dont look like they are fresh, and three, maybe four people."

Rika examined them briefly. "And they don’t lead back out."

Lucien caught a faint trace with Sanguine Perception dried blood, barely detectable and definitely not bat blood.

’Looks like demon blood,’ he thought. "Whoever mapped this section before didn’t make it back.’

Nobody dwelled on it. It wasn’t the first sign of a dungeon claiming careless adventurers, and it wouldn’t be the last.

"Guild’s map really doesn’t cover everything," Rika muttered, folding it back up.

"Ten minutes," she added, glancing around the chamber. "We check this section, then we head for the actual staircase."

"Why ten?" Kael asked.

"Because I said ten."

"...Fair."

As they explored the tunnel further, Lucien felt something else, a deeper pulse, further in the tunnel, distinct from the scattered crystals they’d already found.

Thump.

He stopped walking.

Thump.

"Do you feel that?" Rika asked.

"Yeah, the ambient mana density has increased."

Vex’s grip tightened on his bow. "Something alive?"

Lucien pushed Mana Sense outward, nothing living registered.

Sanguine Perception came back the same, no heartbeat, no blood flow, nothing breathing.

But the ambient mana around that pulse was dense, far beyond anything the scattered crystals had produced.

He crouched, pressing his palm flat against the stone.

’Something’s down there, not alive, but saturated woth mana.’

He activated Appraisal, along with his sensing skills on the general area, and a reading bloomed in his vision.

[Mana Density: High]

His eyes glowed faintly crimson in the dark, reflecting off the walls.

"This dungeon," he murmured, staring into the depths beyond the chamber.

Rika glanced over. "What about it?"

Lucien’s smile widened into something genuinely, unabashedly excited.

"...Might be the one of the best things that’s happened to me in a long time, well, excluding my wives of course."